Sokoban is one of the simpler puzzle genres that feels like something that could be approached in a very serious manner, instead of the more casual feel it typically exudes. There's a lot you can do with it, as long as pushy blocky is going on, you can add other rules and abilities. The Adventures of Lolo, Tricky Kick, even this new Void Stranger game I haven't played yet. Does Chip's Challenge count? (I think it expands on the rules A LOT, but there are definitely a few Sokoban-esque levels in it.)

Isles of Sea and Sky has yet to be released but the demo is phenomenal, and I think I just now found its biggest influence. Even the hero looks kinda similar. The first world/level to this game feels extremely easy but I'm looking forward to it getting harder.

Maybe the biggest draw to Sokoban is that it's extremely simple, even coding one takes little effort, the real genius is in the design. Creating a truly intricate puzzle out of these simple rules can give players moments where they feel like geniuses for beating particular levels.

The genre is certainly so simple it seems a bit archaic, but I would love to see a modern high-budget Sokoban title, albeit I'm not an avid fan of the genre, much more casual, and one may already exist.

If you want a solid Sokoban experience, this one has a lot of charm and only adds a few more abilities to the typical rules. Worth checking out.

Every journey has a beginning. Whether it be a monumental journey that tells of some great hero setting out to accomplish some goal or to defeat a big bad guy, or rather it be something as simple as how one decided to go to the post office that day, there is always a beginning to every story, and that definitely rings true when it comes to video games. Some of us may have played thousands of games at this point in our lives, while others are merely starting to get into the hobby, but one thing that remains consistent between all of us is that we all had a first video game, the one that would introduce us to this vast, creative and limitless medium, one that either fully enraptured us to the point of seeking out what else you could find, or leaving a simple, yet enjoyable enough impression to where you wouldn’t mind trying anything else out in the future. So, I figured, for the 600th review that I am making on this website (I might be slightly insane), I figured it was about time that I covered the very first video game I ever played in my life, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island.

I don’t remember the exact, precise details of how I ended up with this as the first game I would ever play, but I do have a bit of a brief summary based on what I do remember, which will do a good enough job at painting a picture. Back in 2003-2004, when I was around 3-4 years old as well, I was a dumbass little kid, not knowing what a video game even was, and most likely doing the things that most toddlers were doing back then, such as running around, yelling, eating weird stuff off the floor, and receiving plenty of injuries. One day, my Mom and Dad came home one day with a little present for me, which just so happened to be a gray Game Boy Advance SP, one that I still own even to this day, and one that I share a lot of fond memories with throughout my life. With this, I also managed to get two games, those being Pokemon Blue and Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi’s Island, and with all of these things in hand, I had… absolutely zero clue as to what I was supposed to do with it. After messing around with the things for a bit, most likely opening and closing them, chewing on the sides of them, and so on, I then found out I can shove that weird gray rectangle thing into the big gray brick, while also finding a power switch on the system, leading to it turning on, and from that moment on, I was never the same.

So yeah, obviously, I have a lot of nostalgia towards this game, and while those early experiences were with the GBA port of the game rather than the original, it was still pretty accurate to that of the original game, to the point where I fondly remember several memories of me playing it as a kid, including one instance where I got so angry when I lost to the second phase of the Baby Bowser fight. It was my first instance of rage… you love to see it. But anyways, you all obviously didn’t come here to listen to me babble on about the past. You all came here to hear my opinion of this game, and if you couldn’t tell already at this point, I do still hold a soft place for it in my heart, and I love it tremendously. I can’t say it is perfect by any means,as it does have problems I will get into, but it was still fantastic all the way through, not only as one of the first proper Yoshi games ever made that wasn’t a puzzle game or whatever else, but also as the game that would drag me into the world of video games as a whole.

The story is very simple, yet very charming at the same time, where one night, while a stork is delivering two baby brothers by the name of Mario and Luigi to their parents, he is attacked by an evil sorcerer named Kamek, who kidnaps Baby Luigi and causes Baby Mario to fall down into the depths of the island below. Down on said island, a green Yoshi is taking a nice, leisurely stroll, until he then finds Baby Mario falling right on his back, while also dropping the map that the stork was using to deliver the kids. After gathering with several other Yoshis on the island, they then deduce (somehow) what happened to Baby Luigi, so they all then set out, with Baby Mario alongside them, to go and rescue Baby Luigi from Kamek’s evil clutches, while he and his lackeys plot to take Baby Mario as well to succeed in their ultimate goal. It is somewhat of an odd story, considering how it de-ages the Mario bros. and shifts the focus onto the Yoshis, but it is one that you can easily get behind and want to see through, as you don’t wanna see Baby Luigi get hurt by Kamek……… he can hurt Baby Mario instead, considering how much you have to put up with him in this game.

