The Strange Case of the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Video Game

Isn’t this the last story you would expect to just show up in a video game website? I’m pretty sure some of you might be scratching your head over the fact Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde even had a video game adaptation, not to mention that this game came out in 1988, over thirty years ago! Why suddenly bring mention to it when it was most likely forgotten for a good reason?

Well, if you know me, you know that I’m a big fan of filmmaker and online personality, James Rolfe AKA The Angry Video Game Nerd. Back in 2004, before The Nerd became the internet phenomenon that it is today, Mr. Rolfe made a pair of videos where he talked in disdain about two terrible video games from his childhood. While the video about Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest is now considered the very first AVGN episode, I always found the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde episode to be much more iconic and important to The Nerd’s legacy.

It’s true that James doesn’t shy away from his love for Castlevania in later Nerd episodes, but Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde set more foundation for the show as we know it today. It was the first time we saw Rolfe wear the famous white-dotted shirt and drink Rolling Rock to drown the pain, which became one of the most well-known traits of the character. Most importantly, to this day, Rolfe still continues to refer to that particular game as the worst he has ever played. Considering the stuff he had to endure for the twenty-plus years he’s been keeping AVGN going, hat says a lot.

The Nerd would find himself re-reviewing Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde several more times while taking us back to the past, with his first revisit probably being my favorite episode from the show. Now, with the game being known to the public for more than twenty years, I thought it’d be interesting to look it over and see if it’s indeed as bad as Rolfe made it out to be. I mean… it is, but let’s give it a bit more of a fair look, shall we?

General overview

Let’s address the very first elephant in the room. How can you turn a gothic mystery novel about the duality of a man’s personality into a video game? It can be done today and has been done by several studios; games addressing mental health like Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and some delving into the tragic and regretful paths of the characters like the two most recent God of War titles. Even indie games such as Celeste and Undertale focus on such themes and ideas, so it’s not necessarily that technology wasn’t there to tackle these topics properly.

However, rather than being a direct adaptation of the novel and featuring levels inspired by beats from the original book and its many adaptations; the game tells a somewhat original story. In this, supposedly unrelated plot, Jekyll is on his way to his wedding while Hyde must fend off various demons. Already we have our first problem. What do literal demons have to do with the story? I understand that major changes have to be made to fit the story into video game form, but demons in a story about the duality of a man? This goes a bit beyond the point of the original, don’t you think?

To its credit, I would argue that it was done to fit the game’s nature as a side-scroller. You need obstacles in a video game after all, but the way in which the game approaches the dilemma is odd to say the least. You’re starting the game off as Jekyll, who can only walk and jump. He can swing his cane if the player wishes to but, in a move which baffles any kind of logic, the attack doesn’t damage anything besides bees. Whenever Jekyll’s stress meter goes down from all of the attacks he endures, he transforms into Hyde, and now things become both interesting and even more confusing.

When you gain control of Hyde, you’re in actuality playing a demonic mirror version of the level you just played with Jekyll. When you beat these demons I mentioned earlier, the stress meter goes down and Hyde transforms back into Jekyll. If you reach the same spot of the level in which you transformed into Hyde but didn’t transform back, Hyde will get struck by lightning and the game will end. If it sounds confusing; that’s because it is. What’s weird in the case of this particular game is that on paper, I don’t think that this is a terrible idea.

As I mentioned earlier, the original book is about the duality of man. Dr. Jekyll is a good and honest person, while Mr. Hyde is a bad and despicable criminal, but they’re actually both the same guy. Jekyll makes the potion which transforms him into Hyde, able to control the transformation at first, until the evil side is starting to have more control over the good doctor. In a way; the game represents that by failing the player if Hyde catches up to Jekyll’s position in the level. The idea of making Jekyll non-violent and Hyde all about shooting stuff is also a good one since it fits with the themes of the book.

Really, when it comes to looking at this game at face value, the ideas it has are honestly not that bad. For the time in which it came out, they’re even ambitious and unique. Sadly though, it’s the execution where the game shows its true colors and makes it clear to us why it’s seen as such a terrible experience.

The problems

Now that we have gone over how the game works, we can finally dissect why it deserves the lashing it earned from people. And I guess we’re starting with the most glaring thing I can think of: the game contradicts its own rules. I mentioned earlier that Jekyll’s gameplay is focused on a non-violent stroll to the church, but the enemies he has to face are anything but pacifistic. For reasons I could never understand, all the townspeople are after Jekyll and they are determined to make him suffer.

From women in dresses to guys who carry bombs, a kid with a slingshot who has a crush on Jekyll’s fiance to a terrible singer who hurts you with her singing, and even dogs and birds literally pooping on him, it's safe to say that every living creature is after the doctor’s well-being. I guess someone put a bounty on Jekyll and he’s unaware of that, otherwise, the sudden hatred everyone has for him is bizarre, to say the least. Since Jekyll can’t fight back, due to his good nature I guess, he’ll endure a lot of damage from the second you start the game. 

