Clownboss
This game is slowly being forgotten and that sucks. I hope that years from now it garners significant praise once again and it gets rediscovered by Gen Z as this hidden masterpiece - but at this rate I just can't see it happening, and this profoundly upsets me, because games like this are a lost art.
Without exaggeration, "Warcraft III" is a beautiful masterwork, an influential chapter in gaming, and one of the best games ever made. Gaming annals do not wish to commemorate it in the same club with the likes of "Mario 64", "Ocarina of Time", "Half-Life", "Symphony of the Night", "Grand Theft Auto III", "Final Fantasy VII", and all the other significant classics, despite the fact it popularised two highly pervasive gaming genres still in vogue today(MOBAs and tower defenses, and those were just offshoots). I understand that this was in large part because it's a PC game(and console gamers in the west tend to largely bypass it), because "World of Warcraft" tends to overshadow it(very deservedly), and that "Starcraft's" impact might predate it(also more than deservedly), but "Warcraft III" quite significantly changes the ballpark that even "Starcraft" feels old by comparison, and it truly feels at times like "Warcraft III" perfected the RTS format so much that there was nothing left to do. It went the way of My Bloody Valentine, perfecting an entire rock subgenre so well that everybody else saw no point in competing or itterating on it. But those who know it still intricately understand its appeal. I've met so many Warcraft fans in my day and not a single one of them is a less than passionate lover of this game.
"Warcraft III" came at just the right time for me. I was 9 years old and already a big fan of the second game, which itself was very formative for my taste in games and stories: I love the fact "Warcraft II" had so much lore. It was sophisticated. It had geography, mountains, rivers, cities and nations who were all specialised and had different interests, timelines, important actors and shit. It was a complex system, and it was one that my 6-year old brain just loved tearing apart and discover the nuances and interplay between all of them. And with that, it was probably the first time I ever remember getting hyped for a sequel(itself a very rare thing for me), knowing well "oh it's coming" and just wondering whatever Blizzard has in store for continuing this story. I was very scared even then that it would fall short, or not feel the same, or that I would be in some way disappointed - but boy were those fears assuaged. "Warcraft III" more than delivered and it paid off that I knew all the geography and history from the previous games. You can aim a lot of deserved criticism at modern "Warcraft" storylines but the fact it always had consistency in regards to its geography is a top tier effort that deserves applause(although this praise in particular should be handed to its famous sequel MMO).
For me, "Warcraft III" as an RTS game has a lot of magic in how much it's this sheer funbox where you can have a lot of 3D units and elements and just let them interact with each other. The range of units you can combine that interact with each other and game objects is varied enough that it allows every single play style and player personality to shine, whether you wish to brute force your opponents, use magic buffs, cut them at the supply lines, use siege units, do aerials, go with stealth, go with corruption and poison or anything else. The intricate hotkey system gives every player a lot of flexibility, and it becomes very easy to find a quick function for anything with just a couple of clicks on the keyboard, whether that is giving a long list of actions for your units to perform, adding or removing units to entire groups, or ordering them to follow other units and sync with their patterns. It's great that it detracts from one of the primary fears that many people have in playing RTS games in that you get to give units things to do without having to constantly supervise them, and this flexibility and utility makes it stand apart from "Starcraft" and other contemporaries.
The models, despite being more low-poly than the average Nintendo DS game, are so very colourful and are painted with so much life and vibrancy that even after 20 years this game still feels as amazing and as appealing as it did on release. Just load up the World Editor and take a close look at the Tauren Chieftain model. Look at the way he swivels and gazes in the distance. This was from one of the last bastions of the pre-realism era when games were allowed to be colourful and cartoony, and where every model playfully looked like a toy, and there was nothing wrong with that.
So many units have so much personality. The Dwarven Team with their taunts to the opponent that screams them being an underdog that will win("Ey you! Catch!!!"), the frenzied yet desparate focus of the Dwarven Rifleman("I got the beast on me siiiights!"), the lightly goth and the seductive fashion of the Human Sorceress. Even for the kinds of characters that would traditionally be unappealing the modelers at Blizzard found a way to make them stick in the minds of players: The Orc Shaman for example has a wolf cowl over his head that makes him really look like he has a cute wolf head, and even spiders were made cute through the Crypt Fiends, with their humanlike eyes and mouths, and their gravely, lurchy slurring about "seeds" and stuff.
Hero units however, changed the ballpark and the text for how RTS games were handled, and were what gave that genre finally an anchorable personality you could invest your hopes and ambitions onto. It is mandatory in "Warcraft III" that you use them and they were what made it feel like so much more than an RTS. In truth "Warcraft III" is an RTS-RPG hybrid, and this is important. The RPG elements were what helped bridge this game across to people who might not have experienced an RTS before. Hero units can have items that change the name of the game, such as dispelling magic, teleproting, turning themselves invisible or healing their entire groups, and having heroes gives you a lot of opportunity to take flexible control of a situation and think of the best way to respond, whether it is fleeing, baiting an enemy, continuing to fight or performing some other strategy that's just crazy enough to work. I remember how once in a FFA match I managed to lead two opposing teams to fight each other, and I still remember it as one of my proudest emergent strategising moments in my tenure. And crucially, the hero units are exactly what gave this game's story a lot of heart.
So the story.
"Warcraft III" came right in the middle of the fantasy craze that was started by the Peter Jackson LOTR movies and it while it was perfect timing, "Warcraft III" also had a lot of detractors from more serious fantasy fans for being too derivative, too tropey, and really too pulpy and low-brow for its good that it couldn't be regarded as a high art achievement of other fantasy. So certainly "Warcraft III" can't compare to the works of Tolkien and Le Guin, and it shamelessly borrows so many generic fantasy tropes while delivering no unique moral other than the standard cautionary tales such as "he who fights monsters", "protect the ones you love", "freedom and danger are better than living under oppressive comfort" and so many more. But - I think "Warcraft III" aims for something different that is nontheless still incredibly inspirational. It'd be far from me to say that any of the characters are bland, and every of the four core factions(save for the villains) embody something deeply important or face a human challenge that takes heroic effort to succeed, and the game so very lovingly loves to root for them and beg their heroes to succeed against all odds. Sibling fantasy game "Warhammer" would have aeons of history where many people would just morbidly and despairingly disappear in a flash with no consequence, but on the opposite, "Warcraft" has so much heart and it wants to see you identify with these figures.
On the human side you have the cool and mysterious Medivh as the wise old guy who shares secret messages, Jaina who is shrewd, beautiful, has mesmerising eyes and character design, and sees everything happening from a much wider perspective. Arthas, whose arrogance caused him to become doomed to begin with, still has to deal with an immensely unenviable catch-22 of how to rescue the entire human race from incoming(and seemingly unstoppable) world-ending genocide, so much that you would be even willing to trade your soul for it. Famously the "Culling of Stratholme" cutscene has been memed to hell and back but it also emphasises just how pivotal and emotional of a chapter that scene was, and how very significantly people who fought for the same cause had to draw lines in the sand, and you're here to see the terrible after effects of it.
You get Thrall's story. In media, Orcs used to be the universally agreed upon "bad guys", and Blizzard changed them forever, in a brave move that made Orcs so immensely heroic, noble and enviable. One of my favourite moments in the game was when the Orcs first settle on the shores of an unknown land, and they display so much altruism to each other. Many of their groups are scattered and lost upon landing, but they take the time to try to find them anyway, while in other fantasy settings the authors would make the Orcs edgy and petty by forgetting about their compatriots. In Warcraft, the Orcs are on this pilgrimage to find peace and build harmony which was taken away from them so long ago. They are tired of war. Even Thrall says "are we just destined to fight forever?" and this precisely strikes me as one of the core messages of what is really just a war game. This was finally a war game that has just had it with being a war game, and where Thrall does unimaginable things like trusting a complete stranger and his tribe of bull-creatures to guide them through unknown lands, or have heroes like Grom Hellscream break their chains of addiction and comfort, at a heroic price. The Orcs are beautiful, man. They inspire me.
It's immensely important that this was the "Warcraft" game that chose to have a lot of heart. So many characters here so obviously love and care for each other and wish that these awful times weren't here for them. I especially remember when Muradin pleaded Arthas to just give up on his lust on vengeance and lead his men home. Or how the Night Elves unambigously work towards the preservation of the world around them that they converse and help heal literal talking bears, and are so willing to protect the world they would even sacrifice their immortality for the sake of it. The Dryad units are being treated as these complete ditzes by fans, but I love how they're some of the most wholesome and innocent units around. They don't care for war or violence at all and just want to devote themselves to growth and nurture. By deciding to stand apart from its previous games, "Warcraft III" found a lot of maturity and good will by emphasising how love, friendship, heroism, renewal, discovery, authenticity and selflessness can win over war, destruction and death. The best symbol of that is the final level, which just presented a dream come true for me, as a child who was a fan of this series.
I could go on about how much of this game's story and characters are so fucking cool. They had to in order to make the Undead even passingly edible despite them being the bad guys. Villains like Kel'Thuzad are so intensely seductive and elloquent. I love how Tichondrious tries to be pragmatic and use corporate speak when dealing with his uncontrollable bloodthirsty subordinates, and how other Undead villains are so comically petty and edgy it's brilliant, and Blizzard realised that there's no way they could play the Undead's evil in a dramatically realistic tone because destruction is just so intensely absurd. But there are moments when the despair hits. When Archimonde tears the sand castle apart and wipes out an entire country of innocents is when you realise what the stakes are like in here and just how bleak and dire the outlook is. It really allows you to take the time to soak that low point in. You play villains for a time in here, and Blizzard makes sure you feel the repercussions of it and not glamourise being villains, like they used to in the previous games.
I could go on about Night Elves and how they're so obviously inspired by the crude, disfiguring animalism of "Princess Mononoke". The Orcs turned into complete pussies at the sight of them the moment their heads started getting shafted and ripped from their necks by supersonic arrows, and then get eaten by tall sexy amazon women. Cenarius is the Forest God and he'll make nature your nightmare, with vines grow and tear your buildings from the inside-out.
I could go on about Illidan. The coolest character ever to exist, with the coolest and most soul-shattering voicelines, when he talks with quivering and solemn breath about evil drawing close and demons being nearby. He triumphed where Arthas had failed cos he couldn't lose his cool and was far-sighted and calculating probably more than any other character in the story. It goes in his favour that he's one of the most memorable characters in the entire Warcraft universe and yet he was only playable for just a single mission. I feel sorry for my Arthas boiz(I love you) cos you get to know Arthas for two entire campaigns for people to build love for him, while Illidan won over the hearts of millions cos of just being featured in one single level.