The graphics are still absolutely amazing even to this day, being one of the best looking games from the SNES library, let alone the best looking platformer on the system, having a very unique art style and plenty of vibrant colors, wonderful character, enemy, and boss designs, as well as plenty of vibrant environments that you will travel through for your whole journey, the music is fantastic, having incredibly up-beat and iconic tunes like this one that will play throughout the game, mixed in with some more “menacing” tunes like this one, most of them being a joy to listen to even after all this time, and the gameplay/control is mostly stuff that we have seen before from the Mario franchise, but not only does it remain really fun to play, but there are several different gimmicks that are present in the game that you wouldn’t typically find in other games.

The game is a 2D platformer, where you take control of one of many different colored Yoshis at a time, go through plenty different levels across many different standout locations amongst Yoshi’s Island, take out plenty of enemies either by jumping on them, swallowing them whole, or throwing others’ dead remains at them to drive the point home, protect Baby Mario at all times to not only prevent Kamek’s cronies from taking him, but also to make sure you won’t be listening to this sound for too long, gather plenty of different eggs to help you defend yourself, solve puzzles, and take down foes, while also gathering plenty of collectibles along the way, and take on some goofy, yet at-times threatening bosses, which range from being big, intimidating foes that can definitely give you a run for your money to……. this guy, who you defeat by just simply holding right…….. fucking flawless. Much of it is your standard platforming affair, even for those who are very familiar with Mario and his past adventures, but rest assured, despite the fact that it carries the name “Super Mario World” in its title, Yoshi’s Island manages to have plenty of unique elements that distinguish itself from Mario quite a bit, both in terms of its presentation and gameplay.

A lot of elements in this game have been done to death over and over again in many other games, such as going from left to right to the end of the level, defeating enemies, getting coins, and so on, but one of the ways that makes this feel much different than that of a typical Mario game is how you are playing as Yoshi the entire time. Naturally, he does not go about his business the same way Mario does, being able to swallow enemies and throw them around as eggs, and as such, this changes up how the game expects you to approach many situations, and it is great because of it. There are many instances in this game that can’t be cleared through just by running and jumping, but instead, you may need to figure out a different way to defeat an enemy or solve a puzzle using your flutter jump or your eggs, and while some of it can get tedious at times, most of it is incredibly solid, still feeling natural and just as fun even after all of these years.

Not to mention, there are plenty of things that this game has that expands upon elements seen in previous Mario games, all to its benefit. There are many different bonus games that can be accessed throughout the game, each granting you the chance of getting a GARGANTUAN amount of lives to use for the future, right alongside several items as well, which you can use at any time while in a level. Most of these items aren’t really all that useful, just being a means of helping you get to 100%, and the bonus games themselves aren’t anything too useful after beating them once or twice, but they can still be pretty helpful whenever you get the chance to participate in any of them, and in some instances, they can definitely get you out of a bind that you are in. Aside from that though, there are also the powerups in this game, which, rather than being the traditional ones we see all the time in typical Mario games, are instead a bunch of different transformations that Yoshi can take on for a brief period of time. You can become a helicopter, a submarine, a robot mole, and there’s even a powerup that allows you to play as Baby Mario by himself, running around and going up walls, because who gives a fuck about logic! Granted, not all of these powerups are fun to use, with some like that robot mole I mentioned earlier having some pretty awkward handling at times, but they are a nice change of pace whenever they pop up, and it is always really neat seeing just what kinds of things that they are willing to transform Yoshi into next.

So yeah, the game does have a lot going for it in the gameplay department, being very fun even all the way to now, but a lot of the reason why this game does hold up also has something to do with its presentation. The game was made with the Super FX chip, one that was able to do a whole lot more then what games like Star Fox could, and when you play the game for yourself, you can really see it working perfectly in harmony. Sprites will frequently change sizes to fit the situations, enemies will jump from the background to the foreground, there are 3D objects that can be interacted with, and the way that some enemies and sprites move around looks much more impressive then any other game from the SNES at that point. Hell, even just by watching the intro sequence, you can see just what kind of stuff this game was capable of, and while it does look a little rough nowadays, I can imagine this kind of thing blowing peoples’ minds back in the day, and it has aged pretty wonderfully overtime. Not to mention, the general art style of the game is perfect in every way, making everything look so vibrant, lively, and adorable, to the point where I want to live on this island and never come back to civilization.

