Rei366
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Kirby Super Star
1996
Is ending a console’s life with a Kirby title considered an instance of “going out with a bang?” Similarly to Kirby’s Adventure on the NES, Kirby Super Star was released on the subsequent console, the SNES, at the tail end of that console's lifespan. Most likely, the pattern of releasing a mainline Kirby game in a console’s twilight years is like receiving ice cream after a hectic bout of surgery. In this context, the surgery is a torrent of pain and misery brought upon by the ruthless games of the pixelated eras of gaming. Only now, gamers were subjected to five(+) years of 16-bit agony with additional frills like the ubiquity of save files and relatively better game design. All things considered, this period proved to be much more lenient and understanding to a player’s personal welfare compared to the rudimentary rigidity of the previous generation. Still, the SNES library was filled with excruciating titles that made gamers thrash around in a blood-boiling rage and spew some unholy curses. Another Nintendo console was ready to wave bon voyage and roll out the red carpet for Nintendo’s next venture into the third dimension. Before this ambitious escapade, Nintendo once again needed to treat their wounded to the delightful dessert of a 16-bit Kirby to make them smile again. Naturally, Kirby Super Star would have to raise the stakes of how it patched up the SNES era. The lesions inflicted on gamers during this period weren’t as severe or consistant compared to the previous one. Still, fresh wounds that seem benign at first have the potential to become severe and shouldn't be brushed aside, and attending these wounds would be especially imperative on a new part of the body. Therefore, Kirby’s lightheartedness and breezy difficulty still had a place in the SNES library. Like every other next-generation Nintendo sequel from an IP that debuted on the NES, Kirby Super Star was yet another refurbished successor that built upon the NES title with the graphic fidelity doubled. Even with a game as gentle as Kirby’s Adventure, Kirby Super Star still needed to enhance the easy experience with the same level of polish and augmentation given to all of the other SNES sequels.
A logical first step, as always, in the advancement process when transferring over to a technically superior system is enhancing the graphics. Already, the graphics of Kirby’s Adventure were a console-grade enhancement to his black and white debut on the original Gameboy. The land of Dreamland looked depleted by the most primitive hardware ever produced by Nintendo. Translating it to the industry standard of a home console allowed it to flourish as an ethereal, candy-coated paradise in Kirby’s Adventure. Kirby Super Star is the third mark of Dreamland’s radical evolution in showcasing its visuals. With a 16-bit aesthetic in Kirby Super Star, Kirby’s fantastical homeland naturally looks spectacular on a technical level. The moderate sepia overtone from Kirby’s Adventure that I hadn’t even noticed until playing Kirby Super Star has been refined into an aesthetic that is as lurid as it is decadently charming. All the delectable elements that make up the foregrounds and backgrounds pop with striking color. It’s almost as if the developers saw that Kirby’s Adventure was covered in dust, blowing off the airy detritus for Kirby Super Star and revealing the full splendor of its majesty.
Kirby’s gameplay is still simple enough where a rehaul is unnecessary. Sure, it’s broken when considering the laws of physics that other platformer protagonists have to adhere to that Kirby doesn’t, but Kirby’s idiosyncratic capabilities are at least rendered competently. If they weren’t, the intended ease at which his games are to be played would be awkwardly compromised. The gluttonous gumball still moves from point A to B on the X-axis, keeping himself afloat by engorging himself with oxygen while flapping his piddly little protuberances on both sides. What Kirby Super Star decides to tackle in changing Kirby’s already solidified mechanics is quality of life improvements that flesh out the simplicities of the NES for a more capable generation. Kirby’s consistent six points of health that would deplete one at a time no matter what Kirby came in contact with have been shifted into a red health bar that decreases depending on the severity of the damage. If the player somehow tumbles off the map and dies, it's alarming how quickly Kirby’s health bar plummets. To accompany the more complex health system, the amount of food items that restore Kirby’s health has been increased to the size of a buffet. Alongside the fully restorative Maximum Tomatoes are delectable hamburgers, ice cream, fruit, and Japanese food items that all replenish a range of Kirby’s health. It’s a wonder how Kirby does not cramp up while flying on account of how many calories he can consume on the field. Overall, the health system is a minor change in Kirby’s evolution that most likely couldn’t have been implemented on the NES.
Of course, Kirby’s other ability better associated with his unique array of attributes is using his swirling black hole of a mouth to vacuum up unsuspecting victims and emulate their respective powers. Kirby Super Star would’ve faltered if it omitted what Kirby’s Adventure had introduced. Executing Kirby’s iconic offensive move is essentially the same as in the previous game. Still, the developers decided to alter a few aspects of his innate ability along with its usage of it. Surprisingly, the number of copy abilities in Kirby Super Star is less than in Kirby’s Adventure. While this prospect may seem underwhelming at first glance, the developers ultimately did this to trim the fat from the playing field. For instance, having both a “freeze” and “ice” ability with two separate enemies seemed redundant, so the developers converged the two into an ice ability that encompasses the elements of both that Kirby obtains after sucking up the enemy that looks like a snowman. Plenty of familiar powers from Kirby’s Adventure are also treated to a broader extent of practical uses, such as the hammer now having the ability to charge and a vertical swing move where Kirby spins it while running. New abilities include the swift Ninja, the reflective Mirror, the makeshift Jet that allows Kirby to zoom around like he’s using a jetpack, etc. It’s difficult to say if these moves were too advanced for Kirby’s Adventure to handle. Still, the fortunate aspect of debuting in Kirby Super Star means they are granted a multifaceted range of properties and uses from the start. The only confusing misfortune in Kirby Super Star is that the laser ability is gone, yet the enemies that harbored it in Kirby’s Adventure are still present. How else will Kirby bust a cap in his foes? Plus, Kirby now has a defensive blocking ability, but I never felt the need to use it because the copy abilities still act as offensive juggernauts.
The most essential quality of life addition in Kirby Super Star relating to his copy ability is that players can change which ability they use of their own volition. In Kirby’s Adventure, the only method of changing up Kirby’s ability was to receive damage, which would knock the ability out of Kirby and materialize into a star that would bounce around the room until the player decided to suck it back up and use the ability again. Given that there are a plethora of abilities to experiment with, I found it awkward and unfair for the player to harm themselves by shuffling the various properties that Kirby could receive. Fortunately, thanks to additional buttons on the SNES controller, Kirby can toss his current ability and neatly leave it as a hat on the ground for possible recovery. The game also allows Kirby to keep his current ability until he is hit multiple times instead of just once, so every little snag and inconvenience won’t eject an ability without haste. Once Kirby removes his current ability, the player is introduced to the game’s most radical feature: helpers. The enemy that coincides with Kirby's ability to fling off his person materializes as a CPU, following Kirby around and dealing damage to enemies with their innate abilities. The helpers almost seem grateful to be given a chance to be at Kirby’s side after he swallowed them out of existence, for the AI is especially aggressive towards enemies to the point of being careless. I guess this is why the enemies have pet-like names such as Sir Kibble, Rocky, and Bonkers, reflecting their subservient relationship to Kirby. The helpers get so gung-ho in aiding Kirby that their existence tends to be ephemeral, collapsing in a red, frantic frenzy before they poof into the ether. To (ideally) ensure that the partners stick around longer, another human player can pick up the controller and man the helper character. The cooperative play in Kirby Super Star falls on the spectrum of the first player as Kirby receives far more precedence, but not to the extent where the camera will forsake the second player like it does to Tails in a Sonic game. A human partner may not charge at the battalions of Dreamland’s creatures without care, but at least their caution will keep them alive for longer. If that fails, Kirby can replenish his helper’s health…by kissing them. I guess it’s only gay if you make it so...
All and all, Kirby Super Star sounds like the typical hard reboot that was commonplace across most SNES sequels to NES games, given all I’ve detailed. However, Kirby Super Star avoids the distinction of being a turbo remake with how the game is structured. On the game’s box, Nintendo places a banner below the logo exclaiming that Kirby Super Star is “8 games in one!,” creating a sense of dread for anyone who has even heard of Action 52. Fortunately, this is just a case of hyperbolic marketing on Nintendo’s part. Kirby Super Star is segmented into eight parts that act as an individual campaigns. It’s the most distinctive element of Kirby Super Star that separates it from Kirby’s Adventure from a narrative aspect, but it’s also the game’s most significant detriment.
The game’s main menu presents four main campaigns to the player once they begin, with two obscured campaigns on the menu that must be unlocked by finishing the others. Initially, the first campaign, “Spring Breeze,” in Kirby Super Star is a duplicate of the first world in Kirby’s Adventure, fighting that damn apple tree Wispy once again and finishing off King Dedede as soon as the first campaign. It’s a wonder why we give him the status of Kirby’s prime antagonist, considering how insignificant he seems to be across Kirby’s titles. “Dyna Blade” upholds the same Kirby traditions, only now with some narrative weight behind the encounter with the titular metallic bird as the campaign’s final boss and organizing each level with a Mario-esque world map. It isn’t until “The Great Cave Offensive” that the player is faced with a gameplay premise so unorthodox that I thought it was an optional mode like “Gourmet Race” and the two mini-games in smaller tabs at the bottom of the menu (why is Gourmet Race optional if it’s front and center with everything else?) Dear lord, I wish that it was. “The Great Cave Offensive” is a more patient trek through labyrinthian passageways, searching door by door for the eventual exit. The player also intends to collect treasure along the way, but doing so doesn’t seem to net them anything other than chuckle at some items acting as references to other Nintendo games with arbitrarily high monetary values. I don’t dislike “The Great Cave Offensive” because it’s easy to get lost, but because the methodical pacing in nothing but confined spaces is counterintuitive to Kirby’s free-flowing, liberal gameplay. Implementing these spaces among the vast, open plains of Dreamland shows nuance in the level design, but The Great Cave Offensive overstays with its ambition. It amounts to nothing but a tedious slog.
I’ve given up on ranting about how Kirby games are painfully easy, for I have realized that this is like complaining that water is wet. Considering the campaign format, I think the developers could’ve instilled one continue per campaign, forcing the player not to take the smattering of extra lives and items in Kirby for granted. Alas, my ideas in making Kirby more engaging would fall on deaf ears at Hal Laboratory, and the game still gives the player unlimited continues with checkpoints galore. However, I can still fault a Kirby game for misleading the player concerning its difficulty. Each campaign features a difficulty rating represented by stars on a maximum scale of five. “Spring Breeze” is a one out of five, “Dyna Blade” a three, and “The Great Cave Offensive” an asinine four. I was led to believe that the unlockable campaigns would be much more difficult, which was affirmed by the increased number of stars. In reality, the preemptive notions given by the game were misleading. “Revenge of Meta Knight '' shows the return of Kirby’s sword-wielding rival when Kirby arrives on his ship to take him down. As amusing as the agitated banter between Meta Knight’s crew is, as well as the epic scale of Kirby’s one-man army infiltration, I never had to worry about the consistently declining timer, not even during the escape sequence. The last level, “Milky Way Wishes,” is introduced with a disconcerting disclaimer that Kirby must complete the level without using special abilities. I thought the game was finally offering a climactic challenge that tested my skills, but the game didn’t disclose that Kirby would simply be unable to take enemies' properties by sucking them up. Instead, a series of powers would be secured for the campaign's duration after defeating the bosses. Somehow, picking and choosing the abilities in wheel roulette makes Kirby’s gameplay even easier. Five out of five stars, my ass. At least Marx, the game’s final boss, manages to be a formidable final foe, even with the array of abilities on hand. The only substantial challenge Kirby Super Star provides is a boss gauntlet after the game ends. Is this enough to quell my thirst for Kirby to kick my ass a little? The answer is reasonably so.
By all means, Kirby Super Star should be superior to Kirby’s Adventure. Like every other SNES sequel, it has no excuse not to be. Any game on the advanced hardware of the SNES inherently makes for a better experience, even if it’s not warranted by reflecting on a faulty gameplay template like with Kirby. All of the efforts that have gone into streamlining and expanding Kirby’s gameplay, as minimal as it may seem, are welcome additions that ultimately enhance Kirby. However, I still feel Kirby’s Adventure is a more concise Kirby game because it isn’t fractured into pieces like Kirby Super Star. The developers did this to discern it from its predecessor, but in execution, the player is given a more nebulous idea of what Kirby is. Ironically, Kirby Super Star is considered the pinnacle of the floating gumball's games. It still encompasses what makes Kirby fun for a mass audience, but how the game presents itself is still perplexing.
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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
A logical first step, as always, in the advancement process when transferring over to a technically superior system is enhancing the graphics. Already, the graphics of Kirby’s Adventure were a console-grade enhancement to his black and white debut on the original Gameboy. The land of Dreamland looked depleted by the most primitive hardware ever produced by Nintendo. Translating it to the industry standard of a home console allowed it to flourish as an ethereal, candy-coated paradise in Kirby’s Adventure. Kirby Super Star is the third mark of Dreamland’s radical evolution in showcasing its visuals. With a 16-bit aesthetic in Kirby Super Star, Kirby’s fantastical homeland naturally looks spectacular on a technical level. The moderate sepia overtone from Kirby’s Adventure that I hadn’t even noticed until playing Kirby Super Star has been refined into an aesthetic that is as lurid as it is decadently charming. All the delectable elements that make up the foregrounds and backgrounds pop with striking color. It’s almost as if the developers saw that Kirby’s Adventure was covered in dust, blowing off the airy detritus for Kirby Super Star and revealing the full splendor of its majesty.
Kirby’s gameplay is still simple enough where a rehaul is unnecessary. Sure, it’s broken when considering the laws of physics that other platformer protagonists have to adhere to that Kirby doesn’t, but Kirby’s idiosyncratic capabilities are at least rendered competently. If they weren’t, the intended ease at which his games are to be played would be awkwardly compromised. The gluttonous gumball still moves from point A to B on the X-axis, keeping himself afloat by engorging himself with oxygen while flapping his piddly little protuberances on both sides. What Kirby Super Star decides to tackle in changing Kirby’s already solidified mechanics is quality of life improvements that flesh out the simplicities of the NES for a more capable generation. Kirby’s consistent six points of health that would deplete one at a time no matter what Kirby came in contact with have been shifted into a red health bar that decreases depending on the severity of the damage. If the player somehow tumbles off the map and dies, it's alarming how quickly Kirby’s health bar plummets. To accompany the more complex health system, the amount of food items that restore Kirby’s health has been increased to the size of a buffet. Alongside the fully restorative Maximum Tomatoes are delectable hamburgers, ice cream, fruit, and Japanese food items that all replenish a range of Kirby’s health. It’s a wonder how Kirby does not cramp up while flying on account of how many calories he can consume on the field. Overall, the health system is a minor change in Kirby’s evolution that most likely couldn’t have been implemented on the NES.
Of course, Kirby’s other ability better associated with his unique array of attributes is using his swirling black hole of a mouth to vacuum up unsuspecting victims and emulate their respective powers. Kirby Super Star would’ve faltered if it omitted what Kirby’s Adventure had introduced. Executing Kirby’s iconic offensive move is essentially the same as in the previous game. Still, the developers decided to alter a few aspects of his innate ability along with its usage of it. Surprisingly, the number of copy abilities in Kirby Super Star is less than in Kirby’s Adventure. While this prospect may seem underwhelming at first glance, the developers ultimately did this to trim the fat from the playing field. For instance, having both a “freeze” and “ice” ability with two separate enemies seemed redundant, so the developers converged the two into an ice ability that encompasses the elements of both that Kirby obtains after sucking up the enemy that looks like a snowman. Plenty of familiar powers from Kirby’s Adventure are also treated to a broader extent of practical uses, such as the hammer now having the ability to charge and a vertical swing move where Kirby spins it while running. New abilities include the swift Ninja, the reflective Mirror, the makeshift Jet that allows Kirby to zoom around like he’s using a jetpack, etc. It’s difficult to say if these moves were too advanced for Kirby’s Adventure to handle. Still, the fortunate aspect of debuting in Kirby Super Star means they are granted a multifaceted range of properties and uses from the start. The only confusing misfortune in Kirby Super Star is that the laser ability is gone, yet the enemies that harbored it in Kirby’s Adventure are still present. How else will Kirby bust a cap in his foes? Plus, Kirby now has a defensive blocking ability, but I never felt the need to use it because the copy abilities still act as offensive juggernauts.
