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There is no reason to really review this too deeply. There are 3 games in this collection and all are pretty much identical 45 minute "detective" adventure games. They all have that very low budget modern indie game charm. The games are not meant to be taken seriously and the mysteries surrounding these games are similarly silly, and whether you will enjoy these games or not will depend on two things.
The Frog Detective games live and die by their humor and their vibe. The vibe the games go for is the chill, turn your brain off and just have a cozy, comfortable little adventure type. If you really dig that vibe, you probably will like the humor as well. For me personally, the games weren't funny, but needless to say that is a very subjective matter. But if the humor doesn't hit, these games become pretty boring. If it does hit, and you dig the vibe, well, you got a very cozy afternoon or two to look forward to playing Frog Detective: The Entire Mystery.
The reason why I say that the games live and die by their humor and vibe is because the gameplay is very basic. You go around a small area that the games play in and talk to every person there. Each person wants an item from you and will give you something else in return. You pick up an item that you can find in the game world to start, give it to the right person and start a chain reaction of giving Person A's item to B, B's item to C etc. It's the same for all three games and then the games end. I think even games that go for this style can offer a lot more, but clearly, a lot of people enjoyed what the first game was going for, so I don't blame the devs at all for sticking with it for the next two games.
The Frog Detective games live and die by their humor and their vibe. The vibe the games go for is the chill, turn your brain off and just have a cozy, comfortable little adventure type. If you really dig that vibe, you probably will like the humor as well. For me personally, the games weren't funny, but needless to say that is a very subjective matter. But if the humor doesn't hit, these games become pretty boring. If it does hit, and you dig the vibe, well, you got a very cozy afternoon or two to look forward to playing Frog Detective: The Entire Mystery.
The reason why I say that the games live and die by their humor and vibe is because the gameplay is very basic. You go around a small area that the games play in and talk to every person there. Each person wants an item from you and will give you something else in return. You pick up an item that you can find in the game world to start, give it to the right person and start a chain reaction of giving Person A's item to B, B's item to C etc. It's the same for all three games and then the games end. I think even games that go for this style can offer a lot more, but clearly, a lot of people enjoyed what the first game was going for, so I don't blame the devs at all for sticking with it for the next two games.
Batman: The Video Game is a collection of platform games that are different in gameplay and story depending on the platform it released for, developed and published by Sunsoft.
The first version released for the NES in 1989 and is a side-scrolling platformer with features like the grappling hook, wall jumps and projectile weapons like the batarang and batdiscs.
The version I played, the Game Boy version, released on April 13, 1990 and is much less ambitious in both graphics and gameplay. It features Batman with a gun and is also a side scrolling platformer.
There are two other versions for the Sega Genesis, a game I will play as we move further along in 1990, and a PC Engine version which released in Japan-only and is an action-puzzle game.
Each game ties in to the movie from 1989 starring Jack Nicholson as the Joker to varying degrees, with the Game Boy version having the "least relation".
STORYTELLING
There is almost none present. Each "chapter" starts and ends with a very brief cutscene involving Joker and Batman. It would have been nice to have a bit more here or, as I will discuss later, more of a Batman feel in the level and/or graphic design, because while the game was fun, it could have been called anything but Batman and no one would have batted an eye.
GAMEPLAY
A lot of fun. If you are looking for platformers from this time and are looking for a game that is easier than usual for this period (1), that has more generous hit boxes (2), doesn't take too long (3) and has some variation (4), you'll find a pretty good game in the GameBoy version of Batman: The Video Game.
This is a side scrolling platformer with your usual dangers. There are enemies that simply follow a pre-determined route and will damage you if you touch them. Later on, they start shooting at you as well. Plus you can of course fall down to your death as well. You control Batman who is pointing a gun forward at all times. Batman using a gun already doesn't seem quite like Batman, but so be it. You can find a bunch of power-ups as you go through levels which alter your damage output and the way your gun shoots. Some give you more power but reduce your range, some make the bullet fly in half circles up and down. Stages are different enough that specific bullets (each different bullet variation is marked with a letter like "N" or "S) will be required to go through them without taking any damage, or perhaps even go through them period. One stage for example has enemies covering a whole platform and can't be shot at with the low-range bullet, so you have to jump on top of it and sacrifice some of your health. If your health is too low at that point, you're basically guaranteed to die. But each level allows you the opportunity to switch to a more usable bullet.
Shooting and platforming becomes more and more tricky as the game goes on, but it doesn't really become hard until about Chapter/Stage 3. I immediately noticed how hit boxes were really the opposite of what I came to expect out of games from 1990. Bullets could touch your sprite and you sometimes would take no damage. Especially when crouching down, bullets would touch your head but it wouldn't register as a hit. Conversely, bullets that barely scrape the enemy still hit them. Pretty much all the other games need you to be way more specific and give you way less leeway there, so this was a welcome surprise. As you will find out over the course of this game, that does make the game simpler, but it's hardly easy throughout. It's simply actually beatable without spending dozens of hours perfecting later stages. If you are a side-scrolling platform veteran however, this game will not scratch that hardcore challenge itch that you might have.
There is also a bat mobile shmup type level which offers some nice variety and is pretty challenging as more and more enemies and bullets start flying around you.
Boss fights are not that plentiful and end up being bullet-sponge fests more than anything, so they were a bit of a let down.
But overall, gameplay wise I had a lot of fun with this, even if the last stage and boss fight did my head in.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
No voice acting. Sound design was average, which is good for the time, but the firing sound could have done with a little bit more 'oomph'. This gun holding animation-starved Batman could have definitely used it to give him at least some sort of badass vibes.
I liked the music but only because it pretty much sounds like any other soundtrack of its time, and most 8 bit soundtracks were bangers, but as with most of this game, it didn't give off any Batman vibes.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
The Game Boy games of this time weren't particularly nice to look at, and that is no different here. Many magazines and reviews of the time I found call this game one of the better looking Game Boy games of the time, so I'm going to believe them here. Still, there isn't much here, you could have put any character in here instead of Batman and it would have done the same, minus the presence of Joker in cutscenes (his in-game character also looks like a random detective-like NPC though).
ATMOSPHERE
It has a typical Game Boy platformer atmosphere and that is totally fine, but again, it doesn't feel at all like Batman. I find this to be a good platformer first rather than a bad Batman game, so it depends on what you value more here.
CONTENT
There isn't much here, but what is here is fun. It took me roughly 4 hours to beat it.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
It's an odd choice to turn this into a generic platformer because Sunsoft's other Batman games in this 'package of platformers' include a lot more of Batman's typical gear, in addition to wall climbing. Here, they just gave BATMAN a gun and said enjoy.
There are four chapters with 3 or 4 stages in each and apart from the final one, which was so long, I enjoyed going through them all. Boss fights also took too long even though they didn't take long to figure out.
But the game gets an additional bonus for putting each level in different locations. For a 1990 Gameboy game, that is commendable.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
From the reactions of 1990 it's clear that this game was one of the better Game Boy games at the time, both graphically and in terms of gameplay, which is good, but not innovative.
REPLAYABILITY
You can play games with about a handful of different 'bullet effects' and of course try to beat your high score, or try to go from start to finish without any continues. The boring and long boss fights and not many gameplay elements overall to take away some from the game's replayability.
PLAYABILITY
The game worked fine at all times.
OVERALL
This is a game that is not notable as a package because it pretty much only does one thing really well or even above-average, but what it does well is be an enjoyable, fair platformer that is atypical for this time where games were supposed to be punishing to artificially increase playing time of otherwise short games. This one does that in its final chapter as well, but even then it is more than beatable and flows well overall, if it weren't for those long and boring boss fight interruptions.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Steve Harris for Electronic Gaming Monthly Issue 14 (Sep 90): "The graphics, by GameBoy standards, are superlative"
- Sushi-X for Electronic Gaming Monthly Issue 14 (Sep 90): "Gee Batman, better lose a few pounds and put that gun away and slug it out like you're supposed to" Glad this was addressed back in the day as well. Fyi, he gave the game a 7/10 anyway because this really is a fun game.
- ?? for Mean Machines Issue 3 (Dec 90): "if you're a Nintendo owner, miss this game at your peril."
The first version released for the NES in 1989 and is a side-scrolling platformer with features like the grappling hook, wall jumps and projectile weapons like the batarang and batdiscs.
The version I played, the Game Boy version, released on April 13, 1990 and is much less ambitious in both graphics and gameplay. It features Batman with a gun and is also a side scrolling platformer.
There are two other versions for the Sega Genesis, a game I will play as we move further along in 1990, and a PC Engine version which released in Japan-only and is an action-puzzle game.
Each game ties in to the movie from 1989 starring Jack Nicholson as the Joker to varying degrees, with the Game Boy version having the "least relation".
STORYTELLING
There is almost none present. Each "chapter" starts and ends with a very brief cutscene involving Joker and Batman. It would have been nice to have a bit more here or, as I will discuss later, more of a Batman feel in the level and/or graphic design, because while the game was fun, it could have been called anything but Batman and no one would have batted an eye.
GAMEPLAY
A lot of fun. If you are looking for platformers from this time and are looking for a game that is easier than usual for this period (1), that has more generous hit boxes (2), doesn't take too long (3) and has some variation (4), you'll find a pretty good game in the GameBoy version of Batman: The Video Game.
This is a side scrolling platformer with your usual dangers. There are enemies that simply follow a pre-determined route and will damage you if you touch them. Later on, they start shooting at you as well. Plus you can of course fall down to your death as well. You control Batman who is pointing a gun forward at all times. Batman using a gun already doesn't seem quite like Batman, but so be it. You can find a bunch of power-ups as you go through levels which alter your damage output and the way your gun shoots. Some give you more power but reduce your range, some make the bullet fly in half circles up and down. Stages are different enough that specific bullets (each different bullet variation is marked with a letter like "N" or "S) will be required to go through them without taking any damage, or perhaps even go through them period. One stage for example has enemies covering a whole platform and can't be shot at with the low-range bullet, so you have to jump on top of it and sacrifice some of your health. If your health is too low at that point, you're basically guaranteed to die. But each level allows you the opportunity to switch to a more usable bullet.
Shooting and platforming becomes more and more tricky as the game goes on, but it doesn't really become hard until about Chapter/Stage 3. I immediately noticed how hit boxes were really the opposite of what I came to expect out of games from 1990. Bullets could touch your sprite and you sometimes would take no damage. Especially when crouching down, bullets would touch your head but it wouldn't register as a hit. Conversely, bullets that barely scrape the enemy still hit them. Pretty much all the other games need you to be way more specific and give you way less leeway there, so this was a welcome surprise. As you will find out over the course of this game, that does make the game simpler, but it's hardly easy throughout. It's simply actually beatable without spending dozens of hours perfecting later stages. If you are a side-scrolling platform veteran however, this game will not scratch that hardcore challenge itch that you might have.
There is also a bat mobile shmup type level which offers some nice variety and is pretty challenging as more and more enemies and bullets start flying around you.
Boss fights are not that plentiful and end up being bullet-sponge fests more than anything, so they were a bit of a let down.
But overall, gameplay wise I had a lot of fun with this, even if the last stage and boss fight did my head in.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
No voice acting. Sound design was average, which is good for the time, but the firing sound could have done with a little bit more 'oomph'. This gun holding animation-starved Batman could have definitely used it to give him at least some sort of badass vibes.
I liked the music but only because it pretty much sounds like any other soundtrack of its time, and most 8 bit soundtracks were bangers, but as with most of this game, it didn't give off any Batman vibes.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
The Game Boy games of this time weren't particularly nice to look at, and that is no different here. Many magazines and reviews of the time I found call this game one of the better looking Game Boy games of the time, so I'm going to believe them here. Still, there isn't much here, you could have put any character in here instead of Batman and it would have done the same, minus the presence of Joker in cutscenes (his in-game character also looks like a random detective-like NPC though).
ATMOSPHERE
It has a typical Game Boy platformer atmosphere and that is totally fine, but again, it doesn't feel at all like Batman. I find this to be a good platformer first rather than a bad Batman game, so it depends on what you value more here.
CONTENT
There isn't much here, but what is here is fun. It took me roughly 4 hours to beat it.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
It's an odd choice to turn this into a generic platformer because Sunsoft's other Batman games in this 'package of platformers' include a lot more of Batman's typical gear, in addition to wall climbing. Here, they just gave BATMAN a gun and said enjoy.
There are four chapters with 3 or 4 stages in each and apart from the final one, which was so long, I enjoyed going through them all. Boss fights also took too long even though they didn't take long to figure out.
But the game gets an additional bonus for putting each level in different locations. For a 1990 Gameboy game, that is commendable.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
From the reactions of 1990 it's clear that this game was one of the better Game Boy games at the time, both graphically and in terms of gameplay, which is good, but not innovative.
REPLAYABILITY
You can play games with about a handful of different 'bullet effects' and of course try to beat your high score, or try to go from start to finish without any continues. The boring and long boss fights and not many gameplay elements overall to take away some from the game's replayability.
PLAYABILITY
The game worked fine at all times.
OVERALL
This is a game that is not notable as a package because it pretty much only does one thing really well or even above-average, but what it does well is be an enjoyable, fair platformer that is atypical for this time where games were supposed to be punishing to artificially increase playing time of otherwise short games. This one does that in its final chapter as well, but even then it is more than beatable and flows well overall, if it weren't for those long and boring boss fight interruptions.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Steve Harris for Electronic Gaming Monthly Issue 14 (Sep 90): "The graphics, by GameBoy standards, are superlative"
- Sushi-X for Electronic Gaming Monthly Issue 14 (Sep 90): "Gee Batman, better lose a few pounds and put that gun away and slug it out like you're supposed to" Glad this was addressed back in the day as well. Fyi, he gave the game a 7/10 anyway because this really is a fun game.
- ?? for Mean Machines Issue 3 (Dec 90): "if you're a Nintendo owner, miss this game at your peril."
Based on the movie by the same name from 1988, Michael Jackson's Moonwalker is a beat 'em up game released initially on August 24, 1990 for the Sega Genesis and Master System. An Arcade version was released a month earlier, which is an isometric run and gun game.
The game is better than I expected for a game around a celebrity, and the good parts go beyond the soundtrack. More on my thoughts in detail below.
____________
STORYTELLING
The setup for the story is explained in the manual, while the game itself only has any explanation shortly before the boss fight. What your goal is, is self-explanatory as you play though.
You control Michael Jackson, duh, and go into hostile territory to free a bunch of kidnapped children. All children look like Katie from the movie and say "Michael!" when you free them whilst giving you a boost to your magic/health bar.
At the end of each stage, Mr. Big - the boss - shows up and tells you that "you will never catch me" before he sends a bunch of his goons at you.
The manual tells you that Mr. Big is kidnapping every kid in the world to turn them into his slaves and the text in-game only tells you that you can now face him, so there isn't much here. I'm probably the guy who dived the deepest into the storytelling of this game ever right now because it's barely existent and not the point of this game.
GAMEPLAY
Michael Jackson shows up in a club and flips a coin into a jukebox to flip on a banging soundtrack that provides the backdrop for a gaming experience that is fun despite its limitations, but is held back tremendously by the game's level design.
In this 2D beat 'em up game, you do two things. First, you beat up a bunch of bad guys using your feet (or your arms when you jump), which releases magical sparkles that apparently damage bad people. Second, you have to rescue children.
The Fighting Part: This was fun but had plenty of issues. You see, you have only ONE bar in this game, which represents both your health AND your magical spark tank. And once you drop below a certain amount, you can only do weak punches, not shoot magic anymore. There is a special attack that you can do by spinning, which however drains your bar very fast. If you spin for a little bit, you throw your hat and it creates an explosion. If you spin for half of your health bar, every enemy on screen stands next to Michael Jackson and they do a little dance, which kills every enemy afterwards. It's a great little gimmick for this game but it's unfortunate that it drains your health bar to do it, instead of getting its individual bar. This made me ignore this feature apart from a few small instances throughout the game.
Another issue I got was that you couldn't both turn and shoot magic. Especially in the final two "chapters", enemies would be thrown at you in bunches from both sides, and it felt like it was pretty much impossible to get through the levels unless you knew where to find the kids and therefore skipped most of the level.
