The Twisted Tales of Spike McFang
released on Mar 19, 1993
The Twisted Tales of Spike McFang is an action-rpg starring the titular hero, a young vampire prince who must rescue his parents and save the inhabitants of the Vladamasco Islands from the evil Von Hesler. But is it really his handiwork, or is there someone else controlling him? Unravel the mystery while traveling to various locales, fighting Von Hesler's henchmen and picking up (CPU-controlled) companions along the way. Spike McFang has three main methods of attack: by striking out with his cape, throwing his hat like a boomerang, or using a magic card. Cards can also heal his health or give his companions extra strength. Spike can also devour the still-beating hearts of his vanquished foes (or the dropped tomatoes of his vanquished foes if you're playing the sanitized North American version) to regain health. There are a total of four different hats that Spike can purchase as upgrades in his battle against animated garlic bulbs, bomb-throwing cats, head-spinning plants and a plethora of other dangerous enemies.
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I was already aware of the foolishly-implemented leveling system here and I found a patch that supposedly gives double exp, so I fully intended for this review to be like “this is why you patch your roms, folks! Games from before the PSX era were inherently built to be unfair and waste your time, you can actually enjoy them now, who cares if it’s not on original hardware, you don’t have thousands of dollars for that and also one of my friends is now telling me his eyes are frying because of the blue light in his crt monitor, so it isn’t worth it anyway!”
Except I played it, and either the rom patch is straight up lying or this game is indeed still confirmed: #fuckingbullshit. It’s cute and fairly short (or would be without the leveling at least) but there is already hard-to-control attacks, enemies with a lot of hit points and attack patterns that are hard to navigate, and near the end of the game there is… wait for it… an ICE PALACE with a SLIPPERY FLOOR!!!! 😄😄😄👏👏👏👏 A patch that fixes the grinding for this game should make it so that simply playing and facing whatever baddies come to you will adequately level you up so you don’t have to interrupt the pacing and farm for spear-chucking garlic clove exp. As far as I can tell, the only thing the patch does here is just make it even more confusing as to what level you think you’re supposed to be at before you face a boss. For the second-to-last boss you have to collect a secret item that is his supposed weakness, and even after using it on him I was still hitting him with nothing. I don't want to play a game you tell me is patched and still have to deal with Dragon Ball Z-ass dialogue that's like "you, a level 11 sissy boy, you dare to challenge ME, I who have reached the highest echelons of level 15? Come back when you've advanced at least three more levels and your little vampire wrists are a little less limp."
If I had liked this after all my review would have been something like “the good guys eat tomatoes for health and the bad guys use garlic to attack, but maybe if they learn to set aside their difference and work together, I bet they could make a delicious marinara sauce.” Instead, I'm afraid I now have to settle for "hm, I guess I learned that I should really trust Jenny from now on."
Except I played it, and either the rom patch is straight up lying or this game is indeed still confirmed: #fuckingbullshit. It’s cute and fairly short (or would be without the leveling at least) but there is already hard-to-control attacks, enemies with a lot of hit points and attack patterns that are hard to navigate, and near the end of the game there is… wait for it… an ICE PALACE with a SLIPPERY FLOOR!!!! 😄😄😄👏👏👏👏 A patch that fixes the grinding for this game should make it so that simply playing and facing whatever baddies come to you will adequately level you up so you don’t have to interrupt the pacing and farm for spear-chucking garlic clove exp. As far as I can tell, the only thing the patch does here is just make it even more confusing as to what level you think you’re supposed to be at before you face a boss. For the second-to-last boss you have to collect a secret item that is his supposed weakness, and even after using it on him I was still hitting him with nothing. I don't want to play a game you tell me is patched and still have to deal with Dragon Ball Z-ass dialogue that's like "you, a level 11 sissy boy, you dare to challenge ME, I who have reached the highest echelons of level 15? Come back when you've advanced at least three more levels and your little vampire wrists are a little less limp."
If I had liked this after all my review would have been something like “the good guys eat tomatoes for health and the bad guys use garlic to attack, but maybe if they learn to set aside their difference and work together, I bet they could make a delicious marinara sauce.” Instead, I'm afraid I now have to settle for "hm, I guess I learned that I should really trust Jenny from now on."
At what point do you think a game becomes "too grindy"? It's hard to really say, of course. There's no clear threshold set in stone, and it also seems to depend somewhat on the genre you're dealing with.
Not only that, but the pure subjectivity of it all. I had a friend some years ago who was like really into shit like NES Ghosts 'n Goblins and Battletoads, and he seemed to thoroughly hate it when I complained about "clunkiness" or "grinding" or any similar form of bullshit in any capacity. I silently ditched him over time because he was also a total loser contrarian about everything you could possibly think of, but I'd bet if I talked to him now he probably wouldn't have any issues with this game's grinding.
As for everyone else, I've hypothesized that a decent enough catch-all threshold for Too Much Grinding is when it doubles the entire game's runtime, such as with Phantasy Star II or Spike McFang, today's central focus. I want to like Spike McFang more. It's a very cute action RPG in the style of Link to the Past or Crusader of Centy, it has great character designs and lots of charm and personality, but the amount of content doesn't justify the runtime. It features only about 5 areas or so in a 5-6 hour game, and with grinding removed you could cut it down to 2-3 hours, maybe the same length as Alcahest at most. Sure, it's still single digit hours in the end, not even that long, but it feels like it drags on for an eternity because it obviously should be shorter.
