Diablo (PS1, PC)

 

 

 

Introduction

One of the Demonic Prime-evils, Diablo, has escaped from his prison in the small town of Tristram. With the assistance of the Arch-Bishop, Lazarus, he has driven the King to madness and possessed the King’s son, Albrecht. The player takes the role of a powerful Warrior, a quick Rogue, or a brilliant Sorceror and must fight through a dungeon of Hell-spawned monsters in order to destroy the great Demon.

Disclaimer: My experience with this game is mostly in the PS1 port. I’ll offer points about both versions but most of my experience is still with that port.

Development

Diablo was made by Blizzard Entertainment, it’s difficult to imagine that Diablo was only the 6th game they had made– It’s also surreal to think that they made The Lost Vikings and Blackthorne. They were most well known for making Warcraft at the time, a real time strategy game, so making an adventure game like Diablo was risky.

This is where it all started kids. This is the beginning of Blizzard.

 

Diablo has multiple versions, it has the PS1 port and an expansion called Hellfire. I played most of my Diablo hours on the PS1 port so I’m going to be talking about it a lot, especially in the Kvetch section. The Hellfire expansion was developed, not by Blizzard, but by Sierra. It adds a new class, the Monk. And includes a strangely large amount of cut content, namely the Bard and the Barbarian. It also adds the NPCs Lester and Celia that interact with a new area in Tristram, The Hive. 

The Hive also has special interactions with the joke character, The Complete Nut.

 

Apparently there’s a lot of cut dialogue and cut quests that never made it into the game. As it stands the number of quests are quite limited. Most of these quests are only available in single player mode. I think they were cut because Blizzard figured most players would be playing online.

There’s an entirely cut NPC from the original game, Tremain the Priest. Cain takes his place, more or less.

 

Diablo was released on December 31st, 1996. It released at the same time as Donkey Kong Country 3 (SNES), The Neverhood (PC)

 

Nostalgia

I used to play the demo for this game on my Uncle’s computer and it scared the piss out of me. I’ve mentioned that I was a coward when I was a kid but I couldn’t even bring myself to fight basic enemies I was so scared. I could deal with skeletons and little demons but when I got to fighting the weird bug things on the early floors I would flip out and run. I would think, “If I find those things then I’m just going to have to restart the game until they’re not an enemy there”. I remember the first time I fought the Butcher, I just ran. I opened that door, heard his dialogue, and closed the game as quickly as I could. It’s really interesting not being scared of it anymore. Now I’m more than willing to charge head long into the Skeleton King’s rib cage and smash it to pieces.

That’s the Butcher on the right there. His chamber is far more frightening than he is.

 

Gameplay

Diablo is a hack and slash dungeon crawl. No matter which class you choose your goal is to venture further into the labyrinth, level up, find better gear, and fight stronger monsters. Unlike Diablo 2, character’s don’t acquire more skills as they level up. Leveling up only increases their attributes. Attribute levels must be at a certain level to wear certain items or use scrolls and spell books. Limited inventory space means choosing which items are the most valuable and bringing them back up to town to sell. Certain NPCs in town will offer single players quests which can net them impressive items that can’t be taken out of single player sessions. 

The wonderful world of loot. Don’t forget about the mandatory piles of money either.

 

It’s controlled with mouse and keyboard on the PC and the PS1 controller for PS1. Thankfully, the controls are really well mapable on the PS1 controller. They’re not preset very well but the game allows the player to change the controls to suit their needs and style very well. 

The classes are what really make Diablo. Each one plays very differently. The Warrior has high health and strength, making him ideal for soaking up damage and dishing it out with a sword or an axe. It’s important to keep him well equipped though, going into the lower levels of the dungeon with a crappy armor will lead our hero to certain doom. Then there’s the Sorceror, who’s the Warriors polar opposite. If the Sorceror can find good and useful spell books then he can become a nearly indestructible tank that shoots lightning and destroys everything. The Rogue specializes in using the bow and disarming traps. The traps in the labyrinth can be deadly so it’s really useful to have her around. That being said, this game does have friendly fire so it’s very possible to kill your allies. The issue is that bows don’t do a lot of damage, but she can raise her magic stat higher than the Warrior can so casting spells is a viable option. I dunno, I could never figure out how to play her.

