ShaggyTheHippy
1988
Game #75 of my challenge
This game is the second of the series and oh boy I'm glad I haven't play the first one. It was made by Sega and I guess that back in the days, there were an audience for that sequel. In 1989, ACE magazine said this was one of the best on the MegaDrive, alongside Altered Beast and Thunder Force 2 (all games that I've reviewed and though it was OK).
The plot is pretty simple : The main character receives a call to help to rescue the Fantasy World (really not an inspired name for a world). Your character goes alone to defeat those evil forces. There is nothing else for this story.
The visual can look good and ugly at the same time. Some enemies looks really good (like the knights and robots) but damn there are some ugly mobs. When I say they don't look good, sometimes, I couldn't tell what it supposed to be. The background is really basic. It's a checkered floor that moves really fast with a screenshot of a basic scene. The music is pretty repetitive except the credit song. That song was really the best of the whole game.
The control are even simpler than other games that I've played so far : One button to shoot and the D-pad to move. That's it, there's nothing else. You can move your character all around the screen. I have not much to say about it.
The gameplay is kind of a space shooter that the level move toward you. Let me tell you that shooting stuff is really hard. The only reason is that the perspective is clunky and that made it really hard to aim. It's the same thing for dodging stuff. There's some big pillars that can't be destroyed and you need to dodge them. It was really hard to know your distances to dodge them efficiency, Sometimes, it throw you some cheap shot by putting enemies in front of them and because of the perspective, you couldn't see them. There's 12 levels and at the end of each level, you go up against a boss. Some of them are really confusing to know what to aim (especially the Death boss). There's a couple of bonus stages between them and once you beat all 12 stages, you need to do a boss rush. Once you defeat the Boss rush, you go up against the final boss. He resemble at your character, but he can teleport. He's kind of annoying to go up against.
This game was ok at best to play against, but there's some levels that game me a tiny bit of motion sickness (the reason is that the checkered floor is also at a ceiling). I do not recommend it unless you are simply curious about a Megadrive game.
This game is the second of the series and oh boy I'm glad I haven't play the first one. It was made by Sega and I guess that back in the days, there were an audience for that sequel. In 1989, ACE magazine said this was one of the best on the MegaDrive, alongside Altered Beast and Thunder Force 2 (all games that I've reviewed and though it was OK).
The plot is pretty simple : The main character receives a call to help to rescue the Fantasy World (really not an inspired name for a world). Your character goes alone to defeat those evil forces. There is nothing else for this story.
The visual can look good and ugly at the same time. Some enemies looks really good (like the knights and robots) but damn there are some ugly mobs. When I say they don't look good, sometimes, I couldn't tell what it supposed to be. The background is really basic. It's a checkered floor that moves really fast with a screenshot of a basic scene. The music is pretty repetitive except the credit song. That song was really the best of the whole game.
The control are even simpler than other games that I've played so far : One button to shoot and the D-pad to move. That's it, there's nothing else. You can move your character all around the screen. I have not much to say about it.
The gameplay is kind of a space shooter that the level move toward you. Let me tell you that shooting stuff is really hard. The only reason is that the perspective is clunky and that made it really hard to aim. It's the same thing for dodging stuff. There's some big pillars that can't be destroyed and you need to dodge them. It was really hard to know your distances to dodge them efficiency, Sometimes, it throw you some cheap shot by putting enemies in front of them and because of the perspective, you couldn't see them. There's 12 levels and at the end of each level, you go up against a boss. Some of them are really confusing to know what to aim (especially the Death boss). There's a couple of bonus stages between them and once you beat all 12 stages, you need to do a boss rush. Once you defeat the Boss rush, you go up against the final boss. He resemble at your character, but he can teleport. He's kind of annoying to go up against.
This game was ok at best to play against, but there's some levels that game me a tiny bit of motion sickness (the reason is that the checkered floor is also at a ceiling). I do not recommend it unless you are simply curious about a Megadrive game.
1988
Game #74 of my challenge.
I'm so glad that I reached a really good classic game that changed gaming as a whole. A lot of marketing was put into this game back in the days (a whole movie was dedicated for it). This entry brought a whole lot of innovation to the franchise and it became the blueprint of all other Mario games going forward. Super Mario Bros.3 is the 4th entry of the classic Mario's (because lost levels wasn't numbered) and boy it was a fun time.
The plot has a twist a little bit different this time : The mushroom kingdom is taken control by the seven Koopalings (bowser's kids). They separated into 7 worlds and stole the magic wands from the king of that kingdom. They used the wand on them to transform them into animals. Peach (sorry, I meant Princess Toadstool) ask Mario and Luigi to go save those kings to restore peace in the kingdom. The theme for this game is like a play, since at the beginning of the launch menu, there's a curtain that opens to tell the player that the play has started.
The visual of this game aged really well. All the enemies are clear and different, the level is distinctive, so there's no confusion of what you can interact with and all powerup can be recognize really easily. The game is super colorful and that makes it super charming because of it. A lot of enemies became staples since this game like the Chain Chomps, Dry bones, Boos, Thwomp and many more. It even introduced the Koopalings for the first time and became iconic bosses in the series. Each worlds are really distinct from one another since they all have their own theme. Also, the music is also really iconic. The composer did an excellent job to creates a real banger. My top 3 songs would be the Underground theme, Hammer Bros. Battle and the Bowser battle.
The controls of this game are simple : one button to jump and one button to run. This run button can also hold items in your hands. Those control are so crisp. They are really responsive and what is really nice compare of any other platformer before this one is that you can control the momentum in the air. All future platformer learn a lot from the early platformers. Something new in this game is the P-Meter. With this meter, you can know when you reached your top speed when running. This meter will also affect some power-ups in the game when you reach top speed.
The gameplay introduce a lot of staples mechanics that will be put in future Mario games. First of all, you have a level selection screen. This is a nice addition since you don't need to do every levels if you want to. You can choose your own path. You can also choose which world you want to play in if you collect the flutes. This makes the game easier to go where you want to go since there's no save files integrated in the cartridge. Another great addition that they put in the world selection is to give yourself some power-ups before starting a level. You collect those throughout the game and that can help the player to beat certain levels (or give you access to certain paths in the stage selection). Each world introduce some new mechanics and each levels feels unique. This makes the game fresh all the time. I think one thing that everyone enjoy form this game are the power-ups. You have the classics like the mushroom, fire flower and the star. You now have a whole bunch of new one like the frog suit, the boots, the hammer suit or the beloved Tanooki suit.
All the world boss are super charming and makes those Koopaling really unique. The final boss is really different for the time since it's more strategies instead of only hurting him. I should also mention that this game is filled with secrets. One of my favorite is that when you play 2 players, if you go on the same completed stage, you go in a battle mode of the original Mario Bros arcade game.
This game is the definition of fun on a cartridge. Yes there are some difficult levels in the game, but completing them are really satisfying. This is a must play for everyone that consider themselves as gamers.
I'm so glad that I reached a really good classic game that changed gaming as a whole. A lot of marketing was put into this game back in the days (a whole movie was dedicated for it). This entry brought a whole lot of innovation to the franchise and it became the blueprint of all other Mario games going forward. Super Mario Bros.3 is the 4th entry of the classic Mario's (because lost levels wasn't numbered) and boy it was a fun time.
The plot has a twist a little bit different this time : The mushroom kingdom is taken control by the seven Koopalings (bowser's kids). They separated into 7 worlds and stole the magic wands from the king of that kingdom. They used the wand on them to transform them into animals. Peach (sorry, I meant Princess Toadstool) ask Mario and Luigi to go save those kings to restore peace in the kingdom. The theme for this game is like a play, since at the beginning of the launch menu, there's a curtain that opens to tell the player that the play has started.
The visual of this game aged really well. All the enemies are clear and different, the level is distinctive, so there's no confusion of what you can interact with and all powerup can be recognize really easily. The game is super colorful and that makes it super charming because of it. A lot of enemies became staples since this game like the Chain Chomps, Dry bones, Boos, Thwomp and many more. It even introduced the Koopalings for the first time and became iconic bosses in the series. Each worlds are really distinct from one another since they all have their own theme. Also, the music is also really iconic. The composer did an excellent job to creates a real banger. My top 3 songs would be the Underground theme, Hammer Bros. Battle and the Bowser battle.
The controls of this game are simple : one button to jump and one button to run. This run button can also hold items in your hands. Those control are so crisp. They are really responsive and what is really nice compare of any other platformer before this one is that you can control the momentum in the air. All future platformer learn a lot from the early platformers. Something new in this game is the P-Meter. With this meter, you can know when you reached your top speed when running. This meter will also affect some power-ups in the game when you reach top speed.
