TheMaxine
1988
Just so we're all on the same page, I respect Ninja Gaiden and think everybody should play it at least once. The three stars is not a representation of the game itself, it's a representation of how bad I am at it. This is a game that caters to a specific clientele of hardcore NES players who enjoy a relentless challenge, and, well, as it turns out, it's not a game for me.
There are things to appreciate though. The cinematic approach, first and foremost. What you have here aren't just expository text boxes. These are cutscenes, no ifs or buts about it. Combining shots, angles, visuals, and telling a story throughout. These are your rewards for clearing each stage, and they're very ahead of their time. Not that the story itself is much to talk about, but the presentation is unquestionably professional, with a touch of cheesy.
Of particular note, is that the writer, Hideo Yoshizawa, would go on to direct the Klonoa games, where his drive for combining storytelling with gameplay was made all the more clearer. That one was good as hell.
The soundtrack pulls its weight too, and was one of the main reasons I kept going. There's definitely some stuff here that'll stick in your head.
At the end of the day though, I can't do this game without cheats. Every second I play the game is a 50% chance of me getting hit, and to take that away through a rewind-heavy perfect run obviously dulls the experience through my own fault. But, I'll always be happy to watch other people kick ass at it in speedruns.
There are things to appreciate though. The cinematic approach, first and foremost. What you have here aren't just expository text boxes. These are cutscenes, no ifs or buts about it. Combining shots, angles, visuals, and telling a story throughout. These are your rewards for clearing each stage, and they're very ahead of their time. Not that the story itself is much to talk about, but the presentation is unquestionably professional, with a touch of cheesy.
Of particular note, is that the writer, Hideo Yoshizawa, would go on to direct the Klonoa games, where his drive for combining storytelling with gameplay was made all the more clearer. That one was good as hell.
The soundtrack pulls its weight too, and was one of the main reasons I kept going. There's definitely some stuff here that'll stick in your head.
At the end of the day though, I can't do this game without cheats. Every second I play the game is a 50% chance of me getting hit, and to take that away through a rewind-heavy perfect run obviously dulls the experience through my own fault. But, I'll always be happy to watch other people kick ass at it in speedruns.
1989
For some reason, Mega Man 2 is still the game I think about the most when I think of this series, and that's probably the case with a lot of people. It was one of the most popular entries in the whole series, and spawned a decent amount of memes back in the 2000's. Its soundtrack greatly contributed to its popularity too, and not for no reason, it is one of NES's best.
It's the peak of the franchise, the peak of the NES Mega Man hexalogy, but in the modern age, this worries me. Because it's likely that a newcomer will hear a lot about this game, and decide to make this their introduction to the Mega Man series, which personally, I would advise against, as much as I like it myself.
In the very least, the big strength of Mega Man 2 over its predecessor is the tightened pacing. There's more levels, but they flow a lot better this time around, taking no time at all to reach the boss at the end. E-tanks make their introduction too, acting as handy emergency items in the case you're almost dead against a boss.
If you're experienced in other Mega Man games, I'd have no trouble recommending Mega Man 2, but what makes me hesitate are certain design choices that are about as questionable as the first game.
Airman, Quickman, and Flashman all suck without their weakness, with attacks that are either too erratic or literally impossible to avoid. There's the Dr. Wily fortress boss which requires every single use of your Crash Bomber weapon to count, otherwise you'll have to game over to reset your ammunition back to full, and that boss also has an attack that's insanely difficult to dodge. The ol' classic "teleporting blocks bridge" in Heatman's stage, or the insta-kill lasers in Quickman's... which granted, are not that hard on subsequent runs, it's those first couple though where you either need to trial 'n error your way through, or have stupid quick reflexes.
It's also important to note as is the case with a good chunk of NES games, that this one is not friendly for photosensitive people. And like, I'm not even photosensitive, but the flashing that this game deploys has me instinctually shielding my eyes from it, that's how bad it is. It happens several times as you enter the final Dr. Wily stages, so be wary.
The US release of Mega Man 2 does have a difficulty option, and picking the default Normal one actually does make a lot of the game pretty easy to get through. Combine that with utilization of boss weaknesses, and bosses can fall in less than 5 seconds. I think this difficulty mode is part of why Mega Man 2 is so enticing for many players, but it does not get rid of the multiple instances of annoying jank I've described examples of above.
And that's the thing. Mega Man 2 is not a bad game at all, I mean, I still play it, I still have fun with it. It's just not a very balanced one, alternating between fun and frustrating design at an inconsistent rate. I feel its popular status sets up wrong expectations of the series's overall quality, as this was still back when Mega Man was figuring its shit out. And I could point to later NES Mega Mans that strike a much, much better balance between challenge and fairness, 4 and 6 come to mind. If you're gonna start anywhere, it's not 2. But, 2 is still a classic, so it's something worth visiting once you have a couple Mega Mans under your belt.
It's the peak of the franchise, the peak of the NES Mega Man hexalogy, but in the modern age, this worries me. Because it's likely that a newcomer will hear a lot about this game, and decide to make this their introduction to the Mega Man series, which personally, I would advise against, as much as I like it myself.
In the very least, the big strength of Mega Man 2 over its predecessor is the tightened pacing. There's more levels, but they flow a lot better this time around, taking no time at all to reach the boss at the end. E-tanks make their introduction too, acting as handy emergency items in the case you're almost dead against a boss.
If you're experienced in other Mega Man games, I'd have no trouble recommending Mega Man 2, but what makes me hesitate are certain design choices that are about as questionable as the first game.
Airman, Quickman, and Flashman all suck without their weakness, with attacks that are either too erratic or literally impossible to avoid. There's the Dr. Wily fortress boss which requires every single use of your Crash Bomber weapon to count, otherwise you'll have to game over to reset your ammunition back to full, and that boss also has an attack that's insanely difficult to dodge. The ol' classic "teleporting blocks bridge" in Heatman's stage, or the insta-kill lasers in Quickman's... which granted, are not that hard on subsequent runs, it's those first couple though where you either need to trial 'n error your way through, or have stupid quick reflexes.
It's also important to note as is the case with a good chunk of NES games, that this one is not friendly for photosensitive people. And like, I'm not even photosensitive, but the flashing that this game deploys has me instinctually shielding my eyes from it, that's how bad it is. It happens several times as you enter the final Dr. Wily stages, so be wary.
The US release of Mega Man 2 does have a difficulty option, and picking the default Normal one actually does make a lot of the game pretty easy to get through. Combine that with utilization of boss weaknesses, and bosses can fall in less than 5 seconds. I think this difficulty mode is part of why Mega Man 2 is so enticing for many players, but it does not get rid of the multiple instances of annoying jank I've described examples of above.
And that's the thing. Mega Man 2 is not a bad game at all, I mean, I still play it, I still have fun with it. It's just not a very balanced one, alternating between fun and frustrating design at an inconsistent rate. I feel its popular status sets up wrong expectations of the series's overall quality, as this was still back when Mega Man was figuring its shit out. And I could point to later NES Mega Mans that strike a much, much better balance between challenge and fairness, 4 and 6 come to mind. If you're gonna start anywhere, it's not 2. But, 2 is still a classic, so it's something worth visiting once you have a couple Mega Mans under your belt.
1992
Snatcher wears its Blade Runner influences for everybody to see. As blatant as it is though, the game does feel like it's doing its own thing. It's less "we're ripping off blade runner" and more "this is what we would do if we had the blade runner franchise." It feels more earnest in that way.