The Finding Children Part: And so, let's talk about this part. Depending on the level you find yourself in, you have to check windows, doors, in car trunks, in caves, behind bushes or even behind tombstones to find children. There are dozens of these per level and there is a set number of children hiding in pre-determined hiding spots. As mentioned, I'm glad, because this is probably the only way to beat the game (which I didn't), but imagine missing ONE spot and having to go through the entire level again trying to find it, whilst enemies keep respawning and draining your health bar.
Some hiding spots you won't even find because you won't know where to look. For example you will have to look behind manhole cover that seem to be there as part of the scenery, but no, you actually have to do a spin on top of it to essentially screw it open.
Overall, the core gameplay loop was fun enough, but it all went to shizzles starting in around Chapter 4, where so many enemies would appear that it would make looking for kids tedious. The boss fight only triggers once you find them all, and even the boss fights become a pain, because all of a sudden, 10, nope 20, nope 30 enemies appear one after the other, if not even more than that, and in the graveyard level in particular, those damn zombies appear that can just detach from their legs and fly at you to deal a lot of damage. Meanwhile you can't use any special attacks because it would drain your health too much and you'd die shortly after. These zombies are beatable, I managed it, but it only gets worse from there and that's where I said I've played this enough.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
Not fair to call it voice acting, but the children do say "Michael" every time you rescue one, which I imagine will be instantly memorable for those who have played this a lot when they were young. I have mixed thoughts about the sound design. Some actions sound good, like the sparkle of the magic or Michael saying "wooo" when you jump-punch, but then you got the bad swooshing sound that plays whenever you check windows, doors, bushes and so on. Overall it's not too bad, not that great either.
What is great however is the soundtrack. It's a 16 bit remix of some of Michael Jackson's most popular songs and whether you like the beats or not will make or break this for you. I think his most popular songs are timeless classics, so naturally I enjoyed this quite a lot. My only issue was that there was no Thriller during the graveyard level (zombies and Michael even did the dance) but apparently there were licensing issues there.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
The design of Michael Jackson and enemies is great and the game has plenty of differently and nicely designed levels from a graphical standpoint.
ATMOSPHERE
Mixing beats from Michael Jackson songs alongside a graveyard level with zombies and Michael doing the Thriller dance is great and puts you in a great mood, even if the song Thriller itself is not licensed. Levels also have unique themes which I enjoyed, even if they didn't always feel like they suit Michael Jackson.
CONTENT
The overall package here is fun but there isn't a lot of variety. You don't gain any new abilities, there are no power up items, special moves are discouraged due to draining your health, mission objectives are always the same and most of the playing time you accrue comes from trial and error. As I said, the content overall is fun though, so I'll assume that most of you will enjoy a couple hours with it.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
This just gets progressively worse as more and more and more and more enemies are thrown at you, but your abilities never improve to properly tackle them on. Instead you just wildly shoot left and right and hope you get them all before your health runs out. Don't even think about using special items because that's basically suicide.
On a smaller scale, making it extremely hard to even figure out where to look for the children, making you go all the way to the boss fight whenever you die during one and making you run around the entire level if you miss a single child are some more annoyances with how this game is designed. Not good.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
The way they've added a bunch of Michael Jackson animation and dance moves, the dance he does with the enemies, the remix of his songs and designing the game to his likeness overall is pretty well done, however it doesn't really translate to other games.
REPLAYABILITY
No abilities to collect/find, no secrets apart from one if you somehow manage to catch a shooting star (check it out on YT if you don't want to play this game, it's pretty nice), no randomizing of hiding spots for children (though some of you might prefer this) and terrible level design in later chapters means a replay is only advisable if you really want to try and beat your high score.
PLAYABILITY
It works well from start to finish.
OVERALL
I liked the core gameplay here, even if its is feature-limited. Playing this to that great soundtrack was great fun for the first few hours but once I got into the latter stages of the graveyard chapter, it just got more and more annoying to play. Ultimately that makes it an average game for its time overall.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
This game was a big topic back in the day, with multiple magazines putting Michael Jackson on their covers.
- Andy Eddy for VGCE, Issue 19 (Aug 90): "Updated cartridges were constantly provided to Jackson, and his suggestions were then passed on to the programmers" | Not an 'opinion' but certainly awesome to hear Jackson being so involved in the creation of this game
- Andromeda for GamePro, Issue 13 (Aug 90): "The animation is smooth, realistic and eye-popping."
The game is better than I expected for a game around a celebrity, and the good parts go beyond the soundtrack. More on my thoughts in detail below.
____________
STORYTELLING
The setup for the story is explained in the manual, while the game itself only has any explanation shortly before the boss fight. What your goal is, is self-explanatory as you play though.
You control Michael Jackson, duh, and go into hostile territory to free a bunch of kidnapped children. All children look like Katie from the movie and say "Michael!" when you free them whilst giving you a boost to your magic/health bar.
At the end of each stage, Mr. Big - the boss - shows up and tells you that "you will never catch me" before he sends a bunch of his goons at you.
The manual tells you that Mr. Big is kidnapping every kid in the world to turn them into his slaves and the text in-game only tells you that you can now face him, so there isn't much here. I'm probably the guy who dived the deepest into the storytelling of this game ever right now because it's barely existent and not the point of this game.
GAMEPLAY
Michael Jackson shows up in a club and flips a coin into a jukebox to flip on a banging soundtrack that provides the backdrop for a gaming experience that is fun despite its limitations, but is held back tremendously by the game's level design.
In this 2D beat 'em up game, you do two things. First, you beat up a bunch of bad guys using your feet (or your arms when you jump), which releases magical sparkles that apparently damage bad people. Second, you have to rescue children.
The Fighting Part: This was fun but had plenty of issues. You see, you have only ONE bar in this game, which represents both your health AND your magical spark tank. And once you drop below a certain amount, you can only do weak punches, not shoot magic anymore. There is a special attack that you can do by spinning, which however drains your bar very fast. If you spin for a little bit, you throw your hat and it creates an explosion. If you spin for half of your health bar, every enemy on screen stands next to Michael Jackson and they do a little dance, which kills every enemy afterwards. It's a great little gimmick for this game but it's unfortunate that it drains your health bar to do it, instead of getting its individual bar. This made me ignore this feature apart from a few small instances throughout the game.
Another issue I got was that you couldn't both turn and shoot magic. Especially in the final two "chapters", enemies would be thrown at you in bunches from both sides, and it felt like it was pretty much impossible to get through the levels unless you knew where to find the kids and therefore skipped most of the level.
The Finding Children Part: And so, let's talk about this part. Depending on the level you find yourself in, you have to check windows, doors, in car trunks, in caves, behind bushes or even behind tombstones to find children. There are dozens of these per level and there is a set number of children hiding in pre-determined hiding spots. As mentioned, I'm glad, because this is probably the only way to beat the game (which I didn't), but imagine missing ONE spot and having to go through the entire level again trying to find it, whilst enemies keep respawning and draining your health bar.
Some hiding spots you won't even find because you won't know where to look. For example you will have to look behind manhole cover that seem to be there as part of the scenery, but no, you actually have to do a spin on top of it to essentially screw it open.
Overall, the core gameplay loop was fun enough, but it all went to shizzles starting in around Chapter 4, where so many enemies would appear that it would make looking for kids tedious. The boss fight only triggers once you find them all, and even the boss fights become a pain, because all of a sudden, 10, nope 20, nope 30 enemies appear one after the other, if not even more than that, and in the graveyard level in particular, those damn zombies appear that can just detach from their legs and fly at you to deal a lot of damage. Meanwhile you can't use any special attacks because it would drain your health too much and you'd die shortly after. These zombies are beatable, I managed it, but it only gets worse from there and that's where I said I've played this enough.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
Not fair to call it voice acting, but the children do say "Michael" every time you rescue one, which I imagine will be instantly memorable for those who have played this a lot when they were young. I have mixed thoughts about the sound design. Some actions sound good, like the sparkle of the magic or Michael saying "wooo" when you jump-punch, but then you got the bad swooshing sound that plays whenever you check windows, doors, bushes and so on. Overall it's not too bad, not that great either.
What is great however is the soundtrack. It's a 16 bit remix of some of Michael Jackson's most popular songs and whether you like the beats or not will make or break this for you. I think his most popular songs are timeless classics, so naturally I enjoyed this quite a lot. My only issue was that there was no Thriller during the graveyard level (zombies and Michael even did the dance) but apparently there were licensing issues there.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
The design of Michael Jackson and enemies is great and the game has plenty of differently and nicely designed levels from a graphical standpoint.
ATMOSPHERE
Mixing beats from Michael Jackson songs alongside a graveyard level with zombies and Michael doing the Thriller dance is great and puts you in a great mood, even if the song Thriller itself is not licensed. Levels also have unique themes which I enjoyed, even if they didn't always feel like they suit Michael Jackson.
CONTENT
The overall package here is fun but there isn't a lot of variety. You don't gain any new abilities, there are no power up items, special moves are discouraged due to draining your health, mission objectives are always the same and most of the playing time you accrue comes from trial and error. As I said, the content overall is fun though, so I'll assume that most of you will enjoy a couple hours with it.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
This just gets progressively worse as more and more and more and more enemies are thrown at you, but your abilities never improve to properly tackle them on. Instead you just wildly shoot left and right and hope you get them all before your health runs out. Don't even think about using special items because that's basically suicide.
On a smaller scale, making it extremely hard to even figure out where to look for the children, making you go all the way to the boss fight whenever you die during one and making you run around the entire level if you miss a single child are some more annoyances with how this game is designed. Not good.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
The way they've added a bunch of Michael Jackson animation and dance moves, the dance he does with the enemies, the remix of his songs and designing the game to his likeness overall is pretty well done, however it doesn't really translate to other games.
REPLAYABILITY
No abilities to collect/find, no secrets apart from one if you somehow manage to catch a shooting star (check it out on YT if you don't want to play this game, it's pretty nice), no randomizing of hiding spots for children (though some of you might prefer this) and terrible level design in later chapters means a replay is only advisable if you really want to try and beat your high score.
PLAYABILITY
It works well from start to finish.
OVERALL
I liked the core gameplay here, even if its is feature-limited. Playing this to that great soundtrack was great fun for the first few hours but once I got into the latter stages of the graveyard chapter, it just got more and more annoying to play. Ultimately that makes it an average game for its time overall.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
This game was a big topic back in the day, with multiple magazines putting Michael Jackson on their covers.
- Andy Eddy for VGCE, Issue 19 (Aug 90): "Updated cartridges were constantly provided to Jackson, and his suggestions were then passed on to the programmers" | Not an 'opinion' but certainly awesome to hear Jackson being so involved in the creation of this game
- Andromeda for GamePro, Issue 13 (Aug 90): "The animation is smooth, realistic and eye-popping."
2011
To The Moon regularly gets praise online for its story and seemingly everyone I've seen talk about this game cried at the end. Interestingly enough, 3 games made me teary-eyed over my lifetime, and I consider those to be the three best games I've ever played, so To The Moon would be in elite territory if it accomplished as much.
In all seriousness, the reviews set expectations for a short, walking simulator like, 2D indie pixel adventure game made with RPG Maker really high, almost unfairly so. I'm happy to say though that those expectations were met. I didn't cry, but the twists and revelations of the story did have an impact on me either way. Unfortunately, revealing nearly anything would rob you of the experience, so I'm going to refrain from doing so. The gist of it is that an old man has a dying wish: He wants to experience going to the moon. A special agency can dive into memories of their clients to grant them this wish by altering their actual memories into artifical memories, and two employees of this agency, Dr. Eva Rosalene and Dr. Neil Watts, must uncover the clients (Johnny Wyles) backstory to be able to make the right changes to his memories.
It starts slow but gets going quickly and never really lets up from there. It's a very short and linear experience at pretty much exactly 4 hours, and that's perfect for what this game is. The story includes little to no filler and is told really well, with the two employees Watts and Rosalene making for a pretty funny combo to balance out the otherwise emotional ride the game's story is.
If you're looking for gameplay, you won't find much of it here. Gameplay doesn't go beyond walking to your target locations and doing a few very simple puzzles. I'm not the biggest fan of walking simulators or visual novels but I do enjoy the occasional one. If you feel similarly or stronger about these genres, you gotta play To The Moon.
In all seriousness, the reviews set expectations for a short, walking simulator like, 2D indie pixel adventure game made with RPG Maker really high, almost unfairly so. I'm happy to say though that those expectations were met. I didn't cry, but the twists and revelations of the story did have an impact on me either way. Unfortunately, revealing nearly anything would rob you of the experience, so I'm going to refrain from doing so. The gist of it is that an old man has a dying wish: He wants to experience going to the moon. A special agency can dive into memories of their clients to grant them this wish by altering their actual memories into artifical memories, and two employees of this agency, Dr. Eva Rosalene and Dr. Neil Watts, must uncover the clients (Johnny Wyles) backstory to be able to make the right changes to his memories.
It starts slow but gets going quickly and never really lets up from there. It's a very short and linear experience at pretty much exactly 4 hours, and that's perfect for what this game is. The story includes little to no filler and is told really well, with the two employees Watts and Rosalene making for a pretty funny combo to balance out the otherwise emotional ride the game's story is.
If you're looking for gameplay, you won't find much of it here. Gameplay doesn't go beyond walking to your target locations and doing a few very simple puzzles. I'm not the biggest fan of walking simulators or visual novels but I do enjoy the occasional one. If you feel similarly or stronger about these genres, you gotta play To The Moon.
This is the 6th Spider-Man game I've played in chronological order as part of a challenge I'm doing. Let me quickly recap: I've played 80 games between 1990 and 1992 before playing this game. 5 of those 80 were Spider-Man games. Three of those Spider-Man games make for the Top 3 Worst Games I've played as part of this challenge. None of the 5 games I'd consider giving anything above 1.5 stars.
Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade's Revenge, developed by Software Creations and published by 'I'll get the Spider-Man license just to absolutely shit on it' Acclaim Entertainment, released in November 1992 and calls itself an Action-Platformer. While doing so, it's playing fast and loose with the term 'Action', as from the get-go, you realize two things.
First, as per usual, the controls are horrible. That said, the game has the best controls out of all 6 Spider-Man games I've played in this time period, which says more about the state of Spider-Man games than it does about this game. Using the web is possible here, but most of the time you'll have a lower body part touch a platform and fall to your death, as while airborne, you can't activate the web. It's the same handicap that Spider-Man has, as everyone knows.
Second, after a little while, you realize what the actual goal of the first level. Collect some collectable items in some random order that your "Spider senses" direct you towards. This means you just end up awkwardly climbing up and down walls waiting for the Spider sense to trigger once you're close enough, then you run up to the collectable, collect it and go to the next one until the exit opens. Wow.
Perhaps this helps to distract you from the graphics, which, for an SNES (!) game, look horrendous, though again, probably make it the 2nd best looking Spider-Man just behind Spider-Man vs the Kingpin on the Genesis.
The awful controls will dawn on you once you get to the second stage. As per usual, I'm saddened by the state of the license, as continuously releasing god-awful games sounds harder than Acclaim Entertainment and their development studios make it look.
Luckily, there is another Spider-Man game releasing pretty soon in 1993.
(This is the 81st game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade's Revenge, developed by Software Creations and published by 'I'll get the Spider-Man license just to absolutely shit on it' Acclaim Entertainment, released in November 1992 and calls itself an Action-Platformer. While doing so, it's playing fast and loose with the term 'Action', as from the get-go, you realize two things.
First, as per usual, the controls are horrible. That said, the game has the best controls out of all 6 Spider-Man games I've played in this time period, which says more about the state of Spider-Man games than it does about this game. Using the web is possible here, but most of the time you'll have a lower body part touch a platform and fall to your death, as while airborne, you can't activate the web. It's the same handicap that Spider-Man has, as everyone knows.
