Weird intermediary stage game between Shinobi 1 and Shinobi 3. It's like they wanted to make the game more action-packed but were still focused on the trappings of the first game's structure. As such, Joe feels more like a badass agile ninja in this game than the first. There's a double jump now (which feels a bit off in emulators normally, though I increased the runahead and it was fine) as well as shuriken barrages. Not to mention the ninjutsu spells actually have different effects from one another with each one being useful in different circumstances, a big step up over 1.
However, the lack of a run, wall jump, dive kick, and other attacks really kinda hurts after playing Shinobi 3 first. I do appreciate that Revenge of Shinobi is harder than Shinobi 3. That said I would still rec taking advantage of this extra lives trick for up to 99(?) lives for at the very least a first playthrough since good god the sheer amount of one hit deaths in the 2nd half of the game could make Castlevania Vampire's Kiss final boss blush https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJIiguKW6sg
The field of view isn't the best in this game. There are even a few leaps of faith in the waterfall level. This gets remedied with replays a bit, but the limited continues really make this game feel more unforgiving than it ought to. There are ways to offset this by looking for locations of secret items that would never be found without a walkthrough, which helps a bit. There are certainly enough tools in this game to beat it legit on a 1st or 2nd try if you were the kind of kid who bought strategy guides. And by god, I really did not want to replay this game 1000 times to practice it since the 2nd stage has some of the worst flashing lights I've seen in a video game. I may have to create an epilepsy-friendly patch in the future, I ended up beating the boss with the final ninjutsu so I didn't have to look at his background for long.
The enemies can be pretty fun, and the visual variety of the bosses is great. Joe Musashi is the only motherfucker badass enough to beat Spider-Man, Batman, Godzilla, and a god damn Terminator in the same game. There are no shits given towards copyright in this game, which I suppose tracks for a game Yuzo Koshiro composed for. It's amazing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzh7kMcuDYY
Speaking of Yuzo Koshiro, his soundtrack for this game is really rough in the best possible way. It really adds to the gritty feel of the world. Mad respect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UznDmk5fmlY
There's not much more to say about The Revenge of Shinobi. It's a solid enough game with very memorable boss fights and music, but a few failings that don't let it live up to the same level as Shinobi 3. It's an important game for the groundwork it laid for sure however (aside from Shinobi 3, I'm almost certain Web Spider's stage in Mega Man X4 was inspired by the waterfall stage here) and worth at least one playthrough for action platformer enthusiasts.
However, the lack of a run, wall jump, dive kick, and other attacks really kinda hurts after playing Shinobi 3 first. I do appreciate that Revenge of Shinobi is harder than Shinobi 3. That said I would still rec taking advantage of this extra lives trick for up to 99(?) lives for at the very least a first playthrough since good god the sheer amount of one hit deaths in the 2nd half of the game could make Castlevania Vampire's Kiss final boss blush https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJIiguKW6sg
The field of view isn't the best in this game. There are even a few leaps of faith in the waterfall level. This gets remedied with replays a bit, but the limited continues really make this game feel more unforgiving than it ought to. There are ways to offset this by looking for locations of secret items that would never be found without a walkthrough, which helps a bit. There are certainly enough tools in this game to beat it legit on a 1st or 2nd try if you were the kind of kid who bought strategy guides. And by god, I really did not want to replay this game 1000 times to practice it since the 2nd stage has some of the worst flashing lights I've seen in a video game. I may have to create an epilepsy-friendly patch in the future, I ended up beating the boss with the final ninjutsu so I didn't have to look at his background for long.
The enemies can be pretty fun, and the visual variety of the bosses is great. Joe Musashi is the only motherfucker badass enough to beat Spider-Man, Batman, Godzilla, and a god damn Terminator in the same game. There are no shits given towards copyright in this game, which I suppose tracks for a game Yuzo Koshiro composed for. It's amazing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzh7kMcuDYY
Speaking of Yuzo Koshiro, his soundtrack for this game is really rough in the best possible way. It really adds to the gritty feel of the world. Mad respect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UznDmk5fmlY
There's not much more to say about The Revenge of Shinobi. It's a solid enough game with very memorable boss fights and music, but a few failings that don't let it live up to the same level as Shinobi 3. It's an important game for the groundwork it laid for sure however (aside from Shinobi 3, I'm almost certain Web Spider's stage in Mega Man X4 was inspired by the waterfall stage here) and worth at least one playthrough for action platformer enthusiasts.
1987
I'll be real. As a kid, I always thought the first Shinobi game was kinda arse and just poorly designed. It's hard to fault Sega when it was made in 1987 and the blueprint for a fun action platformer wasn't really something they could just copy yet. However, as someone who tremendously enjoys the first Castlevania, Mega Man, and of course Ninja Gaiden games, it's important to note all the ways Shinobi 1 dropped the ball compared to those games, and why it didn't make such a cultural impact.
The player dies in a single hit. There are cheap as hell enemies spawning left and right, so that coupled with the previous part means the player must slowly inch their way across the screen and use the bomb right before dying whenever possible. The player cannot move around like a badass ninja at all. There are 3 different powerups, but they all behave exactly the same way with only animation differences for some fucking reason. The levels are balanced around rescuing the small ninjas for powerups, but each ninja can only be rescued once which makes stages exponentially harder should the player lose any life. Yet, the best way to progress in many stages is to continuously retry them after killing the boomerang enemies since they are the only enemies who don't respawn.
It's just a nightmare of a game! As far as ninja action platformers go, I've beaten every Ninja Gaiden game, every Strider game, every Shinobi game, Hagane, etc and even done challenge runs for a lot of those. I am not shitting on the game just for being hard; I am shitting on the game for being the wrong kind of challenge, the one where every single enemy is equally dangerous in an action platformer.
However, after the recent Shinobi 4 announcement, I promised myself I would replay every single Shinobi game. That meant starting with 1. I had heard some inklings about the SEGA AGES version, so on a whim I decided to play it for my replay and, well...
Wow! They made Shinobi 1 fun!
The SEGA AGES port rebalances the game in various ways. There is now a turbo button, which makes Joe's attacks far more reliable for both the bonus levels and hitting fast as hell enemies. Joe wears his iconic white costume now, which looks way better than the completely generic costume in the original game. Speaking of things that are now in line with the rest of the series, Joe can actually take a hit before dying. No longer are levels balanced around saving the ninja girls since the powerups are permanent; now the player can actually move more freely around levels and feel like a badass ninja.
It's really the little things that help. The original arcade version had a copyrighted picture of some famous actress. On Switch, it was hacked and changed to an Altered Beast ad. Very charming! I also really appreciate all the extra options. There are options to fit the screen to be pixel perfect along with a solid scanline filter.
Perhaps my favourite change however is the melee mode. The player can now use melee attacks whenever with the click of a single button, as opposed to the original where it was context sensitive. Coupled with the vibration option, it feels really smooth. Definitely in line with the 6 button mode of Shinobi 3.
Also I loved the ending omg! The twist that the villain was actually Joe's mentor who wanted to bring about a great civil war since he wanted ninjas to be important to society again would have been mindblowing if I played this in 1987. It wasn't quite as shocking as Fantasy Zone's ending which left me thinking about video games as an artform, but for a silly ninja arcade game it was insane.
So yeah, my thoughts are the AGES version elevates the game from maybe a 4-5/10 to a 7ish/10. You're still left with an all too short game that isn't the most visually memorable nor does it have the best music. However, the levels are a lot more fun to breeze through than ever thanks to the improved gameplay mechanics, and it's a short and sweet experience with a great ending. If nothing else, it laid the foundation for Shinobi 3 which is definitely a top 20 game of all time for me at the very least. The SEGA AGES version knocks this from an experience that can take hours to master to a 15 minute ride. Definitely check it out any way you can.
I look forward to replaying and reviewing the rest of the series!
