Game Review - originally written by (wraith)

Being produced in Japan in 1986, I had very low expectations of this game. But God dammit, this is a fun game. Fun in that simple kind of way. You just run around, fixing all the wirirng in various buildings, making sure that inchworms, rats, and spiders don't undo your work. Occasionally, you have to stop the occasional looting, as well. And between levels, you have to run through the sewers of Washington and New York. Just don't ask me how you enter a building in Washington, and exit it in New York. Or even better, don't ask me how the building interiors are all decisively Japanese.

Sure, it feels like any old-school Atari or arcade game. But that's what's great about this game. A little man runs around, wiring buildings and frolicking through sewers. Meanwhile you forget about all the troubles of the world. Great huh? At what point did videogames decide that we needed to do all sorts of thinking and remembering. Probably around when Reader Rabbit was released. Damn you Reader Rabbit. Damn you to HELL.

Game Review - originally written by Spinner 8

Poor, poor America. We never had the luxury of the Famicom Disk System, like in Japan. We were forced to use passwords and battery saves. BAH! Disk games such as Metroid could have their data saved directly on the disk for easy retrieval, but everyone else in the world had to use PASSWORDS! Bah! Hmph. Oh! Anyway this is the same ol oldskewl game that everyone loves. Now you can save your game! And because the FDS had an extra sound channel, a lot of the tunes now sound super sweet. Go try it out at least.

Game Review - originally written by (wraith)

Alright. First things first. This is not a Seiken Densetsu (”Secret of Mana”) game. Yes, it says Seiken in the title, but that does not make it Seiken Densetsu. Okay, now that I've gotten that out of the way…

Seiken Psycho Calibur is a Zelda clone for the Famicom Disk System (Hence, you need Famtasia or fwNes to emulate this game). It's your classic over-head view hack and slash adventure. It's pretty decent, but it lacks the character of Zelda. And it tries so hard to be like Zelda, too. The play mechanics are like Zelda, the enemies seem like something out of Zelda, even the screen scrolls EXACTLY like it does in Zelda. But the plot isn't that very interesting … there's no hook. Sure, there's this Demon-thing trying to take over the country. But the situation doesn't seem all that desperate, and the side quests just don't have much to draw you into the game. Where's my MOTIVATION, dammit!?!?

But, my opinion is being swayed by the likes of Final Fantasy IX and Shen Mue, so it may be a bit loaded right now. No. It IS a bit loaded. There's definitely no maybe involved.

(editor's note: the mentions of early NES emulators Famtasia and fwNES, as well as mentioning Final Fantasy IX and "Shen Mue" as current games, dates this review to before 9/11 happened! wow!)

Game Review - originally written by Spinner 8

Spinner 8 will now proceed to review this game in the traditional GameFAQs manner. Please note that Spinner 8 loves Boxxle/Soukoban in all its forms, and isn\’t a slam against the game so much as it is a slam against just about the entire GameFAQs community. Fortunately, however, no one will ever EVER read this, so phew.
Introduction

After playing classic puzzle games like DOCTOR MARIO and FANTASVISION, I suddenyl declared myself a Fan of puzzle games, and now I had to play all kinds of puzzle games because I am a hardcore puzzle game player!! I also like RPGS because I have played THE LEGEND OF DRAGOON. And I found this BOXXLE game at a flea market so I bought it, it\’s kewl and all but it doesn\’t stand a chance next to Puzzle games like FANTAVISION.
Graphics: 1

OMFG this game looks so crappy!! I know this game is for that Disk System thing and it was made in 1986, but wow guys, you need to put some more work into it!!
Music & Sound: 1

The BOXXLE game has music that is just a bunch of boops and beeps!! And there\’s no sound fx at all, not even one I don\’t think!! The game makers really shouldve listened to BUST A MOVE, it has really kewl music.
Challenge: 1

This game is harrrrrrrd!! I give it a 1 because it is too challenging!!
Gameplay: 1

All you do is move around boxes, it\’s not fun because you just move around boxes. You don\’t get powerups, or combos and it\’s only one player!! And the more you walk around the more points you get, I got a really high score from just walking a lot, this is a really stupid way to get a high score.
Story: 1

There\’s no story in this game, you just move around boxes because you have to move around boxes, you don\’t know why.
Replay Value: 1

The game is never different when you play!! Every game you play the same rooms until you quit, why play a game if you already know how to beat it!! You can save your game I think but I don\’t think my emulator can do that I mean my NINTENDO can\’t do that, I hate pirates!!
Overall: 1

This game is totally dumb, I mean FANTASISION is so much Better than this game, it\’s to bad because BOXXLE could\’ve been really good but it\’s not.