When it comes to the story, the gameplay, the entire expereince, it is also essential to try out its expansion pack, "The Frozen Throne", but with one very important caveat: The game is so significantly improved with the expansion that many don't think "Warcraft III" is "complete" without it, and it has huge repercussions because the multiplayer meta changed from the ground up that you shouldn't devote too much of your time trying to learn strategy for "Reign of Chaos": Some dominant sticking points of the meta before "The Frozen Throne" is that the Night Elves are too weak and rely on skillful magic use because they can barely heal themselves, the Undead make it easy to be on braindead autopilot despite dropping like flies, and the Orcs are way overpowered, even without dedicated healing units, and you should watch out if an AI opponent controls Orcs. The old meta also put a lot greater focus on micromanaging units(which might be a cool thing depending on who you are), small skirmishes and lots and lots of wandering. It's the kind of game where it was vital to always have your entire army outside of the base and that had repercussions by allowing player bases to be sitting ducks ripe for the taking. "The Frozen Throne" changed this meta and other player habits significantly, and is going to be something I will address in the review for it.
The World Editor was also crucially simpler and less versatile before the expansion and in truth you couldn't do a lot with it. It wasn't advanced enough to provide so many of the incredible custom maps that were made famous on The Hive Workshop, having entire sprawling fan-made campaigns or other game modes and genres(such as the popular "Defense of the Ancients"). The custom maps in "Reign of Chaos" only had the selection of melee maps plus two fairly decent scenario maps - one of them was a hilarious and cute arcade game about dodging projectiles, but still none of them hold a candle to the depth and intricacy of the custom games made through the expansion pack.
If you're a younger gamer and you've never heard of Warcraft prior to "World of Warcraft", or have ever played a traditional base-building RTS, please lend an ear and see if you can give this game a shot. It's the best and easiest game to introduce a new player to RTSes, and the game displays so much beauty in the way it was hand-crafted. The World Editor lets you see every single model, texture and voice-line from up close, and it even shows you the way the campaign story missions have been built from the inside-out. It's the kind of game that shows traces about its creation process everywhere, and that absolutely inspires you to create games and worlds of your own. I'm an artist, and I have to admit I still draw a lot of artistic inspiration from Warcraft's visuals and craftsmanship, and I learned a lot of valuable lessons on design, programming, sound design and storytelling through it. I promise it's going to be one of those games that will carry lessons and insight for you for the rest of your life.
Without exaggeration, "Warcraft III" is a beautiful masterwork, an influential chapter in gaming, and one of the best games ever made. Gaming annals do not wish to commemorate it in the same club with the likes of "Mario 64", "Ocarina of Time", "Half-Life", "Symphony of the Night", "Grand Theft Auto III", "Final Fantasy VII", and all the other significant classics, despite the fact it popularised two highly pervasive gaming genres still in vogue today(MOBAs and tower defenses, and those were just offshoots). I understand that this was in large part because it's a PC game(and console gamers in the west tend to largely bypass it), because "World of Warcraft" tends to overshadow it(very deservedly), and that "Starcraft's" impact might predate it(also more than deservedly), but "Warcraft III" quite significantly changes the ballpark that even "Starcraft" feels old by comparison, and it truly feels at times like "Warcraft III" perfected the RTS format so much that there was nothing left to do. It went the way of My Bloody Valentine, perfecting an entire rock subgenre so well that everybody else saw no point in competing or itterating on it. But those who know it still intricately understand its appeal. I've met so many Warcraft fans in my day and not a single one of them is a less than passionate lover of this game.
"Warcraft III" came at just the right time for me. I was 9 years old and already a big fan of the second game, which itself was very formative for my taste in games and stories: I love the fact "Warcraft II" had so much lore. It was sophisticated. It had geography, mountains, rivers, cities and nations who were all specialised and had different interests, timelines, important actors and shit. It was a complex system, and it was one that my 6-year old brain just loved tearing apart and discover the nuances and interplay between all of them. And with that, it was probably the first time I ever remember getting hyped for a sequel(itself a very rare thing for me), knowing well "oh it's coming" and just wondering whatever Blizzard has in store for continuing this story. I was very scared even then that it would fall short, or not feel the same, or that I would be in some way disappointed - but boy were those fears assuaged. "Warcraft III" more than delivered and it paid off that I knew all the geography and history from the previous games. You can aim a lot of deserved criticism at modern "Warcraft" storylines but the fact it always had consistency in regards to its geography is a top tier effort that deserves applause(although this praise in particular should be handed to its famous sequel MMO).
For me, "Warcraft III" as an RTS game has a lot of magic in how much it's this sheer funbox where you can have a lot of 3D units and elements and just let them interact with each other. The range of units you can combine that interact with each other and game objects is varied enough that it allows every single play style and player personality to shine, whether you wish to brute force your opponents, use magic buffs, cut them at the supply lines, use siege units, do aerials, go with stealth, go with corruption and poison or anything else. The intricate hotkey system gives every player a lot of flexibility, and it becomes very easy to find a quick function for anything with just a couple of clicks on the keyboard, whether that is giving a long list of actions for your units to perform, adding or removing units to entire groups, or ordering them to follow other units and sync with their patterns. It's great that it detracts from one of the primary fears that many people have in playing RTS games in that you get to give units things to do without having to constantly supervise them, and this flexibility and utility makes it stand apart from "Starcraft" and other contemporaries.
The models, despite being more low-poly than the average Nintendo DS game, are so very colourful and are painted with so much life and vibrancy that even after 20 years this game still feels as amazing and as appealing as it did on release. Just load up the World Editor and take a close look at the Tauren Chieftain model. Look at the way he swivels and gazes in the distance. This was from one of the last bastions of the pre-realism era when games were allowed to be colourful and cartoony, and where every model playfully looked like a toy, and there was nothing wrong with that.
So many units have so much personality. The Dwarven Team with their taunts to the opponent that screams them being an underdog that will win("Ey you! Catch!!!"), the frenzied yet desparate focus of the Dwarven Rifleman("I got the beast on me siiiights!"), the lightly goth and the seductive fashion of the Human Sorceress. Even for the kinds of characters that would traditionally be unappealing the modelers at Blizzard found a way to make them stick in the minds of players: The Orc Shaman for example has a wolf cowl over his head that makes him really look like he has a cute wolf head, and even spiders were made cute through the Crypt Fiends, with their humanlike eyes and mouths, and their gravely, lurchy slurring about "seeds" and stuff.
Hero units however, changed the ballpark and the text for how RTS games were handled, and were what gave that genre finally an anchorable personality you could invest your hopes and ambitions onto. It is mandatory in "Warcraft III" that you use them and they were what made it feel like so much more than an RTS. In truth "Warcraft III" is an RTS-RPG hybrid, and this is important. The RPG elements were what helped bridge this game across to people who might not have experienced an RTS before. Hero units can have items that change the name of the game, such as dispelling magic, teleproting, turning themselves invisible or healing their entire groups, and having heroes gives you a lot of opportunity to take flexible control of a situation and think of the best way to respond, whether it is fleeing, baiting an enemy, continuing to fight or performing some other strategy that's just crazy enough to work. I remember how once in a FFA match I managed to lead two opposing teams to fight each other, and I still remember it as one of my proudest emergent strategising moments in my tenure. And crucially, the hero units are exactly what gave this game's story a lot of heart.
So the story.
"Warcraft III" came right in the middle of the fantasy craze that was started by the Peter Jackson LOTR movies and it while it was perfect timing, "Warcraft III" also had a lot of detractors from more serious fantasy fans for being too derivative, too tropey, and really too pulpy and low-brow for its good that it couldn't be regarded as a high art achievement of other fantasy. So certainly "Warcraft III" can't compare to the works of Tolkien and Le Guin, and it shamelessly borrows so many generic fantasy tropes while delivering no unique moral other than the standard cautionary tales such as "he who fights monsters", "protect the ones you love", "freedom and danger are better than living under oppressive comfort" and so many more. But - I think "Warcraft III" aims for something different that is nontheless still incredibly inspirational. It'd be far from me to say that any of the characters are bland, and every of the four core factions(save for the villains) embody something deeply important or face a human challenge that takes heroic effort to succeed, and the game so very lovingly loves to root for them and beg their heroes to succeed against all odds. Sibling fantasy game "Warhammer" would have aeons of history where many people would just morbidly and despairingly disappear in a flash with no consequence, but on the opposite, "Warcraft" has so much heart and it wants to see you identify with these figures.
On the human side you have the cool and mysterious Medivh as the wise old guy who shares secret messages, Jaina who is shrewd, beautiful, has mesmerising eyes and character design, and sees everything happening from a much wider perspective. Arthas, whose arrogance caused him to become doomed to begin with, still has to deal with an immensely unenviable catch-22 of how to rescue the entire human race from incoming(and seemingly unstoppable) world-ending genocide, so much that you would be even willing to trade your soul for it. Famously the "Culling of Stratholme" cutscene has been memed to hell and back but it also emphasises just how pivotal and emotional of a chapter that scene was, and how very significantly people who fought for the same cause had to draw lines in the sand, and you're here to see the terrible after effects of it.
You get Thrall's story. In media, Orcs used to be the universally agreed upon "bad guys", and Blizzard changed them forever, in a brave move that made Orcs so immensely heroic, noble and enviable. One of my favourite moments in the game was when the Orcs first settle on the shores of an unknown land, and they display so much altruism to each other. Many of their groups are scattered and lost upon landing, but they take the time to try to find them anyway, while in other fantasy settings the authors would make the Orcs edgy and petty by forgetting about their compatriots. In Warcraft, the Orcs are on this pilgrimage to find peace and build harmony which was taken away from them so long ago. They are tired of war. Even Thrall says "are we just destined to fight forever?" and this precisely strikes me as one of the core messages of what is really just a war game. This was finally a war game that has just had it with being a war game, and where Thrall does unimaginable things like trusting a complete stranger and his tribe of bull-creatures to guide them through unknown lands, or have heroes like Grom Hellscream break their chains of addiction and comfort, at a heroic price. The Orcs are beautiful, man. They inspire me.
It's immensely important that this was the "Warcraft" game that chose to have a lot of heart. So many characters here so obviously love and care for each other and wish that these awful times weren't here for them. I especially remember when Muradin pleaded Arthas to just give up on his lust on vengeance and lead his men home. Or how the Night Elves unambigously work towards the preservation of the world around them that they converse and help heal literal talking bears, and are so willing to protect the world they would even sacrifice their immortality for the sake of it. The Dryad units are being treated as these complete ditzes by fans, but I love how they're some of the most wholesome and innocent units around. They don't care for war or violence at all and just want to devote themselves to growth and nurture. By deciding to stand apart from its previous games, "Warcraft III" found a lot of maturity and good will by emphasising how love, friendship, heroism, renewal, discovery, authenticity and selflessness can win over war, destruction and death. The best symbol of that is the final level, which just presented a dream come true for me, as a child who was a fan of this series.
I could go on about how much of this game's story and characters are so fucking cool. They had to in order to make the Undead even passingly edible despite them being the bad guys. Villains like Kel'Thuzad are so intensely seductive and elloquent. I love how Tichondrious tries to be pragmatic and use corporate speak when dealing with his uncontrollable bloodthirsty subordinates, and how other Undead villains are so comically petty and edgy it's brilliant, and Blizzard realised that there's no way they could play the Undead's evil in a dramatically realistic tone because destruction is just so intensely absurd. But there are moments when the despair hits. When Archimonde tears the sand castle apart and wipes out an entire country of innocents is when you realise what the stakes are like in here and just how bleak and dire the outlook is. It really allows you to take the time to soak that low point in. You play villains for a time in here, and Blizzard makes sure you feel the repercussions of it and not glamourise being villains, like they used to in the previous games.
