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)

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Sonic the Hedgehog (Sega Genesis)

Introduction

The greedy Dr. Robotnik– what is it with scientists being jerks in games?– is constructing his Death Egg space station. What’s he doing with it? I dunno, taking over the world I guess– he’s just the bad guy okay. The Death Egg’s got death in the name, how good could it be? Go beat him up, because he enslaves animals to power his robot minions. Play as Sonic the Hedgehog, or team up with Tails the Flying Fox, to defeat Robotnik.

Why didn’t anyone mention that the Death Egg is just the Death Star with a creepy mustache on it?

Development

 Sonic 1 had been developed by Sonic Team in Japan but Sega had Sonic 2 developed by the Sonic Technical Institute in the US. Key members of the original team, such as the Lead Programmer and the Game Planner, were moved onto this new team.  I’d say that it worked out well for them. This game had a small pile of innovative elements– but still no plot. With a little preparation Sonic could take off at max speed with his spin dash. Bonus levels revealed powerful secrets. And now the game supported cooperative and head to head multiplayer with the addition of Tails. I don’t think this innovation would have been possible without the addition of these fresh faces and their new ideas.

It was released on November 24th, 1992. It was up against Star Control 2 (PC), Flashback (Sega Genesis and later ported to the SNES), Mortal Combat (Sega Genesis and SNES), and Dune II (PC).

With everything that made it into the game, it’s got a surprisingly large amount of cut content. This is a restored version of a cut area know as the Hidden Palace Zone, which would later appear in Sonic 3 and Knuckles.

Nostalgia

This was one of the few games that my cousin owned for the Sega Genesis. I was a Nintendo kid so this was my opportunity to see “how the other side lived”. This was one of the few games that we were actually able to play cooperatively. It was usually about competition but I’m not a competitive player, I wanted to achieve. He would always play Sonic– it was his system after all– and I would play Tails. Tails can’t die. He can get knocked out, he can fall in pits, but he always comes back twirling his little tails and ready to get back into the fight. My cousin would dodge bosses waiting for me to come back and take the hits because there was no risk if I got knocked out. I was an invaluable sidekick for the first time.

Tail, ever the brave squire, gets repeatedly beaten up but always comes back for more.

Gameplay

Time for another 2D platformer– THE 2D platformer depending on who you ask. Sonic can jump on enemies and accelerate to alarming speeds, his starting speed can be frustratingly slow though. Most enemies are defeated with a simple jump on their head but others have spikes on their noggins, these enemies are usually defeated with a spin dash. The spin dash is a move that allows Sonic to store speed and take off. It’s somehow more satisfying than accelerating by running even though it takes the same amount of time.

Throughout the levels there are rings floating in the air that Sonic can collect, collecting 50 unlocks bonus levels at checkpoints and collecting 100 will give Sonic an extra life. If he gets hit, don’t worry, this will just make Sonic lose all of his power rings which he can collect again. As long as Sonic has one ring then he’ll be able to keep going, just catch that ring before it disappears.

There’s a limit to the amount of rings that actually burst out of Sonic, so if he has a lot the excess is lost.

The Gush

This game is all about going fast and when Sonic goes fast he goes fucking fast. There’s something viscerally satisfying about going running so fast that the momentum is enough to perpetuate Sonic’s movement through a loop. The game’s all about speed, defeating enemies is the challenge and the reward is the straightaway.

Completing a bonus level awards Sonic with a Chaos Emerald and he gets all of them then if he’s got 50 rings he can become Super Sonic. Pun aside, Super Sonic is immune to all damage except falling in pits. Spikes can’t stop you, enemies can’t stop you, damage is irrelevant. Speed is supreme! Becoming Super Sonic is just difficult enough to feel really rewarding.

The bonus levels offer an interesting alteration to the gameplay as well, bringing something new.

The environments are super pretty– my personal favorite is Aquatic Ruin Zone. When I first played it and would die all the time I was always really excited to see what the next level would look like. The music is also really good. My cousin and I would get to certain levels just to listen to those sweet Genesis tunes.

You’ve seen all the screenshots. There are so many small decorations, and then there are the backgrounds.

The Kvetch

The ring requirement of Super Sonic is an understandable limit but the final bosses area has only 5 or so rings in it so it’s impossible to face the boss as Super Sonic. There’s just something about it that’s intensely dissatisfying, I spent the time to get over powered and have been denied it when it would be most useful.

Sonic can’t swim and there are sections, especially in the Aquatic Ruin zone where Sonic will be plunged into lakes and such. It’s so stressful and frustrating having to move so slowly with the looming threat of drowning hanging overhead. If you’ve played this game then you know that the drown countdown theme is the scariest thing in the world.

I’ve complained about passwords in the past but Sonic doesn’t even have the option. If you want to play through Casino Night Zone before bed then you’ve got to play to it.

The story is really difficult to gather from the events of the game. I only knew that the bad guy’s name as Robotnik was because my cousin told me and I don’t know where he figured it out.

The Verdict

Sonic the Hedgehog is a great platformer, it’s got fun gameplay, good mechanics, something for the completionists, great music, and solid visuals for the time that hold up today. I might have a lot of complaints but I had to dig pretty deep to find them. It’s a game about going fast and it delivers.

Next Week: Lemmings

Crash Bandicoot (Sony Playstation)

Introduction

The nefarious Dr. Neo Cortex is engineering animals from his island fortress to be soldiers in his bid for world domination.  Crash is a failed experiment who escapes…. somehow… for reasons. Help Crash wreck Cortex’s islands and save his girlfriend from being turned into the general of Cortex’s army (More damsels in distress… ugh).

