At this point in time, Rare didn’t necessarily have the best track record when it came to their releases. Sure, they did have the Battletoads franchise, which mostly managed to have pretty solid games, and they had developed several other games that hold up relatively well, but most of the rest of the games that they have developed were either uninteresting, forgotten, or just straight up terrible. It was enough for them to stay in the business for as long as they had been, but not to the point where they could reach the same level of success and notoriety as other developers, like Capcom, Squaresoft, or Konami. That is, until they were approached by Nintendo who, after seeing what they could pull off with games on the SNES using pre-rendered graphics, decided to give them a shot at developing a brand new game in a similar style so they could compete with what games like Aladdin were doing on the Genesis. They were given the reigns to make a new game in the DK franchise, which, aside from the Game Boy game that had been released earlier in the year, hadn’t really seen any major attention in nearly a decade, and thus, Rare went on to not only make a new game to reintroduce DK to modern audiences, but to also completely re-invent the character and his world, changing both DK and Rare's reputation forever. This would result in what would become the start of one of the best sub-series that DK would ever be a part of, Donkey Kong Country.

I have had quite the history with the DKC series over the years, with my first proper introduction to the series being with DKC Returns back in 2010, when I was still a dumb kid, and I had no clue as to what a Super Nintendo or a Rareware was. Eventually, I would discover the wonders of what we refer to as “retro gaming”, and it would lead to me getting my hands on a SNES for myself, with this being one of the first games that I had ever gotten with the system. I don’t think I had ever heard of the game beforehand, so needless to say, I was excited to try it out, and naturally, I ended up loving it. So now that I am playing it again after all this time, I can say that it holds up extremely well, being pretty basic for a platformer, but having some of the best design, personality, and fun challenges from any platformer of this era, and it successfully managed to reinvent DK into what he would be to this day.

The story is pretty simple, where the villainous King K. Rool steals Donkey Kong’s banana hoard with the help of his Kremlings, which makes DK very sad, so he then sets out with his nephew Diddy Kong to go beat them up and get his bananas back, which is a very silly premise, but one that fits perfectly for this series, and I am all here for it. The graphics are pretty good, not only having a pretty unique style for a SNES game at that point, but also holding up extremely well, with all of the different models for the characters, enemies, and bosses looking very charming, and the environments look just as great right alongside them, the music is fantastic, with there being plenty of different tracks that I still love to listen to to this day, such as the final boss theme, the theme for the first level, and my favorite track in the whole game, the underwater level theme (if I drowned IRL while this music played, I would be going out happy), the control is pretty great, with both DK and Diddy having the proper weight to them, and each action they can perform feels just right on a SNES controller, and the gameplay itself is pretty basic for the genre it takes on, but it still manages to be a solid experience all the way through, and I would rather a game be simple yet solid rather than experimental yet flawed.

The game is a 2D platformer, where you take control of either Donkey Kong or Diddy Kong, go through many different worlds, each one containing their own set of levels that will challenge you in plenty of different ways, defeat many different enemies and Kremlings along the way while gathering plenty of bananas, collectibles, and power-ups to assist you on your way, find many of the other members of the Kong family such as Funky Kong, the coolest motherfucker on the planet, Candy Kong, the Kong who made a lot of kids question themselves when they were younger, and Cranky Kong, the Kong who resembled everybody’s grandparents in one way or another, who will each help you out in their own way (except for Cranky, who just says you suck and makes you depressed), and take on plenty of bosses that will prove to be quite the “challenge” to overcome to get your precious bananas back. A lot of it is pretty standard for a platformer, and some who aren’t new to the genre may question why you would bother playing it with plenty of other options out there, but not only does the graphical and musical style help give this game its own unique identity that holds up extremely well to this day, but it also still manages to be a fun game all on its own, with many ways it changes up the formula and keep you going.