In terms of the overall storytelling quality though, I feel like Snatcher is more entertaining as a series of individual moments than it is as a cohesive overarching narrative, because I've played this game at least three times now, and I still can't remember what the story is about. I do however, remember the characters, the little robot, the actiony sequences, the setpieces... The computer device in your HQ had a whole bunch of shit that had that sort of trademark Kojima "jesus christ he put way too much thought into this" thing, and it made for some entertaining worldbuilding. All of these things pull enough weight to keep you going to see what'll happen next, so as a story, I guess I'd rate it "good enough!"
Music's pretty good too. The opening theme is a particular highlight, by far the best song in the game. The rest of the songs tend to stick to 16-bit Genesis kinda sounds, though I wish there was more of them across the game. The visuals seen across are some of the best spritework you'll find of this era. Richly detailed cities lit in the night, busy crowds during Christmas season, and decrepit abandoned relics of the past, all of which emitted some feelings of nostalgia for places I've been to, similar to these.
As a game though, it's not fun. You have your traditional adventure game interface of that time, where you can look and examine various things, but Snatcher gets really annoying about it by providing you with random arbitrary requirements regarding what counts as "progress." Get ready to examine the same objects 5 or 6 different times constantly throughout the game, until it finally decides that you were thorough enough to unlock the next area. It'll cause you to get constantly stuck, and makes for some pretty padded pacing.
Besides that, you have a couple basic gallery shooter segments for when you have to engage in combat, but they're nothing to write home about. It's just something to do, but the lack of depth makes it arguably pointless.
Going back to the story, there is one major point of criticism I have against it. Your MC, Gillian. Gillian's a detective. I really like detective characters. Cool guys that get shit done. And Gillian does do some cool shit over time. It makes me really want to like him too. If it weren't for the fact that he's a major fuckin' horndog.
This is a complicated thing to discuss, as there are right ways to write a comically horny character, and there are very wrong ways that make things actively creepier than funnier. Gillian is a creepy horny. I think that's in part because he's the only one in the game that behaves that way, so he sticks out. It doesn't matter who it is, could be the 18-year old girl grieving her father's passing, for all he cares. As long as they're even remotely feminine in appearance, Gillian starts going awooga all over'em.
The contrast becomes explicitly obvious when you compare the way the game treats male characters versus how it treats girls as things to undress with your eyes. Not to mention, how it uses the existence of a trans person all for the sake of a shitty "Oh NO, I've been flirting with a GUY?!" joke. The treatment of sexuality here is off-puttingly one-sided, entirely based around making women uncomfortable by telling them to be submissive for the guys, and it turns the otherwise cool detective character into an incredibly depressing, and rarely endearing loser.
One may argue, that these flirting options are optional, and, as a result, are a roleplaying element. Absolutely not. Gillian will do stuff like this with or without your heads-up. There's one point in the game where you're searching the streets for an informant, and Gillian just happens to stumble upon some random girl on the street and starts acting up all on his own. It's not a roleplaying element, it's just part of his personality.
Not like this is a roleplaying game anyway, you don't make choices that affect the course of the game's story, all you're in charge of is your womanizer levels. I know I've been prattling on about this for like half the review, it's just unsettling that within a game that has so many neat moments, also lies this pointless bullshit. I mean, it could've had the potential to be an ironic Johnny Bravo, but it instead wound up being that creepy drunken guy in the bar that follows you down the alleyway. And it makes the game kinda embarrassing to recommend to anyone.
And I haven't even gotten to reviewing Policenauts yet, 'cause jesus christ.
In terms of the overall storytelling quality though, I feel like Snatcher is more entertaining as a series of individual moments than it is as a cohesive overarching narrative, because I've played this game at least three times now, and I still can't remember what the story is about. I do however, remember the characters, the little robot, the actiony sequences, the setpieces... The computer device in your HQ had a whole bunch of shit that had that sort of trademark Kojima "jesus christ he put way too much thought into this" thing, and it made for some entertaining worldbuilding. All of these things pull enough weight to keep you going to see what'll happen next, so as a story, I guess I'd rate it "good enough!"
Music's pretty good too. The opening theme is a particular highlight, by far the best song in the game. The rest of the songs tend to stick to 16-bit Genesis kinda sounds, though I wish there was more of them across the game. The visuals seen across are some of the best spritework you'll find of this era. Richly detailed cities lit in the night, busy crowds during Christmas season, and decrepit abandoned relics of the past, all of which emitted some feelings of nostalgia for places I've been to, similar to these.
As a game though, it's not fun. You have your traditional adventure game interface of that time, where you can look and examine various things, but Snatcher gets really annoying about it by providing you with random arbitrary requirements regarding what counts as "progress." Get ready to examine the same objects 5 or 6 different times constantly throughout the game, until it finally decides that you were thorough enough to unlock the next area. It'll cause you to get constantly stuck, and makes for some pretty padded pacing.
Besides that, you have a couple basic gallery shooter segments for when you have to engage in combat, but they're nothing to write home about. It's just something to do, but the lack of depth makes it arguably pointless.
Going back to the story, there is one major point of criticism I have against it. Your MC, Gillian. Gillian's a detective. I really like detective characters. Cool guys that get shit done. And Gillian does do some cool shit over time. It makes me really want to like him too. If it weren't for the fact that he's a major fuckin' horndog.
This is a complicated thing to discuss, as there are right ways to write a comically horny character, and there are very wrong ways that make things actively creepier than funnier. Gillian is a creepy horny. I think that's in part because he's the only one in the game that behaves that way, so he sticks out. It doesn't matter who it is, could be the 18-year old girl grieving her father's passing, for all he cares. As long as they're even remotely feminine in appearance, Gillian starts going awooga all over'em.
The contrast becomes explicitly obvious when you compare the way the game treats male characters versus how it treats girls as things to undress with your eyes. Not to mention, how it uses the existence of a trans person all for the sake of a shitty "Oh NO, I've been flirting with a GUY?!" joke. The treatment of sexuality here is off-puttingly one-sided, entirely based around making women uncomfortable by telling them to be submissive for the guys, and it turns the otherwise cool detective character into an incredibly depressing, and rarely endearing loser.
One may argue, that these flirting options are optional, and, as a result, are a roleplaying element. Absolutely not. Gillian will do stuff like this with or without your heads-up. There's one point in the game where you're searching the streets for an informant, and Gillian just happens to stumble upon some random girl on the street and starts acting up all on his own. It's not a roleplaying element, it's just part of his personality.
Not like this is a roleplaying game anyway, you don't make choices that affect the course of the game's story, all you're in charge of is your womanizer levels. I know I've been prattling on about this for like half the review, it's just unsettling that within a game that has so many neat moments, also lies this pointless bullshit. I mean, it could've had the potential to be an ironic Johnny Bravo, but it instead wound up being that creepy drunken guy in the bar that follows you down the alleyway. And it makes the game kinda embarrassing to recommend to anyone.
And I haven't even gotten to reviewing Policenauts yet, 'cause jesus christ.
1989
It seems like the opinion on this game here's pretty divided. Either you'll like it or hate it. Me, I fall on the spectrum of really really liking this one. Partially due to nostalgic attachment, but also because I think there's a pretty solidly designed game here, underneath one caveat. The controls. Coming from Mario 3, or even Mario 1, Mario's physics feel a lot more basic. There's no friction, no momentum, it kinda feels like one of those amateur Mario fangames that don't even bother trying to get the feel of the physics right.
Despite that, the controls DO work, and the level design works alongside them. And that very level design is what saves this game. The collection of levels here feels just as fun to master as any other Mario game, encouraging exploration and the discovery of secrets that shower you with coins and 1-ups. As you get better at replaying the game, levels get a lot faster to run through, incorporating that speedrunning aspect that Mario 1 had. The variety of levels is strong, constantly taking you to different locales, and occasionally throwing in a little shoot'em up level here and there. The game is short and sweet, a full playthrough taking a little over 20 minutes to complete. And lastly, it goes without saying that the music is catchy as hell.