I could go on about Night Elves and how they're so obviously inspired by the crude, disfiguring animalism of "Princess Mononoke". The Orcs turned into complete pussies at the sight of them the moment their heads started getting shafted and ripped from their necks by supersonic arrows, and then get eaten by tall sexy amazon women. Cenarius is the Forest God and he'll make nature your nightmare, with vines grow and tear your buildings from the inside-out.
I could go on about Illidan. The coolest character ever to exist, with the coolest and most soul-shattering voicelines, when he talks with quivering and solemn breath about evil drawing close and demons being nearby. He triumphed where Arthas had failed cos he couldn't lose his cool and was far-sighted and calculating probably more than any other character in the story. It goes in his favour that he's one of the most memorable characters in the entire Warcraft universe and yet he was only playable for just a single mission. I feel sorry for my Arthas boiz(I love you) cos you get to know Arthas for two entire campaigns for people to build love for him, while Illidan won over the hearts of millions cos of just being featured in one single level.
When it comes to the story, the gameplay, the entire expereince, it is also essential to try out its expansion pack, "The Frozen Throne", but with one very important caveat: The game is so significantly improved with the expansion that many don't think "Warcraft III" is "complete" without it, and it has huge repercussions because the multiplayer meta changed from the ground up that you shouldn't devote too much of your time trying to learn strategy for "Reign of Chaos": Some dominant sticking points of the meta before "The Frozen Throne" is that the Night Elves are too weak and rely on skillful magic use because they can barely heal themselves, the Undead make it easy to be on braindead autopilot despite dropping like flies, and the Orcs are way overpowered, even without dedicated healing units, and you should watch out if an AI opponent controls Orcs. The old meta also put a lot greater focus on micromanaging units(which might be a cool thing depending on who you are), small skirmishes and lots and lots of wandering. It's the kind of game where it was vital to always have your entire army outside of the base and that had repercussions by allowing player bases to be sitting ducks ripe for the taking. "The Frozen Throne" changed this meta and other player habits significantly, and is going to be something I will address in the review for it.
The World Editor was also crucially simpler and less versatile before the expansion and in truth you couldn't do a lot with it. It wasn't advanced enough to provide so many of the incredible custom maps that were made famous on The Hive Workshop, having entire sprawling fan-made campaigns or other game modes and genres(such as the popular "Defense of the Ancients"). The custom maps in "Reign of Chaos" only had the selection of melee maps plus two fairly decent scenario maps - one of them was a hilarious and cute arcade game about dodging projectiles, but still none of them hold a candle to the depth and intricacy of the custom games made through the expansion pack.
If you're a younger gamer and you've never heard of Warcraft prior to "World of Warcraft", or have ever played a traditional base-building RTS, please lend an ear and see if you can give this game a shot. It's the best and easiest game to introduce a new player to RTSes, and the game displays so much beauty in the way it was hand-crafted. The World Editor lets you see every single model, texture and voice-line from up close, and it even shows you the way the campaign story missions have been built from the inside-out. It's the kind of game that shows traces about its creation process everywhere, and that absolutely inspires you to create games and worlds of your own. I'm an artist, and I have to admit I still draw a lot of artistic inspiration from Warcraft's visuals and craftsmanship, and I learned a lot of valuable lessons on design, programming, sound design and storytelling through it. I promise it's going to be one of those games that will carry lessons and insight for you for the rest of your life.
1987
PERSONAL BEST: 108,300pts
The two mumbling beefcakes of 80s Hollywood are together at last! With the mission tostorm straight into Nicaragua and violently usurp their current socialist government on the behalf of Ronald Reagan and initiate an entire massacre on civilians kick some alien ass in New Zeland in the year 2633, this arcade shooting cornerstone completely embodies Dukie's credo of shooting everything on sight, being tough, and chewing bubble gum.
It has to be said this is an evolution of Konami's many shooter games(evolving straight from "Scramble" up through "Gradius"), that sticks to the principle that you need the power-ups and that once you die once, you lose them all and are pretty much a gonner. It's a requirement to have power-ons all of the time, and it is damning every time you get something that is not the spread gun or machine gun. Often these swaps get irreplaceable, and you need them especially for the later-game bosses, although they're so hard they'll reduce you to using pea shooters anyway.
Like "OutRun", I think "Contra" can be credited for managing to invigorate the 16-bit artstyle. The jungles are pretty and lush, the sprites of the heroes are wonderfuly recognisable, crisp, realistic, and you can imagine the whole package being seamlessly translated for the Mega Drive. And also the alien designs can get really yucky and disturbingly organic. It's so funny and artful how this pastiche on "Commando" so seamlessly blends into the finale of "Alien", and just couple it with early forerunners of gaping stone faces shooting fireballs that are so obviously an inspiration for Sega's "Altered Beast".
"Contra" officially has 7 stages but with the change of landscapes it really feels more like 10. As a casual player it is perfectly achievable to reach(or even beat) about half the game, but then it just starts being very brazen and uneven with its difficulty spikes. Some segments are obviously breather portions meant for relaxation, just so that some insurmountable, bullet-spamming boss is waiting around the corner. But it was an arcade game, what can I say, and people must have been compelled to get to memorise all of these patterns, using only the advantage of your high platforming flexibility in tow. I know I certainly was, and every single time I took it on the hand, I always felt I could reach a step forward, and that excercising that excitement is certainly a mark of good game design.
(Glitchwave project #022)
The two mumbling beefcakes of 80s Hollywood are together at last! With the mission to
It has to be said this is an evolution of Konami's many shooter games(evolving straight from "Scramble" up through "Gradius"), that sticks to the principle that you need the power-ups and that once you die once, you lose them all and are pretty much a gonner. It's a requirement to have power-ons all of the time, and it is damning every time you get something that is not the spread gun or machine gun. Often these swaps get irreplaceable, and you need them especially for the later-game bosses, although they're so hard they'll reduce you to using pea shooters anyway.
Like "OutRun", I think "Contra" can be credited for managing to invigorate the 16-bit artstyle. The jungles are pretty and lush, the sprites of the heroes are wonderfuly recognisable, crisp, realistic, and you can imagine the whole package being seamlessly translated for the Mega Drive. And also the alien designs can get really yucky and disturbingly organic. It's so funny and artful how this pastiche on "Commando" so seamlessly blends into the finale of "Alien", and just couple it with early forerunners of gaping stone faces shooting fireballs that are so obviously an inspiration for Sega's "Altered Beast".
"Contra" officially has 7 stages but with the change of landscapes it really feels more like 10. As a casual player it is perfectly achievable to reach(or even beat) about half the game, but then it just starts being very brazen and uneven with its difficulty spikes. Some segments are obviously breather portions meant for relaxation, just so that some insurmountable, bullet-spamming boss is waiting around the corner. But it was an arcade game, what can I say, and people must have been compelled to get to memorise all of these patterns, using only the advantage of your high platforming flexibility in tow. I know I certainly was, and every single time I took it on the hand, I always felt I could reach a step forward, and that excercising that excitement is certainly a mark of good game design.
(Glitchwave project #022)
Please get this mouseclick mod:
https://www.gamepressure.com/download.asp?ID=73651
It makes the playing experience SO much better.
Honestly I'm not really willing to write a full Warcraft 1 review right now, even though I fucking love the game more than it deserves and I beat it multiple times, and I pored a lot of hours into researching it for the betterment of the entire Internet(but those are stories for another day), but I will just make it brief: Warcraft, even with the dumb story twists in WoW, even with the attrocities that Blizzard regularly commits, is a stunning and captivating story that impacted my life. I might have started with Warcraft 2 but I have immense respect for the OG and I still play it every now and then. It might be far from a relevant game anymore but this little gem was the source of many of my inspirations and fueled my career milestones in a strange way. So that's why I feel so connected and grateful to it.
So I'd really like to see all the hacking efforts people made in making this game that much more accessible. The mouse mod is a fine start. I want to see how much further it can go.
P.S.: If you've ever contemplating an interest into getting into this whole "Warcraft" thing but are worried about the size of the games and its universe, please talk to me. I should know, I'm a big fan since 1995 and the interest in it hasn't gone down by one bit.
https://www.gamepressure.com/download.asp?ID=73651
It makes the playing experience SO much better.
Honestly I'm not really willing to write a full Warcraft 1 review right now, even though I fucking love the game more than it deserves and I beat it multiple times, and I pored a lot of hours into researching it for the betterment of the entire Internet(but those are stories for another day), but I will just make it brief: Warcraft, even with the dumb story twists in WoW, even with the attrocities that Blizzard regularly commits, is a stunning and captivating story that impacted my life. I might have started with Warcraft 2 but I have immense respect for the OG and I still play it every now and then. It might be far from a relevant game anymore but this little gem was the source of many of my inspirations and fueled my career milestones in a strange way. So that's why I feel so connected and grateful to it.
So I'd really like to see all the hacking efforts people made in making this game that much more accessible. The mouse mod is a fine start. I want to see how much further it can go.
P.S.: If you've ever contemplating an interest into getting into this whole "Warcraft" thing but are worried about the size of the games and its universe, please talk to me. I should know, I'm a big fan since 1995 and the interest in it hasn't gone down by one bit.
The Evangelion of strategy games
1986
Every 100 years, Count Dracula arises in Transylvania in a black mass ritual brought by his circle of heretics. He terrorises and abducts the populace, spreading black magic of cruelty. Will you, a descendant of a family line of vampire killers, be able to stop him?
I remember when Arin Hanson used to talk about game mechanics and how "Akumajou Dracula"(or "Castlevania") has wonderful tactility. The whip mechanic is snappy and feels right, and so do all the jumping and climbing trajectories, rigid as they are. Both crouching and jumping have a lot of practical and mechanical use, and both help you either avoid harm or reach out with your whip, predating this necessity in Zelda II. And it's great how everything in this game tries to be damn campy. I imagine the bats flying towards you are the same rubbery bats on a string coming in the 1931 "Dracula" film, and you got the whole cavalcade of stock Halloween creatures like the mummy, the Frankenstein monster, creatures from the Black Lagoon, skeletons and strange hunchbacks. I'm rather surprised there was no room for werewolves here, but what's in is cheesy fun nontheless.
And many of these enemies are utter dickheads. "Castlevania"'s so notorious for its difficulty. The Medusa often get paired with either bottomless pits or some projectile-wielding enemy. Medusa heads suck. And the strange, monkey-like hunchbacks especially suck during the run for your life at level 4, which also plays nasty environmental tricks by fooling you what's a real floor and what's a background element. So many of these foes seem insurmountable at first, and you can definitely study their patterns if you take your time and see how they react to what - but for a game as breezy and brief as this and with no window for some downtime(throug all of the game you're under a strict clock), it kills the mood in me to actually take my time with them. And often I get the daggers 90% of the time, which is just the lamest subweapon.