The player dies in a single hit. There are cheap as hell enemies spawning left and right, so that coupled with the previous part means the player must slowly inch their way across the screen and use the bomb right before dying whenever possible. The player cannot move around like a badass ninja at all. There are 3 different powerups, but they all behave exactly the same way with only animation differences for some fucking reason. The levels are balanced around rescuing the small ninjas for powerups, but each ninja can only be rescued once which makes stages exponentially harder should the player lose any life. Yet, the best way to progress in many stages is to continuously retry them after killing the boomerang enemies since they are the only enemies who don't respawn.
It's just a nightmare of a game! As far as ninja action platformers go, I've beaten every Ninja Gaiden game, every Strider game, every Shinobi game, Hagane, etc and even done challenge runs for a lot of those. I am not shitting on the game just for being hard; I am shitting on the game for being the wrong kind of challenge, the one where every single enemy is equally dangerous in an action platformer.
However, after the recent Shinobi 4 announcement, I promised myself I would replay every single Shinobi game. That meant starting with 1. I had heard some inklings about the SEGA AGES version, so on a whim I decided to play it for my replay and, well...
Wow! They made Shinobi 1 fun!
The SEGA AGES port rebalances the game in various ways. There is now a turbo button, which makes Joe's attacks far more reliable for both the bonus levels and hitting fast as hell enemies. Joe wears his iconic white costume now, which looks way better than the completely generic costume in the original game. Speaking of things that are now in line with the rest of the series, Joe can actually take a hit before dying. No longer are levels balanced around saving the ninja girls since the powerups are permanent; now the player can actually move more freely around levels and feel like a badass ninja.
It's really the little things that help. The original arcade version had a copyrighted picture of some famous actress. On Switch, it was hacked and changed to an Altered Beast ad. Very charming! I also really appreciate all the extra options. There are options to fit the screen to be pixel perfect along with a solid scanline filter.
Perhaps my favourite change however is the melee mode. The player can now use melee attacks whenever with the click of a single button, as opposed to the original where it was context sensitive. Coupled with the vibration option, it feels really smooth. Definitely in line with the 6 button mode of Shinobi 3.
Also I loved the ending omg! The twist that the villain was actually Joe's mentor who wanted to bring about a great civil war since he wanted ninjas to be important to society again would have been mindblowing if I played this in 1987. It wasn't quite as shocking as Fantasy Zone's ending which left me thinking about video games as an artform, but for a silly ninja arcade game it was insane.
So yeah, my thoughts are the AGES version elevates the game from maybe a 4-5/10 to a 7ish/10. You're still left with an all too short game that isn't the most visually memorable nor does it have the best music. However, the levels are a lot more fun to breeze through than ever thanks to the improved gameplay mechanics, and it's a short and sweet experience with a great ending. If nothing else, it laid the foundation for Shinobi 3 which is definitely a top 20 game of all time for me at the very least. The SEGA AGES version knocks this from an experience that can take hours to master to a 15 minute ride. Definitely check it out any way you can.
I look forward to replaying and reviewing the rest of the series!
1998
"The 11th born son of this world shoots at the soul of man with guns of silver."
Some background on this game for me. When I was at the end of my high school years, Sega Saturn emulation started reaching major breakthroughs, and Mednafen was our new saviour. I've always been more of a Sega fan than any other console developer, but the Saturn was a massive blindspot to me. So one fateful summer, I went on a binge through the Sega Saturn's library while focusing on its major exclusive, discovering one of my new top 3 game systems.
Ever since I was a young child, Treasure games had truly blown me away. Dynamite Headdy had the inventive setting and powerups to really make the player feel like a wacky action hero. Gunstar Heroes had the weapon combination system and truly out there stages like the board game level. Astro Boy Omega Factor was perhaps the most ambitious GBA game of all time with amazing love for the source material. To say they were always my favourite developers would be an understatement. Naturally, when I discovered they made 3 games for the Saturn, those were my top priority.
At the time I played Radiant Silvergun, I was still a while away from getting into 1cc culture. I would credit feed shmups to just take in the aesthetic. So, I focused all my time into Silvergun's story mode. Everything about it was simply stunning in how it perfectly blended RPG elements with a shmup. The story emphasis, the hidden dog collectibles, and of course the weapons which level up. It was all so much to take in. In a genre where the player usually has to choose between a set of powerups, Radiant Silvergun instead threw in one of the biggest toolkits out there at all times. There's so much to master and I always felt so accomplished discovering new strategies for killing bosses. For example, the lock-on spread shot racked up crazy points against Nasu while allowing the player to dodge.
Story mode was a real crowd pleaser in my eyes. I felt so accomplished for bashing my head against a wall so to speak, restarting a million times with stronger weapons until finally I killed the Stonelike. And for years, that was good enough for me.
However, this year with the release of the PC port, I decided to get into 1ccing the arcade mode. After ~50-60 hours of practice, I went from being overwhelmed by chaining the first area in the game to achieving a truly impossible run where I chained almost every area except the train, finishing with 3 spare lives. Radiant Silvergun is not a forgiving game in the slightest, but it really makes the player feel like a badass.
The usage of leitmotifs for the soundtrack is amazing to boot. The story about how the characters are stuck in a time loop really helps the tone, for it's almost like a dark parody of the shmup genre where the whole joke is about how much the player needs to continue endlessly to achieve their goal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kGWHANcOnY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVuWvEXS8Es
Over the last 3 or 4 years, I've gone from never 1ccing any shmup in my life to 1ccing roughly 40 games. Silvergun perfectly characterizes my growth and realization that routing is god in this genre. Anything is achievable if one perseveres enough.
All in all Radiant Silvergun is a very special game to me that represents just why Treasure was top dog. In an era where 2D games were slowly being phased out for a while to make way for 3D, Treasure made a game that felt like the ultimate love letter to its genre full of countless homages to other shmups and even tokusatsus like Ultraman and Gamera. This game will make you its bitch, and I'm all for it. It's the kind of game only the Saturn would have, the kind of game only Treasure could've made.
Some background on this game for me. When I was at the end of my high school years, Sega Saturn emulation started reaching major breakthroughs, and Mednafen was our new saviour. I've always been more of a Sega fan than any other console developer, but the Saturn was a massive blindspot to me. So one fateful summer, I went on a binge through the Sega Saturn's library while focusing on its major exclusive, discovering one of my new top 3 game systems.
Ever since I was a young child, Treasure games had truly blown me away. Dynamite Headdy had the inventive setting and powerups to really make the player feel like a wacky action hero. Gunstar Heroes had the weapon combination system and truly out there stages like the board game level. Astro Boy Omega Factor was perhaps the most ambitious GBA game of all time with amazing love for the source material. To say they were always my favourite developers would be an understatement. Naturally, when I discovered they made 3 games for the Saturn, those were my top priority.
At the time I played Radiant Silvergun, I was still a while away from getting into 1cc culture. I would credit feed shmups to just take in the aesthetic. So, I focused all my time into Silvergun's story mode. Everything about it was simply stunning in how it perfectly blended RPG elements with a shmup. The story emphasis, the hidden dog collectibles, and of course the weapons which level up. It was all so much to take in. In a genre where the player usually has to choose between a set of powerups, Radiant Silvergun instead threw in one of the biggest toolkits out there at all times. There's so much to master and I always felt so accomplished discovering new strategies for killing bosses. For example, the lock-on spread shot racked up crazy points against Nasu while allowing the player to dodge.
Story mode was a real crowd pleaser in my eyes. I felt so accomplished for bashing my head against a wall so to speak, restarting a million times with stronger weapons until finally I killed the Stonelike. And for years, that was good enough for me.
However, this year with the release of the PC port, I decided to get into 1ccing the arcade mode. After ~50-60 hours of practice, I went from being overwhelmed by chaining the first area in the game to achieving a truly impossible run where I chained almost every area except the train, finishing with 3 spare lives. Radiant Silvergun is not a forgiving game in the slightest, but it really makes the player feel like a badass.
The usage of leitmotifs for the soundtrack is amazing to boot. The story about how the characters are stuck in a time loop really helps the tone, for it's almost like a dark parody of the shmup genre where the whole joke is about how much the player needs to continue endlessly to achieve their goal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kGWHANcOnY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVuWvEXS8Es
Over the last 3 or 4 years, I've gone from never 1ccing any shmup in my life to 1ccing roughly 40 games. Silvergun perfectly characterizes my growth and realization that routing is god in this genre. Anything is achievable if one perseveres enough.