So, there's a lot going for it. but your expectations of how a Mario game usually feels might really fuck this one up for you. There are definite quirks, but I feel it's possible to quickly master them. To me, Mario Land's a tiny little gem among the Gameboy library, and I feel everybody should give it a shot at least. It's certainly no polished masterpiece, and yet, somehow, it clicked. With an open mind, maybe it'll click for you.
Despite that, the controls DO work, and the level design works alongside them. And that very level design is what saves this game. The collection of levels here feels just as fun to master as any other Mario game, encouraging exploration and the discovery of secrets that shower you with coins and 1-ups. As you get better at replaying the game, levels get a lot faster to run through, incorporating that speedrunning aspect that Mario 1 had. The variety of levels is strong, constantly taking you to different locales, and occasionally throwing in a little shoot'em up level here and there. The game is short and sweet, a full playthrough taking a little over 20 minutes to complete. And lastly, it goes without saying that the music is catchy as hell.
So, there's a lot going for it. but your expectations of how a Mario game usually feels might really fuck this one up for you. There are definite quirks, but I feel it's possible to quickly master them. To me, Mario Land's a tiny little gem among the Gameboy library, and I feel everybody should give it a shot at least. It's certainly no polished masterpiece, and yet, somehow, it clicked. With an open mind, maybe it'll click for you.
1991
(Used a romhack that reverts the difficulty back to how it was in the Japanese release)
Good news, I've outraced the other guy who reviewed this and managed to complete the game before they did! Moreover, I'm led to believe I may be the only one on Backloggd who has reached the credits, seeing as I cannot possibly imagine anyone else being assed enough to complete it unless they have OCD like I do. The bad news? Wasn't worth it!
I've played a decent spectrum of RPG's at this point. Paper Mario, the casual beginner's RPG. Final Fantasy 4, the moderately challenging but still relatively lax RPG. EarthBound, the sometimes-easy sometimes-tough RPG, depends on the current difficulty spike. Final Fantasy Legend II, the brutally punishing RPG. Cosmic Fantasy 2... oh my god, Cosmic Fantasy 2.
It took about 3-4 hours of gameplay to determine that this was the most dull fucking RPG I have ever played in my life, and it never got better. Any lessons that Dragon Quest 3 & 4 should've taught and influenced this entry were taken for granted. No amount of neat little anime cutscenes or the short 12-hour length could've hidden the repetitive and unchanging combat system's flaws.
Think of it this way. Dragon Quest 1 was a pretty mediocre RPG, and that was mainly because it was a solo venture, with no party members to speak of. The limitations allowed for little strategy beyond mashing the attack button and the occasional heal. Later Dragon Quests rectified this problem by providing multiple classes worth of party members to choose from, which allowed for a number of interesting customizable builds that affected how you play the game.
So how the fuck is it that Cosmic Fantasy 2 allows a total of 4 people in your party, and yet winds up feeling about as monotonous as Dragon Quest 1 was? The answer is: The magic blows. Your traditional elemental spells are here, but enemies don't have any weaknesses to speak of. Instead, magic always deals a fixed amount of damage no matter which enemy you use it against, and said damage generally tends to be weaker than just mashing the attack button.
Adding on top of the fact that these offensive spells drain your MP like crazy, you're gonna wind up only using the healing ones. And thus, reveals itself the exciting gameplay loop: "Mash the attack button, and heal occasionally." Even then, you're not gonna be healing all that much, because Inns are plentiful, enemies deal baffingly low amounts of damage (like, 1 or 2 points...) and level ups restore all of your HP and MP to full. So really, it's actually just "mash the attack button." And throw in insanely frequent encounter rates as well, while you're at it. I'm not against an easy RPG, but this takes mindless to a next level.
Also, why were there items that cure status effects despite the fact I never got a single status effect throughout the whole game? I'm... not sure if this is a problem with the romhack or this is just how the game works, but it was super weird.
For a game that has “cosmic” in the title, there is barely any of that. Phantasy Star, this ain’t. Every couple hours or so, you MAY get one cutscene that gives you some spaceships traveling the galaxy, but this stuff is so in the background that it makes me question why is it in the game at all, when most of the actual focus takes place on a generic medieval fantasy island with your usual towns and overworld map. You don't get to shoot laser guns or battle aliens until the last 30 minutes of the game. All of the sci-fi shit is so baffingly in the background, that when it DOES happen, you go “oh, right! I completely forgot this game had space stuff in it!” You might as well just call this game Fantasy 2.
The localization is definitely more competent than most of the RPG's of the time. Even Final Fantasy 4 suffered from a pretty bad one. But as is Working Design's standard, not everything is accurate to the source material. For some reason they gave one of the characters this aggressive French accent, and you're looking at the guy's calm and smiling face as he repeteadly belittles you and you can so fucking tell that whatever this was in the Japanese version, was completely thrown out the window here because somebody thought it'd be funny. Yeah, sure, your fart joke was very funny, Working Designs. Top-notch writing.
No, but really, the story here is kinda par for the course for the early 90's. Trying hard to be something special, but heavily underdeveloped to truly stick the landing. Definitely feels like some context is missing here too, I'm pretty sure there's some cameo characters from the first game here, but obviously, since this was the only localized entry, there's no attachment there.
Listen, unless you grew up with it, just don't play this one. I mean it, there's nothing for you here, and plenty of greater RPG's out there for you instead. Do not make my mistake. Do not fuck around and find out.
Good news, I've outraced the other guy who reviewed this and managed to complete the game before they did! Moreover, I'm led to believe I may be the only one on Backloggd who has reached the credits, seeing as I cannot possibly imagine anyone else being assed enough to complete it unless they have OCD like I do. The bad news? Wasn't worth it!
I've played a decent spectrum of RPG's at this point. Paper Mario, the casual beginner's RPG. Final Fantasy 4, the moderately challenging but still relatively lax RPG. EarthBound, the sometimes-easy sometimes-tough RPG, depends on the current difficulty spike. Final Fantasy Legend II, the brutally punishing RPG. Cosmic Fantasy 2... oh my god, Cosmic Fantasy 2.
It took about 3-4 hours of gameplay to determine that this was the most dull fucking RPG I have ever played in my life, and it never got better. Any lessons that Dragon Quest 3 & 4 should've taught and influenced this entry were taken for granted. No amount of neat little anime cutscenes or the short 12-hour length could've hidden the repetitive and unchanging combat system's flaws.
Think of it this way. Dragon Quest 1 was a pretty mediocre RPG, and that was mainly because it was a solo venture, with no party members to speak of. The limitations allowed for little strategy beyond mashing the attack button and the occasional heal. Later Dragon Quests rectified this problem by providing multiple classes worth of party members to choose from, which allowed for a number of interesting customizable builds that affected how you play the game.
So how the fuck is it that Cosmic Fantasy 2 allows a total of 4 people in your party, and yet winds up feeling about as monotonous as Dragon Quest 1 was? The answer is: The magic blows. Your traditional elemental spells are here, but enemies don't have any weaknesses to speak of. Instead, magic always deals a fixed amount of damage no matter which enemy you use it against, and said damage generally tends to be weaker than just mashing the attack button.
Adding on top of the fact that these offensive spells drain your MP like crazy, you're gonna wind up only using the healing ones. And thus, reveals itself the exciting gameplay loop: "Mash the attack button, and heal occasionally." Even then, you're not gonna be healing all that much, because Inns are plentiful, enemies deal baffingly low amounts of damage (like, 1 or 2 points...) and level ups restore all of your HP and MP to full. So really, it's actually just "mash the attack button." And throw in insanely frequent encounter rates as well, while you're at it. I'm not against an easy RPG, but this takes mindless to a next level.