Second, after a little while, you realize what the actual goal of the first level. Collect some collectable items in some random order that your "Spider senses" direct you towards. This means you just end up awkwardly climbing up and down walls waiting for the Spider sense to trigger once you're close enough, then you run up to the collectable, collect it and go to the next one until the exit opens. Wow.
Perhaps this helps to distract you from the graphics, which, for an SNES (!) game, look horrendous, though again, probably make it the 2nd best looking Spider-Man just behind Spider-Man vs the Kingpin on the Genesis.
The awful controls will dawn on you once you get to the second stage. As per usual, I'm saddened by the state of the license, as continuously releasing god-awful games sounds harder than Acclaim Entertainment and their development studios make it look.
Luckily, there is another Spider-Man game releasing pretty soon in 1993.
(This is the 81st game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
We are in March 26, 1990. The more popular Amazing-Spider Man game of the same year was still four months away, but developer Oxford Digital Enterprises pounced and released their version first for the Commodore 64 and Amiga, before porting it to most notably the Atari ST later. Considering that the other game released for a handheld device only (the Game Boy), there wasn't really any competition between both games, so this narrative I just created is probably incorrect.
But here it is, The Amazing Spider-Man, published by Paragon Software (NA, Empire Software for EU) and being so far inferior to the Game Boy game that even the description of it on Grouvee reads "Not to be confused with the Game Boy title released in the same year". Or how about the Marvel Fandom Wiki having a page for the Game Boy game, but no mention of this one.
To keep it short, the plot in this game revolves around Mysterio, who kidnaps Mary Jane. That's it. There is a comic book style presentation of the story and then there is one happy ending image at the end, but that's it. You didn't play these platformers for their stories though, so what was gameplay like? Well you were controlling fat Spider-Man.
With that, let's dive into each aspect of my reviewing system one by one, starting with, very briefly, the story.
STORYTELLING: Again, you didn't play these games for their story, even though games like Ninja Gaiden obviously did at least make an effort in that regard during this time (the sequel released only two weeks after this Spider-Man game). We do rate story(telling) though, so let's see. As mentioned, the beginning of the game, at least in some versions (the Atari version didn't even have these from what I've seen), shows us three slides of images designed like in a comic book, where we see Mysterio kidnapping Mary Jane and Peter Parker being angry. That's pretty much it. Environmental storytelling is pretty much non existent throughout, there is little sense to be made with the sheer randomness with which assets were used, most even being unassociated with Spider-Man (there are a lot of R2D2s running around in this game).
GAMEPLAY: When I say "fat" Spider-Man, I mean it. The first image of gameplay you see is Spider-Man hunched forward like he's either been playing too many video games and ruined his posture or gained a ton of weight or he has significant back problems. Moving forward reveals even worse truths. Spider-Man walks as if he is carrying a bag filled with 200kg of sand and when he jumps, he does levitate for a good 3 seconds, but only jumps up a few inches overall. When he falls down, he often lands flat on his face and walks around sniffing the floor for a good few feet before you can manage to make him stand upright again. When he climbs walls, he doesn't climb up or down like a spider, but more like a cat, using both arms simultaneously first, followed by both of his legs to push himself forward.
Long story short, the animations are very bad, funnily so. The slow movement just makes it worse, because funny bad is always manageable, but boring bad is just a slow death to the players enjoyment. I often look at gameplay online after I finish playing and pretty much always do I find hundreds of nostalgic comments that range from "this was my childhood game" to "this is one of the greatest games ever made", and while some of the former was present with this game as well, most did acknowledge that this game is actually just not good. Doesn't mean the memories weren't precious of course.
Progressing in this game is done by climbing in a very slow pace, by using your web to fly over enemies and by activating buttons that allow you to progress forward. If you position yourself correctly, you can even shoot your web to access buttons that are otherwise inaccessible. Enemies in this game are skeletons, rats, R2D2s and basic humans, among others. Rats for example follow you around, while most of the others have a set route which they follow. Most enemies don't bump into you, but they rather just walk past you, and every second that you are in contact drains your health. Your health bar is displayed as a standing giant Spider-Man to the right of the screen. His body starts turning into a skeleton with each percent of health that you lose, starting from his feet all the way to to the top of his head. Once he is a full skeleton, the game ends.
There are some OK ideas here, but overall it is just not fun.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE: There is no voice acting, but in the Amiga version, there is the oddest remix of a male and female voice saying Spider-Man, making me feel glad that no actual voice acting is in the game. Well, there is the "ugh ugh ugh" sound when you or enemies take damage, which just sounds unsettling.
I didn't figure out a way to turn off the music and only display sound effects, but I have seen plenty of videos with that kind of alignment. For me, the music played nonstop and it was just one track being put on repeat. Music in this generation of video games was pretty catchy most of the time and this was certainly OK, but not something I would want to listen to outside of this game. Plus some variation would have been nice.
Sound in this game is abysmal. The sound of the web, the sound when you step onto a platform and the annoying click it makes at the end, the aforementioned damage noise, the awful sound of doors opening and no actual sound for a lot of the moving platforms, enemies and effects (which I guess I should be glad for) mean that the overall sound design is just very poor.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN: There are just a bunch of random assets used and placed to create levels that make sense from a level design standpoint, but little sense from an artistic standpoint, let alone from a Spider-Man universe standpoint. Not much to like here either.
ATMOSPHERE: The incoherent art design and world building, an average singular track vs. poor sound design (if you use music, you can't really hear the sounds, so pick your poison, though I'd choose the music) and a game that is not a looker even for its time and you got a game that is bereft of atmosphere.
CONTENT: Once you get past the slow animations, the poor controls and everything else, the puzzles in this game are actually interesting enough and the game does offer a challenge to those looking for one. There isn't that much variety in what this game offers though, it's a lot of buttons pressing to unlock other buttons to press, which open up new locations or make your enemies fall to their deaths.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN: This isn't actually that bad. The game misses some variety, there isn't really anything to unlock, but there are puzzles present and some that require some brain power to solve. There is also some good interconnectivity here and there, meaning a previously inaccessible area can be unlocked as you progress, leading you back to a previous room, where a previously "non-pressable" button can now be pressed to progress elsewhere. It's not always intuitive, it's repetitive but it's probably the best part about this game.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION: Apart from the web swinging, which is 'unique' but in a bad way, there is nothing here that stands out.
REPLAYABILITY: If you do enjoy this game, there is of course the added incentive of beating your high scores and your times. There isn't much leeway in how you can complete this game, there isn't that much creative space for that, but you can always try to be quicker and receive less damage I guess.
PLAYABILITY: The game works well, the only issue I had was that sometimes I would clip into a level below the one I was on and the game would glitch out for a second. There is even a clip of someone glitching his way from the early stages all the way to the final level, if you want to check that out.
OVERALL: Definitely the worst game of this challenge so far and will probably find its way into the Top 5 Worst Games of the Year by the time I finish 1990. Or I've been relatively lucky with the first 4 games and this is what a good chunk of 1990 will look like. I doubt that though. Don't play this game if you're looking for a fun platformer, there are hundreds of better options out there in this time frame.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME:
- Nothing. I couldn't find a single magazine that reviewed this game at the time. I did find the Game Boy in every single one though.
But here it is, The Amazing Spider-Man, published by Paragon Software (NA, Empire Software for EU) and being so far inferior to the Game Boy game that even the description of it on Grouvee reads "Not to be confused with the Game Boy title released in the same year". Or how about the Marvel Fandom Wiki having a page for the Game Boy game, but no mention of this one.
To keep it short, the plot in this game revolves around Mysterio, who kidnaps Mary Jane. That's it. There is a comic book style presentation of the story and then there is one happy ending image at the end, but that's it. You didn't play these platformers for their stories though, so what was gameplay like? Well you were controlling fat Spider-Man.
With that, let's dive into each aspect of my reviewing system one by one, starting with, very briefly, the story.
STORYTELLING: Again, you didn't play these games for their story, even though games like Ninja Gaiden obviously did at least make an effort in that regard during this time (the sequel released only two weeks after this Spider-Man game). We do rate story(telling) though, so let's see. As mentioned, the beginning of the game, at least in some versions (the Atari version didn't even have these from what I've seen), shows us three slides of images designed like in a comic book, where we see Mysterio kidnapping Mary Jane and Peter Parker being angry. That's pretty much it. Environmental storytelling is pretty much non existent throughout, there is little sense to be made with the sheer randomness with which assets were used, most even being unassociated with Spider-Man (there are a lot of R2D2s running around in this game).
GAMEPLAY: When I say "fat" Spider-Man, I mean it. The first image of gameplay you see is Spider-Man hunched forward like he's either been playing too many video games and ruined his posture or gained a ton of weight or he has significant back problems. Moving forward reveals even worse truths. Spider-Man walks as if he is carrying a bag filled with 200kg of sand and when he jumps, he does levitate for a good 3 seconds, but only jumps up a few inches overall. When he falls down, he often lands flat on his face and walks around sniffing the floor for a good few feet before you can manage to make him stand upright again. When he climbs walls, he doesn't climb up or down like a spider, but more like a cat, using both arms simultaneously first, followed by both of his legs to push himself forward.
Long story short, the animations are very bad, funnily so. The slow movement just makes it worse, because funny bad is always manageable, but boring bad is just a slow death to the players enjoyment. I often look at gameplay online after I finish playing and pretty much always do I find hundreds of nostalgic comments that range from "this was my childhood game" to "this is one of the greatest games ever made", and while some of the former was present with this game as well, most did acknowledge that this game is actually just not good. Doesn't mean the memories weren't precious of course.
Progressing in this game is done by climbing in a very slow pace, by using your web to fly over enemies and by activating buttons that allow you to progress forward. If you position yourself correctly, you can even shoot your web to access buttons that are otherwise inaccessible. Enemies in this game are skeletons, rats, R2D2s and basic humans, among others. Rats for example follow you around, while most of the others have a set route which they follow. Most enemies don't bump into you, but they rather just walk past you, and every second that you are in contact drains your health. Your health bar is displayed as a standing giant Spider-Man to the right of the screen. His body starts turning into a skeleton with each percent of health that you lose, starting from his feet all the way to to the top of his head. Once he is a full skeleton, the game ends.
There are some OK ideas here, but overall it is just not fun.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE: There is no voice acting, but in the Amiga version, there is the oddest remix of a male and female voice saying Spider-Man, making me feel glad that no actual voice acting is in the game. Well, there is the "ugh ugh ugh" sound when you or enemies take damage, which just sounds unsettling.
I didn't figure out a way to turn off the music and only display sound effects, but I have seen plenty of videos with that kind of alignment. For me, the music played nonstop and it was just one track being put on repeat. Music in this generation of video games was pretty catchy most of the time and this was certainly OK, but not something I would want to listen to outside of this game. Plus some variation would have been nice.
Sound in this game is abysmal. The sound of the web, the sound when you step onto a platform and the annoying click it makes at the end, the aforementioned damage noise, the awful sound of doors opening and no actual sound for a lot of the moving platforms, enemies and effects (which I guess I should be glad for) mean that the overall sound design is just very poor.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN: There are just a bunch of random assets used and placed to create levels that make sense from a level design standpoint, but little sense from an artistic standpoint, let alone from a Spider-Man universe standpoint. Not much to like here either.
ATMOSPHERE: The incoherent art design and world building, an average singular track vs. poor sound design (if you use music, you can't really hear the sounds, so pick your poison, though I'd choose the music) and a game that is not a looker even for its time and you got a game that is bereft of atmosphere.
CONTENT: Once you get past the slow animations, the poor controls and everything else, the puzzles in this game are actually interesting enough and the game does offer a challenge to those looking for one. There isn't that much variety in what this game offers though, it's a lot of buttons pressing to unlock other buttons to press, which open up new locations or make your enemies fall to their deaths.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN: This isn't actually that bad. The game misses some variety, there isn't really anything to unlock, but there are puzzles present and some that require some brain power to solve. There is also some good interconnectivity here and there, meaning a previously inaccessible area can be unlocked as you progress, leading you back to a previous room, where a previously "non-pressable" button can now be pressed to progress elsewhere. It's not always intuitive, it's repetitive but it's probably the best part about this game.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION: Apart from the web swinging, which is 'unique' but in a bad way, there is nothing here that stands out.
REPLAYABILITY: If you do enjoy this game, there is of course the added incentive of beating your high scores and your times. There isn't much leeway in how you can complete this game, there isn't that much creative space for that, but you can always try to be quicker and receive less damage I guess.
PLAYABILITY: The game works well, the only issue I had was that sometimes I would clip into a level below the one I was on and the game would glitch out for a second. There is even a clip of someone glitching his way from the early stages all the way to the final level, if you want to check that out.
OVERALL: Definitely the worst game of this challenge so far and will probably find its way into the Top 5 Worst Games of the Year by the time I finish 1990. Or I've been relatively lucky with the first 4 games and this is what a good chunk of 1990 will look like. I doubt that though. Don't play this game if you're looking for a fun platformer, there are hundreds of better options out there in this time frame.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME:
- Nothing. I couldn't find a single magazine that reviewed this game at the time. I did find the Game Boy in every single one though.
(This is the 90th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet/blog is in my bio.)
Mario felt so bad after kicking Wario's butt in Super Mario Land 2 that he decided to gift him his Game Boy series. So in his first adventure as the protagonist, Wario figures out a path to obtaining enough money to buy a castle for himself in Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3, which initially released on January 21st, 1994 as a first-party Nintendo title exclusively for the Game Boy.
It went on to sell over 5 million units to date and released to mostly positive reviews at the time. Wario would go on to start in plenty more games after this, including Wario Land 2 to 4, as well as Wario World and Wario Land: Shake It! among others. Wario was still a very new Nintendo creation at the time of this game's release, having debuted just a little over a year prior to this as the final boss of Super Mario Land 2. All players knew about him at the time was that he was a bad guy who stole Mario's appearance and castle (he would be called the "wicked imposter" in commercials for that game), and with the release of this game, the manual would go on to describe him as "mean and ugly". You would also quickly come to understand that Wario is quite a greedy individual. You'd think that doesn't sound like the ideal protagonist, but 1) the sales numbers tell a different story and 2) I can appreciate a unique personality for a protagonist in the video game medium, where "Protagonist saves the world" stories are all you have at this point in time.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 3/10
Wario lost his chance at his own castle when Mario took his own castle back from the thieving hands of Wario. Wario remains steadfast in his desire to find his own castle howevere, and one day, he hears of a rumor that the giant golden statue of Princess Peach got stolen by the pirates of Kitchen Island. "Mario is looking for it but, if I find it first, I could cash it in for a princess' ransom." Wario is looking to get enough money to buy a castle that is even bigger than the one Mario has.
This little summary of what you find in the manual is pretty much all you get here, apart from the endings, which I think add a lot here. Depending on how many coins you collect through your playthrough, you can get one of five different endings in this game. The thresholds are not known to me, but if you don't reach the first threshold, a cutscene plays where Wario hands a genie one bag of coins and gets ... a tiny birdhouse. Wario looks to the floor in disappointment and as a player, you can't help but feel sorry for him. Get more coins and you can get Wario a ... treehouse, which he also doesn't like. Keep going and you can finally get him his castle at one point. Reach the 99,999 limit of coins and a surprising gift awaits Wario. I thought these were well done and add nice incentive to do well during your playthrough.
GAMEPLAY | 9/20
Wario Land plays like the uglier version of Mario Land, which fits the two characters and therefore, if this was intended, should be seen as a compliment. In reality though, I just couldn't enjoy my time playing this game as much as I would have liked.
The game is functional and overall well made, as is typical for a first-party Nintendo title. The end product does not equate fun to me however. Similarly to many Mario adventures, you see Wario on an overworld and start in World #1 Stage #1. With each stage or 'course' that you beat, you get closer to the boss stage. Beat the boss, and the next world opens up.
Each world is themed differently and each course has its own challenges for the player to overcome through platforming. You have to watch out for enemies, spikes, gravity and something that looks like water but actually isn't and will kill you.
