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

 

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island (SNES and Gameboy Advanced)

Once upon a time a stork was carrying a pair of very special twins to their parents to be. On his way he was ambushed by a koopa wizard by the name of Kamek, “THE BABIES ARE MINE,” He screeched. Kamek stole one of the infants but the other fell onto the island below. He fell onto the back of a Yoshi, this Yoshi brought it back to his tribe and Baby Mario’s twin’s intuition tells him where his brother is and he points the Yoshis in the right direction. (Wait, how does Baby Mario know that the Yoshi’s have to go to the darkside of Yoshi’s island by travelling through the moon? Eh, screw it.) Play as the Yoshi tribe as they hand Baby Mario off. Run, jump, flutter-kick, swim, transform into vehicles, eat your enemies, turn them into eggs, hurl your egg-based offspring at other enemies…. now I’m just really curious about the anatomy and reproductive cycles of Yoshis….

“What’s up nerd? Yeah, I just felt like turning into a helicopter. Nothing wrong with that.” 

The whole gang is here and MORE! See even more new enemies! A few of which will be ignored in Mario canon after this.

Development

Not a lot to talk about when it comes to the story of the development of Yoshi’s island. No hilarious stories, no real crises. It had four director’s though, and I’m not sure it they’re sequential or simultaneous. Unlike other Mario games, Shigeru Miyamoto, the series creator, was not among the directors. Miyamoto created Super Mario Bros, the original Donkey Kong game for the arcade, and The Legend of Zelda but when it came to the Super Nintendo he took on the role of Producer. He did this both with Super Mario World and Yoshi’s island. The one big thing about Yoshi’s Island is that it was released eight months after Donkey Kong Country. Donkey Kong Country had a way of rendering sprites in game by pre-rendering them, creating a very unique style. Miyamoto was told to take things in this direction which lead to the, similarly unique style, of a child’s drawing.

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island was released on August 15th, 1995. It was up against Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, Heroes of Might and Magic, and Comix Zone.

From the mountains with smiling faces to the poorly shaded clouds, the backgrounds look like they’re fuzzied by a child’s memory’s.

Nostalgia

This game and me go way back. I don’t remember when I first played it, I couldn’t have been older than ten. I must have had my parents rent it from Taylor Brook video 30 times. The first time I rented it I ended up so sick the next day that I couldn’t got to school, I thought I had won big. But when I tried to play the game I got so motion sick that I couldn’t continue. I was so upset, I had gotten a taste of it and would be denied the rest. When I did get around to playing it, I’ll admit, I was pretty bad. I still didn’t understand how sequels worked, so I thought that I would just find a mushroom or a feather to fly. I thought that I could jump on enemies to destroy them, and it does, but unless Yoshi eats them then they’ll come back when he returns to where they spawn. I didn’t understand how to throw eggs or what I could use them for. At this point in my career I wasn’t even aware that the controller had buttons on their shoulder areas. But I eventually figured it out fighting the first boss, Burt the Bashful. I ended up so frustrated that I hit every button and touching every part of the controller until I realized that there were shoulder buttons and that these allowed me to throw the eggs. Projectile weapons, what a novel idea. I also never figured out that I could use items from the pause menu, when I figured this out I opened up all the other saves and wasted their items (Kids can be so cruel).

It was quite a trek getting through this game. I got stuck on a bunch of levels, maze levels, locked door fortresses, ice levels, levels that scroll (I still dislike areas like this today), and levels surrounded by bottomless pits. But I did eventually get through them, I was always willing to give them another try (Or go farm some lives and come back for fear of the dreaded GAME OVER. I seriously thought that it would delete my game save [On the topic of game saves, I always felt bad when I had to delete one. I thought the kid with that save would find me and beat me up]). I got all the way to Kamek’s fortress only to find that it’s not Kamek’s! It’s Baby Bowser’s! This blew my goddam mind when I was a kid.This is one of the first games that I got to the end and couldn’t beat. I loved the game so much that I didn’t even care though. I went back to old levels and old bosses and had fun just beating them again (I still go fight Tap-Tap the Red Nosed on my Gameboy Advanced copy every year or so.)

You and me, round 124 or whatever. This fight has everything, it’s got a pit of lava for goodness sake!

Now, an aside on Baby Bowser. The first part is great, it’s fine. It’s the second part that gets me.

This scared me silly when I was a kid. I would panic and die every time I faced him. I didn’t even know what to do. I saw the giant eggs  float by and I just thought, “That’s it. This game ends with Yoshi and Mario getting horrifically crushed by a monolithic infantile turtle monarch.”

