A hot babe and decent shoot em' up lightgun levels are hardly enough to shore up this fault-filled game.
The storyline of Bayou Billy is as cheesy and unimaginative as they come - the villain, a crime boss named Gordon, has kidnapped the titular character's girlfriend Annabelle for no explained reason (perhaps best left to the imagination of the player). The game starts in the swamps of Louisiana and works its way to the streets of The Big (Not So) Easy. In between is an army of overpowered enemies and little in the way of useful power-ups. In addition to the standard beat’ em up side scrolling levels, the player will also encounter shooting gallery levels that can be played with either the controller or the lightgun, as well as some incredibly tedious and difficult driving levels.
The gameplay is horrendous, difficult and tedious. The beat 'em up side scrolling levels are straightforward enough - the player has three basic attacks available: punch, kick, and jump kick, and can pick up various power-ups and weapons such as knives, sticks, guns and armor vests, and enemies are typically limited to this range of attacks as well. Kick, punch, hit, or shoot your enemies until they fall and keep walking to the end of the level. Unfortunately, the mechanics aren't that simple and suffer greatly. The punch attack is lacking in reach and a player trying to use punch attacks will simply find his life bar draining away as all on-screen enemies gang up on him. Kick attacks aren't much better. The only useful basic attack is the jump kick, and this attack is difficult to perform especially when being ganged up on. Enemies are overpowered and too numerous. Typically, two or three enemies will attack the player at once on screen, and have a tendency to close in on the player, rapidly draining away the player's life bar and making counter-attack very difficult. To make matters worse, the enemies take a huge amount of hits to bring down and are often either equipped with power-ups such as knives or armor vests or are capable of special abilities the player can't perform, such as the ability to throw huge rocks that can take away an entire segment of the player's life bar, that make defeating them difficult and frustrating. Certain enemies, such as crocodiles the player will encounter in the swamps, are very hard to defeat without taking massive damage in return. The crocodiles' attack reach is far greater than that of the player's, and the crocodile sits too low to be hit with knives or guns. Most frustrating of all is a game glitch where crocodiles will hide in a corner of the pond and not come back out unless the player enters the water himself and approaches the crocodile, leaving the player completely exposed. Fortunately, the player can simply bypass having to defeat most crocodiles, but the large numbers and large size of ponds almost guarantee that a large amount of damage will be taken by the player. Furthermore, crocodile ponds are usually accompanied by attacking eagles, making dodging particularly dodgy. Certain parts do require the player to defeat two or three crocodiles, and the experience rapidly becomes frustrating battle.
Power-ups are few and far between, and are not very useful. Power-ups are are dropped by hit enemies, and are therefore very difficult to reach as it usually means having to break up a gang of two or three other enemies to get to. The life bar refreshing power-up, which resembles the meat-on-a-bone power-up from the Castlevania series, is one of the few truly useful power-ups but are found seldomly. Sticks extend the attack reach of a player, but simply not by enough. Knives can be thrown across the screen, but often miss and require having to walk across the screen to retrieve, usually through a throng of enemies. Guns can take down enemies within two shots but come with limited ammo and, as with knives, are easy to miss with. Armor vests, which deflect both knives and bullets and can break sticks, are along with meat the only other truly useful power-up.
Before the first level, and in-between levels, the player is treated to cutscenes of sorts featuring Annabelle in the grasps of Gordon. Here is one of only two truly redeeming qualities of the game - Annabelle is nicely rendered and provides the player with a nice break and some eye candy thanks to her flowing auburn hair (which, strangely enough, is depicted on the game cover as blonde), clothes skimpy enough to make Daisy Duke blush and some nice, er, "assets." The cutscenes otherwise consists of Gordon informing the player what lies ahead in the next mission in the vaguest, most useless terms possible (and in the cheesiest dialogue possible), or featuring Annabelle being driven away while trapped in a cage in the back of Gordon's truck (because Gordon hasn't worn out enough bad guy stereotypes yet). How Gordon is able to transmit his messages, in full motion and color, to Bayou Billy, a guy who seems completely bereft of worldly possessions other than the most stereotypical of swamp huts the player can imagine, is anyone's guess. Throughout the game, Gordon's motivations are never revealed. Does he have a personal vendetta against our hero, Bayou Billy? Is he trying to enslave Annabelle for purposes too devious and dastardly to mention? Is this Annabelle some sort of modern Helen of Troy incarnate, with hordes of bad guys who are willing to defend to the death with only one poor sap of a good guy willing to rescue her (where in the world is the police?) Or does Gordon simply have way too much time and money on his hands to the point where he can simply hire about a bajillion men to throw at the player while he watches and blows cigar smoke into a buxom chick's face? The player may never know, as even upon completion this motivation is never revealed.
The player may never know how it's all resolved, either, as the gameplay simply gets longer and more tedious from there on, and many casual gamers will likely give up before completion. The second level actually provides a nice break with a shooting gallery level, which can either be played with a lightgun or the standard controller. If anything, the shooting levels are too easy - Bayou Billy must be an exceptionally skilled gunman, or he must have some sort of magic gun in his possession. Snipers will drop from trees, men will throw dynamite, goons with bazookas will be lurking in the grass, but defeating them is incredibly easy. Dynamite and bazooka shells can actually be shot down by the player, and since, amazingly enough, they only do as much damage as being shot by machine guns, this type of enemy is easy to defeat. Moreover, bullets that hit enemies will not drain the player's bullet count, which means that players with good aim have essentially an unlimited supply.