The most essential quality of life addition in Kirby Super Star relating to his copy ability is that players can change which ability they use of their own volition. In Kirby’s Adventure, the only method of changing up Kirby’s ability was to receive damage, which would knock the ability out of Kirby and materialize into a star that would bounce around the room until the player decided to suck it back up and use the ability again. Given that there are a plethora of abilities to experiment with, I found it awkward and unfair for the player to harm themselves by shuffling the various properties that Kirby could receive. Fortunately, thanks to additional buttons on the SNES controller, Kirby can toss his current ability and neatly leave it as a hat on the ground for possible recovery. The game also allows Kirby to keep his current ability until he is hit multiple times instead of just once, so every little snag and inconvenience won’t eject an ability without haste. Once Kirby removes his current ability, the player is introduced to the game’s most radical feature: helpers. The enemy that coincides with Kirby's ability to fling off his person materializes as a CPU, following Kirby around and dealing damage to enemies with their innate abilities. The helpers almost seem grateful to be given a chance to be at Kirby’s side after he swallowed them out of existence, for the AI is especially aggressive towards enemies to the point of being careless. I guess this is why the enemies have pet-like names such as Sir Kibble, Rocky, and Bonkers, reflecting their subservient relationship to Kirby. The helpers get so gung-ho in aiding Kirby that their existence tends to be ephemeral, collapsing in a red, frantic frenzy before they poof into the ether. To (ideally) ensure that the partners stick around longer, another human player can pick up the controller and man the helper character. The cooperative play in Kirby Super Star falls on the spectrum of the first player as Kirby receives far more precedence, but not to the extent where the camera will forsake the second player like it does to Tails in a Sonic game. A human partner may not charge at the battalions of Dreamland’s creatures without care, but at least their caution will keep them alive for longer. If that fails, Kirby can replenish his helper’s health…by kissing them. I guess it’s only gay if you make it so...
All and all, Kirby Super Star sounds like the typical hard reboot that was commonplace across most SNES sequels to NES games, given all I’ve detailed. However, Kirby Super Star avoids the distinction of being a turbo remake with how the game is structured. On the game’s box, Nintendo places a banner below the logo exclaiming that Kirby Super Star is “8 games in one!,” creating a sense of dread for anyone who has even heard of Action 52. Fortunately, this is just a case of hyperbolic marketing on Nintendo’s part. Kirby Super Star is segmented into eight parts that act as an individual campaigns. It’s the most distinctive element of Kirby Super Star that separates it from Kirby’s Adventure from a narrative aspect, but it’s also the game’s most significant detriment.
The game’s main menu presents four main campaigns to the player once they begin, with two obscured campaigns on the menu that must be unlocked by finishing the others. Initially, the first campaign, “Spring Breeze,” in Kirby Super Star is a duplicate of the first world in Kirby’s Adventure, fighting that damn apple tree Wispy once again and finishing off King Dedede as soon as the first campaign. It’s a wonder why we give him the status of Kirby’s prime antagonist, considering how insignificant he seems to be across Kirby’s titles. “Dyna Blade” upholds the same Kirby traditions, only now with some narrative weight behind the encounter with the titular metallic bird as the campaign’s final boss and organizing each level with a Mario-esque world map. It isn’t until “The Great Cave Offensive” that the player is faced with a gameplay premise so unorthodox that I thought it was an optional mode like “Gourmet Race” and the two mini-games in smaller tabs at the bottom of the menu (why is Gourmet Race optional if it’s front and center with everything else?) Dear lord, I wish that it was. “The Great Cave Offensive” is a more patient trek through labyrinthian passageways, searching door by door for the eventual exit. The player also intends to collect treasure along the way, but doing so doesn’t seem to net them anything other than chuckle at some items acting as references to other Nintendo games with arbitrarily high monetary values. I don’t dislike “The Great Cave Offensive” because it’s easy to get lost, but because the methodical pacing in nothing but confined spaces is counterintuitive to Kirby’s free-flowing, liberal gameplay. Implementing these spaces among the vast, open plains of Dreamland shows nuance in the level design, but The Great Cave Offensive overstays with its ambition. It amounts to nothing but a tedious slog.
I’ve given up on ranting about how Kirby games are painfully easy, for I have realized that this is like complaining that water is wet. Considering the campaign format, I think the developers could’ve instilled one continue per campaign, forcing the player not to take the smattering of extra lives and items in Kirby for granted. Alas, my ideas in making Kirby more engaging would fall on deaf ears at Hal Laboratory, and the game still gives the player unlimited continues with checkpoints galore. However, I can still fault a Kirby game for misleading the player concerning its difficulty. Each campaign features a difficulty rating represented by stars on a maximum scale of five. “Spring Breeze” is a one out of five, “Dyna Blade” a three, and “The Great Cave Offensive” an asinine four. I was led to believe that the unlockable campaigns would be much more difficult, which was affirmed by the increased number of stars. In reality, the preemptive notions given by the game were misleading. “Revenge of Meta Knight '' shows the return of Kirby’s sword-wielding rival when Kirby arrives on his ship to take him down. As amusing as the agitated banter between Meta Knight’s crew is, as well as the epic scale of Kirby’s one-man army infiltration, I never had to worry about the consistently declining timer, not even during the escape sequence. The last level, “Milky Way Wishes,” is introduced with a disconcerting disclaimer that Kirby must complete the level without using special abilities. I thought the game was finally offering a climactic challenge that tested my skills, but the game didn’t disclose that Kirby would simply be unable to take enemies' properties by sucking them up. Instead, a series of powers would be secured for the campaign's duration after defeating the bosses. Somehow, picking and choosing the abilities in wheel roulette makes Kirby’s gameplay even easier. Five out of five stars, my ass. At least Marx, the game’s final boss, manages to be a formidable final foe, even with the array of abilities on hand. The only substantial challenge Kirby Super Star provides is a boss gauntlet after the game ends. Is this enough to quell my thirst for Kirby to kick my ass a little? The answer is reasonably so.
By all means, Kirby Super Star should be superior to Kirby’s Adventure. Like every other SNES sequel, it has no excuse not to be. Any game on the advanced hardware of the SNES inherently makes for a better experience, even if it’s not warranted by reflecting on a faulty gameplay template like with Kirby. All of the efforts that have gone into streamlining and expanding Kirby’s gameplay, as minimal as it may seem, are welcome additions that ultimately enhance Kirby. However, I still feel Kirby’s Adventure is a more concise Kirby game because it isn’t fractured into pieces like Kirby Super Star. The developers did this to discern it from its predecessor, but in execution, the player is given a more nebulous idea of what Kirby is. Ironically, Kirby Super Star is considered the pinnacle of the floating gumball's games. It still encompasses what makes Kirby fun for a mass audience, but how the game presents itself is still perplexing.
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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
Conker's Bad Fur Day
2001
This review contains spoilers
Conker’s Bad Fur Day was the perfect swansong for the N64. What better game to send off the console other than with a crass, anarchic romp that wiped its ass with the family-friendly foundation that Nintendo facilitated and by the third-party developer that arguably made the greatest contribution in cementing its accessibility? Unsuspecting consumers assumed that Conker’s Bad Fur Day was yet another innocuous 3D platformer due to its Rareware pedigree and the fact that the game featured a furry, anthropomorphic protagonist. However, they were all flabbergasted at the game’s true colors underneath its intentionally squeaky-clean surface, even though the game box art featured an M-rating along with a disclaimer explicitly stating that this was not a game for children. All the while, Conker is holding a frothy mug of beer with his disturbingly voluptuous girlfriend, Berry. Even if someone is experiencing Conker’s Bad Fur Day knowing full well that the game is intended for mature audiences, the content is still pretty shocking. Rare created a game that shifted the light-hearted tone of their smash hits Banjo Kazooie and Tooie on its head without altering the cherubic visuals, inflicting obscenities on its storybook fantasy world and the cuddly characters that reside in it. Conker’s Bad Fur Day snuck in viscera and vulgarity into the pristine 3D platformer genre like a trojan horse, and uneducated parents were mortified when they inadvertently exposed their children to it. Grand Theft Auto III, another game released in 2001 that also garnered levels of contempt from the PTA boards around the world, at least made it obvious that children shouldn’t play it. On the other hand, Conker’s Bad Fur Day villainously duped parents with a level of deception that shattered their trust in the gaming industry, even though Nintendo did its best to warn them. All controversies aside, the provocative premise of Conker’s Bad Fur Day made it a breath of fresh air. The N64 was overflowing with many bright, cutesy 3D platformers thanks to Super Mario 64. The adult content of Conker’s Bad Fur Day acted as a self-effacing parody to signify that the genre had stagnated and needed to be buried alongside the console that harbored them. If Conker eviscerating the N64 logo with a chainsaw in the game’s introduction isn’t emblematic of its ethos, I don’t know how they could’ve conveyed it more overtly (okay, maybe Banjo’s severed head hung up on a plaque over the bar in the main menu). No one will argue against Conker’s legacy as a subversive title, but whether or not the game is up to snuff with its fellow 3D platformers mechanically is a point of contention.
Rare didn’t just whip Conker out of their ass when they sat down to devise the components of Conker’s Bad Fur Day. Squirrels are certainly an appropriately adorable animal, but it’s questionable where they fit on the hierarchy of cuteness next to cats, dogs, or even other woodland critters. Conker was once a budding IP Rare introduced by making Conker a playable character in the 1997 N64 title Diddy Kong Racing. The Conker IP debuted on the Gameboy Color with Conker’s Pocket Tales, a simplistic action-adventure game marketed towards a very young demographic, as one would expect from a game featuring a cartoon squirrel. Rare was initially developing a fully-fledged console follow-up on the N64 titled Twelve Tails: Conker 64, but the early reception was less-than-enthusiastic. Developers were worried that kiddy Conker would wilt under the overcasting shadow of Banjo-Kazooie, for the game mirrored the inoffensive, mirthful atmosphere of the Banjo games to the point where it seemed derivative. In order to give Conker an identity of his own, Rare pulled what Hannah-Barbera did with obscure 1960s cartoon superhero Space Ghost and reinvigorated him into the realm of maturity, albeit with crude humor as opposed to dry, off-kilter absurdism. Immediately, Conker’s Bad Fur Day illustrates the squirrel’s transformation in the opening cutscene when he leaves his girlfriend Berri a message from a bar payphone to tell her he’s coming home late so he can buy another round with the boys. He gets sloppy drunk, ralphs on the ground, and loses himself in a drunken stupor. Whether it's a matter of lying to his girlfriend or binge drinking, Conker is clearly an adult putting himself in adult situations.
Ironically, Conker’s Bad Fur Day excels the most in the least edgy aspect found in the game, and that’s its surface-level presentation. The most fortunate thing about being the last hurrah in a console’s lifespan is having the advantage of hindsight paved by the shortcomings of your predecessors who were busy finding their way through uncharted territory. In the annals of gaming history, there hasn’t been a more arduous terrain to trek through than buffing out the cracks of 3D graphics in the N64 generation. Conker’s Bad Fur Day couldn’t transcend the rudimentary snags that beset the N64, or at least to the point where the player could clearly discern every strand of fur on Conker’s body. After five years of developing early 3D games on a console that looked like blocks of airbrushed chunks of cheese, Rare flaunted their experience in developing for the N64 and made a game that proved to be the pinnacle of the system’s capabilities. Conker’s Bad Fur Day is, bar none, the most gorgeous N64 game from a graphical standpoint, something unexpected from a title that brandishes such vulgar content. The graphics here don’t look too unfamiliar to the typical N64 aesthetic, but Conker’s Bad Fur Day pushes itself beyond its contemporaries through an elevated scope. I’ve always claimed that early 3D games that adopted a more fantastical, cartoonish style looked the most appealing. The developers could render something fittingly unrealistic under the confines of early 3D instead of attempting to emulate actual humans and real-world environments to expectedly lackluster results with such games as Goldeneye. Conker’s Bad Fur Day could essentially function as an interactive cartoon like all of its fellow 3D platformers, but the secret ingredient lies in taking the wide scope of some of Banjo’s levels and using that design consistently. The area of Conker’s Bad Fur Day that acts as the nucleus of the game’s world is a hub whose grassy valleys and hilly peaks create a diverse range of elevation, making Conker look small and insignificant. Interior areas such as the gothic castle and the prehistoric chamber are magnificently spacious, and the inner sanctum of the dung beetle’s operation is like a poopy Paradise Lost. Even the cliffside waterfall in the tutorial section looks splendorous. The best levels from the Banjo games were those with a wide proportional setting and expansive parameters. Conker’s Bad Fur Day makes something relatively cohesive with the same design philosophy. With a few refinements to the shape and tints of character models and settings, Conker’s Bad Fur Day makes it apparent how far the N64 has come since Mario was hopping on a series of colored blocks in the N64’s infancy.
Another contributing factor to Conker’s stellar presentation is its cinematic flair. The game doesn’t present itself as if Hideo Kojima is at the helm, but like with its graphics, Conker’s Bad Fur Day makes due with what the N64 obliges and delivers spectacularly. A substantial portion of Conker’s Bad Fur Day’s humor is delivered through dialogue during cutscenes interspersed between gameplay moments. On the screen, dialogue is presented through speech bubbles, a fittingly comic touch that accentuates the game’s cartoon visuals. Bubbles with text that pop up on the screen never overflow and become jarring because the text refreshes with every spoken line, and conversing characters are never shown on the screen simultaneously. As you can probably guess, a strong facet of the game’s vulgarities is the foul language that spews from the mouths of the characters. Funny enough, Conker’s dialogue is saintly compared to every single NPC character's colorful stream of verbal sewage. Maybe this was done to make Conker seem more like a stranger in a strange land, a hostile environment marked by inhospitable rudeness. Either way, the language in Conker’s Bad Fur Day is caustic enough to make an aging schoolmarm say seven hail marys. Another surprising choice from the developers regarding the dialogue was to censor the word “fuck.” Don’t worry: the mother of all swear words is used frequently by the characters in a myriad of varieties, but any utterance of the word is bleeped like it’s on TV with a series of violent characters obscuring the word in the speech bubble. Somehow, keeping the overall language PG-13 by censoring “fuck” makes the game sound more explicit, with the grating sound of the bleep ringing louder in the player's ears than if they kept the dialogue as is. I’m surprised none of the NPCs ever told Conker to see you next Tuesday if you catch my vernacular. Rare is a British company, after all. Speaking of which, a mere three voice actors deliver the profane lines, and they all struggle to mask their British accents. Some voices, like Conker, occasionally seep in a British inflection on what seems like an accident, while others, like the dung beetles, sound like the Gallagher brothers from Oasis. Whether or not the voice actors are making an attempt to veil their accent, the cadence of the line deliveries consistently sounds like the voice is an improvised impression that is slowly deflating. Do not expect vocal performances with range or emotion; I’ll give the developers the benefit of the doubt that perhaps it’s another mark of the game’s wacky eccentricities rather than bad direction.
Also, do not expect Conker’s Bad Fur Day to amaze the player with an extravagant plot. Conker’s mission throughout the game is just to find his way home, like a scatological Homer’s Odyssey. Conker’s journey is a roundabout trek through a no man’s land where each step onward won’t lead him closer to his goal but provide another distraction with its own secondary arc. Any characters Conker comes across have a perfunctory presence whose transient impact on the story leaves no lasting impression. Sections of the game’s story are listed in chapters, divided by notable scenes like how the aforementioned Greek epic is structured. Similar to how everyone remembers individual parts of The Odyssey, such as the bout with the Cyclops or avoiding the Sirens, the player will similarly recognize the events of Conker’s Bad Fur Day. The pinnacle moment of each chapter is obtaining dollars: hopping, cigar-smoking stacks of money that serve as the game’s one collectible. Adult Conker is a man’s man who is motivated by money, alcohol, and poontang, so of course, all three of these things are featured in his mature breakout title in some capacity. The cutscene that triggers when the player collects these wads of cash shows Conker’s pupils shifting into dollar signs as they scroll up in his head like slot machines, with Conker expressing an ecstatically wide, toothy grin. If you’ve played any other 3D platformer game, you’ll know this is a nod to the brief, victorious celebration that a character performs when they earn another one of the main collectibles (Super Mario 64, Banjo, Jak and Daxter) and Conker’s expression never fails to amuse me. I’ve heard that collecting the money unlocks new areas and progresses the game, but I found this inconsistent. Judging from the placement of these chapters in the main menu, I completed the section with the barn way before the game was intended, and the game did not direct somewhere else on the map.
I’d claim that Conker’s Bad Fur Day is a deconstruction of the archetypal hero’s journey, like the cash collectible is for gaming tropes, but I feel I’d be giving the game too much credit considering the half-assed conflict scenario they conjured up. Meanwhile, the Panther King, the mighty monarch of this land, notices a problem while sitting on his imposing throne. The table on which his glass of milk resides is missing a leg, and he cannot hold it due to its irregularity. His scientist advisor deduces that placing a red squirrel as an alternative for the missing leg is the only logical solution, for a red squirrel is the optimal size and color. The Panther King’s weasel army sets out to capture Conker so their snarling highness can drink his milk in peace. Is this really the best source of conflict you could come up with, Rare?