All in all Radiant Silvergun is a very special game to me that represents just why Treasure was top dog. In an era where 2D games were slowly being phased out for a while to make way for 3D, Treasure made a game that felt like the ultimate love letter to its genre full of countless homages to other shmups and even tokusatsus like Ultraman and Gamera. This game will make you its bitch, and I'm all for it. It's the kind of game only the Saturn would have, the kind of game only Treasure could've made.
1992
"Leave me to do my dark bidding on the internet!"
-Dracula (Dracula, 1931)
I just beat arguably the most influential video game of all time (Colossal Cave Adventure) after roughly 10 years of off-and-on attempts to finish it. I wanted to write a big essay about its importance but ultimately I drew blanks. I also just woke up and decided to play this random ass Atari Lynx game called Dracula: The Undead. Wow! Holy banger alert, Batman!
I don't know what it says about me that I can play Colossal Cave Adventure and then some random tie-in handheld game 5 people played, but feel a much greater reaction to the latter. Except that if I was born in like 1970, I guess I'd be the same person lmao. I feel like a living embodiment of this Hideo Kojima pic rn https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1175402241981681726/55hjrsa2pyt21.jpg
So yeah, what made Dracula: The Undead so special? How about the fact it's a 1991 game. For the Atari fucking Lynx. That uses sprites to create illusions of depth and pre-rendered graphics to create a convincing sense of 3D space. It being a 1991 game means it is (AFAIK) the first horror game and the first point and click on a handheld system. In fact, this game even predates Alone in the Dark and has a less cumbersome UI. That's actually insane.
Not only that, but the puzzles are genuinely pretty intuitive? I just booted it up on a whim and finished it in under an hour. The player goes through events like climbing a window from the outside to open new shortcuts for example. The player needs to dim the lantern to not be detected, and if the player fucks up there is a unique game over message for each death to provide hints on how to progress. The QOL is surprisingly nice.
It's also one of the very first games I can think of which lets the player straightup skip cutscenes. This definitely helps the player to regain their footing after a game over. Needing to restart an adventure game from the beginning sounds like a chore on paper, but with the game being maybe 20 minutes in real time if one skips cutscenes, and even shorter with emulator speedups, it's actually not a big deal at all. In fact it's rather refreshing to have a point n click like this that encourages swift routing and so quickly provides a dopamine hit when I manage to regain my progress in the time it takes to microwave a bag of popcorn.
And oh boy you better get that popcorn ready, because this game has the greatest cutscenes of all time. Bram Stoker appears in this game as a pre-rendered character who tells the player about how video games didn't exist in the 1890s. Not to mention the main character of the game runs away from 3 hot vampire chicks on the basis he fears getting vampire cooties (he just like me for fr???)
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1175401045531295784/image.png
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1156847687476457492/1175401045850066994/image.png
One may notice from the screencaps, this game is actually quite atmospheric and soulful in its approach to capturing the old monster movie charm. The entire game is in sepia tone and it really fits. Even the blocky as hell faces didn't take away my immersion, it's actually stunning how charming the attempt at creating the illusion of 3D depth was. Even despite Jonathan's face looking like a before picture
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1175401316005191750/image.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1175401316403642419/image.png
Speaking of Jonathan, there were inklings about him being a bit of a dweeb for a hero in a game like this. He even comments on how much he hates performing actions like window climbing that would be expected of a point and click character; it's really quite interesting to see a character like this. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1175401520150360134/image.png
I really want to rate it higher. This game feels like it was tailor made for me. But at the same time, I can't do it in good conscious. It really needed to be something like 2-3 times as long, perhaps with checkpoints or game saves. Using the notebook for the good ending could be a bit more intuitive and may or may not necessitate a replay with a guide depending on one's playstyle. I also thought it could use more pieces of music despite how chilling its few pieces of music were. The last improvement I can think of would be a hotkey button for when a spot in the game only had 1 potential action. If all of that was implemented, it would kind of be a masterpiece?
But still, it's almost certainly the best Atari Lynx game by far. A strong 7.5/10 from me for sure at least. I strongly rec this game to anybody like me who loves those early 1900s monster flicks. It's just too charming of a point n click and it's very short and sweet. And it even has a Dracula based on Bela Lugosi's appearance!
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/bb/48/b8/bb48b800f2dbfdce55fbdf00b28ba568.png
-Dracula (Dracula, 1931)
I just beat arguably the most influential video game of all time (Colossal Cave Adventure) after roughly 10 years of off-and-on attempts to finish it. I wanted to write a big essay about its importance but ultimately I drew blanks. I also just woke up and decided to play this random ass Atari Lynx game called Dracula: The Undead. Wow! Holy banger alert, Batman!
I don't know what it says about me that I can play Colossal Cave Adventure and then some random tie-in handheld game 5 people played, but feel a much greater reaction to the latter. Except that if I was born in like 1970, I guess I'd be the same person lmao. I feel like a living embodiment of this Hideo Kojima pic rn https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1175402241981681726/55hjrsa2pyt21.jpg
So yeah, what made Dracula: The Undead so special? How about the fact it's a 1991 game. For the Atari fucking Lynx. That uses sprites to create illusions of depth and pre-rendered graphics to create a convincing sense of 3D space. It being a 1991 game means it is (AFAIK) the first horror game and the first point and click on a handheld system. In fact, this game even predates Alone in the Dark and has a less cumbersome UI. That's actually insane.
Not only that, but the puzzles are genuinely pretty intuitive? I just booted it up on a whim and finished it in under an hour. The player goes through events like climbing a window from the outside to open new shortcuts for example. The player needs to dim the lantern to not be detected, and if the player fucks up there is a unique game over message for each death to provide hints on how to progress. The QOL is surprisingly nice.
It's also one of the very first games I can think of which lets the player straightup skip cutscenes. This definitely helps the player to regain their footing after a game over. Needing to restart an adventure game from the beginning sounds like a chore on paper, but with the game being maybe 20 minutes in real time if one skips cutscenes, and even shorter with emulator speedups, it's actually not a big deal at all. In fact it's rather refreshing to have a point n click like this that encourages swift routing and so quickly provides a dopamine hit when I manage to regain my progress in the time it takes to microwave a bag of popcorn.
And oh boy you better get that popcorn ready, because this game has the greatest cutscenes of all time. Bram Stoker appears in this game as a pre-rendered character who tells the player about how video games didn't exist in the 1890s. Not to mention the main character of the game runs away from 3 hot vampire chicks on the basis he fears getting vampire cooties (he just like me for fr???)
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1175401045531295784/image.png
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1156847687476457492/1175401045850066994/image.png
One may notice from the screencaps, this game is actually quite atmospheric and soulful in its approach to capturing the old monster movie charm. The entire game is in sepia tone and it really fits. Even the blocky as hell faces didn't take away my immersion, it's actually stunning how charming the attempt at creating the illusion of 3D depth was. Even despite Jonathan's face looking like a before picture
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1175401316005191750/image.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1175401316403642419/image.png
Speaking of Jonathan, there were inklings about him being a bit of a dweeb for a hero in a game like this. He even comments on how much he hates performing actions like window climbing that would be expected of a point and click character; it's really quite interesting to see a character like this. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1175401520150360134/image.png
I really want to rate it higher. This game feels like it was tailor made for me. But at the same time, I can't do it in good conscious. It really needed to be something like 2-3 times as long, perhaps with checkpoints or game saves. Using the notebook for the good ending could be a bit more intuitive and may or may not necessitate a replay with a guide depending on one's playstyle. I also thought it could use more pieces of music despite how chilling its few pieces of music were. The last improvement I can think of would be a hotkey button for when a spot in the game only had 1 potential action. If all of that was implemented, it would kind of be a masterpiece?
