Sometimes I just find myself utterly fascinated at the fact something like this was given a retail release. There are some poor schmucks out there who not only actually saw this nonsense in the flesh on the shelves of a Babbage's or whatever the hell store there was back then, but also spent real money on it. Imagine being that kid. Imagine doing chores and shit to save up money for a visit to the game store and you spend your hard earned allowance on Sword of Sodan, or Bart's Nightmare, or anything on that level. Isn't that sad? There were no forum threads, videos, or even any internet at all to really guide you on the quality of something, the best you had was dinky magazine reviews and the screenshots on the back of the box! You could've spent that money on any single game in the store and you happened to choose one of the worst games ever released! How did people manage back then? I'd cry! I'd bawl my eyes out!

It seems like Gainax, of Evangelion and Panty & Stocking fame, played a major hand in this one, which I thought was interesting and pretty much was the first thing to draw me in. Reminds me a lot of El Viento and Earnest Evans, has a very similar look right down to the sprites and definitely bears some gameplay similarities to the former.

They're both also...mostly pretty dull. The OST here is damn good though, and there are a couple very creative moments that stood out to me. Stage 6 for example is entirely slanted and looks really cool, especially all the shit going on in the background during the boss. It's also one of the cheapest levels though, in a very cheap game to begin with. A highlight nonetheless though.

Perhaps the most annoying part was that the bosses often take really long to kill. Your weapons kind of level up over time with upgrades you find floating around, and you'd better not leave any behind or you'll be on whatever boss comes next for 5 years. Even with a higher level they still take a while and are still really tedious. I wish they changed color over time to signify progress, like in Ristar or something.

Generally there are a lot of mildly interesting things about this game, but actually playing it isn't so captivating. It's alright nonetheless, but it's another one in the rapidly increasing pile of games I probably won't replay.

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morgues
@hauntee
why that lil green monster keep eating my candy thats on the ropes n shit

I saw the Game Gear version of this on a video once like 6 or 7 years ago and was utterly fascinated by how awful the music was, so I decided to play it and then I was utterly fascinated by how awful everything else is. For years I would show it to friends just to see their reactions to the music and such, and it never fails to get a laugh out of me even now. Around last year I showed it to a group chat with another user here, XenonNV, who then spread it further and I guess it became an inside joke on the site?? And then somebody ran it at AGDQ as well. Those were both really fucking funny to see, it's crazy when you indirectly cause something like that.

The original version of this game, however, is on the Genesis. For a while I was curious if it was any better, and really it only bumps up from like a 1 to a 2 or 3. It's still awful, and would you believe the music is just as bad? It's not ear piercingly loud or anything like the Game Gear version, but it's really flaccid and sad and often just sounds like you gave a four year old a Casio keyboard and left them with it for 20 minutes. The sound effects are basically the same as well, and early on you'll hardly be able to discern them from the music. Each time he lands for example, a tone of random pitch is played, something that sounds like a sad trumpet. Every, single, time. Have fun with that.

The quizzical level design is also of note. Take a look at either of the levels in the mines, or the log riding levels, and you'll see what I mean. But even in its more subdued moments, it's weird and mazelike and full of death pits. It's a weird feeling to have what feels like screen crunch on a game designed for a fucking CRT, no? What's up with that? Is it just another product of putting large sprites as top priority and then forgetting to make anything else good, like Sword of Sodan? Are you really doing anything right at all if your game can be compared to that?

So no, the Genesis version is not good either. I would change the rating by a point or two to accomodate but it seems on here it's actually the less popular version now lmfao. Really absurd game. I hope Taz runs for president in 2024

This is...awful. I'm not sure if it's just a shitty porting job or what, but this is nigh unplayable. You have NO invincibility frames, and even the most basic enemies will reduce you to worm food in less than a second. Not helping is the feeling that your hitbox is a bit larger than you yourself. Some of the enemies take way too many hits as well, worst of all being these spiders that the game loves to throw at you around the middle of its runtime.

Here's a trick you can do. You can actually clip through walls to take shortcuts (or fall and die usually), you wanna know how? Literally just hold left and right at the same time. How do you not catch that? That's game breaking! And also, why was some of the level design so obtuse that I found myself using it just to make progress??

The bosses are unbearable, they all are way bigger than you and there's never a safe spot away from them, meaning they'll always chew through your lives and you get no say in it at all. I watched the Amiga version and this doesn't seem to be entirely the case there, so maybe it's another sign of a shitty port? I don't know, man. I think even otherwise it's just kind of a shitty game for starters. I heard the playtesters were often smoking weed in another room according to an interview, and whether or not it's bullshit I really think it checks out. Moral here, do not bother with this one, try Super Turrican instead. Can't speak on Turrican II or Mega Turrican yet, maybe some day though.