Game Review - originally written by Spinner 8

This game is a really bad game, that is only worth mentioning because it features.. TADA! The Lovely Angels! Maybe I’m too tough on the game (it came out over fifteen years ago, for God’s sake), but it certainly doesn’t hold up well in any case. The first stages are just your running and shooting things with your pistol stages. Sometimes you can grab a medallion thing and Kei can come in her little car thing and you can hop in and fly through the stage! And then you will get to the vaguely Metroid-ish base stage and you will get stuck and quit playing. So there.

Game Review - originally written by mil

We join the blue blob for a third time in his ongoing series of puzzle-solving adventures. This time on the Famicom Disk System. A remake of Eggerland 2 on the MSX, this “Eggerland” provides 22 more levels than the original and uses different graphics and music.

Basically, this starts the Eggerland series in a direction in which I like to call the “cave years.” That is, everything in the game looks like it takes place in a cave. Then another Eggerland comes out, and everything takes place in the very same cave the last game did. Same graphics, same music, different puzzles.

What’s nice about this particular cave puzzle game is that like its cave sequel (Revival of the Labyrinth), it has an amusing ending. Unfortunately, also like its sequel, it has nigh unsolvable “hint rooms” which break the rules inherent to every Eggerland puzzle seen in the series thus far. All you need to know about these “hint rooms” is that they aren’t actually puzzles at all. If you can exercise the restraint to occasionally use an FAQ when you know you should and aren’t frustrated because of it, then you will be fine with this game.

One thing this game has that its sequel does not, is well-rounded difficulty. It is the fairest of the non-linear Eggerland games. And in case you’re wondering, yes, despite its horrible graphics and idiotic hint rooms, I consider this a better game than each of the Adventures of Lolo titles brought over to the West on the NES.

Now, you’re about at the end of this review and perhaps you are puzzled as to why I do not recommend this game. Well, I don’t recommend any of the Eggerland series games to a general gamer. You really have to like puzzle solving to enjoy these kind of games because that is by and large the only redeeming aspect to them: the sheer accomplishment you feel from solving a clever puzzle.

Every other aspect is noticeably lacking. The music is constantly looped and recycled, everything looks like a cave, and 99% of the rooms are just puzzles. What’s nice about this particular entry in the series is that it sports some non-linearity to slightly break up the continuous puzzle-solving and it’s got an amusing and interactive ending which most of the Eggerland games lack as do almost all Famicom endings.

Game Review - originally written by (wraith)

For a Gameboy game, this looks and sounds great. Which is saying alot, given that most Gameboy games are lacking both musically and visually. The sprites look really neat, and character portaits displayed alongside the text are well-done, and make for a nice touch. Sadly though, there is a lot of dialog, and since none of the translations translate very much of the dialog, it’s hard to say anything else about this game. Hell, for all I know, this might be more of an RPG than an adventure game. I never made it far enough in to encounter anything hostile. But what I’ve seen of this looks really nice, and it is a Compile game… so I hope it (the translation) gets finished someday.

Game Review - originally written by (wraith)

I had poor expectations coming into this game. For starters, it’s Beast Wars, man. They aren’t really Transformers… All kids get today are crappy knock-off like Beast Wars… sigh… (editor's note: wow! this was written when Beast Wars was still new!) And the other thing that gave me bad expectations was it being a fighter for Gameboy. How many moves can you do with two frickin’ buttons? And how good can the animations be?

Well, I was pleasantly surprised. The sprite graphics aren’t terrible, and though the moves are mostly random button mashing, they do look neat when you do them. The action is pretty fluid, and the super-duper fancy lala moves you perform when you’re charge meter is full are actually kinda impressive.