The gameplay introduce a lot of staples mechanics that will be put in future Mario games. First of all, you have a level selection screen. This is a nice addition since you don't need to do every levels if you want to. You can choose your own path. You can also choose which world you want to play in if you collect the flutes. This makes the game easier to go where you want to go since there's no save files integrated in the cartridge. Another great addition that they put in the world selection is to give yourself some power-ups before starting a level. You collect those throughout the game and that can help the player to beat certain levels (or give you access to certain paths in the stage selection). Each world introduce some new mechanics and each levels feels unique. This makes the game fresh all the time. I think one thing that everyone enjoy form this game are the power-ups. You have the classics like the mushroom, fire flower and the star. You now have a whole bunch of new one like the frog suit, the boots, the hammer suit or the beloved Tanooki suit.
All the world boss are super charming and makes those Koopaling really unique. The final boss is really different for the time since it's more strategies instead of only hurting him. I should also mention that this game is filled with secrets. One of my favorite is that when you play 2 players, if you go on the same completed stage, you go in a battle mode of the original Mario Bros arcade game.
This game is the definition of fun on a cartridge. Yes there are some difficult levels in the game, but completing them are really satisfying. This is a must play for everyone that consider themselves as gamers.
1989
Game #73 of my challenge
First of all, I want to say that this is a port of another game of the same name. So I counted the date of the original for my challenge since there not much differences between the two.
This is a space shooter/bullet hell game made by Techno Soft. You control a spaceship in both top down view and a side scroller and your goal is to shoot down all your enemies. I will say it right now : This game is hard as nails.
The plot is pretty simple like almost all games from that time : After the events of the first game, the bad guys creates a huge ship and they attack the galaxy federation and captured member of that federation. You goal is to eliminate those bad guys and save the galaxy federation. To be fair, you really don't need to know that story or care about it. It's only explained from the manual and you don't need any understanding of it to play that game.
The visual are extremely basics. Most enemies though the game looks all the same during the whole game. The background are both good and bad at the same time. The reason for this is that the game moves so fast that it can be nauseating during certain levels and some obstacles or enemies can blend too much in that background, making them hard to see. One thing that I can give props at least is that the enemy projectiles are really different from your own projectiles, so it makes it ''easier'' to see and dodge them. The music is also mid. There's no tracks that are memorable. They sound a lot from one another since they uses a lot of laser/synth sound in all their songs. The SFX are also really basics.
The controls are also really simple : a button to shoot, a button to change your weapon from the selection to the left and the other button does the same thing, but to the right. You can collect some weapons in levels and all the weapons shoots differently. Having that much variety in weapon makes it nice to switch between all of them depending of the situation. Except that, controlling the ship is pretty sharp. There's not much to say about the control since they are really basic.
There's two type of gameplay during the game : Top down view and side scroller. The first level is a top-down one, and after that they alternate the gameplay when completing a level. The top-down view are really nice at first, but I have one big problem with them : they are so easy to get lost in them. Since everything looks the same in the game, you can get lost easily . Right at the first level you are surrounded by walls, and it took me quite a while to understand that there's one wall that can disappear for a brief moment. In those levels, you need to shoot down some bases and the game doesn't indicates you how many bases left to destroy, and where they are. In the side scroller levels, you main goal is to survive and eliminate the boss at the end.
This game is really similar to to Life Force. One thing that I didn't like from it is that there's some really cheap stuff that they put in the game to kill you. By the way, you die in one shot in this game. I don't mind to die in games, however, in this one when you die, you lose all your power-ups and that makes you really weaker. When you are Game Over, you have access to 6 continues, when you use one of the continue, you restart at the beginning of that level. After using all those continues, you restart the whole game. I'm gonna be honest, I have use some save states because of all the bullshit that the game shoots at you. I still appreciate the basic gameplay, but not enough to put it higher in my list.
First of all, I want to say that this is a port of another game of the same name. So I counted the date of the original for my challenge since there not much differences between the two.
This is a space shooter/bullet hell game made by Techno Soft. You control a spaceship in both top down view and a side scroller and your goal is to shoot down all your enemies. I will say it right now : This game is hard as nails.
The plot is pretty simple like almost all games from that time : After the events of the first game, the bad guys creates a huge ship and they attack the galaxy federation and captured member of that federation. You goal is to eliminate those bad guys and save the galaxy federation. To be fair, you really don't need to know that story or care about it. It's only explained from the manual and you don't need any understanding of it to play that game.
The visual are extremely basics. Most enemies though the game looks all the same during the whole game. The background are both good and bad at the same time. The reason for this is that the game moves so fast that it can be nauseating during certain levels and some obstacles or enemies can blend too much in that background, making them hard to see. One thing that I can give props at least is that the enemy projectiles are really different from your own projectiles, so it makes it ''easier'' to see and dodge them. The music is also mid. There's no tracks that are memorable. They sound a lot from one another since they uses a lot of laser/synth sound in all their songs. The SFX are also really basics.
The controls are also really simple : a button to shoot, a button to change your weapon from the selection to the left and the other button does the same thing, but to the right. You can collect some weapons in levels and all the weapons shoots differently. Having that much variety in weapon makes it nice to switch between all of them depending of the situation. Except that, controlling the ship is pretty sharp. There's not much to say about the control since they are really basic.
There's two type of gameplay during the game : Top down view and side scroller. The first level is a top-down one, and after that they alternate the gameplay when completing a level. The top-down view are really nice at first, but I have one big problem with them : they are so easy to get lost in them. Since everything looks the same in the game, you can get lost easily . Right at the first level you are surrounded by walls, and it took me quite a while to understand that there's one wall that can disappear for a brief moment. In those levels, you need to shoot down some bases and the game doesn't indicates you how many bases left to destroy, and where they are. In the side scroller levels, you main goal is to survive and eliminate the boss at the end.
This game is really similar to to Life Force. One thing that I didn't like from it is that there's some really cheap stuff that they put in the game to kill you. By the way, you die in one shot in this game. I don't mind to die in games, however, in this one when you die, you lose all your power-ups and that makes you really weaker. When you are Game Over, you have access to 6 continues, when you use one of the continue, you restart at the beginning of that level. After using all those continues, you restart the whole game. I'm gonna be honest, I have use some save states because of all the bullshit that the game shoots at you. I still appreciate the basic gameplay, but not enough to put it higher in my list.
1988
Game #72 of my challenge
Ok, I know this is Doki Doki Panic. However, I considered it as his own game since there some differences between the two of them, so that's why I put it there in my list. This 4th Mario game on my list is underrated in my opinion. I will try to do the best I can to explain why I like it so much.
The plot is pretty simple as always for Mario game (especially for a NES game) : Mario dream of a world named Subcon and a voice in his dream ask him to beat the villainous frog Wart. Mario wakes up and goes tell his friends about his dream and they all had the same. It must be destiny then. They then go on an adventure to defeat Wart.
The visuals are super clean. This game is so charming. All characters designs that are used to this day are mostly created in this. The enemies as well are super cute and are all visually different from the previous games. Most all those enemies will become staples in the Mario franchise as well. My favorite minion made his first appearance in this game: The Shy Guys. Each world are really unique from one another as well. it makes the world really whimsical. The music is so catchy in this game. It even was my ring tone for a while. There's not one song that I dislike in this game.
The gameplay is similar to every Mario games. Jump around, reach the end of the level and after a couple of levels, there's a boss. Once beaten, you go to the next world. However, they added a few twist in it. First of all, you can pull stuff (like potion, veggies, coins, etc.) from the ground and throw it afterwards. Throwing them at enemies will kill them. Also, you cannot simply jump on an enemy head to eliminate them. However, you can still jump on most of them and pull them like a vegetable in the game. Once you got them, you can throw at an other enemy to eliminate them both. Another thing that they added is at the end of most level, you have a mini-boss named Birdo that you need to defeat. Once defeated, you can go to the next level. Levels can be different compared to the other Mario games: Instead of only going from left to right, you can also go up or down. This brings a whole dynamic to the level design. You can also go into doors and vases (they replaces pipes) to go in another section of the level.
The controls are typical for a Mario platformer. The nice thing that they added to this game is that all characters controls really differently. Mario is the most standard character, Luigi is really floaty when jumping and he jumps the highest, Peach (sorry, I meant Princess Toadstool) can hold the jump button can float for a short period of time. Toad is the smallest, doesn't jump really high, but when grabbing something, he runs extremely fast. My favorite character to control is by far Luigi. All character has also a higher jump if they hold down a couple of seconds.
For a Mario game, this is one of the banger. All bosses are unique in this game (even if some of them you see them twice), each world brings a new gameplay mechanic and the controls are butter smooth. I know the ending suck because ''it was all a dream'', but I mean, who plays a Mario platformer game for the story (especially on the NES). You should try it this game at least once and it can be really quick to beat since there's some portals to skip worlds.
Ok, I know this is Doki Doki Panic. However, I considered it as his own game since there some differences between the two of them, so that's why I put it there in my list. This 4th Mario game on my list is underrated in my opinion. I will try to do the best I can to explain why I like it so much.
The plot is pretty simple as always for Mario game (especially for a NES game) : Mario dream of a world named Subcon and a voice in his dream ask him to beat the villainous frog Wart. Mario wakes up and goes tell his friends about his dream and they all had the same. It must be destiny then. They then go on an adventure to defeat Wart.
