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NES box art for Classic Concentration, the cover of NEStalgia episode 358

358 · Classic Concentration

▶ Game info
VerdictSkip it
SeasonSeason 6
DeveloperSoftie
PublisherGameTek
January 3, 2025 · 30 min · transcript available

Concentration was a popular game show in the mid-to-late 1980s, and this game was adapted from that television program.

Our verdict: Skip it

Classic Concentration is the Alex Trebek game show turned into an NES game: you match numbered tiles, each match peels away part of a picture puzzle, and you guess the phrase. Mike and Sean carried most of this one, and Joe, who had been on the whole time, was looped in around the halfway mark. By the end we were apologizing to the listeners for having so little to say.

What doesn't work

  • The matching is the whole game. It is the Super Mario Bros. 3 card flip with more of it. There is no trivia and no skill beyond remembering where things were, and your first pick is a coin toss. The Mario mini-game is the better version, with no guessing at the end.
  • The puzzles need most of the board. They are rebuses, with pictures, syllables and a plus sign in the middle, and the border is white space. We figured you need about half the tiles gone, the middle ones included, before you can think. One example, a B, the four of diamonds, a sheep and a green go light, was "before you go," and we got hung up on the diamonds. After the board was cleared, the computer opponent still missed several.
  • A computer that sees behind the wall. The computer guessing off statistical odds bothered us, but the blunter complaint was that none of it is fun, and typing answers with the D-pad is no better.
  • Prizes that are just words. The thrill of the show is the mink coat, the motorcycle, the car. Here you match "motorcycle" twice, win nothing, and it sits behind you on the board. Wheel of Fortune at least drew a tiny trip to Miami.
  • Ugly contestants. Everyone gets a big-headed caricature face, and you stare at the board 99% of the time anyway.
  • Little around it. The title screen takes forever to register your input, and the game ends with no celebration, just a prompt to play again and a password to replay the same sequence.

Worth knowing

  • The show is real, and it is hard on the host. The banter has to carry everything, and the pilot has long awkward silences before the buzzer.
  • A bonus round. Match car makes and models in 35 seconds and the game shows you the car, which felt like a Wheel of Fortune rip. Round two prizes include water skis (literal skis, not jet skis, which was a letdown), clocks, rugs and wallpaper.
  • Nintendo of America. The title screen has the red Nintendo logo, rare for the time, and since the game only works in English, we guessed Japan never got it.
  • Not all bad ideas. Memory games and rebus puzzles can be fun. It is the execution that fails.

The bottom line

Skip it. We ran the Essential Games List vote with the game's own board: tiles 1 and 17 both flipped to No. Five minutes covered everything the game has, and we didn't enjoy them. We called it the worst game show to turn into a game unless real prizes come with it.

Written from our conversation in this episode.

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