 

Our three heroes. And the Sorceror blows away all the enemies with a mighty Lightning Nova.

 

The Gush

One word, multiplayer. Playing this game with, or against your friends, is a blast. Backing up your Warrior buddy with a hale of arrows or deadly spells will never stop being fun.

The art style and graphics for the game were wonderful for the time and I still think they hold up now. The different environments all look grim, dark, and foreboding– like a good dungeon should. There are a lot of pallet-swapped enemies with different names but their design is so solid and interesting that I don’t even care.

You take the gold ogre, I’ll take the blue one. 

I don’t know if the PC port had this but the PS1 version has a whole history of the world available at the main menu. The story of this world was really engrossing to me. I know that Lazarus has left mad journals all around the PC and PS1 versions of the labyrinth but I thought that listening to the history plain was super cool. Sometimes I would just boot up Diablo just to listen to the back story.

The characters in this game are great. I love talking to all of them about whatever they want to talk about. From Farnham’s drunken ramblings with wisdom tucked inside to Cain’s mysterious stories– how does he know so much anyway?– I love hearing all of it. My favorite NPC is definetly Wirt, the Peg Legged Boy. After he got his leg ripped off by angry demons he decided to get back at them by becoming a small entrepreneur, providing you with some of the highest end gear money can buy. Best bit part though must go to the wounded Townsman outside the labyrinth entrance.

This guy’s speech tells the player everything they need to know about the plot and pumps the player up to kill some demons.

 

I also like demolishing hordes of monsters. The bigger the horde, the better. Don’t care how much loot or experience points they offer, I’m just glad to destroy all the little hell spawned buggers. 

 

The Kvetch

Two words, single player. Playing this game alone is the ultimate sadness. The presence of that other player sharing the adventure is vital to the enjoyment of this game. Maybe it’s just me, but playing this game alone is empty.

The PS1 port. Here’s everything wrong with it. It takes up 12 of 15 memory card blocks, so you can only have 3 characters on the same card. Playing multiplayer slows down each of the character’s movement and makes the characters stick together so coordinating movement can be difficult. The game’s graphics and art had to be compressed to fit on the PS1 so everything just looks uglier overall. Menu surfing can be difficult because of the strange controls. The PS1 has auto-targetting for spells since there’s no cursor to target enemies with. This thing will always point at the most useless target is possibly can making the dear sorceror waste oodles and oodles of mana points blasting at enemies one at a time. The walking speed is also atrociously slow.

Acid beasts. These enemies are un-fun to fight. Any of the ranged attacking enemies are un-fun to fight but these guys are the worst. Enemies that can attack from afar abuse this fact, they’ll run and shoot over their shoulders at you the whole while. But when you kill these guys they leave acid pools that can deal a lot of damage so chasing the rest of the pack is even more difficult.

The best part of this game is the co-op, so the worst part of it is the friendly fire. I’ve accidentally killed my partner too many times. One stray lightning bolt or sword swing can totally demolish someone.

Gold shouldn’t take up inventory space. I know it’s not realistic but it makes gold a burden instead of sweet treasure.

Those inventory slots get mighty scarce when they’re filled from wall to wall with gold.

The durability system is butts. If your item runs out of durability it disappears from your character and is gone forever. This can be so frustrating when it’s been a long time since you went to town and then poof, there’s goes your sweet sword. Gotta find another one.