What makes or breaks platformers though is how you engage with these challenges, and in that regard, I think Wario Land falls short in what makes a platformer enjoyable to me. First off, Wario Land's gameplay is really slow and repetitive. Through the first two worlds, most of what I experienced felt pretty much the same, looked mostly the same and played exactly the same. Few enemy types (there are a total of 10 in this game with little variety), low difficulty (apart from many cheap deaths like the aforementioned "water" and jumps having to be a lot more precise than one can comfortably do) and bland power-up choices.
Wario can have a normal size and a shrunk-down version of himself just like Mario. When he is at his normal size, finding a "pot" allows him to become Jet Wario (which lets him fly for a short period of time), Bull Wario (attach Wario to the ceiling with the horns) and Dragon Wario (fire breathing skill). Wario has no speed to speak of and the challenges are just way too one-dimensional to ever really get a fun gameplay loop going in this game.
As far as items to collect go, there are only three. A star like in the Mario games, which I found just once. Hearts, which you find regularly and which give you 10 points to your heart counter (when you get 100, you get 1 extra life) and a key, which you are meant to carry while you search for a treasure room, which you need to find to get better (and the best) endings.
It's all competently made but it just plays like one of the less inspired Nintendo games of its time.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 3/10
No voice acting. For sounds and the soundtrack, I've played plenty of Game Boy games by now and I understand its limited sound capabilities. That said, Wario Land is one of the worst sounding games I've played during this challenge and has among the worst soundtracks of games I have played that were professionally made. I assume it's supposed to be a somewhat uglier soundtrack to tell us that we're playing a Wario game, not a Mario game, but man, I feel the need to apologize to my ears for having exposed them to this. None of the tracks I heard in this game ever felt like they had any cohesion in their composition and just sounded like an odd mix of horrible sounds. Usually when I play these monotonous platformers, I have the soundtrack to lean back on and to at least bop my heads to some of the tracks. Here, I wouldn't even know when to bop because way too often there is seemingly no rhythm in these tracks. If this is supposed to be intentional and there truly is that hidden meaning of "Wario is just an uglier version of Mario, so the soundtrack is supposed to show that", than that's fine, but doesn't make the soundtrack less bad sounding.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 5/10
The limitations of the Game Boy are excusable to a point, but we are closing in on the 32 bit gen of video games and from the perspective of anyone not tied down to a handheld system, the games on the Game Boy look pretty bad for the most part. What devs can mainly do visually is to be creative in their visual design of levels and keeping things varied. While Wario Land has some of that variety I'm talking about, it doesn't have a lot of it and whenever things visually do look somewhat different, the gameplay still feels the same. Sprites are also really big here, so they cover for more of the screen than I'd personally like. It negatively impacted gameplay as well, especially during sections with spikes at the ceiling.
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 5/10
The game kind of does a good job of presenting us with the 'uglier' version of Mario, as they described Wario at the time, by making a lot about the game ugly as well. Whether it's by design at times and not by design at others, whether the atmosphere the game presents is on purpose or isn't, it's just not something I would consider very pleasant in how it is presented.
CONTENT | 5/10
There are seven worlds with multiple courses each. After each course, you can gamble your money to try to double it or play a mini game to try to get an extra life. There are also 4 treasures you need to find to have a chance at the best ending. Overall, this game is on the longer side of platformers, but I feel like this is one of the few Nintendo first-party platformers that really shouldn't be anywhere near this long. A similar length to Kirby's Dream Land due to the lack of features would have suited this better.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 5/10
The length of most levels here is OK, however most of them lack fair and interesting challenge. While the game is generally too easy, whenever it does get difficult, it's more often than not because of the poor controls and big sprites that you have to combat than actually having to show off the skills you've learned while playing this game. That said, when you pass some worlds and come back to them, new areas open up, so there is some reason for players to explore and experiment in this game.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 3/10
This is, at its best, a platformer like you've seen hundreds of times already by the time this game was released. At its worst and, mostly at its normal state, it's the worse version of those platformers due to a lack of variation and slow gameplay.
REPLAYABILITY | 3/5
The endings add replay value to those who enjoy the game's gameplay, especially the best ending, which will require you to find and open all treasure chests.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
Works well at all times.
OVERALL | 46/100
A good example of a competently made game that just isn't a lot of fun to play, even though it works as intended. Clearly, a lot of people disagree with me based on its sales numbers at the time and its score on a site like MobyGames, but I can't pretend to have enjoyed the very limited offering here just to go with the majority's opinion, at least critically at the time. On top of that, the game was not nice to listen to either, a rare occurence within gaming I feel, at least among known games.
Mario felt so bad after kicking Wario's butt in Super Mario Land 2 that he decided to gift him his Game Boy series. So in his first adventure as the protagonist, Wario figures out a path to obtaining enough money to buy a castle for himself in Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3, which initially released on January 21st, 1994 as a first-party Nintendo title exclusively for the Game Boy.
It went on to sell over 5 million units to date and released to mostly positive reviews at the time. Wario would go on to start in plenty more games after this, including Wario Land 2 to 4, as well as Wario World and Wario Land: Shake It! among others. Wario was still a very new Nintendo creation at the time of this game's release, having debuted just a little over a year prior to this as the final boss of Super Mario Land 2. All players knew about him at the time was that he was a bad guy who stole Mario's appearance and castle (he would be called the "wicked imposter" in commercials for that game), and with the release of this game, the manual would go on to describe him as "mean and ugly". You would also quickly come to understand that Wario is quite a greedy individual. You'd think that doesn't sound like the ideal protagonist, but 1) the sales numbers tell a different story and 2) I can appreciate a unique personality for a protagonist in the video game medium, where "Protagonist saves the world" stories are all you have at this point in time.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 3/10
Wario lost his chance at his own castle when Mario took his own castle back from the thieving hands of Wario. Wario remains steadfast in his desire to find his own castle howevere, and one day, he hears of a rumor that the giant golden statue of Princess Peach got stolen by the pirates of Kitchen Island. "Mario is looking for it but, if I find it first, I could cash it in for a princess' ransom." Wario is looking to get enough money to buy a castle that is even bigger than the one Mario has.
This little summary of what you find in the manual is pretty much all you get here, apart from the endings, which I think add a lot here. Depending on how many coins you collect through your playthrough, you can get one of five different endings in this game. The thresholds are not known to me, but if you don't reach the first threshold, a cutscene plays where Wario hands a genie one bag of coins and gets ... a tiny birdhouse. Wario looks to the floor in disappointment and as a player, you can't help but feel sorry for him. Get more coins and you can get Wario a ... treehouse, which he also doesn't like. Keep going and you can finally get him his castle at one point. Reach the 99,999 limit of coins and a surprising gift awaits Wario. I thought these were well done and add nice incentive to do well during your playthrough.
GAMEPLAY | 9/20
Wario Land plays like the uglier version of Mario Land, which fits the two characters and therefore, if this was intended, should be seen as a compliment. In reality though, I just couldn't enjoy my time playing this game as much as I would have liked.
The game is functional and overall well made, as is typical for a first-party Nintendo title. The end product does not equate fun to me however. Similarly to many Mario adventures, you see Wario on an overworld and start in World #1 Stage #1. With each stage or 'course' that you beat, you get closer to the boss stage. Beat the boss, and the next world opens up.
Each world is themed differently and each course has its own challenges for the player to overcome through platforming. You have to watch out for enemies, spikes, gravity and something that looks like water but actually isn't and will kill you.
What makes or breaks platformers though is how you engage with these challenges, and in that regard, I think Wario Land falls short in what makes a platformer enjoyable to me. First off, Wario Land's gameplay is really slow and repetitive. Through the first two worlds, most of what I experienced felt pretty much the same, looked mostly the same and played exactly the same. Few enemy types (there are a total of 10 in this game with little variety), low difficulty (apart from many cheap deaths like the aforementioned "water" and jumps having to be a lot more precise than one can comfortably do) and bland power-up choices.
Wario can have a normal size and a shrunk-down version of himself just like Mario. When he is at his normal size, finding a "pot" allows him to become Jet Wario (which lets him fly for a short period of time), Bull Wario (attach Wario to the ceiling with the horns) and Dragon Wario (fire breathing skill). Wario has no speed to speak of and the challenges are just way too one-dimensional to ever really get a fun gameplay loop going in this game.
As far as items to collect go, there are only three. A star like in the Mario games, which I found just once. Hearts, which you find regularly and which give you 10 points to your heart counter (when you get 100, you get 1 extra life) and a key, which you are meant to carry while you search for a treasure room, which you need to find to get better (and the best) endings.
It's all competently made but it just plays like one of the less inspired Nintendo games of its time.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 3/10
No voice acting. For sounds and the soundtrack, I've played plenty of Game Boy games by now and I understand its limited sound capabilities. That said, Wario Land is one of the worst sounding games I've played during this challenge and has among the worst soundtracks of games I have played that were professionally made. I assume it's supposed to be a somewhat uglier soundtrack to tell us that we're playing a Wario game, not a Mario game, but man, I feel the need to apologize to my ears for having exposed them to this. None of the tracks I heard in this game ever felt like they had any cohesion in their composition and just sounded like an odd mix of horrible sounds. Usually when I play these monotonous platformers, I have the soundtrack to lean back on and to at least bop my heads to some of the tracks. Here, I wouldn't even know when to bop because way too often there is seemingly no rhythm in these tracks. If this is supposed to be intentional and there truly is that hidden meaning of "Wario is just an uglier version of Mario, so the soundtrack is supposed to show that", than that's fine, but doesn't make the soundtrack less bad sounding.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 5/10
The limitations of the Game Boy are excusable to a point, but we are closing in on the 32 bit gen of video games and from the perspective of anyone not tied down to a handheld system, the games on the Game Boy look pretty bad for the most part. What devs can mainly do visually is to be creative in their visual design of levels and keeping things varied. While Wario Land has some of that variety I'm talking about, it doesn't have a lot of it and whenever things visually do look somewhat different, the gameplay still feels the same. Sprites are also really big here, so they cover for more of the screen than I'd personally like. It negatively impacted gameplay as well, especially during sections with spikes at the ceiling.
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 5/10
The game kind of does a good job of presenting us with the 'uglier' version of Mario, as they described Wario at the time, by making a lot about the game ugly as well. Whether it's by design at times and not by design at others, whether the atmosphere the game presents is on purpose or isn't, it's just not something I would consider very pleasant in how it is presented.
CONTENT | 5/10
There are seven worlds with multiple courses each. After each course, you can gamble your money to try to double it or play a mini game to try to get an extra life. There are also 4 treasures you need to find to have a chance at the best ending. Overall, this game is on the longer side of platformers, but I feel like this is one of the few Nintendo first-party platformers that really shouldn't be anywhere near this long. A similar length to Kirby's Dream Land due to the lack of features would have suited this better.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 5/10
The length of most levels here is OK, however most of them lack fair and interesting challenge. While the game is generally too easy, whenever it does get difficult, it's more often than not because of the poor controls and big sprites that you have to combat than actually having to show off the skills you've learned while playing this game. That said, when you pass some worlds and come back to them, new areas open up, so there is some reason for players to explore and experiment in this game.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 3/10
This is, at its best, a platformer like you've seen hundreds of times already by the time this game was released. At its worst and, mostly at its normal state, it's the worse version of those platformers due to a lack of variation and slow gameplay.
REPLAYABILITY | 3/5
The endings add replay value to those who enjoy the game's gameplay, especially the best ending, which will require you to find and open all treasure chests.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
Works well at all times.
OVERALL | 46/100
A good example of a competently made game that just isn't a lot of fun to play, even though it works as intended. Clearly, a lot of people disagree with me based on its sales numbers at the time and its score on a site like MobyGames, but I can't pretend to have enjoyed the very limited offering here just to go with the majority's opinion, at least critically at the time. On top of that, the game was not nice to listen to either, a rare occurence within gaming I feel, at least among known games.
1995
(This is the 114th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet/blog is in my bio.)
I enjoy LucasArts adventure games and I've played lots of them as part of this challenge. Loom, Monkey Island 1 and 2, Full Throttle, Indiana Jones and now The Dig, which had been recommended to me a few times when I reviewed the others. Straight off the bat, it's easy to see why. It's an incredibly atmospheric adventure with a more serious tone than usual for LucasArts, though not bereft of their trademark witty and dad joke loving characters.
It's about a 5-person group assigned to plant nuclear bombs on an asteroid that is on collision course with the earth to basically make it securely orbit around Earth. The group that is assigned for the job is an interesting mix, as you got one journalist, a technician who is also running for congress, an archeologist, a pilot and the main character, the Commander.
The Commander, Boston Low, the journalist, Maggie Robbins, and the archeologist, Ludger Brink, enter the inside of the asteroid after blowing it open, stumble upon an odd puzzle within and are teleported into deep space. When they come to, they are on an alien planet that seems to no longer have any sentient life on it. Based on what is left behind on this planet though, it seems clear that there WAS sentient life here at least. So you start solving these mysteries to figure out a way back to Earth.
Unfortunately, for such a great setup for its story, a big issue with The Dig is that its puzzles are maddening. I'm OK with a few obtuse puzzles, they are practically unavoidable in LucasArts adventures, but The Dig puts a new meaning to it. There is one puzzle in particular, where some sort of fish / turtle is eaten in front of you and its remains are spit back on land. Interacting with it opens a window where you see about 15-20 pieces of this fish in disarray. The goal is to reassemble everything into the correct order. How are you supposed to do this? Well, there are the really conveniently placed remains of the same type of fish on the next screen. So go there, remember how ALL these pieces are set up, go back to the fish in disarray, and try to place everything in the same way.
EXCEPT. You have to place it EXACTLY in one specific way and every item has to be in EXACT order, otherwise you didn't do it right. After spending way too long on this dumb puzzle, I looked up online how to set it up. After setting it up exactly that way, the game said I STILL did it wrong, meaning something was probably an inch off or something. I couldn't be bothered to find out, so I called it quits there.
There are more bad puzzles in the game up to that point, and most definitely after I'm sure, but the problem with these puzzles is that 1) they're bad, obviously but 2) they ruin an otherwise incredible atmosphere set up by a very well paced first act, the great visuals (for its time), the cinematics and the sound design.
The game feels much more big budget than prior LucasArts adventures, and it has some cool ideas, like talking to your crew members and regularly being able to ask them about clues you find as well as just engaging in optional conversation and getting to know them better, but the puzzle difficulty ruined it for me. Only play this if you're a more hardcore point & click adventure fan, because you're gonna be at some of these puzzles for a long while without a guide and even with one, some of them are just tiring.
I enjoy LucasArts adventure games and I've played lots of them as part of this challenge. Loom, Monkey Island 1 and 2, Full Throttle, Indiana Jones and now The Dig, which had been recommended to me a few times when I reviewed the others. Straight off the bat, it's easy to see why. It's an incredibly atmospheric adventure with a more serious tone than usual for LucasArts, though not bereft of their trademark witty and dad joke loving characters.
It's about a 5-person group assigned to plant nuclear bombs on an asteroid that is on collision course with the earth to basically make it securely orbit around Earth. The group that is assigned for the job is an interesting mix, as you got one journalist, a technician who is also running for congress, an archeologist, a pilot and the main character, the Commander.
The Commander, Boston Low, the journalist, Maggie Robbins, and the archeologist, Ludger Brink, enter the inside of the asteroid after blowing it open, stumble upon an odd puzzle within and are teleported into deep space. When they come to, they are on an alien planet that seems to no longer have any sentient life on it. Based on what is left behind on this planet though, it seems clear that there WAS sentient life here at least. So you start solving these mysteries to figure out a way back to Earth.
Unfortunately, for such a great setup for its story, a big issue with The Dig is that its puzzles are maddening. I'm OK with a few obtuse puzzles, they are practically unavoidable in LucasArts adventures, but The Dig puts a new meaning to it. There is one puzzle in particular, where some sort of fish / turtle is eaten in front of you and its remains are spit back on land. Interacting with it opens a window where you see about 15-20 pieces of this fish in disarray. The goal is to reassemble everything into the correct order. How are you supposed to do this? Well, there are the really conveniently placed remains of the same type of fish on the next screen. So go there, remember how ALL these pieces are set up, go back to the fish in disarray, and try to place everything in the same way.