But still, it's almost certainly the best Atari Lynx game by far. A strong 7.5/10 from me for sure at least. I strongly rec this game to anybody like me who loves those early 1900s monster flicks. It's just too charming of a point n click and it's very short and sweet. And it even has a Dracula based on Bela Lugosi's appearance!
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/bb/48/b8/bb48b800f2dbfdce55fbdf00b28ba568.png
This is a total ROM conversion for the original Mega Man X which can be downloaded here: https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/8167/
I have been working off and on with this project for a couple years now. It's no secret my favourite character has always been Zero from the Mega Man series. The way he has always been eager to lend a helping hand to X and his comrades. How he would continuously save the world against overwhelming odds. That his life followed such a complicated trajectory across multiple sub-series' but he consistently tried to be a force for good despite his background, being made by the evil Wily for world domination. As a young child, he was an inspiration to me. So naturally my mind was blown the instant I discovered he was playable in X3. Doubly so when I discovered the Zero Project for X3.
The original Mega Man X is my most played game ever. For a while it seemed like every revisit, I learned something new about the game; be it the stages changing depending on the boss order tackled, or the enemies losing their body parts when hit with certain weapons.
This is why I wished for a world where this game could feel fresh to me again. After being wowed by the X3 Zero Project, I felt a rush of excitement to try my hand fully incorporating Zero into the world of X1, so I got to work. Over 2 years or so, I was faced with numerous self-doubts.
"I'll never be smart enough to edit the text."
"These files are in bin format? I can't open these with PowerISO, what can I do then?!"
"I'll never figure out how to change the music!"
"I wish I could change the 1up icon...."
I'm here to tell you that if you want to achieve something hard enough, you CAN get it done. Your biggest enemy is yourself, and everybody is their own worst critic. Creating this hack was a long journey and I learned so much about so many things that go into game creation, particularly the retro classics.
Assembly language coding. Music sheets. Which objects are transparent VS opaque. Pallet swapping. Health and ammunition variables. Scripting and font colours. It simply goes on and on.
To all those who love Mega Man as I do, I hope this hack is something universally enjoyable. I much prefer to spread my love for things I am passionate about than to focus on the negativity, which is why I went above and beyond to put this together. That the levels, stages, cutscenes, music, physics, graphics, and so forth can have so many significant changes to make the world truly feel like a what-if alternate universe where Zero was the main character, rather than some mere character swap. The overall aim was to have a game that was somewhat harder than the original Mega Man X, but still make Zero feel powerful and different enough that his campaign wasn't just X's campaign but harder.
And of course, I have to give a huge shoutout to everybody over the years who helped this project come into fruition. Xeeynamo for creating a level editor. xstuff for helping me with graphical and music edits. denim for compression and decompression programs. GoldS and Power Panda for disassembly files that gave me a great headstart. Falchion 22 and Peru for initial hacking elements I mixed and matched. cerberus-rack, brongaa12, Kensuyjin33, and fallensoldier420 for graphical work relevant to Zero’s canon design. Umiliphus for graphical work relevant to Dr. Wily’s sprite. Maël Hörz for HxD, the greatest hex editor I have ever used. And of course, Vis for the amazing cover art I submitted to IGDB. https://twitter.com/PD_CGT_games/status/1718036539622531354?s=20
I truly believe working with so many people to learn romhacking skills in the past couple years and gaining so many new perspectives around the hobby has not only made me a better coder, but also a better person. I thank everyone who helped push my dream of a fully integrated Zero in MMX1's world to reality.
"Sigma, you should have studied the blueprints closer! There is only one Zero!"
I have been working off and on with this project for a couple years now. It's no secret my favourite character has always been Zero from the Mega Man series. The way he has always been eager to lend a helping hand to X and his comrades. How he would continuously save the world against overwhelming odds. That his life followed such a complicated trajectory across multiple sub-series' but he consistently tried to be a force for good despite his background, being made by the evil Wily for world domination. As a young child, he was an inspiration to me. So naturally my mind was blown the instant I discovered he was playable in X3. Doubly so when I discovered the Zero Project for X3.
The original Mega Man X is my most played game ever. For a while it seemed like every revisit, I learned something new about the game; be it the stages changing depending on the boss order tackled, or the enemies losing their body parts when hit with certain weapons.
This is why I wished for a world where this game could feel fresh to me again. After being wowed by the X3 Zero Project, I felt a rush of excitement to try my hand fully incorporating Zero into the world of X1, so I got to work. Over 2 years or so, I was faced with numerous self-doubts.
"I'll never be smart enough to edit the text."
"These files are in bin format? I can't open these with PowerISO, what can I do then?!"
"I'll never figure out how to change the music!"
"I wish I could change the 1up icon...."
I'm here to tell you that if you want to achieve something hard enough, you CAN get it done. Your biggest enemy is yourself, and everybody is their own worst critic. Creating this hack was a long journey and I learned so much about so many things that go into game creation, particularly the retro classics.
Assembly language coding. Music sheets. Which objects are transparent VS opaque. Pallet swapping. Health and ammunition variables. Scripting and font colours. It simply goes on and on.
To all those who love Mega Man as I do, I hope this hack is something universally enjoyable. I much prefer to spread my love for things I am passionate about than to focus on the negativity, which is why I went above and beyond to put this together. That the levels, stages, cutscenes, music, physics, graphics, and so forth can have so many significant changes to make the world truly feel like a what-if alternate universe where Zero was the main character, rather than some mere character swap. The overall aim was to have a game that was somewhat harder than the original Mega Man X, but still make Zero feel powerful and different enough that his campaign wasn't just X's campaign but harder.
And of course, I have to give a huge shoutout to everybody over the years who helped this project come into fruition. Xeeynamo for creating a level editor. xstuff for helping me with graphical and music edits. denim for compression and decompression programs. GoldS and Power Panda for disassembly files that gave me a great headstart. Falchion 22 and Peru for initial hacking elements I mixed and matched. cerberus-rack, brongaa12, Kensuyjin33, and fallensoldier420 for graphical work relevant to Zero’s canon design. Umiliphus for graphical work relevant to Dr. Wily’s sprite. Maël Hörz for HxD, the greatest hex editor I have ever used. And of course, Vis for the amazing cover art I submitted to IGDB. https://twitter.com/PD_CGT_games/status/1718036539622531354?s=20
I truly believe working with so many people to learn romhacking skills in the past couple years and gaining so many new perspectives around the hobby has not only made me a better coder, but also a better person. I thank everyone who helped push my dream of a fully integrated Zero in MMX1's world to reality.
"Sigma, you should have studied the blueprints closer! There is only one Zero!"
The entire concept of playing a whole ass anime of Don Quixote (or rather, one of Don Quixote's nightmarish delusions I suppose lmao) that isn't on rails like Super Don Quixote is ultra neat. There are plenty of fully voice acted animated cutscenes to go around, along with fully animated frontal view enemies and player character-based attacks to bring everything to life. Even the dungeon exploring keeps the same animation style. It's honestly so seamless, and thankfully makes for yet another sub-10 hour JRPG which is in hilariously short supply for my liking. The story is honestly super whatever and I'm sure you could write a thesis on how it betrays the narrative of the book, and the music isn't the best other than the oddly catchy battle theme. But still, in an era where "cartoon games" consisted of QTE fests, this is a game that's still super fascinating for how seamless it feels even today. I wish it was on PC or emulatable (is that a word? it is now ig) at all.
Patrick is a motherdolphin noises in this game
1993
Wow, another fucking GOG game where the default DOSbox settings are borked. Pro tip, set the CPU cycles to around 14000 (this can be cycled via CTRL+F11 or CTRL+F12) to salvage the frame rate. Thank me later lol
This is the type of CD you would have found in a cereal box 20 years ago. This game is the westaboo equivalent of that chibi Rondo of Blood minigame Peke (PEKE of the franchise) which plays instead of the main game if the player boots Rondo up the wrong way. This game is the type of thing that would never get made nowadays.
Just a cute little promotional game for Alone in the Dark 2; nothing more, nothing less. The puzzles are very easy to figure out, minus the mirror thing which took me a minute. The dime goes in the candy machine, the jack in the box bites on everything so it gets the candy cane, etc.