For every single level in the game that you go through, there is always something new and exciting waiting for you, even if the changes may not be as big as others. You start out going through a pretty typical platformer level, nothing too exciting for you to see or do, but then you get to levels where you will be going through ancient temples, fighting different foes, finding different animal buddies that can help you take out enemies and give you more momentum, and there are even extreme cases of changing up the gameplay, such as levels where you are riding minecarts, ones where you are grabbing fuel for a conveyor belt you are riding on, and ones where you are turning on the lights to keep the Satan crocodiles from waking up. While some of these gimmicks are definitely preferable over others, each one is very fun to go through and experience, all while the game makes you think more and more about what to do in each situation, even if the goal is obvious.

What also helps keep this game fun and fresh throughout the entire journey would be in terms of its difficulty. For those of you who have played this game, you know it isn’t easy in the slightest, and while I wouldn’t say it is as hard as other platformers out there like Castlevania or Ninja Gaiden, there are still plenty of the moments where the game will test your skills in pretty extreme ways, such as with precarious platforming in plenty of levels, adding gimmicks like wind and barrels you need to shoot out of, timing your jumps on minecart segments effectively, and so many more examples. However, despite how hard it can be, it never feels unfair. There is always a chance for you to figure out what to do, how to overcome these challenges, whether it be through simple trial and error, or just by taking your time, and even if you do manage to fuck up and get a game over, if you have been using save points properly, then you shouldn’t be sent too far back to where it discourages you from continuing forward. Not to mention, it feels immensely rewarding whenever you do conquer some of the challenges in this game, managing to make it to the next save point so that you can press on towards whatever challenge may lie ahead.

For those of you wanting a little more out of your platformers though, fear not, because this game isn’t just a simple “run to the end and you win” kinda deal… or at least, it doesn’t have to be, anyway. Throughout each of the level, there are plenty of different bonus areas that you can access, each one giving you some kind of bonus, whether it be with extra lives, or even by sending you to this bonus area where you can collect all of these golden tokens as one of your animal buddies for even more extra lives! Not only do they help you prepare for the journey ahead, but each one does add to your percentage total, and it can even change the ending that you get if you manage to find everything… which isn’t much different then the normal ending, but it will keep Cranky Kong from complaining too much, fucking old-ass prick. They are pretty fun to go for, not just for the sake of completion, but they can be pretty tricky to find to, making you really look around every corner to see what walls or floors are breakable, and where else you could look just in case you end up missing something along the way.

So yeah, most of this game is a blast from start to finish, but there are some gripes that I have with it that do keep it from being a perfect game in my eyes. For one thing, the boss fights FUCKING SUCK, not because they are too hard, but moreso because they are uncreative and boring. Most of them consist of just bigger versions of enemies that you fight in the regular levels, with some of these even being repeated as the game goes on, and while some of them try to mix things up a bit, it’s only methods of doing so is by either giving you a different weak spot to hit, or just by taking on an enemy gauntlet, which isn’t exactly fun to deal with. The only good boss in the entire game is the final one against K. Rool, because not only does the foe you fight actually put up a fight, but the ways in which he does and when you can hit him is pretty creative, and it keeps you on your toes.

Secondly, while most of the elements in this game are pretty fair, and you can get through a lot of the challenges easily, there are some things that were put into this game that I am just not a fan of. There’s one example of this that sticks out to me as clear as day, and that is with one of the bonus areas that you find in Oil Drum Alley. Whenever you go into one of the other bonus levels in the stage and clear it out, you have to take the barrel that you get and throw it ABOVE the wall that you would normally hit in order to clear it out, which will grant you access to another bonus area you need to go through. If you don’t know about this on your first go, and you end up missing it, you cannot go back and try getting it again, making it so that, if you are going for 101% completion, you are FUCKED. That’s not necessarily that bad for those who just wanna go through the game normally, and I myself have never had this happen to me, but the fact that it can happen at all is pretty shitty, and I’d imagine there is at least one person out there who didn’t know about it, figured out what they was missing, and had their day ruined because of it.