EXCEPT. You have to place it EXACTLY in one specific way and every item has to be in EXACT order, otherwise you didn't do it right. After spending way too long on this dumb puzzle, I looked up online how to set it up. After setting it up exactly that way, the game said I STILL did it wrong, meaning something was probably an inch off or something. I couldn't be bothered to find out, so I called it quits there.
There are more bad puzzles in the game up to that point, and most definitely after I'm sure, but the problem with these puzzles is that 1) they're bad, obviously but 2) they ruin an otherwise incredible atmosphere set up by a very well paced first act, the great visuals (for its time), the cinematics and the sound design.
The game feels much more big budget than prior LucasArts adventures, and it has some cool ideas, like talking to your crew members and regularly being able to ask them about clues you find as well as just engaging in optional conversation and getting to know them better, but the puzzle difficulty ruined it for me. Only play this if you're a more hardcore point & click adventure fan, because you're gonna be at some of these puzzles for a long while without a guide and even with one, some of them are just tiring.
(This is the 109th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet/blog is in my bio.)
Full Throttle was LucasArts' 11th adventure game and originally released in May, 1995. In 2017, the Remastered version released. It's got updated visuals, sound and QoL improvements, and in typical LucasArts Remaster fashion, you can switch to original visuals with the click of a button whenever you want. It's got dev commentary as well, which makes this remaster a nice little package for a game that you'd be hard-pressed to run on modern computers otherwise. Having beaten the game for the first time, I can say that it's definitely a worthy purchase for adventure game fans. That said, I'd be shocked if adventure game fans haven't played it already anyway. For those curious about the genre and who got enticed by the biker gang theme of the game, is it equally worth it?
Well, apart from the theme and some of the game's distinct features, it's mainly a typical LucasArts adventure. It's shorter than some at a 4-5 hour run time if you watch all cutscenes but what you do in this game follows the formula pretty much. You engage in puzzles that become more and more difficult over time, talk to NPCs and try to progress forward by combining these two parts of the game. These games are notorious for having unintuitive / illogical solutions to puzzles at least once in each of them, and Full Throttle is no exception unfortunately, but it's certainly one of the least egregious examples in LucasArts' catalogue I think. Still, there is one part where you have to ride around in your bike and engage in bike combat, which is a unique feature for this game, and figure out how to defeat each biker by beating one first, getting their weapon and then using that to defeat another. One biker for example is only susceptible to fertilizer, and another to a 2x4, and each failed attempt means waiting for 15+ seconds until the next biker shows up. Another part has you figuring out how to get past a minefield. The solution involves bunnies and it's pretty odd. Finally there is also a part where you find yourself on fire. I won't add much more to it other than what you have to do there is oddly specific and you'll figure the solution out by accident rather than logical deduction.
Still, I thought most solutions were easy enough to figure out and progression overall was much smoother for me than in Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle or their Indiana Jones game. This alongside its runtime work in favor of the story, which feels much better paced and includes less filler than usual. This comes at the expense of fewer characters that you meet than in other adventures of theirs, and I didn't find them to be as memorable.
The plot itself is also pretty simple. You play as the main character Ben, who is the leader of a biker gang called "Polecats" and who plans to stop the evil plan of one Adrian Ripburger, who plans to take over a motorcycle manufacturer and make them manufacture mini-vans, which is obviously a disgusting suggesting as far as Ben is concerned. Ripburger's actions are much more evil than his means however, and he frames Ben for his terrible acts to boot, so Ben has no choice but to put an end to Ripburger's plot. It's rather cliché and simple, as I said, but if you're into bikes and biker gang culture or just appreciate a story about a alpha, badass, funny one-liner spouting character, Full Throttle should scratch an itch for a couple afternoons.
OVERALL | 69/100
There isn't really much else to say about a game like this. If you know LucasArts games, you know them all kind of, at least from this time period. They have different themes but follow a very similar formula and it worked at the time. In modern times, with so many more games to choose from than in the 90s, where your gaming library probably consisted of just a couple games, it might be hard for you to stick to a game that will undoubtedly have you stuck at times trying to find a weird solution. If you didn't like it in other LucasArts games, you won't like it here, but if you did, then Full Throttle is more of the same with a different theme put on. It's a theme that works, which makes this a enjoyable game to play in my opinion.
Full Throttle was LucasArts' 11th adventure game and originally released in May, 1995. In 2017, the Remastered version released. It's got updated visuals, sound and QoL improvements, and in typical LucasArts Remaster fashion, you can switch to original visuals with the click of a button whenever you want. It's got dev commentary as well, which makes this remaster a nice little package for a game that you'd be hard-pressed to run on modern computers otherwise. Having beaten the game for the first time, I can say that it's definitely a worthy purchase for adventure game fans. That said, I'd be shocked if adventure game fans haven't played it already anyway. For those curious about the genre and who got enticed by the biker gang theme of the game, is it equally worth it?
Well, apart from the theme and some of the game's distinct features, it's mainly a typical LucasArts adventure. It's shorter than some at a 4-5 hour run time if you watch all cutscenes but what you do in this game follows the formula pretty much. You engage in puzzles that become more and more difficult over time, talk to NPCs and try to progress forward by combining these two parts of the game. These games are notorious for having unintuitive / illogical solutions to puzzles at least once in each of them, and Full Throttle is no exception unfortunately, but it's certainly one of the least egregious examples in LucasArts' catalogue I think. Still, there is one part where you have to ride around in your bike and engage in bike combat, which is a unique feature for this game, and figure out how to defeat each biker by beating one first, getting their weapon and then using that to defeat another. One biker for example is only susceptible to fertilizer, and another to a 2x4, and each failed attempt means waiting for 15+ seconds until the next biker shows up. Another part has you figuring out how to get past a minefield. The solution involves bunnies and it's pretty odd. Finally there is also a part where you find yourself on fire. I won't add much more to it other than what you have to do there is oddly specific and you'll figure the solution out by accident rather than logical deduction.
Still, I thought most solutions were easy enough to figure out and progression overall was much smoother for me than in Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle or their Indiana Jones game. This alongside its runtime work in favor of the story, which feels much better paced and includes less filler than usual. This comes at the expense of fewer characters that you meet than in other adventures of theirs, and I didn't find them to be as memorable.
The plot itself is also pretty simple. You play as the main character Ben, who is the leader of a biker gang called "Polecats" and who plans to stop the evil plan of one Adrian Ripburger, who plans to take over a motorcycle manufacturer and make them manufacture mini-vans, which is obviously a disgusting suggesting as far as Ben is concerned. Ripburger's actions are much more evil than his means however, and he frames Ben for his terrible acts to boot, so Ben has no choice but to put an end to Ripburger's plot. It's rather cliché and simple, as I said, but if you're into bikes and biker gang culture or just appreciate a story about a alpha, badass, funny one-liner spouting character, Full Throttle should scratch an itch for a couple afternoons.
OVERALL | 69/100
There isn't really much else to say about a game like this. If you know LucasArts games, you know them all kind of, at least from this time period. They have different themes but follow a very similar formula and it worked at the time. In modern times, with so many more games to choose from than in the 90s, where your gaming library probably consisted of just a couple games, it might be hard for you to stick to a game that will undoubtedly have you stuck at times trying to find a weird solution. If you didn't like it in other LucasArts games, you won't like it here, but if you did, then Full Throttle is more of the same with a different theme put on. It's a theme that works, which makes this a enjoyable game to play in my opinion.
2021
I've played for more or less 20 hours of this now after seeing it recommended everywhere for like a million times in the past two years. It's a very relaxing game like advertised. Or incredibly stressful, depending on what kind of thoughts enter your mind when you can play a game without having to think about what you're doing all that much.
The premise is very relaxing though. Clean up dirty environments. Very fun to see the end result when you're done, and there is lots of content for it to not get repetitive. Mod support would have been nice, but looks like that's not coming for this game.
The premise is very relaxing though. Clean up dirty environments. Very fun to see the end result when you're done, and there is lots of content for it to not get repetitive. Mod support would have been nice, but looks like that's not coming for this game.
I jumped into Metal Gear Solid II: Sons of Liberty right after beating Metal Gear Solid 1 and I'm very glad I did. Metal Gear Solid II is a true sequel to MGS 1, which ends on a post-credits phone call scene between one of the antagonists of MGS 1 and the president of the USA. MGS 2 released on November 13, 2001 for the PlayStation 2, which means this game released three years after the original and for a new generation of consoles.
As someone who has played a lot of old school games over the past couple years, I was pretty used to MGS 1's visuals (I usually played games before the 32-bit era, so MGS 1's visuals actually looked really good in that respect). This meant that seeing the jump to MGS 2 and all those improvements felt even more exciting and I can happily say that MGS 2 truely feels next-gen for its time. Visuals are much improved, controls are smoothed out and gameplay has a lot more features, including much more persistent enemy AI, among other things.
So if you enjoyed MGS 1, MGS 2 is a must-play, though I preferred MGS 1 slightly over its sequel for a couple reasons which I will go over in my full review.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 9/10
There is a lot I loved about Metal Gear Solid 2's story. The last two hours of it felt incredibly relevant for today and I'd almost consider the story GOATed just for that (the story was relevant in its time for other aspects, as the 9/11 incident occured just before release and a lot of content had to be cut, as it was too similar, which is just eerie). There are some very emotional scenes in the game that were excellent in delivery and near made my cry in one particular scene. Finally, there are two full "books" in the Bonus section of the game with 100+ and 300+ pages (though with a very low word count per page, so around 1 hour's worth of reading for the latter), the sort of detail that I love in games. One is from the perspective of Nastascha Romanenko, who was on comm support in the first game, and the other is from a conspiracy theorists perspective.
Overall, there is a lot to like here. The setting is great (the Big Shell part especially), the themes are great and well-explored, the bait and switch part I was more than OK with (though I see how people at the time could have been mad), Otacon remains a legend, the connection between war and misery and how it affects nearly every character in the game is just very tragic and finally, Snake's post-game speech is fantastic. The two things I thought could have been better was 1) keeping the 4th-wall breaking or the jokes out of certain scenes, as it took away from their meaning a little bit and 2) the gameplay-cutscene balance. The series is obviously famous for "interrupting" gameplay with cutscenes and codec calls on a regular basis, and while it's not something I see negatively per se, I thought MGS 1 struck that balance better. Maybe it happened this often here because Kojima realized how many more cutscenes he could fit in thanks to the power of the PS2? Either way, I can see how certain gamers would not be too fond of this, though it didn't reach WTF levels for me.
A final word regarding the game's preditive nature and its themes. Look at these quotes that are incredibly relevant regarding social media and fake news. "Rumors about petty issues, misinterpretations, slander..." / "All this junk data preserved in an unfiltered state, growing at an alarming rate" / "The digital society furthers human flaws and selectively rewards development of convenient half-truths". There is more like this on that topic, on AI, on censorship and more. The game also explores themes more hopeful and in a more optimistic way, which I hope you discover on your own by playing this game, but suffice it to say that I loved the messaging and I can see why a lot of players where impacted by these games at a younger age, when even today I can only tip my hat to Hideo Kojima for this.
GAMEPLAY | 17/20
As with the Storytelling part, gameplay could have been slightly more enjoyable, if the balance was struck better. Rarely do you play for more than 5-10 minutes uninterrupted, unless you are really lost on what to do or where to go next, which can happen on two or three occasions. TIP: Keep an eye out for doors that require a higher level keycard to open. When you get an upgrade to your keycard, go back to these places to sometimes find items that you will need for later.
Gameplay overall is once again very unique and a lot of fun in Metal Gear Solid 2. The movement controls have been smoothed out a bit over the original and you feel more in control of what exactly you are doing here. There are also several other improvements and additions that have been made. Most notably, whenever you alert enemies to your presence, they don't become completely oblivious to your presence after the fact. Instead, they stay on alert afterwards by keeping more guards in that area and by roaming the place searching for you. Meanwhile, you can use some more tactics yourself to stay out of sight or gain an advantage in combat. First-person mode lets you aim at specific targets, you can peek out from cover and quickly take a shot at enemies and you can hang off of railings to get past enemies that cover walkways.
As per usual, boss battles are a big part in this Metal Gear game. It's subjective, but I think I enjoyed the bosses in MGS 1 more, though I think this speaks more positively of MGS 1's bosses than it does negatively of MGS 2's. There are memorable boss fights in this game and the antagonists are all very interesting personalities, but the Fatman fight for example took too long imo while the Metal Gear battle felt almost insulting to the threat Metal Gears are supposed to represent, as you can take out not just one, but 3 (!) of them singlehandedly in this game. But then there is Vamp, the Solidus fight and the Metal Gear and Fatman fight having their positive qualities that are definitely worth mentioning, plus the aura of impossibility surrounding Fortune and just like that, you got a pretty strong line up. The resolution to these boss fights were also pretty satisfying and I'm sensing a theme that defeating every boss in Metal Gear games is just a bittersweet experience.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 10/10
Voice acting is great once again, which isn't too usual for a game of this era. The only character whose voice acting I didn't quite enjoy for a while was Rose, but I feel like that got better over time. The sound design is great just like in MGS 1 but takes it up a notch, especially with its use of ambient sounds and music in each area that you are, whether it's on the connecting bridges outside at the Big Shell where you hear the wind and the birds chirping, whether it's the sick Crew's Lounge track or the sounds of rain on the Tanker and more, it's really well done and adds something distinct that you can remember these locations by.
The soundtrack is great as well. Just listen to the Main Theme and you should already be hooked. The game's subtitle is "Tactical Espionage Action" once again, and the soundtrack captures that very well throughout while adding an additional pinch of epic or suspense to the tracks whenever appropriate. And shoutout to Fortune's theme as well, it captures the Metal Gear theme so well.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 10/10
Visuals are much improved over the original. It helps that locations are more varied in this game as well, which keeps things looking more fresh visually, especially in terms of color. Once again, what makes the game stand out is its presentation, especially in cutscenes.
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 10/10
The quintessential Metal Gear atmosphere shines through once again. The feeling of being a special ops spy, especially when you manage to get past a particularly tough section of the game undetected. The seemingly supernatural antagonists that are omnipresent. The exploration of real world themes. This time, all this happens in multiple locations to keep things fresh visually as well. On top of that, you have the final two hours and some parts of the game as a whole that can leave you thinking through things for hours. I'm not going to spoil anything, but it's pretty special at times.
CONTENT | 9/10
Unlike Metal Gear Solid 1, there is a lot more additional content apart from the main story. There are collectable dog tags in this game for example to provide a challenge to those looking for it. Personally, I didn't get a single one because I forgot about them after I read about them before starting the main game, but also because they don't just lie around everywhere but have to be acquired by pointing your gun at an unsuspecting enemy for several seconds, which makes their dog tag drop.
Then there are a lot of VR missions and alternative missions to play through if you want, the latter of which include bomb disposal mode, elimination mode and hold up mode, with several challenges in each. Finally, you can read three "books" / "reports" to get more background information and different perspectives on events in the first game. It also serves as a refresher on the original's story, if you didn't pick up MGS2 straight after MGS1.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 8/10
For as great as a setting the Big Shell is visually, repetition is unavoidable due to its layout. The game keeps things fresh in terms of your objectives often enough to where I never truly got bored or anything like that, and each strut looks more than different enough once you're inside but walking over the same bridges multiple times wasn't always enjoyable. Then there is the Fatman boss fight, which just takes way too long and is also way too repetitive.
Other than that though, levels and locations are packed with plenty of different methods to achieving different objectives that you are going to face through your 10+ hours with this game. The Tanker chapter is a great introductory level that highlights all the great parts with MGS 2's gameplay as well.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 9/10
MGS 2 doesn't innovate as much as its predecessor, but that wasn't going to be possible anyway. Where it can and does succeed a lot is in its concepts and exploring those pretty thoroughly, and in a way that is relevant even to this day, if not much more so.
REPLAYABILITY | 2/5
After beating the main game, there is only one thing that makes it replayable, which is exploring higher difficulty settings. For things to do outside of the main game, check out "Content".
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
Works well at all times.