 

The Kvush

Town portal is a spell that allows the player to teleport back to town and that’s awesome. What’s more awesome is being able to learn the spell by finding the spell book for it. What’s not awesome is not finding the spell book and having to continue to use scrolls when you’ve got the skill to learn it from a book that you just haven’t been lucky enough to find. Maybe I’m looking a gift horse in the mouth but at early levels 150 gold is a lot to dish out every time I got back to town.

 

The Verdict

This game is still solid but is completely outclassed by it’s sequel. Diablo II is the more rapidly available game and the superior game overall. If you need the trip down memory lane or are interested in the history of the series then Diablo 1 is a good play but I would only recommend it for the hardcore fan.

Next Week: Legend of the Mystical Ninja.

 

Spyro the Dragon (Playstation 1)

 

Introduction

Gnasty Gnorc– pronounced Nasty Norc– is an orc who is relatively nasty. During a news interview with an Elder Dragon of the Dragon realms the Elder Dragon calls Gnasty ugly. The Gnorc flies into a rage and uses his magic to encase all of the dragons in crystal– using his satellite wand or something. Every dragon except Spyro, a dragon young and small enough to miss. Gnasty is using his magic to turn the Dragon’s treasure into soldiers to conquer the world– presumably, otherwise he’s just making dudes to make more dudes because he’s an extremely lonely Gnorc. Spyro will have to use his fire breath, horns, and gliding ability to free his draconic brethren and defeat this Dragon-hater.

The Gnorc himself. He’s a pretty imposing dude, although I doubt the effectiveness of his golden armor.

 

Development

Spyro the Dragon was made by Insomniac Games, best known for the Spyro series and the Ratchet and Clank series. The Chief Architect, Alex Hastings, created one of the first fully 3D panoramic experiences for the Playstation 1 with this game.

The music was composed and performed by Stewart Copeland, the former drummer for the Police. His music shows the quality of a professional musician and is one of the most memorable aspects of the game.

Fun Fact: Spyro was originally going to be green but the designer’s thought it would be to easy to lose Spyro in grass and other green backgrounds so they made him purple instead.

Spyro the Dragon was released on September 10th, 1998. It would release against MediEvil (PS1), Metal Gear Solid (PS1), Fallout 2(PC), and Resident Evil: The Director’s Cut (PS1).

 

Between the grass, crystal dragon, and enemies it’s clear to see why Green Spyro would have been a terrible idea.

 

 

 

The Nostalgia

Does anyone out there remember demo disks? Once upon a time game companies would release disks with early sections of games so that consumers could see if they wanted to get the full product. One of my favorite Demos was the Spyro Demo. It only had three levels in it but I would play those levels for hours, wondering how to unlock the others. I didn’t know they couldn’t be unlocked but finding everything in them helped me find everything in them when I got the full game.

Hours spent wandering around the same areas waiting to get the full game.

 

Gameplay

In order to free all of the other Dragons Spyro is going to need to travel to all of the Dragons’ worlds and all of those world’s areas. The Dragon finding is actually the easiest part of the game. They’re typically in obvious locations and even if the Spyro can’t see one they shake from time to time, making a distinct noise that’s easy to make out.

Spyro needs to find all of the treasure, which is dropped my monsters as well as hidden all over the world. This is probably the most difficult part of the game because if there’s one errant gem missing then Spyro’s screwed. There’s no real way to detect the treasure so you’ll just have to look everywhere, draw maps of the area, and mark all of the places that you’ve been. Alright, it’s usually not that hard but there will always be that one gem that’s missing.

Spyro also needs to find the 12 dragon eggs that were stolen by a group of dastardly thieves. The thieves are pretty quick but aren’t really a problem. They also jeer Spyro by saying “Nyanya” and blowing raspberries– because taunting the dragon sounds like a great idea!

Spyro’s got 3 main moves, he can charge, jump and glide, and breath fire. Breathing fire is Spyro’s main mode of attack but some enemies and objects are wearing or made of metal and dragon breath doesn’t go through metal– for reasons that escape me scientifically, logically, or magically (I guess I just rolled with it when I was a kid). Enemies that wear metal armor are prime targets for a well placed charge, charging also makes Spyro move faster so it makes travel less of a hassle.