The visuals are super clean. This game is so charming. All characters designs that are used to this day are mostly created in this. The enemies as well are super cute and are all visually different from the previous games. Most all those enemies will become staples in the Mario franchise as well. My favorite minion made his first appearance in this game: The Shy Guys. Each world are really unique from one another as well. it makes the world really whimsical. The music is so catchy in this game. It even was my ring tone for a while. There's not one song that I dislike in this game.
The gameplay is similar to every Mario games. Jump around, reach the end of the level and after a couple of levels, there's a boss. Once beaten, you go to the next world. However, they added a few twist in it. First of all, you can pull stuff (like potion, veggies, coins, etc.) from the ground and throw it afterwards. Throwing them at enemies will kill them. Also, you cannot simply jump on an enemy head to eliminate them. However, you can still jump on most of them and pull them like a vegetable in the game. Once you got them, you can throw at an other enemy to eliminate them both. Another thing that they added is at the end of most level, you have a mini-boss named Birdo that you need to defeat. Once defeated, you can go to the next level. Levels can be different compared to the other Mario games: Instead of only going from left to right, you can also go up or down. This brings a whole dynamic to the level design. You can also go into doors and vases (they replaces pipes) to go in another section of the level.
The controls are typical for a Mario platformer. The nice thing that they added to this game is that all characters controls really differently. Mario is the most standard character, Luigi is really floaty when jumping and he jumps the highest, Peach (sorry, I meant Princess Toadstool) can hold the jump button can float for a short period of time. Toad is the smallest, doesn't jump really high, but when grabbing something, he runs extremely fast. My favorite character to control is by far Luigi. All character has also a higher jump if they hold down a couple of seconds.
For a Mario game, this is one of the banger. All bosses are unique in this game (even if some of them you see them twice), each world brings a new gameplay mechanic and the controls are butter smooth. I know the ending suck because ''it was all a dream'', but I mean, who plays a Mario platformer game for the story (especially on the NES). You should try it this game at least once and it can be really quick to beat since there's some portals to skip worlds.
1988
Game #71 of my challenge
Another Capcom game back to back and this one is the second game that I played from this series. Ghost and Goblin games are known to be one of the hardest franchise to beat and this one stand up to that fact.
The plot is pretty much similar to the previous one : Sir Arthur needs to save the soul of the Princess Prin-Prin from the evil Loki. There's only a story there to be there. The plot is really not important enough to know about it.
The graphics here are way better than the first entry. The visual is so much cleaner. This is mostly due to the Sega having way better graphics than Nintendo at the time. The enemies looked really beautiful and the background as well. They are way more polished and you can identify mostly everything on the level. The only thing that was hard to distinguish is that there are some background that can instant kill you or hurt you. Except that, the visual are really good. The music is pretty much the same as the first game, but they modernized them.
The gameplay is a platformer. You need to go through every level and at the end of each level, there's a boss. Your character can collect a whole bunch of different weapons. There's daggers, flames, swords, lance, axes and shields. They all got their own patterns when throwing them and they all got their different effect. You can also collect a special armor that makes all your weapons have a charged attack that does a huge attack and gives yourself a little bit of invulnerability. This can help you survive some of the more ''bullet hell'' part of the game where's there a lot of enemies and enemy projectiles on the screen.
The controls are as horrible as before. I think that's one of the reason why the game is really difficult. One of the reason why the controls are horrible is the jump momentum. When in the air, you can't change the momentum of the jump. Also, if you are in place, you can only jump straight up. This can be really annoying at time, especially in some really hard platforming moment. Also, something weird is that you can't use the charged attack while in the air. If you use it in the air, it will only trigger the moment you touch the ground, which creates a really big delay before you get back the control of your character.
Like the other game, you need to beat the game twice. I really hate this type of gameplay, because the game is really hard at it is, but you need you beat it again only to see the true final boss. The last boss however was well design and was fun to go up against. This sequel was better in my opinion than the first one.
Another Capcom game back to back and this one is the second game that I played from this series. Ghost and Goblin games are known to be one of the hardest franchise to beat and this one stand up to that fact.
The plot is pretty much similar to the previous one : Sir Arthur needs to save the soul of the Princess Prin-Prin from the evil Loki. There's only a story there to be there. The plot is really not important enough to know about it.
The graphics here are way better than the first entry. The visual is so much cleaner. This is mostly due to the Sega having way better graphics than Nintendo at the time. The enemies looked really beautiful and the background as well. They are way more polished and you can identify mostly everything on the level. The only thing that was hard to distinguish is that there are some background that can instant kill you or hurt you. Except that, the visual are really good. The music is pretty much the same as the first game, but they modernized them.
The gameplay is a platformer. You need to go through every level and at the end of each level, there's a boss. Your character can collect a whole bunch of different weapons. There's daggers, flames, swords, lance, axes and shields. They all got their own patterns when throwing them and they all got their different effect. You can also collect a special armor that makes all your weapons have a charged attack that does a huge attack and gives yourself a little bit of invulnerability. This can help you survive some of the more ''bullet hell'' part of the game where's there a lot of enemies and enemy projectiles on the screen.
The controls are as horrible as before. I think that's one of the reason why the game is really difficult. One of the reason why the controls are horrible is the jump momentum. When in the air, you can't change the momentum of the jump. Also, if you are in place, you can only jump straight up. This can be really annoying at time, especially in some really hard platforming moment. Also, something weird is that you can't use the charged attack while in the air. If you use it in the air, it will only trigger the moment you touch the ground, which creates a really big delay before you get back the control of your character.
Like the other game, you need to beat the game twice. I really hate this type of gameplay, because the game is really hard at it is, but you need you beat it again only to see the true final boss. The last boss however was well design and was fun to go up against. This sequel was better in my opinion than the first one.
1988
Game #70 of my challenge
Next up on the list is a very unique game made by the famous company Capcom. This is the third Capcom game that I've played on my list.
Bionic Commando on the NES is actually a sequel to the first game of the same name: Bionic Commando. The first one was on an arcade machine and in the NES version your goal is to safe the character from the first game: Super Joe. He was captured by the Nazz (they are literally the Nazis) and your goal is to save him and stop the project Albatros.
The graphic are normal for the NES. There are not a lot of varied enemies sprites in this game. You have normal soldier, soldier with grapling hook, bigger soldier (to be honest they look almost all the same). I can give props to the level design of this game. Almost all stages looks different with the background and level sprites. This was a nice variety to see in the game. There were only one type of stage that were all the same : the neutral territories.
The gameplay is a mix of Run and gun mixed with a platformer (with some top-down shooter from time to time). When starting the game, you are on a map with multiple waypoints. You can travel from zone to zone with your helicopter and drop in one of the zones when you arrive. You can cross some army truck while traveling in helicopter and when you do, you play a really short top-down shooter stage. The only utility of those stages (except wasting time) is to collect some continues when you destroy the ''stronger enemies'' in the stage. When dropping in one of the zones, you can select the items that you want to bring in your mission. You can collect some items throughout the game and make you stronger or adapt to the next mission that you will select. You can collect new guns, armor, communication devices and other random items.
The control are the thing that I dislike the most. First of all, I must give praise to the devs about being creative. The way that you do the platforming part of the game is really unconventional. Instead of having a regular jump, you move through the mission by using a grappling hook. The idea is nice, the execution wasn't optimize. The grappling hook shoots diagonally, straight up or straight forward. Moving with the grappling hook is extremely awkward to control and can be really frustrating when you need to do some really tight platforming moments in the game. Except that, shooting is always straight in front of you, but the direction of the bullet will depend on the type of gun that you will use.
The game is really frustrating at times, but at least, the game is relatively short. At the end of the game, you need to kill Hitler. To be honest, I wasn't ready at all for the way you see Hitler die. It's kind of gruesome for an NES game. The hook thing is a good idea, but it needs to be improved way more for it to be fun. As the third Capcom game that I played, this is my least favorite of the bunch.
Next up on the list is a very unique game made by the famous company Capcom. This is the third Capcom game that I've played on my list.
Bionic Commando on the NES is actually a sequel to the first game of the same name: Bionic Commando. The first one was on an arcade machine and in the NES version your goal is to safe the character from the first game: Super Joe. He was captured by the Nazz (they are literally the Nazis) and your goal is to save him and stop the project Albatros.
The graphic are normal for the NES. There are not a lot of varied enemies sprites in this game. You have normal soldier, soldier with grapling hook, bigger soldier (to be honest they look almost all the same). I can give props to the level design of this game. Almost all stages looks different with the background and level sprites. This was a nice variety to see in the game. There were only one type of stage that were all the same : the neutral territories.