There are only 2 music tracks in the game and they're both pretty charming I suppose. I do wish there was a cheesy narration at the beginning though, so the lack of one is what docks points down for me.
Graphics are more of the same deal as with the other 3 DOS games, but shoutout to the ending screen for being something that I would probably have set my wallpaper to back in 1993 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1163726632910077982/image.png
I want to say something more about this game but IDK, it kinda just exists. There's nothing particularly great about this game, but it's so short it's hard not to find it charming, clocking in at around maybe 10-15 minutes long max. I just appreciate that in a world where lame as fuck cinematic trailers and $200 ultra deluxe pre-order bonus editions are the norm for hyping games up nowadays, something so pure exists where the creators were just fucking around with extra development time. Kino sauce that doubles as both a Christmas and Halloween game.
This is the type of CD you would have found in a cereal box 20 years ago. This game is the westaboo equivalent of that chibi Rondo of Blood minigame Peke (PEKE of the franchise) which plays instead of the main game if the player boots Rondo up the wrong way. This game is the type of thing that would never get made nowadays.
Just a cute little promotional game for Alone in the Dark 2; nothing more, nothing less. The puzzles are very easy to figure out, minus the mirror thing which took me a minute. The dime goes in the candy machine, the jack in the box bites on everything so it gets the candy cane, etc.
There are only 2 music tracks in the game and they're both pretty charming I suppose. I do wish there was a cheesy narration at the beginning though, so the lack of one is what docks points down for me.
Graphics are more of the same deal as with the other 3 DOS games, but shoutout to the ending screen for being something that I would probably have set my wallpaper to back in 1993 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1163726632910077982/image.png
I want to say something more about this game but IDK, it kinda just exists. There's nothing particularly great about this game, but it's so short it's hard not to find it charming, clocking in at around maybe 10-15 minutes long max. I just appreciate that in a world where lame as fuck cinematic trailers and $200 ultra deluxe pre-order bonus editions are the norm for hyping games up nowadays, something so pure exists where the creators were just fucking around with extra development time. Kino sauce that doubles as both a Christmas and Halloween game.
1992
"I'm Alone in the Dark!"
"I'm Alone in the Dark, Too!"
Best quote ever?!
Memes aside, Alone in the Dark was always a series I knew nothing about despite my huge love for the survival horror genre (at least, the old tank control style) and this year I thought it would be nice to fix that. With how much I've heard about it being unplayable """""aged""""" dogshit I figured I wouldn't really get much out of it, but I kinda appreciated it a lot tbh? lol
My favourite aspect was definitely the atmosphere. The fact this shit came out in 1992 is actually uncanny to me. Every single document in the game is voice by various different narrators who are implied to be the writers and it's just one hell of a neat touch. The voice actors simultaneously sound as if they've had a million roles before, and like they're total amateurs. I don't know how else to describe it, the overacting is just godlike.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1161553663240716368/AITD.mp4
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1163702809548570725/damned_yankees.mp4
The visuals are so antiquated but I honestly think it only adds to the vibe of the game taking place in a Lovecraftian mansion. It's not the scariest game ever but I genuinely got frightened at multiple moments in the game, including the glass shattering at the very beginning. Like Emily and Edward's models are so pixelated and jaggy (especially in their faces) they look like a living blowup doll with lipstick smeared on and a man made out of triangles, respectively. It's just hilarious seeing them slash equally awkwardly animated pirates to death. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1161554573090107412/image.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1161554441854525531/image.png
The music is honestly stuck in my head at this point. The game is about 2-3 hours long and only has like 4 tracks, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't immediately google a 30 minute extended cut of the ending theme the instant I finished the game. But it's the way the music is utilized in the game that truly makes it stand out like jumpscare chords in a B-horror movie; case in point https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1161569731229274153/DOSBox_0.74-2.1_Cpu_speed__8000_cycles_Frameskip_0_Program__INDARK_2023-10-11_03-41-54.mp4
The story of course is nothing deep, but I really love how the documents all serve to create a cohesive sense of setting, that the player truly is Alone in the Dark mansion as they piece together puzzle solutions from the aforementioned overacted documents. There are also some books that will kill the player upon reading them which is still something unique to do in the survival horror genre even today.
Also, a misconception to address. Motherfuckers online said there are no differences between the male and female main characters, and I'm here to say that's a load of horseshit. Even without finishing the game as Edward, I noticed that Emily's campaign differed in multiple ways including her intro being different and her monologuing about her deceased uncle upon finding his pictures. Though, frankly, I 99% just played her on account of her running animation not looking like she had a candle stuck all the way up her arse https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1161554246462877786/run_animation.mp4
Right, the running and document reading....
The gameplay loop is funny as fuck ngl. Cheap deaths are so frequent in the game that I would dare to call it fake difficulty, save for the the player can quick save and quick load multiple files, with my favourite out of left field death being this one: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1052492536125607966/1162324435752202300/AITDeez_nuts.mp4
Hell, I'd go as far as to say that the game WOULD be unplayable dogshit were it not for the quick saving and quick loading. No judgement to anyone who uses them, but I personally never use save states in emulators since I feel like it removes all the fun from challenges to overcome for me and also prevents me from fairly judging a game as it's more akin to repeatedly bashing my head on a wall than improving my fundamentals. Alone in the Dead feels like a game that simply could not exist in a playable state without these save states, and I feel no guilt using them since the game was clearly balanced around them.
An example of this can be found in the gunplay. On top of having BS deaths to worry about, the characters cannot aim for shit with the rifle especially. Readying a gun or sword takes a trillion years and there is no snappy auto-aiming, so smol monsters can and will just stunlock the player until all 50 HP are depleted. It's so egregious!
Thankfully, the player can just as easily stunlock enemies with their melee attacks (which shockingly were much better to the point I actually had fun meleeing the zombies to death) provided their positioning is on point.
Hell, I even kinda liked the gameplay on the whole. Exploring the mansion was pretty fun, it was more compact than I expected and the running was quite fluid despite the lack of a quick turn. I've seen people online post about how the running was super finnicky and unreliable, but a pro tip to all reading who are interested in playing this....
The default GOG config is borked. There, I said it. In DOSbox, increasing CPU cycles makes inputs delayed and less reliable. By using CTRL+F11 and CTRL+F12, one can manually adjust the virtual CPU cycles. Setting them somewhere in the 8000-10000 range should just about serve to make the running animation consistent, definitely something to experiment with.
I'm not sure if the CPU cycles affected the jumping either (I doubt it tho) but with the complaints I heard about the platforming in the final area, I was surprised I managed to perfectly platform across everything first try. It was kinda rad actually.
Fuck it, this is a pretty strong 7.5/10 to me. If the game was better balanced, there was more music, the main characters were fleshed out a bit better, the experience was slightly scarier, and especially if the weapons didn't suck ass to use, this could be a strong 8+/10 game.
However, the fact it was the first true attempt at a 3D survival horror game, yet still managed to have unique ideas for the genre even today, memorable voice acting even if not necessarily for the right reasons, 2 campaigns with minimal bugginess to them, and an otherworldly atmosphere? I just can't help but love it. Truly one of the most important video games of all time, I definitely respect the vision. Happy October!
"I'm Alone in the Dark, Too!"
Best quote ever?!