 

General rule, small enemies get charged and large enemies get flamed.

 

 

 

Spyro’s health is represented by Sparx, the dragonfly that accompanies him on every adventure. Sparx can take three hits before he disappears, leaving Spyro on his own. Torching or charging sheep and other fodder animals release butterflies for Sparx to eat. Sparx will also pick up nearby treasure so it’s a great idea to keep him around.

Some levels feature boss enemies that are supposed to be more difficult to handle but they’re not for the most part. The levels are tough, don’t get me wrong, but the bosses themselves are usually not more effective than the armies they bring with them. That being said fighting 3 wolves and a giant scarecrow can be tough.

This is the Scarecrow in question. I think he’s just big enough to seem threatening without being scary.

 

The Gush

Even today this game looks great. Some of the enemy design is really cool and varied, from bulls to shamans every enemy looks cool. It also boasts some of the largest level sizes for the Playstation, using clever programming tricks to keep the memory use down. The levels aren’t just expansive, some of them are downright mystic and beautiful. It definitely looks like a group of Dragons made some of these places.

Dragons that Spyro save usually have interesting advice or comments to make about the world. But Dragons with the most badass of names– Thor, Crusher, etc– are usually feeble and old. I thought it was the funniest thing when I was a kid.

The loading screens are pretty cool and the load times are surprisingly short.

There’s a relaxing quality to watching Spyro glide across a cloudy sky.

 

The music for this game is really good. I’ll find myself grooving to the bass and drum beats all through gameplay. Each level has it’s own unique tune. Some of them sound similar, but they all have their unique bits.

Gliding around is just fun, all there is too it. Reaching the highest point of levels and just gliding round is awesome.

 

The Kvetch

The story in this game is pretty weak. Gnasty is supposed to be an underprivileged Gnorc who saw his reflection in the Dragon’s treasure as something nearly unbearable because he was so ugly. When he tried to destroy the treasure so that it couldn’t reflect his appearance the Dragons sent him to the junk yard of their worlds and he swears revenge. This makes Gnasty a strangely sympathetic villain but most importantly it gives him some sort of motivation for doing what he does as opposed to the nothing the game provides.

Speaking of Gnasty, the final fight against him is really anticlimactic. He goes down in one hit, the whole “fight” is just about getting to him or keeping up with him while the platforms in the level recede into walls.

Some pieces of treasure are insanely well hidden. And you need all of it to unlock Gnasty’s Loot, the super secret final level. Some levels also form strange mazes so it’s really difficult to remember where you’ve been. In later games Sparx can point Spyro toward treasure and it solves the issue but this isn’t the later games.

Worlds are gated by mysterious balloonists. They ask for Spyro to have enough treasure, Dragon’s, or Dragon Eggs before he can take Spyro to the next world, but why? Spyro doesn’t pay him the treasure, eggs, or Dragons. Why does he need to know that Spyro’s got this stuff?

Tree Tops. Just, Tree Tops. This level is a nightmare filled with super charge ramps, keys, and treasure chests. It’s so easy to screw something up in this stage and if you do, you’ve got to start all over because there’s no way back to Tree Tops you’ve passed.

This level looks beautiful but it’s masquerading as Hell.

 

The Verdict

This game is absolutely worth playing but is not worth completing 100%. The sequels remedy the problems with getting 100% and I think that shows that Insomniac was just a little green when making this game– it was only the second game they had made. Nostalgia levels are really high but this game is just good. If you’ve got a hankering to play as a small Dragon and save Dragon-kind then this is the game for you.

Next week: Diablo.