The gameplay is a mix of Run and gun mixed with a platformer (with some top-down shooter from time to time). When starting the game, you are on a map with multiple waypoints. You can travel from zone to zone with your helicopter and drop in one of the zones when you arrive. You can cross some army truck while traveling in helicopter and when you do, you play a really short top-down shooter stage. The only utility of those stages (except wasting time) is to collect some continues when you destroy the ''stronger enemies'' in the stage. When dropping in one of the zones, you can select the items that you want to bring in your mission. You can collect some items throughout the game and make you stronger or adapt to the next mission that you will select. You can collect new guns, armor, communication devices and other random items.
The control are the thing that I dislike the most. First of all, I must give praise to the devs about being creative. The way that you do the platforming part of the game is really unconventional. Instead of having a regular jump, you move through the mission by using a grappling hook. The idea is nice, the execution wasn't optimize. The grappling hook shoots diagonally, straight up or straight forward. Moving with the grappling hook is extremely awkward to control and can be really frustrating when you need to do some really tight platforming moments in the game. Except that, shooting is always straight in front of you, but the direction of the bullet will depend on the type of gun that you will use.
The game is really frustrating at times, but at least, the game is relatively short. At the end of the game, you need to kill Hitler. To be honest, I wasn't ready at all for the way you see Hitler die. It's kind of gruesome for an NES game. The hook thing is a good idea, but it needs to be improved way more for it to be fun. As the third Capcom game that I played, this is my least favorite of the bunch.
1988
Game #69 of my challenge
This is the first game in my list made by the well-known company Sunsoft and they have a whole bunch of commercial success in the west, and this was the first one of them.
First of all, the plot is kind of weird and the reason is that when it was first released in Japan, it was an anime type of plot. They though that it wouldn't work for the western side of the world, so they slapped a rushed-up story to replace the original one. The American story of this game is a little boy (Jason) that have a frog (Fred) as a pet. That frog ran away and jumped on an radioactive crate that was in Jason's backyard. We don't know why that kid has some radioactive stuff in the backyard, but let's assume it's normal. Fred becomes massive, dropped into a hole (in that same backyard) and disappeared. That boy followed him in that hole and found a vehicle named Sophia. That vehicle is designed to destroy mutants living inside the earth. So Jason puts a suit on and jumped in that vehicle to destroy the mutants, kill the Plutonian boss and to find his frog. All of this is shown as a slideshow in the game. I know the story doesn't makes much sense, but here we are.
The graphics are actually good. The enemies looks different from each other (even though there are some variants of the same enemy), the background is really nice and immersive. All the different parts of the game is really different from one another, so for a Metroidvania type of game, it's really important. The music is really good. There's a different song for each world and there weren't one that I though was bad, or I wanted to mute. My favorite song was Stage 2 (castle), but the song from Stage 1 (forest) is the most well known of the game. The boss music is really intense and makes you motivated to defeat that boss. The SFX are really average. There no much to say about the sound effects.
The controls as a vehicle are simple at first, but when you progress though the game, they get more complicated, but also more annoying. The reason being is about the wall and celling power-up and the swimming power-up. The vehicle can stick to wall and celling, and when it's time to do some tight jumps, it can be really annoying. The reason is that if you are too close to the edge, you will go down the surface under you when you didn't wanted to. This occurs mostly at the end of the game, but it was still irritating. The swimming power up is only bad because when you want to use your special weapon, you need to hold down and press B. When swimming downward, you will waste a lot of those special ammunitions only because you want to shoot those enemies. The control on foot weren't that bad. It took me some time to learn that if you throw a grenade with A and you hold that button, you can strafe. It's not really instinctive but I figured it out around the middle of the game.
The gameplay is a mix of a Metroidvania, a Platformer and half of the gameplay is a run and shoot. This makes an interesting mix, and you can see that they were inspired with the first Metroid game. The map can be really confusing, but they did something that the Metroid game was missing : a map. Of course, the map is not in-game, but in the instruction manual. It's a good enough map for you to not get lost in it. It shows you a general idea where are the doors and the location of each stages. That was ultra helpful. Throughout the game, your vehicle gets upgrades when Jason defeats bosses. Those upgrades helps you to get access to other parts of the game. Your vehicle can shoot bullets in front of it and on top. Sofia also have access to 3 types of special projectiles : A three missile thing, a lightning bolt and some homing missiles. The three missiles are shot in front of you in a fork shape and can be useful. The lightning bold is the worst weapon, because it shoot under you. It wouldn't be that bad if it would always hit at the same spot. However, the arc of the lightning bolt and the place where it hits is random, so this is mostly useless. The last weapon is the homing missiles. They can be really good, but sometimes, they don't want to hit the target and decides to do some back-and-forth around your vehicle. Those specials weapons were mostly useful in my playthrough against one type of enemy : the worms. Those worms are the most annoying and frustrating enemies by far because your normal cannon cannot hit them because they are too low on the ground. Let me tell you that there are a lot of them in the game.
For the Jason gameplay, I would say that his regular weapon is really bad. The reason being is that his gun can be upgraded by collecting some weapon power-ups. The more you got them, the stronger the weapon is. When you get hit, you also lose one bar of that weapon power-up. Let me tell you that this gun is the most inaccurate weapon in the game. It shoots some projectiles that does an S trajectory. each bullets has a different starting point so it's really hard to aim. I say that it's hard to aim, but I should actually say that it's impossible. There's nobody (excepts maybe speed runners) that can aim precisely with that weapon. So when you see an enemy, you mash the button and prey that it will hit. This is mostly visible against a boss in this game. Because of that, the bosses are really hard in this game. Fun fact, you fight against your frog twice in this game.
The game had some really good ideas, like the weapon upgrade of jason, the mix of on foot and vehicle gameplay. However, there were a lot of frustrating things in the game like the inaccuracy of bullets and annoying creature that makes me giving it a lower score that I would love to.
This is the first game in my list made by the well-known company Sunsoft and they have a whole bunch of commercial success in the west, and this was the first one of them.
First of all, the plot is kind of weird and the reason is that when it was first released in Japan, it was an anime type of plot. They though that it wouldn't work for the western side of the world, so they slapped a rushed-up story to replace the original one. The American story of this game is a little boy (Jason) that have a frog (Fred) as a pet. That frog ran away and jumped on an radioactive crate that was in Jason's backyard. We don't know why that kid has some radioactive stuff in the backyard, but let's assume it's normal. Fred becomes massive, dropped into a hole (in that same backyard) and disappeared. That boy followed him in that hole and found a vehicle named Sophia. That vehicle is designed to destroy mutants living inside the earth. So Jason puts a suit on and jumped in that vehicle to destroy the mutants, kill the Plutonian boss and to find his frog. All of this is shown as a slideshow in the game. I know the story doesn't makes much sense, but here we are.
The graphics are actually good. The enemies looks different from each other (even though there are some variants of the same enemy), the background is really nice and immersive. All the different parts of the game is really different from one another, so for a Metroidvania type of game, it's really important. The music is really good. There's a different song for each world and there weren't one that I though was bad, or I wanted to mute. My favorite song was Stage 2 (castle), but the song from Stage 1 (forest) is the most well known of the game. The boss music is really intense and makes you motivated to defeat that boss. The SFX are really average. There no much to say about the sound effects.
The controls as a vehicle are simple at first, but when you progress though the game, they get more complicated, but also more annoying. The reason being is about the wall and celling power-up and the swimming power-up. The vehicle can stick to wall and celling, and when it's time to do some tight jumps, it can be really annoying. The reason is that if you are too close to the edge, you will go down the surface under you when you didn't wanted to. This occurs mostly at the end of the game, but it was still irritating. The swimming power up is only bad because when you want to use your special weapon, you need to hold down and press B. When swimming downward, you will waste a lot of those special ammunitions only because you want to shoot those enemies. The control on foot weren't that bad. It took me some time to learn that if you throw a grenade with A and you hold that button, you can strafe. It's not really instinctive but I figured it out around the middle of the game.
The gameplay is a mix of a Metroidvania, a Platformer and half of the gameplay is a run and shoot. This makes an interesting mix, and you can see that they were inspired with the first Metroid game. The map can be really confusing, but they did something that the Metroid game was missing : a map. Of course, the map is not in-game, but in the instruction manual. It's a good enough map for you to not get lost in it. It shows you a general idea where are the doors and the location of each stages. That was ultra helpful. Throughout the game, your vehicle gets upgrades when Jason defeats bosses. Those upgrades helps you to get access to other parts of the game. Your vehicle can shoot bullets in front of it and on top. Sofia also have access to 3 types of special projectiles : A three missile thing, a lightning bolt and some homing missiles. The three missiles are shot in front of you in a fork shape and can be useful. The lightning bold is the worst weapon, because it shoot under you. It wouldn't be that bad if it would always hit at the same spot. However, the arc of the lightning bolt and the place where it hits is random, so this is mostly useless. The last weapon is the homing missiles. They can be really good, but sometimes, they don't want to hit the target and decides to do some back-and-forth around your vehicle. Those specials weapons were mostly useful in my playthrough against one type of enemy : the worms. Those worms are the most annoying and frustrating enemies by far because your normal cannon cannot hit them because they are too low on the ground. Let me tell you that there are a lot of them in the game.