At least I think that’s what the backstory is, the opening scene jumps around a lot.

Development

Crash Bandicoot was developed by the three man development effort known as Naughty Dog and was published through Universal Interactive Studios– the fact that three guys made this game astonishes me. Naughty Dog was composed of Andy Gavin, Jason Rubin, and Dave Bagget– who was hired later in the game’s creation. They decided to jump into the 3D world with a classic genre of game, action platformer. They chose to release for the Playstation because it seemed less clunky than the alternatives like the Atari Jaguar, Sega 32X, and Sega Saturn– if these consoles don’t sound familiar there’s a good reason for that, they’re terrible.

I’m sorry if you owned one of these.

They wanted the game to have a Sonic the Hedgehog vibe so they made the setting a clash between nature and technology and made the character an anthropomorphized version of an unheard of animal. They jokingly called the game “Sonic’s Ass Game” because the camera would only view Crash from behind. They chose the Bandicoot from a list of animals from Australian and Tasmanian animals. Other animals from Australia and Tasmania, like potoroos and koalas, would join the cast of villains.

This is a Bandicoot. Crash scarcely resembles him.

Crash Bandicoot was released in August, 1996. It was up against The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall, Diablo, and Super Mario 64.

Staring squarely at the hindquarters of our valiant protagonist.

Nostalgia

In 1996 you were either a Playstation kid or a Nintendo 64 kid. You either took a gamble on a new system with new mascots or kept playing Mario games. And that was a big gamble to take. Someone’s first foray into 3D platforming in this divide is either going to be Mario 64 or Crash Bandicoot. My father got me a playstation so my game was Crash Bandicoot. I could go left, right, forward, back, up, and down, it blew my mind! I could go anywhere, do anything! But Crash has so many boundaries. The game is mostly a linear path with a little wiggle room to the right and left. Some of the most fun levels are actually returns to the 2D form. It was a sign of what was possible, but also felt very limiting which is the game in a nutshell really.

GO ANYWHERE, DO ANYTHING! Like doing the same things of last generation but slightly better and with a better paint job.

Gameplay

The goal of each level is to reach its end, enemies and pits will impede your progress forward. Jump over the pits and jump on or spin attack the enemy. It’s pretty Marioesque, boxes hold fruit which Crash can collect for extra lives and Crash can only take one hit unless he finds powerups to protect him. This one of the first platformers that I can remember where the protagonist actually has a melee attack, he can do more than just jump on things. And Crash’s spin attack was deadly at best and humorous at worst, arms akimbo cartoonishly lashing out. The most fun levels are the ones with the craziest gimmicks, 2D levels, pig riding levels, rock fleeing levels. The additional challenge of each level lies in breaking all the Marioesque boxes in the level, but more on that later.

The Kvetch

This game was really good for its time but it has not aged well. The Playstation’s disk storage capacity was great for making games look better but save data couldn’t be saved on a disk. So the Playstation had memory cards but no one knew what those were at launch because no other system needed them before. This created some problems for the game. Naughty Dog figured that no one would no what memory cards were so Crash had a password system but passwords get to be 32 characters long. I had sheets of paper with passwords and I could never remember which was the most up to date. And Crash can only save in bonus levels which can only be accessed by finding randomly placed pictures of his girlfriend hidden in boxes in each level. It was so frustrating I would try to beat the whole game in one sitting and it’s just not possible.

One of the last password screens in gaming history and with good reason.

The only way to unlock the secret ending is to get gems, Crash gets gems by breaking all the boxes in each stage. Some boxes can only be reached by getting certain gems, so sometimes you think you’ve gotten all the boxes but you haven’t and don’t know why. Some levels break into 2 paths, both of which have boxes. Which means Crash has to backtrack through levels and that’s easier said than done.

This is the standard camera, you can’t see what’s behind you. So backtracking is a matter of memorization.

The Gush

This all being said the game is pretty fun if you’re not trying to complete it. The art is really good, especially for the time. The jungles, forts, labs, and castles all look really interesting with little bits to notice. The level design is really solid, it’s easy to find the rhythm of jumps and spins to defeat levels.

My favorite part of the game though is the boss fights. Did you ever want to fight a body-building Koala? There’s a boss for that. Did you ever want to fight a small mammal that’s been genetically experimented on so hard it became a mobster? There’s a boss for that.

This is the only level where Crash will take cover, but with good reason.

Did you ever want to fight a mad scientist that hulks out during the fight? There’s a boss for that.

This fight has actually glitched out on me more often than it hasn’t. It’s still super fun though!

The Verdict

This game’s too hard to complete but too easy to finish. It’s in this weird difficulty anti-sweet spot. I might play it to walk down the memory lane of beating Pinstripe Potoroo, but probably not. Like many first attempts , the sequel fixes most of these problems but this isn’t the sequel.

Next Week: Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest (SNES)

Introduction

Kaptain K. Rool — He’s be dethroned I guess, has kidnapped Donkey Kong and taken him to Krocodile Isle– an island that has mysteriously appeared off the coast of Donkey Kong Island. Diddy and his girlfriend Dixie must adventure to Krocodile Isle and save Donkey and defeat K. Rool and his new pirate groove (And pirate crew.).

I think that K. Rool’s pirate theme is the best of his themes, and it brings the best costume.