OVERALL | 89/100
The Metal Gear Solid series keeps going strong with MGS 2, another fantastic stealth action game which proves to also be prophetic through its exploration of its themes. "In the current, digitized world, trivial information is accumulating every second, preserved in all its triteness". Unlike trivial information though, there is nothing trivial about MGS 2, and I'm glad it gets to be preserved with the upcoming Metal Gear Solid collection. I'll likely pick that up and play through this and the other MGS games rather soon. I'd recommend every other gamer to try the series out as well.
As someone who has played a lot of old school games over the past couple years, I was pretty used to MGS 1's visuals (I usually played games before the 32-bit era, so MGS 1's visuals actually looked really good in that respect). This meant that seeing the jump to MGS 2 and all those improvements felt even more exciting and I can happily say that MGS 2 truely feels next-gen for its time. Visuals are much improved, controls are smoothed out and gameplay has a lot more features, including much more persistent enemy AI, among other things.
So if you enjoyed MGS 1, MGS 2 is a must-play, though I preferred MGS 1 slightly over its sequel for a couple reasons which I will go over in my full review.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 9/10
There is a lot I loved about Metal Gear Solid 2's story. The last two hours of it felt incredibly relevant for today and I'd almost consider the story GOATed just for that (the story was relevant in its time for other aspects, as the 9/11 incident occured just before release and a lot of content had to be cut, as it was too similar, which is just eerie). There are some very emotional scenes in the game that were excellent in delivery and near made my cry in one particular scene. Finally, there are two full "books" in the Bonus section of the game with 100+ and 300+ pages (though with a very low word count per page, so around 1 hour's worth of reading for the latter), the sort of detail that I love in games. One is from the perspective of Nastascha Romanenko, who was on comm support in the first game, and the other is from a conspiracy theorists perspective.
Overall, there is a lot to like here. The setting is great (the Big Shell part especially), the themes are great and well-explored, the bait and switch part I was more than OK with (though I see how people at the time could have been mad), Otacon remains a legend, the connection between war and misery and how it affects nearly every character in the game is just very tragic and finally, Snake's post-game speech is fantastic. The two things I thought could have been better was 1) keeping the 4th-wall breaking or the jokes out of certain scenes, as it took away from their meaning a little bit and 2) the gameplay-cutscene balance. The series is obviously famous for "interrupting" gameplay with cutscenes and codec calls on a regular basis, and while it's not something I see negatively per se, I thought MGS 1 struck that balance better. Maybe it happened this often here because Kojima realized how many more cutscenes he could fit in thanks to the power of the PS2? Either way, I can see how certain gamers would not be too fond of this, though it didn't reach WTF levels for me.
A final word regarding the game's preditive nature and its themes. Look at these quotes that are incredibly relevant regarding social media and fake news. "Rumors about petty issues, misinterpretations, slander..." / "All this junk data preserved in an unfiltered state, growing at an alarming rate" / "The digital society furthers human flaws and selectively rewards development of convenient half-truths". There is more like this on that topic, on AI, on censorship and more. The game also explores themes more hopeful and in a more optimistic way, which I hope you discover on your own by playing this game, but suffice it to say that I loved the messaging and I can see why a lot of players where impacted by these games at a younger age, when even today I can only tip my hat to Hideo Kojima for this.
GAMEPLAY | 17/20
As with the Storytelling part, gameplay could have been slightly more enjoyable, if the balance was struck better. Rarely do you play for more than 5-10 minutes uninterrupted, unless you are really lost on what to do or where to go next, which can happen on two or three occasions. TIP: Keep an eye out for doors that require a higher level keycard to open. When you get an upgrade to your keycard, go back to these places to sometimes find items that you will need for later.
Gameplay overall is once again very unique and a lot of fun in Metal Gear Solid 2. The movement controls have been smoothed out a bit over the original and you feel more in control of what exactly you are doing here. There are also several other improvements and additions that have been made. Most notably, whenever you alert enemies to your presence, they don't become completely oblivious to your presence after the fact. Instead, they stay on alert afterwards by keeping more guards in that area and by roaming the place searching for you. Meanwhile, you can use some more tactics yourself to stay out of sight or gain an advantage in combat. First-person mode lets you aim at specific targets, you can peek out from cover and quickly take a shot at enemies and you can hang off of railings to get past enemies that cover walkways.
As per usual, boss battles are a big part in this Metal Gear game. It's subjective, but I think I enjoyed the bosses in MGS 1 more, though I think this speaks more positively of MGS 1's bosses than it does negatively of MGS 2's. There are memorable boss fights in this game and the antagonists are all very interesting personalities, but the Fatman fight for example took too long imo while the Metal Gear battle felt almost insulting to the threat Metal Gears are supposed to represent, as you can take out not just one, but 3 (!) of them singlehandedly in this game. But then there is Vamp, the Solidus fight and the Metal Gear and Fatman fight having their positive qualities that are definitely worth mentioning, plus the aura of impossibility surrounding Fortune and just like that, you got a pretty strong line up. The resolution to these boss fights were also pretty satisfying and I'm sensing a theme that defeating every boss in Metal Gear games is just a bittersweet experience.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 10/10
Voice acting is great once again, which isn't too usual for a game of this era. The only character whose voice acting I didn't quite enjoy for a while was Rose, but I feel like that got better over time. The sound design is great just like in MGS 1 but takes it up a notch, especially with its use of ambient sounds and music in each area that you are, whether it's on the connecting bridges outside at the Big Shell where you hear the wind and the birds chirping, whether it's the sick Crew's Lounge track or the sounds of rain on the Tanker and more, it's really well done and adds something distinct that you can remember these locations by.
The soundtrack is great as well. Just listen to the Main Theme and you should already be hooked. The game's subtitle is "Tactical Espionage Action" once again, and the soundtrack captures that very well throughout while adding an additional pinch of epic or suspense to the tracks whenever appropriate. And shoutout to Fortune's theme as well, it captures the Metal Gear theme so well.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 10/10
Visuals are much improved over the original. It helps that locations are more varied in this game as well, which keeps things looking more fresh visually, especially in terms of color. Once again, what makes the game stand out is its presentation, especially in cutscenes.
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 10/10
The quintessential Metal Gear atmosphere shines through once again. The feeling of being a special ops spy, especially when you manage to get past a particularly tough section of the game undetected. The seemingly supernatural antagonists that are omnipresent. The exploration of real world themes. This time, all this happens in multiple locations to keep things fresh visually as well. On top of that, you have the final two hours and some parts of the game as a whole that can leave you thinking through things for hours. I'm not going to spoil anything, but it's pretty special at times.
CONTENT | 9/10
Unlike Metal Gear Solid 1, there is a lot more additional content apart from the main story. There are collectable dog tags in this game for example to provide a challenge to those looking for it. Personally, I didn't get a single one because I forgot about them after I read about them before starting the main game, but also because they don't just lie around everywhere but have to be acquired by pointing your gun at an unsuspecting enemy for several seconds, which makes their dog tag drop.
Then there are a lot of VR missions and alternative missions to play through if you want, the latter of which include bomb disposal mode, elimination mode and hold up mode, with several challenges in each. Finally, you can read three "books" / "reports" to get more background information and different perspectives on events in the first game. It also serves as a refresher on the original's story, if you didn't pick up MGS2 straight after MGS1.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 8/10
For as great as a setting the Big Shell is visually, repetition is unavoidable due to its layout. The game keeps things fresh in terms of your objectives often enough to where I never truly got bored or anything like that, and each strut looks more than different enough once you're inside but walking over the same bridges multiple times wasn't always enjoyable. Then there is the Fatman boss fight, which just takes way too long and is also way too repetitive.
Other than that though, levels and locations are packed with plenty of different methods to achieving different objectives that you are going to face through your 10+ hours with this game. The Tanker chapter is a great introductory level that highlights all the great parts with MGS 2's gameplay as well.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 9/10
MGS 2 doesn't innovate as much as its predecessor, but that wasn't going to be possible anyway. Where it can and does succeed a lot is in its concepts and exploring those pretty thoroughly, and in a way that is relevant even to this day, if not much more so.
REPLAYABILITY | 2/5
After beating the main game, there is only one thing that makes it replayable, which is exploring higher difficulty settings. For things to do outside of the main game, check out "Content".
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
Works well at all times.
OVERALL | 89/100
The Metal Gear Solid series keeps going strong with MGS 2, another fantastic stealth action game which proves to also be prophetic through its exploration of its themes. "In the current, digitized world, trivial information is accumulating every second, preserved in all its triteness". Unlike trivial information though, there is nothing trivial about MGS 2, and I'm glad it gets to be preserved with the upcoming Metal Gear Solid collection. I'll likely pick that up and play through this and the other MGS games rather soon. I'd recommend every other gamer to try the series out as well.
1990
This is the type of game I would have spent hours of time and lots of money on in the arcades as a kid. A game similar to Code Name: Viper, called Rolling Thunder, was actually an arcade game, but Code Name: Viper itself was released for the NES.
This is a side scrolling action game where you control "Mr. Smith", a special forces operative who is tasked by "Commander Jones" to take down seven hideouts of a drug syndicate. There is a mystery here to uncover and it reveals itself bit by bit after each stage you complete.
There are two weapons in this game, a pistol and a machine gun. Enemies are mostly syndicate members who are differentiated by color of their outfits. A blue member needs two shots to be killed and can only hit you by running into you, while a pink member can be killed with just one shot, but has a pistol of his own. You only have two lives, at least in the first three levels I've played, so this game can become very tricky real fast.
Not only are just two lives a problem, but you can accidentally run into an enemy that just gets into frame, you can enter a wall (to free hostages) and run into enemies or a bullet right as you exit the wall etc. Expecting a smooth experience I did not, so I'm not surprised that there were some annoyances here.
However, the gameplay loop got me trapped for a few hours anyway and if it weren't for the fact that I will likely play dozens of games like this in the coming days, weeks and months, I wouldn't have minded trying a bit longer to finish. But the game only gets harder from here and looking at a Longplay of it on YT, I doubt I'll get close to the level necessary to play through this.
But definitely worth checking out and would have been a favorite of mine back in the day.
This is a side scrolling action game where you control "Mr. Smith", a special forces operative who is tasked by "Commander Jones" to take down seven hideouts of a drug syndicate. There is a mystery here to uncover and it reveals itself bit by bit after each stage you complete.
There are two weapons in this game, a pistol and a machine gun. Enemies are mostly syndicate members who are differentiated by color of their outfits. A blue member needs two shots to be killed and can only hit you by running into you, while a pink member can be killed with just one shot, but has a pistol of his own. You only have two lives, at least in the first three levels I've played, so this game can become very tricky real fast.
Not only are just two lives a problem, but you can accidentally run into an enemy that just gets into frame, you can enter a wall (to free hostages) and run into enemies or a bullet right as you exit the wall etc. Expecting a smooth experience I did not, so I'm not surprised that there were some annoyances here.
However, the gameplay loop got me trapped for a few hours anyway and if it weren't for the fact that I will likely play dozens of games like this in the coming days, weeks and months, I wouldn't have minded trying a bit longer to finish. But the game only gets harder from here and looking at a Longplay of it on YT, I doubt I'll get close to the level necessary to play through this.
But definitely worth checking out and would have been a favorite of mine back in the day.
1994
(This is the 99th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet/blog is in my bio.)
I'm constantly hearing great things about Earthbound or "Mother 2", a 1994 JRPG developed by Ape Inc. and HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo. Admittedly, when hearing of the game's Japanese and Western titles, I had a totally different type of JRPG in mind. One with a much more sad tone than I was met with.
It doesn't take long for Earthbound to show you what kind of game it is, and it won't take you long to figure out whether you like said tone or not. As a child, I would have absolutely adored it. As an adult? I absolutely adore it. The humor hits a lot but it misses quite often as well, at least for me. Depending on how that balances out for you, you might be more or less inclined to play on Earthbound once you start.
However, there are other reasons to continue or stop playing this game, which I want to go over in my review of this game.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 7/10
You're playing the character that you can give your own name, but is canonically called "Ness". It takes place after the events of the first Mother game, which I haven't played, but I didn't ever get the impression that you need to play that. (That one got first localized in 2015 under the name "Earthbound Beginnings")
The game is set in the fictional country "Eagleland", which is a parody of the USA. The word "parody" should already give you an idea about the tone of this game. This is not a medieval / fantasy JRPG. The game's setting is themed around a parody of Western culture, which is why you can enter burger and pizza joints, go to ATM machines to withdraw cash, rest in hotels, heal in hospitals, are able to go to police stations and much more. There is a humorous tone to nearly everything in Earthbound, and it's what drives the game's charm.
The story has you investigate a meteorite crash in your home town. You figure out that an evil creature has engulfed the world with his evil nature and turned lots of creatures hostile. A bee from the future tells Ness that he is prophecized to save the world and that he has to collect melodies in a Sound Stone to put a stop to the evil.
On your journey forward, you visit several other towns, forests, a desert, swamp and more. I spent 12 hours with this game, so I didn't see everything, but expect quirky characters, odd obstacles to overcome and eccentric bosses to fight.
Characters that have stuck with me are apple and orange kid (one who is deemed smart and capable, and who isn't, among which you can choose to help one), a man who interrupts your gameplay to take a photo of you (which I hope is then shown at the end of the game), a boss who wants to turn everything blue and created a cult over it and several more. Lots of NPCs have funny one-liners you can read through alongside the usual lore dump they are used for in RPGs.
I've read up on how the story ends, and it seems to take things into a very interesting direction. So if you see it through, I believe you will be satisfied with it. For me, the reason why I didn't stick with it can be read through just below.
GAMEPLAY | 11/20
Earthbound does a lot of cool things that are pretty unique for its time and have stuck with the genre until today. Most of these things are related to the game's setting and quirkiness, but I found some interesting things to highlight in its gameplay as well.
Just recently, it was announced that Like a Dragon 8 would introduce a feature that lets you win battles automatically, if enemies are a lot weaker than you are. I don't know if Earthbound was the first game to do it, but that feature is in here.
Additionally, the game does not use an overworld. You seamlessly move from town to town in this game world. For random encounters, you can see enemies placed on the map, which I've last seen in 1992's Romancing SaGa. When these enemies run towards you, additional enemies can run up to you before the encounter starts.
The game does cool things with its times as well. Buying salt packets or ketchup and eating food with these items in your inventory leads to boosts to the food items, like additional health recovery. Not all "enhancers" work well with all foods, which impacts the boost you get.
Finally, each time you win in battle, you don't just get money from it, but rather a money deposit from your father to your bank account. Since money on your person is halfed whenever you die, you can choose to keep money on your account until you want it to buy stuff. I can't say that I think this is a good unique feature, but it is certainly unique.
So Earthbound does a lot of interesting things and many of these are pretty neat ideas. In its basic form though, the game employs similar gameplay mechanics to other RPGs of its time. The game uses a turn-based battle system in which battle order is chosen randomly each turn. This means you can use a healing item, but die if the enemy is chosen to attack first. That part in particular was really frustrating to me during my playthrough. With the help of an emulator, you can easily rewind and get different outcomes, but I've noticed just how RNG dependent the gameplay is during tough fights.
For example, say you are on low health. You can choose to heal, but if the enemy does an attack, you will lose all or most of that health again anyway. Or you can use a powerful PSI attack, but if the enemy activates a PSI shield right before that, you just waste a turn and PP points (yes, PP points). If you attack and the enemy attacks, you may die, if you haven't healed. Healing items and PP points are limited, so you can easily run out before killing a tough enemy. Or, alternatively, the enemy uses buffs or PSI shields while you are attacking, which lets you kill them before they get a chance to get enough hits in.
I got the impression that RNG dependency is too high on the one hand and/or grinding requirements are on a level that I'm not interested in engaging with.
Inventory management is also not the best and much more tedious than it needs to be. You can carry few items until you get additional party members, at which point you can carry twice as much and the issue is not nearly as bad. But for the first 10 hours or so, with all the key items you have, I found myself hard-pressed to be able to carry more than one food item, which made battles unnecessarily harder.