Also, why were there items that cure status effects despite the fact I never got a single status effect throughout the whole game? I'm... not sure if this is a problem with the romhack or this is just how the game works, but it was super weird.
For a game that has “cosmic” in the title, there is barely any of that. Phantasy Star, this ain’t. Every couple hours or so, you MAY get one cutscene that gives you some spaceships traveling the galaxy, but this stuff is so in the background that it makes me question why is it in the game at all, when most of the actual focus takes place on a generic medieval fantasy island with your usual towns and overworld map. You don't get to shoot laser guns or battle aliens until the last 30 minutes of the game. All of the sci-fi shit is so baffingly in the background, that when it DOES happen, you go “oh, right! I completely forgot this game had space stuff in it!” You might as well just call this game Fantasy 2.
The localization is definitely more competent than most of the RPG's of the time. Even Final Fantasy 4 suffered from a pretty bad one. But as is Working Design's standard, not everything is accurate to the source material. For some reason they gave one of the characters this aggressive French accent, and you're looking at the guy's calm and smiling face as he repeteadly belittles you and you can so fucking tell that whatever this was in the Japanese version, was completely thrown out the window here because somebody thought it'd be funny. Yeah, sure, your fart joke was very funny, Working Designs. Top-notch writing.
No, but really, the story here is kinda par for the course for the early 90's. Trying hard to be something special, but heavily underdeveloped to truly stick the landing. Definitely feels like some context is missing here too, I'm pretty sure there's some cameo characters from the first game here, but obviously, since this was the only localized entry, there's no attachment there.
Listen, unless you grew up with it, just don't play this one. I mean it, there's nothing for you here, and plenty of greater RPG's out there for you instead. Do not make my mistake. Do not fuck around and find out.
1989
It's not bad, albeit I'm unable to attach myself to this game in the same way most others did. The pogo jump is a neat mechanic, but I feel the level design leaves a bit to be desired. Which, again, is just "not bad" to me.
The only way I can compare it is kind of like if... each level was a hotel. As in, most of them share the design mentality of multiple horizontal rooms that have multiple floors that go either up or down, and you can kinda feel it getting samey after a while. It's not the kind of level design that grabs my interest for a simpler platformer like this, for which I would've probably preferred a more Mega Man-like structure instead. The soundtrack is a classic though, and I appreciate the visual variety on display.
The one big plus of DuckTales is that it's one of the few quality NES games with a relatively forgiving sense of difficulty, and that very well may be the one reason to play it, especially if you're on a NES marathon. It may not have grabbed me, but it was still worth checking out at least once.
The only way I can compare it is kind of like if... each level was a hotel. As in, most of them share the design mentality of multiple horizontal rooms that have multiple floors that go either up or down, and you can kinda feel it getting samey after a while. It's not the kind of level design that grabs my interest for a simpler platformer like this, for which I would've probably preferred a more Mega Man-like structure instead. The soundtrack is a classic though, and I appreciate the visual variety on display.
The one big plus of DuckTales is that it's one of the few quality NES games with a relatively forgiving sense of difficulty, and that very well may be the one reason to play it, especially if you're on a NES marathon. It may not have grabbed me, but it was still worth checking out at least once.
1992
I've heard this was one of the best versions of Prince of Persia to play. But there's probably no changing the fact that this isn't the kind of game for me.
The controls are the whole point of the game. Making careful decisions, avoiding fall damage, adhering to a more realistic sense of parkour than most games of its time. Unfortunately, there's some sort of delay on the jump, and it makes it really difficult to gauge the right timing to hop across a gap. This led to multiple deaths that I thought weren't in my control.
Even if I were to adapt to the awkward controls - which might've been doable - attaching a time limit to level design that requires this kind of careful precision is not something I like. Speaking of the level design, not my jam either. A lot of it blends in, relying too much on mazes with occasional nonsensical solutions. A particular standout was having to jump into a random ceiling to knock off a tile that allows you to go up. When the levels are not unintuitive, or the time limit isn't stressful, the game just feels bland. It's fucked up that I had more fun in the training levels than any of the main ones.
The combat feels like it was a last-minute throw-in. Once you figure out the strategy, you can use it against every single enemy you encounter. It removes all challenge from it, and becomes busy work.
I wanna give this game some credit. The rotoscoped animations are really impressive, and I do kinda like the concept of exploring a dungeon like this. But, I didn't have fun with the execution. I'm not good or patient enough for this.
The controls are the whole point of the game. Making careful decisions, avoiding fall damage, adhering to a more realistic sense of parkour than most games of its time. Unfortunately, there's some sort of delay on the jump, and it makes it really difficult to gauge the right timing to hop across a gap. This led to multiple deaths that I thought weren't in my control.
Even if I were to adapt to the awkward controls - which might've been doable - attaching a time limit to level design that requires this kind of careful precision is not something I like. Speaking of the level design, not my jam either. A lot of it blends in, relying too much on mazes with occasional nonsensical solutions. A particular standout was having to jump into a random ceiling to knock off a tile that allows you to go up. When the levels are not unintuitive, or the time limit isn't stressful, the game just feels bland. It's fucked up that I had more fun in the training levels than any of the main ones.
The combat feels like it was a last-minute throw-in. Once you figure out the strategy, you can use it against every single enemy you encounter. It removes all challenge from it, and becomes busy work.
I wanna give this game some credit. The rotoscoped animations are really impressive, and I do kinda like the concept of exploring a dungeon like this. But, I didn't have fun with the execution. I'm not good or patient enough for this.
Castlevania 3 ultimately falls in the mixed category for me. There are obvious improvements made within the gameplay, graphics, and audio side of things (especially if you're playing the japanese version), but the difficulty has been cranked up to a nearly insufferable degree since Castlevania 1, and it kinda harms the overall experience. It's way better than Castlevania 2 for sure, but the balance should've been re-examined one more time.
I really like the multiple playable characters and the branching pathways. They lean themselves really well into encouraging you to play the game at least 2-3 seperate times, as you're guaranteed to run into whole new stages and bosses doing so, while being able to figure out new methods to cross previously-beaten stages by experimenting with different characters. One other particular highlight was discovering a way to insta-kill a boss using the knife to attract the distant thunder right on top of the boss's head. Bar none, it is the coolest thing I've ever seen in an NES game, and kinda wished there were more moments like that one.
Still, I just... can't deal with this one unless I'm cheating. Castlevania 1's difficulty was just right for me, but this one is either too relentless to give you breathing space, or too sluggish and time-wasting to keep my eyes peeled on the screen and not down on the floor, thinking about other games I could be playing.
Speaking of... ever since Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon came out, it's been tough to come back to this one, seeing as Curse of the Moon is like if they did Castlevania 3 again, but ironed out every flaw. To some degree, I still respect this Castlevania, I mean, its presentation is well put together no matter how you look at it. But man, I struggle like hell with this one. Whether that says something about my skills or this game's balance, I know in the very least that there are a bunch of other Classicvanias out there that I jive with a lot more.
I really like the multiple playable characters and the branching pathways. They lean themselves really well into encouraging you to play the game at least 2-3 seperate times, as you're guaranteed to run into whole new stages and bosses doing so, while being able to figure out new methods to cross previously-beaten stages by experimenting with different characters. One other particular highlight was discovering a way to insta-kill a boss using the knife to attract the distant thunder right on top of the boss's head. Bar none, it is the coolest thing I've ever seen in an NES game, and kinda wished there were more moments like that one.