Overall, despite the terrible bosses and some secrets having strict punishments for not finding them, the original DKC is still a fantastic game after almost 30 years, having very fun platforming challenges, wonderful visuals and music, and plenty of things to do for those that wanna go the extra mile that you usually wouldn’t go for in a platformer like this. I would highly recommend it for those who are fans of Donkey Kong, as well as those who love 2D platformers in the first place, because while this certainly isn’t my favorite game in the series, it is still one of the best platformers you can play on the SNES, and one that would launch an equally fantastic series that would continue to get installments for years to come…………. at least, until 2014, that is. Seriously, Nintendo, bring back Donkey Kong in a brand new game already! And maybe also try to bring back the Kremlings while you’re at it, too. That would be nice.

Game #532

I think it’s safe to say that, at this point, we have reached the start of what could be considered as Double Dragon’s mid-life crisis. It has had plenty of games at this point, each of them playing very similarly to each other while changing up elements every now and then, but over time, the games in series have been getting worse and worse, whether it be because of mechanics that ruin the game rather than enhance it, poor design choices seen everywhere you look, or just simply being too bland and boring when compared to many other games from the beat-’em-up genre. So, now that we are at the point of seemingly no return, what could Double Dragon do to possibly redeem itself after a handful of misfires? Well, of course, by throwing all of that shit completely out of the window, and doing something completely different! It’s a fool-proof plan, what could possibly go wrong?! Well, if Double Dragon V: The Shadow Falls is anything to go by, everything can go wrong.

Rather than being a typical arcade-style beat-’em-up like every other game in the series, Double Dragon V was a fighting game, taking the Lee brothers and many other “well-known” faces from the series and making them fight to the death… supposedly. Not only that, but the game was primarily based on the Double Dragon cartoon series that was airing at the time… which I have never watched in my entire life, so that’s how you know that I am a proper candidate to fully judge this game. And finally, just to cement the feeling that this game was doomed from the start, it was not made by Technos, but instead by a completely different company named Leland Interactive Media, who I am almost certain you have never heard of in your life… again, what could possibly go wrong? So yeah, as you would expect, this is not really a good fighting game at all, or even a good game in general, but I wouldn’t say it is thaaaaaaaaat bad. Trust me, I have played Doomsday Warrior, so I know how bad one of these things can get, but not only does this game not come anywhere close to the same quality as other fighters at the time, but it doesn’t even try to be anything more than what it already is.

The story varies depending on who you play as, so assuming you are playing as one of the Lee brothers, the evil Shadow Master has created a virus known as the Shadow Plague, which he intends to spread all over the world with the help of his Shadow Warriors, so it is up to both Billy and Jimmy Lee to go put a stop to their evil plans, which sounds like a story that came straight out of a Saturday morning cartoon……… making it perfect for this game, since it is literally based on a Saturday morning cartoon. The graphics are good, having plenty of stages to fight in and having cartoony enough designs for both those and the sprites of the characters, although I will admit, some of the designs for the characters are either flat-out terrible, or just ugly, but not purposely ugly, the music is… definitely music, being energetic enough for a fighter, but something that you won’t wanna listen to after a while, especially with several tracks reused plenty of times, and the gameplay/control is the fighting game standard, with all the functions, moves, and features you would expect, but with a few more to try to convince you it is better then it is.

The game is a fighting game, where you take control of one of ten characters, either one of the Lee brothers or a member of the Shadow Warriors, take on plenty of different opponents in many different locations that are as generic as you think they are, throw out plenty of punches, kicks, combos, projectiles, and super moves to weaken your opponent further and further, make sure to dodge and block when appropriate to make sure to block any sort of attack that they try to throw your way, and check out the rest of the modes of the game that will allow you to do the same things again, but somewhat differently. For a fighting game, all of this is pretty standard, nothing too exciting, so as a Double Dragon fighting game, it manages to do what you would expect any of these games to do that takes a non-fighting IP and brings it into the genre, with a few unique features that do make it stand out from others.