Memes aside, Alone in the Dark was always a series I knew nothing about despite my huge love for the survival horror genre (at least, the old tank control style) and this year I thought it would be nice to fix that. With how much I've heard about it being unplayable """""aged""""" dogshit I figured I wouldn't really get much out of it, but I kinda appreciated it a lot tbh? lol
My favourite aspect was definitely the atmosphere. The fact this shit came out in 1992 is actually uncanny to me. Every single document in the game is voice by various different narrators who are implied to be the writers and it's just one hell of a neat touch. The voice actors simultaneously sound as if they've had a million roles before, and like they're total amateurs. I don't know how else to describe it, the overacting is just godlike.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1161553663240716368/AITD.mp4
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1163702809548570725/damned_yankees.mp4
The visuals are so antiquated but I honestly think it only adds to the vibe of the game taking place in a Lovecraftian mansion. It's not the scariest game ever but I genuinely got frightened at multiple moments in the game, including the glass shattering at the very beginning. Like Emily and Edward's models are so pixelated and jaggy (especially in their faces) they look like a living blowup doll with lipstick smeared on and a man made out of triangles, respectively. It's just hilarious seeing them slash equally awkwardly animated pirates to death. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1161554573090107412/image.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1161554441854525531/image.png
The music is honestly stuck in my head at this point. The game is about 2-3 hours long and only has like 4 tracks, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't immediately google a 30 minute extended cut of the ending theme the instant I finished the game. But it's the way the music is utilized in the game that truly makes it stand out like jumpscare chords in a B-horror movie; case in point https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1161569731229274153/DOSBox_0.74-2.1_Cpu_speed__8000_cycles_Frameskip_0_Program__INDARK_2023-10-11_03-41-54.mp4
The story of course is nothing deep, but I really love how the documents all serve to create a cohesive sense of setting, that the player truly is Alone in the Dark mansion as they piece together puzzle solutions from the aforementioned overacted documents. There are also some books that will kill the player upon reading them which is still something unique to do in the survival horror genre even today.
Also, a misconception to address. Motherfuckers online said there are no differences between the male and female main characters, and I'm here to say that's a load of horseshit. Even without finishing the game as Edward, I noticed that Emily's campaign differed in multiple ways including her intro being different and her monologuing about her deceased uncle upon finding his pictures. Though, frankly, I 99% just played her on account of her running animation not looking like she had a candle stuck all the way up her arse https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1161554246462877786/run_animation.mp4
Right, the running and document reading....
The gameplay loop is funny as fuck ngl. Cheap deaths are so frequent in the game that I would dare to call it fake difficulty, save for the the player can quick save and quick load multiple files, with my favourite out of left field death being this one: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1052492536125607966/1162324435752202300/AITDeez_nuts.mp4
Hell, I'd go as far as to say that the game WOULD be unplayable dogshit were it not for the quick saving and quick loading. No judgement to anyone who uses them, but I personally never use save states in emulators since I feel like it removes all the fun from challenges to overcome for me and also prevents me from fairly judging a game as it's more akin to repeatedly bashing my head on a wall than improving my fundamentals. Alone in the Dead feels like a game that simply could not exist in a playable state without these save states, and I feel no guilt using them since the game was clearly balanced around them.
An example of this can be found in the gunplay. On top of having BS deaths to worry about, the characters cannot aim for shit with the rifle especially. Readying a gun or sword takes a trillion years and there is no snappy auto-aiming, so smol monsters can and will just stunlock the player until all 50 HP are depleted. It's so egregious!
Thankfully, the player can just as easily stunlock enemies with their melee attacks (which shockingly were much better to the point I actually had fun meleeing the zombies to death) provided their positioning is on point.
Hell, I even kinda liked the gameplay on the whole. Exploring the mansion was pretty fun, it was more compact than I expected and the running was quite fluid despite the lack of a quick turn. I've seen people online post about how the running was super finnicky and unreliable, but a pro tip to all reading who are interested in playing this....
The default GOG config is borked. There, I said it. In DOSbox, increasing CPU cycles makes inputs delayed and less reliable. By using CTRL+F11 and CTRL+F12, one can manually adjust the virtual CPU cycles. Setting them somewhere in the 8000-10000 range should just about serve to make the running animation consistent, definitely something to experiment with.
I'm not sure if the CPU cycles affected the jumping either (I doubt it tho) but with the complaints I heard about the platforming in the final area, I was surprised I managed to perfectly platform across everything first try. It was kinda rad actually.
Fuck it, this is a pretty strong 7.5/10 to me. If the game was better balanced, there was more music, the main characters were fleshed out a bit better, the experience was slightly scarier, and especially if the weapons didn't suck ass to use, this could be a strong 8+/10 game.
However, the fact it was the first true attempt at a 3D survival horror game, yet still managed to have unique ideas for the genre even today, memorable voice acting even if not necessarily for the right reasons, 2 campaigns with minimal bugginess to them, and an otherworldly atmosphere? I just can't help but love it. Truly one of the most important video games of all time, I definitely respect the vision. Happy October!
1988
Still a better love story than Twilight
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847812378628116/1163239122442403880/image.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847812378628116/1163239122442403880/image.png
2003
So if you're not a fan of the words PEAK FICTION, GOAT, RAW, FIRE, click off of the video, because those are gonna come up like 50 times in here man. I can't help it, the weights are off, on some Rock Lee stuff, the weights are off.
Blatantly rips off Toho and Tsuburaya properties like crazy and is a pretty unhinged wrestling game all around. Found it fairly fun until the boss gauntlet lol
+0.5 stars for the P1 VS P2 modes and minigames adding some redeeming value
+0.5 stars for the P1 VS P2 modes and minigames adding some redeeming value
X-Men Mutant Apocalypse is definitely one of those games I really needed several attempts to get into to appreciate. X-Men was basically my childhood, so I was super excited to load up the rom when I was a kid, but... I ended up being a bit underwhelmed and turned off by the difficulty TBH?
Flash forward to this month where on a whim I decided to give it another go and realized the problem. The input detection in this game is a bit imperfect, innit. The player has to make sure they're facing a certain direction and then perform the special move input, and even then it may drop sometimes. I'm the last person in the world to complain about fighting game inputs, and in other beat em ups with these inputs like Guardian Heroes or Final Fight 3 I can always do them more consistently. I think the input detection in this game just feels a bit off for this type of beat em upformer, but once I adjusted to it somewhat I started to really get into the game.
Visually, the game is mostly pretty rad! The sprites aren't MVC tier quality but they look about as nice and detailed as they could with the sheer amount of objects always on-screen, with the colours feeling picked right out of the 90s X-Men comics and cartoons. Just about all the proportions are on point, with characters like Gambit having visible abs and muscles to suggest his physical prowess and characters like Juggernaut being extremely hulking. Also, whoever drew Psylocke's sprites was crazy downbad good lord. I think the bright colours of the X-Men characters sometimes clash a bit with the game's dark world and may have preferred some designs like the dark red-brown Wolverine costume, but I think some designs like Gambit's thieves guild costume were a few years after this game's release so it's forgivable. At least my boy Magneto still looks like a BAMF. https://twitter.com/SigmaPosting/status/1378557944766230539
I feel pretty positively about the music. I don't think Gambit, Wolverine, Magneto, Psylocke, or Juggernaut have themes quite as memorable as in MVC games, but I still think Wolverine's is top notch and Cyclops' really befits that of someone who is constantly called in to fight war after war and is just tired of all that bullshit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T7zgTrk0tU
Actually thinking about it, the instrumentation just makes me feel like the music was mostly rejected compositions for a Mega Man X game, which isn't a bad thing but just definitely something I get vibes of from the boss music especially https://youtu.be/jkGlRm2Bk6g
Anyway, what about the gameplay? Well X-Men Mutant Apocalypse is basically a cross between the Mega Man X trilogy and Final Fight 3. It doesn't always gel together into a perfect experience but it fits the game really strongly overall, actually! Every character feels totally unique with different normals and focus. Wolverine and Psylocke have pretty great DPs and agility with tools like wall climbing or triangle kicks, while Cyclops is an almost pure zoner character to contrast Beast's rushdown focus. Then there's Gambit who feels like Jack of all trades, which I suppose is fitting when he's constantly throwing Jacks at motherfuckers.
Each character's specific levels suit them well enough, though when the character meet and tackle non-specific levels that's when it hit me; the game is extremely unbalanced. For example, in the final stage, every character needs to fight Exodus, but while Beast or Gambit have an easy time fighting him due to their command normals hitting him really fast with wide hitboxes, it was a struggle hitting him with even Wolverine or Psylocke's DP. It definitely feels like an unapproachable game, even if it's not a ballbustingly hard game when you've figured out the best way to route through it.