Perhaps I can’t be too critical of the game’s arching plot because it seems evident that Conker’s Bad Fur Day is a series of events that serve as a collective. Because the nature of this kind of story is episodic, a good ol’ highlight reel is needed to detail Conker’s finest moments. Calling Conker’s Bad Fur Day crude is a statement that even Captain Obvious wouldn’t bother to utter. Each chapter in the game involves a fresh slew of characters and scenarios, so the game has plenty of opportunities to be uniquely offensive. For those of you who are particularly squeamish, chapters like “Windy” and “Barn Boys” feature the visceral combustion of precious farm animals. Conker feeds an irritating rat so much cheese that the gas built up by lactose causes him to inflate and explode like a watermelon, while the cows are disposed of by the ramming of an irate bull after they defecate enough for the dung beetle’s liking. Several local villagers are abducted by Bat Conker in “Spooky” and are liquidated by a spiky, medieval contraption in a room of the Count’s mansion as a means for the ancient vampire to feast on their gushy remains. Conker sacrifices an infant dinosaur he hatches to gain further access to the “Uga Buga” level, where a giant stone slab crushes the adorable beast into bloody mincemeat. To be fair, the creature had blood on his hands as he devoured every caveman in sight until he was pulverized. If blood and guts don’t turn your stomach, Conker’s Bad Fur Day also offers up a slew of raunchy moments involving intimate bodily fluids and lewd, sexual content. One of Conker’s adult vices that I briefly touched upon was alcohol, and the stupid bastard didn’t learn his lesson from the night before. In two sections, guzzling booze from a keg will get Conker sloppy drunk, and the objective is to unzip his pants and douse enemies with his piss. Do I need to comment on the content involving fecal matter any further? Actually, the shit in Conker’s Bad Fur Day stacks up so high that it hits the fan with The Great Mighty Poo, a magnificent mass of sentient poo so grand that it developed a singing voice to match its immense size. This boss fight that also factors as a musical number is one of the greatest boss fights in gaming history, and I will not dispute this claim with anyone. There is no explicit nudity in Conker’s Bad Fur Day, but the game still teeters with the western world’s most touchy taboos. The Boiler Room boss inside the vault brandishes a pair of iron testicles that Conker must wallop with a set of bricks. The fight against Buga the Knut, the king of the cavemen, involves making his pants fall down like King Hippo, only this neanderthal isn’t wearing underwear, and Conker must make the miniature T-Rex he hypnotized chomp off chunks of flesh from his big, naked ass. After that, Conker takes a crack at his tall, buxom cavewoman, for the well-endowed sunflower he encountered earlier weirded him out (as it did for the rest of us). Look at Berri and tell me with a straight face that she’s a dynamic character and not a trope of sexual objectification (you can’t). People nowadays might take offense at a Beavis, and Butthead duo of a paint can and brush bullying a pitchfork into hanging himself, which he fails because he doesn’t have a neck.
The million-dollar question on the content of Conker is if it is still funny after all these years or if it was funny, to begin with. During the late 90s and early 2000s, comedy’s initiative in raising the bar included the foulest and most deplorable things that media in the past wouldn’t dare to display. One could probably compare Conker’s Bad Fur Day to South Park, for they both broke ground in the vein of depravity for their respective mediums around the same time. However, Conker’s Bad Fur Day doesn’t mold its crude humor into a satirical substance like South Park tends to do. All we can do with Conker’s content is marvel at how these perversities managed to elude the censors for shock value. On top of the shlock, the meta humor, film references, and other humor tropes common at the time make me groan. The A Clockwork Orange Kubrick stare and the D-Day recreation from Saving Private Ryan are effective, but I’ve seen these parodied countless times. Am I not seeing the comedic genius because I am experiencing this game twenty years after it was released? The most amusing aspect of Conker’s Bad Fur Day is how much it borrows from Looney Tunes as its prime source of cartoon inspiration. Conker is essentially a more sociopathic Bugs Bunny, treating all the people around him with sarcastic glee and derision. Just substitute a beer for a carrot, and the word “maroon” for “wanker” and the resemblance is uncanny.
I can forgive the dated humor in Conker’s Bad Fur Day, but I cannot overlook the game's severe mechanical problems. One would expect an adult-oriented 3D platformer to offer more of a challenge, but I feel Conker provides one unintentionally. Overall, the game is fairly lenient, with difficulty in terms of approaching obstacles and with error. In another attempt to jab at video game tropes, actions in the game are reserved for “context-sensitive pads” seen everywhere with the letter B. A lightbulb will appear over Conker’s head, and he’ll proceed to whip anything out of his ass to solve a problem. Usually, these instances are pretty straightforward. The video game trope of multiple lives is explained by a diminutive, churlish depiction of the Grim Reaper once the player dies for the first time. Apparently, a squirrel is an animal with multiple lives like those blasted cats he despises, and extra lives are tails hanging off of random places around the map. To stave off bothering Grim, tabs of chocolate are displayed as the game’s health item, totaling up to a maximum of six. Chocolate is everywhere, and thank the lord because Conker constantly depletes it due to falling. Even the most tepid of tumbles will hurt Conker, which isn’t fair, considering he’s a character with the power of flight. The player can execute a high jump and glide for a short distance, hurting Conker. Don’t believe me? Try it out for yourselves. The chapter of “Bat’s Tower” was especially tense because of this. On top of this, aiming Conker’s flight trajectory is a finicky task due to Conker’s base control feeling like years of drinking have made him half-paralyzed. Add a restricted, uncooperative camera in the mix, and the game reminds me less of Banjo Kazooie and more of Super Mario 64. Ouch.
Controlling Conker already sounds bad enough on a base level, but it’s made much worse anytime the game features anything outside the realm of platforming. Unfortunately, this happens a lot. Notorious examples include swimming underwater in the vault and the blistering lava race, but these end quickly as opposed to the game’s shoddy shooting controls. Getting rid of the hostile dung beetles at the beginning with a slingshot is an early sampler of these, and it’s uneventful due to the sluggish speed of the bugs. The hive turret is sort of uncooperative, but the one-shot damage of the bullets does enough to compensate. The pinpoint accuracy needed to kill the zombies in “Spooky” is excruciating, but it’s only a small factor of the entire chapter. The lengthy period of the game that makes shooting a core mechanic is the WWII-inspired “It’s War.” War is hell enough, but having to mow down gangs upon gangs of evil Tediz as a one-man army feels like we’ve plunged into the seventh circle. The shooting controls in Conker’s Bad Fur Day are some of the most slippery and unresponsive I’ve seen across any game I’ve played. The Tediz do not have to adhere to piss-poor controls, so they’ll easily bushwack Conker while he’s lining his sights. This especially becomes a problem during the chapter’s escape sequence on the beach, where the Tediz can obliterate Conker with one bazooka shell, whereas Conker has to stop and carefully aim. This chapter made me feel like I just underwent a campaign overseas and started feeling the stages of shell shock. Conker can't be a renaissance man if he already struggles with his main mechanic.
I’ve given up on making sense of Conker’s plot, but the ending of the game bothered me. Once Conker returns from war, the weasel mob boss wants him and Berri to complete a bank heist, and this operation is a full-on Matrix reference, complete with all of the action sequences we’ve seen parodied to death. At the end of the vault is the Panther King, who has become impatient waiting for Conker and decides to face Conker himself. Unexpectedly, his contemptuous scientific underling has slipped his boss a mickey in the form of yet another film reference: the xenomorph from Alien who bursts from his chest. Not an alien with a striking resemblance to H.R. Giger’s creation, but the alien itself. How did Rare not get sued? Conker even duels the alien as the game’s final boss in the yellow mech and says, “get away from her, you bitch!” when it hovers over Berri’s lifeless body. The fight proves too formidable for Conker, but before he is torn to shreds, the game freezes as Conker uses this opportunity to request more accommodating circumstances for this scenario. He decapitates the xenomorph with a katana and succeeds the Panther King as the land’s royal leader. A postmodern meta moment like this is not surprising, but placing it in the game’s climax feels rather contrived. Then again, the game’s plot was already contrived. One thing I like about the ending is swinging the xenomorph by its tail in an homage to the Bowser fights in Super Mario 64. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the most clever reference in the game.
It goes without saying, but Conker’s Bad Fur Day certainly stands out from the rest of its 3D platformer contemporaries. The game perches itself on the tower of backs made from its N64 brethren to poke and prod their foundations while excreting an unspeakable cocktail of piss and shit down their trail. Games like Super Mario 64 and Rare’s Banjo games walked so Conker’s Bad Fur Day could run, and the game has shown through its presentation that it can run pretty fast. Unfortunately, the game did not have the stamina or gaming competency to do the hundred-yard dash, making it a fellow contender instead of the undisputed king. Conker’s Bad Fur Day is a case of style over substance, and even then, the smutty style that launched it into the stratosphere is a bit too sophomoric and is ultimately a product of its time. Nevertheless, Conker’s Bad Fur Day is still a unique experience not for the faint of heart, and rest assured that there won’t be another game like it released in the future.
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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
Rare didn’t just whip Conker out of their ass when they sat down to devise the components of Conker’s Bad Fur Day. Squirrels are certainly an appropriately adorable animal, but it’s questionable where they fit on the hierarchy of cuteness next to cats, dogs, or even other woodland critters. Conker was once a budding IP Rare introduced by making Conker a playable character in the 1997 N64 title Diddy Kong Racing. The Conker IP debuted on the Gameboy Color with Conker’s Pocket Tales, a simplistic action-adventure game marketed towards a very young demographic, as one would expect from a game featuring a cartoon squirrel. Rare was initially developing a fully-fledged console follow-up on the N64 titled Twelve Tails: Conker 64, but the early reception was less-than-enthusiastic. Developers were worried that kiddy Conker would wilt under the overcasting shadow of Banjo-Kazooie, for the game mirrored the inoffensive, mirthful atmosphere of the Banjo games to the point where it seemed derivative. In order to give Conker an identity of his own, Rare pulled what Hannah-Barbera did with obscure 1960s cartoon superhero Space Ghost and reinvigorated him into the realm of maturity, albeit with crude humor as opposed to dry, off-kilter absurdism. Immediately, Conker’s Bad Fur Day illustrates the squirrel’s transformation in the opening cutscene when he leaves his girlfriend Berri a message from a bar payphone to tell her he’s coming home late so he can buy another round with the boys. He gets sloppy drunk, ralphs on the ground, and loses himself in a drunken stupor. Whether it's a matter of lying to his girlfriend or binge drinking, Conker is clearly an adult putting himself in adult situations.
Ironically, Conker’s Bad Fur Day excels the most in the least edgy aspect found in the game, and that’s its surface-level presentation. The most fortunate thing about being the last hurrah in a console’s lifespan is having the advantage of hindsight paved by the shortcomings of your predecessors who were busy finding their way through uncharted territory. In the annals of gaming history, there hasn’t been a more arduous terrain to trek through than buffing out the cracks of 3D graphics in the N64 generation. Conker’s Bad Fur Day couldn’t transcend the rudimentary snags that beset the N64, or at least to the point where the player could clearly discern every strand of fur on Conker’s body. After five years of developing early 3D games on a console that looked like blocks of airbrushed chunks of cheese, Rare flaunted their experience in developing for the N64 and made a game that proved to be the pinnacle of the system’s capabilities. Conker’s Bad Fur Day is, bar none, the most gorgeous N64 game from a graphical standpoint, something unexpected from a title that brandishes such vulgar content. The graphics here don’t look too unfamiliar to the typical N64 aesthetic, but Conker’s Bad Fur Day pushes itself beyond its contemporaries through an elevated scope. I’ve always claimed that early 3D games that adopted a more fantastical, cartoonish style looked the most appealing. The developers could render something fittingly unrealistic under the confines of early 3D instead of attempting to emulate actual humans and real-world environments to expectedly lackluster results with such games as Goldeneye. Conker’s Bad Fur Day could essentially function as an interactive cartoon like all of its fellow 3D platformers, but the secret ingredient lies in taking the wide scope of some of Banjo’s levels and using that design consistently. The area of Conker’s Bad Fur Day that acts as the nucleus of the game’s world is a hub whose grassy valleys and hilly peaks create a diverse range of elevation, making Conker look small and insignificant. Interior areas such as the gothic castle and the prehistoric chamber are magnificently spacious, and the inner sanctum of the dung beetle’s operation is like a poopy Paradise Lost. Even the cliffside waterfall in the tutorial section looks splendorous. The best levels from the Banjo games were those with a wide proportional setting and expansive parameters. Conker’s Bad Fur Day makes something relatively cohesive with the same design philosophy. With a few refinements to the shape and tints of character models and settings, Conker’s Bad Fur Day makes it apparent how far the N64 has come since Mario was hopping on a series of colored blocks in the N64’s infancy.
Another contributing factor to Conker’s stellar presentation is its cinematic flair. The game doesn’t present itself as if Hideo Kojima is at the helm, but like with its graphics, Conker’s Bad Fur Day makes due with what the N64 obliges and delivers spectacularly. A substantial portion of Conker’s Bad Fur Day’s humor is delivered through dialogue during cutscenes interspersed between gameplay moments. On the screen, dialogue is presented through speech bubbles, a fittingly comic touch that accentuates the game’s cartoon visuals. Bubbles with text that pop up on the screen never overflow and become jarring because the text refreshes with every spoken line, and conversing characters are never shown on the screen simultaneously. As you can probably guess, a strong facet of the game’s vulgarities is the foul language that spews from the mouths of the characters. Funny enough, Conker’s dialogue is saintly compared to every single NPC character's colorful stream of verbal sewage. Maybe this was done to make Conker seem more like a stranger in a strange land, a hostile environment marked by inhospitable rudeness. Either way, the language in Conker’s Bad Fur Day is caustic enough to make an aging schoolmarm say seven hail marys. Another surprising choice from the developers regarding the dialogue was to censor the word “fuck.” Don’t worry: the mother of all swear words is used frequently by the characters in a myriad of varieties, but any utterance of the word is bleeped like it’s on TV with a series of violent characters obscuring the word in the speech bubble. Somehow, keeping the overall language PG-13 by censoring “fuck” makes the game sound more explicit, with the grating sound of the bleep ringing louder in the player's ears than if they kept the dialogue as is. I’m surprised none of the NPCs ever told Conker to see you next Tuesday if you catch my vernacular. Rare is a British company, after all. Speaking of which, a mere three voice actors deliver the profane lines, and they all struggle to mask their British accents. Some voices, like Conker, occasionally seep in a British inflection on what seems like an accident, while others, like the dung beetles, sound like the Gallagher brothers from Oasis. Whether or not the voice actors are making an attempt to veil their accent, the cadence of the line deliveries consistently sounds like the voice is an improvised impression that is slowly deflating. Do not expect vocal performances with range or emotion; I’ll give the developers the benefit of the doubt that perhaps it’s another mark of the game’s wacky eccentricities rather than bad direction.
Also, do not expect Conker’s Bad Fur Day to amaze the player with an extravagant plot. Conker’s mission throughout the game is just to find his way home, like a scatological Homer’s Odyssey. Conker’s journey is a roundabout trek through a no man’s land where each step onward won’t lead him closer to his goal but provide another distraction with its own secondary arc. Any characters Conker comes across have a perfunctory presence whose transient impact on the story leaves no lasting impression. Sections of the game’s story are listed in chapters, divided by notable scenes like how the aforementioned Greek epic is structured. Similar to how everyone remembers individual parts of The Odyssey, such as the bout with the Cyclops or avoiding the Sirens, the player will similarly recognize the events of Conker’s Bad Fur Day. The pinnacle moment of each chapter is obtaining dollars: hopping, cigar-smoking stacks of money that serve as the game’s one collectible. Adult Conker is a man’s man who is motivated by money, alcohol, and poontang, so of course, all three of these things are featured in his mature breakout title in some capacity. The cutscene that triggers when the player collects these wads of cash shows Conker’s pupils shifting into dollar signs as they scroll up in his head like slot machines, with Conker expressing an ecstatically wide, toothy grin. If you’ve played any other 3D platformer game, you’ll know this is a nod to the brief, victorious celebration that a character performs when they earn another one of the main collectibles (Super Mario 64, Banjo, Jak and Daxter) and Conker’s expression never fails to amuse me. I’ve heard that collecting the money unlocks new areas and progresses the game, but I found this inconsistent. Judging from the placement of these chapters in the main menu, I completed the section with the barn way before the game was intended, and the game did not direct somewhere else on the map.
I’d claim that Conker’s Bad Fur Day is a deconstruction of the archetypal hero’s journey, like the cash collectible is for gaming tropes, but I feel I’d be giving the game too much credit considering the half-assed conflict scenario they conjured up. Meanwhile, the Panther King, the mighty monarch of this land, notices a problem while sitting on his imposing throne. The table on which his glass of milk resides is missing a leg, and he cannot hold it due to its irregularity. His scientist advisor deduces that placing a red squirrel as an alternative for the missing leg is the only logical solution, for a red squirrel is the optimal size and color. The Panther King’s weasel army sets out to capture Conker so their snarling highness can drink his milk in peace. Is this really the best source of conflict you could come up with, Rare?