However, with all of that out of the way, I can’t let my nostalgia goggles blind me for too long, because I am well aware that this game is not perfect, despite it being very, VERY close to that point. While most of the game is extremely fun to play, great to look at/listen to, and has plenty of charming elements that makes it a must-play for any Nintendo fan, there has always been one element of the game that I never really liked, and that is going for 100%. For those that aren’t aware, in order to 100% Yoshi’s Island, you have to collect plenty of items in every single level, such as 30 stars to max out your life, all of the red coins, and the five smiley flowers for the chance at a bonus game at the end of the level. That doesn’t sound that bad, but trust me, completing these tasks is MUCH easier said than done, not only because of how hard it can be in plenty of places, but also because of how tedious it is. Getting a lot of these collectibles can be quite a gamble, especially in plenty of areas where you have to have perfect precision when it comes to throwing your eggs, or even in life-or-death situations where you can’t screw up, or else you would have to die or start the level over again.

That’s not even bringing up the fact that, once you do 100% the main levels in a world, you then unlock an extra stage to play for that world, and these stages can be quite the pain in the dino-ass if you aren’t prepared for them. This can be seen even as early as the first world’s extra stage, where for most of the stage, you are riding along the back of Poochy, Yoshi’s dog companion who is also be goodest good boy of them all, while going across a lot of precarious lava and tight jumps, while also having a very small platform to go back to every time you land. All of this and more awaits you when you decide to go for 100%, and while I myself usually tend to 100% the games that I play, I just simply don’t like doing that with Yoshi games. I dunno, maybe it’s because of how it was a series I grew up with, and is near and dear to my heart, but I have always found this games to be a “chill” series, one that I could just play, run straight through a lot of the time, not having to worry about much else, and I don’t think I will ever change my mind on that stance. To be fair though, I am not saying that going for 100% in this game is a bad thing at all, because it is still perfectly doable, and quite the challenge, if you so wish to go for it, but it is just something I don’t think I will ever be likely to do that much whenever I go back to one of these games. Not to mention, the last time I did 100% percent a Yoshi game was with Crafted World, and, ah hah……………… NEVER AGAIN.

Overall, despite me not really getting into the whole idea of 100% this game at many given times, I am eternally grateful that this managed to be the first video game I ever played in my life, as not only is it a wonderful place to start for anybody, but it is also a fantastic game in many ways, having a wonderful art style, fantastic music, addicting and satisfying gameplay, and a sense of identity that the series would carry on its shoulders all the way to this day, which is all for the best in my opinion. I would definitely recommend it for those who have never played any Yoshi game before, as well as those who are just big fans of Yoshi in general, because if you somehow haven’t gotten the chance to play this for yourself, then you are clearly missing out, because it truly is one of the finest platformers from the 16-bit era. happy sigh..... man, it feels great to finally get to this game, after I had been planning it for so long. Although, now that I am done with all my gushing, I don’t have any funny gag to end the review on. Uh… obligatory Touch Fuzzy, Get Dizzy reference. There ya go, is that good enough? Have I won the Yoshi’s Island internet prize, and will people like me now?

Game #578

Hey, y’all remember that one Konami game, Contra? You know, that really fun run ‘n gun game where you and a friend can join together, blast apart a bunch of aliens, take on a bunch of ruthless, yet incredibly satisfying platforming challenges, and just have a grand ol’ time together? Yeah, weren’t all of those games great? Well… what if we just made a game that kinda takes all that and… ruins it? Like, it doesn’t necessarily make the game one of the absolute worst things in the world, but it just removes a lot of the elements that made the original game fun to begin with, and what you are left with is an empty shell that feels like it is trying to be Contra, but it just can’t quite get there. That, my friends………….. would be Contra: Rouge Corps, but that’s for another time, because today we are talking about Cyber-Lip instead.

I had never heard about this game before playing it today, and it didn’t really sound or look like the most appealing thing in the world. The few screenshots I had seen did look cool enough, even if it looked like it was trying a little too hard to be exactly like Contra, but nothing about what I was seeing was really telling me that I had to check this out. That is, until I found out that the game was developed by SNK, and if there is any chance that I can take to make fun of SNK, then you damn well know I am taking it. So, I downloaded it on totally legal software, played it, and realized that… yeah, this is literally just the poor man’s Contra. This game is like when you have some kid on the school playground, doing some cool shit that everyone else is impressed by, but then you have that one kid who then goes “Not impressed! I can do that too!”, and they try to do the exact same thing, but ends up slipping up and falling on their face, leading to all the other kids thinking they are a loser and going back to the cooler kid. That is essentially Cyber-Lip in a nutshell.