As for the story... eh, it's whatever. I noticed the English version is missing details like the bios being trimmed, but I think even in the Japanese version each X-Man only has one line each and that kinda sucks actually? I won't remove points for it but man it's a wasted opportunity to include more banter when the heart and soul of X-Men comics was the soap opera ass interactions.
Overall X-Men Mutant Apocalypse is a solid enough beat em upformer that gets a rec to play once if you're a fan of X-Men as well as MMX and Final Fight styled games. A romhack that alleviates input detection issues and maybe adds some darker shading to characters or extra dialogue could be just the push this game needs to bump it from a ~7-7.5/10 to an 8/10 for me.
tldr Capcom was the best at what they did, and what they did was very nice!
Flash forward to this month where on a whim I decided to give it another go and realized the problem. The input detection in this game is a bit imperfect, innit. The player has to make sure they're facing a certain direction and then perform the special move input, and even then it may drop sometimes. I'm the last person in the world to complain about fighting game inputs, and in other beat em ups with these inputs like Guardian Heroes or Final Fight 3 I can always do them more consistently. I think the input detection in this game just feels a bit off for this type of beat em upformer, but once I adjusted to it somewhat I started to really get into the game.
Visually, the game is mostly pretty rad! The sprites aren't MVC tier quality but they look about as nice and detailed as they could with the sheer amount of objects always on-screen, with the colours feeling picked right out of the 90s X-Men comics and cartoons. Just about all the proportions are on point, with characters like Gambit having visible abs and muscles to suggest his physical prowess and characters like Juggernaut being extremely hulking. Also, whoever drew Psylocke's sprites was crazy downbad good lord. I think the bright colours of the X-Men characters sometimes clash a bit with the game's dark world and may have preferred some designs like the dark red-brown Wolverine costume, but I think some designs like Gambit's thieves guild costume were a few years after this game's release so it's forgivable. At least my boy Magneto still looks like a BAMF. https://twitter.com/SigmaPosting/status/1378557944766230539
I feel pretty positively about the music. I don't think Gambit, Wolverine, Magneto, Psylocke, or Juggernaut have themes quite as memorable as in MVC games, but I still think Wolverine's is top notch and Cyclops' really befits that of someone who is constantly called in to fight war after war and is just tired of all that bullshit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T7zgTrk0tU
Actually thinking about it, the instrumentation just makes me feel like the music was mostly rejected compositions for a Mega Man X game, which isn't a bad thing but just definitely something I get vibes of from the boss music especially https://youtu.be/jkGlRm2Bk6g
Anyway, what about the gameplay? Well X-Men Mutant Apocalypse is basically a cross between the Mega Man X trilogy and Final Fight 3. It doesn't always gel together into a perfect experience but it fits the game really strongly overall, actually! Every character feels totally unique with different normals and focus. Wolverine and Psylocke have pretty great DPs and agility with tools like wall climbing or triangle kicks, while Cyclops is an almost pure zoner character to contrast Beast's rushdown focus. Then there's Gambit who feels like Jack of all trades, which I suppose is fitting when he's constantly throwing Jacks at motherfuckers.
Each character's specific levels suit them well enough, though when the character meet and tackle non-specific levels that's when it hit me; the game is extremely unbalanced. For example, in the final stage, every character needs to fight Exodus, but while Beast or Gambit have an easy time fighting him due to their command normals hitting him really fast with wide hitboxes, it was a struggle hitting him with even Wolverine or Psylocke's DP. It definitely feels like an unapproachable game, even if it's not a ballbustingly hard game when you've figured out the best way to route through it.
As for the story... eh, it's whatever. I noticed the English version is missing details like the bios being trimmed, but I think even in the Japanese version each X-Man only has one line each and that kinda sucks actually? I won't remove points for it but man it's a wasted opportunity to include more banter when the heart and soul of X-Men comics was the soap opera ass interactions.
Overall X-Men Mutant Apocalypse is a solid enough beat em upformer that gets a rec to play once if you're a fan of X-Men as well as MMX and Final Fight styled games. A romhack that alleviates input detection issues and maybe adds some darker shading to characters or extra dialogue could be just the push this game needs to bump it from a ~7-7.5/10 to an 8/10 for me.
tldr Capcom was the best at what they did, and what they did was very nice!
Finished via the Genesis version's definitive edition romhack, which would easily be my rec'd version of the game due to better pacing over the PC version as well as aesthetic hacks to make it closer to Mechner's vision.
Prince of Persia 2 inspires great hope with its opening. The cutscene presentation is top notch with a full on storyline (voice acted on other systems) and richly detailed cutscene portraits to boot. The first couple levels are extremely unconventional, with the Prince simply running away from the town to jump on a ship and then being shipwrecked with nothing but a puzzle to enter a cave challenging him.
However, after that it just sorta becomes... overly safe and more of the same honestly? The battles are just more of POP1, only the simplicity of the swordfighting was much more forgivable there. This is made worse by the fact the swordfighting is much more frequent in 2, to the point I was often finding glitches that allowed me to skip fights. The exploration fares better, and it's nice that the game forces the player to look for at least some hidden potions rather than having them feel like a bonus, but I still don't think anything is as out there as the heart of the volcano or teleporters in 1.
Visually, the game is about as good as 1, only with much better cutscenes. I have no complaints here and everything I said about the rotoscoping in 1 applies here. The giant spider at the end is funny looking and it's nice there's a wider variety of guards. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1135408595106795580/1158999347216785419/images.jpg
As for the music... eh I think it sucks but isn't awful enough to dig into why in any way. Just feels there. I played the game this morning and already don't remember any of it.
There's one really neat idea where the player can play as Shadow Man, but it's extremely obtuse to figure out and it can only be done for 1.5 levels. At least the final boss there was a clever idea. That said, all the level design is more obtuse than 1 and not for the better IMO.
IDK, it's just kinda sorta more of Prince of Persia 1 but more meanspirited towards the player to sell guides, and while 1 really pushed the envelope, 2 doesn't feel like it wants to achieve greater heights. It's just a kinda decent followup to 1. 2 can be a memorable enough experience to go through once with the Genesis fan patch and a walkthrough, but I can't justify to myself ever playing it again.
Prince of Persia 2 inspires great hope with its opening. The cutscene presentation is top notch with a full on storyline (voice acted on other systems) and richly detailed cutscene portraits to boot. The first couple levels are extremely unconventional, with the Prince simply running away from the town to jump on a ship and then being shipwrecked with nothing but a puzzle to enter a cave challenging him.
However, after that it just sorta becomes... overly safe and more of the same honestly? The battles are just more of POP1, only the simplicity of the swordfighting was much more forgivable there. This is made worse by the fact the swordfighting is much more frequent in 2, to the point I was often finding glitches that allowed me to skip fights. The exploration fares better, and it's nice that the game forces the player to look for at least some hidden potions rather than having them feel like a bonus, but I still don't think anything is as out there as the heart of the volcano or teleporters in 1.
Visually, the game is about as good as 1, only with much better cutscenes. I have no complaints here and everything I said about the rotoscoping in 1 applies here. The giant spider at the end is funny looking and it's nice there's a wider variety of guards. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1135408595106795580/1158999347216785419/images.jpg
As for the music... eh I think it sucks but isn't awful enough to dig into why in any way. Just feels there. I played the game this morning and already don't remember any of it.
There's one really neat idea where the player can play as Shadow Man, but it's extremely obtuse to figure out and it can only be done for 1.5 levels. At least the final boss there was a clever idea. That said, all the level design is more obtuse than 1 and not for the better IMO.
IDK, it's just kinda sorta more of Prince of Persia 1 but more meanspirited towards the player to sell guides, and while 1 really pushed the envelope, 2 doesn't feel like it wants to achieve greater heights. It's just a kinda decent followup to 1. 2 can be a memorable enough experience to go through once with the Genesis fan patch and a walkthrough, but I can't justify to myself ever playing it again.
1989
A disclaimer before I start this review: I finished the SNES port, which has around 10 extra levels including ones in a heavily welcome practice mode to get the controls downpat, as well as much more colours, a new soundtrack, and so forth. No doubt it is the version I rec, but I would heavily advise playing it on BSNES with 2 frames of runahead if your rig can handle it. This is about the only game I can think of offhand (barring rhythm games) where I really felt like I needed it to play the game.