Perhaps I can’t be too critical of the game’s arching plot because it seems evident that Conker’s Bad Fur Day is a series of events that serve as a collective. Because the nature of this kind of story is episodic, a good ol’ highlight reel is needed to detail Conker’s finest moments. Calling Conker’s Bad Fur Day crude is a statement that even Captain Obvious wouldn’t bother to utter. Each chapter in the game involves a fresh slew of characters and scenarios, so the game has plenty of opportunities to be uniquely offensive. For those of you who are particularly squeamish, chapters like “Windy” and “Barn Boys” feature the visceral combustion of precious farm animals. Conker feeds an irritating rat so much cheese that the gas built up by lactose causes him to inflate and explode like a watermelon, while the cows are disposed of by the ramming of an irate bull after they defecate enough for the dung beetle’s liking. Several local villagers are abducted by Bat Conker in “Spooky” and are liquidated by a spiky, medieval contraption in a room of the Count’s mansion as a means for the ancient vampire to feast on their gushy remains. Conker sacrifices an infant dinosaur he hatches to gain further access to the “Uga Buga” level, where a giant stone slab crushes the adorable beast into bloody mincemeat. To be fair, the creature had blood on his hands as he devoured every caveman in sight until he was pulverized. If blood and guts don’t turn your stomach, Conker’s Bad Fur Day also offers up a slew of raunchy moments involving intimate bodily fluids and lewd, sexual content. One of Conker’s adult vices that I briefly touched upon was alcohol, and the stupid bastard didn’t learn his lesson from the night before. In two sections, guzzling booze from a keg will get Conker sloppy drunk, and the objective is to unzip his pants and douse enemies with his piss. Do I need to comment on the content involving fecal matter any further? Actually, the shit in Conker’s Bad Fur Day stacks up so high that it hits the fan with The Great Mighty Poo, a magnificent mass of sentient poo so grand that it developed a singing voice to match its immense size. This boss fight that also factors as a musical number is one of the greatest boss fights in gaming history, and I will not dispute this claim with anyone. There is no explicit nudity in Conker’s Bad Fur Day, but the game still teeters with the western world’s most touchy taboos. The Boiler Room boss inside the vault brandishes a pair of iron testicles that Conker must wallop with a set of bricks. The fight against Buga the Knut, the king of the cavemen, involves making his pants fall down like King Hippo, only this neanderthal isn’t wearing underwear, and Conker must make the miniature T-Rex he hypnotized chomp off chunks of flesh from his big, naked ass. After that, Conker takes a crack at his tall, buxom cavewoman, for the well-endowed sunflower he encountered earlier weirded him out (as it did for the rest of us). Look at Berri and tell me with a straight face that she’s a dynamic character and not a trope of sexual objectification (you can’t). People nowadays might take offense at a Beavis, and Butthead duo of a paint can and brush bullying a pitchfork into hanging himself, which he fails because he doesn’t have a neck.
The million-dollar question on the content of Conker is if it is still funny after all these years or if it was funny, to begin with. During the late 90s and early 2000s, comedy’s initiative in raising the bar included the foulest and most deplorable things that media in the past wouldn’t dare to display. One could probably compare Conker’s Bad Fur Day to South Park, for they both broke ground in the vein of depravity for their respective mediums around the same time. However, Conker’s Bad Fur Day doesn’t mold its crude humor into a satirical substance like South Park tends to do. All we can do with Conker’s content is marvel at how these perversities managed to elude the censors for shock value. On top of the shlock, the meta humor, film references, and other humor tropes common at the time make me groan. The A Clockwork Orange Kubrick stare and the D-Day recreation from Saving Private Ryan are effective, but I’ve seen these parodied countless times. Am I not seeing the comedic genius because I am experiencing this game twenty years after it was released? The most amusing aspect of Conker’s Bad Fur Day is how much it borrows from Looney Tunes as its prime source of cartoon inspiration. Conker is essentially a more sociopathic Bugs Bunny, treating all the people around him with sarcastic glee and derision. Just substitute a beer for a carrot, and the word “maroon” for “wanker” and the resemblance is uncanny.
I can forgive the dated humor in Conker’s Bad Fur Day, but I cannot overlook the game's severe mechanical problems. One would expect an adult-oriented 3D platformer to offer more of a challenge, but I feel Conker provides one unintentionally. Overall, the game is fairly lenient, with difficulty in terms of approaching obstacles and with error. In another attempt to jab at video game tropes, actions in the game are reserved for “context-sensitive pads” seen everywhere with the letter B. A lightbulb will appear over Conker’s head, and he’ll proceed to whip anything out of his ass to solve a problem. Usually, these instances are pretty straightforward. The video game trope of multiple lives is explained by a diminutive, churlish depiction of the Grim Reaper once the player dies for the first time. Apparently, a squirrel is an animal with multiple lives like those blasted cats he despises, and extra lives are tails hanging off of random places around the map. To stave off bothering Grim, tabs of chocolate are displayed as the game’s health item, totaling up to a maximum of six. Chocolate is everywhere, and thank the lord because Conker constantly depletes it due to falling. Even the most tepid of tumbles will hurt Conker, which isn’t fair, considering he’s a character with the power of flight. The player can execute a high jump and glide for a short distance, hurting Conker. Don’t believe me? Try it out for yourselves. The chapter of “Bat’s Tower” was especially tense because of this. On top of this, aiming Conker’s flight trajectory is a finicky task due to Conker’s base control feeling like years of drinking have made him half-paralyzed. Add a restricted, uncooperative camera in the mix, and the game reminds me less of Banjo Kazooie and more of Super Mario 64. Ouch.
Controlling Conker already sounds bad enough on a base level, but it’s made much worse anytime the game features anything outside the realm of platforming. Unfortunately, this happens a lot. Notorious examples include swimming underwater in the vault and the blistering lava race, but these end quickly as opposed to the game’s shoddy shooting controls. Getting rid of the hostile dung beetles at the beginning with a slingshot is an early sampler of these, and it’s uneventful due to the sluggish speed of the bugs. The hive turret is sort of uncooperative, but the one-shot damage of the bullets does enough to compensate. The pinpoint accuracy needed to kill the zombies in “Spooky” is excruciating, but it’s only a small factor of the entire chapter. The lengthy period of the game that makes shooting a core mechanic is the WWII-inspired “It’s War.” War is hell enough, but having to mow down gangs upon gangs of evil Tediz as a one-man army feels like we’ve plunged into the seventh circle. The shooting controls in Conker’s Bad Fur Day are some of the most slippery and unresponsive I’ve seen across any game I’ve played. The Tediz do not have to adhere to piss-poor controls, so they’ll easily bushwack Conker while he’s lining his sights. This especially becomes a problem during the chapter’s escape sequence on the beach, where the Tediz can obliterate Conker with one bazooka shell, whereas Conker has to stop and carefully aim. This chapter made me feel like I just underwent a campaign overseas and started feeling the stages of shell shock. Conker can't be a renaissance man if he already struggles with his main mechanic.
I’ve given up on making sense of Conker’s plot, but the ending of the game bothered me. Once Conker returns from war, the weasel mob boss wants him and Berri to complete a bank heist, and this operation is a full-on Matrix reference, complete with all of the action sequences we’ve seen parodied to death. At the end of the vault is the Panther King, who has become impatient waiting for Conker and decides to face Conker himself. Unexpectedly, his contemptuous scientific underling has slipped his boss a mickey in the form of yet another film reference: the xenomorph from Alien who bursts from his chest. Not an alien with a striking resemblance to H.R. Giger’s creation, but the alien itself. How did Rare not get sued? Conker even duels the alien as the game’s final boss in the yellow mech and says, “get away from her, you bitch!” when it hovers over Berri’s lifeless body. The fight proves too formidable for Conker, but before he is torn to shreds, the game freezes as Conker uses this opportunity to request more accommodating circumstances for this scenario. He decapitates the xenomorph with a katana and succeeds the Panther King as the land’s royal leader. A postmodern meta moment like this is not surprising, but placing it in the game’s climax feels rather contrived. Then again, the game’s plot was already contrived. One thing I like about the ending is swinging the xenomorph by its tail in an homage to the Bowser fights in Super Mario 64. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the most clever reference in the game.
It goes without saying, but Conker’s Bad Fur Day certainly stands out from the rest of its 3D platformer contemporaries. The game perches itself on the tower of backs made from its N64 brethren to poke and prod their foundations while excreting an unspeakable cocktail of piss and shit down their trail. Games like Super Mario 64 and Rare’s Banjo games walked so Conker’s Bad Fur Day could run, and the game has shown through its presentation that it can run pretty fast. Unfortunately, the game did not have the stamina or gaming competency to do the hundred-yard dash, making it a fellow contender instead of the undisputed king. Conker’s Bad Fur Day is a case of style over substance, and even then, the smutty style that launched it into the stratosphere is a bit too sophomoric and is ultimately a product of its time. Nevertheless, Conker’s Bad Fur Day is still a unique experience not for the faint of heart, and rest assured that there won’t be another game like it released in the future.
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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
A solid Picross game. It doesn't have some of the features of later Picross games (e.g. Mega Picross), but the puzzles are fun, especially because it's featuring Nintendo characters and devices. Some of the puzzles were decently challenging, but this isn't a departure from the formula at all. Enjoyable if you're into Picross, but if it's not for you then you're not going to find anything to like with this one.
The first DLC! Adds Knuckles to Sonic 2 making it a bit more challenging.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
1992
The first Sonic the Hedgehog did not succeed in swaying me. Sega thought that their audacity to spurn the undisputed video game champ of Nintendo was totally justified because they claimed Sonic’s unequivocal awesomeness would render the likes of Mario null and void. All we had to do as gamers were take a chance on its competition and help usher in Sega’s gaming empire. While Sonic and the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive provided a worthy alternative to Nintendo’s systems, the company did not eclipse Nintendo’s presence and dethroned them from their seat as the king of the gaming medium. Given that Sonic was the juggernaut that Sega paraded in this battle they created, it’s a wonder how they ever fathomed a chance of winning. Admittedly, Sonic had charisma, appeal, and a performative prowess that outmatched anyone from Nintendo’s mascot lineup. However, the “blast-processing” mumbo-jumbo Sega touted was nothing but a cheap gimmick (what a surprise). As lame as it sounds, Mario has persisted because his platforming is practical and suitable for his world. Sonic’s blisteringly fast momentum did not bode well with the constant obstacles that constantly halted his trajectory. In fact, the first Sonic title presented so many walls, enemies, and awkward platforming sections in Sonic’s way that it seemed as if speed was discouraged. Fortunately, gaming is littered with sequels that strive to mend the blemishes of the previous title. Considering Sonic’s popularity, the release of one was inevitable. One year after Sonic’s debut, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was the sequel that could potentially convert skeptics like me by overhauling all of Sonic’s flaws and finally impact Nintendo’s reign over the industry.
One can only tweak Sonic so much before going overboard. He’s a simple character with a restrained array of abilities. The blue hedgehog’s prime asset is his speed which can get bogged down from overcomplicating it with the frills of upgrades. Sonic would have faltered even more if Sega granted Sonic as many power-ups as Nintendo did for Mario in Super Mario Bros. 3. Any enhancement to Sonic would have to expand and or accommodate his sprightly nature. Given that Sonic already zooms across the map like a bat out of hell making him faster would’ve rendered him unplayable. The developers wisely decided to augment a component of Sonic’s speed that wasn’t his maximum potential. Climbing inclined ledges in the first game tended to be awkward due to insufficient innate momentum to scale up the next platform. The game assumes that the player should be blazing through the level but fails to consider all the assorted enemies and numerous collisions with the walls that upset the movement rate. Sega’s solution to this common dilemma was the spin dash, a manual method of gaining momentum for getting over those stubbornly steep ledges or simply for a quick boost. Crouching and holding down the jump button will cause Sonic to rev up enough kinetic energy by spinning in place, and releasing him will cause Sonic to dash while curled up in a ball with enough speed to overcome several platforming hurdles. Sonic can also utilize this move for the assorted roller coaster loops and plow over most ground-floor enemies. The spin dash is a stroke of genius that compliments Sonic’s swift and alert gameplay while also greatly compensating for the abrupt cessations at the core of Sonic’s faulty design. In the grand scheme of Sonic ingenuity, the introduction of the spin dash is akin to inventing the wheel: a requisite for any Sonic game whose inclusion in Sonic 2 consigns the first game to the prehistoric dark ages.
If the player didn’t immediately launch themselves into the game by pressing the start button, they might have noticed that Sonic is sharing the space of the open-faced emblem in the game’s menu. His golden, furry compadre smiling at the player and gesturing his fist is Miles Prower, who is thankfully better recognized by his nickname “Tails” because his full name is a god-awful pun. Long before Sega gave Sonic enough friends to fill a penthouse orgy, this plucky fox with a genetic mutation was his first and only aid in saving the woodland critters of Mobius from becoming Robotnik’s mechanized slaves. As subsequent entries in the Sonic franchise were released, Tails' role as the mechanical wizkid and his quest for self-confidence is extrapolated, but not so much here. All we see pertaining to this in his debut here is him escorting Sonic through the sky via a biplane. However, one aspect of Tails seen here that remains consistent throughout the series is his supporting second banana status to Sonic. Like Luigi before, Tails is the “little brother” character for the second player, intending to have significantly less impact and precedence. Tails even take the secondary role a step beyond Luigi as the game simultaneously sets Sonic and Tails on the field. The second player will hardly get the sensation that they are playing as Tails because the camera will solely focus on Sonic, leaving Tails in the dust as Sonic zips around at the speed of light. Tails also cannot die, ultimately making the second player ideal for dealing with the Robotnik encounters while Sonic sits back and fondles his chili dog. Talk about being insignificant! Player 1 also can play Tails as a solo venture, but who would want to play as a character that is slower than Sonic without any special attributes? Adding Tails to the experience was a slight sampler of the bloated character roster that Sega always planned for Sonic.
The first game’s core problem was not the lack of the spin dash or a buddy that follows Sonic around like a dog. Sonic’s debut title misfired due to the questionable designs across most game levels. Lethargic platforming sections and trudging slowly through the water were completely counterintuitive to Sonic’s ideal purpose of sprinting through levels. Green Hill Zone, the starting level of the first Sonic game, was the only area that granted Sonic reasonable legroom to strut his stuff. Unfortunately, the game peaked at Green Hill Zone as every following level inhibited Sonic seemingly every step of the way. Emerald Hill Zone, Sonic 2’s first level, treats the player to the same quality standard as Green Hill did, but there is something peculiar about it. It doesn’t take a staunch Sonic enthusiast to notice that Emerald Hill Zone looks exactly like Green Hill Zone, almost down to the name. Emerald Hill possesses the same tropical foliage, mountainous towers of earth, a sparkling body of water in the background, etc. A few minor differences include a color pallet swap for the wasp bots, monkeys flinging coconuts from the tops of trees, and corkscrew sections that share the space with the inverted roller coaster loops. Starting the game with a remixed Green Hill Zone is refreshing and all, but it might signify that not only is the game repeating itself, but Sonic is already out of ideas.
When I stated that I’d be happy with the first Sonic game if it only included Green Hill Zone, I was being hyperbolic. Repeating Green Hill Zone to the extent of a full game would be like a box of cereal with nothing but marshmallows: the nuance is completely gone. Upon further consideration, perhaps Sonic 2 upholds the idea of only offering Green Hill Zone. No, I don’t mean almost the same level repeated ad nauseam like Emerald Hill, but levels that recreate the design and essence of Green Hill Zone using it as a template. My worries about Sonic 2 repeating its predecessor's mistakes were relieved with Chemical Zone, the level that follows Emerald Hill. Despite Chemical Zone displaying a more sterile, urban setting, the fabric of Green Hill Zone is interwoven in Chemical Zone’s industrial intricacies. Double-helixed ramps zigzag through several connecting routes as complex as the DNA structures they are modeled after. Pneumatic energy pushes Sonic through a series of tubes whose channels are so roundabout that it's liable to make the player feel dizzy. Downward ramps are so steep that it’s a wonder that Sonic’s inclined acceleration doesn’t make him catch fire. When Sonic reaches the bottom of these slopes, he jets off so vigorously that the camera struggles to catch up, hitting the wall on the right side of the screen as a result. One moment in the second act that breaks this whirlwind pacing is when Sonic must climb a series of moving blocks to avoid drowning in the rising pink water.(?) Somehow, platforming sections involving ascension don’t feel as jarring as those found in the first game, most likely because they still require movement. Chemical Plant Zone is an electrifying playground that exemplifies the pinnacle of Sonic’s level design. If not for Green Hill Zone serving as the precedent an entire game earlier, I’d declare Chemical Plant as the ultimate classic Sonic level.