Not good! Better than Acclaim's try, but not as good as Web of Fire. Which is a bad game! Spider-Man is funie and brings me serotonin though so of course here I am again

First things first, this game's timer is meaningless. You can completely ignore that, it's not 24 hours in real time but it's more than lenient. Except when you actually reach the bomb, and you have to put the keys in the right order (which to my knowledge is never revealed, and was not the same as on a video guide I found).

What you need to worry about instead is piss and shit enemies and bosses, which encompasses most of them. Many guys will just fire bullets forever and there's like hardly any room to get closer and knock them down. Good luck if they're on a ledge, trying to get up there while they keep firing is a nightmare and you WILL have to on multiple occasions. Bosses are lousy, they're really simple but they'll kick your head in unless you find a way to stunlock them or just find a safe spot somehow.

Kingpin is the worst because his hitbox is like a fraction of his size and you have an actually strict time limit to deal with (unrelated to the bomb), and it sends your ass all the way back to the Sega screen if you don't do it in time. What the fuck is that all about? Not even a continue? Like the fucking rest of the game???

I don't know what was going on with Spider-Man games back then, even Maximum Carnage is no better than just alright. It's kind of becoming an in-joke with a couple of my friends at this rate. Maybe there's a good one buried somewhere, but I'm kind of beginning to doubt there were any before the Raimi movies came along.

This is okay, actually. Bullshit in places, but like, fine? Maybe I'm missing something. I do have a soft spot for this one for whatever reason, ever since I was a kid (I've also always been very fond of the OST, surprisingly memorable when you consider all Game Gear/Master System stuff sounds nearly the damn same). I'll tell you what does suck though, the Sky High Zone chaos emerald is a fucking meme. The hang glider is a bit notoriously absurd, and while it's far from impossible to use, making it go upwards is indeed. You have to maintain your speed somehow and rely on gusts of wind to make it high enough to reach the emerald, and it's really strange and specific. There's a lot of odd design like that, but most of it I find is more manageable than people make it out to be. Scrambled Egg Zone codifies that annoying tube nonsense that appears in all the later Game Gear games though, so fuck it for that. That one is shit. But all in all, I think this one gets a little more flack than it deserves.

You will eat shit if you play on Game Gear, though. If you have the option to play on a platform with a better screen I would simply do so

(sega mega drive & genesis classics 51/58)

Apparently the arcade original is 14 levels of this without any switchups or anything, so I'm glad this one is condensed a little. Not that it's bad, it's just very...plain? Simple? Boring...?

Amusingly doesn't look or sound at all like a Genesis game either, kind of like that Alex Kidd game. Both series are more accustomed to the Master System it seems, so I suppose that makes sense. I actually replayed that game the other day but forgot to log it, might as well jot something down for that too now

(sega mega drive & genesis classics 50/58)
played as Jetta Maxx

It's a bad Mortal Kombat clone, and early MKs in single player are already not fun at all to begin with. AI isn't quite as dreadful here, but there are no difficulty settings and losing sends you back a round for some reason. Good fucking luck if you're on a three button controller.

That said, there's a lot going for it in other departments. It looks good, the roster is actually not that bad, and each character has a surprising amount of backstory. If you care about fatalities, those are here, and in the Sega CD version they're considerably more gruesome than anything to come out of the 2D Mortal Kombat era.

I dunno, I wish this was better. I'm far from competent at fighting games and not exactly to be trusted with opinions on them, but I think if Sega decided to hop off Mortal Kombat's already mediocre dick whilst developing this than it could have had more of an identity of its own, and maybe there could be further, more polished entries as well. But alas, as is it sits in the same pile as games like Time Killers and Tattoo Assassins.

(sega mega drive & genesis classics 49/58)

This game is deeply fucking boring. It is also very long and very grindy. And if long and grindy Genesis games don’t deter you, why not just play Phantasy Star II? As unforgivingly tedious as that one is, it’s at least interesting.

I don’t know where I ditched it because everything looks the damn same. I wanna say around halfway through? I can’t be fucked to go check

Something interesting about Thunder Force II is the horizontal shmup segments are shit, and those are basically what Thunder Force is all about. They're mainly bad because of the level layouts, not really the enemies. I don't know how they fucked that up, but it really feels like shit to navigate around and you would definitely see what I mean upon trying it yourself. Bosses are also big damage sponges and can get really annoying and tedious.

Something else interesting about Thunder Force II, though, is it seems to be the only one of the series (addendum: besides the silly ass William Tell ass first game) with overhead segments. They're quite interesting and definitely better, but still pretty flawed. They're very freeform, but oftentimes it's quite hard to tell where to go or where you have and haven't been. Also, in the first level you start off in some sort of enclosure and I initially thought you just had to kill a certain amount of enemies, so I sat around in there for like 10 minutes before realizing you can shoot a part of the wall to open it. That probably was just me being real stupid, but I think an arrow or something pointing at it would've helped better.

Once I got the hang of the top down segments I enjoyed those much more than the horizontal ones, but ultimately this still wasn't that great of a time. Interesting, but with 4 (and presumably 3, but let's find out) generally doing a lot better it remains little more than a curiosity.