The story is as generic as the game itself, where in the year 2030, a supercomputer named Cyber-Lip that was created for the sole purpose of fending off an alien invasion suddenly goes haywire, turning evil and joining sides with the alien forces to take over the world, so it is up to androids Rick and Brook to set out and take both Cyber-Lip and the aliens down and save the world, which is about what you would expect from any Contra game or Contra-clone, so this all makes sense. The graphics are fine, looking like if SNK just took the visuals of Contra and slapped their own filter over it, which does look nice enough, but nothing too impressive or memorable, the music is alright, having plenty of tracks that fit with whatever is going on in the levels whenever they pop up, but it is, again, nothing too memorable or exciting, and the gameplay/control is… well, take a wild guess as to how it is.

The game is a 2D run ‘n gun game, where you take control of either Rick or Brook, go through a set of six and a half different stages across plenty of different boring environments, shoot down any moving thing that you see before they can get the jump on you using whatever kind of weapons you can find, gather plenty of different weapons for your gun, as well as additional support upgrades to help you on your way, and take on plenty of big, threatening bosses that do have the same amount of difficulty and strategy one would find in a Contra boss, while also forgetting to bring the charm along with it. A lot of it is pretty standard for the genre, and I imagine if this was someone’s first exposure to run ‘n gun games, they would have a great time with this, but for all of us who have played one or two of these before in our lives, this is nothing all too exciting or fun that you can’t get from other titles from before and since.

I will give the game credit, as there are some interesting ideas at play here that I did enjoy, things that was implemented here before Contra would do the same in their series. First off, in terms of the weapons, not only are there a lot to choose from that can be refueled inside of these rooms you will find throughout the levels (which is kind of pointless, but whatever), but you can even swap between all of the weapons whenever you get them, even after you die. It isn’t much, but it is very helpful just in case you wanna stick with a specific weapon throughout, and it makes dying less of a bitch, as you can jump right back in with a power up as if nothing happened at all. Secondly (spoilers for a game that is over 30 years old), I also really like the ending, where you end up destroying the Cyber-Lip computer, and the guy that has been giving you mission briefings the entire time reveals that he is one of the alien invaders, and now that we have killed the supercomputer, he and his race can come down and take over the planet for their own use. Not gonna lie, that’s a creative plot twist for a game made around this time, and a pretty grim ending too, which I can definitely respect a game like this for doing.

Unfortunately though, everything else is either incredibly lackluster or plagued with issues. The main gameplay itself is very uninspired, providing very little innovation to the run ‘n gun formula other than that weapon swapping thing I mentioned earlier, while also feeling like a downgrade in comparison to those games, such as with aiming, where you can only really aim in several different directions, rather then the full 8 you got from Contra, as well as with the movement, where it can feel really weird and janky to control at times, especially if you try to move and shoot at the same time with some certain weapons (because you know, how dare I try to move and shoot in a RUN AND GUN GAME). Not only that, but there is also, of course, the typical problems that these kinds of games loves to throw at you, such as arcade syndrome, where they will throw plenty of enemies at you to deal with while paired up with difficult platforming sections, and a boss rush at the end of the game, although this boss rush is thankfully not that much of a ball-ache compared to other games.

Out of all my complaints though, I think my biggest one would have to go to the game’s auto scrolling levels, because they are EVERYWHERE. Seriously, I think half of the levels in this game are auto scrollers, which completely kills the pacing of a game like this, where instead of having non-stop, explosive action taking out all of these enemies, the game puts a hand in front of your face, causing you to have to play at its pace, which is not something my fidgety-ass wants to deal with. Now, I don’t wanna throw auto scrolling levels right under the bus, because in some RARE cases, these can actually be decent enough and provide a good challenge, while also not feeling like that much of a pace breaker. However, when these levels do pop up and break the pace, you FEEL it, especially when it comes to this game.

Overall, despite some neat little quirks here and there and having a gameplay set-up that works well enough, this is definitely the poor man’s Contra in every sense of the word, trying to imitate and copy everything that those games did while adding some more to it, while also completely missing several of the elements that made Contra fun and wonderful to begin with. I would recommend it for those who are HUGE run ‘n gun fanatics, as well as those who maybe wanna get into the genre somehow, because the game certainly isn’t bad, but trust me, you could do WAY better than this, even with the games that came out before it. But you know what, at the end of the day, if I were to give SNK and Cyber-Lip any credit for doing anything whatsoever, I will give them this………… this game is a hell of a lot better than Ikari Warriors. It shows that maybe, just one day, SNK will actually make a good video game that isn’t a fighting game….. or one that isn’t named Metal Slug.