The Gush

Dear sweet lord I still love this game. Koji Kondo outdid himself with the composition of this game, I’m still humming the tunes at work every once and awhile. From the fun loving mid-boss theme, to the more serious world boss theme, to the pants-wettingly terrifying Baby Bowser fight theme, to the silly and happy-go-lucky-rag-timey tunes, I think they’re all great (It took me forever to notice that the stage select theme gets more instruments the more worlds I had beaten. I always thought, “When did that change?”). The visuals are stunning and have amazing details, like the way the moon has stitches like a baseball or how Raphael the Raven’s eyebrows get angrier the more hits you land on him. That being said, the game does a lot of things to make it less scary. The bat enemies have little dotted lines trailing behind them and the larger enemies are usually shown being unable to reach Yoshi for some reason, Blarggs being bound to bodies of water and such.

The Kvetch

My only complaint is that it’s difficult to understand how Yoshi’s flutter-kick works. It’s a frustrating exercise to spatially comprehend, with my 9 year old brain, whether I’m gaining altitude or losing it when Yoshi kicks his little legs to try to gain more altitude (I was also shocked that it worked at all, even when I was nine). I could imagine it leading to a lot of deaths until it clicks in the player’s head, and I don’t know another way the game teaches it satisfyingly. There are also a lot of indestructible enemies, there are the kung-fu performing fellows that usually attack in pairs and can’t be destroyed. I always remember forgetting this and wasting my time trying to figure out how to destroy them (Actually, I think I do remember destroying them… aw crap…. It’s an infinite cycle.), and that’s super frustrating especially for a kid.

Oh god, I almost forgot. I blocked it out. When Yoshi gets hit he drops Baby Mario and when he does Baby Mario cries. Oh god, does he cry. It’s one of the most annoying thing in all of videogaming history and I think I try to forget it because it’s not just the worst thing in this game, it’s part of my top 100 worst things ever. (Seriously https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0nYKgkFvMM put this on a loop and see how long you can deal with this wailing, it’s awful)

Did I also mention that Bowser lives in the night Yoshi’s Island in the middle of the void?! I always missed seeing the light world.

The Verdict

I’m totally blinded by nostalgia on this one. Either it’s a great game or I just can’t see its faults. I might venture as far to say that it’s both. I still play this game on long trips on my Gameboy Advanced. I do wish that there had been someone there to tell me how to beat Baby Bowser or something, then again that’s part of the learning experience I suppose. I love this game and I can’t recommend it enough. This game is actually the least selling Mario game, with only 4 million sales and I don’t know why. I don’t know why it’s not as well known as the other titles, I blame the Baby Mario screaming.

Next Week’s game is: Donkey Kong Country.

Shadowrun (Genesis version)

Introduction

In a world of awakening magic and rapid technological advances the worlds of spirit and circuitry meet. The planet has become privatized, between the Mega Corps and Dragons there are few things that are not owned by. Massive urban sprawls clash with wilds that grow more untameable with every newly rediscovered magical monstrosity. Humans are being born as elves, dwarves, orcs, and trolls. In this world, crime is a necessity. To fight corporate control people of exceptional ability work in the shadows cast by these Mega Corps. We follow the story of Joshua. His brother was a high class shadowrunner and was killed in a run that was so important that it made national news. Now, Josh has to figure out who killed his brother.

That’s just a solid title screen. Skulls, computers, sweet fonts, that’s just everything 16 year old me could want.

Development

Not unlike the Speed Racer post, I couldn’t find any developmental information about the game. In lieu, I’ll be writing about its source material.

Shadowrun was published as a roleplaying setting in 1989 by the FASA Corporation. FASA was founded by Jordan Weisman and L. Ross Babcock in 1980 with 350 $. Jordan’s father, Mort, was able to generate more capital by selling his book publishing company, although the experience of owning such an enterprise would be invaluable later on. It got its start producing supplements for the Game Designer’s Workshop such as Shadowrun and Battletech.

Battletech, founded in 1984, would more commonly be known as MechWarrior and involves people getting in giant battle suits and shooting rockets at each other. It was originally released as a board game and would later be expanded into a table top war game. It would then go on to be represented in computer games, bringing the stunning visuals to life.

Shadowrun has had four editions over the years, each keeping to the same basics and back story. But the main difference being an advancement of technology to keep it ahead, or at least in line, with the modern day. In 1989 hooking up someone’s brain to the internet (Decking) was a piece of science fiction and today we don’t have to because of the existence of hand-held devices that do the same thing, thus 4^th edition introduced wireless decking. The plot of these advancements being spurred forward by the videogame adaptations and a series of novels.

