It may look like one of those cheap titles that you would find at the bottom of the bargain bin at the store, but for what it was, Snow Bros. turned out to be a really fun game, with colorful and fun visuals that keep you engaged the entire time, simple and fun gameplay that anyone could get behind, and plenty of power-ups that were fun to use against the many foes that you would face. I still stand by the opinion that that game is even better than the original Bubble Bobble, since it was pretty much a clone of that game, and I will gladly be burned alive for having that opinion by anyone that says otherwise. And hey, it managed to find moderate success, not just through its original arcade release, but also from the several ports that it would get soon afterwards, which meant that a sequel was bound to happen. Oddly though, this sequel didn’t come out until four years later, and it would come out to the public with the dumbest-ass title I have ever seen for one of these games, Snow Bros. 2: With New Elves.
In a complete inverse of patterns for me, I generally wasn’t really too keen on getting to this game after completing the original game, and I don’t really know why to be honest. I did love the original game, so you would expect me to be more then willing to jump on into the sequel to see how it is, but I dunno, I don’t know if I trust Toaplan to capture that same spark twice like Taito managed to. Nevertheless, I went into the game with an open mind like I do with most of the games I play, and I’m glad I did, because it turned out to be a pretty good game after all. I wouldn’t say it is quite as good as the original game, but it still manages to be a pretty fun time that fans of the previous game will be able to have a blast with from start to finish.
The story is pretty much the exact same as the previous game, where the fair princess of the land is captured by a sinister alien menace, so it is up to Nick (and not Tom, because who needs the second bro in a game called Snow BROS., am I right?) and his three new buddies to set out to save the day by defeating this alien menace and getting the princess back, which I would comment on as being generic and lazy, but I’m still hung up on whatever happened to Tom to care that much. The graphics are pretty great, looking somewhat similar to that of the original game, but having much more creative designs for all the enemies, levels, and bosses, although sometimes they can get a little TOO creative, which I will get to in a bit, the music is just as energetic, lively, and exciting to listen to as the first game, and there are quite a good few tracks to find here, even if none of them stuck out to me personally, and the gameplay/control does the exact opposite of what Bubble Bobble did with its sequel by sticking pretty closely to its roots, not changing things up too drastically and building upon the base gameplay, which was probably the best option they could’ve gone with in this case.
The game is a 2D platformer, where you take control of either Nick, Bobby, Roy, or Richard, go through a set of six different worlds, each containing their own sets of levels for you to conquer, take out every enemy you see using whatever tools you have at your disposal before they can take you down, gather plenty of different power ups to make yourself stronger and give yourself a better chance at surviving whatever may be coming up, and several bosses that will not only test your skill in terms of speed and reflexes, but will also terrify you as you look on in horror at what they look like, causing you to have nightmares when go to bed at night……….. seriously, there is a lot of unsettling shit here. Like with Truxton II, Snow Bros. 2 doesn’t do that much to try to reinvent what the original game is all about, leaving things very familiar for those who did play the original game, while also still providing a little more things here to where it doesn’t feel like a complete copy of its predecessor.
Unlike most of these kinds of games, where they expand upon the moves that you can pull off and nothing else, this game manages to somewhat evolve both the moves you pull off AND its approach to implementing platforming. Most of the levels have you doing the typical Bubble Bobble stuff, which is always still very fun to do, but now there are one or two levels here and there that will require you to climb to the top of this tower to avoid death from some spikes or lava below, and while it can be tricky to nail some certain jumps at times, because your jump still really sucks in this game, it was a nice change of pace from the regular levels when they come up. Aside from that though, when it comes to the enhancements made to the powerups, there aren’t too many that I could notice, but all of the powerups from the previous game do make a return, which is great to see, and there is even a new super form that you can find which you can use to take out all the enemies in a stage lickety-split upon using it. Mix all of that together with some cute little cutscenes in-between each world, and what you have here is an all around solid romp that you can easily have fun with, now with up to four players at a time, which I can only imagine must be the most chaotic shit in the world.
However, despite how solid the game is for the most part, it is also very short, being just as long as the original game, if not shorter, as there aren’t as many levels as there were in the previous game, and they don’t take long to beat at all, which does kind of suck, especially when it comes to those platforming levels that I mentioned earlier. Again, these stages can be really fun, but there are only two of them in the entire game, and they each count as a sole world, which means that there were a couple of instances where I would complete a world, move onto the next one, complete one level there, and then go onto the next one just like that, almost like there was no purpose to that world whatsoever. Ignoring that though, the only other critiques that I could give the game is that it may feel a little too same-y to the original game at plenty of times, and the added dash of nightmare fuel certainly didn’t help things out either.
Overall though, despite how short, same-y, and creepy it is, this still managed to be a very solid sequel to that of the original game, and a pretty damn good time as a whole, feeling like a proper evolution by expanding upon all the elements found in that original game, adding some new features at times to keep things fresh, and still having the weird, yet lovable charm to make people wanna go back to it after that four-year wait. I would recommend it for those who were big fans of the original Snow Bros., as well as those who are fans of any of the other Bubble Bobble type games out there, because while this one isn’t so much different from those others, it can still be just as chaotic and fun as any other game of its kind, and that’s all that really matters at the end of the day. Unfortunately though, this tale does end on a bit of a tragic note, because this would be the last game ever made by Toaplan before they would shut their doors, never to be seen again, which is definitely a shame to be sure. But hey, Truxton and Snow Bros. are both making a comeback pretty soon, so that is something to get excited about at least…………. even though both of those games are probably gonna suck.