Still, I just... can't deal with this one unless I'm cheating. Castlevania 1's difficulty was just right for me, but this one is either too relentless to give you breathing space, or too sluggish and time-wasting to keep my eyes peeled on the screen and not down on the floor, thinking about other games I could be playing.
Speaking of... ever since Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon came out, it's been tough to come back to this one, seeing as Curse of the Moon is like if they did Castlevania 3 again, but ironed out every flaw. To some degree, I still respect this Castlevania, I mean, its presentation is well put together no matter how you look at it. But man, I struggle like hell with this one. Whether that says something about my skills or this game's balance, I know in the very least that there are a bunch of other Classicvanias out there that I jive with a lot more.
The problem with having some of my first Metroidvania experiences be from the 2000's onward, is that I've been spoiled rotten on the amount of QoL that Wonder Boy III paved the way for. Although I respect anybody who enjoys this game (more power to you!), I, uh... didn't click.
Coming back to this one, I've struggled to remain engaged. The premise is interesting enough, being able to acquire items and unique animal transformations, each of which packs their own ability and allows you to explore further areas. The problem for me, was that the areas weren't interesting enough to be explored. You know those old Arcadey games where you've got a sword, and you're just holding right for the most part while swinging your weapon to one-hit kill oncoming threats? Like hack 'n slash games in which attacking takes significantly more precedence over platforming. That's what Wonder Boy's design feels like, these long horizontal flat stretches broken up by dungeons with even more horizontal stretches of enemy onslaughts.
There are some things the game does to try and spice things up, such as underwater areas, and wall climbing, but these things aren't enough to break up what you're gonna be doing for the whole game, which is run and slash. And with the game's basic combat feel, plus the game running at a lower frame rate (it seemed like 30) compared to most games of that time, the gameplay does not feel smooth and satisfying enough to justify trekking through it, especially in the instances where you might get stuck and will have to redo the areas you've already explored just to confirm if you didn't miss something.
I also wasn't a fan of the animal transformations being relegated to specific rooms, and would've rather preferred the option to transform into any animal with the press of a button, or via my menu whenever I wanted. A map could've been great too. As it currently is, I was not able to remember the specific locations of every animal transformation room, and sometimes I wound up in a room that required an animal that I wasn't currently transformed into. So, time to figure out where's the nearest transformation room, I guess! It was inconvenient and time-wasting.
In the future, I'm still interested in checking out the remake of Dragon's Trap, as I loved the art I saw in it, and am hopeful that it'll iron out some of my gripes about the lack of a map and the overly simplistic combat feel. Without those things, Dragon's Trap is a game full of neat ideas with a dull execution, and I wish I could've enjoyed this one a lot more than I did.
Coming back to this one, I've struggled to remain engaged. The premise is interesting enough, being able to acquire items and unique animal transformations, each of which packs their own ability and allows you to explore further areas. The problem for me, was that the areas weren't interesting enough to be explored. You know those old Arcadey games where you've got a sword, and you're just holding right for the most part while swinging your weapon to one-hit kill oncoming threats? Like hack 'n slash games in which attacking takes significantly more precedence over platforming. That's what Wonder Boy's design feels like, these long horizontal flat stretches broken up by dungeons with even more horizontal stretches of enemy onslaughts.
There are some things the game does to try and spice things up, such as underwater areas, and wall climbing, but these things aren't enough to break up what you're gonna be doing for the whole game, which is run and slash. And with the game's basic combat feel, plus the game running at a lower frame rate (it seemed like 30) compared to most games of that time, the gameplay does not feel smooth and satisfying enough to justify trekking through it, especially in the instances where you might get stuck and will have to redo the areas you've already explored just to confirm if you didn't miss something.
I also wasn't a fan of the animal transformations being relegated to specific rooms, and would've rather preferred the option to transform into any animal with the press of a button, or via my menu whenever I wanted. A map could've been great too. As it currently is, I was not able to remember the specific locations of every animal transformation room, and sometimes I wound up in a room that required an animal that I wasn't currently transformed into. So, time to figure out where's the nearest transformation room, I guess! It was inconvenient and time-wasting.
In the future, I'm still interested in checking out the remake of Dragon's Trap, as I loved the art I saw in it, and am hopeful that it'll iron out some of my gripes about the lack of a map and the overly simplistic combat feel. Without those things, Dragon's Trap is a game full of neat ideas with a dull execution, and I wish I could've enjoyed this one a lot more than I did.
When it comes to the story, it's a notable improvement from the first game's basic premise. It even has a couple beats that Metal Gear Solid 1 & 2 would go on to replicate later, making it kind of like a prototype of Kojima's later ventures. The soundtrack was also a big step-up, in particular the main theme, but the alert music and some of the cutscene tracks are no slouches either.
As for the gameplay improvements made within this entry... I don't quite remember them as it's been more than a year since I played this game, but I remember them not being substantial enough to make a big difference. I didn't enjoy how slow and backtrack-heavy Metal Gear 1 was, and Metal Gear 2 did not address these problems as much as I would've liked.
Right now, I'm gonna tackle this from the perspective of "is playing Metal Gear 2 worth it to understand the Solid series more?" What you're gonna get out of it at least is seeing the origins of Gray Fox, and, I mean, Big Boss is here, but he feels more like a Bowser villain than a fleshed out character this early on in the series's chronology. He's just kind of the guy that pops up once again to cause some shit.
Ultimately though, I don't think playing the game for the story is worth it. You'll get more discussions about nuclear disarmament and the horror of child soldiers in the later games. You'll get more scientist characters building weapons against their own will. You'll get more love interests. You'll get more Gray Fox. More information on Big Boss. You'll have enough contextual clues to piece together what happened in the previous entries by just playing Metal Gear Solid 1. And you'll get everything that Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake offered, but with far more refinements.
Normally I'm not the type to say "oh, well, you don't need to play the older entries because the later entries are way better", but I mean it in this case that the Metal Gear Solid games would go on to heavily retread what this game sets up, to a point of making it near-redundant. It's like this game didn't reach enough people, so Kojima was like fuck it, let's do it again. And so, that's why I cannot personally recommend this one. There's little here that I can't get out of the later games.
As for the gameplay improvements made within this entry... I don't quite remember them as it's been more than a year since I played this game, but I remember them not being substantial enough to make a big difference. I didn't enjoy how slow and backtrack-heavy Metal Gear 1 was, and Metal Gear 2 did not address these problems as much as I would've liked.
Right now, I'm gonna tackle this from the perspective of "is playing Metal Gear 2 worth it to understand the Solid series more?" What you're gonna get out of it at least is seeing the origins of Gray Fox, and, I mean, Big Boss is here, but he feels more like a Bowser villain than a fleshed out character this early on in the series's chronology. He's just kind of the guy that pops up once again to cause some shit.
Ultimately though, I don't think playing the game for the story is worth it. You'll get more discussions about nuclear disarmament and the horror of child soldiers in the later games. You'll get more scientist characters building weapons against their own will. You'll get more love interests. You'll get more Gray Fox. More information on Big Boss. You'll have enough contextual clues to piece together what happened in the previous entries by just playing Metal Gear Solid 1. And you'll get everything that Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake offered, but with far more refinements.
Normally I'm not the type to say "oh, well, you don't need to play the older entries because the later entries are way better", but I mean it in this case that the Metal Gear Solid games would go on to heavily retread what this game sets up, to a point of making it near-redundant. It's like this game didn't reach enough people, so Kojima was like fuck it, let's do it again. And so, that's why I cannot personally recommend this one. There's little here that I can't get out of the later games.
1990
Here we go. This is where shit starts getting good. Not perfect, mind you, but while I view Mega Man 2 as a decent step towards evolving the gameplay through its tightened level design, Mega Man 3 is a big slide forward through its inclusion of a new ability: The slide.