The series met with disaster with the 2007 release, which forwent all of the interesting world building and character development, and turned the series into a first person shooter. This spurred Jordan Weisman to take the reins with his own, Kickstarter funded, project, Shadowrun Returns. As the title implies, it brought the series back to its roleplaying driven, combat spiced, storytelling. Shadowrun Returns has extensive developer tools which allow anyone and their friends to try to make a campaign for the rest of the world to play. Although most of these aren’t very well constructed, there are a few that have seen a lot of effort put into their creation. The next project for Shadowrun is Shadowrun Online, an MMO.

Shadowrun was released for the Sega Genesis in 1994 going up against Sonic the Hedgehog 3 for the Sega Genesis and Final Fantasy VI for the Super Nintendo.

When is the internet going to be like this?

The Nostalgia

My cousin Zach and I would play this game for hours. I would go over to his house in the winter just to play it. We were taken in by the hyper technological world filled with magic and its crazy lingo. Vernacular that any 16 year old could grab a-hold of instantly, curses and compliments that just make sense. It was a single player game so we would take turns with different playthroughs. He took save slot 2 because it was easy to accidentally overwrite save 1 which would be mine. My got overwritten so many times, but I didn’t even care (Alright, I got fired up a few times). It was his game and he was free to do what he wanted with it.

He would play as the Street Samurai archetype because he was the bigger and stronger between us and I would play the Decker because I was more technically inclined. We were playing the same game with the same story but there was so much to do and so many different decisions to make in every moment. There were small encounters in every area, women getting pulled into alleys, astrally projecting mages that are getting mugged, people taking your picture, injured men in the streets, men offering cheap grenades. Do you try to rescue the woman? She might be on the wrong side of a police investigation, that you have now gotten dragged into. Save the mage? Get ready for a fight. Help the man? Might not be a man, might be a creature waiting for you to get close. Those grenades might be cheap but is the price too good? I never knew what the outcome would be and I was always psyched to see the next weird thing.

We never got very far in the game. We got a quest to find a “feathered serpent” and neither of us ever did find it. We would just go on the craziest run or see who could survive the longest getting attacked by corporate security (Seriously, we got pocket watches out for that one). I was so taken in by The Matrix (the internet in the game) and trying to figure out how exactly it worked. This game didn’t come with a manual so it was pretty tricky trying to figure out how everything worked. Zach loved how all the skills were so useful in the game, he liked how there was always a different option for problems. Is there a locked door ahead, blow it off the hinges (thank goodness you bought those grenades from that creepy guy in the alley) or use your keen electronics skill to screw with the lock, or use your hacking skill to break into the computer and unlock all the doors. I love talking to all the characters in the game. All of the other runners I met had interesting backstories. My favorite runner was Winston Marrs, he’s a giant troll that salutes you (if he likes you) and talks about how life would be so much better if he could only shoot more bullets at the same time (When fans of the game talk about Winston they say, ‘beware the god of war’).

Marrs at the bar and Mortimer Reed in the corner. The Big Rhino is my kind of bar.

The Gush

I love this game and if you disagree then slot off frag face (Actually, I respect your disagreement). I play it from time to time nowadays, but it’s definitely not the same. Expecially considering I already know all the twists and turns the game takes me on. That was the big driving factor, anything could happen, anyone could die. Nothing is safe from the reach of corporations. That being said, the mechanics are enough to carry the game on their shoulder. I’m still challenged by activity in the matrix (I still don’t know how to contend with a Tar Pit Program).

I prefer this game over the Super Nintendo version because I reached a point in the SNES version where I couldn’t continue. The character has a time limit to get a bomb out of his head and I never figured out where to go. I had to look up a walkthrough to figure out where to go and although I had to do the same to find the Feathered Serpent there was so much more to do in the Genesis world (and if I failed to find the Feathered Serpent my head didn’t explode). I also think that the free roaming adventure and auto-aiming served the game better than the point and click aiming of the SNES game. Yes, I said point and click, the game requires the played to activate aiming mode and move the cursor to the target while they’re getting shot all the time.

My major complaint with the game is that there’s no real character growth. The main character levels up and gets stronger but he’s still the same person at the end that he is at the beginning. He doesn’t actually grow or change. The player can, he can create additional motivations for the character, but there’s nothing there.

 

Auto-targetting is awesome, at least in games where it works (Like this one).

The Verdict

This game is has held up really well. It can be a little grindy but the types of missions open up the longer the game goes. It’s important though to get through the whole game in one short period of time because the plot twists are interesting but aren’t interesting twice.

Next week: Super Mario World 2, Yoshi’s Island.

Super Mario World

Introduction

After Mario, our portly italian plumber, defeated the mighty Bowser and rescued the Princess Toadstool (For the second time). Our hero has decided to take a vacation on Dinosaur Island. Bowser has capture the princess and Mario has to save her by finding his castle and defeating the large, armored, turtle, man, thing. Marvel as Mario jumps on enemies and… jumps to avoid other enemies and obstacles. (Jumping is kind of his thing, but when I think of it Mario seems like a man with a hammer to whom all problems are nails.)

