YMMV / A Nightmare on Elm Street (NES)

• Awesome Music: The game's soundtrack is pretty good. Not a surprise, consider Rare worked on it.
  • The main city music is about crossing the city before facing the fearful Freddy™.
• Demonic Spiders: Freddy™ himself was likely intended to be this, being able to pop up randomly in the dream world, but with the right Dream Warrior power he's really no harder to deal with than anything else.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The color of Freddy's™ glove on the title screen is the same as his other hand, and looks more organic than usual.^note It was taken directly from the UK poster for Freddy's Revenge It almost seems like a precursor to the look of the claws utilized in Wes Craven's New Nightmare.
• Nightmare Retardant: The game's insistence of adding a trademark-symbol whenever Freddy™ is mentioned really breaks your immersion and kills whatever scariness the game may have.
• The Problem with Licensed Games: It's generally not considered to be terrible, per se, especially in comparison to the rest of LJN's catalog of NES games, though it's mostly just seen as an at-best So Okay, It's Average rip-off of Castlevania II: Simon's Quest.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Largely the reason for the game's negative reception. It was not helped by hatred of a similar system used in Castlevania II, the dream world mechanic wasn't well-received due to how poorly it was thought out. To clarify, once you find a Dream Warrior power in the stage, you can easily charge through any enemy with it and thus eliminating the threat of being sent there in the first place. They aren't overly hard to find either, since all the stages are linear. If you somehow don't get a Dream Warrior power before falling asleep (or just finding one in the dream world) however, then God help you. Even if you do get through all the mooks, the bosses will readily end you.
  • Being attacked on air does not provide Mercy Invincibility until the player falls off, which can be extremely annoying for a character that has four hitpoints.
• So Okay, It's Average: The poor execution of the gameplay is apparent, but the game is still playable or entertaining enough and has a good horror atmosphere due to the graphics and music.
• That One Boss: Freddy™ in the final boss fight. Unlike his non-boss appearances, he actually has a health bar, there is no obstructive terrain, and he litters the floor with those ground-slasher hands as the fight goes on. There won't be any safe places to stand if you can't finish him off quickly.