The slide is an absolute game-changer. Handy for moving across stages faster, dodging projectiles, and for moving under bosses as they jump over you. You might not feel very confident about abusing it at first as it can lead to reckless mistakes, but over repeat playthroughs (or multiple tries of a stage if you're patient enough to master it), the slide becomes an indispensable speedrunning tool that makes Mega Man a much faster-paced game than ever before. Love this move.
There is also, of course, the introduction of Rush, your loyal robot dog companion, of which you unlock more abilities for as you clear certain stages. The later games would go on to nerf him a bit, but his usefulness cannot be overstated enough here. Aside from the Rush Coil giving you the opportunity to reach higher ledges easier, the Rush Jet is a stupidly broken ability that lets you fly all around the stage like you're Kirby, skipping all manner of obstacles by flying right over them. Generally speaking, if a part of the game is giving you shit, Rush Jet is your cheat to go right past it.
The level variety is still pretty good, the soundtrack pulls its weight (although it's no easy task to follow up Mega Man 2's OST), and as a whole, this would be the Mega Man game I would recommend as "the one where things get good." There are, however, some caveats.
Firstly, whoever thought Top Man's weapon was a good idea was insane. It's like a kamikaze bomb, you gotta directly touch the enemy to deal damage, and you are unavoidably going to get hit yourself doing so. That being said, I always thought it was funny that this very weapon is the final boss's weakness.
Secondly, and more importantly, this particular entry has some pretty blatant padding. Once you clear the 8 main stages, it is then revealed that you gotta revisit 4 of them again, but with the level design somewhat altered to be tougher. Now, I call this a caveat, but personally, I didn't actually mind this. The level design is different enough to encourage you to play the level in new ways (such as making more use of your weapons and Rush powerups), and you get to fight the Mega Man 2 bosses at checkpoints. AirMan is still a fucker, but the slide actually makes him a bit more managable this time around. As long as I went into the game expecting that it's gonna make me do this, I've found that it's not so bad, and as long as you enjoyed the gameplay of Mega Man 3 before, I think you'll get some mileage out of these remixed levels. It also just helps that the game is still short in spite of this.
Also worth noting, that you might wanna read the game's story in the manual. I'm not saying it's massively important or good, but the game itself has no intro cutscene, while the one cutscene that it DOES have towards the end of the game will not make any sense to you without context.
Other than that... it's interesting to know that Mega Man 3 is seen as an okay game here. It certainly did not have the lasting impact that Mega Man 2 provoked, but its moveset additions make it an improvement in nearly every regard, with some genuinely fun stages and boss fights to go alongside it. It's worth a shot! But not a charge shot... that's the next game.
The slide is an absolute game-changer. Handy for moving across stages faster, dodging projectiles, and for moving under bosses as they jump over you. You might not feel very confident about abusing it at first as it can lead to reckless mistakes, but over repeat playthroughs (or multiple tries of a stage if you're patient enough to master it), the slide becomes an indispensable speedrunning tool that makes Mega Man a much faster-paced game than ever before. Love this move.
There is also, of course, the introduction of Rush, your loyal robot dog companion, of which you unlock more abilities for as you clear certain stages. The later games would go on to nerf him a bit, but his usefulness cannot be overstated enough here. Aside from the Rush Coil giving you the opportunity to reach higher ledges easier, the Rush Jet is a stupidly broken ability that lets you fly all around the stage like you're Kirby, skipping all manner of obstacles by flying right over them. Generally speaking, if a part of the game is giving you shit, Rush Jet is your cheat to go right past it.
The level variety is still pretty good, the soundtrack pulls its weight (although it's no easy task to follow up Mega Man 2's OST), and as a whole, this would be the Mega Man game I would recommend as "the one where things get good." There are, however, some caveats.
Firstly, whoever thought Top Man's weapon was a good idea was insane. It's like a kamikaze bomb, you gotta directly touch the enemy to deal damage, and you are unavoidably going to get hit yourself doing so. That being said, I always thought it was funny that this very weapon is the final boss's weakness.
Secondly, and more importantly, this particular entry has some pretty blatant padding. Once you clear the 8 main stages, it is then revealed that you gotta revisit 4 of them again, but with the level design somewhat altered to be tougher. Now, I call this a caveat, but personally, I didn't actually mind this. The level design is different enough to encourage you to play the level in new ways (such as making more use of your weapons and Rush powerups), and you get to fight the Mega Man 2 bosses at checkpoints. AirMan is still a fucker, but the slide actually makes him a bit more managable this time around. As long as I went into the game expecting that it's gonna make me do this, I've found that it's not so bad, and as long as you enjoyed the gameplay of Mega Man 3 before, I think you'll get some mileage out of these remixed levels. It also just helps that the game is still short in spite of this.
Also worth noting, that you might wanna read the game's story in the manual. I'm not saying it's massively important or good, but the game itself has no intro cutscene, while the one cutscene that it DOES have towards the end of the game will not make any sense to you without context.
Other than that... it's interesting to know that Mega Man 3 is seen as an okay game here. It certainly did not have the lasting impact that Mega Man 2 provoked, but its moveset additions make it an improvement in nearly every regard, with some genuinely fun stages and boss fights to go alongside it. It's worth a shot! But not a charge shot... that's the next game.
Monkey Island 1 is an undeniable classic. From the memorable locales of Melee Island, to the iconic Insult Swordfighting sequence, to the parodic breakdown of various piratey tropes, I can't by any means disregard the status this game has among point 'n click games. As for me, I'm a Monkey Island fan too, but... my relationship with the series is a roller coaster ride, there's ups and there's downs. The first Monkey Island is like that moment where you ride the uphill track, bracing yourself for the exciting ride downwards, except the coaster ride breaks and you get stuck up there until the maintenance guys pull you out in an hour.
Okay, what the fuck am I talking about? Let's get the positives out of the way. A lot of these positives have to do with the additions the Special Edition brought. The game looks stellar. I never tire looking at those water graphics, especially with the bridge area with the moonlight shining off the ocean surface. This game looks real nice. Don't like how it looks? Press a button, and you can immediately switch between the new and old graphics on the fly. Do you prefer dialogue-heavy games to have voice acting? Special Edition adds that. Tired of all the LucasArts puzzle logic impending your progress? There's a built-in hint system.
I can tell there was a lot of care put behind this remake, while still retaining the optionality of making it aesthetically closer to the original if you so wish. It's a good way to experience the first entry, and it's one adventure that I think everybody should give a shot.
So, that was what I consider the objective take. Now for something that only reflects how I feel about it: The game's just okay. It's, fine. There's memorable moments in it for sure, but I feel like the writing and voice acting isn't doing enough to really sell the whole thing.
That's not to say that those things are done poorly, they're perfectly passable. But for a comedy game, I need more than that. There's a purposefully dry tone that permeates this game, and it extends to the delivery of the dialogue, which often fell flat. Due to the way the dialogue is structured, there will be a lot of awkward pauses that give off this unnatural voice direction. Jokes that were clearly delivered in one take, get cut up into multiple lines with pauses in-between. Meanwhile, other line deliveries lack enthusiasm, or feel like the actors are constantly restarting their speech cadence rather than building up or varying their tone of delivery towards the punchline. All of this makes the writing hit softer rather than harder.
It actually makes me wonder if playing the game with text-only would've enhanced the effect of the jokes, seeing as I would've been able to imagine my own delivery alongside it, but... I'm sure the actors did their best, it's just the way this game is built does not allow for natural-sounding voice acting. But then, what about Monkey Island 2? Curse of Monkey Island? I thought those games did a better job with their voice acting, it felt like the performances were more lively and natural there. It's really difficult to explain, but there's just something stilted about this first game. Something that makes it more average. Something that I respect still, but don't find myself coming back to often compared to the later games.
