... introduction ...
There are fan sites for lots of old Nintendo games (.."shrines," some people call 'em.) Some are deserving (Metroid, Zelda, Mario, etc)... and some.. well, some aren't quite that deserving.. like this one.
Milon's Secret Castle is an old NES game.. basically a Super Mario-style game, with you (Milon) going through different rooms (levels/areas) of a castle until you beat the bad guy and save the princess, collecting coins and items along the way.
Many, if not most, people who've played it have gotten fed up and quit before getting even halfway through the game. Sure, it pisses me off sometimes too, but it's not such a bad game once you get a feel for it. Sometimes it can get a bit frustrating searching for all the items you need, and it can definitely be a challenge to finish, even if you've already beat the game a couple times. Seriously, I bet it would have been a lot more popular game if the bosses took just 5 hits to kill instead of 30 or whatever.
Some Pros..
Basically, with only a few minor changes this could have been a real cool game, but instead we're left with a kinda cool game. The programmers apparently realized this: The GameBoy version which came out a few years after the NES version makes some improvements in that it's not quite so tough and the bosses look better.
Anyway, this little site was started around early July 2002. I don't plan to do much more with it than is here now. But I also don't plan to abandon it.. I try to do at least minor updates 2 or 3 times a year. This site basically began when I made a rom hack of the game to make it into a Mario game (see Mario's Secret Castle). I thought it came out pretty cool and thought other players might get a kick out of it, so I decided to make this site so I'd have a place to put it. And I figured, what the hell, the original game was good enough for a crappy little webpage of appreciation. The site was originally called "Hal's Milon's Secret Castle Webpage" (see pic at top of this page), but that was a tad long and dumb, so I shortened it to just "Milon's Secret Website". I also incorporated it into my slightly larger NES site, NES Alley... which in turn is part of my main hub of sites I've made over the years (mostly music related) called defgav.com.
Somehow, this Milon site became somewhat popular, and I get a surprising amount of email from it in relation to my other sites. As of the time I'm writing this, when you google "milon's secret castle", this site is the first search result. That's pretty cool. When I threw this all together, I wasn't expecting much. It's funny that I've now become like the "game guru of the castle", as one emailer said. I mean, I like the game ok, but it's not like it's in my top 10 favorite video games. I first got the game when I was a kid, back around '89 or so. So I've played it a few times over the years, but it wasn't until making this site (and the aforementioned Mario hack) that I actually really played it enough to the point where I can remember where most of the secret things are located and all that. But even now, it's not like I'm a master at it. I don't think I've ever come very close to beating the game fairly.. ie, without genie codes or save states.. (it gets especially tough near the end). But I've played it enough to the point that I at least know what you're supposed to do and can therefore usually help somebody out when they get stuck.
So that's the intro. Sorry if I was rambling there near the end. Enjoy the site (if possible). Don't be afraid to shoot a friendly email my way.. it's always nice to hear from somebody who found the site useful. Or if you have a question with the game, I could try to help if I'm not too busy. I even made a "Milon's Mailbag" section for email i get about the site/game.
thanks,
defgav