The issue with the grinding in question seems to be the rapidly increasing EXP requirements for a level up combined with a somewhat subpar set of attacks and enemies that typically give around 2 to 35 EXP until the end of the game. For one example, you're expected to be level 5 at the first boss and level 8 or so at the second, but there's only like 15-20 minutes worth of screens between the two, and with one quick rush from point A to point B you might not even be level 6. I don't find it very reasonable to stretch that small section to over an hour of going back and forth.
If you already guessed that the North American rental market plays some part in this, then give yourself a pat on the back. We can't have young kids beating this in one weekend, can we? Let's pad out this game that was already finished and released! It's fake difficulty on an otherwise easy and relaxing experience. Perhaps I just don't get it because I was born after this kind of practice phased out, but it all seems really stupid to me. Every instance of this. So stupid.
It would probably be best to grab a fan translated patch of the JP ROM for this one, lord knows I'll be doing the same if I replay it. Underneath the NA version's changes is a very charming little game. I would have liked to have said more about the game itself, but this first playthrough of mine was clearly more lethargic than I was expecting.
Not only that, but the pure subjectivity of it all. I had a friend some years ago who was like really into shit like NES Ghosts 'n Goblins and Battletoads, and he seemed to thoroughly hate it when I complained about "clunkiness" or "grinding" or any similar form of bullshit in any capacity. I silently ditched him over time because he was also a total loser contrarian about everything you could possibly think of, but I'd bet if I talked to him now he probably wouldn't have any issues with this game's grinding.
As for everyone else, I've hypothesized that a decent enough catch-all threshold for Too Much Grinding is when it doubles the entire game's runtime, such as with Phantasy Star II or Spike McFang, today's central focus. I want to like Spike McFang more. It's a very cute action RPG in the style of Link to the Past or Crusader of Centy, it has great character designs and lots of charm and personality, but the amount of content doesn't justify the runtime. It features only about 5 areas or so in a 5-6 hour game, and with grinding removed you could cut it down to 2-3 hours, maybe the same length as Alcahest at most. Sure, it's still single digit hours in the end, not even that long, but it feels like it drags on for an eternity because it obviously should be shorter.
The issue with the grinding in question seems to be the rapidly increasing EXP requirements for a level up combined with a somewhat subpar set of attacks and enemies that typically give around 2 to 35 EXP until the end of the game. For one example, you're expected to be level 5 at the first boss and level 8 or so at the second, but there's only like 15-20 minutes worth of screens between the two, and with one quick rush from point A to point B you might not even be level 6. I don't find it very reasonable to stretch that small section to over an hour of going back and forth.
If you already guessed that the North American rental market plays some part in this, then give yourself a pat on the back. We can't have young kids beating this in one weekend, can we? Let's pad out this game that was already finished and released! It's fake difficulty on an otherwise easy and relaxing experience. Perhaps I just don't get it because I was born after this kind of practice phased out, but it all seems really stupid to me. Every instance of this. So stupid.
It would probably be best to grab a fan translated patch of the JP ROM for this one, lord knows I'll be doing the same if I replay it. Underneath the NA version's changes is a very charming little game. I would have liked to have said more about the game itself, but this first playthrough of mine was clearly more lethargic than I was expecting.
Uma delícia de Top-down. Recomendadíssimo pra quem curte o estilo.
Não vai se arrepender.
Não vai se arrepender.
The art is cute and it has some humor. But the combat...
The moves you can do are just so punishable. If you spin to much (which happens more easily then you expect) you get dizzy and can't control your character for a few seconds. The hat throw has quite a short range and kind of annoying to activate with many monsters to keep track of. The special moves are one time only cards, so i had the problem i was hoarding them. Not wanting to waste them but never using any cards because of that. A lot of things are anti-fun, and don't do the game favors. When i was already dodging mobs in the first castle (and with a grindy exp system this is really bad) i knew this wasn't going to work for me.
The moves you can do are just so punishable. If you spin to much (which happens more easily then you expect) you get dizzy and can't control your character for a few seconds. The hat throw has quite a short range and kind of annoying to activate with many monsters to keep track of. The special moves are one time only cards, so i had the problem i was hoarding them. Not wanting to waste them but never using any cards because of that. A lot of things are anti-fun, and don't do the game favors. When i was already dodging mobs in the first castle (and with a grindy exp system this is really bad) i knew this wasn't going to work for me.
visuales preciosas, más allá de eso hay que grindear como desquiciado
Don't be fooled by this cutesy action RPG. Under the kid-friendly surface of Spike McFang lies an absolute grindfest.
That doesn't necessarily mean it's difficult or challenging. It literally means that grinding XP seems to be an essential part of the game loop. Especially since the difference between levels often feels like a huge leap in character development. The game even flat-out tells you at several points what level the dungeon bosses are at and you're more or less expected to reach the same or higher, before encountering them. Now, try telling a seven-year-old (which I'm assuming was the intended audience) that they're supposed to re-enter the same screen for half-and-hour, and encounter the same enemies before they can move on and see how that lands.
Given how tedious and simplistic combat is – with a not-to-bright-companion AI and under-cooked card/special-move mechanic along for the ride – means Spike McFang is a mediocre game, at best.
That doesn't necessarily mean it's difficult or challenging. It literally means that grinding XP seems to be an essential part of the game loop. Especially since the difference between levels often feels like a huge leap in character development. The game even flat-out tells you at several points what level the dungeon bosses are at and you're more or less expected to reach the same or higher, before encountering them. Now, try telling a seven-year-old (which I'm assuming was the intended audience) that they're supposed to re-enter the same screen for half-and-hour, and encounter the same enemies before they can move on and see how that lands.
Given how tedious and simplistic combat is – with a not-to-bright-companion AI and under-cooked card/special-move mechanic along for the ride – means Spike McFang is a mediocre game, at best.