Development

Sorry all you crazy cats out there. I couldn’t find any information about the development of Donkey Kong Country 2. It was released a year after Donkey Kong Country 1, almost to the day. 1995 was the year before the Nintendo 64 would be released, at this point Nintendo was still focused on the SNES. The Nintendo 64 would usher Nintendo into the world of 3D games.

It was released in the same year as Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness (PC and Playstation), Comix Zone (Sega Genesis), Twisted Metal (Playstation), and I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (PC) [That’s a helluva year for gaming. It’s just hard to imagine that all these games were being released at the same time.]

 Sorry guys, nothing more to see here.

Nostalgia

Donkey Kong Country 2 is one of the first games I can think of that presents a female character that is yards better than her male counterpart. As a platformer, the game is all about mobility. The more mobile a character is, the better. And I think that Dixie’s helicopter hair twirl is the most useful thing in the game. It’s essentially gliding, it can make jumps easier, hitting enemies less timing intensive, help avoid enemies and attacks, and extend the players jump– so far that Dixie can skip whole levels with it. I was always playing Dixie if she was available.

 Dixie’s design is pretty solid, but I don’t understand why EVERYTHING she wears needs to be pink.

 Gameplay

Donkey Kong Country 2 takes all the aspects of the original and makes them better, what a good sequel should do. The game has a story now. The story of the original being: K Rool has stolen Donkey’s banana hoard because reasons, go beat him up. That’s just a weak hook overall. This time Diddy and Dixie are trying to save Donkey–  a character that its audience has come to love over the first game.

Donkey looks determined in this image but I just realized that his head is stuck in the bars.

The goal of each level is to reach its end, sounds simple. Jump over pits, jump on or avoid enemies, and reach the target with the flag post next to it. Reach the end of the world and fight a boss. The bosses in this game are decently challenging, but not frustratingly hard. They can be pretty intimidating though, like a giant disembodied Cutlass and a giant Wasp

It’s a wasp that’s twice the size of a parrot. Run, dear god, run for you lives.

Along the way there are bonus barrels that launch our dear heroes toward a bonus challenge like defeating a bunch of enemies, finding the goal, or collecting a bunch of stars. Completing these challenges will earn you a Gold Dubloon. These can be used to pay Klubba, which unlocks a series of quite difficult levels that in turn unlock the super secret final boss and the hidden ending. Also hidden, are DK hero coins that have been hidden by Cranky Kong to test his great nephew. A true hero would be able to collect all these things, but I settle for being a regular hero– by which I mean to say that I’ve never found all this stuff.

I highly recommend that you pay Klubba’s toll.

The Gush

The art for this game is really good. I think it’s a great improvement on the original.

This is Crocodile Isle, tell me this doesn’t look like a cool place to explore.

This place has got a haunted forest, a volcano, a beehive surrounded amusement park, and a castle on the top of it. This is one of the coolest environments ever.

Amusement parks in my videogames? YES!

 

Every level introduces something new and different to play with. From horizontal wind drafts to vertical wind drafts, new animal buddies like Squitter the Spider and Rattely the Snake, Animal Buddy only levels, hot air balloons, vertical based levels, and a race. Each level introduces something new enough to keep it interesting but familiar enough to get a hold of easily.

This game is also a completionist’s delight. Do you love finding all the secrets in games? Then this game will scratch that itch. The completion of this game is not just measured by secret areas found, like in Donkey Kong Country 1. It’s measured by exploring and finding hard to reach locations and beating a world of more difficult levels. Although I haven’t found all these locations, it’s always fun to discover a new one.

Find everything and you’ll find yourself in the Kremling’s fabled Lost World.

 

The music from this game is incredible. I still remember how pumped the opening music got me, I would wait until it was all done before I went to the main menu. A lot of the music gets remixed in ever musical style that exists, Stickerbrush Symphony (Original here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J67nkzoJ_2M) has been remixed more times than I can count. This game released its soundtrack and it’s easy to see why.

The Kvetch

Diddy’s special ability that’s supposed to match Dixie’s incredible hair twirl is his cartwheel jump. When Diddy attacks forward he executes a DEADLY cartwheel, and that’s fine, but if he continues the cartwheel off of a platform he can initiate a jump. If you haven’t played the game then I bet that doesn’t make much sense. This is because it doesn’t make sense. Diddy can jump in mid air during a cartwheel if he cartwheels off of a platform. I don’t know how I was supposed to figure that out as a kid. Dixie spinning around and using her hair to slow her descent, makes sense in a cartoon, makes sense in a videogame. Diddy jumping in midair breaks the rules of the game, why should it work? I know it’s an important move, but that’s what steams me more. It’s vital to know and not evident or intuitive.

So Dixie and Diddy are dating. They both share the last name Kong. They’re relationships is incestuous. I’m going to assume Kong is just the designated name for their species or something, or she’s a 12th cousin thrice removed or something– or whatever the most distant relation she can possibly be. I’m going to keep thinking this…

…Otherwise, someone get me the brain bleach.

 

The Verdict

I might be super nostalgic for Donkey Kong Country 2 but it’s only because this game has held up so well. It’s one of the few games I haven’t played to completion and I ain’t even mad.

Next Week: Crash Bandicoot for the Playstation

Super Mario RPG: SNES

Introduction

A giant sword has falls from the sky, rending clouds (With important plot elements in them), skewering Bowser’s castle. Warmongering thugs emerge from the castle conquering towns. Mario must recruit new allies and old enemies in order to defeat this new foe.