Game #577

One of the most odd, yet strangely charming games to come from Nintendo back in the days of the NES era has to be the original StarTropics, which I thought was pretty good back when I played it. Despite how linear the game was for an entry in the adventure genre, how frustrating the control/game could get, and how there was one part of the game that made it literally impossible to get through without a guide, it was able to win me over anyway with its fun gameplay, strange dash of charm, and great visuals for the time, making for somewhat of a hidden gem from the system back in the day. Then again though, most fans of the NES probably know of the game’s existence, so I guess it isn’t TOO much of a hidden gem… but, what most people probably know is that that game actually ended up getting a sequel. I didn’t know either for the longest time until like a couple years ago, but now that I did know about it, and since it has been a while since I reviewed the original game, I figured it was about time I returned back to the Cola Universe and take down Zoda’s Revenge: StarTropics II.

As I had mentioned previously in the last StarTropics review, this sequel was a game that Nintendo pretty much sent out to die back when it came out. It came out exclusively for the NES, in America, in 1994, when the SNES and Genesis were the hottest things on the market, and nobody wanted to play OLD, DUMB, and SMELLY NES games anymore. So, naturally, not many people have played it, and thus, it has become yet another forgotten Nintendo title amongst a plethora of them that they just have stored away in a vault somewhere, never to be re-released again. But hey, even with all of that aside, it’s gotta at least be good, right? I mean, the original game was pretty good, so surely Nintendo could take everything that worked in that game, tweak around the bad parts of the original, and make a much superior title, right? Well, that is exactly what they did!......... somewhat. If I were to rank this alongside the sequel, as it just BARELY comes out as the superior title, as it is still a very fun and charming game to play, having plenty of what made the original game so appealing and enjoyable, while also fixing several of the issues that game initially had… while also ignoring others.

The story is very similar, yet somewhat different from the previous game, where Mike Jones, after enjoying time off from what he had to go through in the previous game, gets contacted by the princess of the Argonians known as Mica, who helps him and Dr. Jones solve a cipher that they found recently, which ends up sending Mike back in time all the way to the stone age. Sometime after this while traveling to other points in time, he discovers that Zoda, the villain from the last game, is back once again, wrecking havoc all across time and space in order to wipe out the Argonians, so it is up to Mike once again to stop him and his evil plans before it is too late. It is a lazy set-up, one that took a dart and threw it at a board full of overused cliches to see what gimmick it can use, but it still manages to be stupid and charming enough to where you buy everything that is going on regardless of how weird it is.

The graphics are… practically unchanged from the original, using the exact same look, sprites, and animations from the previous game, but it is still very pleasant to look at, and the brand new environments and characters that we do see throughout the game are pleasing to the eyes, the music is good, having plenty of simple, yet enjoyable tracks to jam out to, as well as some returning themes from the original game, which is always nice to hear, the control is INFINITELY better this time around, with controlling on the main adventure segments feeling about the same, but the control in the dungeon is a massive improvement, giving you full movement in eight directions, making navigating through caves and fighting monsters much more manageable as a result, and the gameplay remains practically identical to the original game, feeling more like a standalone expansion to the first game more than anything else, but hey, that isn’t usually a bad thing, and it isn’t a bad thing in this case.

The game is yet another 8-bit adventure game, where you once again take control of the generic loser known as Mike Jones, go through many different locations across time full of many different colorful characters to meet, take out many different foul fiends who will do their best at impeding your progress at every turn, gather plenty of different health items, tools, additional weapons, upgrades to your arsenal, and Tetris pieces (no, seriously) that will help you out throughout your journey, and take on plenty of bosses that you will face throughout the game, which are half and half, where some of them are fine, and can be fun to fight at times, and as for the other half…. sigh, we’ll get to them later. If you have played the original StarTropics, then congratulations! You have played Zoda’s Revenge: StarTropics II as well without even realizing it, as the two games are practically identical in the way that they look, sound, and work, but this one manages to stand above the previous by keeping the same fun gameplay intact, improving on several elements that I have mentioned, and also keeping that same level of charm that made the original game so enjoyable.

One of the biggest aspects about this game is that, rather than traveling to many different islands throughout your journey, you are, again, traveling to many different points in time, going to many different locations that do make the game feel more fresh and exciting compared to the first. Yeah, all of these locations are very typical for what you would find in a time travel story, such as the stone age, medieval times, the wild west and so on, but I still found myself having fun traveling through them and seeing what they had to offer regardless. This also applies to the many characters that you interact with throughout your journey, with a handful of them being well-known individuals from media and history, such as Sherlock Holmes, Cleopatra, Leonardo Da Vinci, and several others, which can lead to some conversations with them that are, admittedly, really stupid, but I dunno, I can’t help but smile at a lot of it just for how odd it is for a Nintendo title to do.