The visual direction of this game though, is truly unparalleled. I love how there's a small diagram of the castle every time inbetween levels, showing you where you are in that "SMB3" fashion. So many resources blend seamlessly to construct this truly ancient, gothic space, with magnificent chandeliers, pillars, and archways everywhere. They always blend with the foreground elements seamlessly which drives you to a double take. And level 4 has this superb view of Dracula's hideout in the distance, under the moonlight. It's such a powerful moment and a deliberate artistic choice to devote so many precious kilobytes of memory space to just a graphical element, putting even more emphasis in the oncoming culmination.
When you fight with Dracula in his darkened lair, it's so cold and stark. He appears silently and cuts a quarter of your health. It's the one part in the game where I would welcome the high precision needed to defeat Dracula, since every moment and every attempt to place one of the 16 shots on him is filled with more suspense than a cowboy standoff.
Drac puts out a cruel fight, but it's really the rest of the game's difficulty that deters me from this otherwise classic game and makes me moan with displeasure when I "have to" play it, and I'm far from the only person to feel this way. I'd feel more at ease if many of the perils weren't such bullshitty(hello, inflated spike hitboxes!), and if I didn't get the feeling that hearts were so scarce that I need to hang onto them for dear life.
Fortunately there are ways around it!
So first of all I did play this in the Famicom Disk System release. It has a saving system just like "Zelda" that is so cool. But it still keeps its merciless difficulty, which I do think is too much for the first time player. When Konami ported this game to the cartridge in Japan(and I mean Japan ONLY), they did put an added easy mode, which is a blessing. This easy mode makes bosses and enemies a lot easier to traverse, and it also gives you bonus hearts so you actually won't be scared of using the side-arms and removes Simon's damage blowback entirely: Meaning you can say goodbye to falling in pits, if you still have jumping precision.
A thing that takes it even further is "Castlevania Simplified", which is a hack for the US cartridge release(for the "Revision A" ROM) that also boosts your power, your hearts, gets rid of pits entirely(a bit too much for my taste), and lowers the enemy spam. For a lot of people accustomed to the OG this would be stupidly easy, but I think it's a hack that's amazingly servicable for people who are daunted by the difficulty and feel like they can't play "Castlevania" because of it. Well guess what - this hack's for you!
If I had to re-frame all of these versions into genuine difficulty levels I would say:
Easy mode: "Castlevania Simplified" hack
Medium mode: Japanese cartridge release, easy mode
Hard mode: Just regular ol' "Castlevania"
Expert mode: Beating "Castlevania" once and doing the second quest after it
Also, for the FDS version - no super cool and special music arrangements this time, I'm afraid. I think the music used none of the FDS sound channel gear and is instead completely identical to the NES chiptune. So besides the saving system I'd say the NES and FDS versions are completely identical.
(Glitchwave project #020)
I remember when Arin Hanson used to talk about game mechanics and how "Akumajou Dracula"(or "Castlevania") has wonderful tactility. The whip mechanic is snappy and feels right, and so do all the jumping and climbing trajectories, rigid as they are. Both crouching and jumping have a lot of practical and mechanical use, and both help you either avoid harm or reach out with your whip, predating this necessity in Zelda II. And it's great how everything in this game tries to be damn campy. I imagine the bats flying towards you are the same rubbery bats on a string coming in the 1931 "Dracula" film, and you got the whole cavalcade of stock Halloween creatures like the mummy, the Frankenstein monster, creatures from the Black Lagoon, skeletons and strange hunchbacks. I'm rather surprised there was no room for werewolves here, but what's in is cheesy fun nontheless.
And many of these enemies are utter dickheads. "Castlevania"'s so notorious for its difficulty. The Medusa often get paired with either bottomless pits or some projectile-wielding enemy. Medusa heads suck. And the strange, monkey-like hunchbacks especially suck during the run for your life at level 4, which also plays nasty environmental tricks by fooling you what's a real floor and what's a background element. So many of these foes seem insurmountable at first, and you can definitely study their patterns if you take your time and see how they react to what - but for a game as breezy and brief as this and with no window for some downtime(throug all of the game you're under a strict clock), it kills the mood in me to actually take my time with them. And often I get the daggers 90% of the time, which is just the lamest subweapon.
The visual direction of this game though, is truly unparalleled. I love how there's a small diagram of the castle every time inbetween levels, showing you where you are in that "SMB3" fashion. So many resources blend seamlessly to construct this truly ancient, gothic space, with magnificent chandeliers, pillars, and archways everywhere. They always blend with the foreground elements seamlessly which drives you to a double take. And level 4 has this superb view of Dracula's hideout in the distance, under the moonlight. It's such a powerful moment and a deliberate artistic choice to devote so many precious kilobytes of memory space to just a graphical element, putting even more emphasis in the oncoming culmination.
When you fight with Dracula in his darkened lair, it's so cold and stark. He appears silently and cuts a quarter of your health. It's the one part in the game where I would welcome the high precision needed to defeat Dracula, since every moment and every attempt to place one of the 16 shots on him is filled with more suspense than a cowboy standoff.
Drac puts out a cruel fight, but it's really the rest of the game's difficulty that deters me from this otherwise classic game and makes me moan with displeasure when I "have to" play it, and I'm far from the only person to feel this way. I'd feel more at ease if many of the perils weren't such bullshitty(hello, inflated spike hitboxes!), and if I didn't get the feeling that hearts were so scarce that I need to hang onto them for dear life.
Fortunately there are ways around it!
So first of all I did play this in the Famicom Disk System release. It has a saving system just like "Zelda" that is so cool. But it still keeps its merciless difficulty, which I do think is too much for the first time player. When Konami ported this game to the cartridge in Japan(and I mean Japan ONLY), they did put an added easy mode, which is a blessing. This easy mode makes bosses and enemies a lot easier to traverse, and it also gives you bonus hearts so you actually won't be scared of using the side-arms and removes Simon's damage blowback entirely: Meaning you can say goodbye to falling in pits, if you still have jumping precision.
A thing that takes it even further is "Castlevania Simplified", which is a hack for the US cartridge release(for the "Revision A" ROM) that also boosts your power, your hearts, gets rid of pits entirely(a bit too much for my taste), and lowers the enemy spam. For a lot of people accustomed to the OG this would be stupidly easy, but I think it's a hack that's amazingly servicable for people who are daunted by the difficulty and feel like they can't play "Castlevania" because of it. Well guess what - this hack's for you!
If I had to re-frame all of these versions into genuine difficulty levels I would say:
Easy mode: "Castlevania Simplified" hack
Medium mode: Japanese cartridge release, easy mode
Hard mode: Just regular ol' "Castlevania"
Expert mode: Beating "Castlevania" once and doing the second quest after it
Also, for the FDS version - no super cool and special music arrangements this time, I'm afraid. I think the music used none of the FDS sound channel gear and is instead completely identical to the NES chiptune. So besides the saving system I'd say the NES and FDS versions are completely identical.
(Glitchwave project #020)
1986
Personal best: 6,109,550pts
I struggle to think of a more unified game in terms of presentation and gameplay. "OutRun" is so much more than a game, it's a perfect pearl.
You ride a Ferrari Testarossa with your girlfiend and the objective is to simply reach checkpoints before the time runs out, a structure that hasn't changed since Sega's "Hang-On" from the previous year, and even though gameplay-wise it hasn't changed much either(except having maybe slightly tighter controls), "OutRun" has fantastic presentation. It's the little things that count, like being able to change the song you want to play on the station(most will agree that "Passing Breeze" is still the best), riding on a seaside with idle clouds, where you can smell the salt and envision the seagulls in the air, and having the choice to drive in various European locales on the map of your choosing, which all have beautiful scenery for a 1986 arcade game. You can visit the Swiss grasslands, the wheat fields and vineyards in France, admire the German autobahn, the canyons of Spain, the dilapidated towns from pre-WW1 times, and the dunes of the Dakar rally. Yu Suzuki has stated that he considered this a driving game than a racing game, and getting submerged inside it is marvelously zen and a moment you wish you can keep forever. That, to me, is a hallmark of a really ingenious game.
The arcade version and its timer are completely brutal, but that's not what matters, does it? It's the unforgettable experience of riding next to sea waves along with other people's cars, trucks, reading whatever billboards you're passing by, shifting gears in time before you crash. And even if you lose, the sighs you let out at the warm sunset of the game over screen, are not of frustration: but out of relief and contentedness, because you just witnessed an unforgettable experience. You deck out your initials and then quit just as the sun sets over the cozy, glamorous world of "OutRun". The palmtree backrdop indeed makes all the difference between resentfulness and peacefulness - I never get angry when I lose at "OutRun".
That's not to say this game wouldn't benefit from a free ride mode, which the dip switches certainly do have on offer. Even better is the open source port called "Cannonball", which has been made for so many platforms including Windows and the Wii(with motion controls!), which adds so many perks such as picking single tracks, a 60fps mode, perspective changes, and even has a track editor. This is a package you don't wanna miss.
(Glitchwave project #019)
I struggle to think of a more unified game in terms of presentation and gameplay. "OutRun" is so much more than a game, it's a perfect pearl.
You ride a Ferrari Testarossa with your girlfiend and the objective is to simply reach checkpoints before the time runs out, a structure that hasn't changed since Sega's "Hang-On" from the previous year, and even though gameplay-wise it hasn't changed much either(except having maybe slightly tighter controls), "OutRun" has fantastic presentation. It's the little things that count, like being able to change the song you want to play on the station(most will agree that "Passing Breeze" is still the best), riding on a seaside with idle clouds, where you can smell the salt and envision the seagulls in the air, and having the choice to drive in various European locales on the map of your choosing, which all have beautiful scenery for a 1986 arcade game. You can visit the Swiss grasslands, the wheat fields and vineyards in France, admire the German autobahn, the canyons of Spain, the dilapidated towns from pre-WW1 times, and the dunes of the Dakar rally. Yu Suzuki has stated that he considered this a driving game than a racing game, and getting submerged inside it is marvelously zen and a moment you wish you can keep forever. That, to me, is a hallmark of a really ingenious game.
The arcade version and its timer are completely brutal, but that's not what matters, does it? It's the unforgettable experience of riding next to sea waves along with other people's cars, trucks, reading whatever billboards you're passing by, shifting gears in time before you crash. And even if you lose, the sighs you let out at the warm sunset of the game over screen, are not of frustration: but out of relief and contentedness, because you just witnessed an unforgettable experience. You deck out your initials and then quit just as the sun sets over the cozy, glamorous world of "OutRun". The palmtree backrdop indeed makes all the difference between resentfulness and peacefulness - I never get angry when I lose at "OutRun".
That's not to say this game wouldn't benefit from a free ride mode, which the dip switches certainly do have on offer. Even better is the open source port called "Cannonball", which has been made for so many platforms including Windows and the Wii(with motion controls!), which adds so many perks such as picking single tracks, a 60fps mode, perspective changes, and even has a track editor. This is a package you don't wanna miss.