For the Jason gameplay, I would say that his regular weapon is really bad. The reason being is that his gun can be upgraded by collecting some weapon power-ups. The more you got them, the stronger the weapon is. When you get hit, you also lose one bar of that weapon power-up. Let me tell you that this gun is the most inaccurate weapon in the game. It shoots some projectiles that does an S trajectory. each bullets has a different starting point so it's really hard to aim. I say that it's hard to aim, but I should actually say that it's impossible. There's nobody (excepts maybe speed runners) that can aim precisely with that weapon. So when you see an enemy, you mash the button and prey that it will hit. This is mostly visible against a boss in this game. Because of that, the bosses are really hard in this game. Fun fact, you fight against your frog twice in this game.
The game had some really good ideas, like the weapon upgrade of jason, the mix of on foot and vehicle gameplay. However, there were a lot of frustrating things in the game like the inaccuracy of bullets and annoying creature that makes me giving it a lower score that I would love to.
1988
Game #68 of my challenge
Altered Beast is an entry in my list that I never heard of until I played it. It's a side-scroller Beat them up that have some nice Idea in it, but is a tough game to beat.
First of all, The plot is about the ruler of the underworld in Ancient Greece, Neff, kidnapping Athena. Zeus is pissed and resurrects you, a deceased Roman Centurions. Zeus chooses you as his champion and grants you power to get back Athena in the underworld. At least the story is kind of original and is just there to give you a purpose to beat the story. In-game, the story is not much there. I will at least give them the effort of implementing some ''audible'' dialog said by the main enemy (even though it's barely comprehensible).
The graphic is a nice change since it's not the pixelated games that I played a bunch recently. The sprites are clean, They really put an efforts in the visuals for this game. The enemies looks good, your character is clean and the background are well implemented. It's a nice change of pace. The music however, is really average. There is no remarkable tracks and the SFX are just OK.
The controls are kind of funky, You have a punch button, a kick button and a jump button. However, if you want to have an easier time to attack enemies arriving from the top, you need to press down and then use the kick button. Your character will put himself on his back and will kick straight up. It's really awkward to press down to attack enemies from above. The game feels slow when using the controls, but is understandable because of the visuals of the game.
The gameplay is a simple beat them up, with enemies spawning a little bit everywhere, but the twist is that is an auto-scroller. You need to move to the speed of the stage. Also during the level, you need to beat all 3 blue wolves and collect the orb before reaching Neff. Collecting an orb will buff your character and on the 3rd one, you will transform into a specific beast of this level. If you do not collect the 3rd one before reaching Neff, the level will loop and you will redo the whole level again. In one loop, you can only see 3 blue wolves. So if you miss one, it's too bad for you and you need to redo the loop. At least the levels are kind of short.
When transforming into a beast, you will gain special attacks with that transformation. There are 4 different beast that you can incarnate. This creates a really nice variety to the gameplay. Each level has a boss at the end and you will need to beat it with your transformation. Some of them are easy, but others are really hard to not get hit by anything. Once you beat all 5 levels, the game is over.
One thing that I hate about this game, is that you have no way of healing yourself or getting extra lives. Even when you complete a level, they do not heal you to the next one. So you pretty much need to play perfectly to be able to beat all 5 levels. If you lose all your lives, you need to start all over again, which can be really annoying.
Despite the difficulty of the game, the game had some really nice ideas and had some fun moment sometimes. This game doesn't stay his welcome since there's only 5 levels. You should try it if you search for an old, short and sweet game.
Altered Beast is an entry in my list that I never heard of until I played it. It's a side-scroller Beat them up that have some nice Idea in it, but is a tough game to beat.
First of all, The plot is about the ruler of the underworld in Ancient Greece, Neff, kidnapping Athena. Zeus is pissed and resurrects you, a deceased Roman Centurions. Zeus chooses you as his champion and grants you power to get back Athena in the underworld. At least the story is kind of original and is just there to give you a purpose to beat the story. In-game, the story is not much there. I will at least give them the effort of implementing some ''audible'' dialog said by the main enemy (even though it's barely comprehensible).
The graphic is a nice change since it's not the pixelated games that I played a bunch recently. The sprites are clean, They really put an efforts in the visuals for this game. The enemies looks good, your character is clean and the background are well implemented. It's a nice change of pace. The music however, is really average. There is no remarkable tracks and the SFX are just OK.
The controls are kind of funky, You have a punch button, a kick button and a jump button. However, if you want to have an easier time to attack enemies arriving from the top, you need to press down and then use the kick button. Your character will put himself on his back and will kick straight up. It's really awkward to press down to attack enemies from above. The game feels slow when using the controls, but is understandable because of the visuals of the game.
The gameplay is a simple beat them up, with enemies spawning a little bit everywhere, but the twist is that is an auto-scroller. You need to move to the speed of the stage. Also during the level, you need to beat all 3 blue wolves and collect the orb before reaching Neff. Collecting an orb will buff your character and on the 3rd one, you will transform into a specific beast of this level. If you do not collect the 3rd one before reaching Neff, the level will loop and you will redo the whole level again. In one loop, you can only see 3 blue wolves. So if you miss one, it's too bad for you and you need to redo the loop. At least the levels are kind of short.
When transforming into a beast, you will gain special attacks with that transformation. There are 4 different beast that you can incarnate. This creates a really nice variety to the gameplay. Each level has a boss at the end and you will need to beat it with your transformation. Some of them are easy, but others are really hard to not get hit by anything. Once you beat all 5 levels, the game is over.
One thing that I hate about this game, is that you have no way of healing yourself or getting extra lives. Even when you complete a level, they do not heal you to the next one. So you pretty much need to play perfectly to be able to beat all 5 levels. If you lose all your lives, you need to start all over again, which can be really annoying.
Despite the difficulty of the game, the game had some really nice ideas and had some fun moment sometimes. This game doesn't stay his welcome since there's only 5 levels. You should try it if you search for an old, short and sweet game.
1988
Game # 67 of my challenge
This is my first racing game on my list and let me tell you, it's a really hard one. This is also the 4th game of Rare, one iconic game company of the 90s
First of all, there are not much plot to this game. It's a racing game and your goal is to be first. However, you are not driving any cars. You are remotely controller an RC cart. That's the only premise of this game.
The visual of this game looks really good. The game is viewed in a isometric view during the race. The bright colors makes the game looks really good. It's also really simple, but it works. You can see and identify what's on the race track. The UI is also great because they integrated the map in the bottom of the screen, which helps a lot to know when there's some turns. The Music is also really great. The starting screen is really a banger.
The controls are also really simple : Control with the D-pad, B to accelerate and A to horn (you won't really use it). However, controlling the RC is really hard. Since you are in an Isometric view, it's not always obvious on where to go when you don't know. Also, turning is really hard. This car turn so abruptly it's insane. The hit detection of the cart is also really big, so it's difficult to avoid everything.
The gameplay is pretty simple, but clever. You have some basics car stats and during your races, you can collect stuff to improve your car (like turning, acceleration and max speed). This improvements will stay for several races. This makes the game really enjoyable, since you want to get first, but also collect all the stats to help you in other races. There are also other stuff that you can collect : Frames, missiles, bombs and ammo. You read me well, you can shoot missile in this game to other cars using your horn button, but it's hard to aim them. There are also a lot of obstacles to avoid on the track that will slow you down or simply make you crash.
There's one thing that really infuriated me is that if you get last in a track, you are game over. There's no retry and you start at the beginning. This is really stupid since all the races are really short and sweet. Sometimes, a single mistake will give you a game over and you need to start all over. Also, the rubber banding in this game is crazy. They can crash and catch you right after in the next 5 seconds, but you can't do that, especially when you crash, you will sometimes start backwards. So you need to turn around your car and that makes it difficult to catch them.
Even though this game is really charming, I cannot give higher than a 3 stars to the 4th game created by Rare studios. I know they will have better game in the future.
This is my first racing game on my list and let me tell you, it's a really hard one. This is also the 4th game of Rare, one iconic game company of the 90s
First of all, there are not much plot to this game. It's a racing game and your goal is to be first. However, you are not driving any cars. You are remotely controller an RC cart. That's the only premise of this game.
The visual of this game looks really good. The game is viewed in a isometric view during the race. The bright colors makes the game looks really good. It's also really simple, but it works. You can see and identify what's on the race track. The UI is also great because they integrated the map in the bottom of the screen, which helps a lot to know when there's some turns. The Music is also really great. The starting screen is really a banger.
The controls are also really simple : Control with the D-pad, B to accelerate and A to horn (you won't really use it). However, controlling the RC is really hard. Since you are in an Isometric view, it's not always obvious on where to go when you don't know. Also, turning is really hard. This car turn so abruptly it's insane. The hit detection of the cart is also really big, so it's difficult to avoid everything.