Aside from that though, everything else is the same as before: you have the overworlds where you walk around, talk to people, solve a puzzle here and there, and get access to caves and dungeons, where you take on monsters, jump on switches, gather plenty of different treasures, and cry whenever you eventually lose. For those that have played through the original game, they will feel right back at home with this game, as not only does the gameplay remain mostly unchanged, but the way the game looks makes it so that you can easily get adapted to the situation, and start blazing through it like your life depends on it. Thankfully, all of this still managed to be a lot of fun to do, as I loved going through these many different periods of time, talking to these NPCs to see the weird-ass things they say, fighting these monsters, and finding these Tetris pieces, especially with the previously mentioned improved control for the dungeon sections helping out immensely.

I can’t say that everything about this game was improved over the second one, because in some instances, I think it could actually be seen as a downgrade compared to the original. For starters, this game is somehow EVEN MORE LINEAR than the original, with what to do and where to go being spelled out to you in almost every part of the game, with there being only one or two instances where I would go off the beaten path to get an extra life heart or something. This isn’t exactly bad for those who are a fan of more straightforward games like this, but given the fact that the game is in the adventure genre, I wish it felt more like… you know, an adventure, rather then just simply being a museum tour that leads you down a destined path, only to dump you off at the gift shop once it is all done with you.

Trust me though, that doesn’t even matter to me compared to my main problem with this game, and that would be with the bosses. The difficulty from the previous game is still intact here, and while I didn’t feel it too much when it came to the main dungeon parts of the game, I certainly did feel it with some of these bosses, because good god, these ones that I am talking about are TERRIBLE. I think the worst boss in the entire game has to go to the Zoda clone that you fight around the half-way point, where you have to fight him while constantly being moved around on these arrow platforms, which can make even trying to ready yourself to attack the guy a huge pain in the ass. Not to mention, he is also constantly teleporting and sending his own attacks out at you, so not only do you have to worry about him killing you, but you also have to worry about dodging his attacks, positioning yourself correctly, and firing plenty of shots at him, WHILE constantly being moved by these goddamn arrow platforms! There are several other bosses that are pretty bad too, but not to this extent, and when you reach the end of the game, where there is a boss rush waiting for you before you fight the big bad himself, you get to re-experience all of these god-awful fights back-to-back with little changed from the last encounters…………… OH, WHAT… FUN.

Overall, despite the game’s increased linearity and some truly abysmal boss fights, this game manages to be a decent enough successor to the original StarTropics in every other way, and is a really good game as a whole, having plenty of goofy and weird things to see and do, plenty of dungeons for you to take on, and enough of that dumb dated 90s charm that you can’t help but love whenever you experience it. I would recommend it for those who were big fans of the original StarTropics, as well as those who wanted to see what else the system had up its sleeve near the end of its life cycle, because despite being pretty much fully ignored back when it first came out, it does manage to be fun enough if you were to go back and see what everyone was missing out on back then. Unfortunately though, this would be the last that we would ever see from the StarTropics franchise, as there would never be any new game in the series, remakes, spin-offs, or what have you from this point onwards… which is kinda sad, to be honest, but eh, it isn’t exactly a terrible loss. Plus, I don’t want them to try to bring this series back from the dead, considering that Nintendo are usually very split down the middle when it comes to these revivals. On one hand, you could end up with another Kid Icarus: Uprising, and on the other, you could get another Metroid Prime: Federation Force, and I am not willing to take that risk!

Game #576

This is yet another Kirby game I had yet to play prior to this Kirbyathon. I was honestly feeling a 6 most of the time I was playing, and was thinking this is the best Kirby spin-off thus far (after Dream Course). Then the endgame happened.

Let's start with the positives first though. This is basically Kirby breakout and it's generally pretty fun. You break blocks by bouncing Kirby against the paddles, typical breakout basically. The twist here, besides being Kirby themed ofc, is 4 of Kirby's staple copy abilities are in the game and used as power-ups. Stone let's you destroy anything directly below you, burn anything directly above you, needle stops you in place briefly and let's you cling back onto a bumper and aim again and spark bounces you sporadically destroying any block in your path more effectively. This was probably the coolest part of the game. Like Dream Course, the copy abilities are implemented super well into the actual gameplay.

Each level also has a boss at the end, like Pinball Land, but unlike that game I was actually able to beat (almost) all of them this time around. They can be pretty fun but watch out you don't get thrown into the spikes. Luckily in the stage prior to the boss, you can get a sneak-peak at what the boss will be as well as the opportunity to get safety blocks that cover the spikes in the boss stage.

The OST was alright, I saw some reviews saying it was really good but I can't say any of the songs stood out imo.