While Chemical Plant is the stand-out level in Sonic 2, the game does not suffer from a massive decline in quality after experiencing the best that the game has to offer. While not as intense and multifaceted as Chemical Plant, each subsequent level still uses Green Hill Zone as inspiration. Just the name of Aquatic Ruin Zone may be enough to send shivers down the spines of anyone traumatized by the painful underwater slog that was Labyrinth Zone. However, Aquatic Ruin might be a testament that the developers learned their lesson and adapted accordingly. Aquatic Ruin is modeled with two distinct layers, one being the rocky ruins over the water and one being submerged in the drink. Accidently dipping into the water while speeding through the dry route is a soft penalty, but traversing the underwater path is as viable a means to navigate the level. Sonic’s speed is only slightly reduced as opposed to wading through water at a snail’s pace, and bubbling spots for Sonic to breathe are seen more frequently. Eventually, the two paths will intersect by the end of the level, a fantastic conclusion to the zone and another example of the layered design from Green Hill Zone in full effect. Casino Night Zone is a fully realized version of Spring Yard Zone, a flashy nocturnal setting beaming with the pizzazz of city nightlife. This zone marks the beginning of Sonic levels themed around casinos, with pinball bumpers and slot machines galore as part of the level design. Hill Top is a craggy, volcanic crater that further expands on the ascension sections seen in Chemical Plant. Mystic Cave is the most labyrinthine level that still offers multiple paths. Oil Ocean presents a series of cannons whose implementation in the level is similar to the pipes in Chemical Zone. The only level that shits the bed is Metropolis Zone, the final fully-fledged level with multiple acts. This level’s unfair enemy placements and the sections involving the bolts where Sonic has to rev up them on the nut recall some of the worst aspects from levels seen in the first game. Sega evidently didn’t grasp how to execute a Sonic game’s difficulty curve smoothly as Metropolis Zone and the finale level Wing Fortress digress back to Sonic 1’s flaws in the name of amping up the challenge near the end of the game.
I still find fault with the fact that Sega insists on crafting Sonic games with a punishing arcade difficulty in mind. Yet again, the player only has a piddly three lives to complete the game, and losing all of them blows the player right back to the very bottom. Even though this still irritates me, I suppose I can’t fault the developers too much for at least making survival easier for the player. While boxes containing extra lives still aren’t placed generously, the player now has the opportunity to stack lives without having to collect 100 rings. If the player manages to finish a stage with an estimated ballpark of at least 50 rings, an icon of Sonic will appear. Doing this in succession will net the player an extra life. Having around the same amount of rings when reaching any checkpoint also transports the player to this game’s special zone in a haze of red light. Special zones in Sonic serve as opportunities to net one of seven prized Chaos Emeralds, and since checkpoints are fairly commonplace, the player could potentially acquire all seven of them after the second zone to use Super Sonic. As lenient as that sounds, the half-pipe sections in the special stages are no cakewalk, but at least acquiring rings and avoiding bombs is feasible, unlike the rotating game of chance presented in the first game.
I’m not sure the additional perks in Sonic 2 could prepare the player for the final bout against Robotnik. Just like the first game, the mustachioed mechanical madman will appear at the end of each level’s final act as a boss. He hovers around in the same pod but still has some crazy new ideas to conquer Sonic. Ultimately, every new trick Robotnik has up his sleeves results in the same easy roulette of boss encounters from the first game. That is until Sonic reaches the zenith of his Death Egg battleship for the final duel. Before Robotnik must face his blue adversary for the last time, he decides to release an ugly, hostile robotic model of Sonic, known colloquially as Metal Sonic. Metal Sonic has had many appearances in later Sonic titles with more coloring and a sharper-looking sheen, but his clunky bronze form shows his humble origins like Marvel’s Iron Man. He also doesn’t pose much of a challenge, but the same cannot be said for the Death Egg Robot that Robotnik scurries into once Sonic has defeated his mechanized mirror. Robotnik’s mech is unpredictable and punishing, and the player must flirt with the stingiest of high hitboxes to do any real damage to it. Super Sonic would’ve been nifty and apropos for this climactic confrontation, but the developers thought it wise to deprive the player of any rings. Not only will the player die upon getting hit even once, but they will also be forced to fight Metal Sonic again. The process of fighting both of these bots will most likely drain the player’s lives, causing the player to go back to square one even at the final bout. If you can claim that you’ve never lost all of your lives to the Death Egg Robot and were crestfallen at the result at any point while playing this game, you’re a liar.
I love it when developers can take some time to honestly reflect on the faults of their games and use what they’ve learned to craft a smoother experience for the next title. One would not expect this type of introspection with Sonic the Hedgehog as Sega used their new mascot to bite their thumbs at Nintendo like rude little miscreants. Upon seeing the final product of Sonic’s debut, Sega realized that all the boasting they did made them look like total jackasses as they didn’t have a leg to stand on. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is an exemplary sequel that finally proves Sonic’s capabilities by expanding on the first game’s one exceptional attribute: Green Hill Zone. Using the multilayered design and lenient range of obstacles of Green Hill Zone, Sega formulated a bevy of levels that arguably surpass Green Hill Zone in complementing Sonic’s lighting-fast velocity. I still think that some aspects of this game are rather harsh, but the overall product wouldn’t make me feel duped if I hypothetically cheated on Nintendo with Sega by purchasing a Genesis console back in the day.
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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
One can only tweak Sonic so much before going overboard. He’s a simple character with a restrained array of abilities. The blue hedgehog’s prime asset is his speed which can get bogged down from overcomplicating it with the frills of upgrades. Sonic would have faltered even more if Sega granted Sonic as many power-ups as Nintendo did for Mario in Super Mario Bros. 3. Any enhancement to Sonic would have to expand and or accommodate his sprightly nature. Given that Sonic already zooms across the map like a bat out of hell making him faster would’ve rendered him unplayable. The developers wisely decided to augment a component of Sonic’s speed that wasn’t his maximum potential. Climbing inclined ledges in the first game tended to be awkward due to insufficient innate momentum to scale up the next platform. The game assumes that the player should be blazing through the level but fails to consider all the assorted enemies and numerous collisions with the walls that upset the movement rate. Sega’s solution to this common dilemma was the spin dash, a manual method of gaining momentum for getting over those stubbornly steep ledges or simply for a quick boost. Crouching and holding down the jump button will cause Sonic to rev up enough kinetic energy by spinning in place, and releasing him will cause Sonic to dash while curled up in a ball with enough speed to overcome several platforming hurdles. Sonic can also utilize this move for the assorted roller coaster loops and plow over most ground-floor enemies. The spin dash is a stroke of genius that compliments Sonic’s swift and alert gameplay while also greatly compensating for the abrupt cessations at the core of Sonic’s faulty design. In the grand scheme of Sonic ingenuity, the introduction of the spin dash is akin to inventing the wheel: a requisite for any Sonic game whose inclusion in Sonic 2 consigns the first game to the prehistoric dark ages.
If the player didn’t immediately launch themselves into the game by pressing the start button, they might have noticed that Sonic is sharing the space of the open-faced emblem in the game’s menu. His golden, furry compadre smiling at the player and gesturing his fist is Miles Prower, who is thankfully better recognized by his nickname “Tails” because his full name is a god-awful pun. Long before Sega gave Sonic enough friends to fill a penthouse orgy, this plucky fox with a genetic mutation was his first and only aid in saving the woodland critters of Mobius from becoming Robotnik’s mechanized slaves. As subsequent entries in the Sonic franchise were released, Tails' role as the mechanical wizkid and his quest for self-confidence is extrapolated, but not so much here. All we see pertaining to this in his debut here is him escorting Sonic through the sky via a biplane. However, one aspect of Tails seen here that remains consistent throughout the series is his supporting second banana status to Sonic. Like Luigi before, Tails is the “little brother” character for the second player, intending to have significantly less impact and precedence. Tails even take the secondary role a step beyond Luigi as the game simultaneously sets Sonic and Tails on the field. The second player will hardly get the sensation that they are playing as Tails because the camera will solely focus on Sonic, leaving Tails in the dust as Sonic zips around at the speed of light. Tails also cannot die, ultimately making the second player ideal for dealing with the Robotnik encounters while Sonic sits back and fondles his chili dog. Talk about being insignificant! Player 1 also can play Tails as a solo venture, but who would want to play as a character that is slower than Sonic without any special attributes? Adding Tails to the experience was a slight sampler of the bloated character roster that Sega always planned for Sonic.
The first game’s core problem was not the lack of the spin dash or a buddy that follows Sonic around like a dog. Sonic’s debut title misfired due to the questionable designs across most game levels. Lethargic platforming sections and trudging slowly through the water were completely counterintuitive to Sonic’s ideal purpose of sprinting through levels. Green Hill Zone, the starting level of the first Sonic game, was the only area that granted Sonic reasonable legroom to strut his stuff. Unfortunately, the game peaked at Green Hill Zone as every following level inhibited Sonic seemingly every step of the way. Emerald Hill Zone, Sonic 2’s first level, treats the player to the same quality standard as Green Hill did, but there is something peculiar about it. It doesn’t take a staunch Sonic enthusiast to notice that Emerald Hill Zone looks exactly like Green Hill Zone, almost down to the name. Emerald Hill possesses the same tropical foliage, mountainous towers of earth, a sparkling body of water in the background, etc. A few minor differences include a color pallet swap for the wasp bots, monkeys flinging coconuts from the tops of trees, and corkscrew sections that share the space with the inverted roller coaster loops. Starting the game with a remixed Green Hill Zone is refreshing and all, but it might signify that not only is the game repeating itself, but Sonic is already out of ideas.
When I stated that I’d be happy with the first Sonic game if it only included Green Hill Zone, I was being hyperbolic. Repeating Green Hill Zone to the extent of a full game would be like a box of cereal with nothing but marshmallows: the nuance is completely gone. Upon further consideration, perhaps Sonic 2 upholds the idea of only offering Green Hill Zone. No, I don’t mean almost the same level repeated ad nauseam like Emerald Hill, but levels that recreate the design and essence of Green Hill Zone using it as a template. My worries about Sonic 2 repeating its predecessor's mistakes were relieved with Chemical Zone, the level that follows Emerald Hill. Despite Chemical Zone displaying a more sterile, urban setting, the fabric of Green Hill Zone is interwoven in Chemical Zone’s industrial intricacies. Double-helixed ramps zigzag through several connecting routes as complex as the DNA structures they are modeled after. Pneumatic energy pushes Sonic through a series of tubes whose channels are so roundabout that it's liable to make the player feel dizzy. Downward ramps are so steep that it’s a wonder that Sonic’s inclined acceleration doesn’t make him catch fire. When Sonic reaches the bottom of these slopes, he jets off so vigorously that the camera struggles to catch up, hitting the wall on the right side of the screen as a result. One moment in the second act that breaks this whirlwind pacing is when Sonic must climb a series of moving blocks to avoid drowning in the rising pink water.(?) Somehow, platforming sections involving ascension don’t feel as jarring as those found in the first game, most likely because they still require movement. Chemical Plant Zone is an electrifying playground that exemplifies the pinnacle of Sonic’s level design. If not for Green Hill Zone serving as the precedent an entire game earlier, I’d declare Chemical Plant as the ultimate classic Sonic level.
While Chemical Plant is the stand-out level in Sonic 2, the game does not suffer from a massive decline in quality after experiencing the best that the game has to offer. While not as intense and multifaceted as Chemical Plant, each subsequent level still uses Green Hill Zone as inspiration. Just the name of Aquatic Ruin Zone may be enough to send shivers down the spines of anyone traumatized by the painful underwater slog that was Labyrinth Zone. However, Aquatic Ruin might be a testament that the developers learned their lesson and adapted accordingly. Aquatic Ruin is modeled with two distinct layers, one being the rocky ruins over the water and one being submerged in the drink. Accidently dipping into the water while speeding through the dry route is a soft penalty, but traversing the underwater path is as viable a means to navigate the level. Sonic’s speed is only slightly reduced as opposed to wading through water at a snail’s pace, and bubbling spots for Sonic to breathe are seen more frequently. Eventually, the two paths will intersect by the end of the level, a fantastic conclusion to the zone and another example of the layered design from Green Hill Zone in full effect. Casino Night Zone is a fully realized version of Spring Yard Zone, a flashy nocturnal setting beaming with the pizzazz of city nightlife. This zone marks the beginning of Sonic levels themed around casinos, with pinball bumpers and slot machines galore as part of the level design. Hill Top is a craggy, volcanic crater that further expands on the ascension sections seen in Chemical Plant. Mystic Cave is the most labyrinthine level that still offers multiple paths. Oil Ocean presents a series of cannons whose implementation in the level is similar to the pipes in Chemical Zone. The only level that shits the bed is Metropolis Zone, the final fully-fledged level with multiple acts. This level’s unfair enemy placements and the sections involving the bolts where Sonic has to rev up them on the nut recall some of the worst aspects from levels seen in the first game. Sega evidently didn’t grasp how to execute a Sonic game’s difficulty curve smoothly as Metropolis Zone and the finale level Wing Fortress digress back to Sonic 1’s flaws in the name of amping up the challenge near the end of the game.
I still find fault with the fact that Sega insists on crafting Sonic games with a punishing arcade difficulty in mind. Yet again, the player only has a piddly three lives to complete the game, and losing all of them blows the player right back to the very bottom. Even though this still irritates me, I suppose I can’t fault the developers too much for at least making survival easier for the player. While boxes containing extra lives still aren’t placed generously, the player now has the opportunity to stack lives without having to collect 100 rings. If the player manages to finish a stage with an estimated ballpark of at least 50 rings, an icon of Sonic will appear. Doing this in succession will net the player an extra life. Having around the same amount of rings when reaching any checkpoint also transports the player to this game’s special zone in a haze of red light. Special zones in Sonic serve as opportunities to net one of seven prized Chaos Emeralds, and since checkpoints are fairly commonplace, the player could potentially acquire all seven of them after the second zone to use Super Sonic. As lenient as that sounds, the half-pipe sections in the special stages are no cakewalk, but at least acquiring rings and avoiding bombs is feasible, unlike the rotating game of chance presented in the first game.
I’m not sure the additional perks in Sonic 2 could prepare the player for the final bout against Robotnik. Just like the first game, the mustachioed mechanical madman will appear at the end of each level’s final act as a boss. He hovers around in the same pod but still has some crazy new ideas to conquer Sonic. Ultimately, every new trick Robotnik has up his sleeves results in the same easy roulette of boss encounters from the first game. That is until Sonic reaches the zenith of his Death Egg battleship for the final duel. Before Robotnik must face his blue adversary for the last time, he decides to release an ugly, hostile robotic model of Sonic, known colloquially as Metal Sonic. Metal Sonic has had many appearances in later Sonic titles with more coloring and a sharper-looking sheen, but his clunky bronze form shows his humble origins like Marvel’s Iron Man. He also doesn’t pose much of a challenge, but the same cannot be said for the Death Egg Robot that Robotnik scurries into once Sonic has defeated his mechanized mirror. Robotnik’s mech is unpredictable and punishing, and the player must flirt with the stingiest of high hitboxes to do any real damage to it. Super Sonic would’ve been nifty and apropos for this climactic confrontation, but the developers thought it wise to deprive the player of any rings. Not only will the player die upon getting hit even once, but they will also be forced to fight Metal Sonic again. The process of fighting both of these bots will most likely drain the player’s lives, causing the player to go back to square one even at the final bout. If you can claim that you’ve never lost all of your lives to the Death Egg Robot and were crestfallen at the result at any point while playing this game, you’re a liar.
I love it when developers can take some time to honestly reflect on the faults of their games and use what they’ve learned to craft a smoother experience for the next title. One would not expect this type of introspection with Sonic the Hedgehog as Sega used their new mascot to bite their thumbs at Nintendo like rude little miscreants. Upon seeing the final product of Sonic’s debut, Sega realized that all the boasting they did made them look like total jackasses as they didn’t have a leg to stand on. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is an exemplary sequel that finally proves Sonic’s capabilities by expanding on the first game’s one exceptional attribute: Green Hill Zone. Using the multilayered design and lenient range of obstacles of Green Hill Zone, Sega formulated a bevy of levels that arguably surpass Green Hill Zone in complementing Sonic’s lighting-fast velocity. I still think that some aspects of this game are rather harsh, but the overall product wouldn’t make me feel duped if I hypothetically cheated on Nintendo with Sega by purchasing a Genesis console back in the day.
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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
*Disclaimer: I don’t normally review compilations, but Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles is the definitive version of the third mainline Sonic game. It is a bundle of Sonic 3 and its companion game/extension Sonic and Knuckles, released a few months after the former. All of the games, including the compilation, were released the same year on the same system, both titles are based on the same level design and story, and the main Sonic 3 game doesn’t feel finished without the Sonic & Knuckles addition. I believe Sega originally intended for the two games, but the game would’ve been too large at Sonic 3’s initial release. Because of all of this, I will sleep soundly tonight, knowing that I’ve covered the quintessential way to experience the third mainline Sonic title.