How insignificant does this make Mario look?

Development

Super Mario RPG was an unprecedented venture in which Shigeru Miyamoto would lead a Squaresoft company team in creating a Super Mario game. It would use the turn based combat that Final Fantasy was known for with the conventions of Super Mario. When the Nintendo 64 and Playstation would be released Squaresoft would change companies and such a collaboration wouldn’t be possible again.

Super Mario RPG was released very late into the life span of the Super Nintendo. The cartridge was equipped with the SA-1 chip which allowed it to process quicker than other cartridges, more RAM, and more storage memory. This chip was only included in six other SNES games released worldwide.

 

Such technology allowed the game to hold all of these unique models which such detail.

Gameplay

Super Mario RPG succeeds partially in being a Mario game and being an RPG — that sounds like a non-point but let me explain. The game’s combat is turn based, not live action. The enemies now have hit points, and don’t die in one hit. For some kids this game was their first RPG and the concept that Mario doesn’t jump on enemies and that his attacks don’t defeat enemies in one hit was foreign. Mario’s normal attack is punching his enemy and his “magic” attacks consist of jumping on enemies and shooting fireballs, a move that’s normally granted by a power-up. Out of combat Mario is just… himself. He can jump high and use his jumping power to explore areas and find helpful items.

Combat additionally got spiced up with the addition of “timed hits.” If Mario, or one of his allies, attacks and presses the attack button again at the point of impact a tone will chime and the attack will do additional damage. These timed hits also apply to magic and defending against attacks, using it defensively can make you take zero damage — which has a certain bit of satisfaction to it.

The story is sort of simple. When the sword fell through the clouds it broke through the Star Road, the place where wishes are granted. The Star Road broke into 7 stars that fell all across the Kingdom. Here’s where there’s a little hole. Smithy has one of the stars and is trying to get the others. He can’t do anything with them but hoard them so what’s the harm in letting him get them all and then beating him up and taking them in one fell swoop? Will they give Smithy super powers or something? Does the Star he possesses allow him to make more powerful weapons? I was so engrossed in meeting all the interesting characters that I didn’t think of this plot hole in 12 years.

Smithy’s designs only grow more deadly as the game goes on as he hones his talents.

Nostalgia

When I played this game as a kid my parents would rent it for a few days at a time. I would play it for an hour and eventually it would begin to bore me so I would turn the game off. Then I would pick it up immediately, all boredom fallen away, trying to beat it before we had to return it.

The giant swords intrusion destroys the Star Road, where wishes in the Mushroom Kingdom come true — I know that’s super corny but roll with me a little here. One final wish was made somewhere out in the world though, the wish that Star Road be rebuilt— I know it’s sort of nonsense that the destruction of the wish granting engine can, itself, instigates a wish. This wish falls from the sky as a star which infuses itself into a child’s toy, with all the powers and abilities of the toy’s character. It’s probably every kid’s dream that their favorite toy come to life and help them defeat evil. This game vicariously offers this experience.

This is Geno and he is the living toy in question.

The Gush

There’s so much to talk about when it comes to why this game is awesome. Time hits are a great addition that make combats easier, but aren’t necessary. It’s perfectly viable to go through the game without using this wacky, new-fangled, hip, modern, new age technique.

There are so many hidden things, hidden areas, hidden treasure boxes, hidden bosses, hidden equipment, and other silly stuff. The player is encouraged to go everywhere and look behind everything because there might be a hidden door hiding back there, or a hidden chest around it. Square hid a boss more powerful than Smithy for those that seek a greater challenge. He even uses Final Fantasy IV’s boss music and the Final Fantasy ending theme plays when you defeat him.

What is this guy? Pure pain.

The character’s a are fleshed out and interesting— except Mario, who’s a silent protagonist. Seeing what Bowser is really like when his pride falters and he’s forced to work alongside Mario is really interesting. We get to see the turtle really open up and talk about his feelings and about how if he wasn’t such a tyrant, he’d be a really nice guy.

The art design is really great. It’s super satisfying to see what all of Mario’s enemies, and some newcomers, look like when rendered in pseudo 3-D graphics.

The music in this game is so good. Like Donkey Kong Country, this games soundtrack was released to the Japanese market. It’s soundtrack has an hour and forty minutes worth of rehashes of old themes and plenty of new ones. The ever popular “Beware the Forest’s Mushrooms” and  the strangely named “Let’s do the Fluff-Fluff” are very memorable tracks for me.

There’s even a Toad composer named Toadofsky –Japan loves their puns.

The Kvetch

Every game has its flaws and Super Mario RPG is no exception. Toadstool is relegated to the, quintessential and kind of sexist, role of a healer. She used to be floating around and hurling vegetables at monsters, what happened to that — and don’t you say that it doesn’t count because Mario Bros. 2 was all a dream. Mallow on the other hand has a strange set of magic skills and low physical abilities that make him difficult for me to play. Maybe he worked with someone else’s play-style but I just couldn’t get him to be useful. If their roles were reversed then this would give Toadstool the opportunity to be the spell toting badass that I believe that she’s capable of being. And it would give Mallow the ability to be really useful— you don’s screw with the White Mage after all (And considering Mallow’s early arrival to the party, it would give the player access to a useful healer early in the game).

Look at this little puff-ball and tell me that he wouldn’t make a splendid healer?