Now for the endgame, the later stages can be quite annoying with their block placement and the use of 4 bumpers around the screen. The 10th stage, I even decided to save state past that first section cuz it was just so obnoxious. The hit detection on the bumpers can be wonky, which I can't discredit the game too much since it's still a Gameboy game, however it still led to some frustration in the endgame. That plus you can't even play the final level and get the true ending without getting a certain score threshold in each stage. I did this only once in stage 9, and it was by complete accident. I tried to beat the required score a couple of times in stage 1, but I think there's also a secret time requirement (from one of the reviews I read on here) and with how random the game can be with being able to hit blocks in time, yeah no thanks. I know they did this, so it would make you replay the game a bunch, however it's still a bummer.

Overall, it's a decent little game however the true ending being locked to a somewhat frustrating 100% and the endgame levels being kinda frustrating brings it down a bit. It's a fun little time waster, and definitely better than Pinball Land. And yeah, this is yet another game I technically wasn't able to beat due to the 100% requirement. At least I beat every other stage in the game otherwise.

For the longest time, I have believed that, in order to get the most out of any video game, you have to experience it in its most true, original form, and by that, I mean you would get the most out of a game by playing it through its original release on its original system. While I don’t agree with that now, I can kinda see where young me would come from with that argument, because after all, having the physical copy of a game to play on the actual system would probably leave a much bigger impact on the player rather than, say, just loading it up on your emulator like any other game and playing it from there. However, now that I am a true pirate at heart, I have come to learn that you can not only experience a hell of a lot more games with the emulation, but you can also hypothetically enhance the experience thanks to all the quirks that come with it. This isn’t even limited to emulation either, as there have been plenty of collections or re-releases of a game out there that do add several features that you would typically see from an emulator, which ends up ultimately making the process of playing the game that much less painful. That became all too clear to me whenever I had decided to play through the original Turrican.

Truth be told, I had no idea that this was a thing for the longest time, as I’m sure most of you probably don’t know what it is either. The only way I ended up finding out about it was when I saw some people logging it on this website a long time ago, and it did somewhat catch my eye, so I looked it up, and it actually looked like it could be pretty fun. So, I went ahead and decided to play the original game… after a long time of waiting (don’t ever change, Mega), and based on what I have played, there are many ways that I could absolutely tear this thing to shreds, as it has a lot of issues. However, at the end of the day, I ended up enjoying it enough not just because of some solid elements that do shine through all the rubble, but also with the way that I played the game that did make a huge difference, and will definitely play a big factor into how you enjoy it.

The story is somewhat generic for the time the game was made, where there was once a peaceful, man-made world in a distant galaxy known as Alterra, which was held together primarily with the help of the MORGUL unit, who all of a sudden decides to rebel against the humans due to a freak accident, so in response, the remaining humans created Turrican, a mutant warrior who is given the sole task of taking out MORGUL and taking back Alterra for them, so he sets out to do just that. None of that is explained within the game itself, and it is definitely one of those plots you can just throw to the wayside with no care in the world, as it is basically just copied and pasted form plenty of other games, just with a few words changed around to make it sound original.

The graphics are good, with Turrican himself having plenty of detail, as well as all of the environments and some of the enemies, but most of it does look pretty generic for a platformer made around this time, the music ranges from being pretty decent to pretty bad, and while I can’t say I really grew attached to any of the tracks found here, there were definitely several tracks that I would much rather listen to over others, and the gameplay/control is somewhat typical for a platformer from the early 90s, but it does mix in plenty of elements that do make it stand on its own, even if those legs that it is standing with are pretty frail and could snap in half at any second.

The game is a 2D action platformer, where you take control of Turrican, go through a set of thirteen different nonlinear levels through several different worlds, take down plenty of different enemies and get through several parts of the world using any of the weapons that you have at your disposal, gather MANY different power ups that can do a wide array of things, including healing yourself, upgrading your weapons, giving you ammo for said weapons, and so on, and take on plenty of bosses that will surely put your skills to the test, both in terms of how much you can dodge and attack, but also in how much bullshit can you put up with before calling it quits. Like I mentioned before, while a lot of this is pretty typical stuff, there are definitely a lot of combining elements that do make this game stand out from a lot of the others on other systems, even if it is held back massively due to all of its faults.

Starting with the good though, I have to bring up Turrican’s moveset, as he is quite possibly the most versatile video game protagonists that I have ever seen from the early 90s. From the start of the game, you already have access to a ridiculous amount of weapons, and as you keep going, your arsenal only builds from there, with you being able to shoot a regular shot, throw out large bombs, place mines to blow up enemies, shoot a fiery laser, roll into a spikey ball and speed around the place, and plenty of other things I didn’t even mention. That is a FUCK-TON of things you can do right out the gate, and while this may seem like too much at times (which it can be), a lot of these weapons and skills become very helpful later down the road, not only in terms of taking out enemies, but also with getting through several areas, which is really appreciated, along with several areas that change up the type of gameplay you will handle, and thus, how you will go about using these weapons.

