Lords of Magic (PC)

Introduction

The world of Urak is one divided between eight faiths. The elemental faiths Earth, Wind, Water, and Fire and the  derived faiths of Order, Chaos, Life, and Death. Golgoth, the god of Death– where were the other gods? Having lunch or something, I guess– , has enlisted his most vile minion, Balkoth, to conquer and kill all the other peoples– which sort of eliminates the need to conquer them. Pick a faith, manage your units, cities, and buildings to destroy Balkoth or play as Balkoth yourself and have a grand old time.

“The circle of life has no beginning or end,” booms the narrator at the faith selection screen.

 

History

Lords of Magic was created by Sierra Entertainment, you might know them as the guys that made The Incredible Machine, Homeworld, and the King’s Quest series. When it was originally released there was only 1 map of Urak. The player could make more with a very diverse map editor, but the sheer amount of time required was daunting. An expansion pack of sorts was released called Lords of Magic Special Edition which included a few short campaigns called the Legends of Urak that took Modern myth and translated it to Urak and a new set of normal capaign maps. The game shipped with a manual the size of a small novel filled with an abridged history of the rise of Golgoth and other Urakian events.

Lords of Magic was released on November 30th 1997. It was up against Fallout (PC), Diddy Kong Racing (Nintendo 64), Quake 2 (PC, Playstation1, and Nintendo 64), and The Curse of Monkey Island (PC).

The map editor allows for a lot of customization but this is how every map starts. A few buildings on blank dirt background, I find it a little overwhelming.

 

Nostalgia

What happened to game demos? Demos were incomplete versions of games that someone could play to see if they wanted to buy the full version. In this day of preorder incentive and special editions it doesn’t behoove the gaming market to let players try something. Because if they try it and think it’s trash then they won’t buy it but if they don’t have a choice the player might go all in on a deluxe mega special edition preorder or something.

The story being that I played this game’s demo. The only faith available was Life and most of the upper tier structures and units were locked. But playing that demo showed me how much I would love the full version. I don’t care if it only got a 7/10 in gaming magazine, the demo showed me this was the game for me. My youth was spent playing a lot of PC game demos because my computer couldn’t run the full version or I couldn’t afford them. I would play them over and over again wondering if even though I didn’t have all the tools if I could beat the game– the short answer, no… no I can’t.

This is the full list of different Watchdogs preorder packages, this is ridiculous. Back in my day we didn’t have any of this raderfredermagurf…

Having a demo means not having anything to hide. Sierra had faith that people that wanted to purchase the game would and I did– eight years after the fact long after Sierra had been purchased by Blizzard… but that’s beside the point.

Gameplay

As the game begins the player must choose a faith. Each faith begins with different diplomatic relations with other faiths, opposing faiths like Air and Earth don’t get along whereas Fire and Death get along pretty well to begin with. And each faith has different strengths and weaknesses that favor different playstyles. In addition to choosing a faith the player must choose whether their lord is a warrior, thief, or mage. Each faith favors different lord types so choosing a lord that matches the faith will lead to an easier game than playing a lord that doesn’t.

Or you could just choose which faith you think has the coolest units in it, like I did. Fire giants and dragons for the win.

If your lord dies then the game is over. This leads to warrior lords being very effective because warriors are very skilled at not dying– seriously, it’s their job. That being said powerful spells can destroy entire enemy armies in single casts so a mage has a lot of late game benefit. It’s difficult to play a thief lord overall because they excel at being alone, and a lone lord tends to get dead.

The game starts you off with a small army to accompany your lord. The map is dotted with locations to explore– and by explore I mean kill all the locals and use, if there’s anything of use there. If there’s nothing of use there then hey, free XP and loot. Before the player can really do anything they need to liberate the great temple of your faith. I always found it bizarre that the game was so gated by this quest. Until the player liberates the temple they can’t hire more troops, research spells, acquire followers to allocate to buildings in town to get resources, anything really. After that it’s a giant game of exploration, politics, and war.

The standard map is the same every time so memorizing it can lead to finding sympathetic faiths quickly and avoiding your opposing faith– no need to waste good scouts.

You can also customize your starting, resources, units, spells, artifacts, and whether your great temple begins liberated.

 

The Gush

There are so many cool things you can do in Lords of Magic. From spells that can create land where there was once water– allowing super sneaky land attacks via bridges that didn’t used to be there. To starting a custom game with a single Warrior with an immensely powerful artifact. The custom options allow a different way to play every game.

The game has some pretty good cinematics, especially for the time. Every time another faith gets knocked out Balkoth approaches Golgoth and informs him of the “untimely demise” of yet another pretender. The final scene and destruction of Balkoth is super triumphant!

Balkoth’s conversations with Golgoth were always spooky. It was so sad to think a faith had been taken out. Unless it was Water, FIRE 4 LIFE!

I really like the voice acting in this game. Every unit has a voice and all of the lords have unique voices.

There’s only one combat track but it perfectly suits the feel of Lords of Magic’s combat. The overworld has a few different randomized and very atmospheric tracks.

The overworld map looks really good. Every faith’s terrain gives them stat bonuses in combat and affects the movement of other faiths out of combat.