I've seen some people say that the game gets much easier as you go, so sticking with it may be rewarding in that sense. To me, the games 30+ hour runtime meant that I wasn't really too motivated to grind through the gameplay for that much longer.
Outside of combat, progression is also achieved by doing some light puzzles here and there or finding proper items to progress, such as figuring out a way to get past pencils that block your way forward. How could that be done?
Overall, your tolerance for the combat will decide how far you will take it with this game, and as is evident by this game's cult following to this day, the journey has been worth it to many.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 10/10
When I played a few hours, I couldn't believe how recognizable and nostalgic the music sounds in this game. I have never played the game before, and only after a couple hours did I realize that I actually have heard one track in this game in particular many, many times over the years without knowing that it's from Earthbound. "Sanctuary Guardian" or the What Meme is what I'm referring to, and if you give it a listen, I can guarantee that anyone spending more time online than the average person will have heard of it (listen to at least 20-25 seconds in).
This track's weird, quirky, confusing and oddball vibes are exactly what the whole game sounds like though, and not only does it make the game's sound immediately recognizable no matter how many years later you think back on it, but I also found it to add to the wackiness of the game's moment to moment gameplay, and in a positive way for sure.
Sound design overall is very good in this game, with unique sounds at a time where a lot of games use very similar sounds for most actions, so overall, I had a pleasant time listening to the game.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 10/10
The grounded, albeit parodied, real life setting is always very pleasant to me. Yes, there are humans and animals in control of evil who come after you like zombies, but seeing the setting and the design of the various towns be grounded like this is getting more and more rare these days where fantasy and sci-fi is included in nearly every single AAA game, so I appreciate the visual treat Earthbound ended up being in that regard.
In general, the look of the game is very distinct. You control kids who look like kids, in a world filled with your average modern-day adults (with quirky personalities), and run around from burger joint to flea market on your quest to save humanity. It's a pretty funny combination and works really well. So the art design I find to really be fantastic in this. Lots of stuff feels like it was drawn or written by children and then added into the game, so they really embraced this vibe and went for it.
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 10/10
Few games have the same vibe as Earthbound. I've read that Undertale is one inspired by Earthbound. Even there, I can't say I ever got the same vibe from it, and I don't think that was intended either. The closest modern games to me that have this vibe are the South Park RPGs, and according to the South Park creators Earthbound apparently was a game they took inspriation from for those ones too. Considering the South Park RPGs, especially the first one, are some of my favorite games ever, you could see how I dug Earthbound so much, though I'd say there is one big difference between those two in terms of the vulgarity of course.
I've described it a few times in this review already, but quirky, whacky and weird will be common adjectives that will be used to describe the game. For example, early on, a bee of all things comes to you to tell you that you are to save this world and that it will follow you until you finish your journey. Minutes later, you get to your neighbor's house and the bee unceremoniously is swatted down and dies. Can't say I've played a big budget game during this time where things like that ever happened. It's unexpected, it's funny and even today, I was caught off guard by it.
CONTENT | 8/10
The game takes roughly 30 hours to beat if you mainly focus on the main path. There is plenty of distractions on top of that, and lots of those hours are spent talking to people and finding your way forward that way. There are lots of items to find, buy and get to use on key things, lots of unique characters to meet and many different enemy types to fight. It being an RPG however, it also means that many of those hours will be spent in combat, which, as described above, has not aged very well.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 8/10
The unique world map (no overworld) is a nice change from other RPGs for its time. Seeing enemies and being able to dodge random encounters at times is a good approach to them in my opinion.
In terms of the mission design, for the most part, it's your typical RPG affair. You go from town to town, dungeon to dungeon and beat boss after boss as you get stronger and stronger. While the dungeons I've seen all looked pretty much the same, towns are where a lot of work has gone in. Sure, you get the same main areas in all of them, but in layout and non-key buildings (hospital, burger joint, hotel..), there is enough variety there to give towns a distinct feeling.
In terms of the dungeons, as mentioned, they have all looked the same in the first third of the game. You enter caves and either come out the other end in a mountaineous arae or something similar, or you find yourself in the bigger part of the cave and have to move upwards to find the boss. Gets the job done, but not much creativity here.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 8/10
The tone and setting of this game are both very unique components of it, and there are plenty of QoL improvements the game brings to the fold. Unfortunately, the combat system is too RNG-dependent for me to really say that all changes from your typical RPG work well here, and overall, Earthbound still is a 90s RPG in its core, and uses a similar formula for the most part.
REPLAYABILITY | 2/5
Early on, there is a choice to go with one of two kinds of kids to help them. Maybe there are more of those later on, but other than that, the game is not gonna offer you branching paths in key areas.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
Works well at all times.
OVERALL | 79/100
Earthbound is among those dozen or so games from the 99 games I've played as part of this challenge so far that I can recommend everyone to at least check out. There is a reason it remains this popular, and it's one of the most unique games in terms of atmosphere that you will be able to play from the early 90s. The SNES is a console that keeps (kept) on giving and Earthbound is one of its many highlights, though the combat might be unendurable for some at this point in time.
I'm constantly hearing great things about Earthbound or "Mother 2", a 1994 JRPG developed by Ape Inc. and HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo. Admittedly, when hearing of the game's Japanese and Western titles, I had a totally different type of JRPG in mind. One with a much more sad tone than I was met with.
It doesn't take long for Earthbound to show you what kind of game it is, and it won't take you long to figure out whether you like said tone or not. As a child, I would have absolutely adored it. As an adult? I absolutely adore it. The humor hits a lot but it misses quite often as well, at least for me. Depending on how that balances out for you, you might be more or less inclined to play on Earthbound once you start.
However, there are other reasons to continue or stop playing this game, which I want to go over in my review of this game.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 7/10
You're playing the character that you can give your own name, but is canonically called "Ness". It takes place after the events of the first Mother game, which I haven't played, but I didn't ever get the impression that you need to play that. (That one got first localized in 2015 under the name "Earthbound Beginnings")
The game is set in the fictional country "Eagleland", which is a parody of the USA. The word "parody" should already give you an idea about the tone of this game. This is not a medieval / fantasy JRPG. The game's setting is themed around a parody of Western culture, which is why you can enter burger and pizza joints, go to ATM machines to withdraw cash, rest in hotels, heal in hospitals, are able to go to police stations and much more. There is a humorous tone to nearly everything in Earthbound, and it's what drives the game's charm.
The story has you investigate a meteorite crash in your home town. You figure out that an evil creature has engulfed the world with his evil nature and turned lots of creatures hostile. A bee from the future tells Ness that he is prophecized to save the world and that he has to collect melodies in a Sound Stone to put a stop to the evil.
On your journey forward, you visit several other towns, forests, a desert, swamp and more. I spent 12 hours with this game, so I didn't see everything, but expect quirky characters, odd obstacles to overcome and eccentric bosses to fight.
Characters that have stuck with me are apple and orange kid (one who is deemed smart and capable, and who isn't, among which you can choose to help one), a man who interrupts your gameplay to take a photo of you (which I hope is then shown at the end of the game), a boss who wants to turn everything blue and created a cult over it and several more. Lots of NPCs have funny one-liners you can read through alongside the usual lore dump they are used for in RPGs.
I've read up on how the story ends, and it seems to take things into a very interesting direction. So if you see it through, I believe you will be satisfied with it. For me, the reason why I didn't stick with it can be read through just below.
GAMEPLAY | 11/20
Earthbound does a lot of cool things that are pretty unique for its time and have stuck with the genre until today. Most of these things are related to the game's setting and quirkiness, but I found some interesting things to highlight in its gameplay as well.
Just recently, it was announced that Like a Dragon 8 would introduce a feature that lets you win battles automatically, if enemies are a lot weaker than you are. I don't know if Earthbound was the first game to do it, but that feature is in here.
Additionally, the game does not use an overworld. You seamlessly move from town to town in this game world. For random encounters, you can see enemies placed on the map, which I've last seen in 1992's Romancing SaGa. When these enemies run towards you, additional enemies can run up to you before the encounter starts.
The game does cool things with its times as well. Buying salt packets or ketchup and eating food with these items in your inventory leads to boosts to the food items, like additional health recovery. Not all "enhancers" work well with all foods, which impacts the boost you get.
Finally, each time you win in battle, you don't just get money from it, but rather a money deposit from your father to your bank account. Since money on your person is halfed whenever you die, you can choose to keep money on your account until you want it to buy stuff. I can't say that I think this is a good unique feature, but it is certainly unique.
So Earthbound does a lot of interesting things and many of these are pretty neat ideas. In its basic form though, the game employs similar gameplay mechanics to other RPGs of its time. The game uses a turn-based battle system in which battle order is chosen randomly each turn. This means you can use a healing item, but die if the enemy is chosen to attack first. That part in particular was really frustrating to me during my playthrough. With the help of an emulator, you can easily rewind and get different outcomes, but I've noticed just how RNG dependent the gameplay is during tough fights.
For example, say you are on low health. You can choose to heal, but if the enemy does an attack, you will lose all or most of that health again anyway. Or you can use a powerful PSI attack, but if the enemy activates a PSI shield right before that, you just waste a turn and PP points (yes, PP points). If you attack and the enemy attacks, you may die, if you haven't healed. Healing items and PP points are limited, so you can easily run out before killing a tough enemy. Or, alternatively, the enemy uses buffs or PSI shields while you are attacking, which lets you kill them before they get a chance to get enough hits in.
I got the impression that RNG dependency is too high on the one hand and/or grinding requirements are on a level that I'm not interested in engaging with.
Inventory management is also not the best and much more tedious than it needs to be. You can carry few items until you get additional party members, at which point you can carry twice as much and the issue is not nearly as bad. But for the first 10 hours or so, with all the key items you have, I found myself hard-pressed to be able to carry more than one food item, which made battles unnecessarily harder.
I've seen some people say that the game gets much easier as you go, so sticking with it may be rewarding in that sense. To me, the games 30+ hour runtime meant that I wasn't really too motivated to grind through the gameplay for that much longer.
Outside of combat, progression is also achieved by doing some light puzzles here and there or finding proper items to progress, such as figuring out a way to get past pencils that block your way forward. How could that be done?
Overall, your tolerance for the combat will decide how far you will take it with this game, and as is evident by this game's cult following to this day, the journey has been worth it to many.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 10/10
When I played a few hours, I couldn't believe how recognizable and nostalgic the music sounds in this game. I have never played the game before, and only after a couple hours did I realize that I actually have heard one track in this game in particular many, many times over the years without knowing that it's from Earthbound. "Sanctuary Guardian" or the What Meme is what I'm referring to, and if you give it a listen, I can guarantee that anyone spending more time online than the average person will have heard of it (listen to at least 20-25 seconds in).
This track's weird, quirky, confusing and oddball vibes are exactly what the whole game sounds like though, and not only does it make the game's sound immediately recognizable no matter how many years later you think back on it, but I also found it to add to the wackiness of the game's moment to moment gameplay, and in a positive way for sure.
Sound design overall is very good in this game, with unique sounds at a time where a lot of games use very similar sounds for most actions, so overall, I had a pleasant time listening to the game.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 10/10
The grounded, albeit parodied, real life setting is always very pleasant to me. Yes, there are humans and animals in control of evil who come after you like zombies, but seeing the setting and the design of the various towns be grounded like this is getting more and more rare these days where fantasy and sci-fi is included in nearly every single AAA game, so I appreciate the visual treat Earthbound ended up being in that regard.
In general, the look of the game is very distinct. You control kids who look like kids, in a world filled with your average modern-day adults (with quirky personalities), and run around from burger joint to flea market on your quest to save humanity. It's a pretty funny combination and works really well. So the art design I find to really be fantastic in this. Lots of stuff feels like it was drawn or written by children and then added into the game, so they really embraced this vibe and went for it.
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 10/10
Few games have the same vibe as Earthbound. I've read that Undertale is one inspired by Earthbound. Even there, I can't say I ever got the same vibe from it, and I don't think that was intended either. The closest modern games to me that have this vibe are the South Park RPGs, and according to the South Park creators Earthbound apparently was a game they took inspriation from for those ones too. Considering the South Park RPGs, especially the first one, are some of my favorite games ever, you could see how I dug Earthbound so much, though I'd say there is one big difference between those two in terms of the vulgarity of course.
I've described it a few times in this review already, but quirky, whacky and weird will be common adjectives that will be used to describe the game. For example, early on, a bee of all things comes to you to tell you that you are to save this world and that it will follow you until you finish your journey. Minutes later, you get to your neighbor's house and the bee unceremoniously is swatted down and dies. Can't say I've played a big budget game during this time where things like that ever happened. It's unexpected, it's funny and even today, I was caught off guard by it.
CONTENT | 8/10
The game takes roughly 30 hours to beat if you mainly focus on the main path. There is plenty of distractions on top of that, and lots of those hours are spent talking to people and finding your way forward that way. There are lots of items to find, buy and get to use on key things, lots of unique characters to meet and many different enemy types to fight. It being an RPG however, it also means that many of those hours will be spent in combat, which, as described above, has not aged very well.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 8/10
The unique world map (no overworld) is a nice change from other RPGs for its time. Seeing enemies and being able to dodge random encounters at times is a good approach to them in my opinion.
In terms of the mission design, for the most part, it's your typical RPG affair. You go from town to town, dungeon to dungeon and beat boss after boss as you get stronger and stronger. While the dungeons I've seen all looked pretty much the same, towns are where a lot of work has gone in. Sure, you get the same main areas in all of them, but in layout and non-key buildings (hospital, burger joint, hotel..), there is enough variety there to give towns a distinct feeling.
In terms of the dungeons, as mentioned, they have all looked the same in the first third of the game. You enter caves and either come out the other end in a mountaineous arae or something similar, or you find yourself in the bigger part of the cave and have to move upwards to find the boss. Gets the job done, but not much creativity here.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 8/10
The tone and setting of this game are both very unique components of it, and there are plenty of QoL improvements the game brings to the fold. Unfortunately, the combat system is too RNG-dependent for me to really say that all changes from your typical RPG work well here, and overall, Earthbound still is a 90s RPG in its core, and uses a similar formula for the most part.
REPLAYABILITY | 2/5
Early on, there is a choice to go with one of two kinds of kids to help them. Maybe there are more of those later on, but other than that, the game is not gonna offer you branching paths in key areas.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
Works well at all times.
OVERALL | 79/100
Earthbound is among those dozen or so games from the 99 games I've played as part of this challenge so far that I can recommend everyone to at least check out. There is a reason it remains this popular, and it's one of the most unique games in terms of atmosphere that you will be able to play from the early 90s. The SNES is a console that keeps (kept) on giving and Earthbound is one of its many highlights, though the combat might be unendurable for some at this point in time.
1994
(This is the 91st game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet/blog is in my bio.)
As part of this challenge, I've been going through these Sonic games as fast as, well, Sonic, and just like that, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is the Sonic series' fourth attempt to make me a fan of the franchise. It's not like I think these are bad games, definitely not, but there are some pretty key things about Sonic games that do not align with my tastes, and that has been the case for Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Sonic CD, though Sonic CD has been the game I enjoyed the most so far.
I'm going to explain my likes and dislikes about the Sonic series below and whether this game does something different in those regards, but going in, I didn't really expect anything different here than what Sonic fans got up to this point. And that's more than OK, considering that this is a beloved series of many gamers. Additionally, this is the 4th Sonic game for the Genesis / Sega CD in just 3 years, so I imagine that innovation will be kept to a minimum simply due to time constraints. Looking at this game's wiki, that seems to be the case, as Sonic the Hedgehog would not only not include certain features that would later be turned into Sonic 3D Blast, but there is also a large part of the game that was simply cut and later republished as Sonic & Knuckles. Sonic & Knuckles' cartridge has an adapter that lets you attach Sonic 3 to it, which turns both games into Sonic 3 & Knuckles, in case you are interested in that. I'm only reviewing Sonic the Hedgehog 3.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 2/10
At the beginning of the game, Sonic has the Chaos Emeralds but gets them stolen from him by Knuckles the Echidna, a new character in the Sonic series at this point in time. Knuckles is the last of his kind living on the "Angel Island", on which the Death Egg of Dr Robotnik crash-lands prior to the start of this game. Knuckles guards the "Master Emerald", which gives Angel Island its levitational power, so Dr Robotnik uses this opportunity to pit Sonic and Knuckles against each other by telling Knuckles that Sonic is attempting to steal the Master Emerald.