Prince of Persia is one of the most legendary and immersive games of all time. The passion project of a kiddo who grew up loving film and comics, he set out to make a game that could really make the most of his love for their worlds, as well as his love for animation and immersion. It really shows in the visual department, which is what I will be covering first.
Prince of Persia was a real triumph in overcoming hardware limitations, as detailed in depth here: https://youtu.be/sw0VfmXKq54
Essentially, Mechner in a pre-Photoshop world traced footage of his brother wearing all white clothing to rotoscope highly fluid animations such that they could be abstract enough to fit in an Arabian Nights-inspired world.
I am pleased to report that this port was very true to the aesthetic Mechner aimed for. The dungeons are still insanely oppressive, ranging from cracked dusty blue-gray walls with no semblance of lighting beyond torches to clean royal palace interiors lined with red carpet after red carpet to suggest the sheer sense of royalty. The character designs are also much more fitting to create a sense of immersion in the setting than the minimalist original sprites, as if this was the world Mechner envisioned in his mind. Truly one of the most visually impressive portjobs in an era where one could not simply transfer source code from one device to another due to the sheer difference in capabilities and programming approaches between different systems on the market.
To boot, it was given an OST facelift that truly created a sense of mystery and danger to epic degrees. I appreciate how the OST for opening levels feels like a calm before the storm, while later levels have music with instruments harsh enough to strike one with fear as everything on screen is stained bloodred in the hellish inferno.
https://youtu.be/1hSDOPmjojE?list=PLAs1Kha_R9dJHE0nwiK_y6VoT6b89BNgl
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ_PBUNAjWY&list=PLAs1Kha_R9dJHE0nwiK_y6VoT6b89BNgl&index=8
I will admit the OST is not particularly something I would listen to outside of the game itself, but damn while it's there it truly gets the job done and sticks in one's head for a while. I do wish there was a wider variety of grunt noises for the battles, however since it can be jarring over the game's span.
The story is very minimalist in its approach, but it is integrated so well with the gameplay. Seeing Shadow Man steal Prince's potions, and therefore extending his health bar, really helps to sell that this asshole is your mirror reflection. And to defeat him, one does not swordfight him to the death, but rather... fuse with him and become one, gaining all the potions he stole in the process. The Shadow Man was created from the Prince's own inner demons and reflected through a mirror, so the Prince defeats him by having the courage to face his inner demons. Without a single word of dialogue, Mechner brilliantly created what was perhaps the first true rival figure in a video game and created one of the most genius story moments in the medium without a single cutscene. I was absolutely flabbergasted to experience something like this in a mid-80s game.
The puzzle solving and difficulty are a mixed bag. There are cool moments to be had such as the otherworldly space warps towards the end of the game, or allowing the mouse friend to save the Prince from the cage to signify to the player that the Prince isn't some wish fulfillment badass who can always take care of himself without any help, but rather an underdog. The battles can be rather repetitive, but damn it's always fun when there are opportunities to kill enemies more easily with traps such as making them get decapitated by guillotines. To say nothing of the hilarious gravity glitch I exploited during the boss rush https://gyazo.com/c4c884dacd0e515bd72a54c88c5c522a
Unfortunately, the jumping, even with the runahead, feels too delayed at times especially given the strictness of some jumps. The Prince also doesn't always have the best handling with turns, and the straightup sword battles can get rather dull by the end. I think if there were a few more bosses with gimmicks to them like the 4 armed motherfucker just creating earthquakes with every jump, I would have felt more positively about the battles overall.
That all being said though, Prince of Persia is a real history lesson of a game and holds up stunningly well being one of the first of its kind, especially with the QOL and aesthetic enhancements on the system. Its influence is felt very strongly in countless later cinematic platformers such as Flashback, Another World, and the Oddworld games. Nothing but respect for this classic masterpiece. If you're a masochist like me who has the utmost love for uber challenging games, and enjoys going through influential games as history lessons of sorts, this is the game for you. Otherwise, there's nothing wrong with admiring it from a distance.
Prince of Persia is one of the most legendary and immersive games of all time. The passion project of a kiddo who grew up loving film and comics, he set out to make a game that could really make the most of his love for their worlds, as well as his love for animation and immersion. It really shows in the visual department, which is what I will be covering first.
Prince of Persia was a real triumph in overcoming hardware limitations, as detailed in depth here: https://youtu.be/sw0VfmXKq54
Essentially, Mechner in a pre-Photoshop world traced footage of his brother wearing all white clothing to rotoscope highly fluid animations such that they could be abstract enough to fit in an Arabian Nights-inspired world.
I am pleased to report that this port was very true to the aesthetic Mechner aimed for. The dungeons are still insanely oppressive, ranging from cracked dusty blue-gray walls with no semblance of lighting beyond torches to clean royal palace interiors lined with red carpet after red carpet to suggest the sheer sense of royalty. The character designs are also much more fitting to create a sense of immersion in the setting than the minimalist original sprites, as if this was the world Mechner envisioned in his mind. Truly one of the most visually impressive portjobs in an era where one could not simply transfer source code from one device to another due to the sheer difference in capabilities and programming approaches between different systems on the market.
To boot, it was given an OST facelift that truly created a sense of mystery and danger to epic degrees. I appreciate how the OST for opening levels feels like a calm before the storm, while later levels have music with instruments harsh enough to strike one with fear as everything on screen is stained bloodred in the hellish inferno.
https://youtu.be/1hSDOPmjojE?list=PLAs1Kha_R9dJHE0nwiK_y6VoT6b89BNgl
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ_PBUNAjWY&list=PLAs1Kha_R9dJHE0nwiK_y6VoT6b89BNgl&index=8
I will admit the OST is not particularly something I would listen to outside of the game itself, but damn while it's there it truly gets the job done and sticks in one's head for a while. I do wish there was a wider variety of grunt noises for the battles, however since it can be jarring over the game's span.
The story is very minimalist in its approach, but it is integrated so well with the gameplay. Seeing Shadow Man steal Prince's potions, and therefore extending his health bar, really helps to sell that this asshole is your mirror reflection. And to defeat him, one does not swordfight him to the death, but rather... fuse with him and become one, gaining all the potions he stole in the process. The Shadow Man was created from the Prince's own inner demons and reflected through a mirror, so the Prince defeats him by having the courage to face his inner demons. Without a single word of dialogue, Mechner brilliantly created what was perhaps the first true rival figure in a video game and created one of the most genius story moments in the medium without a single cutscene. I was absolutely flabbergasted to experience something like this in a mid-80s game.
The puzzle solving and difficulty are a mixed bag. There are cool moments to be had such as the otherworldly space warps towards the end of the game, or allowing the mouse friend to save the Prince from the cage to signify to the player that the Prince isn't some wish fulfillment badass who can always take care of himself without any help, but rather an underdog. The battles can be rather repetitive, but damn it's always fun when there are opportunities to kill enemies more easily with traps such as making them get decapitated by guillotines. To say nothing of the hilarious gravity glitch I exploited during the boss rush https://gyazo.com/c4c884dacd0e515bd72a54c88c5c522a
Unfortunately, the jumping, even with the runahead, feels too delayed at times especially given the strictness of some jumps. The Prince also doesn't always have the best handling with turns, and the straightup sword battles can get rather dull by the end. I think if there were a few more bosses with gimmicks to them like the 4 armed motherfucker just creating earthquakes with every jump, I would have felt more positively about the battles overall.
That all being said though, Prince of Persia is a real history lesson of a game and holds up stunningly well being one of the first of its kind, especially with the QOL and aesthetic enhancements on the system. Its influence is felt very strongly in countless later cinematic platformers such as Flashback, Another World, and the Oddworld games. Nothing but respect for this classic masterpiece. If you're a masochist like me who has the utmost love for uber challenging games, and enjoys going through influential games as history lessons of sorts, this is the game for you. Otherwise, there's nothing wrong with admiring it from a distance.