In terms of the gameplay, once again, it is your typical fighting game affair: one-on-one battles where you jump around, throw out different combos, and try not to get slammed on your ass, while throwing out special moves to take down your opponents quickly. Most of it is nothing that you haven’t seen before from other fighting games at the time, with the exception of the Overkill mechanic, where whenever you defeat an enemy while using a certain attack, they will get straight up killed (most of the time), with a unique death animation playing alongside it that actually did manage to surprise me whenever I accidentally pulled one off while playing the game. If you think about it, these are essentially just Brutalities from Mortal Kombat before they were even a thing, and they are cool to see, even if some of them are repeated amongst several characters, and others are just… stupid.

In terms of everything else though, there is actually quite a lot here, with there being many different modes for you to try out just in case your typical vs. match gets too boring for you. There is, of course, said Vs. Match, where you can fight another opponent one-on-one to see who is the best, there is the Tournament Mode, which works pretty much like your typical Arcade mode, complete with multiple endings for every character you play as, there is the Quest Mode, which is the story mode of this game, but it plays mostly the same as Tournament Mode, except with little bits of dialogue in-between matches, there is Battle Demo mode, where you can put two CPU opponents in a ring and… watch them fight it out……… just in case you got tired of playing the game yourself, and finally, there are the Dossiers, which gives you info on each of the characters in the game, with the info itself being both hilarious and awful at the same time. Seriously, if you haven’t read some of these things, please do, because they are ironically really funny. But anyway, all of these modes work well enough for what they are, not delivering anything more than what you would expect them to, all meant to just fill out the Fighting Game Checklist so that you won’t be bitching about any of them not being there.

Speaking of bitching, it’s time for me to start my bitching, as all of the problems this game has lies within many of the typical areas. Most of it is very generic for a fighter, just selling itself as “a Double Dragon fighting game”, but not doing anything more to convince you to play it over others, and fighting game syndrome does play a factor in several instances, even if it is more manageable with the Options setting. When it comes to the gameplay itself, it feels pretty rigid, not feeling as bad or restrictive as other games like Doomsday Warrior or even the original Street Fighter, but it doesn’t feel as responsive, satisfying, or fluid as other fighters, even from this era, making it less then ideal for a fanatic of this genre. It’s not flat-out terrible, but you can definitely tell that a lot more can be done to improve on the experience.

Overall, despite a good handful of modes to mess around with and fun enough characters to try out, this is certainly not how you take a popular franchise like Double Dragon and make it into a fighting game, having no unique identity of its own, playing poorly when compared to others, and not providing any reason to want to fully explore it to see all the endings for all of the characters. I would recommend it for those who are big Double Dragon fans, as well as those who are fighting game fanatics out there, but there are many better options that you could try out instead, both in terms of fighting games and the Double Dragon series. And to think, this is only the first time we would get a Double Dragon fighting game, as one would be released just one year after this one. Although, I’m not sure how that one is gonna compare to this game, which has a wonderful assortment of characters like Bones, the skeleton with a machine gun, Icepick, a cyborg made of crystals that make him look like ice, and Dominique, a dominatrix wearing a skin-tight black suit, complete with a whip and a huge set of hooters……………………. alright, who let Leland Interactive Media put their fetish into my Double Dragon game?

Game #525

Out of all the weird and outlandish, yet still lovable elements to have been introduced in Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, the biggest and undeniably the best addition would be with the introduction of Wario. He may not have had that much of a role in the game, simply being put as the final boss, who just so happened to be a fatter and goofier Mario, but you could tell from the beginning not only from his design, but also from the commercial for the game, that he was sinister, greedy, and undeniably lovable. So, much like when Nintendo made Yoshi the star with his own game just two years prior, they were also ready to make Wario the star of his own games as well, so that they could expand the Mario universe and create many more memorable products as a result… while also raking in all that cash (they are allowed to, it’s Wario Time). So, they did this by making a direct follow-up to Mario Land 2 where the big man in yellow would steal the spotlight, and the game would ultimately be called Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3.