(Glitchwave project #019)
1986
Personal best: 159,280pts
"Bubble Bobble" is a precious cinnamon roll of cuteness, atested with its cartoony sprites of dinosaurs fighting humanoid contraptions, winning impossible amounts of saccharine fruits and snacks and the irresistable theme song. It is also a gameplay that hits all the right spots without being merciless, offering a quick, easy and uncompromising fun.
You by yourself, or with another player cooperatively, clear off enemies from the levels by shooting bubbles. The bubbles engulf the enemies and trap them, which you can then either jump into to pop and defeat them(in a chain link with other nearby enemies for bonus scores), or you can find other uses for the bubbles, such as climbing or using specific power-ups to get rid of enemies in creative ways, like causing floods, lightning bolts, or setting the floor ablaze.
All versions of the game offer 100 levels with widely differing platform layout, making each map distinctly situational, and where the real challenge in progressing through the game comes from however best you can use the surroundings to your advantage. The way the levels teach you the functions of power-ups is very gradual and easy-paced, but will then demand you show your expertise in the later levels HARD. There are often maps which offer a specific power-up(for example level 88 conveniently places all the enemies in a pit to be lit on fire), or other maps where you have to take tactical precaution and know from which side of the map to strike, weighting the risk of hunting a power up that skips levels(or in particular the potions that offer bonus rounds are a life-saver), and others that rely on high-class platforming skills where you literally have to climb your way using your own bubbles. Here and then the levels are peppered with boss battles that you can only beat with power-ups, and are so dynamic that they bring some freshness after tens of, frankly, stale levels and enemy placements.
The game has multiple endings where the good ones are achievable through picking up secret doors to secret stages. Discovering the secret doors without a walkthrough is impossible as the hints to their whereabouts were only published in the Japanese version of the game, and even then they were really convoluted. The game running has so many secret variables running behind the surface that it effectively takes from the "Tower of Druaga" design book, which can be endlessly frustrating for ardent completionists. The secret doors, when attempted to be reached, do offer unique gameplay rules, as some are triggered by specific events, such as say, not harming any enemies, or defeating a certain number of enemies at the same time.
The arcade version of the game is the pinnacle version with its high-end sound and graphics, making it definitive. Most people know the NES port the most which is an alright port that gets the job and all the level mechanics intact. The best port is the Master System version, however, which stays completely true to all the rules, graphics and sets of the arcade version, but adds its own special cutscenes for the endings, as well as another set of a hundred levels, the Super Mode which is available in the arcade edition through cheats. However, the Super Mode is just the same 100 levels just with different enemies swapped, to varying difficulty. A lot of the levels are actually made easier this way, but the Master System version is also less suited for two-player runs.
Bubble Bobble is easy to pick up and play because it is so immediate, but chances are both you and your friend will easily be bored after about 10 levels or so. Difficulty really begins to spike in the 20s or 30s where you have to really know how to get the hang of bubble climbing, and will be a future source of many game over screens. Luckily you can always continue from your current level, but very few people would be patient to beat all 100 levels in one go because of its repetitive gameplay. In every other regard though, it's a true classic.
(Glitchwave project #018)
"Bubble Bobble" is a precious cinnamon roll of cuteness, atested with its cartoony sprites of dinosaurs fighting humanoid contraptions, winning impossible amounts of saccharine fruits and snacks and the irresistable theme song. It is also a gameplay that hits all the right spots without being merciless, offering a quick, easy and uncompromising fun.
You by yourself, or with another player cooperatively, clear off enemies from the levels by shooting bubbles. The bubbles engulf the enemies and trap them, which you can then either jump into to pop and defeat them(in a chain link with other nearby enemies for bonus scores), or you can find other uses for the bubbles, such as climbing or using specific power-ups to get rid of enemies in creative ways, like causing floods, lightning bolts, or setting the floor ablaze.
All versions of the game offer 100 levels with widely differing platform layout, making each map distinctly situational, and where the real challenge in progressing through the game comes from however best you can use the surroundings to your advantage. The way the levels teach you the functions of power-ups is very gradual and easy-paced, but will then demand you show your expertise in the later levels HARD. There are often maps which offer a specific power-up(for example level 88 conveniently places all the enemies in a pit to be lit on fire), or other maps where you have to take tactical precaution and know from which side of the map to strike, weighting the risk of hunting a power up that skips levels(or in particular the potions that offer bonus rounds are a life-saver), and others that rely on high-class platforming skills where you literally have to climb your way using your own bubbles. Here and then the levels are peppered with boss battles that you can only beat with power-ups, and are so dynamic that they bring some freshness after tens of, frankly, stale levels and enemy placements.
The game has multiple endings where the good ones are achievable through picking up secret doors to secret stages. Discovering the secret doors without a walkthrough is impossible as the hints to their whereabouts were only published in the Japanese version of the game, and even then they were really convoluted. The game running has so many secret variables running behind the surface that it effectively takes from the "Tower of Druaga" design book, which can be endlessly frustrating for ardent completionists. The secret doors, when attempted to be reached, do offer unique gameplay rules, as some are triggered by specific events, such as say, not harming any enemies, or defeating a certain number of enemies at the same time.
The arcade version of the game is the pinnacle version with its high-end sound and graphics, making it definitive. Most people know the NES port the most which is an alright port that gets the job and all the level mechanics intact. The best port is the Master System version, however, which stays completely true to all the rules, graphics and sets of the arcade version, but adds its own special cutscenes for the endings, as well as another set of a hundred levels, the Super Mode which is available in the arcade edition through cheats. However, the Super Mode is just the same 100 levels just with different enemies swapped, to varying difficulty. A lot of the levels are actually made easier this way, but the Master System version is also less suited for two-player runs.
Bubble Bobble is easy to pick up and play because it is so immediate, but chances are both you and your friend will easily be bored after about 10 levels or so. Difficulty really begins to spike in the 20s or 30s where you have to really know how to get the hang of bubble climbing, and will be a future source of many game over screens. Luckily you can always continue from your current level, but very few people would be patient to beat all 100 levels in one go because of its repetitive gameplay. In every other regard though, it's a true classic.
(Glitchwave project #018)
1986
I wrote a small guide for new players: https://pastebin.com/ULNp3dv0
The vast, starry horizon at the title screen coldly glares at the player as the sharp radar pings remind you of the graveness of the mission: To navigate a mysterious, desolate planet and find and eliminate Mother Brain who has the designs to reproduce the deadly metroids - large, parasitic airborne aliens able to feed on the very essence of life, and whose biology represents the very danger for all of galactic civilisation. A chilling introductory sequence like this is something that has never been encountered by any player before, and immediately signals that precaution and wonder is at the turn before you press the start button. This game is so much beyond an adventure.
Many things have been written about "Metroid", and at the time of its release I truly consider it had been the greatest game ever made. It's an adventure that goes beyond Zelda's previously organised set of dungeons, and instead you only have one big world to get lost in, where many of the points are immediately inaccessible until you get the necessary technical upgrades, in a game genre since called a 'metroidvania'. With a free-form and open setting like this, it becomes chill and relaxing to play "Metroid". You don't feel like you're in a hurry and you can take your time getting intimate and familiar with the large caverns of Brinstar and Norfair, as they become places you will revisit countless times and where upon mastery you'll be able to thrive in them.
"Metroid" is a pioneer for expanding the action platformer gaming far beyond its perfect jumping-and-shooting mechanics. It is a vast, imaginative world with alien, organic imagery and highly detailed pixel art. The sprite art for the tall, grim statues, the metroids, and Samus' walking and running animation were all peak for the Famicom's development, and the ease of controls and the endless stocks of identifiable secrets, with there being a secret passage at nearly every corner, make it immediately addicting and something you can't put off playing, a hallmark for any quality game. If you come here fresh from completing the first "Zelda", you will now the importance of bombing suspicious looking walls, floors and ceilings, and when a dead-end has more than meets the eye.
You really do have to exercise caution and have resources available to you to cushion your journey. The manual offers a basic map that you can expand upon, and I recommend any player to document and draw their own, because you'll need to know the spots you bypass or need to revisit, and the secret entrances you find. Many of the game's corridors are intentionally designed to be mazes that will throw the player out of the loop, as you encounter so many corridors that are literally copy-pasted for space constraints, and are placed just in front of the boss entrances to try to divert you from finding them. Sometimes you will find dead-ends. Sometimes there will be spots in the game where you can get easily stuck and sometimes you'll have to get crafty to reach unreachable areas. Being prepared for these things with the manual, map and guides does get you the tools you need to surmount these obstacles, but the one truly big blemish I have to fault the game for would be the lack of any complete health refills. That every start of the game begins at low health and that you have to farm enemies for it to build it back is simply unnecessary, when a game like Zelda just a few months earlier included complete health refills in fairy fountains. Although farming is in its own way meditatively enjoyable, it just takes too long and happens too often for it to really synergise with the playing experience, and is therefore a reason why I really recommend people play this with save states or rewind - or one of the third-party hacks.
Fighting the dreaded metroids at the end and facing Mother Brain in her sterile, white, smooth metallic chambers with way too many deadly organisms bubbling in the vats and multiplying, is at once punishing, surmountable, and rewarding. It is a challenging mission. Once you defeat Mother Brain and are treated to a wonderful ending complete with a cinematic, sci-fi infused scrolling credits sequence, you will be left itching for more Metroid, and that's when the game's replay value really gets to shine: Speedrunning "Metroid" gives different types of endings, and finishing Metroid in under two hours is, in a sense, a good exam to demonstrate just how much you've learned about the game and how much you've mastered it. With its eerie locations, the triumphant leitmotifs of Brinstar, and the ever-deepening sense of oppression as you find the lairs of notorious enemies, and always a hope for a game-changing power-up just around a corner, "Metroid" is a mesmerising experience and far from a game you would play once and abandon.
I got the best ending, too.
(Glitchwave project #017)
The vast, starry horizon at the title screen coldly glares at the player as the sharp radar pings remind you of the graveness of the mission: To navigate a mysterious, desolate planet and find and eliminate Mother Brain who has the designs to reproduce the deadly metroids - large, parasitic airborne aliens able to feed on the very essence of life, and whose biology represents the very danger for all of galactic civilisation. A chilling introductory sequence like this is something that has never been encountered by any player before, and immediately signals that precaution and wonder is at the turn before you press the start button. This game is so much beyond an adventure.
Many things have been written about "Metroid", and at the time of its release I truly consider it had been the greatest game ever made. It's an adventure that goes beyond Zelda's previously organised set of dungeons, and instead you only have one big world to get lost in, where many of the points are immediately inaccessible until you get the necessary technical upgrades, in a game genre since called a 'metroidvania'. With a free-form and open setting like this, it becomes chill and relaxing to play "Metroid". You don't feel like you're in a hurry and you can take your time getting intimate and familiar with the large caverns of Brinstar and Norfair, as they become places you will revisit countless times and where upon mastery you'll be able to thrive in them.