As I’ve stated countless times, the third entry to any series is the one that signals a sign that it's time to wrap things up. Three sequential games in a series seem like a minuscule number, but looking back at the first game after the third game’s release feels like seeing a middle-aged man’s photos from childhood and being astounded at how he’s grown. The second game is the adolescent wedge in between the two other cycles of life that marks the true process of growth, which is why it is usually the exemplary entry in a trilogy of games. The developers have enough leeway to learn about the franchises strengths and weaknesses in its infancy to cultivate it into its full potential upon the first sequel, garnering more critical praise and commercial success as a result. The third entry is made to reap the remaining crumbs of the previous title before its popularity peaks and ties the trilogy of games in a nice little bow. Any fourth entry would have to innovate immensely on all fronts, or else the series would become unnecessarily stagnant. Sega’s mascot franchise Sonic the Hedgehog wasn’t ready for an experimental phase, for the series hadn’t produced anything good with its basic formula to warrant a future title that takes too many risks with Sonic’s foundation. Relax, Sonic fans: I’m only half kidding. Sonic 2 was undoubtedly a vast improvement over the first game, but I’m holding Sonic to high standards after all the shit-talking they spewed about Nintendo to bolster their presence in the gaming world. To quote Omar Little from The Wire: if you come at the king, you better not miss, and Sonic 2 was still missing the polish and accessibility that made Mario the undisputed champion of the gaming medium. One silver lining about the second Sonic title slightly faltering was that the third game had the potential to break the trilogy cycle and triumph as the pinnacle of classic Sonic. To quote a more well-known idiom: the third time’s a charm, and perhaps this was the case for Sonic the Hedgehog.
Before I cover anything pertaining to Sonic 3’s gameplay, I have to immediately address something that almost solidified my case for Sonic 3 being the ultimate classic Sonic title. After introducing the game with the title screen of a more polygonal Sonic wagging his finger at the player, something extraordinary impedes the player from launching right into the action. Do my eyes deceive me, or has Sega promptly implemented a tangible save feature in a Sonic game? Hallelujah! My prayers have been answered! Sonic CD technically saves the player’s progress with the continue option in the menu, but Sonic 3 displays all of the blank data files for the player to prove that they are committed to accommodating the player. Sonic 3’s continue system is similar to Sonic CD's in that losing every life will result in having to continue the game from the first act of the zone the player was extinguished on, with Sonic 3 overtly depicting the zone in question in the save file. Not having this feature was the biggest detriment to Sonic, as forcing the player to restart from the beginning in a game with so many unfair blind spots they’d have to memorize to avoid was cruel. Since Sonic 3 is the classic Sonic title that absolves the player of their failures with more leniency, it automatically stands taller than all the others, right? In theory, yes, but there is a certain inconspicuous caveat. The save feature is the first notable mark of Sonic 3’s wild ambition to expand upon every facet of Sonic’s formula, and the overall execution of their ideas varies.
I suppose Sonic 3 has a more involved story than the previous two games, even if it still involves Sonic stopping Robotnik from mechanizing Mobius along with its entire ecosystem of animals. The story bears the traditional heroic Sonic arc, but the differences lie in how it is presented. Sonic 3 opens with a cutscene of Sonic casually hovering around as his glowing demigod Super Sonic form, skimming the surface water of an unspecified ocean with Tails trailing behind in his red bi-plane. Somehow, with all of the immense invulnerability granted to Super Sonic, his confident stroll is halted abruptly when something strikes him from below, and the seven Chaos Emeralds spill out of Sonic as he reverts back to his standard form. The violent obstruction is Knuckles the Echidna: Sonic’s respected rival/ally in his most primitive form as a secondary villain. He claimed in a future Sonic title that, unlike Sonic, he doesn’t chuckle; he’d rather flex his muscles. We see here that this lyric is a bold-faced lie, as he sinisterly sniggers constantly to convey his villainous role. Robotnik is still the focal point that Sonic must conquer, so Knuckles acts more as a cheeky narrative wildcard, causing Sonic grief at every point possible. Knuckles will often come around a corner to laugh smugly and halt Sonic’s progress by hitting a switch that causes Sonic and Tails to plummet into the level’s depths and other means of inconveniencing our heroic duo. As much as Knuckles seems like a pointless nuisance, it turns out the crux of Sonic 3’s narrative arc revolves around integrating him into the typical Sonic story. This reveal might not be shocking nowadays, with Knuckles being a beloved character with several credits across the franchise, but the reveal that Knuckles is an upstanding fellow who was tricked by Robotnik to get at his coveted Master Emerald is a fairly admirable effort to expand upon the Sonic vs. Robotnik arc we’ve become used to seeing.
Sonic 2 flirted with the idea of offering the player more characters to control rather than just Sonic. In the previous game, Tails was simply a slower Sonic with a brighter color. He filled a special cooperative second-player role, but I’d use the word “player” tentatively because the second player constantly struggled to keep up with Sonic zooming around each zone like a fly buzzing around a room. The second player’s control of Tails’ biplane in Sky Zone didn’t even need any sort of piloting skill to keep Sonic from tumbling out of the stratosphere to his death. Sonic 3 sees the same dynamic between Sonic and his golden boy wonder, guaranteeing that the little brother will still be put to work whenever Robotnik exhibits one of his new dangerous toys at the end of every zone. In a single-player setting, however, allowing Tails to fly totally separates him from the speedy blue hedgehog he follows around like a retriever. By holding down the jump button, Tails will soar off the ground and continue to fly upward until he hits a wall or comes into contact with a hazardous obstacle. Because Tails’ new unique ability does not tether him to the same earthly confines as Sonic, playing as him is a makeshift easy mode. Conversely, playing as Knuckles is more difficult than either Sonic or Tails because he lacks Sonic’s speed and his gliding move does not allow him to ascend over normal boundaries as easily as Tails. Knuckles can climb up walls and break through specific rocky barriers, and these special attributes are enough to traverse through any of the levels. Some may argue that playing as other characters whose abilities aren’t focused on speed distracts from the core of the gameplay. I’d say that the speed initiative for Sonic is questionable and that the true appeal of Sonic is the layered level design with parallel paths all leading to the same goal. With multiple characters that have to approach the layout differently, a veneer of depth is added to how the player can execute their desired trajectory through the game’s level.
There are still plenty of new surprises for the blue blur despite Sonic 3’s implications that adding new characters means that Sega worries that we have grown tired of him. Other than his slightly revamped posture and a more personable smirk on his face when he’s in an idle position, Sonic 3’s contribution to furthering the evolution of Sonic’s gameplay is the addition of elemental shields. These spherical globs that encapsulate Sonic like a hamster ball and grant him one extra hit without his rings spilling out have always been situated alongside ring canisters. Now, three different types of shields literally protect Sonic from the elements with other special properties as well. The fire shield propels Sonic further in a fiery blast, functioning as a long jump or attack. The electric shield magnetizes the rings in Sonic’s vicinity to come toward him, allowing him to execute an extra upward leap. Lastly, the bubble shield bounces Sonic downward as a pile-driving move. The inside also acts as a portable oxygen tank that lets Sonic traverse underwater without needing to stop and breathe the air bubbles that rise from the sea floor. Boy, would this have been handy in Labyrinth Zone. Then again, that’s why evolution across a franchise of games is imperative to its longevity. Overall, the elemental shields do not innovate to the extent of the inclusion of the spin dash in Sonic 2. Still, perhaps that’s not a fair comparison considering the advent of the spin dash was like the equivalent of finding the cure for polio. They are an adequate addition that does not overflow Sonic’s gameplay to the point of blowing it out of proportion.
Speaking of proportions, Sonic 3 needed to consult a design dietician to work out the portion control for each level. The unfortunate reason why the developers implemented a save system is due to the inflated length of each level. A timer that counts up like a stopwatch is present in the previous two Sonic titles, but I bet some of you didn’t know that the maximum time given to the player is a solid ten minutes. If the player fails to complete the level in time, Sonic will die as if he’s been hit, and the player will be forced to restart the level. The player didn’t have to worry in the previous two games because they would have naturally completed the level by then in ample time. So many levels in Sonic 3 will force the player to run past the five-minute mark, even for experienced players that have memorized the layout. Besides most levels bloating the typical Sonic level design to mammoth-sized dimensions, Sonic 3 is guilty of implementing many obstacles that feel like puzzle sections. We all know that solving a puzzle in a video game, or in general, takes time and brain power to solve efficiently, which is counterintuitive to Sonic’s swift gameplay. After doing some sick snowboarding tricks down a frigid mountain, Ice Cap will have Sonic falling even deeper down a continuously nauseating loop until the player finds a crag to surf on, which will destroy the obstructed path. The second act of Sandopolis has something similar with a series of gutters that gush sand, but the resolution to cease continually sliding downward like a Sisyphean curse is so indirect that it's borderline illusory. Carnival Night, a level that resembles Casino Night if the player took acid and put on an Insane Clown Posse album, implements these spinning barrels whose growing momentum requires the player to treat the controls like a swing. How the player is supposed to figure this out is beyond me, as many have commented that this section was why they quit the game permanently during classic Sonic’s heyday.
Even when the player isn’t forced to rack their brains while the clock is ticking, every single level is filled with multiple pace breakers. Sonic 3 cements Sonic CD even further as a canon classic Sonic title because Sega decided that level gimmicks were the optimal evolutionary trait for Sonic’s levels. The aforementioned Casino Night dings the player with constant pinball orbs, Mushroom Hill has pulleys in which Sonic must pull upward and downward continuously to ascend the stage, and the light beams in Death Egg take far too long to connect Sonic to the right path to be amused by their flashiness. Fatal blindspots that crush Sonic are too numerous to assign to a specific level. Hydrocity Zone tells me that Sega did not learn from their mistake of Labyrinth Zone, for Sonic spends the majority of this level slogging through the water as much as he did in the previous level. Levels feel more constrained as multiple paths seem less abundant, forcing the player to endure the tedium of constantly making Sonic stumble. The only reason none of this is as jarring as it was in the first game is due to all of the other evolved aspects of Sonic’s gameplay, like the spin dash and the continue system.
Another way Sonic 3 necessary augments each level’s run time is by incorporating a boss for every single act. Robotnik would be the sole foe at the end of each zone with a new invention to stamp out Sonic in the previous games, which is still the case. However, a myriad of Robotnik’s robotic creations challenges Sonic to a bout in each first act before Robotnik’s encounter in the zone’s following act. All of these bosses are as easy as they were in the previous two games, and some of them, like the Bowling Spin and the Gapsule are creatively designed. Tails even prove to be useful in the fight against Eggman at the end of Marble Garden Zone by carrying and retrieving Sonic as he jumps on Robotnik mid-flight. The problem with so many boss encounters is that their inclusion at the end of all of these lengthy levels grates on every player’s patience and makes them sweat looking at the time. Bosses like the Stone Guardian and Robotnik at the end of Carnival Night are tedious waiting games, and the latter of the two mentioned caused the first instance when I ran past ten minutes and was penalized.
Fortunately, Sonic 3 extends its suspicious newfound tendency to aid the player with the breeziest method of collecting the Chaos Emeralds and unleashing Super Sonic. Unlike the previous game, special stages must be found by exploring a level and uncovering their locations. The special stages in question for this entry involve Sonic moving on what looks like a chess board with restrictive controls. Sonic must collect every blue ball on the board, and collecting any red ones will expel him from the level. This minigame is comparatively so manageable and not based on sheer luck that I, for the first time ever, collected a Chaos Emerald in Sonic. Hey, I can be proud of my individual achievement, as meager as it might be. For more experienced players, Sonic 3’s special stages allow them to eventually blow through the game in Sonic’s Super Saiyan form at any given opportunity. Sure, they’ll have to wait for Hydrocity to do this, unlike the first level in Sonic 2, but the ease of the special stages is comparatively relieving. Unfortunately, they’ll still have to beat Robotnik fair and square with no rings with the final boss in his parody-sanctioned Death Egg fortress.
Surprisingly, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (and Knuckles) makes me appreciate Sonic 2 more and has me reconsidering the trilogy dynamic from which I thought the classic Sonic games diverted. Sonic 2’s imperfections, such as not supplying a save feature and implementing Tails as a clunkier clone of Sonic, have been remedied but at the cost of the fine-tuned gameplay and level design in Sonic 2 that almost made me cherish Sonic. It turns out that Sonic 3 (and Knuckles) falls into the trappings of a third entry so hard that it’s an obvious example of one. Everything in Sonic 3 swells every aspect of Sonic with the constant impediments and endurance test levels, and I should’ve expected it from the get-go. Reverting back to the beginning of the game upon failing in Sonic 2 was excruciating, but I’d take it any day over how Sonic 3 decided to direct the game around their new implementations. Isn’t that ironic?
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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
As I’ve stated countless times, the third entry to any series is the one that signals a sign that it's time to wrap things up. Three sequential games in a series seem like a minuscule number, but looking back at the first game after the third game’s release feels like seeing a middle-aged man’s photos from childhood and being astounded at how he’s grown. The second game is the adolescent wedge in between the two other cycles of life that marks the true process of growth, which is why it is usually the exemplary entry in a trilogy of games. The developers have enough leeway to learn about the franchises strengths and weaknesses in its infancy to cultivate it into its full potential upon the first sequel, garnering more critical praise and commercial success as a result. The third entry is made to reap the remaining crumbs of the previous title before its popularity peaks and ties the trilogy of games in a nice little bow. Any fourth entry would have to innovate immensely on all fronts, or else the series would become unnecessarily stagnant. Sega’s mascot franchise Sonic the Hedgehog wasn’t ready for an experimental phase, for the series hadn’t produced anything good with its basic formula to warrant a future title that takes too many risks with Sonic’s foundation. Relax, Sonic fans: I’m only half kidding. Sonic 2 was undoubtedly a vast improvement over the first game, but I’m holding Sonic to high standards after all the shit-talking they spewed about Nintendo to bolster their presence in the gaming world. To quote Omar Little from The Wire: if you come at the king, you better not miss, and Sonic 2 was still missing the polish and accessibility that made Mario the undisputed champion of the gaming medium. One silver lining about the second Sonic title slightly faltering was that the third game had the potential to break the trilogy cycle and triumph as the pinnacle of classic Sonic. To quote a more well-known idiom: the third time’s a charm, and perhaps this was the case for Sonic the Hedgehog.
Before I cover anything pertaining to Sonic 3’s gameplay, I have to immediately address something that almost solidified my case for Sonic 3 being the ultimate classic Sonic title. After introducing the game with the title screen of a more polygonal Sonic wagging his finger at the player, something extraordinary impedes the player from launching right into the action. Do my eyes deceive me, or has Sega promptly implemented a tangible save feature in a Sonic game? Hallelujah! My prayers have been answered! Sonic CD technically saves the player’s progress with the continue option in the menu, but Sonic 3 displays all of the blank data files for the player to prove that they are committed to accommodating the player. Sonic 3’s continue system is similar to Sonic CD's in that losing every life will result in having to continue the game from the first act of the zone the player was extinguished on, with Sonic 3 overtly depicting the zone in question in the save file. Not having this feature was the biggest detriment to Sonic, as forcing the player to restart from the beginning in a game with so many unfair blind spots they’d have to memorize to avoid was cruel. Since Sonic 3 is the classic Sonic title that absolves the player of their failures with more leniency, it automatically stands taller than all the others, right? In theory, yes, but there is a certain inconspicuous caveat. The save feature is the first notable mark of Sonic 3’s wild ambition to expand upon every facet of Sonic’s formula, and the overall execution of their ideas varies.
I suppose Sonic 3 has a more involved story than the previous two games, even if it still involves Sonic stopping Robotnik from mechanizing Mobius along with its entire ecosystem of animals. The story bears the traditional heroic Sonic arc, but the differences lie in how it is presented. Sonic 3 opens with a cutscene of Sonic casually hovering around as his glowing demigod Super Sonic form, skimming the surface water of an unspecified ocean with Tails trailing behind in his red bi-plane. Somehow, with all of the immense invulnerability granted to Super Sonic, his confident stroll is halted abruptly when something strikes him from below, and the seven Chaos Emeralds spill out of Sonic as he reverts back to his standard form. The violent obstruction is Knuckles the Echidna: Sonic’s respected rival/ally in his most primitive form as a secondary villain. He claimed in a future Sonic title that, unlike Sonic, he doesn’t chuckle; he’d rather flex his muscles. We see here that this lyric is a bold-faced lie, as he sinisterly sniggers constantly to convey his villainous role. Robotnik is still the focal point that Sonic must conquer, so Knuckles acts more as a cheeky narrative wildcard, causing Sonic grief at every point possible. Knuckles will often come around a corner to laugh smugly and halt Sonic’s progress by hitting a switch that causes Sonic and Tails to plummet into the level’s depths and other means of inconveniencing our heroic duo. As much as Knuckles seems like a pointless nuisance, it turns out the crux of Sonic 3’s narrative arc revolves around integrating him into the typical Sonic story. This reveal might not be shocking nowadays, with Knuckles being a beloved character with several credits across the franchise, but the reveal that Knuckles is an upstanding fellow who was tricked by Robotnik to get at his coveted Master Emerald is a fairly admirable effort to expand upon the Sonic vs. Robotnik arc we’ve become used to seeing.
