Play Castle Excellent:Castlequest Online

Game Overview

Castle Excellent: Castlequest is one of those NES games that looks simple at first—just rescue the princess from Groken Castle—but quickly turns into a puzzle-filled headache (the good kind). You play as a prince who can push blocks, jars, and weirdly specific objects like "Candle Cakes" to clear paths, but here’s the catch: doors won’t open unless you’re standing firmly in front of them. No mid-air heroics here.

The map helps (thankfully), showing a 10x10 grid of rooms with the princess’s location marked. But between color-coded keys, enemies like Attack Cats (yes, really), and rooms where you’ll spend way too long rearranging Honey Jars, it’s way trickier than it seems. Half the time, I’d forget which key I was carrying and end up backtracking. Still weirdly satisfying when a puzzle finally clicks.

Just watch out for the Phantom Flowers. They’re nastier than they sound.