It was somewhat of a risky move to be sure, making the villain of your previous game the main character of this all new game, especially since it hadn’t been too long since Wario was even a character to begin with. However, thankfully, it worked out in its favor, since not only did it appropriately make BANK for a Game Boy title, but it would also lead to Wario’s own series of games that would continue onto this day… or at least, we would like to think that (just bring back Wario Land already, Nintendo. Pizza Tower was fun for a bit, but I need my garlic eater back in his proper place!). As for my personal experience with the Wario Land series, I myself hadn’t played too much of it back when I was a kid, with the exception of Wario Land: The Shake Dimension (I refuse to call it “Shake It!”), so it was only until a good couple of years ago that I decided to give the series a shot.

Thankfully, I was able to get into it pretty quickly, not just because I prefer villains over heroes, so I was able to relate to Wario much more than I ever could with Mario, but also because the series is genuinely fantastic, with each entry getting better and better as they keep releasing, and as for the game that started it all, it still manages to be a pretty great time upon revisiting it after quite a while. Yeah, it doesn’t come close to the quality of future titles, and for Wario’s first outing, it can feel a bit… lacking, but it still manages to be fun and satisfying, as well as simple enough for anyone to be able to pick up and enjoy.

The story is exactly what you would expect from a character like Wario, where after his defeat in the previous game, Wario sets off to Kitchen Island to steal the treasure from the Brown Sugar Pirates, along with a giant, golden statue to Peach, all to trade off for money so that he can buy a bigger and better castle to beat out Mario, which is the perfect premise for a game like this, and it gets you wanting to get into the game immediately. The graphics are Game Boy graphics, with the overall aesthetic looking pretty similar to Mario, but with a unique group of baddies, locations, and powerups to give the game its own identity, and it all looks really fun and inventive all the way through, the music is an interesting change from what you typically hear in a Mario title, but it manages to fit a Wario game pretty well, with there being quite a lot of banger tracks out of the bunch, ones that you will most likely bob your head to as you play, the control is pretty much exactly what you would expect from a game like this, so there isn’t much else to say on that, and the gameplay is also very similar to that of the previous entry, but with a few new additions to make the game stand out.

The game is a 2D platformer, where you take control of Wario, go through plenty of different lands and levels all throughout Kitchen Island, defeat many different innocent, yet damaging enough enemies while on your quest for the ultimate goal, gather plenty of different power-ups and hearts to help you out on your journey, take on easy, yet enjoyable boss fights against plenty of colorful characters, unlock secret levels along the way to find more stuff, and of course, gather EVERY SINGLE COIN IN SIGHT. For the most part, it is pretty standard stuff, especially for those who are familiar with Mario games, as this is more or less just a Mario game that Wario took over for himself. However, not only does the game still remain fun, but it also adds plenty of elements that would make it stand out on its own.

If you yourself have yet to play any Wario Land game yourself, when you go into this game, you may think you know what it will be all about, and when looking at it from a surface level, you would be somewhat correct. However, then you will soon learn really quickly that this is NOT a Mario game, but it is instead Wario’s game, BITCH, and as such, it plays much more in the style of Wario. Sure, he can jump on enemies and break blocks with his head, but he can also dash into enemies to completely knock them down and out, grab enemies to throw them all over the place, and he has his own assortment of power-ups, such as a helmet that makes him stronger and allows him to do a ground pound, a dragon hat that allows him to breathe fire onto enemies, even when he is underwater, and a jet hat, which he can use to fly all over the place for a limited amount of time. The fundamentals of a regular Mario game are all there, clear as day, but they have all been Wario-fied, to the point where it is now his game, but not too much so to the point where you can’t tell that it wasn’t a Mario game before. Oddly fitting, wouldn’t you say?