Okay, what the fuck am I talking about? Let's get the positives out of the way. A lot of these positives have to do with the additions the Special Edition brought. The game looks stellar. I never tire looking at those water graphics, especially with the bridge area with the moonlight shining off the ocean surface. This game looks real nice. Don't like how it looks? Press a button, and you can immediately switch between the new and old graphics on the fly. Do you prefer dialogue-heavy games to have voice acting? Special Edition adds that. Tired of all the LucasArts puzzle logic impending your progress? There's a built-in hint system.
I can tell there was a lot of care put behind this remake, while still retaining the optionality of making it aesthetically closer to the original if you so wish. It's a good way to experience the first entry, and it's one adventure that I think everybody should give a shot.
So, that was what I consider the objective take. Now for something that only reflects how I feel about it: The game's just okay. It's, fine. There's memorable moments in it for sure, but I feel like the writing and voice acting isn't doing enough to really sell the whole thing.
That's not to say that those things are done poorly, they're perfectly passable. But for a comedy game, I need more than that. There's a purposefully dry tone that permeates this game, and it extends to the delivery of the dialogue, which often fell flat. Due to the way the dialogue is structured, there will be a lot of awkward pauses that give off this unnatural voice direction. Jokes that were clearly delivered in one take, get cut up into multiple lines with pauses in-between. Meanwhile, other line deliveries lack enthusiasm, or feel like the actors are constantly restarting their speech cadence rather than building up or varying their tone of delivery towards the punchline. All of this makes the writing hit softer rather than harder.
It actually makes me wonder if playing the game with text-only would've enhanced the effect of the jokes, seeing as I would've been able to imagine my own delivery alongside it, but... I'm sure the actors did their best, it's just the way this game is built does not allow for natural-sounding voice acting. But then, what about Monkey Island 2? Curse of Monkey Island? I thought those games did a better job with their voice acting, it felt like the performances were more lively and natural there. It's really difficult to explain, but there's just something stilted about this first game. Something that makes it more average. Something that I respect still, but don't find myself coming back to often compared to the later games.
To my surprise, one of the more competent licensed games in the NES library. When you realize it's SunSoft, it makes sense, they were responsible for the NES Batman game too. Good soundtrack, and a nice variety of weapons keeps you going forward. You do need some tolerance for top-down platforming though, as there's a bunch of it. Oh, and the game ending with an attempt at giving you a fucking seizure wasn't very cool. Not cool at all. Disregarding that though, it was worth checking this out once.
1990
Mario World is mechanically sound, with the best controls of any Mario game so far. Everything about how the game feels is tight and responsive. The in-air mobility, the turning, the way you control your jump height, the build-up of your speed and how you maintain it as you sprint across the stage, the way you slide and duck under obstacles, or spin jump on enemies that previously couldn't be bounced on... it's all perfect.
The world map had some tradeoffs, such as a lack of the Mario 3 minigames and enemy encounters, but in its place came a more open-ended world design, where finding secret exits in stages can allow you to beat the game through different routes. I enjoyed the freedom this allowed, whether you wanna find the shortest or longest route to the end of the game, or just do a casual run by taking as few secret exits as possible.
It's a very well refined game, but sometimes, I feel like refinements is all it has. Comparably, I play Mario 3 more often than Mario World, and I think this is because Mario World feels like... "another one." Whereas Mario 3 had the neat little stage play theme and a ton of new ideas, Mario World feels more confused about what it's trying to do. It's supposed to be a dinosaur and food-themed setting, but I didn't get that vibe at all. The levels are named after food, but they don't look like they're made of food at all to me.
Meanwhile, the dinosaurs ARE there, they're your enemies, sometimes I have to remember Yoshi is a dinosaur too, but, I just can't help but feel like these elements should've been leaned into harder than they were.
Because right now, what this game feels like is a mild mix of those elements, with a greater focus on generic level themes that don't take advantage of them. I'll be honest with you, I don't know what you could do differently to make this game feel more unique than it already is, maybe more prehistoric settings? More blatant food-themed levels, the kind that look delicious when you step into them? I dunno, something about this game feels very withheld.
Keeping in mind that I still think this game is fun, here's another nitpick. This one is what I call the "Koji Kondo dilemma." Koji Kondo has made some of the greatest songs in video game history, and this game is no exception. These things are stuck in my head, and I will never get them out. The dilemma is this: Every song that Koji Kondo makes is good, but he does not make many of them. As a result, you wind up hearing the same 4 songs over and over throughout the 3-5 hours that this game will take you to 100%.
I think this amount of songs would've been acceptable back in the NES days due to size constraints, but with the introduction of a new fancy 16-bit console, I strongly believe that Koji should've composed a greater variety of songs to take advantage of it. On the other hand, it's possible that composing the already-existing songs was a difficult process, and I've heard the game had to be rushed anyway, so there wasn't much of a choice.
Thing is, the Koji Kondo dilemma would've persisted for several more games after this. Amazing songs, but not a whole lot of them. Initially, they're enough to carry the whole game, but let's say you've replayed it 10 or 20 times like I did, there comes a point where you realize the lacking music variety becomes tiring to hear, and that dilemma wouldn't have existed if each world had at least 1 or 2 unique tracks to call its own. Like I said, this is all a nitpick, but it is one I've been thinking about more and more lately.
My thoughts on Super Mario World come down to this. Fun to play, but not particularly impressive for an SNES launch title that should've been there to showcase the system's true capabilities. it feels safe. Very safe. Moreof a continuation of Mario 3, rather than the next big step in the Mario series. But if you just want a fun Mario game, who gives a shit? This one does its job as well as it can. But I can't help but feel that there's something missing here.
The world map had some tradeoffs, such as a lack of the Mario 3 minigames and enemy encounters, but in its place came a more open-ended world design, where finding secret exits in stages can allow you to beat the game through different routes. I enjoyed the freedom this allowed, whether you wanna find the shortest or longest route to the end of the game, or just do a casual run by taking as few secret exits as possible.
It's a very well refined game, but sometimes, I feel like refinements is all it has. Comparably, I play Mario 3 more often than Mario World, and I think this is because Mario World feels like... "another one." Whereas Mario 3 had the neat little stage play theme and a ton of new ideas, Mario World feels more confused about what it's trying to do. It's supposed to be a dinosaur and food-themed setting, but I didn't get that vibe at all. The levels are named after food, but they don't look like they're made of food at all to me.
Meanwhile, the dinosaurs ARE there, they're your enemies, sometimes I have to remember Yoshi is a dinosaur too, but, I just can't help but feel like these elements should've been leaned into harder than they were.
Because right now, what this game feels like is a mild mix of those elements, with a greater focus on generic level themes that don't take advantage of them. I'll be honest with you, I don't know what you could do differently to make this game feel more unique than it already is, maybe more prehistoric settings? More blatant food-themed levels, the kind that look delicious when you step into them? I dunno, something about this game feels very withheld.
Keeping in mind that I still think this game is fun, here's another nitpick. This one is what I call the "Koji Kondo dilemma." Koji Kondo has made some of the greatest songs in video game history, and this game is no exception. These things are stuck in my head, and I will never get them out. The dilemma is this: Every song that Koji Kondo makes is good, but he does not make many of them. As a result, you wind up hearing the same 4 songs over and over throughout the 3-5 hours that this game will take you to 100%.