Some of the hidden treasure chests are so difficult to find that I don’t know how Squaresoft expected the player to find them. It’s a strange complaint because some of the most difficultly hidden chests have relatively useless loot so it’s not necessary to get. But other the other side I feel profoundly ripped off getting something that wasn’t very useful from a really hidden chest.

The only way to reach this chest is by jumping off of the head of a walking Toad. BTW, you only get one chance. If you miss it, there’s no chance to retry.

The Star Road plot basically has nothing to do with defeating Smithy and that’s weird. Mario doesn’t gather the stars and wish that Smithy went away, he just needs to get them because videogames.

Little complaint last, Geno is a character that I really enjoy– Mallow not so much. Geno is a property of Squaresoft and must be licensed to be used in none-Square games. After the Super Nintendo, Squaresoft went steady with Sony and the Playstation. So Geno, nor Mallow, have appeared in any other games besides this one. It’s just a little sad that Ice Climbers, Solid Snake, and Sonic can make it into Super Smash Bros but this guy can’t.

Or anything else for that matter.

The Verdict

I’m super nostalgic for this game. I’m pretty blinded by whatever faults might be hidden in there — I don’t even care about how irrelevant the plot is. For the most part, it’s a really great game that I can’t recommend enough. It’s Mario enough to please the Mario audience and RPG enough to please the RPG audience.

Next Week: Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

Introduction

The Kingdom of Hyrule is in turmoil. The dark wizard Agahnim has killed the king—or turned him into a skeleton or something, I can’t really tell from the image—and is close to finishing his evil design of merging this world with a parallel (and cursed, did I mention cursed?) world! And, naturally, you are literally the only thing on the entire planet that can stop him.

Agahnim is green in the game. I don’t know which is weirder, the bad guy wearing same colored clothes as the characters being Christmas themed.

 

Development

A Link to the Past was originally being developed for the Nintendo Entertainment System but was bumped up to the next generation, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, so that it could take advantage of the advanced graphics and the ability to zoom and have scope.

It was such a large game that its cartridge has twice the size of normal SNES cartridges, from 512 Kilobytes to 1 Megabyte. I know! Think of what we can do with one Megabyte today! If I had 1500 cartridges I could fit an episode of Game of Thrones in my whole garage. The game was going to need the space because it had two different worlds for the player to explore.

Even with this increase of space, the programmers used a series of tricks to keep memory usage as low as it could go. This is why the game only displays 8 colors at a time instead of the 16 the SNES could be capable of. Another neat little trick is that the Dark world art is overlayed on top of the Light world. This makes the worlds visually identitical but thematically wrong, an uncanny valley of sorts, as the Light world’s familiar and sunny settings are replaced with grim mockeries. On the simplest level, with a little pallet work, the once bright trees of Hyrule had changed into deadened husks. Bridges rot away between the worlds.

This turns into…

This. Yes, that desert turned into a swamp.

 

Gameplay

Agahnim has taken the castle as his own and is holding PrincessZelda, hostage as the final piece of his sinister plan. You play as Link, of the line of the heroes of Hyrule. Zelda contacts Link through a dream and asks him to save her from Agahnim’s clutches. When Link wakes up his uncle tells Link not to leave the house and that he’ll be home before morning. Strangely, when I was a kid I never thought it was weird that Link lived with his uncle and that his uncle was just awake at 2 in the morning on rainy nights. Link disobeys his uncle’s commands and runs off anyway—unless you feel like staying in your house forever.

The land of Hyrule is filled with mystery, some mysteries that can only be explained in the Dark World.

 

Nostalgia

This was the first game where I played a character with a sword. Link doesn’t jump on goombas or turtles, he kills his enemies. He’s fighting for his life. He’s in over his head, slaying hoards of monsters. Link fights evil, Mario rescues Peach. This is the game for the Super Nintendo that lets a kid fight evil, destroy the wizard, and save the kingdom. It takes some cues from Joseph Cambell’s theory of the Hero’s Journey, but doesn’t feel the need to hit all the points. But the effect is the same, the player feels like a hero.

Sword in the Stone anyone?

 

The Replay

This game holds up to its original playthrough surprisingly well. Having played through it before, I didn’t get stuck in all the places that I used when I was younger…with a few exceptions I’ll get to later. I also listened to the whole plot this time around and the information about the sages and the Golden Land is really interesting, now that I read it. It’s also easier playing it when I have more motor control, and now that I can read, because reading is important. It’ll never be as mind blowingly good as it was when I was a kid, whenever I stopped playing I wanted to start again. But it’s still damn good.

As you can see, the art from the manual is just incredible.

 

The Gush

It’s hard to say all the things that went right with this game because there are just so many. The puzzles are usually simple enought that even a young kid can figure out how to complete them with a little trial and error, but complex enough for an adult to figure out on their first try. The Master Sword is still as amazing as I remember it. It’s the ultimate weapon in videogames, it’s indestrible, evil can’t touch it, it reflects magic, and it shoots lasers; What more could you want!? Dashing around harassing chickens and digging for treasure, there are so many little things you can do and so many little secrets to find. Miyamoto originally designed the Legend of Zelda series to be about exploration and it shows in this game. They say that the first Legend of Zelda game that you play is your favorite, and I don’t know if that’s true for everyone but it’s true for me

I’ve got some bad news for a certain sleeping sword, it won’t be left sleeping for long

 

The Kvetch

The Ice Dungeon. Just, the Ice Dungeon. I hate this place. It’s hard to figure out how to get in. Some enemies can only be killed with the fire rod and the fire rod runs off of limited resources. Giant skeleton enemies can only be defeated by being struck with the sword and then blown up with bombs, which took me forever to figure out when I was six. And it’s full of slippery floors that’ll lead you to run into fire walls and spikes. To top it all off, the final boss can only be damaged initially by the fire rod or the lamp. So if you’re out of magic, there’s no way to beat him.Get some potions or get really sad.