"Metroid" is a pioneer for expanding the action platformer gaming far beyond its perfect jumping-and-shooting mechanics. It is a vast, imaginative world with alien, organic imagery and highly detailed pixel art. The sprite art for the tall, grim statues, the metroids, and Samus' walking and running animation were all peak for the Famicom's development, and the ease of controls and the endless stocks of identifiable secrets, with there being a secret passage at nearly every corner, make it immediately addicting and something you can't put off playing, a hallmark for any quality game. If you come here fresh from completing the first "Zelda", you will now the importance of bombing suspicious looking walls, floors and ceilings, and when a dead-end has more than meets the eye.
You really do have to exercise caution and have resources available to you to cushion your journey. The manual offers a basic map that you can expand upon, and I recommend any player to document and draw their own, because you'll need to know the spots you bypass or need to revisit, and the secret entrances you find. Many of the game's corridors are intentionally designed to be mazes that will throw the player out of the loop, as you encounter so many corridors that are literally copy-pasted for space constraints, and are placed just in front of the boss entrances to try to divert you from finding them. Sometimes you will find dead-ends. Sometimes there will be spots in the game where you can get easily stuck and sometimes you'll have to get crafty to reach unreachable areas. Being prepared for these things with the manual, map and guides does get you the tools you need to surmount these obstacles, but the one truly big blemish I have to fault the game for would be the lack of any complete health refills. That every start of the game begins at low health and that you have to farm enemies for it to build it back is simply unnecessary, when a game like Zelda just a few months earlier included complete health refills in fairy fountains. Although farming is in its own way meditatively enjoyable, it just takes too long and happens too often for it to really synergise with the playing experience, and is therefore a reason why I really recommend people play this with save states or rewind - or one of the third-party hacks.
Fighting the dreaded metroids at the end and facing Mother Brain in her sterile, white, smooth metallic chambers with way too many deadly organisms bubbling in the vats and multiplying, is at once punishing, surmountable, and rewarding. It is a challenging mission. Once you defeat Mother Brain and are treated to a wonderful ending complete with a cinematic, sci-fi infused scrolling credits sequence, you will be left itching for more Metroid, and that's when the game's replay value really gets to shine: Speedrunning "Metroid" gives different types of endings, and finishing Metroid in under two hours is, in a sense, a good exam to demonstrate just how much you've learned about the game and how much you've mastered it. With its eerie locations, the triumphant leitmotifs of Brinstar, and the ever-deepening sense of oppression as you find the lairs of notorious enemies, and always a hope for a game-changing power-up just around a corner, "Metroid" is a mesmerising experience and far from a game you would play once and abandon.
I got the best ending, too.
(Glitchwave project #017)
I'm acclimated to Mario 2 better than most, and after finishing it(bears saying with a healthy use of the rewind feature now and then) it really doesn't deserve the sour reputation it got. And people might hate that it includes very little in genuine graphical updates or mechanical additions but a sequel/expansion of this nature wasn't unknowable back then, and so many pivotal games had sister variants that expanded it or made its gameplay more difficult(like "Championship Lode Runner" or "Ms. Pac-Man"), but SMB2 still strikes and makes its way with a lot more originality and grace than those two games.
For me, the Japanese SMB2 is kind of like "The Stanley Parable" of Mario. I'm always the first person to bemoan over a difficult game but I was astounded how much enjoyment and connection I've managed to make with SMB2 - especially after going through what seemed like an interactive meta-commentary in every single stage. Playing "Lost Levels" feels like engaging a really intimate dialogue between the developer and the player, who are both well aware of the design nuances of the first SMB. Every level becomes a meta commentary subverting or examining core features of the first game.
Every stage the developer engages the player by asking: "Ok, but what if SMB did THIS? [presents]", and it becomes a novel thing where you are allowed to see Mario's gameplay features presented and experimented on in a different light, giving you an amazing shift of perspective: What if we included the water level enemies in the land levels? What if we can make a spring that launches you super super high up? What if we made a level entirely out of those springs? What if we gave you mushrooms that were an obstacle instead of a power up?. But crucially, you also get areas and experiments that give you a lot of clemency, like: "What if we gave you a starman at this particular spot where you need to jump over a bunch of piranha plants?". It's a brilliant, shocking insight into the nature of game development and it is superbly wonderful how this is a game that allows you to be on equal footing with a developer's headspace. That point about the starman and the piranha plants is exactly one of the many points in this game where the player's power just soars: you feel like you've gained the system and that the developer made this so you could feel a rush. It's a roller coaster. The highs of it are moments that I'm much fonder of than in Mario 1, and even the ending feels much more congratulatory, celebratory and welcoming of the player.
Every single addition here was an idea extrapolation and an experimentation of SMB1 that is akin to thought experiments and mental gymnastics and for me it is more quizzical than trying. Because of this, I've never seen the "Lost Levels" as cruel or tough, aside from the really inconvenient oversight that there is no way to save progress in the game, but instead you'll have to leave your NES powered on overnight. There are far crueler games on the NES: The basic "Mega Man" games will give you tons of unnecessary stress and I'm convinced "Zelda II" is for utter masochists. To say nothing of "Battletoads", or kusoge like "Spelunker", "Atlantis no Nazo", or the kaizo Mario hacks.
Without exaggeration: Mario 2 is hard, but not in a way people would imagine. People would imagine rows of enemies coming at you at once, shooting a swath of bullet hell pellets or having to spend an entire level just bouncing upon enemies like in the kaizo hacks, when really the difficulty is more based on placing key obstacles or enemies in testy places that are immediately observable. They are singular trick-shots, very naturally evolved from Mario 1, and not insurmountable challenges that require use of superhuman ability. Very often the tools to make it are right at your disposal.
Obviously "Lost Levels" hinges on the fact that you're familiar with the first SMB1 and that's a great backdrop to have to make an amazing exploratory meta-game of. After all, Nintendo would only do the exact same thing with Mario Maker, and hint at it in a no-small number of modern 2D Mario games. People would say that there are instances where the devs "troll" the player, but they are never cruel jokes and are just very light gotchas and temporary illusions, where usually the tools to solve it is right at your disposal. Like for example, there will be moments when you'll come across a huge dead end or a huge pit you can't leap over, but the solution it turns out is just to knock an invisible block right above you. There might be a row of spinies crawling on the floor, but you can use a koopa shell to knock an entire row of them. Plenty of these gotcha moments and gimmicks would be perfectly recycled for SMB3. Other NES games would be much more disrespectful to the player and deliberately punish them for innocent transgressions, but Mario 2 just isn't that. Not even the notorious poisonous mushrooms are that abundant - after its initial use in the first couple of levels, I've noticed that they just become quickly forgotten and discarded. They get used so rarely after World 1 and I swear that over 90% of the mushrooms in the game are normal, legitimate power-ups. Even world 8 in this game feels much fairer and more palatable than SMB1's world 8, and so many people are giving SMB1 a pass despite it being a very difficult game in its own right.
As a last point I need to mention just how utterlfy fantastic world 9 is, which you get as a reward for beating the game without using any warp zones. World 9 especially cements that it's a fun meta-commentary on Mario instead of aspiring to be the ur-kaizo. There's a whole lot of difference in intent, meaning and language used in Mario 2 that sets it apart from the kaizo community or the genre of immensely challenging games. It has more in common with developer commentaries in Valve games than "Cuphead".
If you consider yourself an enthusiast of SMB1 do give it a fair shake and get rid of the biases you might have heard. It's a great love letter and companion piece to Mario 1, but otherwise very inaccessible for casual Mario players, who have no shortage of introductory Mario games anyway.
Why yes, I did beat this game with Luigi! 💚
(Glitchwave project #016)
For me, the Japanese SMB2 is kind of like "The Stanley Parable" of Mario. I'm always the first person to bemoan over a difficult game but I was astounded how much enjoyment and connection I've managed to make with SMB2 - especially after going through what seemed like an interactive meta-commentary in every single stage. Playing "Lost Levels" feels like engaging a really intimate dialogue between the developer and the player, who are both well aware of the design nuances of the first SMB. Every level becomes a meta commentary subverting or examining core features of the first game.
Every stage the developer engages the player by asking: "Ok, but what if SMB did THIS? [presents]", and it becomes a novel thing where you are allowed to see Mario's gameplay features presented and experimented on in a different light, giving you an amazing shift of perspective: What if we included the water level enemies in the land levels? What if we can make a spring that launches you super super high up? What if we made a level entirely out of those springs? What if we gave you mushrooms that were an obstacle instead of a power up?. But crucially, you also get areas and experiments that give you a lot of clemency, like: "What if we gave you a starman at this particular spot where you need to jump over a bunch of piranha plants?". It's a brilliant, shocking insight into the nature of game development and it is superbly wonderful how this is a game that allows you to be on equal footing with a developer's headspace. That point about the starman and the piranha plants is exactly one of the many points in this game where the player's power just soars: you feel like you've gained the system and that the developer made this so you could feel a rush. It's a roller coaster. The highs of it are moments that I'm much fonder of than in Mario 1, and even the ending feels much more congratulatory, celebratory and welcoming of the player.
Every single addition here was an idea extrapolation and an experimentation of SMB1 that is akin to thought experiments and mental gymnastics and for me it is more quizzical than trying. Because of this, I've never seen the "Lost Levels" as cruel or tough, aside from the really inconvenient oversight that there is no way to save progress in the game, but instead you'll have to leave your NES powered on overnight. There are far crueler games on the NES: The basic "Mega Man" games will give you tons of unnecessary stress and I'm convinced "Zelda II" is for utter masochists. To say nothing of "Battletoads", or kusoge like "Spelunker", "Atlantis no Nazo", or the kaizo Mario hacks.
Without exaggeration: Mario 2 is hard, but not in a way people would imagine. People would imagine rows of enemies coming at you at once, shooting a swath of bullet hell pellets or having to spend an entire level just bouncing upon enemies like in the kaizo hacks, when really the difficulty is more based on placing key obstacles or enemies in testy places that are immediately observable. They are singular trick-shots, very naturally evolved from Mario 1, and not insurmountable challenges that require use of superhuman ability. Very often the tools to make it are right at your disposal.
Obviously "Lost Levels" hinges on the fact that you're familiar with the first SMB1 and that's a great backdrop to have to make an amazing exploratory meta-game of. After all, Nintendo would only do the exact same thing with Mario Maker, and hint at it in a no-small number of modern 2D Mario games. People would say that there are instances where the devs "troll" the player, but they are never cruel jokes and are just very light gotchas and temporary illusions, where usually the tools to solve it is right at your disposal. Like for example, there will be moments when you'll come across a huge dead end or a huge pit you can't leap over, but the solution it turns out is just to knock an invisible block right above you. There might be a row of spinies crawling on the floor, but you can use a koopa shell to knock an entire row of them. Plenty of these gotcha moments and gimmicks would be perfectly recycled for SMB3. Other NES games would be much more disrespectful to the player and deliberately punish them for innocent transgressions, but Mario 2 just isn't that. Not even the notorious poisonous mushrooms are that abundant - after its initial use in the first couple of levels, I've noticed that they just become quickly forgotten and discarded. They get used so rarely after World 1 and I swear that over 90% of the mushrooms in the game are normal, legitimate power-ups. Even world 8 in this game feels much fairer and more palatable than SMB1's world 8, and so many people are giving SMB1 a pass despite it being a very difficult game in its own right.