I think this amount of songs would've been acceptable back in the NES days due to size constraints, but with the introduction of a new fancy 16-bit console, I strongly believe that Koji should've composed a greater variety of songs to take advantage of it. On the other hand, it's possible that composing the already-existing songs was a difficult process, and I've heard the game had to be rushed anyway, so there wasn't much of a choice.
Thing is, the Koji Kondo dilemma would've persisted for several more games after this. Amazing songs, but not a whole lot of them. Initially, they're enough to carry the whole game, but let's say you've replayed it 10 or 20 times like I did, there comes a point where you realize the lacking music variety becomes tiring to hear, and that dilemma wouldn't have existed if each world had at least 1 or 2 unique tracks to call its own. Like I said, this is all a nitpick, but it is one I've been thinking about more and more lately.
My thoughts on Super Mario World come down to this. Fun to play, but not particularly impressive for an SNES launch title that should've been there to showcase the system's true capabilities. it feels safe. Very safe. Moreof a continuation of Mario 3, rather than the next big step in the Mario series. But if you just want a fun Mario game, who gives a shit? This one does its job as well as it can. But I can't help but feel that there's something missing here.
1991
Well, it's certainly a better first impression of the Genesis than fuckin' Altered Beast is ever gonna be. Say what you will, but Sonic 1 really did push the 16-bit era into full swing. At the time, you couldn't do a game like this on the NES. I mean, Somari certainly tried, but only proved the one point it didn't want to. While Super Mario World turned out a good game, Sonic was truly the one that showed everybody what you can do with new technology.
The game starts off very strong with Green Hill Zone. Beautiful visuals, an iconic song, and less than 20 seconds needed to learn the controls, about a minute more to accidentally figure out you gain massive speed by rolling down slopes. From there, your goal is to find the most efficient routes to clear the stage, while constantly going to yourself "If I rolled down this slope, or bounced off this enemy, would I be able to get up there?" The answer is generally yes, and your curiosity is generally satiated with 1-ups and powerups to make parts of the stage a breeze. It's a well-balanced set of stages, and an absolute joy to play.
Now, following Green Hill Zone, this is the part of the game where it's supposed to get tougher, to take what you've experimented with in Green Hill Zone and apply it onto trickier layouts, with trickier tricks required to make the most out of them. The game would get more challenging, but its open-ended encouragement of trying out things to access shortcuts in cool ways would prevail. Sonic 1 does not do this. Instead, Sonic 1 forgets that it's supposed to be a Sonic game.
What you'll instead get in the next couple zones onward are cramped, claustrophobic corridors that seem to be doing everything in their power to prevent you from everything but jogging. Push this block, then ride it for 20 seconds. Wait for this crusher to go up, then wait for the next one. Hop from one slow moving platform to another. Have an entire zone dedicated to an underwater area which nerfs your speed.
Of the six zones that this game features, there are only two that hit the mark, that would be Green Hill and Starlight Zone. Spring Yard & Scrap Brain nearly get there but are impeded by awkward pacing issues, while Marble & Labyrinth zone are just tragedies. These levels should not exist in Sonic, let alone the very first entry in which selling this guy as "the fastest thing alive" is paramount. You've invented a slick high-speed sports car, but instead of putting it on a race track, they're stuck in a highway traffic jam.
It's important to note that Sonic is not all about "going fast," I consider that a surface level understanding of what Sonic is. Speed is just the setup which you utilize to get to the punchline, AKA, the rewards. The very fact you use momentum to get to those rewards is what makes the usage of momentum satisfying. Without exploration, the speed has no meaning. Without speed... exploration is dull.
And it is dull here. Despite the game initially incentivizing the use of its mechanics to discover new things, what the levels eventually devolve into is hugging random walls, and maybe one of them has a secret passage that leads you to some goodies. There is no excitement there, because you didn't use anything that makes Sonic unique to reach those rewards. You jumped once into a wall. Mario could've done that. Sonic's purpose is to not be like Mario.
Sonic 1 fails to make the distinguishment in that regard. Except when it does, but only sometimes. The experience is heavily inconsistent and doesn't quite understand what it wants to do yet. Sometimes it's fun, sometimes it loses itself. Thankfully, it would only take until Sonic 2 for the series to really start kicking ass. But as far as this game goes, there's a fun system and wonderful presentation here, underneath level design that wasn't built for it. I like this game, because I have lots of nostalgia for it, but it's important to acknowledge its flaws, and head into it with tempered expectations.
Addendum: I guess this really does bring to mind the strengths and weaknesses of Sonic and Mario at this time. Mario came out with a game that was overly safe, but consistently fun. Sonic decided to create a game that was technically impressive, but inconsistently wonky. Take your pick on what strikes your fancy more.
The game starts off very strong with Green Hill Zone. Beautiful visuals, an iconic song, and less than 20 seconds needed to learn the controls, about a minute more to accidentally figure out you gain massive speed by rolling down slopes. From there, your goal is to find the most efficient routes to clear the stage, while constantly going to yourself "If I rolled down this slope, or bounced off this enemy, would I be able to get up there?" The answer is generally yes, and your curiosity is generally satiated with 1-ups and powerups to make parts of the stage a breeze. It's a well-balanced set of stages, and an absolute joy to play.
Now, following Green Hill Zone, this is the part of the game where it's supposed to get tougher, to take what you've experimented with in Green Hill Zone and apply it onto trickier layouts, with trickier tricks required to make the most out of them. The game would get more challenging, but its open-ended encouragement of trying out things to access shortcuts in cool ways would prevail. Sonic 1 does not do this. Instead, Sonic 1 forgets that it's supposed to be a Sonic game.
What you'll instead get in the next couple zones onward are cramped, claustrophobic corridors that seem to be doing everything in their power to prevent you from everything but jogging. Push this block, then ride it for 20 seconds. Wait for this crusher to go up, then wait for the next one. Hop from one slow moving platform to another. Have an entire zone dedicated to an underwater area which nerfs your speed.
Of the six zones that this game features, there are only two that hit the mark, that would be Green Hill and Starlight Zone. Spring Yard & Scrap Brain nearly get there but are impeded by awkward pacing issues, while Marble & Labyrinth zone are just tragedies. These levels should not exist in Sonic, let alone the very first entry in which selling this guy as "the fastest thing alive" is paramount. You've invented a slick high-speed sports car, but instead of putting it on a race track, they're stuck in a highway traffic jam.
It's important to note that Sonic is not all about "going fast," I consider that a surface level understanding of what Sonic is. Speed is just the setup which you utilize to get to the punchline, AKA, the rewards. The very fact you use momentum to get to those rewards is what makes the usage of momentum satisfying. Without exploration, the speed has no meaning. Without speed... exploration is dull.
And it is dull here. Despite the game initially incentivizing the use of its mechanics to discover new things, what the levels eventually devolve into is hugging random walls, and maybe one of them has a secret passage that leads you to some goodies. There is no excitement there, because you didn't use anything that makes Sonic unique to reach those rewards. You jumped once into a wall. Mario could've done that. Sonic's purpose is to not be like Mario.
Sonic 1 fails to make the distinguishment in that regard. Except when it does, but only sometimes. The experience is heavily inconsistent and doesn't quite understand what it wants to do yet. Sometimes it's fun, sometimes it loses itself. Thankfully, it would only take until Sonic 2 for the series to really start kicking ass. But as far as this game goes, there's a fun system and wonderful presentation here, underneath level design that wasn't built for it. I like this game, because I have lots of nostalgia for it, but it's important to acknowledge its flaws, and head into it with tempered expectations.
Addendum: I guess this really does bring to mind the strengths and weaknesses of Sonic and Mario at this time. Mario came out with a game that was overly safe, but consistently fun. Sonic decided to create a game that was technically impressive, but inconsistently wonky. Take your pick on what strikes your fancy more.