For the game itself, that's pretty much it. Knuckles makes life harder on Sonic during the game but there is very little in terms of story here, not unlike other Sonic and platforming games in general at the time. As per usual, this is fine, as it is not expected, especially for a game in 1994, where story cutscenes would likely damage the experience more by interrupting it than enhancing it.
GAMEPLAY | 9/20
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is, to me, the worst Sonic game to date in terms of gameplay. On the one hand, it innovates very little from the formula of the other Sonic games. If you enjoyed those, you will enjoy this game too for the most part, so no need to read on. In the following however, I will explain what exactly irked me more than usual in this game, especially since it is coming off the heels of Sega CD and Sonic 2, both of which are games that I praised for innovating enough in terms of controls, gameplay and level design.
The core gameplay idea behind this Sonic game is the same as with the others. Enter a large level with multiple ways to traverse to the exit, explore to find secret areas, defeat a boss at the end of the zone and in between, learn the flow of the level to go through it without losing one of your limited lives. As per usual, Sonic has a lot of speed, and as per usual, you are supposed to use this speed during appropriate times.
Because, AS PER USUAL, this Sonic game has terrible enemy placement and enemies appearing a millisecond before you can process them as you speed through any area of any level. So, while controlling a fast character, you once again tip-toe around levels once you realize that no matter where you go, unfair threats look to take your rings from you. You then have to recover those rings, because carrying at least one ring means you won't die from your next hit. Unfortunately, in this game, rings are unrecoverable for a good 2-3 seconds after you get hit, so I found myself either recovering very few even if I had dozens on me, or recovering 0. For example, there is this one enemy that has spikes and shoots three balls diagonally upwards. Almost always, it hit me. Half the time, I couldn't recover any rings. This means I had to tip toe next to it to wait for it shoot the balls in order to jump on top of it. Sonic moves like he is gliding on ice however, so the controls are not nearly as tight as you would want them to. Plus, input detection is not as immediate as you would need it to be either. Ultimately, you need to get close enough to time the jump, you need to stay away far enough to not touch the enemy and you can't stay away too far, otherwise you won't time the jump within that short time frame between the three balls that are shot. This would lead me to die countless times to one of these things as I try to do a very simple thing of just jumping on top of this one goddamn enemy.
Enemy design in this game is horrible in general, but there is no enemy more infuriating than that fucking piranha that tries to bite you underwater. It won't let go, you can't do anything about it, so 100% of the time, this means you are just waiting 10 to 15 seconds until Sonic can't hold his breath anymore and dies. Fucking terrible. You fall downwards a lot and can't see these piranhas, so if you jump downwards unfavorably, you literally cannot do anything against them. One of my biggest gripes in any video game is having to jump down from somewhere without seeing enemies/obstacles, and this game's challenge is simply made out of this trope.
Two other things I dislike in Sonic 3 are 1) the special stages, which I think are the worst of all Sonic games so far (you collect blue balls and have to quickly change direction, where you fight the game's controls more than anything) and 2) Tails now being completely forced on you. In Sonic 2, you could go to the options menu and remove Tails, but here, you can't. Tails does almost nothing in 1-player mode but constantly die and distract you. Tails for example cannot breathe underwater, and has his own timer appear for whatever reason, which confuses you into thinking that you need air yourself. The worst fucking part is when I stood near the air bubbles with 2 seconds to go on my own timer, jumped up to grab one of the air bubbles and have FUCKING TAILS STEAL IT FROM ME. I died after those 2 seconds and quit the game right after.
Again, Sonic games are not objectively bad, despite the overwhelming negativity here, but at their best, the 2D platformers are tolerable to me, and at their worst, like here, they're downright terrible to play.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 8/10
The saving grace for Sonic games comes from their soundtrack. As with all other Sonic games (minus the Sega CD boss fight theme), this game has a good soundtrack as well. From what I've listened to, the save select screen's theme is funnily enough my favorite. The worst track here by far is the one for the new special stage, which makes the special stage even less tolerable than it already was to me.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10
I can only really say the same thing here that I was able to for the other Sonic games. They are some of the best-looking games on the Genesis, some of the better looking games of the 16-bit era and all that applies to Sonic 3 as well. At the same time, Sonic levels often have a cluttered quality to them and can be overdesigned visually, which is not as bad herre as in Sonic 2, but still present.
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 7/10
Not much to say here for this game. It plays, sounds and feels like a Sonic game. The only thing I dislike here in that sense are the underwater levels, which are a lot more present here than in the other Sonic games unfortunately, and they usually are my least favorite part.
CONTENT | 5/10
The main content is similar to what you have come to expect from the other Sonic games, only worse in my opinion due to the issues I mentioned under 'Gameplay'. The special stage here is the worst out of the 4 16-bit Sonic games in my opinion and this game doesn't innovate in any way here, a far cry of the effort that was put into Sonic CD in '93.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 5/10
Levels are long as per usual and you can go through them in multiple different ways once again. There are a lot of rings to collect, Chaos Emeralds to find through the special stages and bosses to battle, but the in between issues of enemy placement and the terrible way through which this game achieves its difficulty makes this game a step down from the other Sonic games, where I had complained about the enemy placement as well, but never at the level of Sonic 3.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 3/10
Play Sonic 1, 2 and Sonic CD instead of this. Sonic 3 innovates the least out of all these games and feels like a step back for the most part. Knuckles' debut is cool but that's really all you get here.
REPLAYABILITY | 3/5
Less replay value than for Sonic 2 and CD, but Sonic games always have plenty of secret areas to find and Chaos Emeralds to collect, so replay value is present at usual levels.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
Works well at all times.
OVERALL | 55/100
Sonic games eminate high production values, and there certainly was a lot of money poured into making them once Sonic 2 took off as it did, but money can't buy creativity, and Sonic 3 to me is the proof of it. The core system for Sonic games is in place, and Sonic 3 feels like those were simply re-used with little thought given to how the levels work. Based on the very good reviews the game got at the time, I realize I'm in the minority with this thinking, but I truly did not have a good time with this game. Its above-average visually and through its soundtrack as per usual, and when the game actually flows well it's fun like the others can be, but the annoyances that enemy placement and pop-ups present are more discernible here than they ever were.
As part of this challenge, I've been going through these Sonic games as fast as, well, Sonic, and just like that, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is the Sonic series' fourth attempt to make me a fan of the franchise. It's not like I think these are bad games, definitely not, but there are some pretty key things about Sonic games that do not align with my tastes, and that has been the case for Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Sonic CD, though Sonic CD has been the game I enjoyed the most so far.
I'm going to explain my likes and dislikes about the Sonic series below and whether this game does something different in those regards, but going in, I didn't really expect anything different here than what Sonic fans got up to this point. And that's more than OK, considering that this is a beloved series of many gamers. Additionally, this is the 4th Sonic game for the Genesis / Sega CD in just 3 years, so I imagine that innovation will be kept to a minimum simply due to time constraints. Looking at this game's wiki, that seems to be the case, as Sonic the Hedgehog would not only not include certain features that would later be turned into Sonic 3D Blast, but there is also a large part of the game that was simply cut and later republished as Sonic & Knuckles. Sonic & Knuckles' cartridge has an adapter that lets you attach Sonic 3 to it, which turns both games into Sonic 3 & Knuckles, in case you are interested in that. I'm only reviewing Sonic the Hedgehog 3.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 2/10
At the beginning of the game, Sonic has the Chaos Emeralds but gets them stolen from him by Knuckles the Echidna, a new character in the Sonic series at this point in time. Knuckles is the last of his kind living on the "Angel Island", on which the Death Egg of Dr Robotnik crash-lands prior to the start of this game. Knuckles guards the "Master Emerald", which gives Angel Island its levitational power, so Dr Robotnik uses this opportunity to pit Sonic and Knuckles against each other by telling Knuckles that Sonic is attempting to steal the Master Emerald.
For the game itself, that's pretty much it. Knuckles makes life harder on Sonic during the game but there is very little in terms of story here, not unlike other Sonic and platforming games in general at the time. As per usual, this is fine, as it is not expected, especially for a game in 1994, where story cutscenes would likely damage the experience more by interrupting it than enhancing it.
GAMEPLAY | 9/20
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is, to me, the worst Sonic game to date in terms of gameplay. On the one hand, it innovates very little from the formula of the other Sonic games. If you enjoyed those, you will enjoy this game too for the most part, so no need to read on. In the following however, I will explain what exactly irked me more than usual in this game, especially since it is coming off the heels of Sega CD and Sonic 2, both of which are games that I praised for innovating enough in terms of controls, gameplay and level design.
The core gameplay idea behind this Sonic game is the same as with the others. Enter a large level with multiple ways to traverse to the exit, explore to find secret areas, defeat a boss at the end of the zone and in between, learn the flow of the level to go through it without losing one of your limited lives. As per usual, Sonic has a lot of speed, and as per usual, you are supposed to use this speed during appropriate times.
Because, AS PER USUAL, this Sonic game has terrible enemy placement and enemies appearing a millisecond before you can process them as you speed through any area of any level. So, while controlling a fast character, you once again tip-toe around levels once you realize that no matter where you go, unfair threats look to take your rings from you. You then have to recover those rings, because carrying at least one ring means you won't die from your next hit. Unfortunately, in this game, rings are unrecoverable for a good 2-3 seconds after you get hit, so I found myself either recovering very few even if I had dozens on me, or recovering 0. For example, there is this one enemy that has spikes and shoots three balls diagonally upwards. Almost always, it hit me. Half the time, I couldn't recover any rings. This means I had to tip toe next to it to wait for it shoot the balls in order to jump on top of it. Sonic moves like he is gliding on ice however, so the controls are not nearly as tight as you would want them to. Plus, input detection is not as immediate as you would need it to be either. Ultimately, you need to get close enough to time the jump, you need to stay away far enough to not touch the enemy and you can't stay away too far, otherwise you won't time the jump within that short time frame between the three balls that are shot. This would lead me to die countless times to one of these things as I try to do a very simple thing of just jumping on top of this one goddamn enemy.
Enemy design in this game is horrible in general, but there is no enemy more infuriating than that fucking piranha that tries to bite you underwater. It won't let go, you can't do anything about it, so 100% of the time, this means you are just waiting 10 to 15 seconds until Sonic can't hold his breath anymore and dies. Fucking terrible. You fall downwards a lot and can't see these piranhas, so if you jump downwards unfavorably, you literally cannot do anything against them. One of my biggest gripes in any video game is having to jump down from somewhere without seeing enemies/obstacles, and this game's challenge is simply made out of this trope.
Two other things I dislike in Sonic 3 are 1) the special stages, which I think are the worst of all Sonic games so far (you collect blue balls and have to quickly change direction, where you fight the game's controls more than anything) and 2) Tails now being completely forced on you. In Sonic 2, you could go to the options menu and remove Tails, but here, you can't. Tails does almost nothing in 1-player mode but constantly die and distract you. Tails for example cannot breathe underwater, and has his own timer appear for whatever reason, which confuses you into thinking that you need air yourself. The worst fucking part is when I stood near the air bubbles with 2 seconds to go on my own timer, jumped up to grab one of the air bubbles and have FUCKING TAILS STEAL IT FROM ME. I died after those 2 seconds and quit the game right after.
Again, Sonic games are not objectively bad, despite the overwhelming negativity here, but at their best, the 2D platformers are tolerable to me, and at their worst, like here, they're downright terrible to play.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 8/10
The saving grace for Sonic games comes from their soundtrack. As with all other Sonic games (minus the Sega CD boss fight theme), this game has a good soundtrack as well. From what I've listened to, the save select screen's theme is funnily enough my favorite. The worst track here by far is the one for the new special stage, which makes the special stage even less tolerable than it already was to me.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10
I can only really say the same thing here that I was able to for the other Sonic games. They are some of the best-looking games on the Genesis, some of the better looking games of the 16-bit era and all that applies to Sonic 3 as well. At the same time, Sonic levels often have a cluttered quality to them and can be overdesigned visually, which is not as bad herre as in Sonic 2, but still present.
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 7/10
Not much to say here for this game. It plays, sounds and feels like a Sonic game. The only thing I dislike here in that sense are the underwater levels, which are a lot more present here than in the other Sonic games unfortunately, and they usually are my least favorite part.
CONTENT | 5/10
The main content is similar to what you have come to expect from the other Sonic games, only worse in my opinion due to the issues I mentioned under 'Gameplay'. The special stage here is the worst out of the 4 16-bit Sonic games in my opinion and this game doesn't innovate in any way here, a far cry of the effort that was put into Sonic CD in '93.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 5/10
Levels are long as per usual and you can go through them in multiple different ways once again. There are a lot of rings to collect, Chaos Emeralds to find through the special stages and bosses to battle, but the in between issues of enemy placement and the terrible way through which this game achieves its difficulty makes this game a step down from the other Sonic games, where I had complained about the enemy placement as well, but never at the level of Sonic 3.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 3/10
Play Sonic 1, 2 and Sonic CD instead of this. Sonic 3 innovates the least out of all these games and feels like a step back for the most part. Knuckles' debut is cool but that's really all you get here.
REPLAYABILITY | 3/5
Less replay value than for Sonic 2 and CD, but Sonic games always have plenty of secret areas to find and Chaos Emeralds to collect, so replay value is present at usual levels.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
Works well at all times.
OVERALL | 55/100
Sonic games eminate high production values, and there certainly was a lot of money poured into making them once Sonic 2 took off as it did, but money can't buy creativity, and Sonic 3 to me is the proof of it. The core system for Sonic games is in place, and Sonic 3 feels like those were simply re-used with little thought given to how the levels work. Based on the very good reviews the game got at the time, I realize I'm in the minority with this thinking, but I truly did not have a good time with this game. Its above-average visually and through its soundtrack as per usual, and when the game actually flows well it's fun like the others can be, but the annoyances that enemy placement and pop-ups present are more discernible here than they ever were.
Bought the DLC after 100%ing Cuphead. The creativity on display for Cuphead and its DLC is just off the charts. I'm so glad that this visual style exists in video game form. Oh, and the game behind it is also extremely challenging and fun.
StudioMDHR could have given us DLC that only included the 6 or 7 bosses that are in this 8€ package and could have called it a day. It would have been a lot of fun either way. But no, apart from the - once again - such unique bosses in terms of presentations and attack patterns, this DLC also gives you access to a whole new playable character (Ms Chalice) and her own skill set. New super arts, a different parry style, ability to dodge and jump twice and the ability to do a lower dodge to gain a second of invincibility.
On top of that, there is a secret boss fight AND a really worthwile arena with 5 additional "boss fights" where attacks are disabled and you can only win by parrying. Then there is the final gauntlet level for this mode where you have to defeat all of them back to back, as well as an optional relic that you can get in a cursed form (if equipped, you start fights at 1 HP and your attack is randomized every time you start shooting) and turn into a divine form by beating a certain number of bosses with it equipped, and ultimately, this DLC will provide you up to 10 hours of challenging and really fun content.
StudioMDHR could have given us DLC that only included the 6 or 7 bosses that are in this 8€ package and could have called it a day. It would have been a lot of fun either way. But no, apart from the - once again - such unique bosses in terms of presentations and attack patterns, this DLC also gives you access to a whole new playable character (Ms Chalice) and her own skill set. New super arts, a different parry style, ability to dodge and jump twice and the ability to do a lower dodge to gain a second of invincibility.
On top of that, there is a secret boss fight AND a really worthwile arena with 5 additional "boss fights" where attacks are disabled and you can only win by parrying. Then there is the final gauntlet level for this mode where you have to defeat all of them back to back, as well as an optional relic that you can get in a cursed form (if equipped, you start fights at 1 HP and your attack is randomized every time you start shooting) and turn into a divine form by beating a certain number of bosses with it equipped, and ultimately, this DLC will provide you up to 10 hours of challenging and really fun content.