Virtual Boy Complete - Game #3
I went into Bound High expecting a game on par with VB Wario Land, as it's always been known as "the mythical cancelled game that could've saved the Virtual Boy". This was not a good way to go into Bound High, and for the first few minutes, I was very much put off - but once I put myself into the right mindset, of a score attack game and not an unconventional Jumping Flash-style psuedo 3D platformer, it clicked!
You play as this little Bakugan fella who uncontrollably bounds-bounds-bounds-and-rebounds off of evaporating blocks, and has to push enemies off of the blocks he evaporates Motos-style, at the expense of having less room to land - the controls work really well, I never really had any issue landing on the right blocks or enemies, and I found the idea decently easy to figure out.
It's a good concept and decently executed, but not addictive as it should be, landing on enemies feels fine, and the chain reactions are fun, but the visuals and sounds should have more oomph, landing on a destructible enemy makes a dinky little "blip" sound instead of a destructive pound, and while the sound of a falling enemy is clearly meant to evoke the cartoon slide-whistle, it's extremely short and finishes by the time you can even process that they're falling. I don't know if this would've been fixed should the game have released. You can collect power-ups, but I couldn't really tell what any of them did, either in practice or in visuals (with the exception of the freeze power up). Quite egregiously, there's one power-up which makes your character fat, but it doesn't increase the size of their hitbox.
I only got to world 2 in the regular story mode, and had to stop due to a pretty awful wind gimmick - however, I did play the endless random mode, which appears to remove said gimmick from World 2 stages, and I assume would remove any other gimmicks, so it's all good. There's also a golf mode, but it's very clunky and unintuitive, as much as "optional sports mode" is appreciated in any game (NASB1 lover here).
I had no issues with the motion, something I did have with 3D Tetris, but can absolutely understand why it'd be a concern for some.
Would it have saved the Virtual Boy? No, absolutely not. It would've worked just fine as a Mode 7 SNES game, in fact you could've probably gotten this gameplay loop working on the Mega Drive, and ironically gets more good 3D use out of its intro cutscene than the actual gameplay.
I went into Bound High expecting a game on par with VB Wario Land, as it's always been known as "the mythical cancelled game that could've saved the Virtual Boy". This was not a good way to go into Bound High, and for the first few minutes, I was very much put off - but once I put myself into the right mindset, of a score attack game and not an unconventional Jumping Flash-style psuedo 3D platformer, it clicked!
You play as this little Bakugan fella who uncontrollably bounds-bounds-bounds-and-rebounds off of evaporating blocks, and has to push enemies off of the blocks he evaporates Motos-style, at the expense of having less room to land - the controls work really well, I never really had any issue landing on the right blocks or enemies, and I found the idea decently easy to figure out.
It's a good concept and decently executed, but not addictive as it should be, landing on enemies feels fine, and the chain reactions are fun, but the visuals and sounds should have more oomph, landing on a destructible enemy makes a dinky little "blip" sound instead of a destructive pound, and while the sound of a falling enemy is clearly meant to evoke the cartoon slide-whistle, it's extremely short and finishes by the time you can even process that they're falling. I don't know if this would've been fixed should the game have released. You can collect power-ups, but I couldn't really tell what any of them did, either in practice or in visuals (with the exception of the freeze power up). Quite egregiously, there's one power-up which makes your character fat, but it doesn't increase the size of their hitbox.
I only got to world 2 in the regular story mode, and had to stop due to a pretty awful wind gimmick - however, I did play the endless random mode, which appears to remove said gimmick from World 2 stages, and I assume would remove any other gimmicks, so it's all good. There's also a golf mode, but it's very clunky and unintuitive, as much as "optional sports mode" is appreciated in any game (NASB1 lover here).
I had no issues with the motion, something I did have with 3D Tetris, but can absolutely understand why it'd be a concern for some.
Would it have saved the Virtual Boy? No, absolutely not. It would've worked just fine as a Mode 7 SNES game, in fact you could've probably gotten this gameplay loop working on the Mega Drive, and ironically gets more good 3D use out of its intro cutscene than the actual gameplay.