I also want to complain about Sahasrahla, the last descendant of the 7 sages that sealed the cursed land away. That sounds really important but the game doesn’t make it seem that way at all. It took me forever to figure out how to say that right. He’s got really poorly defined abilities. Sometimes he can contact you telepathically when it’s convenient, but sometimes he can do it when Link holds his head up against certain walls. It’s really weird and hard for a kid to understand. Why couldn’t a dead adventurer have written a hint on the wall or something? I just think it looks really silly when Link starts listening to walls for a sage that’s on another plane of existence says something that’s oddly apt and useful.

By the way, that floor is scrolling in randomly changing directions. Have fun trying to not get hit.

The Verdict

It holds up really well. It deserves the nostalgia it recieves. It’s rewarding to know some of the secrets and it’s still fun to relearn the rest. The adventure still feels like an adventure, it still feels fresh.

Next Week: Super Mario RPG

 

Name Change

I thought that Approximately Too Many Games was a little wordy so I’m trying out a new title. Rose Tinted Reset, Rose Tinted for Nostalgia, Reset for a new start. I think it’s sort of catchy. If youse guys disagree then chime in and I’ll think of something else.

Earthworm Jim (Genesis and SNES)

DOUBLE POST! I promised Earthworm Jim and I’ll deliver.

This game is weird. Jim is an earthworm who was wandering around on the planet Earth, minding his own earthworm business, when a supersuit fell out of the sky headhole first on our hero. When Jim crawled into the neck hole he was miraculously given sentience… and eyes. Presumably, the suit already had the pocket-rocket within its pockets which allowed Jim to explore and defend the Galaxy. I’m not going to lie, I have no idea what the plot of this game is. Maybe Jim is trying to prove to Princess Whats-Her-Name that he can defend the galaxy or maybe she’s been stereotypically kidnapped and Jim is trying to save her. Either way, the plot isn’t important. Jim must run, jump, head whip, shoot, helicopter-head-spin, and swing through a bunch of super weird levels. (Did I mention this game was weird?)

Super Suit comes with one laser bullet gun, one pocket rocket, no earthworm pilot, comes with everything else seen here.

Development

Strangely enough (Strange and weird will be the buzz words of the entry), Earthworm Jim started as an excuse to make a new line of toys. Playmate Toys had made the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toy line and wanted to start something new. Seeing the success of Sonic the Hedgehog toys, based on the game, Playmate decided to do the same. They employed Shiny Inc to make the game these toys would be based on. At this point Shiny had only made games on pre-existing properties like Cool Spot (Starring the 7-up spot) and The Jungle Book. Doug TenNapel showed them a sketch of Earthworm Jim, Shiny found the character marketable, and then it just got weirder from there. With characters like Psy-crow, Professor Monkey-for-a-head, Evil the Cat, Bob the Killer Goldfish, Major Mucus, and Queen Pulsating-Bloated-Festering-Sweaty-Pus filled-Malformed-Slug for a Butt Jim’s adventures will be bizarre indeed.

Earthworm Jim was released in August 2nd 1994. It was up against Darkstalkers (Arcade), Earthbound (SNES), and System Shock (PC).

Is Jim whipping a trash monster with his head while it drops a large brass instrument on him? Yes, yes it is. It just gets weirder.

Nostalgia

I can’t remember for the life of my how I got this game. Maybe I just rented it, but if I did then I don’t know why I picked it out at the rental place (Christ, does anyone else out there remember game rental places?). This game is pretty difficult, especially if you don’t realize the tricks (Which I didn’t when I was ten). I was scared of dogs when I was younger so I was always scared of the rabid barking dog pile enemies from the first level, and the roaring shadows of the second level. I didn’t even try to follow the plot when I was young, I just figured it was fun and didn’t matter. My father taught me most of the tricks to the game, that Jim could whip his head onto hooks and things to jump across areas or reach hidden areas, that the shining spark was a sign that something secret had been revealed, and that certain enemies were vulnerable to certain attacks.

In between each level there’s a racing level that I was god awful at. The penalty for losing is fighting Psy-crow and he would knock me around. I don’t know how many hits he needs to take but it seemed to take forever. My father was way better at racing games than me so I would usually bring him in to win these racing levels. But he wasn’t exactly the best gamer so when he would lose he would send me off to fight Psy-crow and the frustration would really start.

This game looked so detailed and the animations were so good that I felt like I could be Jim, sort of. I could at least be a kid in that super suit, although I couldn’t whip myself at people… fuck it, it was just really cool looking for the time. I could really focus on that when I was dying all the time. I don’t remember getting past the 4th level, Snot a Problem, I was so shocked when I was bungie jumping and trying to knock a sentient pile of mucus into spiky walls, in contrast to the normal platforming. I might have gotten to level 5 (named Level 5 no less) maybe once, although I might have dreamt or imagined it. Overall I found the game to be really fun even though it was super hard.

When I was a kid I was always waiting for the cat in the back to attack me, but he doesn’t until the end of the level. (Boss foreshadowing? Bully!)

