Available for $12 USD on itch.io [LINK], The Adventures of Panzer is a new action platformer for the NES. It's a comedic/parodic adventure, with a straightforward, linear storyline.
To get this bit out of the way - the comedy/parody stuff is I think aimed at MMO-playing audiences (or former such), which I'm, er, not even a little (Okay, puzzle pirates, but still). For me, there are a lot of bits that make me smile a little at their absurdity, and a few sensible chuckles, but I suspect I'm not actually in the audience that will appreciate it best. Still, even if the jokes aren't landing as well with me as they potentially could, they aren't annoying or anything, just the creator having some goofy fun - and most of the dialogue character would be skippable if they did annoy; just go right on by.
Gameplay is solid; it's got a kind of early megaman setup, flowing screen to screen with some loose action screens, some challenging screens, and bosses that are all about "learn the pattern to beat it". I've found it to be a lot of fun, but hoo boy are those bosses some big difficulty spikes. That purple whatsit, pictured above, is the second boss (out of five), and that thing is rough; I've just cleared past that bad boy in my own run.
There's a very smooth setup for magic; hold up and tap attack to cast whatever magic you have selected, hit select to change which one that is. I'm strongly favoring the healing spell, which is probably a novice move, but I'm down for it.
I was lightly save scumming through the game using (RetroArch) save states in the first level, just running tough screens a few times, rinse and reload until I got them right, and started doing so pretty comprehensively in the second level, treating each segment as a puzzle where I'm aiming to get perfect timing on jumps and stabs and come out in great shape. I'm pretty sure this wasn't the designer's intent, but it's a really fun way to approach it for me, bringing the total difficulty down to something where I can enjoy chewing away at each segment.
On the whole, it's well worth the price of admission.