Sonic 2 flirted with the idea of offering the player more characters to control rather than just Sonic. In the previous game, Tails was simply a slower Sonic with a brighter color. He filled a special cooperative second-player role, but I’d use the word “player” tentatively because the second player constantly struggled to keep up with Sonic zooming around each zone like a fly buzzing around a room. The second player’s control of Tails’ biplane in Sky Zone didn’t even need any sort of piloting skill to keep Sonic from tumbling out of the stratosphere to his death. Sonic 3 sees the same dynamic between Sonic and his golden boy wonder, guaranteeing that the little brother will still be put to work whenever Robotnik exhibits one of his new dangerous toys at the end of every zone. In a single-player setting, however, allowing Tails to fly totally separates him from the speedy blue hedgehog he follows around like a retriever. By holding down the jump button, Tails will soar off the ground and continue to fly upward until he hits a wall or comes into contact with a hazardous obstacle. Because Tails’ new unique ability does not tether him to the same earthly confines as Sonic, playing as him is a makeshift easy mode. Conversely, playing as Knuckles is more difficult than either Sonic or Tails because he lacks Sonic’s speed and his gliding move does not allow him to ascend over normal boundaries as easily as Tails. Knuckles can climb up walls and break through specific rocky barriers, and these special attributes are enough to traverse through any of the levels. Some may argue that playing as other characters whose abilities aren’t focused on speed distracts from the core of the gameplay. I’d say that the speed initiative for Sonic is questionable and that the true appeal of Sonic is the layered level design with parallel paths all leading to the same goal. With multiple characters that have to approach the layout differently, a veneer of depth is added to how the player can execute their desired trajectory through the game’s level.
There are still plenty of new surprises for the blue blur despite Sonic 3’s implications that adding new characters means that Sega worries that we have grown tired of him. Other than his slightly revamped posture and a more personable smirk on his face when he’s in an idle position, Sonic 3’s contribution to furthering the evolution of Sonic’s gameplay is the addition of elemental shields. These spherical globs that encapsulate Sonic like a hamster ball and grant him one extra hit without his rings spilling out have always been situated alongside ring canisters. Now, three different types of shields literally protect Sonic from the elements with other special properties as well. The fire shield propels Sonic further in a fiery blast, functioning as a long jump or attack. The electric shield magnetizes the rings in Sonic’s vicinity to come toward him, allowing him to execute an extra upward leap. Lastly, the bubble shield bounces Sonic downward as a pile-driving move. The inside also acts as a portable oxygen tank that lets Sonic traverse underwater without needing to stop and breathe the air bubbles that rise from the sea floor. Boy, would this have been handy in Labyrinth Zone. Then again, that’s why evolution across a franchise of games is imperative to its longevity. Overall, the elemental shields do not innovate to the extent of the inclusion of the spin dash in Sonic 2. Still, perhaps that’s not a fair comparison considering the advent of the spin dash was like the equivalent of finding the cure for polio. They are an adequate addition that does not overflow Sonic’s gameplay to the point of blowing it out of proportion.
Speaking of proportions, Sonic 3 needed to consult a design dietician to work out the portion control for each level. The unfortunate reason why the developers implemented a save system is due to the inflated length of each level. A timer that counts up like a stopwatch is present in the previous two Sonic titles, but I bet some of you didn’t know that the maximum time given to the player is a solid ten minutes. If the player fails to complete the level in time, Sonic will die as if he’s been hit, and the player will be forced to restart the level. The player didn’t have to worry in the previous two games because they would have naturally completed the level by then in ample time. So many levels in Sonic 3 will force the player to run past the five-minute mark, even for experienced players that have memorized the layout. Besides most levels bloating the typical Sonic level design to mammoth-sized dimensions, Sonic 3 is guilty of implementing many obstacles that feel like puzzle sections. We all know that solving a puzzle in a video game, or in general, takes time and brain power to solve efficiently, which is counterintuitive to Sonic’s swift gameplay. After doing some sick snowboarding tricks down a frigid mountain, Ice Cap will have Sonic falling even deeper down a continuously nauseating loop until the player finds a crag to surf on, which will destroy the obstructed path. The second act of Sandopolis has something similar with a series of gutters that gush sand, but the resolution to cease continually sliding downward like a Sisyphean curse is so indirect that it's borderline illusory. Carnival Night, a level that resembles Casino Night if the player took acid and put on an Insane Clown Posse album, implements these spinning barrels whose growing momentum requires the player to treat the controls like a swing. How the player is supposed to figure this out is beyond me, as many have commented that this section was why they quit the game permanently during classic Sonic’s heyday.
Even when the player isn’t forced to rack their brains while the clock is ticking, every single level is filled with multiple pace breakers. Sonic 3 cements Sonic CD even further as a canon classic Sonic title because Sega decided that level gimmicks were the optimal evolutionary trait for Sonic’s levels. The aforementioned Casino Night dings the player with constant pinball orbs, Mushroom Hill has pulleys in which Sonic must pull upward and downward continuously to ascend the stage, and the light beams in Death Egg take far too long to connect Sonic to the right path to be amused by their flashiness. Fatal blindspots that crush Sonic are too numerous to assign to a specific level. Hydrocity Zone tells me that Sega did not learn from their mistake of Labyrinth Zone, for Sonic spends the majority of this level slogging through the water as much as he did in the previous level. Levels feel more constrained as multiple paths seem less abundant, forcing the player to endure the tedium of constantly making Sonic stumble. The only reason none of this is as jarring as it was in the first game is due to all of the other evolved aspects of Sonic’s gameplay, like the spin dash and the continue system.
Another way Sonic 3 necessary augments each level’s run time is by incorporating a boss for every single act. Robotnik would be the sole foe at the end of each zone with a new invention to stamp out Sonic in the previous games, which is still the case. However, a myriad of Robotnik’s robotic creations challenges Sonic to a bout in each first act before Robotnik’s encounter in the zone’s following act. All of these bosses are as easy as they were in the previous two games, and some of them, like the Bowling Spin and the Gapsule are creatively designed. Tails even prove to be useful in the fight against Eggman at the end of Marble Garden Zone by carrying and retrieving Sonic as he jumps on Robotnik mid-flight. The problem with so many boss encounters is that their inclusion at the end of all of these lengthy levels grates on every player’s patience and makes them sweat looking at the time. Bosses like the Stone Guardian and Robotnik at the end of Carnival Night are tedious waiting games, and the latter of the two mentioned caused the first instance when I ran past ten minutes and was penalized.
Fortunately, Sonic 3 extends its suspicious newfound tendency to aid the player with the breeziest method of collecting the Chaos Emeralds and unleashing Super Sonic. Unlike the previous game, special stages must be found by exploring a level and uncovering their locations. The special stages in question for this entry involve Sonic moving on what looks like a chess board with restrictive controls. Sonic must collect every blue ball on the board, and collecting any red ones will expel him from the level. This minigame is comparatively so manageable and not based on sheer luck that I, for the first time ever, collected a Chaos Emerald in Sonic. Hey, I can be proud of my individual achievement, as meager as it might be. For more experienced players, Sonic 3’s special stages allow them to eventually blow through the game in Sonic’s Super Saiyan form at any given opportunity. Sure, they’ll have to wait for Hydrocity to do this, unlike the first level in Sonic 2, but the ease of the special stages is comparatively relieving. Unfortunately, they’ll still have to beat Robotnik fair and square with no rings with the final boss in his parody-sanctioned Death Egg fortress.
Surprisingly, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (and Knuckles) makes me appreciate Sonic 2 more and has me reconsidering the trilogy dynamic from which I thought the classic Sonic games diverted. Sonic 2’s imperfections, such as not supplying a save feature and implementing Tails as a clunkier clone of Sonic, have been remedied but at the cost of the fine-tuned gameplay and level design in Sonic 2 that almost made me cherish Sonic. It turns out that Sonic 3 (and Knuckles) falls into the trappings of a third entry so hard that it’s an obvious example of one. Everything in Sonic 3 swells every aspect of Sonic with the constant impediments and endurance test levels, and I should’ve expected it from the get-go. Reverting back to the beginning of the game upon failing in Sonic 2 was excruciating, but I’d take it any day over how Sonic 3 decided to direct the game around their new implementations. Isn’t that ironic?
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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
Donkey Kong Country
1994
This review contains spoilers
Donkey Kong was almost a relic of Nintendo's ancient history. The classic Donkey Kong arcade game was Nintendo's individual achievement back in 1981, but the introduction of the NES later in the decade ushered in a golden age for Nintendo as they became the dominant video game console producer. New IPs became the backbone for Nintendo's glory days and the character of Donkey Kong was left in the dust. Nintendo became a household name in only a few short years that it seemed unbelievable that they had anything to do with the Donkey Kong arcade game. For the longest time, Donkey Kong was relegated to Nintendo's pre-history. As influential as the Donkey Kong arcade game was, the NES period was a bad time to not get any limelight in Nintendo's back catalog. Ten years after the arcade game, Donkey Kong Jr.'s inclusion in the first Mario Kart game for the SNES was like Mr. Game and Watch's inclusion in Super Smash Bros. Melee; as a lark to showcase some obscure, historical Nintendo characters among more popular ones. It's insane how long Nintendo left Donkey Kong in the proverbial attic during their golden years. It might have been this way if a certain British game developer had left this unchecked. If you like Donkey Kong as the brawny, tie-wearing ape as we've come to know him, then you have Rare Studio's 1994 SNES game Donkey Kong Country to thank.
You might ask yourself this question: what was the impetus of resurrecting the titular ape of a classic early 80's arcade game? Donkey Kong just throws barrels and kidnaps people's girlfriends. Donkey Kong isn't exactly a complicated game with complicated characters. How could he fit into the landscape of the 16-bit era? Not to mention, Jumpman, or Mario as you might know him, had greatly transcended his role into bigger feats of saving girls from giant reptilians instead of giant apes since his first outing in 1981. Mario had completely separated himself from his first video game role so drastically that the fact that he was ever referred to as Jumpman seems like an esoteric trivia factoid. Obviously, a game two gaming generations later wouldn't be the same as it once was. The template for Donkey Kong Country wasn't to expand on the classic arcade game or the titular character but to emphasize the "country" part of Donkey Kong Country to give audiences a sprawling world that made sense putting Donkey Kong in. The presentation of this game, whether it be the level design, the music, or the unique art style, made this game stand out above the rest of its contemporaries and cemented itself not just as a comeback for Donkey Kong, but also as one of the hallmark games on the SNES.
The game begins as Donkey Kong is crestfallen at the sight of his massive banana hoard stolen by Kremlings, the alligator-like main enemies in the game, and Donkey Kong has to venture out into progressively more uncharted territory to get his banana hoard back. It seems like a silly setup until you realize that Donkey Kong is a giant ape and the only way he could be motivated to go on a daunting journey is bananas, not sex. After all, Donkey Kong's girlfriend, Candy Kong, helps you on your quest by providing the occasional save point. She definitely seems much more of a formidable person to capture than the frangible Princess Peach. Stealing a monkey's banana hoard is as low as taking the love of his life (which in this case, the love of his life is bananas, not his girlfriend, so I guess it's not on equal standing). Aiding Donkey Kong in his quest is his best buddy Diddy Kong. You simultaneously play as both Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong throughout the entirety of the game. In this case, Diddy and Donkey Kong are on equal standing in this game in terms of screen time. Diddy isn't just Donkey Kong's Luigi in that his existence doesn't fulfill a multi-player role for your younger sibling. Donkey Kong and Diddy balance each other out quite nicely. Where Donkey Kong is bulky, Diddy Kong is nimble. Donkey Kong can defeat a larger array of enemies because of his larger stature and Diddy Kong can access more of a level because he can jump higher. Both character's attributes are required to traverse through each level, so you'll always have to be careful because once one character is hit, they gasp and run away until you find another barrel to bring them back. The dynamic between Donkey Kong and Diddy is so simple, yet works so well in the game that it's practically perfect. Many platformers with more than one playable character around this time were repainted clones, but Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong legitimately feel different when you are playing as either of them. The contrast between the two makes the player utilize the strengths of each character wisely and also makes them careful which character is upfront before they get hit. Not to mention, both characters move incredibly smoothly and there are plenty of ways to traverse the levels as either character when you only have one of them. There is also a bevy of animal buddies that you can find at almost every level. Each of them is different animals with their own unique attributes that control just as smoothly as the two main characters (although I swear I made too many unfair missteps with that damn frog). The smoothness and variation of control are a testament to what makes a solid 2D platformer especially with as many playable characters as DKC has.
Before discussing the strengths of how the levels in Donkey Kong Country are designed, one just can't overlook the game's aesthetic. Instead of using 16-bit graphics as per the usual SNES games, Rare implemented pre-rendered 3D graphics and compressed them into 16-bit graphics to fit on the SNES. They look like the bridge between the then-current generation of graphics with the future of what was to come in the next generation of early 3D games. It's a style that is stuck in a state of purgatory between these two eras, but this is for the benefit of the DKC series because it makes the series look distinctive. This tactic also makes the DKC series the best-looking games on the SNES. I was always somewhat deterred by the graphics of the 16-bit era because they often look very "drawn on" thus looking very dated. I find the 64-bit graphics charming and the once rudimentary 8-bit graphics have become their own distinctive graphical style over the years, so the era in between still looks a little awkward to me. DKC's graphics don't quite fit the common aesthetic of its era, but it's all to it's the benefit. For some reason, the style still looks fantastic. Every character, whether it be the playable characters or the varied animal enemies, looks so animated and expressive. The backgrounds are lush and practically look like paintings and the foregrounds are just as vividly clear. Why didn't other game studios think of ever doing this? Accompanying the lush, sprawling world of Donkey Kong Country is the soundtrack, an element to this game that is just as important as the graphics. David Wise did an outstanding job at perfectly capturing the right mood for every single level in this game. A highlight track for me is "Aquatic Ambiance" because of how mesmerizing it is. As far as I'm concerned, it's up there with "Aquarium" from "The Carnival of Animals" as far as effective watery music pieces go.
The world, or should I say country, of Donkey Kong Country, is divided very similarly to Super Mario World. The hub world is a map of the entire game divided into seven or so sub-worlds each with a varying number of levels. The first Donkey Kong Country game on the SNES is much more consistent with the overall level themes than the other two in that it maintains its overall jungle/rural tone. It only deviates from this theme later in the game in the factory levels, but the factories are still overrun with kremlings and other animals from previous levels making it seem like the factory is still rooted in the rustic world of this game instead of contrasting it. Like other 2D platformers, the objective is to get to point A to point B. Donkey Kong and Diddy can jump on enemies and roll into them giving the player a nuanced way of defeating enemies rather than just using one tactic in conjunction with getting through the level. Ropes are strewn around the levels to climb further and to dodge enemies on a rail, tires act as springs like in Sonic the Hedgehog, and barrels will launch you in any direction. The barrels are definitely the defining platforming feature of the DKC series. Utilizing the barrels in levels would evolve as the series went on, but I think they were used the best in the first game. The barrel sections are tense and require the greatest use of one's reaction time. You cannot make any mistakes in this game when it comes to the barrel sections.
On the map, Donkey Kong has other friends that aid him in his journey besides Diddy and his animal friends. There is the aptly ape named Cranky Kong who is a tiny old curmudgeon that lives in a cabin. He doesn't so much help you as much as he calls you a candyass and tells you about a challenge involving beating completing this game in under an hour, a feat that he apparently did long ago. Cranky is apparently the original Donkey Kong from the arcade game as an old man, and the modern Donkey Kong that we're all familiar with is his grandson which only makes me ask questions about what happened to Donkey Kong Jr. The aforementioned Candy Kong will help you similarly save your game to Super Mario World in which you have to unlock the save point after a certain number of levels. Lastly, there's Funky Kong that lets you travel to different areas of the map.
You'll get to know Funky and Candy Kong really well from saving at any possible point and stocking up on extra lives. You're gonna need them because this game and the rest of the Donkey Kong Country games have a reputation for being quite difficult. It almost reminds you that this game was developed by the guys that made Battletoads. Although not as consistently frustrating as Battletoads, DKC has an incredibly steep difficulty curb as early as the second world with the notorious "Mine Cart Madness" level. Up until this level, the platforming was pretty fair and the obstacles could be readily combated without much trouble, but this level throws all of that out of the window. For the entire level, you are forced inside of a minecart that constantly keeps moving and never stops. You'll have to efficiently time your jumps at every step, there are stationary mine carts to jump over, and kremlings will be coming at you from the opposite direction. What's funny to me is that somehow, this level is much more difficult than the mine cart level much later in the game. It's the level that separates the men from the boys and after this, the game never gets easier.