As a last point I need to mention just how utterlfy fantastic world 9 is, which you get as a reward for beating the game without using any warp zones. World 9 especially cements that it's a fun meta-commentary on Mario instead of aspiring to be the ur-kaizo. There's a whole lot of difference in intent, meaning and language used in Mario 2 that sets it apart from the kaizo community or the genre of immensely challenging games. It has more in common with developer commentaries in Valve games than "Cuphead".
If you consider yourself an enthusiast of SMB1 do give it a fair shake and get rid of the biases you might have heard. It's a great love letter and companion piece to Mario 1, but otherwise very inaccessible for casual Mario players, who have no shortage of introductory Mario games anyway.
Why yes, I did beat this game with Luigi! 💚
(Glitchwave project #016)
1984
Guide for people who are new to Elite: https://pastebin.com/CgkRM05Q
A limited, but stunning space exploration game with completely fluid 3D play. You have an overworld and a huge universe to indulge in, but really your options and what to do are limited, when you mostly stick to trading things inbetween planets and shoot pirates who attack you. Buying additions makes life easier, but the primary objective of the game, reaching the Elite rank, is only attainable after you destroy about 6000 ships, which demands an impossible ammount of dedication for one person. More fascinating today as a tech demo, than as a skeleton of a gameplay that somehow wasn't even updated with Elite: Dangerous either.
On the original, BBC Micro version, the controls are nice and tight, and I recommend it. (3.5)
The ZX Spectrum version has nicer wireframe rendering(to be perfectly honest, any port after the BBC Micro hardware is an improvement), but the controls have suffered and for some reason are slippery. The steering never centers but almost as if it intentionally veers off into the sides. I don't know if the programmers tried to make the game more tricky by providing this element of instability to the controls, but it is not useful in the slightest, and makes flying and navigating the cosmic waters a lot more taxing than it already is. (1.5)
A limited, but stunning space exploration game with completely fluid 3D play. You have an overworld and a huge universe to indulge in, but really your options and what to do are limited, when you mostly stick to trading things inbetween planets and shoot pirates who attack you. Buying additions makes life easier, but the primary objective of the game, reaching the Elite rank, is only attainable after you destroy about 6000 ships, which demands an impossible ammount of dedication for one person. More fascinating today as a tech demo, than as a skeleton of a gameplay that somehow wasn't even updated with Elite: Dangerous either.
On the original, BBC Micro version, the controls are nice and tight, and I recommend it. (3.5)
The ZX Spectrum version has nicer wireframe rendering(to be perfectly honest, any port after the BBC Micro hardware is an improvement), but the controls have suffered and for some reason are slippery. The steering never centers but almost as if it intentionally veers off into the sides. I don't know if the programmers tried to make the game more tricky by providing this element of instability to the controls, but it is not useful in the slightest, and makes flying and navigating the cosmic waters a lot more taxing than it already is. (1.5)
Please read this: https://pastebin.com/CTsJzf1j
I wrote a guide for people who want to play this on the Apple II. You're going to need it.
Now Ultima IV really takes things to a whole new level.
The best way to think of Ultima IV is not as an RPG, where you go around and fight monsters for experience and gold(although that is present). It really isn't. It's more like a LucasArts adventure game where you just go around places and talk to people.
That's really the fascinating thing about Ultima IV, and it also goes a long way to give meaning to the heroic struggles usually present in RPGs and give it a virtue system inspired by(but not based on) Hinduist philosophy. The virutes themselves, Honesty, Compassion, Valor, Justice, Sacrifice, Honor, Spirituality and Humility, are penned by Lord British himself. You, the hero, are meant to travel around the world and talk to various people to learn about the eight virtues. Each of the towns symbolises one of the virtues and carries with them a recruitable character, plenty of key items or terms you need later in your quest, and a whole lot of hints you really need to get a notebook for and keep a detailed journal. Playing and figuring out the clues in this game is seriously impossible without commiting to memory every single trivial detail said by the NPCs. Being virtuous in this game is no laughing matter either, as you are expected to enact on these virtues seriously if you mean to finish the game. That means you can't attack NPCs, you can't rob houses or castles, and you can't slaughter animals(who are by definition innocent and non-evil), and breaking these pursuits carries significant penalty.
This very peaceful and exploratory style of play is really pleasant, and I wish all of the game were like that, but the endgame indeed does expect you to combat, and here the many frustrations of old Ultima games, and old RPGs in general, reveal themselves: You will be beset by random encounters that are annoying(especially in the early game, when you just want to travel from city to city). You will have to grind a lot for experience and gold, you need to keep a food supply, and you need many reagants to hols prepared magic spells. Grinding and leveling is even tougher in this game more than any previous Ultima titles because you also have this added duty of not being able to kill certain opponents, some others that will flee before you can reap the experience benefits, and the whole postulate that this game is mostly about peaceful exploration, not fighting. By the time you get ready to brave the dungeons, you will be inadequately prepared, and it shows how jarring this juxtaposition in intent is. Indeed the combat feels like it was an afterthought, and I wish Richard Garriot had the forethought and bravery to streamline or even ignore combat completely in the desisgn if he were to commit fully to an idea of a non-violent game. The endgame puzzles in the last dungeon are so brutal and obtuse that you need a walkthrough for it, and it's a shame, because the early part of the game goes like a breeze and is so sensible in comparison.
Ultima IV is originally made for the Apple II, and that's where I played it. The C64 is also a very faithful port, featuring completely identical graphics and music. If you struggle with loading the Apple II version, the C64 port is a suitable replacement for it.
The DOS versions on the other hand are an iffy matter. It has slightly more colourful EGA graphics, but no music, not unless you use a fan patch. These fan patches can bump the graphics into (for my taste gaudy and artificial) VGA mode and also provide it music in the form of MIDI files. The songs are accurate, but sadly the MIDI renditions sound really awful to my ears, it's such a far cry from the fidelity of the Apple II music that it's a deal breaker not to play the DOS version. The dungeon segments are also a putrid and ugly green instead of the Apple's clear and thoughtful clay-brown.
The NES and Master System verisions are quite weird. The NES game was retooled from the ground-up and while considerably easier, is not an accurate portrayal of the original game at all. The Master System version is quite faithful, and even tons easier/streamlined in a lot of areas(Selectable dialogue trees, overhead view in dungeons, diagonal shooting!!!), and is considered the best way to play by many, which I can't contend.
I don't know about the Atari ST or the Amiga versions. Allegedly they should be very good, and I sure hope they are.
(Glitchwave project #014)
I wrote a guide for people who want to play this on the Apple II. You're going to need it.
Now Ultima IV really takes things to a whole new level.
The best way to think of Ultima IV is not as an RPG, where you go around and fight monsters for experience and gold(although that is present). It really isn't. It's more like a LucasArts adventure game where you just go around places and talk to people.
That's really the fascinating thing about Ultima IV, and it also goes a long way to give meaning to the heroic struggles usually present in RPGs and give it a virtue system inspired by(but not based on) Hinduist philosophy. The virutes themselves, Honesty, Compassion, Valor, Justice, Sacrifice, Honor, Spirituality and Humility, are penned by Lord British himself. You, the hero, are meant to travel around the world and talk to various people to learn about the eight virtues. Each of the towns symbolises one of the virtues and carries with them a recruitable character, plenty of key items or terms you need later in your quest, and a whole lot of hints you really need to get a notebook for and keep a detailed journal. Playing and figuring out the clues in this game is seriously impossible without commiting to memory every single trivial detail said by the NPCs. Being virtuous in this game is no laughing matter either, as you are expected to enact on these virtues seriously if you mean to finish the game. That means you can't attack NPCs, you can't rob houses or castles, and you can't slaughter animals(who are by definition innocent and non-evil), and breaking these pursuits carries significant penalty.
This very peaceful and exploratory style of play is really pleasant, and I wish all of the game were like that, but the endgame indeed does expect you to combat, and here the many frustrations of old Ultima games, and old RPGs in general, reveal themselves: You will be beset by random encounters that are annoying(especially in the early game, when you just want to travel from city to city). You will have to grind a lot for experience and gold, you need to keep a food supply, and you need many reagants to hols prepared magic spells. Grinding and leveling is even tougher in this game more than any previous Ultima titles because you also have this added duty of not being able to kill certain opponents, some others that will flee before you can reap the experience benefits, and the whole postulate that this game is mostly about peaceful exploration, not fighting. By the time you get ready to brave the dungeons, you will be inadequately prepared, and it shows how jarring this juxtaposition in intent is. Indeed the combat feels like it was an afterthought, and I wish Richard Garriot had the forethought and bravery to streamline or even ignore combat completely in the desisgn if he were to commit fully to an idea of a non-violent game. The endgame puzzles in the last dungeon are so brutal and obtuse that you need a walkthrough for it, and it's a shame, because the early part of the game goes like a breeze and is so sensible in comparison.
Ultima IV is originally made for the Apple II, and that's where I played it. The C64 is also a very faithful port, featuring completely identical graphics and music. If you struggle with loading the Apple II version, the C64 port is a suitable replacement for it.
The DOS versions on the other hand are an iffy matter. It has slightly more colourful EGA graphics, but no music, not unless you use a fan patch. These fan patches can bump the graphics into (for my taste gaudy and artificial) VGA mode and also provide it music in the form of MIDI files. The songs are accurate, but sadly the MIDI renditions sound really awful to my ears, it's such a far cry from the fidelity of the Apple II music that it's a deal breaker not to play the DOS version. The dungeon segments are also a putrid and ugly green instead of the Apple's clear and thoughtful clay-brown.
The NES and Master System verisions are quite weird. The NES game was retooled from the ground-up and while considerably easier, is not an accurate portrayal of the original game at all. The Master System version is quite faithful, and even tons easier/streamlined in a lot of areas(Selectable dialogue trees, overhead view in dungeons, diagonal shooting!!!), and is considered the best way to play by many, which I can't contend.
I don't know about the Atari ST or the Amiga versions. Allegedly they should be very good, and I sure hope they are.
(Glitchwave project #014)
1983
You can now make a party of four ala "Wizardry", and also enter a Heroes/Fire Emblemesque grid-based combat situations where you basically lead your party across a field but functions similarly to Ultimas I and II. Still demands a lot of grinding as well as arbitrary "collect the four items" to get to the final dungeon.
I have to say the mess that was "Ultima II" had one thing over III: It had a sense of direction, and you knew where you were supposed to go, because Ultima II was mostly linear. With Ultima III you are once again given the immense freedom you had with "Ultima I", but this time you can't just grind and exploit a single dungeon. This time you are required to visit all the places across the world to get the ellusive items and hints, but the game offers nothing in the sense of which dungeons to tackle first, how to differentiate easy from hard dungeons, but I assume there is nothing to lose here as the dungeons are sparse, and you only really need to visit three of the eight dungeons in order to get the essential items. The rest of the floors are not worth exploring, or trying to frustratingly map. It's a good framework with an awkward, half-baked content.