Those roads actually speed up a party’s movement. And most units have unique movement noises overworld. I totally wasn’t able to recognize certain units by how they sound, nope, that ain’t me.

The strengths and weaknesses of each faith is really intuitive. I know that Order is going to have some powerful knights in heavy armor– because of course they do.

The mythos of Urak is Tolkienian yet totally it’s own. The lore of each of the faiths is interesting to unfold and understand. Every spell, description, and voice over clip reveals more about the personality of the faiths. And that personality leads to an immersive experience.

The most powerful spells are usually really flashy and satisfying. It’s a great payoff for a big investment.

Kvetch:  Important Things the Game Doesn’t Tell you Edition

Liberating the great temple of a faith that has good relations with you will cause their lord to swear fealty to you, giving you their territory and units based on how much they liked you. If your lord dies, this lord will take their place– it’s like having an extra life.

The Fame resource determines how many followers you get in your capital every week. These followers are the only way the player can have a sustainable army, acquire resources, or upgrade their capital.

Villages between each major city can be used to construct useful buildings but can also be destroyed to deny other faiths the advantages of these buildings.

Putting a Thief in the Thieves guild, or a warrior in the barracks, or Mage in the Mage tower will raise the amount of experience points new Thieves, warriors, and mages start with based on the level of the tutor.

Wandering monsters spawn from dungeons. The more dungeons that are around the more wandering monsters that will appear.

Wandering monsters won’t attack a structure with a unit in it. Might be a cat or an imp but it’ll stop them from retaking your rank 7 Gold mine.

Mages can research new spells in libraries, each spell requires a certain number of days to research which is researched at the rate of 1 day per level of mage. EG, if it takes 10 days to research a spell and there’s a level 2 mage in the tower it will only take 5 days for that mage to research it.

Battles can also turn into a giant ball of dudes hitting each other with sticks until you win or you lose. It’s hard to strategise and unit movement can be really stiff.

Higher level dungeons have artifacts that you NEED in order to stand a chance against Balkoth.

Balkoth cheats. He starts the game with an artifact that gives him free resources. He can cast spells, has the strength of a warrior, and a ranged attack like a thief. You can also never defeat him by autoresolving combat.

Actually, the whole game cheats. If my intelligence reports are anything to go on then other faiths can have negative resources and not lose their troops. But sometimes they start suffering desertions like crazy. I don’t understand the logic to it.

And the occasional glitch, like this boat floating around on dry land.

I have no idea what most of the stats do for units. There’s a luck stat, what does it do? Iunno. There’s a wisdom stat, what does it do? Iunno.

Never autoresolve combat unless you know you’re going to win. It almost always works out poorly for you.

If you destroy the lord of another faction all of his soldiers will track your lord down and do their best to try and kill him. They will gang up in giant armies along the way.

The Verdict

I am super blinded by nostalgia when it comes to this game. I recommend looking up a walkthrough if you want to play it just so you can understand all those things the game doesn’t tell you.  If you ever wanted to play a Lord of the Rings like adventure and didn’t want to buy one of the Lord of the Rings games then I can suggest this game to you.

Next Week:  Seven Kingdoms (PC)

Legend of the Mystical Ninja

 

Introduction

Dr Yang goes to Kid Ying’s house and tells him about a ghost woman that lives in the temple to the North. This investigation leads them on an adventure to save the Princess of Japan. Run, jump, attack, and discover– and by discover I mean, you’d better figure out what’s going on because it doesn’t tell you and I don’t know.

I’m certain this makes sense in context.

 

History

Oh, hey. I’m calling this section History now because sometimes I don’t have development to talk about but I do want to talk about the facts around the past of the game. Hence, History.

Legend of the Mystical Ninja is known as Ganbare Goemon (Translation “Go For it, Goemon)  in Japan and is based on two of Japan’s most legendary thieves. Kid Ying is actually supposed to be Goemon, as in Ishikawa Goemon. Ishikawa Goemon was basically Robin Hood, taking from the rich and giving to the poor. He didn’t get Maid Marrion in the end though. Goemon’s wife was killed and his son was kidnapped by a Japanese warlord. When he went to kill this warlord and liberate his son he failed and both he and his son were boiled alive.

That’s right, he’s holding his son out of the water to give him a few more moments of relative peace. HEROIC!

Dr. Yang is supposed to be Ebisimaru, named after Nakamura Jirokichi, AKA Nezumi Kozo. He was a thief that was popularized after his death and there are less Robin Hoodesque reports about him. If records are correct then he stole from over 100 Samurai families and accrued nearly 36 million dollars worth of goods. They say there are no old bold thieves and Nakamura was certainly bold, he was executed after being caught for the second time.

It might seem like there’s a bunch of stuff in this game that doesn’t make sense. But you’ve got to believe me here, it all has roots in Japanese culture or mythology. Let this video by Gaijin Goomba serve as a guide to some of the aspects. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WnFMWreP6Y

Legend of the Mystical Ninja was released by Konami on June 20 1992. It’s competition included Wolfenstein 3D (PC), Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (DOS), Super Mario Kart (SNES), and Ecco the Dolphin (Sega Genesis).