This game just might be worth a play. Even if it’s Beast Wars…

Game Review - originally written by (wraith)

For the uneducated, Bomberman is helluva great series that has had many incarnations across many different consoles. It's a great game series in general, but where it really shines is as multiplayer game. Especially the versions that allow for like four players.

The game is simple. They tell you before every level what you have to do to beat the level. Don't waste your time. Anything they say to you pretty much equates to “Blow up everything that isn't you, and isn't indestructible.” How? Very easy. I mean, Jesus, you're Bomberman. You just run around drop bombs and hope an enemy wanders close to it. Of course, it is harder than that. At first, you can lay only one bomb at a time and they only have a range of one tile. But you can pick up stuff that increases both your range and the amount of bombs you lay… but at a cost. As you range increases, you'll find that you're blowing yourself up more often than the bad guys. Which is infuriating in Single Player Mode, but somehow funny in Versus Mode.

You should also note that this was actually the fourth Bomberman to grace the Gameboy, and it was also the only one that wasn't officially translated into English.

Game Review - originally written by (wraith)
(editor's note: this review is for the Game Boy version)

This is just classic Destiny of an Emperor fare. The game for the most part plays just like any other 8- or 16-bit era RPG. You wander around in an overhead tile-based map, talk to people, use items, and buy stuff. When you walk around outside of a town, you get randomly attacked.

And, this is where Destiny of an Emperor's presentation deviates somewhat from the RPG norm. Instead of each person being an individual, each person is actually the head of an army. Instead of HP, you have troops, and the encounters aren't with monsters, they're usually with brigands, rebels, or opposing armies. Instead of magic spells, you learn tactics. You can plan carefully, or tell all your generals to just plunge their armies into an all-out battle. Sure, it plays out the same way as any other typical “small band of heroes vs. the supreme evil in the world” kind of RPG, but it's the little injection of realism that makes the DoaE games shine. That, and the setting, which is in China during the Three Kingdoms Era, rather than your typical fancy high-fantasy western medieval type thing. Yeah.

Game Review - originally written by (wraith)
(editor's note: this was written before a fan translation existed)

I’m not sure exactly what type of game this is due to all the text, but it looks really neat. There’s some nice cutscenes for some of the dialog with some totally sweet looking backgrounds (as far as Gameboy graphics go), and they have this neat effect for text display where a huge-ass portrait of the character speaking scrolls in from offscreen and it’s like BEWM and then the person talks. When you’re done with the cutscene thing, you’re in this run-of-the-mill overhead view type thing where you examine lots of stuff in these three rooms, but never turn up anything that lets you go to the next area. Well, I’m pretty sure it’s obvious what you’re supposed to do when you understand the dialog, but I’m sure you know how it goes when you can’t. But I digress. This game has lots of promise. Check it out!

Game Review - originally written by (wraith)

Fatal Fury 2 is like just about every other fighter ported to the gameboy: it's barely entertaining. There's not a whole lot you can do with two buttons, and the game engine is slow. Fighting games need to be fast, pretty, and intricate. This game is the opposite of that. Not that it's completely boring… I imagine that it'd be better than looking out the window for the entirety of a four-hour car trip, or staring at the wall during study hall. Otherwise, you can probably find something that's a lot more fun to do.

Game Review - originally written by (wraith)

I really, really wish I had something good to say about this game, but I don't. Well, I guess if you're a hardcore (and do I mean hardcore) strategy game fan, you'll like this. Otherwise, I'd steer clear of this game. Stages take between three to five hours to complete, and there's a whole lot of stages. The graphics are drab and built from the ever-so-diverse GBC palette. The music is pretty much the same throughout. Both you and and your opponent have the same types of units available pretty much throughout the entire game. The gameplay is repetitive and monotous, kind of like the tone of these sentences I'm writing… Get the picture?

Game Review - originally written by (wraith)

This is a mecha-boring game. But I’m kind of biased, since I hate pure strategy games. Especially ones that are a war of attrition due to your opponents always having equal resources to yourself. It’s usually interesting to have opponents that are slightly better or slightly weaker than you are. Otherwise, it just becomes a long, drawn siege-type-deal. Just like this game. You may have noticed the translation for Gameboy Wars 2 somewhere around this one. It’s practically the same game, and it’s in color, so you probably want to try that one instead.