Pokemon Trading Card Game (Gameboy Color)

 

 

Introduction

The inhabitants of an unnamed island consider the Pokemon Trading Card Game to be the most important thing ever conceived. You are a denizen of this island and want nothing more than to face the Grand Masters of the game. In order to do this you must defeat the masters of the 8 clubs and your rival, Ronald. The first step is going to Mason’s Laboratory– a lab completely devoted to the study of a children’s card game– and speaking with Dr. Mason to get your first deck of cards.

Are there any towns on this island? Farms? Natural resources? Or does it exist purely as a Valhalla of trading card games?

 

Development

In a bizarre turn for Collectible Card Game tie-in videogames, the videogame for the Pokemon Trading Card Game was released in Japan before the playing cards were actually released. It would get pushed back for its American release because Nintendo of America was trying to focus on the sale of Pokemon Stadium and didn’t want to flood the market with Pokemon games. This caused the game to be overshadowed by the release of the actual card game. I can imagine many parents uttering the words, “Why do you need the Gameboy game when you already own the cards?”

Fun Fact: Two cards, Base set Electrode and Fossil set Ditto, had abilities that were too complicated to be put into the game.

Pokemon Trading Card Game released in the United States on April 10th 2000. It would face The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask (Nintendo 64), Perfect Dark (Nintendo 64), and Diablo II (PC) around its release.

There was a sequel that was only released in Japan– to my eternal sadness.

 

Nostalgia

Here’s the simple thing about kids and games, kids love to win therefore kids will cheat. And when it comes to games like this, the adults don’t know the rules, so there’s no way for them to moderate it. I started playing the game when I was a kid but between the cheating and the theft I got fed up with it really fast.The Gameboy release however had all the fun with none of the stealing or cheating. It was also nice to hear the rules from an objective source– kids will also bring up house rules at the exact moment it’ll cause you to lose.

 

“Oh, well, my Staryu is on the sand of a beach so your electrode’s electric attacks won’t have any effect.” Damn kid logic.

 

Gameplay

The player’s goal is to defeat all of the club leaders and then go on to face the Grand masters. Facing the club leaders typically involves facing the other members of the club, having enough club leader medals, having enough cards, or defeating enough opponents overall. Each club has a theme so it behooves the player to build a deck that is strong against the theme of the club– or the player could just build a completely busted good deck but I’ll talk about that more later. When the player defeats any character they are rewarded with 2 packs of cards, giving them more options to face different opponents. Some cards are more rare than others so the player might have to face club members multiple times before they get the desired card.

The game involves playing basic pokemon, attaching energy cards to them to use their attacks, evolving them– which provides different abilities with different costs, utilizing pokemon powers, and using trainer cards that affect the game in various ways. Some trainer cards allow the player to draw more cards for their hand, search their deck for a card and put it in their hand, remove an energy card from a opposing pokemon, heal a pokemon, and all sorts of other weird stuff. A deck can only have 60 cards, no more, no less, and there can only be 4 copies of any card in the deck, except basic energy cards. The goal of any deck is to utilize all of these elements in making a strategy that’s effective.

Sometimes the Challenge Hall hosts a Challenge Event. The player will face 3 randomly chosen opponents from the game and if they defeat them all then they get a special promotional card that can only be acquired from these Challenge Events. Because the opponent is random it’s not possible to build a deck that’s designed to defeat them based on cards weaknesses and resistances, so it’s the ultimate challenge the game has to offer. They occur randomly so check every once and awhile.

The special Surfing Pikachu is just one of the promo cards. They’re not all powerful, but they are pretty cool.

 

The Gush

This game provides the player with the ability to own all of the Pokemon cards without requiring the need to purchase, or store all of that useless cardboard. Players can still duel each other in the game using the Gameboy Link Cable, so they player can get the whole experience of the game– with a built in referee! This game also included cards that hadn’t been or wouldn’t be released in physical form– so it’s got even more cards with none of the cardboard.

By the way, this game has a bunch of different opponents.