I never really considered how difficult it is to describe what this guy looks like. He’s sort of a turtle… but not.

Development

I was able to find shockingly little amounts of information about the development of Nintendo’s signature charactered launch title for their new system. I can say that it was lead and produced by Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of the Mario series and The Legend of Zelda games. It took him three years to make the game with a team of only 16 people. (Even with studios having small dev teams, this team feels really small to me.) This was the first game to include Mario’s faithful steed, the dinosaur Yoshi. It was impossible for Yoshi to be rendered satisfyingly or for the mechanics to function on the NES. Miyamoto said, “We were finally able to get Yoshi of the drawing board with the SNES.” Miyamoto’s other words on the work as a whole were, “The game is incomplete, and got rushed a little at the end,” hoping that the system would allow more story and emotional connection with the player, but more on that later.

 

Super Mario World was released on November 21^st of 1990 against F-Zero, Mega Man 3 for NES, and Ultima VI: The False Prophet for PC.

It seems so alone with nothing near it in the great ocean. I now notice that it’s only got 5 colors or so.

Nostalgia

This game was the common denomenator for all of the kids that owned a SNES or knew someone that owned an SNES because it came with the system. I played this game with my father, with my cousin Zack, and any friend that stopped by and wanted to. I could go to school and ask anyone whether they preferred the flying and gliding power of the cape or the fireball shooting powers of the fire flower and they’d know what I was talking about. This sparked a debate with my father that was so strong, he preferred the cape and I prefered the fire flower (It was only because I couldn’t figure out how to glide right, but I wasn’t willing to tell him that.)

My grandmother even played this game! Hell, she’s the one that told me how to find the Top Secret Area, a place with ever spawning mushrooms, capes, flowers, and Yoshi. I never asked her how she found it and I still don’t know. Although, now that I think about it, she may have purchased it to coax the grand children into being more eager to visit her home in the middle of the country. We may not have been the best grand children.

I really like the music in this game. When I figured out that it was all the same melody but performed in different styles it blew my mind! The ghost house music scared me so badly that I had to have a parent in the room when I played those levels.

This was the first game that I 100% completed. I found every single level and beat the secret stages hidden on the star road. (A feat that I can’t accomplish today. Hell, I still can’t find the Green Switch Palace for some reason). And I was able to do it all by the seed of my own wit and with some playground hearsay (Alright, I admit. My father helped me out sometimes. Even if it was just a “check out that part of the map.”). When the color pallette and character sprites changed cemented in my mind that I must have done it all. I think this was the first experience that if I did all the things then I got cool stuff. Which would lead me down a road of trying to do everything in a game to see what cool (Now irrelevant, considering that I had done everything) stuff I would get.

That being said, I don’t really have any moments of supreme triumph besides that. I don’t remember jumping off the couch when I beat Bowser for the first time. I don’t remember being low on lives and super stoked to have taken out a boss. I don’t remember feeling really clever that I had found the hidden area in the middle of the ocean. I don’t have this sort of report with the game and I feel like I should.

And then when I put all the areas together and see all the enemies I realize, this place is really weird.

The Gush

I can see what Miyamoto meant when he said that the game lacked story and emotion though. It doesn’t really improve on the “Bowser captures the Princess” plot that Super Mario Brothers 1 and 3 had. I still don’t know more about the Princess or Bowser as characters. I don’t know why he keeps kidnapping her and I don’t know why Mario feels obliged to save her. (Wait, I know. He’s doing it all for all those sweet pecks on the cheek!)

When I was five years old I was content to jump around and swim and explore and even though I can’t remember where all the stuff is I’m not compelled to look for it again. I’ve tried playing it through to completion since and I just can’t continue. I beat the second boss and then I’m just done. I can’t find it in me to continue. There’s no spark of childlike joy.

Maybe it’s because I beat the game 100%, I already know that I did it. I know that I’ve done everything in the game, or close enough to it for my liking. Maybe it’s the simplicity of the gameplay, I’m an older player and I’m looking for something new and/or interesting. Jumping just isn’t enough any more. Maybe it’s because the bosses aren’t very memorable, I remember Bowser and the first boss and that’s it. (I remember Reznor as well. But come on, you fight those guys four times or something).

That’s a really small planet. No wonder Mario can jump so high, less gravity.

The Verdict

Super Mario World is a classic. It’s got tons of secrets and a great variety of gameplay. But I can’t bring myself to play it any more. I’ve got my fuzzy (Both fun and distant) memories and I can’t yearn for more from it. The game is good, but simple. So simple that it’s sort of lost my interest.

 

Next Week: Shadowrun, for the Sega Genesis.