On the bright side, the classes in Ultima are more fleshed out than ever, and now spellcasters are glass cannons and thieves are dexterous trap-evaders they were always meant to be. Being able to play many of your desired classes at once brings a great and liberating feeling to Ultima, as now you don't have to conform to one type of strategy or getting by with a single, archetype-bound character.
I have to say the mess that was "Ultima II" had one thing over III: It had a sense of direction, and you knew where you were supposed to go, because Ultima II was mostly linear. With Ultima III you are once again given the immense freedom you had with "Ultima I", but this time you can't just grind and exploit a single dungeon. This time you are required to visit all the places across the world to get the ellusive items and hints, but the game offers nothing in the sense of which dungeons to tackle first, how to differentiate easy from hard dungeons, but I assume there is nothing to lose here as the dungeons are sparse, and you only really need to visit three of the eight dungeons in order to get the essential items. The rest of the floors are not worth exploring, or trying to frustratingly map. It's a good framework with an awkward, half-baked content.
On the bright side, the classes in Ultima are more fleshed out than ever, and now spellcasters are glass cannons and thieves are dexterous trap-evaders they were always meant to be. Being able to play many of your desired classes at once brings a great and liberating feeling to Ultima, as now you don't have to conform to one type of strategy or getting by with a single, archetype-bound character.
Eugh, no. If "Ultima 1" offered some semblances of questing and dungeon crawling to serve as a diversion, Ultima II doesn't even give you the courtesy of a goal. It is deservingly the black sheep of the franchise.
Richard Garriott was a bit too inspired by the film Time Bandits, and he placed the setting in our own planet Earth where you can travel through different time periods utilising time gates(think of them as predecessors to moon gates), to hop from one time frame to the next, including pangea time, medieval time, modern time, post-apocalyptic time, and a time-beyond-time which contains the stronghold of Minax the Enchantress, a disciple of Mondain from the first game and this game's antagonist. The time gates mechanic could have easily made for a game that's interesting at least as a framework, but the core gameplay of Ultima 1 has been additionally tampered with to make a depressing experience.
Now, here are all the things the game does wrong:
1. Grinding is not rewarding. The enemy dodge mechanics are way too good for what they represent at the lowest character level, and you'll waste a lot of time missing your shots at enemies. Upon beating them too, their drop of experience and loot is quite miniscule, and the entire game boils down to hacking enemies in the overworld to gain gold, items, and experience.
2. The dungeons are made obsolete. Any item you could possibly get from the dungeons is transfered to random overworld drops, and there are no quests that demand diving into dungeons anymore. Even as archaic as they were in "Ultima 1" and "Akalabeth", they were certainly the most interesting part of the game, but in here they were demoted to an optional quest that any player with common sense skips entirely.
3. Over-reliance on one-use-only items. There are many random drops that the game specifically demands you build a stock of for many sequences, including depletable keys(you'd need a stock of at least 50), magical time-stopping coins which are necessary to get past the final stretch of enemies, exotic items that allow you to travel through space in a rocket(yes, that's still a thing), and a whole slew of little, critical items you just can't get enough of.
4. Lack of NPC communication. The NPCs rarely dispense you hints that are revelant or clue you in to story details, and nevermind that the world is uncreatively populated by depraved stock characters that utter one-liners long before Skyrim turned it into a meme. When you're walking into the world, you don't get the sense you're talking to characters rather than visiting a post-apocalyptic world of cardboard cut-outs. The universe in Ultima II feels empty and dead.
"Ultima II" is like a fascinating, but nauseating fever dream that is the product of what teenage fantasy and high hormones would make as an awkwardly diced-up program, which you can either consider a true purveyor of punk ideals, or an incoherent mess of adolescent world views: The game is rife with pop-cultural references of the zeitgeist, from cameos by various pop stars to the corny Cold War subjects and the villification of the Soviets. Fortunately, from this nadir Ultima would be going on a steady climb of high points where every game would be better than the last, at least to "Ultima VIII". The lore of Ultima really only begins at the 3rd game and playability at 4th, but this one is best left under a drawer in Richard Garriott's bedroom and we'd best forget this confusing mess of a game that wasn't sure what it wanted to be does not necessitate an Ultima marathoner's playthrough. Ideally someone could take Ultima II's plot frame, and tailor it to the much more fairer mechanics of Ultima IV or V.
Richard Garriott was a bit too inspired by the film Time Bandits, and he placed the setting in our own planet Earth where you can travel through different time periods utilising time gates(think of them as predecessors to moon gates), to hop from one time frame to the next, including pangea time, medieval time, modern time, post-apocalyptic time, and a time-beyond-time which contains the stronghold of Minax the Enchantress, a disciple of Mondain from the first game and this game's antagonist. The time gates mechanic could have easily made for a game that's interesting at least as a framework, but the core gameplay of Ultima 1 has been additionally tampered with to make a depressing experience.
Now, here are all the things the game does wrong:
1. Grinding is not rewarding. The enemy dodge mechanics are way too good for what they represent at the lowest character level, and you'll waste a lot of time missing your shots at enemies. Upon beating them too, their drop of experience and loot is quite miniscule, and the entire game boils down to hacking enemies in the overworld to gain gold, items, and experience.
2. The dungeons are made obsolete. Any item you could possibly get from the dungeons is transfered to random overworld drops, and there are no quests that demand diving into dungeons anymore. Even as archaic as they were in "Ultima 1" and "Akalabeth", they were certainly the most interesting part of the game, but in here they were demoted to an optional quest that any player with common sense skips entirely.
3. Over-reliance on one-use-only items. There are many random drops that the game specifically demands you build a stock of for many sequences, including depletable keys(you'd need a stock of at least 50), magical time-stopping coins which are necessary to get past the final stretch of enemies, exotic items that allow you to travel through space in a rocket(yes, that's still a thing), and a whole slew of little, critical items you just can't get enough of.
4. Lack of NPC communication. The NPCs rarely dispense you hints that are revelant or clue you in to story details, and nevermind that the world is uncreatively populated by depraved stock characters that utter one-liners long before Skyrim turned it into a meme. When you're walking into the world, you don't get the sense you're talking to characters rather than visiting a post-apocalyptic world of cardboard cut-outs. The universe in Ultima II feels empty and dead.
"Ultima II" is like a fascinating, but nauseating fever dream that is the product of what teenage fantasy and high hormones would make as an awkwardly diced-up program, which you can either consider a true purveyor of punk ideals, or an incoherent mess of adolescent world views: The game is rife with pop-cultural references of the zeitgeist, from cameos by various pop stars to the corny Cold War subjects and the villification of the Soviets. Fortunately, from this nadir Ultima would be going on a steady climb of high points where every game would be better than the last, at least to "Ultima VIII". The lore of Ultima really only begins at the 3rd game and playability at 4th, but this one is best left under a drawer in Richard Garriott's bedroom and we'd best forget this confusing mess of a game that wasn't sure what it wanted to be does not necessitate an Ultima marathoner's playthrough. Ideally someone could take Ultima II's plot frame, and tailor it to the much more fairer mechanics of Ultima IV or V.
1981
ULTIMA THULE
Too bad the game is either a thoroughly unfair or exploitive work of clumsiness, the growing pains of developing an RPG as a cultural force. Although the overworld is peppered with many randomly-generated dungeons and towns, in reality they are all the same and bear very little distinction, so you can stick to just one dungeon to grind and a couple of cities to shop from. Often you will have fetch quests that are vital to completing the game, but that they send you to uninteresting landmarks makes much of it feel so unrewarding and pointless. Overworld encounters are also annoying as mosquitos, as the same set of enemies will continually come at you just to die in three hits.
And there's the irksome transition to a space fighting sim ala "Star Raiders" which makes no sense for the game's fantasy setting. Fortunately the Ultimas that would come after would try to fix these bothersome issues.
Too bad the game is either a thoroughly unfair or exploitive work of clumsiness, the growing pains of developing an RPG as a cultural force. Although the overworld is peppered with many randomly-generated dungeons and towns, in reality they are all the same and bear very little distinction, so you can stick to just one dungeon to grind and a couple of cities to shop from. Often you will have fetch quests that are vital to completing the game, but that they send you to uninteresting landmarks makes much of it feel so unrewarding and pointless. Overworld encounters are also annoying as mosquitos, as the same set of enemies will continually come at you just to die in three hits.
And there's the irksome transition to a space fighting sim ala "Star Raiders" which makes no sense for the game's fantasy setting. Fortunately the Ultimas that would come after would try to fix these bothersome issues.
1985
Words can't convey the amount of perspective shifts in people when they've come across SMB. It is so integral to development of modern video games we often take it for granted. Before SMB, no game ever allowed you to jump on enemies, reveal secrets and shortcuts, utilise enemies as a tool, even something minor like giving a distinct sprite for screeching, but all of these are important pieces of a design that is perfectly responsive and satiates a need for form.
How could anyone come up with the bright idea of programming all these things?
Mario had the most perfectly fluent air manouveurs where you were always in control. The realistic physics and gravity of Mario were light years ahead than even the most sophisticated sci-fi shooter. The levels varied enviromentally and layout-wise, forcing you to come up with different gameplay styles. You might begin one stage as a sparse platforming segments, only to end up in a cramped underground setting full of threats, or even worse if you get in an underwater level or a looping castle stage! And if you find these too hard, there are always generous work-arounds: You can run past enemies, or use secret paths or warp-zones, or just circumvent your foes with a fire flower and some fireballs.
Even Koji Kondo's music was leagues ahead from anything, having perfect cues that fit the atmosphere of any particular level. SMB is the fine line that seperates modern video games from the casual nature of arcade games, and every platformer, heck, every action game since, would take the levels-and-lives-and-powerups approach from SMB1. It might be slightly questionable if it's a good practice for everyone to copy their core gameplay from a 1985 NES game, but, it's still the biggest form of flattery I have seen dedicated to any single piece of computer media.
(Glitchwave project #013)
How could anyone come up with the bright idea of programming all these things?
Mario had the most perfectly fluent air manouveurs where you were always in control. The realistic physics and gravity of Mario were light years ahead than even the most sophisticated sci-fi shooter. The levels varied enviromentally and layout-wise, forcing you to come up with different gameplay styles. You might begin one stage as a sparse platforming segments, only to end up in a cramped underground setting full of threats, or even worse if you get in an underwater level or a looping castle stage! And if you find these too hard, there are always generous work-arounds: You can run past enemies, or use secret paths or warp-zones, or just circumvent your foes with a fire flower and some fireballs.
Even Koji Kondo's music was leagues ahead from anything, having perfect cues that fit the atmosphere of any particular level. SMB is the fine line that seperates modern video games from the casual nature of arcade games, and every platformer, heck, every action game since, would take the levels-and-lives-and-powerups approach from SMB1. It might be slightly questionable if it's a good practice for everyone to copy their core gameplay from a 1985 NES game, but, it's still the biggest form of flattery I have seen dedicated to any single piece of computer media.
(Glitchwave project #013)