The gameplay is pretty simple, but clever. You have some basics car stats and during your races, you can collect stuff to improve your car (like turning, acceleration and max speed). This improvements will stay for several races. This makes the game really enjoyable, since you want to get first, but also collect all the stats to help you in other races. There are also other stuff that you can collect : Frames, missiles, bombs and ammo. You read me well, you can shoot missile in this game to other cars using your horn button, but it's hard to aim them. There are also a lot of obstacles to avoid on the track that will slow you down or simply make you crash.
There's one thing that really infuriated me is that if you get last in a track, you are game over. There's no retry and you start at the beginning. This is really stupid since all the races are really short and sweet. Sometimes, a single mistake will give you a game over and you need to start all over. Also, the rubber banding in this game is crazy. They can crash and catch you right after in the next 5 seconds, but you can't do that, especially when you crash, you will sometimes start backwards. So you need to turn around your car and that makes it difficult to catch them.
Even though this game is really charming, I cannot give higher than a 3 stars to the 4th game created by Rare studios. I know they will have better game in the future.
1988
Game #66 of my challenge
This game took me a lot of time to beat, but I finally able to pass through it. This is the third installment of this series and a lot of this game is similar to the others.
The plot of this game is that there's an fiend named Baramos is menacing to destroy the world (this is not the same world as in the first two games). You, a descendant of a hero named Ortega, is called by the king to create a party to stop that enemy. There's a nice change regarding the Hero of this game: You can choose if you want to be a boy or a girl. This is the first game that I've played yet that you can choose what you want to be. Also, almost every character that you will interact with will also consider the gender that you are. The party will need to find 6 orbs and when you collect them all, you will be able to go defeat that final boss. Once you beat it, you need to go back to the castle and get the Reward from the king. However (Spoilers from 1988), the ground starts to shake and there's an actual final boss revealing his identity. For the time, having a fake ending is something nobody did before (or that I know). This added a whole bunch of gameplay to it, which is great for those who loves that type of game.
The visual of the game is extremely similar to the two previous ones. There are some new sprites, but that's about it. There's not much to talk about here. The Music is also really good in this game. I wasn't tired of hearing them during my playthrough. The songs were really fitting with the environment that your characters were .
The gameplay is really similar to the other 2 games, so I will simply highlights the changes or things that they added to this game. First of all, you can choose your party that will accompany you during your quest. So you can create a party of 4. You can choose on each created character the gender, name, and class that they will have, which is great. Not only that, but you can switch mid quests since you can recruit and stored them whenever you want. This is really impressive for the time. Also, another thing that is really impressive for the time, is that there's some side quests in the game. Doing some side quests will give you items that are not mandatory to the story, but will help you during your quest. Lastly, they put a lot of funny items in it that makes the game really flavorful.
Saying all that, I really had some fun with the game, but I'm starting to be burned out by old school RPG 100% based on luck. At least in my list, I will not see one until a little while, so it will give me a break from them.
This game took me a lot of time to beat, but I finally able to pass through it. This is the third installment of this series and a lot of this game is similar to the others.
The plot of this game is that there's an fiend named Baramos is menacing to destroy the world (this is not the same world as in the first two games). You, a descendant of a hero named Ortega, is called by the king to create a party to stop that enemy. There's a nice change regarding the Hero of this game: You can choose if you want to be a boy or a girl. This is the first game that I've played yet that you can choose what you want to be. Also, almost every character that you will interact with will also consider the gender that you are. The party will need to find 6 orbs and when you collect them all, you will be able to go defeat that final boss. Once you beat it, you need to go back to the castle and get the Reward from the king. However (Spoilers from 1988), the ground starts to shake and there's an actual final boss revealing his identity. For the time, having a fake ending is something nobody did before (or that I know). This added a whole bunch of gameplay to it, which is great for those who loves that type of game.
The visual of the game is extremely similar to the two previous ones. There are some new sprites, but that's about it. There's not much to talk about here. The Music is also really good in this game. I wasn't tired of hearing them during my playthrough. The songs were really fitting with the environment that your characters were .
The gameplay is really similar to the other 2 games, so I will simply highlights the changes or things that they added to this game. First of all, you can choose your party that will accompany you during your quest. So you can create a party of 4. You can choose on each created character the gender, name, and class that they will have, which is great. Not only that, but you can switch mid quests since you can recruit and stored them whenever you want. This is really impressive for the time. Also, another thing that is really impressive for the time, is that there's some side quests in the game. Doing some side quests will give you items that are not mandatory to the story, but will help you during your quest. Lastly, they put a lot of funny items in it that makes the game really flavorful.
Saying all that, I really had some fun with the game, but I'm starting to be burned out by old school RPG 100% based on luck. At least in my list, I will not see one until a little while, so it will give me a break from them.
1988
Game #65 of my challenge
Sports games was really popular at the time. It was meant to reach out to different type of kids and try to reach the interest of some to play video games. A lot of sports had their own games, but it was time for Hockey to have his place to shine.
Once again, there ain't no plot to this game since it's a sports game on the NES. Simply be the hockey champion and beat every country.
The Intro music and game music is catchy. Nothing extraordinaire here but does the job.
The visuals are neat. The ice is good looking and nothing is really missing for an arena type of view. The characters looks decent. They created 3 types of shapes for the players on the ice and the only thing that they did is to swap colors to represent each country in this game.
The controls are where the shit show starts : You control a hockey player. You can shoot or pass the puck. This is the basics of how a hockey game should work. You can tackle the player with the puck to steal it from them. What is the most annoying thing about this game is that when you control your hockey player, you also control the goalie. This is the worst design decision ever. The reason for that is if you are at a disadvantage, you can't really control the player, because if you do that, the net will be so vulnerable. So the only thing that you can do is to goalie for the whole disadvantage situation until you are lucky enough for the goalie to keep the puck.
The gameplay is really not good as well. You have 3 type of players on the ice : The skinny, the medium and the fat one. They each have their speed and strength associated to one another. However, there isn't much difference between the stats of all of them (especially the speed). This makes the game really frustrating since the skinny one are kind of useless. Scoring in this game is also really hard. The computer is so good to block your shots. It was so painful to play this game that once I scored one point more than the other team, I kept the puck behind my goal and wasted time until the game is over. I know this is shameless, but I did what I got to do to win a game and get over with it.
While this game was really popular at the time, I had no fun at all playing this game. Maybe this game was more appreciated for his 2 player gameplay, but I didn't tried it and probably won't. This game is not be open from me ever again.
Sports games was really popular at the time. It was meant to reach out to different type of kids and try to reach the interest of some to play video games. A lot of sports had their own games, but it was time for Hockey to have his place to shine.
Once again, there ain't no plot to this game since it's a sports game on the NES. Simply be the hockey champion and beat every country.
The Intro music and game music is catchy. Nothing extraordinaire here but does the job.
The visuals are neat. The ice is good looking and nothing is really missing for an arena type of view. The characters looks decent. They created 3 types of shapes for the players on the ice and the only thing that they did is to swap colors to represent each country in this game.
The controls are where the shit show starts : You control a hockey player. You can shoot or pass the puck. This is the basics of how a hockey game should work. You can tackle the player with the puck to steal it from them. What is the most annoying thing about this game is that when you control your hockey player, you also control the goalie. This is the worst design decision ever. The reason for that is if you are at a disadvantage, you can't really control the player, because if you do that, the net will be so vulnerable. So the only thing that you can do is to goalie for the whole disadvantage situation until you are lucky enough for the goalie to keep the puck.
The gameplay is really not good as well. You have 3 type of players on the ice : The skinny, the medium and the fat one. They each have their speed and strength associated to one another. However, there isn't much difference between the stats of all of them (especially the speed). This makes the game really frustrating since the skinny one are kind of useless. Scoring in this game is also really hard. The computer is so good to block your shots. It was so painful to play this game that once I scored one point more than the other team, I kept the puck behind my goal and wasted time until the game is over. I know this is shameless, but I did what I got to do to win a game and get over with it.
While this game was really popular at the time, I had no fun at all playing this game. Maybe this game was more appreciated for his 2 player gameplay, but I didn't tried it and probably won't. This game is not be open from me ever again.
1987
Game #64 of my challenge
Now that I'm back on where I was at, we now move on to a good sports game. But This time, we are playing football.
I won't spend much time on the plot of this game since..... it's a sports game. Be the best team and win the super bowl. That's about it.
The music however, should not be allowed to be this good for a NES game. The title screen song is such a good song. During the gameplay, there's some tiny song bits that plays depending on what's happening during the game. This add some enjoyment during the gameplay.
The visual is good for what it needs to be during gameplay. Tiny players running around on the field is enough to understand what's going on. One thing that I though what nice was the transition screen. They were detailed pictures with a little bit of movement in them. They look really good for an early NES game.