Not only that, but there are also plenty of new features that make the game what it truly is. Since Wario is the physical embodiment of greed, coins make the world go round for him, so naturally, the game makes you want to grab as many as possible, and unlike with regular Mario games, the coins actually serve a purpose here!... to an extent. For every level of the game, you will need to collect coins in order to activate these checkpoints that you can find, as well as with the end goal of the level, which makes it so that you NEED to spend your hard-earned money so that you can complete the stages. In addition, you also get the chance to play several minigames at the end of every level, ones that will allow you to get more lives, or even ones that will allow you to double the amount of coins you have, while also fueling your ever growing gambling addiction.

But that isn’t the extent to what Wario can obtain in this game, as you can also find plenty of treasures scattered throughout plenty of the levels, each one granting you more coins as well, and these treasures, while not necessarily too well-hidden, can be pretty tricky to get at times, which makes getting them all the more fun and satisfying. So, with all that being said, with so many different ways of getting coins and treasures in this game, what exactly do they do? Well… they determine the ending that you get when you beat the game. That’s it. That’s all coins do. Well, that kinda sucks, but hey, it does allow for quite a lot of replayability to the game, and the endings you get are somewhat funny, so that is neat enough. It also helps that, alongside the game itself being pretty fun, with plenty of different levels, challenges, and enemies to overcome, the secrets themselves can also be pretty satisfying to get once you figure things out.

So yeah, for the most part, the game is a great time, but once again, I wouldn’t consider it anything too great. You can really tell this is essentially a Mario game with Wario slapped onto it, which is fitting for his character, but not only does it come nowhere near the same quality as the later games in the series, but it could also be seen as pretty bland as a result. It is your typical Mario-esque platforming adventure, with nothing to really separate it from the rest other than a few collectibles and mini games to spice things up. None of it is bad, don’t get me wrong, but if you are going into this game hoping to get something at least a little bit different from your typical Mario game, then you will probably be disappointed by what you get. Then again, the game is called “Super Mario Land 3”, so you shouldn’t expect too much going into it, but still. Also, one last little complaint here: the final boss kinda sucks. Sure, it is creative, but constantly having to throw this genie’s lamp to create a cloud to stand on so that you can get a chance at hitting the genie himself… yeah, can we, like, not do that ever again? Cool, thanks.

Overall, despite not too much difference from this game compared to past Mario games, as well as the coins in the game not doing too much for you as a whole, for being the first game in what would become one of the best sub-series in the Mario franchise, the original Wario Land is still a great game to go back to to this day, one that offers plenty for you to have fun with and enjoy, but not too much to the point where you will feel like you wasted your time on it by the end of the day. I would recommend it for those who are fans of the Wario Land series, or for those who are fans of Mario in general, because this game will give you plenty of what you want from both categories, and will serve as a nice appetizer for what comes next. And what an appetizer it was, but you know what, I think I’m ready to see what the next game in this series is. So, what is it?.............. oh. sigh, alright, I’ll go get my sunglasses…

Game #488

For the longest time, I was… unsure how my relationship with Shinobi was going. I mean, it kept showering me with as much love as it could give, in the form of as many games to play as I could feasibly stomach, but after a while, it started to get boring. Sure, the games were still relatively good, excluding some titles which were either really good or flat-out terrible, but aside from a few changes here or there, it was just more of the same, over and over again, with no signs of stopping. But hey, I have good faith that it will bounce back, otherwise why would Sega have kept pumping them out at the time (aside from the fact that its Sega)? So, I may as well go ahead and check out the next mainline entry in the series, Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master, to see if it got its shit together.

For the longest time, I had assumed that this was yet another Shinobi game to add to the pile, and nothing more than that, but when I looked into it a little more, I figured out that this is a different story. Out of all of the Shinobi games at this point, this one was considered to be the best of the bunch, and is considered to be one of the best games ever released on the Sega Genesis. That was some high praise from what looked like a generic sequel, but then when I decided to actually play the game for myself, I then completed understood where all that praise came from. While it isn’t perfect by any means, this was a fantastic game, one that has made me love the series again, and one that is definitely the best game in the series so far.