Game #585
In a complete inverse of patterns for me, I generally wasn’t really too keen on getting to this game after completing the original game, and I don’t really know why to be honest. I did love the original game, so you would expect me to be more then willing to jump on into the sequel to see how it is, but I dunno, I don’t know if I trust Toaplan to capture that same spark twice like Taito managed to. Nevertheless, I went into the game with an open mind like I do with most of the games I play, and I’m glad I did, because it turned out to be a pretty good game after all. I wouldn’t say it is quite as good as the original game, but it still manages to be a pretty fun time that fans of the previous game will be able to have a blast with from start to finish.
The story is pretty much the exact same as the previous game, where the fair princess of the land is captured by a sinister alien menace, so it is up to Nick (and not Tom, because who needs the second bro in a game called Snow BROS., am I right?) and his three new buddies to set out to save the day by defeating this alien menace and getting the princess back, which I would comment on as being generic and lazy, but I’m still hung up on whatever happened to Tom to care that much. The graphics are pretty great, looking somewhat similar to that of the original game, but having much more creative designs for all the enemies, levels, and bosses, although sometimes they can get a little TOO creative, which I will get to in a bit, the music is just as energetic, lively, and exciting to listen to as the first game, and there are quite a good few tracks to find here, even if none of them stuck out to me personally, and the gameplay/control does the exact opposite of what Bubble Bobble did with its sequel by sticking pretty closely to its roots, not changing things up too drastically and building upon the base gameplay, which was probably the best option they could’ve gone with in this case.
The game is a 2D platformer, where you take control of either Nick, Bobby, Roy, or Richard, go through a set of six different worlds, each containing their own sets of levels for you to conquer, take out every enemy you see using whatever tools you have at your disposal before they can take you down, gather plenty of different power ups to make yourself stronger and give yourself a better chance at surviving whatever may be coming up, and several bosses that will not only test your skill in terms of speed and reflexes, but will also terrify you as you look on in horror at what they look like, causing you to have nightmares when go to bed at night……….. seriously, there is a lot of unsettling shit here. Like with Truxton II, Snow Bros. 2 doesn’t do that much to try to reinvent what the original game is all about, leaving things very familiar for those who did play the original game, while also still providing a little more things here to where it doesn’t feel like a complete copy of its predecessor.
Unlike most of these kinds of games, where they expand upon the moves that you can pull off and nothing else, this game manages to somewhat evolve both the moves you pull off AND its approach to implementing platforming. Most of the levels have you doing the typical Bubble Bobble stuff, which is always still very fun to do, but now there are one or two levels here and there that will require you to climb to the top of this tower to avoid death from some spikes or lava below, and while it can be tricky to nail some certain jumps at times, because your jump still really sucks in this game, it was a nice change of pace from the regular levels when they come up. Aside from that though, when it comes to the enhancements made to the powerups, there aren’t too many that I could notice, but all of the powerups from the previous game do make a return, which is great to see, and there is even a new super form that you can find which you can use to take out all the enemies in a stage lickety-split upon using it. Mix all of that together with some cute little cutscenes in-between each world, and what you have here is an all around solid romp that you can easily have fun with, now with up to four players at a time, which I can only imagine must be the most chaotic shit in the world.
However, despite how solid the game is for the most part, it is also very short, being just as long as the original game, if not shorter, as there aren’t as many levels as there were in the previous game, and they don’t take long to beat at all, which does kind of suck, especially when it comes to those platforming levels that I mentioned earlier. Again, these stages can be really fun, but there are only two of them in the entire game, and they each count as a sole world, which means that there were a couple of instances where I would complete a world, move onto the next one, complete one level there, and then go onto the next one just like that, almost like there was no purpose to that world whatsoever. Ignoring that though, the only other critiques that I could give the game is that it may feel a little too same-y to the original game at plenty of times, and the added dash of nightmare fuel certainly didn’t help things out either.
Overall though, despite how short, same-y, and creepy it is, this still managed to be a very solid sequel to that of the original game, and a pretty damn good time as a whole, feeling like a proper evolution by expanding upon all the elements found in that original game, adding some new features at times to keep things fresh, and still having the weird, yet lovable charm to make people wanna go back to it after that four-year wait. I would recommend it for those who were big fans of the original Snow Bros., as well as those who are fans of any of the other Bubble Bobble type games out there, because while this one isn’t so much different from those others, it can still be just as chaotic and fun as any other game of its kind, and that’s all that really matters at the end of the day. Unfortunately though, this tale does end on a bit of a tragic note, because this would be the last game ever made by Toaplan before they would shut their doors, never to be seen again, which is definitely a shame to be sure. But hey, Truxton and Snow Bros. are both making a comeback pretty soon, so that is something to get excited about at least…………. even though both of those games are probably gonna suck.
Game #585