The Gush

There’s so much weird stuff in this game that it’s impossible and pointless to mention it all. Sometimes the weirdness can get in the way of gameplay. For example, level 2, What the Heck, has these floating green gems that Jim can walk against the movement in order to make the gem fly or teleport Jim, this took me forever to figure out when I was a kid (that might have been something else that my father had to tell me). The shooting controls are a little unprecise because Jim can only fire in the four cardinal directions and four diagonal directions, he can shoot in between these directions by switching them, so if I’m shooting down and then switch diagonal down left I’ll hit (I really don’t know, sometimes I hit sometimes I don’t.) enemies in that direction of Jim. Whipping can defeat enemies more easily but it can only be aimed to the upper right or left while jumping and left, right, and up when standing. Jim’s gun has an ammunition counter that I can’t make heads or tails of, I couldn’t say how much he can shoot based on his ammo limits and when he runs out it slowly regenerates up to 100 (seconds of shots?). The ammunition system seems ultimately pointless, it’s just a source of frustration. The head spin allows Jim to float down more slowly than dropping but it requires the constant tapping of the B button. I don’t know if there’s a specific rhythm but I was either hitting it too fast or not fast enough because sometimes it would stop and I would fall to my doom.

Then there’s Down the Tubes. This level is just a brick wall of absolute difficulty. It’s more like a puzzle than an action platformer. Defeating enemies isn’t a matter of skill, it’s a matter of figuring out what does the trick. Most of them are immune to Jim’s gun and head whip. Then there are sections where Jim boards a little submersible and has to guide it through some narrow tunnels. If it hits too many things it breaks and it’s instant death. It’s also on a time limit, so if it takes you too long then that’s also instant death. This level created my hatred of timed levels, I’m only beginning now to overcome the intense pressure of a time limit.

Did I say that Donkey Kong Country mine carts are pain? I was wrong. This is.

The Verdict

This game is super fun to play, but it’s just not satisfying to beat. It’s so hard at points that it becomes distinctly unfun. If you like really hard games then you’ll appreciate the level of difficulty this game offers. This game is so hard that I’ve never beaten it, I came back to it and I still can’t. It sort of holds up to my nostalgia because in order to have fun with it I still have to accept that I will not see the final boss or the end of the game.

Next Week: The Legend of Zelda, A Link to the Past.

Tim Curry: This Man WILL Betray You

 I thought it was time for a little change of pace here on Approximately Too Many Games, and something popped into my head. I can’t think of a game in which Tim Curry does not betray the player. Spoiler warnings, I will be talking about the circumstances of these betrayals.

This is Tim Curry. He’s been acting since the 70s and is best known for his roles in Rocky Horror Picture Show (His breakout role), Legend (As Satan no less. It says “Darkness” but he looks like Satan, pics to come), Congo, Muppet Treasure Island, Stephen King’s It, and a bunch of small and large roles in cartoons through the years. He’s got a very distinctive and wonderfully melodious voice, so it makes perfect sense for him to voice cartoon characters and videogame characters. But there’s something strange about his game appearances. I’ve played three games, of the 17 he’s voice acted for, and in each of them his character has betrayed mine. Maybe I just unlucky for those 3 games, but that’s still 1/6th of his game career and his other voice credits aren’t too promising (Especially considering one of those characters is Satan… again).

They probably couldn’t have said it in a kids movie, but this is fucking Satan. He even “reprises” his role in the game “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”.

The Betrayers

Stratos from the PC Real Time Strategy game Sacrifice.

The god of air on a world with four other deities that have been vying for control and dominance for millenia. His absolutely bizarre appearance is offset by the strange placidity in his voice. (http://youtu.be/b1AFOkCcW6U?t=1m32s) The troops he employ don’t use brute force on the battlefield but control enemy movement and use various forms of deception to get the upper hand. He allies himself in two competing alliances, showing his true colors at the end when it turns out he was working for himself the whole time. He’s betraying the whole planet here as well. To give himself the edge he needed he summoned a demon of such immense power that it threatens to consume the whole world. That’s some betrayal right there.

Premier Anatoly Cherdenko from Command and Conquer: Red Alert III

This is one of the funniest roles I’ve ever seen Tim Curry in. Just listen to this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yMy7JuGpJM . Everything about it is brilliantly funny, Curry can’t even stop himself from cracking a smile through most of it (I swear that the 20 second mark that he’s about to burst out laughing and can only continue by shouting SPACE at the top of his fool lungs.) I’m not totally sure if he betrays the player (That clip seems to insinuate) but at the very least he betrays his partner in time crime. The game takes place in a world where the Cold War became a very hot one. It begins with Cherdenko losing but he uses a time machine to go back in time, with one General Krukov, and kill Albert Einstein to prevent him from inventing weapons that aid the Allied effort. Believing that General Krukov knows too much about all this time travel nonsense, he has you destroy him during one of the missions. Then it seems like he betrays you, I mean you should have seen it coming. If he’ll betray using you, he’ll betray on you.

And last but not least, Arl Howe from Dragon Age: Origins.

As soon as I heard Tim Curry’s suave voice come out of this guy’s mouth saying “My troops are running a bit late” I knew fucking well that this guy was going to betray me and try to kill my stupid, non-Tim-Curry-voice-recognizing face. I didn’t know when and it didn’t matter how but it was going to happen. Shocking me, it happens before the end of the prologue. His betrayal is the catalyst for the human noble’s call to glory. His men show up and kill everyone in your little castle before you can say, “Oh no, my poor defenseless family.”