After the first shooting level is completed, the player is treated to more Annabelle eye candy and Gordon's useless, cheesy taunts, and then enters yet another sidescrolling beat 'em up level. Amazingly enough I found this level to be much easier than the first, even with an end boss. Once this level is completed, the driving levels begin. The driving levels consist of driving Billy's truck through a dirt road and then an interstate while shooting at cars and lobbing grenades at overhead bombing airplanes. Something so deceptively simple has never been so difficult in an NES game. The enemies are actually easy to defeat and are almost pointless - they drive near-identical jeeps to that of Billy's, except that they're easily destroyed with one shot and they're not equipped with weapons, their only attack being an easily dodged kamikaze attack. Boy, this Annabelle must be something if Gordon can hire guys that are actually willing to throw away their lives to stop Bayou Billy. Then again, come to think of it, it could just as well be that these are innocent people on the freeway that our hero Billy is blasting away into tiny bits. But of course it's all justified in the name of good; after all, Billy has a hot babe to save! Either way, the ground enemies present little challenge, and the overhead aircraft provide little more, being easy to shoot down and their bombs being easy to dodge on straight always. The actual challenge in the driving levels come from the tight turns that are hard to corner at full speed and the posts along side that destroy the player's truck immediately upon impact. Making things worse is that these missions are timed, and when the time expires the player must start at the very beginning of the level. Since it's very hard to corner at full speed, it's very easy to watch your time expire. Large boulders in the middle of the road (Louisiana must maintain their roads as well as their levees) come at the player too fast to effectively dodge and being a shade close to some of the enemy jeeps are easily confused with them until it's too late. Likewise, the sole power-up available on this level, an oil bucket found three-quarters into the level that adds to your time, is the same color as the blue variety of enemy jeep and is also easily confused with them, making it easy for a jumpy player to avoid them. The next driving level, which is immediately after the first and is on a smooth interstate, is void of the boulders but not any easier. The enemies are basically the same, except the player will encounter fewer jeeps and more family sedans (with no fundamental difference, they still attack the player kamikaze-style) and the bomb-dropping airplanes are replaced with bomb-dropping attack helicopters (Gordon's paying off the Army now?! Wow, this guy must have more money than Goldfinger, Dr. Evil, Bill Gates and any other evil, world-dominating stupidly-rich super-geniuses combined!). The greater difficulty in this level comes from the many steep curves which are practically impossible to take at high speed and consequently eat up time. What's worse, any jeeps or sedans the player fails to destroy yet successfully dodge will catch up and ram the player, and the frequency of attacking aircraft also increases (I once had two attack helicopters in a row bomb me; destroying or dodging the first one only leaves you open to the second).
It is usually at this point that I use up all my chances to continue and get to watch a still image of Billy pathetically crawling from the ground with the big "GAME OVER" message above. I have managed to get past this level a few times and proceed to the next which consists of, you guessed it, having to beat up more over-powered bad guys as they gang up on you. Only this time you get to do it while walking Bourbon Street. And, oh yeah, more of the bad guys have guns, too. And whips. The number of enemies that appear on-screen make it difficult to defeat a single enemy and get his power-up as once again they gang up on you and make escape difficult. Other enemies, such as street punks with knives and guys swinging chains, have a longer reach than even the player's jump kick, so heavy damage becomes inevitable and meat power-ups a rarely occurring but badly needed necessity. If and when the player completes the Bourbon Street beat 'em up level, the player goes on to the Bourbon Street shooting gallery level, which is similar to the previous one except for the backdrop, the addition of motorcycle enemies, and the ability for enemies to hide behind buildings (which can be shot at through windows). After defeating the two bosses, one of which has a machine gun and the other throws knives that can be deflected by shooting at them, the player finally makes it to the grounds of Gordon's mansion, where Gordon's attack dogs and their trainer must be defeated (easily accomplished with a whip and gun). As Billy enters the mansion, he must then defeat Gordon himself, who jumps to avoids any shots from Billy's gun by amazingly enough, unlike even his lesser underlings lacks a bullet-proof vest. Whips and jump-kicks are also effective against him. After Gordon is defeated, the player then must defeat two last enemies simultaneously - what can only be described as two rejects from Arnold Schwartzenegger's The Running Man, and are best and frustratingly defeated by using jump-kicks. The incredible difficulty it takes just to get to the last half of the game, and the lack of save feature or even passwords, will test the patience of every gamer out there. To add insult to injury, the game actually has practice modes, which are next to useless because they don't actually allow the player to practice anything useful other than to repetitiously hit and shoot at enemies. If the player actually does bother to complete the practice missions, the player is rewarded with extra health, but given the length of time and difficulty the main game offers, I honestly have to wonder who has the patience to put up with all of that. If you're looking to add The Adventures of Bayou Billy to your NES collection, just save yourself the time, frustration and money, and don't. The well-rendered hot cutscene babe and decent shooting levels are simply not worth it. Just stay away from this game.