Name: Adian no Tsue
Item: Adian no Tsue
Rating: 5.5
Author: Retro Replay

Adian no Tsue

Adian no Tsue is a strange little NES educational package that tries to make arithmetic feel urgent. One half sends the cane-wielding sorcerer Lucian through a nine-floor dungeon to rescue Princess Patricia; the other turns fast mental math into a marathon time trial. Neither idea is especially elaborate, but both understand that a worksheet becomes less dull when a door or a finish time is riding on the answer.

The dungeon game is the better hook because it gives the sums a destination. You explore, deal with enemies, and answer basic problems to unlock the route forward. Step Drill is much plainer, though its race-against-the-clock setup has a clean drill-and-practice appeal. This is primarily for younger players or retro-game fans curious about an unusually game-shaped math lesson, not for anyone expecting Zelda-level adventure.

Platform: NES

Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

The first few minutes of Adian no Tsue have a surprisingly sensible rhythm for an educational NES game: you are not simply staring at sums, because Lucian is pushing into a dungeon labyrinth with a princess to rescue. The top-down view and maze structure give each correct answer a practical purpose. Locked doors halt your advance, basic math problems stand in the way, and getting them right lets you see more of the dungeon.

That structure is doing a lot of work. A nine-floor maze gives the arithmetic an ongoing goal, and finding the correct route offers more momentum than a disconnected sequence of questions would. Enemies add another source of pressure, so the game at least attempts to blend action and problem solving rather than placing them in wholly separate modes. The catch is obvious: if basic math practice itself sounds tiresome, no dungeon wrapper will fully disguise it. Frustration can also set in when you want to keep exploring but must stop to solve another problem.

Step Drill strips the idea down even further. Here you run a marathon, with your finishing time tied to how quickly you answer math problems. It is a clean challenge for repeating calculations under pressure, and a decent fit for short sessions or a child trying to sharpen speed. It lacks the dungeon game’s sense of discovery, though. Once the novelty of racing the clock wears off, it is straightforward practice software.

Taken together, the two modes make more sense than either would alone. The dungeon offers a small adventure with educational interruptions; the marathon offers pure speed drilling. If you are handing the controller to a young learner, start with Lucian’s quest and use Step Drill as a quick follow-up challenge. If you are coming back to the NES for action, this is too tightly tied to its lessons to carry you far.

Graphics

Adian no Tsue uses a top-down dungeon view in its adventure half, putting Lucian, enemies, doors, and maze corridors on screen in the familiar shape of an early console action game. The marathon mode has a much simpler job: it frames the race as a time-based run while the math questions take priority. The game was also originally sold with a comic book, a welcome bit of packaging that likely gave its fantasy premise more character than the cartridge alone can convey.

Story

The story is as direct as it needs to be: Lucian, a sorcerer carrying a cane, descends through a dungeon labyrinth to rescue Princess Patricia. There is no reason to expect rich fantasy drama here, but the rescue mission is a stronger excuse for doing sums than a generic classroom prompt.

More importantly, the premise connects directly to progress. Patricia is held deep in the dungeon, so moving through floors and opening locked doors feels like movement toward a specific destination rather than arbitrary level completion. That is a small but meaningful advantage for a game aimed at teaching fundamentals.

Step Drill does not build on that fantasy thread. Its marathon framing is functional rather than dramatic: answer quickly, run faster, chase a better time. The contrast makes the cartridge feel like two different approaches to the same lesson, one wrapped in an adventure and one presented as a competitive exercise.

Overall Experience

Adian no Tsue is most interesting as an earnest attempt to make math practice playable on the NES. The dungeon mode has enough forward motion to make its questions feel connected to a goal, while Step Drill turns quick calculation into a simple personal-best chase. For the right young player, that can be a genuinely useful combination.

It is also a narrow recommendation. The action and exploration exist in service of basic arithmetic, and the marathon mode is even more openly instructional. You should not go in expecting a deep dungeon crawler or a varied sports game; go in if you want to see how a mid-1980s cartridge tried to motivate repeated math problems with stakes, routes, enemies, and a timer.

The payoff is modest but real for its intended audience. A child who responds better to goals than worksheets may find Lucian’s rescue mission far easier to stick with than ordinary drills. Everyone else will likely admire the idea more than they will want to play it for long.