What is also pretty noteworthy is how one goes about progressing through the game, as it is basically a mix between your standard action platformer and something like Metroid. You have one clear goal in mind, and that is to get to the end of each stage and/or fight a boss, but a lot of the levels are pretty big, allowing you to explore many different pathways to figure out precisely where you need to go. Sure, there are some levels that remove this aspect entirely, and there aren’t really too many areas that you would want to go exploring in other than the one that takes you to the end, but it isn’t as if exploring around is a complete waste of time, because you can find a MOTHERLOAD of power ups by searching around a lot of the time, making it worth it to go out of your way in plenty of instances.

Despite all of that though, none of that can make up for the game’s problems, because MY GOD, there are a lot of them. In fact, there are so much of them that we are gonna pull a Mega Man 1 here and do a quick lightning round of all of them, because if I were to discuss each point in depth, we would be here all day. pulls out sheet of paper and clears throat............ while the levels are pretty expansive and rewarding to explore, the level design itself is pretty shit, full of plenty of different traps and unfair sections that hinder your progress because of you can’t see everything clearly, you have no invincibility frames, meaning that you can go from having full health to none in the blink of an eye because you didn’t notice that one spike pixel touching your ass, there are several segments throughout the game where you need to navigate through very tight spaces while using your tools to help you go further, and trust me, doing this is much easier said than done, especially when you are fumbling around like an idiot most of the time, you are on a time limit for every stage, where it does give you plenty of time in the first couple of stages, but later down the road, it gets to the point where if you take just one wrong turn, that’ll cost you one life, and finally, the bosses can be a pain in the dick, taking up way too much room and not giving you any sort of fair opening to get shots in without getting hurt yourself, and finally, there are enemies all over the goddamn place, making it so that you will never get out of a fight unscathed, and you will always need to watch around the corner to make sure you won’t die………………. yeah. I’m pretty sure there’s one or two other problems I could’ve brought up, but I think that should be plenty to prove to you that the original version of this game FUCKING SUCKS, and I don’t know how anyone would’ve gotten away with releasing something like this back in the day.

However, note that I said the ORIGINAL version of this game sucks, which brings me back to the point that I brought up from the very beginning. You may have been wondering, if I think this game sucks and have been bitching about it for a lot of this review, why did I still give it three out of five stars? Well, that is because of one saving grace that made this entire game bearable to play: re-releases. I played through this entire thing using the Turrican Flashback collection on the Switch, which not only has several Turrican games included on it, but it also updates in them in a lot of the ways you would typically expect from one of these collections, such as customizable controls, save states, a rewind feature, and so on. All of these features, especially the rewind feature, basically saved this entire game for me, as whenever I did encounter a particularly frustrating section or an obstacle I couldn’t quite clear on my first go, I would just have to hit that rewind button or save state button so that I could give it another shot.

Now, some of you may criticize me for using these methods in order to play this game, and you may question how I can call this game good with those features present, to which I say that, because of these features, the game turned out to be a lot more enjoyable. There are aspects of this game that I did genuinely really like, and there are a lot of aspects here that, if treated with better care, could’ve made the game so much better, but because of these functions, I am able to enjoy the game at a reasonable pace with a reasonable amount of difficulty, to where I never ended up getting too frustrated and I managed to enjoy myself by the end of it. If you aren’t convinced by that, then do yourself a favor, and try to actually play the game as it was originally intended, with no save states or rewind feature whatsoever, beat the whole thing like that, and get back to me on how you feel then.

Overall, despite its many, many, MANY problems, I ended up enjoying my time with Turrican regardless of all that, not just because of that shit that I just mentioned, but also because of all the different weapons you can mess around with, the fun combat whenever you manage to get a proper rhythm going, and some genuinely fun levels that do keep you on your toes to watch out for what comes ahead. I would definitely recommend it for those who are into old-school platformers, but if you do decide to try it out for yourself, PLEASE do so using an emulator, or that collection that I mentioned earlier. It may not be the most official way to play the game, but it will definitely be the best way you can play it, and hey, who knows: you may end up liking it as much as I did. I just hope that, for the sequel, they end up toning down on the bullshit so that I wouldn’t need to rely on that stuff religiously in order to have a good time. Although, let’s be real, those silly 90s devs probably aren’t gonna do that, so I will prepare myself for the inevitable ass-whooping I will get from that game in the future.

Game #575