The pixel art of the card art looks really good and each attack has its own animation. The dialogue for all the characters in the world that you can’t actually play with is sometimes really funny.

Speaking of funny characters, the game has a hidden opponent. His name is Imakuni? He’s a Japanese musical personality who’s taken up the game. He shows up in club lobbies sometimes and defeating him nets the player 4 packs instead of just 2.

The game uses simple addition and multiplication so it’s easy for a kid to play. But the strategy can get intense. It’s easy to learn but difficult to master.

 

The Kvetch

The story is super weak and almost non existent. The world the game takes place in doesn’t even make sense. Are wars won over the game table? Because characters in the game take it that seriously and it just seems strange.

After the player wins a few medals he’ll get blindsided by his rival, Ronald. Ronald’s deck is always something the player hasn’t seen before and the player doesn’t have an opportunity to change or alter his deck before he faces Ronald. This leads to a lot of frustration because defeating Ronald is the only way to acquire certain promo cards. So if the player has a deck that just happens to be vulnerable to Ronald’s deck then Ronald will win and the player will miss out on permanent advantages. The only way to prevent this is to reload the last save and recover your progress. It’s the worst thing about this game.

I swear certain rare cards are more rare than other rare cards. I’ve got 12 Aerodactyls that I’ll never use and only have 2 Computer Search cards, then again someone that loves Aerodactyl might only have 2 and have a pile of Computer Searches they don’t know what to do with.

The order the player faces the Grand Masters is random and the player can’t alter their deck before they face the first Master. After beating the first Grand Master they’re allowed to alter existing decks or even make new ones more suited to the next opponent, which is announced unlike the first. This makes it so the first Grand Master is difficult to defeat because it might be a Master with a deck that is better suited against the player’s even though the player is using a deck that’s well suited against a different Master. I’d understand if the player had to make one deck that could beat all of them, that would actually be really interesting but the fact that the first one is random is a strange choice.

 

The Kvush

Alright, I didn’t know if this was good or bad. It’s really easy to make a deck that’s so good that it’ll never lose. I’ve developed a strategy that never loses me a match. I have been playing it since I was a kid so I might’ve just played too much. A few cards from the base set were banned, Bill and Professor Oak in particular. These bans didn’t go into effect until long after the game was released. The use of these cards can make decks far more effective than the game expects leading to easy wins.

 

The Verdict

I like this game a lot. It’s wonderfully portable, it’s got satisfying gameplay, and it offered a real value for me when I was a kid– heck it came with a real promo card in the box. That being said, I am quite blinded by the Pokemon nostalgia factor so I’d like to hear what someone would think if they hadn’t played it growing up.

Next Week: Spyro the Dragon for the Sony Playstation

Lemmings (SNES)

Introduction

 A group of brownies are walking across a bridge going from A to B on some sort of grand pilgrimage– either that or some sort of mass exodus. One of them messes with the bridge raising controls and accidentally sends the rest of his brethren falling into the ravine below. Now he’s miserably alone and the rest of his friends are far from home. The player must assign tasks to guide the Lemmings to their desired destination and away from hazards.

By Brownie I mean the mythical creature depicted above, not the dessert.

Development

The game started when Mike Dailly animated a walk cycle with a character eight pixels wide and eight pixels tall. DMA design kept tinkering with the animation and improving it. The model would loop endlessly. Russel Ken said, “There’s a game in that.” The creatures were named Lemmings after the animals of the same name, famous for the misconception that they will run off of cliffs blindly. The levels were designed in custom Deluxe Paint interface which made it really easy for all the team members to make levels. It’s even possible to tell who designed which levels based on their characteristics.

This game is one of the most widely ported games I’ve ever heard of. Originally released for the Amiga and the Atari ST it was also released for the 3DO, Acorn Archimedes, Amstrad CPC, Apple IIGS, Lynx, Atari 800 XE/XL, Commodore 64, Amiga CD32, MS-DOS, NES, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Philips CD-i, Windows, TurboGrafx-CD, and some Texas Instruments Calculators. I’m not going to lie, I haven’t heard of half of these consoles.