 

Nostalgia

My family was pretty broke when I was a kid. They eventually got out of the hole but while they were in it I got a new game every Christmas or so and that was it. In the meantime I would beg and be good in exchange for a visit to our local video and game rental store. This was the game that I rented again and again. I did it mostly for the box art because I didn’t really understand how the game was played– I’m still a little foggy actually. But I kept renting it with this weird thought that it had been so fun even though I hadn’t had any idea how to play it.

This is the first boss. I rented the game 3 times before I saw her. And she scared the crap out of me because ghosts are scary.

 

Gameplay

Each level has two different sections, the 2.5 dimensional exploration stage and the 2D action stage. The exploration stage is basically about defeating wandering enemies by hitting them with Goemon’s smoking pipe and getting power ups like money, weapon upgrades, and scrolls– I have no idea what the scrolls do but they must be important. Some buildings hold shops where Goemon can buy useful things like sandals that make him move faster and jump higher. Dying in the exploration stage loses the player a life but they come back right where they died, if the player dies in the action stage then they go back to the beginning– brutal but fair.

Pizza in ancient Japan? Well, there are shockingly modern areas in the game so… don’t worry about it.

Ebisimaru is playable but only by the second player. His weapons and maneuvers are the same as Goemon’s but aesthetically different and more silly.

This game is hard for a few reasons but I think that the big one is that whenever Goemon gets hit he loses 1 rank from all of his upgrades and gets knocked back. He’ll lose a weapon rank, two health, and a set of sandals. It’s crippling to get weaker attacks or to move slower especially in the middle of a boss fight. I’d be more willing to farm gold from enemies to stockpile these things but each level has a timer and I don’t know how long it will take to beat the level so I worry and rush. The kicker to all this is that the timer is measured in actually seconds, so each level gives the player about 15 minutes to complete it. The penalty for letting the timer run out? You lose a life… that’s it. It seemed so much scarier when it was unknown

The Gush

For a Super Nintendo game the visuals in this game are really good.

And the opening scene sets the tone and looks nice. Also, I love that line.

This game is filled with fun and interesting Japanese cultural references. Enemies wear masks from Japanese culture, some of which with meanings that are evident from the game itself.

Drum ceremony surrounded by silly masked men. I wonder if that mask represents silliness? Spoilers: They do.

Some levels have really interesting platforming aspects like turning upside down or have secret areas that are cleverly hidden but not impossible to find.

This game is meant to be played with two players. It’s just more lives to go around on the most pragmatic level, it’s like playing a beat em up. Goemon and Ebisimaru can even team up for combo attacks which are super cool.

Strangely enough, I kind of like not knowing what things mean because I get to try to figure things out on my own. When I figured out the Straw Coat protects Goemon from attacks I thought I was a genius, but it made perfect sense! There’s something about self-discovery that’s very satisfying. But there are so many things in this game I haven’t been able to figure out.

 

The Kvetch

The translation in this game nearly cripples it. Maybe the manual explains what everything means and does but I’ve played this game for years and I still don’t know how most of the game works. It’s not rapidly apparent what some items do– what does the Straw Hat do? I have no idea!

Is Goemon fighting a giant squid on a bridge? Yes. Why? I have no idea.

This game is ungodly amounts of long and hard, I’ve made it to level 5 once but apparently there are 9 or 10 levels. This would be okay if it weren’t for the crazy password system. Passwords are 60 characters long and aren’t just letters, there are all sorts of weird symbols. Passwords also include lower case and uppercase along with numbers– is that an I or a 1, I dunno. It might be better to play on an emulator and use the save states are certain points, seems like cheating but the passwords are ridiculous.

The Story is super threadbare, the plot only happens after Goemon defeats a boss. And the plot pushes things as far as the next area and that’s about it.

The Verdict

If it were easier to figure out how things worked or if I knew what I was doing the whole time then this game would be really fun! As it stands, it’s alright. The platforming is solid, enemies are satisfying to defeat, and the game looks good.

It’s something I’ll spend 3o minutes on and then go play something else. If you can find a good guide about this game then go for it– and send me a link so I can figure this game out.

Next Week: Lords of Magic (PC)

Spyro the Dragon (Playstation 1)

 

Introduction

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

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

 

Development

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

 

 

The Nostalgia

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

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

 

Gameplay

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

 

 

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

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

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

 

The Gush

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

 

The Kvetch

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

The Verdict

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

Next week: Diablo.

Pokemon Trading Card Game (Gameboy Color)

 

 

Introduction

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

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

 

Development

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

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

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

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

 

Nostalgia

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

 

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

 

Gameplay

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

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

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

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

 

The Gush

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

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

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

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

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

 

The Kvetch

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

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

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

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

 

The Kvush

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

 

The Verdict

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

Next Week: Spyro the Dragon for the Sony Playstation

Lemmings (SNES)

Introduction

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

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

Development

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

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

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

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

Nostalgia

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

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

Gameplay

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

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

The Gush

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

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

The Kvetch

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

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

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

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

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

The Verdict

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

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

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