The controls are good (except for the pass section). They were able to add so many options on one button depending on the situation. This helps for a controller that only have A or B on it. The kickoff is a simpler golf gauge that you need to hit at the right time. Running with the ball is good and you can mash the A button to get out of a tackle. For a pass, the controls are not instinctive. To select who you want to throw the ball, you need to tap A to switch and once you selected your player, Tap on B to pass. The selection player thing is not the best in my opinion.
For the gameplay, depending if you are on Offence or Defense, you will have 4 different plays that you can select from. However, there are only 4 plays for the whole game. It's understandable for the era since it would have been hard to program so many players on the field for the type of play you selected. On offence, selecting a run play was really easy to get the first play usually (or even a touchdown). On defense, I don't if it was programmed like that or simply luck, but when I was selecting a run defense tactics, the opposite team will take a run play and same thing goes for a pass defense tactic. This make the game was easier to win.
I still really enjoyed my time playing this game. Right now, it's my second favorite sports game on the console and it impressed me on how they managed to create a football game on the NES.
Now that I'm back on where I was at, we now move on to a good sports game. But This time, we are playing football.
I won't spend much time on the plot of this game since..... it's a sports game. Be the best team and win the super bowl. That's about it.
The music however, should not be allowed to be this good for a NES game. The title screen song is such a good song. During the gameplay, there's some tiny song bits that plays depending on what's happening during the game. This add some enjoyment during the gameplay.
The visual is good for what it needs to be during gameplay. Tiny players running around on the field is enough to understand what's going on. One thing that I though what nice was the transition screen. They were detailed pictures with a little bit of movement in them. They look really good for an early NES game.
The controls are good (except for the pass section). They were able to add so many options on one button depending on the situation. This helps for a controller that only have A or B on it. The kickoff is a simpler golf gauge that you need to hit at the right time. Running with the ball is good and you can mash the A button to get out of a tackle. For a pass, the controls are not instinctive. To select who you want to throw the ball, you need to tap A to switch and once you selected your player, Tap on B to pass. The selection player thing is not the best in my opinion.
For the gameplay, depending if you are on Offence or Defense, you will have 4 different plays that you can select from. However, there are only 4 plays for the whole game. It's understandable for the era since it would have been hard to program so many players on the field for the type of play you selected. On offence, selecting a run play was really easy to get the first play usually (or even a touchdown). On defense, I don't if it was programmed like that or simply luck, but when I was selecting a run defense tactics, the opposite team will take a run play and same thing goes for a pass defense tactic. This make the game was easier to win.
I still really enjoyed my time playing this game. Right now, it's my second favorite sports game on the console and it impressed me on how they managed to create a football game on the NES.
Game #63 of my challenge
This should be my last game that I'm catching on before resuming where I was on the timeline. This game was release on April 14th 1986. So I will judge based on games that I played that released before this one (this should be after The legend of Zelda on my timeline).
Before seeing this on the Nintendo Switch NES catalog, I have never heard of this game before. When I booted it, the main character was vaguely familiar. It's another character that I saw as a trophy in Super Smash Bros. After playing this game, let me tell you that it was a good experience, but I will never do again.
First of all, the plot of the game is wild. You (a samurai named Takamaru) are in the 1600s Japan era and on a stormy day, a golden thing fell from the sky and took possession of an old statue. That statue gives orbs to the daimyos of this land and because of that, they got corrupted to be evil. Your goal is to eliminate the corrupted daimyos and get rid of that golden thing (which appears to be an alien). To be honest, only by playing the game, I would have never know what was happening in the game. I didn't read the plot of this game after beating it. I was really surprise to see a huge alien as a final boss.
The visuals are good. I have the same vibe as the legend of Zelda. Everything is distinct. You know from the background where the game is happening. Most of the common enemies are similar, but with different color pallets. There are other types of ''special enemies'' which looks good or ok (there were some things that I could never tell what they were).
The music was good. It gives an old japanese theme vibe. They were able to kind of replicate that kind of music, which is kind of impressive to be honest. If it had a more modern touch to it, I would probably listen to it on my own.
The controls are kind of ok at best. The A button will swing the character sword and B will use his special technique. What is weird about the A button is that if nothing is close to you, it will throw a projectile (it can be a knife, a boomerang kind of thing or some fireballs). But you have a limited amount of projectiles that you can throw. So if you you only want to swing your sword, you will also throw your projectile. At least, the enemies will drop a lot of ammo for those projectiles. The special technique can be a lightning bolt that kills all enemies or an invisible jutsu that makes you invincible for a brief moment. You have a really limited amount of those special techniques.
The gameplay was really different from I was though at first. I though it would have been a legend of zelda type of game with some adventure elements mixed with some sword play. However, after going further into the game, it's more of a bullet hell type of game. There's so many projectiles going around the screen that it's really hard to not get hit by anything. Even if you have 3 hits before losing a life, this makes the game so hard. At least you can block shuriken with your sword.
There's 5 levels in the game, and each of those stages consists of 2 levels. The first level is in the outside world where your goal is to reach the castle and the other level is inside the castle. Both of those levels are real mazes. You can get lost easily in those levels.
This game is extremely hard and I won't recommend this if you don't like challenging games. However, if you like bullet hell games, then this is a game for you.
This should be my last game that I'm catching on before resuming where I was on the timeline. This game was release on April 14th 1986. So I will judge based on games that I played that released before this one (this should be after The legend of Zelda on my timeline).
Before seeing this on the Nintendo Switch NES catalog, I have never heard of this game before. When I booted it, the main character was vaguely familiar. It's another character that I saw as a trophy in Super Smash Bros. After playing this game, let me tell you that it was a good experience, but I will never do again.
First of all, the plot of the game is wild. You (a samurai named Takamaru) are in the 1600s Japan era and on a stormy day, a golden thing fell from the sky and took possession of an old statue. That statue gives orbs to the daimyos of this land and because of that, they got corrupted to be evil. Your goal is to eliminate the corrupted daimyos and get rid of that golden thing (which appears to be an alien). To be honest, only by playing the game, I would have never know what was happening in the game. I didn't read the plot of this game after beating it. I was really surprise to see a huge alien as a final boss.
The visuals are good. I have the same vibe as the legend of Zelda. Everything is distinct. You know from the background where the game is happening. Most of the common enemies are similar, but with different color pallets. There are other types of ''special enemies'' which looks good or ok (there were some things that I could never tell what they were).
The music was good. It gives an old japanese theme vibe. They were able to kind of replicate that kind of music, which is kind of impressive to be honest. If it had a more modern touch to it, I would probably listen to it on my own.
The controls are kind of ok at best. The A button will swing the character sword and B will use his special technique. What is weird about the A button is that if nothing is close to you, it will throw a projectile (it can be a knife, a boomerang kind of thing or some fireballs). But you have a limited amount of projectiles that you can throw. So if you you only want to swing your sword, you will also throw your projectile. At least, the enemies will drop a lot of ammo for those projectiles. The special technique can be a lightning bolt that kills all enemies or an invisible jutsu that makes you invincible for a brief moment. You have a really limited amount of those special techniques.
The gameplay was really different from I was though at first. I though it would have been a legend of zelda type of game with some adventure elements mixed with some sword play. However, after going further into the game, it's more of a bullet hell type of game. There's so many projectiles going around the screen that it's really hard to not get hit by anything. Even if you have 3 hits before losing a life, this makes the game so hard. At least you can block shuriken with your sword.
There's 5 levels in the game, and each of those stages consists of 2 levels. The first level is in the outside world where your goal is to reach the castle and the other level is inside the castle. Both of those levels are real mazes. You can get lost easily in those levels.
This game is extremely hard and I won't recommend this if you don't like challenging games. However, if you like bullet hell games, then this is a game for you.
1984
Game #62 if my challenge
Just like the last review, this is something that was release before some review that I did. This game was first release October 5th 1984, so that put it after Balloon Fight. I will not take into account game that I reviewed that was release after this game.
The first time I saw this Devil, it was as a trophy in a Super smash bros game. I never knew where he came from, but my only impression of him was that he was annoying as hell. Well, that didn't change my opinion after seeing his origins.
First off, there's not much plot to it like the old games. You are a dragon-like creature that wants to attack the devil's world. We don't know what the devil did to him, but the little dragon seems motivated.
Music wise, it's really simplistic and repetitive. To be honest, I wasn't really paying attention to the music that much during my playthrough since I needed to concentrate so hard to not die.
The controls are simple : Move with D-Pad. That's what I though at first since when pressing every button, it didn't do anything. However, if you hold a cross or a bible in hand, you can shoot fireball. It took me a lot of time to figure it out since it's not instinctive, because those objects is what make you complete the objectives. Shooting fireballs will get rid of the enemies for a brief moment and they will respawn at the center of the stage.
The gameplay is a maze-like game that your character needs to run into and collect stuff. However, what makes this game special compared to other is that the devil will always move the camera in a random vertical or horizontal direction so that can get stuck and die between the screen and a wall. There are also some enemies that will walk around and try to catch you. There are three type of stages and once you clear all 3, it will loop back again. There's no end to this game since it approaches more of an arcade angle where you goal is to beat the highest score.