Why does Tim Curry’s voice a sign of impending betrayal? Because it sounds so good doing it! It’s calm and calculated, even in the most ridiculous of examples (SPACE). He’s got a voice that just oozes with villainy and cruel wit. It’s sort of sad though that he’s been doing it for so long that I can see it coming from so far away. Even so, he’ll create a character that the player will love to hate. A bad guy so vile that I’ll do anything to stop him, even become a villain myself. So, bully for you Tim Curry, you keep doing that voodoo you do so well.

Donkey Kong Country (SNES)

Introduction

Play as Donkey Kong, the great ape of Nintendo lore (Well, it’s really his grandson but they’re both pretty tough). Go to the right (always to the right…) of each stage and jump on beavers and large reptiles. This game introduces Diddy Kong, Donkey’s nephew (I think), a younger and sprier Kong for the younger generation. Roll, handslam, cartwheel, jump, find cool animal buddies, and find the large reptile what took your banana hoard (Did I mention there was a banana hoard? Once again, all this plot is in the manual. Without it it’s pretty obtuse figuring out that Donkey has a banana hoard and that it was taken by a pirate ship dwelling reptile royalty. Until you fight him anyway.)

Why does reptile royalty live on a pirate ship and steal bananas from large apes? Because he hates you… for reasons.

Development

Donkey Kong Country was one of the first games developed by Rare. Chris and Tim Tamper, Rare’s founders, impressed Nintendo with their work on a boxing game. The game used pre-rendered 3D graphics, something that was new at the time. Pre-rendered 3D graphics, means that the graphics have been recorded on a better device, compressed to fit the limitations of a SNES cartridge, and then played back for the player. This gave the game a never before seen visual style.. Rare redesigned Donkey Kong, altering his physical appearance in subtle ways and adding a bow tie to him. This redesign has been adopted by Nintendo as his new design and Rare is credited in each depiction as such, until it was purchased by Microsoft.

It was released on November 21st, 1994. It released against Doom II for PC, Earthworm Jim for SNES, Final Fantasy VI for SNES, and Sonic and Knuckles for Sega Genesis.

Pre-rendered 3D, the only thing that could make Cranky Kong look good, ZING! It’s been 15 years, but I finally got the old ape.

Nostalgia

Yet another game that my Grandmother owned. I don’t know if she was trying to appeal to her grandkids or if she actually played these games in her spare time. I can imagine her sitting in bed with a controller in her hand trying to navigate Donkey around enemies shouting “Hell’s Bells!” I would play it with my cousin Zach, i would play as Donkey and he would play as Diddy. He was a year older than I was so it was fun for me to play the bigger stronger character. Although, I’ll admit he was much better at the game and so it makes sense that he’d play Diddy, the character with superior mobility. In a platformer the mobile are king. It’s hard to remember a time when icy, slippery platforms were ever anything more than an inconvenience but as I dig deeper into my memory I remember slippery platforms being death for Zach and I. Zach would also usually beat the bosses for us, I guess the music just freaked me out a little bit when I was 6 (Have I mentioned that I spent my childhood perpetually frightened?)

The emotion I connect with most when remembering this game is frustration. It was pretty, but it was also damn hard for us youngsters. I loved going through the automated barrel chains and collecting a lot of bananas, but doing anything of actual practical use or beating the level was sort of boring. The mine cart sequences are notoriously difficult. Especially that one level, Tanked Up Trouble. Simple premise, the Kongs are on a platform on a track that’s perpetually running out of fuel so they need to hit fuel barrels to keep the platform going. This would be simple if we weren’t 7 and weren’t jumping around, not paying attention. It was so frustrating as the platform slowly grinded to a halt after running out of fuel and slowly puttered forward a little more, Zach and I would hold our breath hoping that these stuttering puts forward would get us to the end. They never did.

This is what distilled videogame pain looks like for a 7 year old.

The Gush

Going back to it Donkey Kong Country is okay. It’s a serviceable platformer but there’s nothing really driving it. There are secrets all over the levels but nothing to do in them. The reward for finding them is a fun minigame that gives the player more lives, but that’s it. The game is lacking reward. It looks great and the levels are hard, but I don’t know what I’m really earning. The fight with King K. Rool has great music but his design, doesn’t mesh with his nautical theme. His soldiers are dressed in military regalia. Is this supposed to be medieval, pirates, or modern military? The game is a decently fun platformer, but it needed some work with its theming and character unification.

On the topic of Tanked up Trouble, there’s always been something about a timed level that rustles my jimmies. It always puts me on edge and frustrates me a lot. This usually causes me to die, which causes me to game over, which causes me to put the game down for awhile (Or forever). And it’s the inability to fail quickly in this level that really gets me all riled up, having to play out the rest of the level even though I know I can’t make it that’s really agonizing.

It’s so pretty! But also so simple. Mario had hidden levels and all sorts of junk, why no jungle secrets?

The Verdict

Donkey Kong Country is a good game that was revolutionary for the time. It paved the way for much better sequels, showing that Rare could improve on their designs. I don’t think that Donkey Kong Country has held up well. I don’t go back to playing it thinking, “maybe I’ll find something that I missed last time.” It looks beautiful for its time and it still has its charm today but other games offered so much more exploration and more reward for that exploration. It’s a great start, but leaves much to be desired.

Next week: Earth Worm Jim