The story is as barebones as it gets, with Neo Zeed returning once again to spread chaos all over the world, so it is up to Joe Musashi to rise to the occasion once again to take him out, which is so basic to the point where I could complain about it, but considering all of the games in this series have skimped on plot as well, it wouldn’t be worth getting mad about. The graphics are pretty great, not looking too much better when put side-by-side with Revenge of Shinobi, but it still overall has a great look to it, and the sprites for characters and enemies, especially bosses, and wonderful, the music is fantastic, having plenty of jamming tunes that are not only energetic, but perfectly fit what is going on at that point, the control is about the same as other Shinobi games, except now with plenty of new moves to pull off, which work well for the most part, except for the double jumping being a little wonky, and the gameplay is mostly the same as the other titles in the series, but it does enough to make going through another one of these games fun and exciting again.

The game is a 2D action platformer, where you take control of Joe Musashi once again, go through a set of seven different rounds each containing their own separate sections, slice your way through many different enemies that will try to stop you in your tracks by using either your main attack or several special attacks, gather plenty of different powerups, health items, and special attacks to help you out on your journey, and take on plenty of small yet quick or big yet threatening bosses. Once again, the mechanics for this game remains relatively unchanged from the previous games, but what it does manage to do is make this gameplay fun once again, having the game go at a pretty solid pace that always makes things fast and exciting, as well as invigorating whenever you take down a challenging obstacle, or even a new stage type introduced in the game.

One of the main factors that makes this game much better then previous outings is the emphasis on speed that is present here. The game was made deliberately to focus on speed and be faster, much more so than the other titles in the series (because, you know… Sonic), and this game manages to accomplish this by not only giving you a run that you can now use at any time, but also by keeping the levels pretty straightforward for the most part to where you can focus more on action rather than other elements. What also helps this greatly is with the amount of new maneuvers and attacks you can pull off, such as a running slash, being able to jump off of walls, and a downward kick that can be extremely helpful in certain situations. All of these moves are very fun to pull off, and they keep the action flowing at a steady pace, while being very useful when they are applied. And finally, one other aspect of the game that does make it more exciting is the obstacles that are placed for you to deal with. There are plenty of different hazards and roadblocks you will need to deal with, each presenting a different way of you needing to progress forward, and while they can be pretty hard at points, they don’t feel unfair. It was really fun exploring these areas and figuring out what to do next to progress for most of the levels, and even if I did fuck up, I didn’t feel discouraged from trying again.

Now, despite all that, I wouldn’t say that this game is perfect all the way through, because it still does have some factors that weigh it down for me. In many ways, this is still yet another Shinobi game, so if you are looking for something new and exciting from the franchise (which is a genuine concern at this point when we are EIGHT ENTRIES IN), then you won’t be getting too much bang for your buck. Yeah, what is introduced here manages to make the game much more fun and exciting for me, but I can’t say that will be true for everybody. Alongside this, while most of the levels and segments were fun to traverse through, there were some that were just a slog to get through, such as several elevator sections, and even one segment that is a maze. Not sure if I have mentioned this before, but I typically don’t like mazes in video games, especially ones that don’t give you clear indicators for where to go next, so the maze that you do have to go through in this game does hinder it, despite everything else around it being good.

Overall, despite not too much change being present and some annoying segments/levels here or there, this is definitely the best game in the Shinobi franchise so far, and a massive improvement over not just Revenge of Shinobi, but all of the other Shinobi games that had come out after that title. I would highly recommend it for those who are fans of the series, as well as those looking for more quality titles to check out from the Sega Genesis, because I can definitely recommend this game over the other Shinobi titles, and it gets my stamp of approval. Glad to see that this series finally managed to pick up on the slack and deliver on the goods once again. Now I will move onto other stuff, and I will look forward to inevitably being disappointed by Shinobi Legions.