Like classic Sonic the Hedgehog, the root of the first DKC's difficulty comes from the "blindspot" difficulty. DKC oftentimes makes you memorize the placements of the pitfalls and enemies because passing them smoothly requires a lot of trial and error. There are pitfalls at every corner in this game that can be quite challenging to get through. Oftentimes, the game throws more gimmicks at the player like a level on a conveyor belt and a level that is mostly in total darkness. Tons of different types of enemies come at you from every angle each with a unique tactic to kill you and the hitboxes are oftentimes questionable. I felt like I needed a referee to debate my untimely death every other time I died trying to jump on an enemy. "Mine Cart Madness" even has a fake-out kremling after the developers know you've taken a breath of relief. The worst offender of these blindspots is "Poison Pond" in which taking the incorrect route will ultimately result in the Kongs getting hit. It doesn't help that the correct paths are filled with gyrating tires with little elbow room to dodge and the final part of this level has fish coming at you in every single space that it's practically a bullet-hell section. The game makes damn sure that the player never gets accustomed to dealing with the obstacles in this game unless you know how to overcome every single one of them. Fortunately, the game gives you ample opportunity to stock up on extra lives through mini-games and banana collecting. The bananas in this game act like the coins in Mario in that collecting 100 of them will reward you with an extra life. They mostly come in singles, but there are plenty of bananas that are stacked in tens. The abundance of bananas in the levels shows a nice sense of self-awareness from the developers in that they didn't want to leave the player high and dry with the steep difficulty of the game.
The levels in this game are certainly daunting, but the same can't be said about the bosses. In fact, the bosses in the first Donkey Kong Country are pitifully easy. You know it's troubling when you strain yourself over the levels and a boss fight seems like a place of relief. The bosses are essentially larger versions of the standard enemies and they only take a few hits to defeat. The boss before King K. Rool is a giant black barrel with a skull and crossbones in the middle of it and it's just a simple boss gauntlet. The barrel doesn't even hurt you when it slams down on the ground. King K. Rool, the final boss of this game and the Bowser of the DKC trilogy, is a different beast altogether. Instead of going down after a few cheap hits, King K. Rool is a formidable foe with a few different phases that will test all of the abilities you've been using throughout the game. All of the blindspots in the game will also prepare you for the bizarre kremling kredits that roll after you think you've defeated King K. Rool before the final phase of his boss fight. I'm ashamed to admit, but he pulled me into a false sense of victory when these credits rolled and he stomped me into the ground. I feel like an absolute idiot for not getting the hint from the credits considering the Rare staff all have kremling names. I figured they were all foreigners.
Donkey Kong Country totally revitalized the character (or technically, revamped Donkey Kong as a younger, more acrobatic version of the arcade game character) and forever made Donkey Kong one of the prime faces of Nintendo's extensive back catalog. As for the game itself, it takes the influences from other 2D platformers of the time and still delivers something unique. The art style and music are still just as captivating as they were when the game was released more than 25 years ago, and it's also one of the smoothest and diverse games of the time in terms of movement. This game is now rightfully considered a classic, but for me personally, everything that made this game stand out was vastly improved in the next two games in the franchise.
------
Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
You might ask yourself this question: what was the impetus of resurrecting the titular ape of a classic early 80's arcade game? Donkey Kong just throws barrels and kidnaps people's girlfriends. Donkey Kong isn't exactly a complicated game with complicated characters. How could he fit into the landscape of the 16-bit era? Not to mention, Jumpman, or Mario as you might know him, had greatly transcended his role into bigger feats of saving girls from giant reptilians instead of giant apes since his first outing in 1981. Mario had completely separated himself from his first video game role so drastically that the fact that he was ever referred to as Jumpman seems like an esoteric trivia factoid. Obviously, a game two gaming generations later wouldn't be the same as it once was. The template for Donkey Kong Country wasn't to expand on the classic arcade game or the titular character but to emphasize the "country" part of Donkey Kong Country to give audiences a sprawling world that made sense putting Donkey Kong in. The presentation of this game, whether it be the level design, the music, or the unique art style, made this game stand out above the rest of its contemporaries and cemented itself not just as a comeback for Donkey Kong, but also as one of the hallmark games on the SNES.
The game begins as Donkey Kong is crestfallen at the sight of his massive banana hoard stolen by Kremlings, the alligator-like main enemies in the game, and Donkey Kong has to venture out into progressively more uncharted territory to get his banana hoard back. It seems like a silly setup until you realize that Donkey Kong is a giant ape and the only way he could be motivated to go on a daunting journey is bananas, not sex. After all, Donkey Kong's girlfriend, Candy Kong, helps you on your quest by providing the occasional save point. She definitely seems much more of a formidable person to capture than the frangible Princess Peach. Stealing a monkey's banana hoard is as low as taking the love of his life (which in this case, the love of his life is bananas, not his girlfriend, so I guess it's not on equal standing). Aiding Donkey Kong in his quest is his best buddy Diddy Kong. You simultaneously play as both Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong throughout the entirety of the game. In this case, Diddy and Donkey Kong are on equal standing in this game in terms of screen time. Diddy isn't just Donkey Kong's Luigi in that his existence doesn't fulfill a multi-player role for your younger sibling. Donkey Kong and Diddy balance each other out quite nicely. Where Donkey Kong is bulky, Diddy Kong is nimble. Donkey Kong can defeat a larger array of enemies because of his larger stature and Diddy Kong can access more of a level because he can jump higher. Both character's attributes are required to traverse through each level, so you'll always have to be careful because once one character is hit, they gasp and run away until you find another barrel to bring them back. The dynamic between Donkey Kong and Diddy is so simple, yet works so well in the game that it's practically perfect. Many platformers with more than one playable character around this time were repainted clones, but Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong legitimately feel different when you are playing as either of them. The contrast between the two makes the player utilize the strengths of each character wisely and also makes them careful which character is upfront before they get hit. Not to mention, both characters move incredibly smoothly and there are plenty of ways to traverse the levels as either character when you only have one of them. There is also a bevy of animal buddies that you can find at almost every level. Each of them is different animals with their own unique attributes that control just as smoothly as the two main characters (although I swear I made too many unfair missteps with that damn frog). The smoothness and variation of control are a testament to what makes a solid 2D platformer especially with as many playable characters as DKC has.
Before discussing the strengths of how the levels in Donkey Kong Country are designed, one just can't overlook the game's aesthetic. Instead of using 16-bit graphics as per the usual SNES games, Rare implemented pre-rendered 3D graphics and compressed them into 16-bit graphics to fit on the SNES. They look like the bridge between the then-current generation of graphics with the future of what was to come in the next generation of early 3D games. It's a style that is stuck in a state of purgatory between these two eras, but this is for the benefit of the DKC series because it makes the series look distinctive. This tactic also makes the DKC series the best-looking games on the SNES. I was always somewhat deterred by the graphics of the 16-bit era because they often look very "drawn on" thus looking very dated. I find the 64-bit graphics charming and the once rudimentary 8-bit graphics have become their own distinctive graphical style over the years, so the era in between still looks a little awkward to me. DKC's graphics don't quite fit the common aesthetic of its era, but it's all to it's the benefit. For some reason, the style still looks fantastic. Every character, whether it be the playable characters or the varied animal enemies, looks so animated and expressive. The backgrounds are lush and practically look like paintings and the foregrounds are just as vividly clear. Why didn't other game studios think of ever doing this? Accompanying the lush, sprawling world of Donkey Kong Country is the soundtrack, an element to this game that is just as important as the graphics. David Wise did an outstanding job at perfectly capturing the right mood for every single level in this game. A highlight track for me is "Aquatic Ambiance" because of how mesmerizing it is. As far as I'm concerned, it's up there with "Aquarium" from "The Carnival of Animals" as far as effective watery music pieces go.
The world, or should I say country, of Donkey Kong Country, is divided very similarly to Super Mario World. The hub world is a map of the entire game divided into seven or so sub-worlds each with a varying number of levels. The first Donkey Kong Country game on the SNES is much more consistent with the overall level themes than the other two in that it maintains its overall jungle/rural tone. It only deviates from this theme later in the game in the factory levels, but the factories are still overrun with kremlings and other animals from previous levels making it seem like the factory is still rooted in the rustic world of this game instead of contrasting it. Like other 2D platformers, the objective is to get to point A to point B. Donkey Kong and Diddy can jump on enemies and roll into them giving the player a nuanced way of defeating enemies rather than just using one tactic in conjunction with getting through the level. Ropes are strewn around the levels to climb further and to dodge enemies on a rail, tires act as springs like in Sonic the Hedgehog, and barrels will launch you in any direction. The barrels are definitely the defining platforming feature of the DKC series. Utilizing the barrels in levels would evolve as the series went on, but I think they were used the best in the first game. The barrel sections are tense and require the greatest use of one's reaction time. You cannot make any mistakes in this game when it comes to the barrel sections.
On the map, Donkey Kong has other friends that aid him in his journey besides Diddy and his animal friends. There is the aptly ape named Cranky Kong who is a tiny old curmudgeon that lives in a cabin. He doesn't so much help you as much as he calls you a candyass and tells you about a challenge involving beating completing this game in under an hour, a feat that he apparently did long ago. Cranky is apparently the original Donkey Kong from the arcade game as an old man, and the modern Donkey Kong that we're all familiar with is his grandson which only makes me ask questions about what happened to Donkey Kong Jr. The aforementioned Candy Kong will help you similarly save your game to Super Mario World in which you have to unlock the save point after a certain number of levels. Lastly, there's Funky Kong that lets you travel to different areas of the map.
You'll get to know Funky and Candy Kong really well from saving at any possible point and stocking up on extra lives. You're gonna need them because this game and the rest of the Donkey Kong Country games have a reputation for being quite difficult. It almost reminds you that this game was developed by the guys that made Battletoads. Although not as consistently frustrating as Battletoads, DKC has an incredibly steep difficulty curb as early as the second world with the notorious "Mine Cart Madness" level. Up until this level, the platforming was pretty fair and the obstacles could be readily combated without much trouble, but this level throws all of that out of the window. For the entire level, you are forced inside of a minecart that constantly keeps moving and never stops. You'll have to efficiently time your jumps at every step, there are stationary mine carts to jump over, and kremlings will be coming at you from the opposite direction. What's funny to me is that somehow, this level is much more difficult than the mine cart level much later in the game. It's the level that separates the men from the boys and after this, the game never gets easier.
Like classic Sonic the Hedgehog, the root of the first DKC's difficulty comes from the "blindspot" difficulty. DKC oftentimes makes you memorize the placements of the pitfalls and enemies because passing them smoothly requires a lot of trial and error. There are pitfalls at every corner in this game that can be quite challenging to get through. Oftentimes, the game throws more gimmicks at the player like a level on a conveyor belt and a level that is mostly in total darkness. Tons of different types of enemies come at you from every angle each with a unique tactic to kill you and the hitboxes are oftentimes questionable. I felt like I needed a referee to debate my untimely death every other time I died trying to jump on an enemy. "Mine Cart Madness" even has a fake-out kremling after the developers know you've taken a breath of relief. The worst offender of these blindspots is "Poison Pond" in which taking the incorrect route will ultimately result in the Kongs getting hit. It doesn't help that the correct paths are filled with gyrating tires with little elbow room to dodge and the final part of this level has fish coming at you in every single space that it's practically a bullet-hell section. The game makes damn sure that the player never gets accustomed to dealing with the obstacles in this game unless you know how to overcome every single one of them. Fortunately, the game gives you ample opportunity to stock up on extra lives through mini-games and banana collecting. The bananas in this game act like the coins in Mario in that collecting 100 of them will reward you with an extra life. They mostly come in singles, but there are plenty of bananas that are stacked in tens. The abundance of bananas in the levels shows a nice sense of self-awareness from the developers in that they didn't want to leave the player high and dry with the steep difficulty of the game.
The levels in this game are certainly daunting, but the same can't be said about the bosses. In fact, the bosses in the first Donkey Kong Country are pitifully easy. You know it's troubling when you strain yourself over the levels and a boss fight seems like a place of relief. The bosses are essentially larger versions of the standard enemies and they only take a few hits to defeat. The boss before King K. Rool is a giant black barrel with a skull and crossbones in the middle of it and it's just a simple boss gauntlet. The barrel doesn't even hurt you when it slams down on the ground. King K. Rool, the final boss of this game and the Bowser of the DKC trilogy, is a different beast altogether. Instead of going down after a few cheap hits, King K. Rool is a formidable foe with a few different phases that will test all of the abilities you've been using throughout the game. All of the blindspots in the game will also prepare you for the bizarre kremling kredits that roll after you think you've defeated King K. Rool before the final phase of his boss fight. I'm ashamed to admit, but he pulled me into a false sense of victory when these credits rolled and he stomped me into the ground. I feel like an absolute idiot for not getting the hint from the credits considering the Rare staff all have kremling names. I figured they were all foreigners.
Donkey Kong Country totally revitalized the character (or technically, revamped Donkey Kong as a younger, more acrobatic version of the arcade game character) and forever made Donkey Kong one of the prime faces of Nintendo's extensive back catalog. As for the game itself, it takes the influences from other 2D platformers of the time and still delivers something unique. The art style and music are still just as captivating as they were when the game was released more than 25 years ago, and it's also one of the smoothest and diverse games of the time in terms of movement. This game is now rightfully considered a classic, but for me personally, everything that made this game stand out was vastly improved in the next two games in the franchise.
------
Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
Donkey Kong Country
1994
Playing this in Co-op was definitely more entertaining than i was expecting
Diddy Kong Racing
1997
Other than Battle Mode (which was my favorite mode), I think this was actually a more fun racer than Mario Kart 64.
Mega Man X2
1994
Wife’s Reaction:
“I feel like every time I blinked you beat a Mega Man game.”
Reploids Rush In:
Only a day after beating the first Mega Man X, I go ahead and play the sequel. The storytelling within levels has improved and is cool to see, but the level design felt weaker than in X, and some of the levels’ platforming was more frustrating than fun despite tighter controls.
“I feel like every time I blinked you beat a Mega Man game.”
Reploids Rush In:
Only a day after beating the first Mega Man X, I go ahead and play the sequel. The storytelling within levels has improved and is cool to see, but the level design felt weaker than in X, and some of the levels’ platforming was more frustrating than fun despite tighter controls.
Super Metroid
1994
One of the best designed maps in any game ever and with a thick atmosphere too, Super Metroid is still one of the best games of all time.
The Mega Man Zero series brought two things, 1) It brought back the classic gameplay of the MegaMan X series to its more popular roots of Nintendo. 2) It brought back Zero in a new form. This game gives you Zero with many more abilities, fast speed, slightly altered gameplay, great character growth, great graphics, sound, and music, a story set long after the X series, best of all it gives a better look into Zero's abilities and morals in a new light and new time. A MUST PLAY for Mega Man fans.
Mega Man Zero
2002
On the surface, Mega Man Zero seems like a cool game, but after some time with it, it seems as though Inti Creates asked themselves, "How can we make a game like Mega Man X but less fun?"
Instead of finding power-ups throughout each stage, the player is asked to instead find creatures called Cyber Elves. Some of these are one-time uses, while others grant permanent health upgrades, stat improvements, or the ability to use subtanks. Before you can use a permanent upgrade, however, the elf holding the power must be fed with a randomly dropped currency, which results in lots of grinding late in the game. To make matters even worse, some elves are missable and using these elves results in the player receiving a lower rank, which thankfully doesn't impact the game itself but instead makes the player feel as though they are doing something wrong. Again, all of these components add up to a less fun experience.
If the mechanics weren't so solid, I wouldn't recommend this game at all, but die hard Mega Man fans might enjoy the challenge. Personally, I wish Inti Creates had retained more of what made the X seres so fun.
Instead of finding power-ups throughout each stage, the player is asked to instead find creatures called Cyber Elves. Some of these are one-time uses, while others grant permanent health upgrades, stat improvements, or the ability to use subtanks. Before you can use a permanent upgrade, however, the elf holding the power must be fed with a randomly dropped currency, which results in lots of grinding late in the game. To make matters even worse, some elves are missable and using these elves results in the player receiving a lower rank, which thankfully doesn't impact the game itself but instead makes the player feel as though they are doing something wrong. Again, all of these components add up to a less fun experience.
If the mechanics weren't so solid, I wouldn't recommend this game at all, but die hard Mega Man fans might enjoy the challenge. Personally, I wish Inti Creates had retained more of what made the X seres so fun.
Tales of Phantasia
1995
Great story and great combat mechanics for a 1995 RPG. Not to mention the voice acting and a theme song with vocals, all packed in a tiny Super Famicom cartridge.
It also has Arche.
It also has Arche.
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