The first type of stage is to collect all the dots in the stage (kind of like Pac-man). However, you can only collects those pellets if you hold a cross in-hand. If you don't have the cross, walking on the dots will do absolutely nothing. That's why I was saying at first that I didn't know that holding the cross will grant you the power to shoot fireballs. Randomly during the stage, some ice cream will appear and you can eat them to gain extra points. Once all pellets are collected, the stage is cleared.
The second stage goal is to collect 4 bibles and bring them to the center of the stage to stop the devil (I think). Those bibles will always stay at all 4 corners of the screen, even when the camera is moving. This can be really frustrating since it can overlap the walls of the stage, which makes it really hard to grab them. It can be random if you are able to get them or not since the camera will always move in a different direction. It's the same thing for when you get a bible. It can take a lot of time before you are able to bring it back to the center of the stage. It's a really frustrating type of level. Once cleared, the devil runs away.
The last type of stage is a bonus one. You are on a timer and you goal is to collect every item in them to get more points. This time, you are the one who influence the camera. On the floor, there are some arrows that, when stepped on it, will change the direction of the camera. Pretty simple and once you collect everything or the timer runs out, you loop back to the first type of stage.
This game can be really frustrating since it's so random, but I still like the idea behind it. I would only recommend someone to try it for curiosity purpose only.
Just like the last review, this is something that was release before some review that I did. This game was first release October 5th 1984, so that put it after Balloon Fight. I will not take into account game that I reviewed that was release after this game.
The first time I saw this Devil, it was as a trophy in a Super smash bros game. I never knew where he came from, but my only impression of him was that he was annoying as hell. Well, that didn't change my opinion after seeing his origins.
First off, there's not much plot to it like the old games. You are a dragon-like creature that wants to attack the devil's world. We don't know what the devil did to him, but the little dragon seems motivated.
Music wise, it's really simplistic and repetitive. To be honest, I wasn't really paying attention to the music that much during my playthrough since I needed to concentrate so hard to not die.
The controls are simple : Move with D-Pad. That's what I though at first since when pressing every button, it didn't do anything. However, if you hold a cross or a bible in hand, you can shoot fireball. It took me a lot of time to figure it out since it's not instinctive, because those objects is what make you complete the objectives. Shooting fireballs will get rid of the enemies for a brief moment and they will respawn at the center of the stage.
The gameplay is a maze-like game that your character needs to run into and collect stuff. However, what makes this game special compared to other is that the devil will always move the camera in a random vertical or horizontal direction so that can get stuck and die between the screen and a wall. There are also some enemies that will walk around and try to catch you. There are three type of stages and once you clear all 3, it will loop back again. There's no end to this game since it approaches more of an arcade angle where you goal is to beat the highest score.
The first type of stage is to collect all the dots in the stage (kind of like Pac-man). However, you can only collects those pellets if you hold a cross in-hand. If you don't have the cross, walking on the dots will do absolutely nothing. That's why I was saying at first that I didn't know that holding the cross will grant you the power to shoot fireballs. Randomly during the stage, some ice cream will appear and you can eat them to gain extra points. Once all pellets are collected, the stage is cleared.
The second stage goal is to collect 4 bibles and bring them to the center of the stage to stop the devil (I think). Those bibles will always stay at all 4 corners of the screen, even when the camera is moving. This can be really frustrating since it can overlap the walls of the stage, which makes it really hard to grab them. It can be random if you are able to get them or not since the camera will always move in a different direction. It's the same thing for when you get a bible. It can take a lot of time before you are able to bring it back to the center of the stage. It's a really frustrating type of level. Once cleared, the devil runs away.
The last type of stage is a bonus one. You are on a timer and you goal is to collect every item in them to get more points. This time, you are the one who influence the camera. On the floor, there are some arrows that, when stepped on it, will change the direction of the camera. Pretty simple and once you collect everything or the timer runs out, you loop back to the first type of stage.
This game can be really frustrating since it's so random, but I still like the idea behind it. I would only recommend someone to try it for curiosity purpose only.
1984
Game #61 of my challenge
Before I start this review, this game was added to the list of game that I have recently, and this was release in may 1984. The game I was playing before this one released in december 1987. So this is a game that I need to catch up for my challenge. For reference purposes, this was release after Pinball in my game list, so I will judge it on that. (FYI, my next couple of review will be some catch up as well).
Flicky is an Arcade game that really have it's own identity. A game made by Sega, Flicky is a platform game that the main goal is to save some Chirps from some cats named Tigers (they are actually cats, not tigers) and some Green Iguanas called Iggys.
The visual is really good compared to all other games that I played before this. The only game that is visually better than this game that was released before was Dragon's lair. The main character Flicky, the flightless blue bird, is really standing out in terms of protagonist. The sprite of Flicky is well detailed. The background is also charming and the enemies looks good.
The music is simplistic and also charming. It fits the theme of the game and although the music loops a lot, it never bothered me to listen to that song.
The controls are good, but not the best. Since you can't fly as a bird, you can only jump. The momentum of the jump feels good, but it's annoying when you touch a wall, because you bounce out of it like if you were a bouncing ball. This makes the platforming precision kind of hard. Also, the controls are only the D-pad and one button that does everything. It would have been fine if you would only jump with it, however, that button does another thing as well. In the levels, you can grab random objects that the character can grab by simply running into it. You can throw them at enemies, but with the same button as when you jump. So that means you need to jump to throw the object, which can be a pain at times.
Gameplay wise, you need to collects some chicks spread throughout the level and bring them to the exit door. When you grab one of the chicks, it will follow you behind. You can collect multiple of them and they will all follow you in a line (which is really cute). Bringing multiple of them at the same time to the door will gain you more points. You will lose a life if a cat or iguana touches you. The enemies can also break the line behind you if they touch to the chicks. Depending on the type of chick (sunglasses or not) they will run away with different behavior. You can grab them again without issues or penalty (except for the time bonus at the end of the level).
The bonus level is simply Flicky with a net that tries to catch the chicks launch by some cats with a seesaw. It's chaming and kind of easy when you understand the path of the chicks.
With all 48 levels, I was starting to be tired of playing since the game is kind of redundant. The last level have Sega being part of the level design, which is great. Something that I noticed is that this bird seem familiar. After further investigation, I learn that this bird is the one that Sonic the hedgehog can save from Dr. Eggman. This bird is part of the tiny animals that are captured.
The experience was short, but redundant at the end. I still enjoyed my time and though it wasn't a bad game at all. Would recommend to try.
Before I start this review, this game was added to the list of game that I have recently, and this was release in may 1984. The game I was playing before this one released in december 1987. So this is a game that I need to catch up for my challenge. For reference purposes, this was release after Pinball in my game list, so I will judge it on that. (FYI, my next couple of review will be some catch up as well).
Flicky is an Arcade game that really have it's own identity. A game made by Sega, Flicky is a platform game that the main goal is to save some Chirps from some cats named Tigers (they are actually cats, not tigers) and some Green Iguanas called Iggys.
The visual is really good compared to all other games that I played before this. The only game that is visually better than this game that was released before was Dragon's lair. The main character Flicky, the flightless blue bird, is really standing out in terms of protagonist. The sprite of Flicky is well detailed. The background is also charming and the enemies looks good.
The music is simplistic and also charming. It fits the theme of the game and although the music loops a lot, it never bothered me to listen to that song.
The controls are good, but not the best. Since you can't fly as a bird, you can only jump. The momentum of the jump feels good, but it's annoying when you touch a wall, because you bounce out of it like if you were a bouncing ball. This makes the platforming precision kind of hard. Also, the controls are only the D-pad and one button that does everything. It would have been fine if you would only jump with it, however, that button does another thing as well. In the levels, you can grab random objects that the character can grab by simply running into it. You can throw them at enemies, but with the same button as when you jump. So that means you need to jump to throw the object, which can be a pain at times.
Gameplay wise, you need to collects some chicks spread throughout the level and bring them to the exit door. When you grab one of the chicks, it will follow you behind. You can collect multiple of them and they will all follow you in a line (which is really cute). Bringing multiple of them at the same time to the door will gain you more points. You will lose a life if a cat or iguana touches you. The enemies can also break the line behind you if they touch to the chicks. Depending on the type of chick (sunglasses or not) they will run away with different behavior. You can grab them again without issues or penalty (except for the time bonus at the end of the level).
The bonus level is simply Flicky with a net that tries to catch the chicks launch by some cats with a seesaw. It's chaming and kind of easy when you understand the path of the chicks.
With all 48 levels, I was starting to be tired of playing since the game is kind of redundant. The last level have Sega being part of the level design, which is great. Something that I noticed is that this bird seem familiar. After further investigation, I learn that this bird is the one that Sonic the hedgehog can save from Dr. Eggman. This bird is part of the tiny animals that are captured.
The experience was short, but redundant at the end. I still enjoyed my time and though it wasn't a bad game at all. Would recommend to try.