Nail ‘n Scale Nails It

If you want to pique my interest, then put forward an action puzzler with cute graphics based on a 1×1 tile grid. If you really want to get my salivary glands working overtime, stick it on the Game Boy. Nail ‘n Scale meets these superficial criteria, and has an unintentionally lewd sounding name. So I had to jump on it, but how does it measure up? Action puzzler on the Game Boy isn’t exactly a niche category you know.

Nail ‘n Scale is a platforming action puzzle game. The player controls Spike as he climbs through levels to eventually overcome the evil dragon, Lore. Most levels have a door that serves as an exit to the next stage. Stages can vary in size in complexity, some are flush with enemy monsters while others are labyrinthine in scope. Often there are multiple solutions to a given level, and mastery of the game’s mechanics and a little ingenuity will serve you well.

Climbing in Nail ‘n Scale is more than just jumping. Where Spike’s jump is somewhat stunted, you need to use pitons (the titular nails) to create footholds to aide your ascent. For instance, Spike can drive a piton into the ground directly below him to use as a raised platform or he can drive them into the side of blocks to catch him after a long jump or allow him to scale the side of a sheer wall. There’s a certain rhythm to jumping and laying pitons as you go, but it’s easy to get the hang of it. The limiting factor to your pitons is that you can only have a couple persist at any given time. They disappear after a short time, and driving more into walls will cause old ones to vanish as well. Not to mention, some blocks are breakable and jumping on an embedded nail will cause them to crack and crumble – sometimes you need to break through, other times you need to make it up without destroying your only route to do so. There’s as much strategy as there is bold platforming.

Pitons also kill monsters. Nail ‘n Scale has a really colourful Rogue’s Gallery with cute monsters for Spike to contend with. Most enemies will die to a piton hit, but some are invulnerable. Most will respawn shortly after you kill them, unfortunately sometimes on top of you if you aren’t paying attention. They can complicate levels but they never feel truly obnoxious. The game treats them like a part of the puzzle rather than fodder to be destroyed. They’re another obstacle to scale.

Every tenth level (10, 20, and so forth) is a boss encounter to mix things up a little. Boss battles are… well they’re okay. Personally, I think the puzzle levels are executed much more effectively than the bosses but hey – they break the game up a little so I can’t complain too much. Bosses have a weak spot, and you need to find it by throwing nails into them. Once you figure out how to harm a certain boss, the encounters become fairly trivial and you can down them super quickly.

There are a few power-ups as well, which you can carry between levels until you Game Over – at which point you lose them all. One of these nails doesn’t break blocks, as far as I can tell. One of them is a bomb on a timer, which will destroy a block – important if you can’t jump on a piton to cause the block to break. And the other is a door item that instantly takes you to he next level. So stocking up on items and preserving them as much as possible can give you a serious advantage on the next few levels.

For the most part, however, the game seems pretty fair in this regard. Every level provides you with the tools to beat it, I don’t think you are ever required to actually bring items in from a previous stage. That said, near the very end of the game I did have to do just that. I found that could progress without the items but it was extremely precise and I felt like I was doing something wrong. So I had to return to a previous level and rely on items to make it to the end, unfortunately. If I could have saved and come back later, I might have approached it differently.

Let’s address that directly. Nail ‘n Scale is 51 levels long, some of these puzzles will take you several minutes to clear on your first look. However, there is no battery save or password feature, or level select as far as I can tell. Adventures of Lolo had 50 Rooms with a password feature, sometimes with a Lolo game you want to take some time to think about a solution away from the game. Solomon’s Key had 50 levels with no passwords and is considered one of the most difficult puzzlers on its platform partly because of that. Especially for a Game Boy game where you might want to take it on the run, Nail ‘n Scale resembles the latter. You can’t put it away for later, because although there are infinite continues you have to play it from the beginning every time you turn your Game Boy on.

But the game makes the following concession: When you die you can select the level you want to start on (from any level you have reached since turning on the Game Boy), and you can change between Easy and Hard Mode while continuing. This means you can go back a couple of levels to that stage with the big stockpile of items if you want to just brute force a level. It’s almost like the development team added this concession in lieu of a password system. Like I said, I’m sure the tools are there to complete every level on a blank slate, but if you are playing this on a cartridge the time spent in the game might encourage shortcuts like these since you know you can’t just flick your system off and try again later without slogging through the rest of the game.

Hard Mode is the mode you will probably want to be playing. Hard Mode shortens your jump and adds a three minute timer. I feel like this is the intended way to play Nail ‘n Scale since your jump in Easy Mode is so much better that it can easily bypass sections of the levels that are clearly meant to be scaled. Not always the case, but definitely a factor in some places. It’s pretty welcome that you can switch your difficulty whenever you continue, as well. Maybe you’re replaying the game and want to speed through to where you left off? Stick with Easy until you get to where you ended last, then die and continue on Hard. The option is there. The game does a lot of things right, honestly.

Presentation is relatively simple, but it sort of needs to be here. Blocks need to be instantly recognizable – you can break these ones, drive pitons into these ones, and your pitons will simply bounce off the others. Enemies are cute and clear, you’ll never miss one coming unless it respawns on top of you (unfortunate, but it can happen). And the bosses have a lot of character especially. It’s a puzzle game so information is the name of the game, and the visuals are ideal for that. The music is no slouch, and especially the theme that plays from 21-29 is solid. It fits.

Nail ‘n Scale is one of those few games that I can find very little to be negative about. It’s a Game Boy game so it’s not as fast as it could be otherwise, but speed is never really an issue in completing levels. It checks so many of the right boxes I have when it comes to action puzzlers that I can help but gush buckets of love, I’m sorry to say.

The password issue is unfortunate, and honestly for me it’s not a deal breaker. I wouldn’t have made such a big deal about it if it wasn’t on the Game Boy which would often encourage quick sessions of pick up and play, and if it wasn’t a puzzle game – which is a genre that sometimes requires the player take a break to get their faculties in order again. If you’re playing this… off console… then you’re sorted.

The deal breaker will honestly be whether or not you find the core gameplay fun, because everything works. Given its unique spin on an on old formula, I can help but love it. And if you enjoy puzzle platformers from the period then I urge you give this one a try. It’s not hard to find, but it’s a real gem in spite of that.