Nintendo released the Famicom Disk System in 1986 to considerable interest from the Japanese gaming community. The disks that it used were much cheaper than cartridges for both publishers and consumers alike and could hold 128 kilobytes (one megabit) of data, a fairly large capacity at the time. In addition, the data could be altered, allowing for both the saving of player data and the ability to overwrite old games with new ones for a pittance. However, the lowering costs of ROM chips and the advancement of battery-powered RAM technology came quicker than Nintendo anticipated. Those combined with slow loading times and rampant piracy drove companies away, leaving the accessory largely a failure in a couple of years. As most of the worthwhile games on the format were quickly ported to cartridges, the FDS games that are still unique are generally either bad or just unusual. Lutter is one of the latter (no pun intended).
The plot of Lutter is your simple, cliched, inconsequential type: Six damsels have been abducted to some big dungeon somewhere and a guy named Lutter has to go rescue them. This is the framework for a game that at its core is a lot like the obscure NES game Castlequest. For those of you who’ve never played it, it takes place on a scrolling tile-based map much like The Legend of Zelda’s except that the view is from the side, meaning that you can’t freely move upward. In Lutter’s case, in fact, he can’t even jump, meaning that he’ll have to get around with the strategic use of ladders, monkey bars, and disappearing floors. He’ll also need keys to get through doors as well as items that allow him to create blocks to stand on, destroy blocks that are in his way, and do other useful things.
Unlike Castlequest, Lutter is large and nonlinear enough to be interesting, but not so much as to make the player lost and frustrated. There are six levels to go through, and each level has two sides that Lutter can move between through tunnels placed around the area. You’ll have to switch between these sides regularly to get to new locations in addition to solving environmental puzzles using the aforementioned items and movement aids. You only get so many items to use, but the game gives you more than you need if you’re careful, and Lutter’s inventory carries over to subsequent levels.
The first thing that’s odd about Lutter is the addition of RPG elements. Lutter fights monsters by running into them a la Hydlide or Ys, and gains experience and gold accordingly. The gold is mainly used to bribe monsters, which essentially sends you back to the entrance of the room you’re in and gives you full HP. The experience is used in a standard leveling system which increases your HP, offensive and defensive capabilities, and speed. You can also find equipment in chests like you would in a normal RPG, and standing still allows you to recover your health. Saving the game is possible at any moment outside of boss battles, a concept that is present in a large number of FDS games but is rare on most other consoles, where the preference is for discrete save points. Finally, you can talk to strangers who are lurking for whatever reason throughout the dungeon, usually telling you what the weak points of the bosses are.
Speaking of that, the boss battles are an aspect of Lutter that is much stranger than the RPG components. If I had to make a comparison to another game, the best one I could make is to the boss battles in Gradius. Though Lutter can’t actually fire bullets, he’s free to move in both dimensions and the bosses look like they were taken right out of any given shoot-em-up from the period. They also have weak spots that cause a lot more damage when struck than normal. Though it’s very cute to see a tiny guy attack a massive cybernetic-looking creature, it doesn’t work perfectly since Lutter’s simply not quick enough to dodge the bosses’ fire effectively.
Though for whatever reason it wasn’t put on a cartridge, Lutter is a perfectly good game with some quirks to keep it fresh. Considering the game’s genre and time of release, Lutter’s only real flaws are that it’s a bit short and the ability to bribe enemies and attack bosses’ weak points make it pretty easy. Even so, Lutter is a nice way to spend an afternoon when you want to play a game that has a little bit of everything and isn’t too mentally taxing.