Without you even noticing, the meter goes down and Hyde is now out on the town… until a second later when lightning strikes him dead and the game over screen appears. Yes, I understand why. Hyde can’t pass Jekyll because then evil beats good, I get the concept. But now I must ask, why make the enemies so hard to avoid to the point I can’t get even a millimeter into the stage!? The concept of presenting the struggle between Jekyll and Hyde as somewhat of a race between the two, punishing the player if Hyde gains the lead, is actually pretty cool. What isn’t cool is that the game isn’t designed with that idea in mind.

In order to not become Hyde, you can’t take too much damage. Doesn’t sound too hard if you learn enemy patterns, right? Well, allow me to ask you, “What enemy patterns?” These people are as random as people who decided to gang up on a guy on his way to his wedding. Their movement speed changes, their behavior changes, and even the amount of damage they cause you changes. With Jekyll being essentially defenseless, how do they expect one to NOT get hit when that’s the point of the game? This isn’t a matter of challenge, it’s a matter of going against the basic idea of the game... and video games in general, I'd argue!

And speaking of just that; imagine my shock when I found out there are TWO endings to this game! Yeah, two endings! The bad ending requires reaching the end of the final stage as Jekyll. In order to get the good ending, and face the final boss, you need to beat the stage as Hyde. Yes, you read that correctly. After the game teaches you that letting Hyde pass Jekyll means game over, you’re expected to do just that in order to get the good ending. What kind of backward nonsense is this!? I’ve had my share of games that require me to ignore any kind of logic beforehand but this here might take the cake!

So allow me to summarize. You’re supposed to maintain your stress meter, which gets depleted once enemies hit you. The enemies are VERY hard to avoid and you CAN’T fight back. Once the meter goes all the way down you transform into Hyde and you must transform back into Jekyll as soon as possible because if you don’t, you lose. HOWEVER, only in the final stage there’s a way for you to essentially cheat death, skip the point where lightning would usually strike you, and fight a boss battle in order to get the good ending.

To quote the man who made this game known to the public, “What were they thinking!?”

Is there a chance?

I think I made it pretty clear that I concur with Mr. Rolfe’s take on the game. It’s hard not to; I had writer’s block just trying to explain how everything works in this very article because the gameplay is so unearthly. And yet, despite all of the problems I mentioned and all the stuff that defies any kind of basic video game principle you’ve ever encountered, I THINK there’s a way to make the concept for the game work, bizarre premise or not. Like I said earlier, the concept IS interesting on paper, so is there a chance? What would need to be fixed in order to make this work?

Like all adaptations; we need to go back to the source material. What is the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde novel about? A constant struggle between good intentions and evil desires over a man’s conscience. There’s more to it than that of course, but for the sake of a simple 8-bit game from the late 80’s, we have our basis. Jekyll’s good, Hyde bad, evil can’t beat good… or should it? The game already has two endings, one better than the other. If that’s the case then why not have the ending be determined by the player’s actions? If the players beat too many stages as Hyde, they’ll get the bad ending. If they beat more stages as Jekyll, they’ll get the good ending.

That way the game can still punish the players for letting evil take the lead over good, but it wouldn’t just end the game unexpectedly and unfairly. Speaking of unfair; enemy patterns would have to be adjusted of course and Jekyll would need to be able to fend those off. Wouldn’t it go against his nature to harm people in the town? I didn’t say he needs to fight the people of the town. While I still find the idea of demons a weird part of the game, wouldn’t it make more sense for Jekyll to fight them than Hyde?

Jekyll is on his way to his wedding, right? Weddings can be nerve-wracking. What if the enemies Jekyll has to fend off are demons that aren’t really there, but his own personal demons over the predicament? What if he worried he would fail as a husband or something doesn’t work out? There have been cases where people got cold feet before they got married, who said that in an 8-bit game, those couldn’t be represented with demons? Now, Jekyll can attack enemies without questioning his basic morals and it gives the player more of a chance to stay on the path of good.

If the doctor still transforms into the evil mister, Hyde could be the one fighting off the people of the town because that’s literally what he does in the book! The good guy fights his personal demons while the bad guy takes it all out on the innocent people of the town. That says a lot with very little in a simple game, right? No asinine game mechanics required! I truly think that these changes could have made the point they tried getting across that much better, and not gotten lost under all the backward choices made so long ago.

Maybe I’m reading too much into the intentions behind the game, as we know a lot of developers back in the day were aiming to make their games hard in order to have a longer shelf life. Who’s to say this wasn’t the intention with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? The game only has 6 levels, so make the game unbelievably hard in order for people to keep playing it and not beat it in a day or a weekend. However, when I look at stuff like the two endings and the confusing mechanics I can’t help but wonder if something grander and more ambitious was in store for gamers before it got lost in the process.

I suppose we’ll never know the true intentions behind the game but we are blessed with a very creative indie scene today, filled with beautiful and intricate stories people manage to tell with much simplicity. Maybe a second attempt at a game in the style of Jekyll and Hyde isn’t that bad an idea. Regardless if you agree with my ideas or not, who’s to say there isn’t an interesting game idea in here which could make people think and wonder without the desire to break their controller?

In every good there’s evil and in every evil there’s good. Maybe even the most infamously bad games ever can have some good ideas buried inside them, just waiting for a chance to shine.