Play Lester the Unlikely Online

Lester the Unlikely came out for the Super Nintendo in 1994, developed by Visual Concepts and published by DTMC. It was one of those oddball platformers that felt a bit out of place among the more polished action games of the era, but it had a strange charm that made it memorable for all the wrong, and sometimes right, reasons.

You control Lester, a timid, glasses wearing nerd who must navigate a hostile island. The goal is simply to survive and escape, which involves moving screen by screen, jumping across gaps, climbing vines, and avoiding or clumsily fighting enemies with a weak punch or an occasional found weapon. The controls are deliberately slippery and unresponsive, making every jump tense and every enemy encounter a panic. It feels like guiding someone who has no business being in an action game through one anyway, and that awkward struggle is the entire experience.