Lemmings was released for the SNES on December 18th,1991. It was up against Cid Meier’s Civilization (PC), Sonic the Hedgehog 1 (Sega Genesis), and Another World (Amiga 500).

This is the Amiga box art, I think it’s better than the SNES. That warning is totally legit though, this game is hard.

Nostalgia

This is the one game that my mother would play. I was playing this game before I could read so it was great to have her around. She loved the music, she stills remembers it if I bring it up. When we would play I would operate the controller and she would tell me what to do and we’d strategize. We’d always forget to write the passwords down so we’d end up starting from the beginning of the game ever time.

We tried playing the two player once. The regular game is hard enough without another player breaking stuff.

Gameplay

The goal of each level is to get the lemmings from their starting trap door to the goal. They’ll keep dropping at a constant rate and walk the right. They’ll climb small steps and will gladly walk off of cliffs. The player needs to think fast to order certain lemmings to perform certain actions. Lemmings can be made into climbers, floaters, and blockers, they can also be told to build a 15 stair stairway, mine in a down diagonal direction, bash to destroying obstacles that are straight ahead, dig straight down, and explode. When I say explode I don’t mean setting a bomb, I mean self destructing– it’s weird. Certain levels limit the number of iterations of actions the player can bestow, other levels eliminate them entirely.

Did I mention that the Nuke button next to the map destroys all the Lemmings? Between that, the fact that exploding them is necessary to beat some levels, the sound they make when they die of fall damage, and this screen this game is shockingly dark.

The Gush

Um… it’s a good puzzle game. There are infinite tries so there’s no way to fail. Some puzzles have multiple solutions that reward the players ingenuity. The music samples a lot of public domain music and I really like hearing old songs get a new 16 bit paint job.

This set up is a great example of the micromanaging that this game asks for and the rewards it brings. Putting those blockers at the end of the stairs prevent Lemmings from falling to their death, and the use of the miner ability makes up for the lack of bashers.

The Kvetch

I’ve got a lot of problems with this game. The falling death sound effect is quite possibly the most brutal death noise I’ve ever heard in a game. I’m always hesitant to make a lemming explode because they’re clearly sentient creatures, I guess it’s for the greater good but it’s sort of disturbing.

As far as I know none of the passwords work. Story time, I stepped away from my console after I lost a level to grab something to drink. There’s a 10 second time to restart a level so it went to the main menu. No problem, I have the internet. I can look up a password. I put it in and it didn’t work. So I figured the internet is filled with trolls and they’re wrong passwords so I played back to level 15, keeping track of the passwords this time. When I came back to it the passwords didn’t work. I don’t know if its my cartridge or the password system as a whole, but I’ve got to beat all 100 levels in one sitting and that’s ridiculous.

Sometimes it’s impossible to target the correct lemming because they’re all clumped together. Commands are also direction sensitive so if the lemmings are too clumped together then a lemming will start bashing in the wrong direction, wasting a use of basher.

The traps are horrifying. Lemmings get hung, burned, crushed, and destroyed in a bunch of horrible ways. It’s not terribly graphic but it’s a puzzle game for children. And the usage of a nuclear blast mushroom cloud to indicate the destruction of all the lemmings seems super insensitive.

That thing in the center there is a gallows that’ll hang your lemmings on the spot.

The Verdict

The game is great, the puzzles are solid and fun to solve. But looking back there are a lot of disturbing things in the game. All the ways that the lemmings can die wouldn’t be so strange if the game didn’t pretend it was all so happy. I guess it worked, when I was a kid I didn’t think it was so horrifying. I like it but now I feel bad for not caring about all the lemmings I exploded when I was a kid.

Next Week: The Pokemon Trading Card Game (Gameboy Color)