Game #466

The first TMNT game that was released for the Game Boy, Fall of the Foot Clan, was quite possibly the most basic and bare-bones Ninja Turtles game that has ever been made. It was nothing more than just a regular action platformer where you walked from left to right, slashed up enemies, and jumped sometimes. For what it was, it was nothing awful, and I had a decent time with it, but it is definitely not gonna be the TMNT game I choose to revisit multiple times in the future. Of course though, because it was the Ninja Turtles, it was extremely successful, leading to yet another series of games that would be released right alongside the NES and arcade games. So, just one year after that game came out, we would then get the sequel known as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Back from the Sewers.

When going into this, I had very low expectations. Given how the first game went down, I was assuming that this was gonna be just a generic sequel, with not much more going on compared to the original game, and was primarily meant to be another piece of merchandise for the brand. For the most part, I was right in my assumptions, but I will give it credit, as there does seem to be a lot more “effort and care” placed in this one compared to the previous, making it more likable. So as a whole, I would consider this to be a good game, definitely an improvement over the original, and while it still isn’t anything all that special, I’m sure it’ll satisfy the cravings of any rabid Turtles fans out there.

The story is, what else, Shredder’s being a dick, and the Ninja Turtles gotta stop him, with there being no story elements presented to the player whatsoever, so I am glad to see that the game cares about the plot as much as I do, the graphics are Game Boy graphics, but the sprites and levels this time around do look a lot better, especially with character portraits and animations, the music is pretty good, having a lot of tunes you would expect, with some others that sound good for a Game Boy game, while accompanied by a bunch of compressed voice lines that are just so painfully enjoyable to hear, the control is exactly what you would expect, so moving on, and the gameplay is almost identical to the original game, but there were some change implemented that, while not being original for a TMNT game, do make it feel like a more complete package.

The game is primarily a 2D action platformer, where you take control of one of the four Ninja Turtles, or in my case, Leonardo only, go through a set of six different levels, slash through many different typical baddies that one can find from this universe, gather plenty slices of pizza to make sure you are completely prepared for whatever lies ahead, complete several bonus stages to get even more pizzas, and take on plenty of familiar faces in plenty of boss fights, which range from extremely easy, to only slightly more difficult. It fills out all of the checkboxes for what you would expect from a typical TMNT game, while also managing to expand the gameplay… or at least, as much as you would expect from a Game Boy TMNT game.

First off, there are now levels in the game where you will be riding on hoverboards while taking out enemies, and these levels actually have a Z-axis rather than being limited to a 2D plane. It doesn’t change up the gameplay too much, and this isn’t a completely original segment never before seen in a TMNT game, but… hey, at least it is something. In addition to that, instead of having a typical set of lives, the turtles themselves act as the lives. Whenever you die, the current turtle you play as gets captured, and you are then forced to play as one of the other turtles. Thankfully, at the end of the level though, you are then given the chance to save the captured turtle to use once again, which is a pretty neat feature, making you experiment with the turtles if you are too bad. Obviously, I never had to go through this, because I am just too awesome (really loves that rewind button), but it sounds like a neat feature regardless.

If that isn’t enough to fulfill your picky TMNT desires though, then what you end up with is yet another generic Ninja Turtles platformer. Sure, it does manage to look, sound, and play better then the original game in every regard, but if you weren’t really a fan of that original game, then you probably won’t like this one either. That’s really the only big issue that I ended up having with the game though. If I had to get extremely nitpicky, I could complain about how you don’t get fully healed in between levels, but that is what the bonus stages are for, so there's really no point in complaining about that. Much like there isn’t much point in playing this game.

Overall, despite the improved presentation and gameplay, this game just barely manages to be better than the previous game, being more of what you got from the first Game Boy title, which could be good for some, and bad for others. I would recommend it for those who loved that original Game Boy game, as well as those who are big fans of the Ninja Turtles, but for everyone else, you are better off playing other TMNT games that came out around this era. Although, with all that being said, if you haven’t heard any of the voice samples that came from this game, then you should go give them a good listen. They are just as crusty as you think they are.

Game #439