fe17
2022
A unique game with lots of good and plenty of questionable/bad, that I still recommend everyone to check out. And "checking it out" is all I can really recommend, because whether or not you like it will simply depend on one thing, and that is the humor. I'll get to that, but first I want to say the following.
The game is so unique in its presentation. I am always a big fan of games that try to do things differently, not scared of whether it is reviewer friendly or not. Hideo Kojima for example created, in very shallow terms, a delivery man simulator and he did not give a damn whether that game is for everyone or not. And it isn't. But games like that stick with those people that absolutely are the target audience. Or take my most recent review of STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl. Not my cup of tea, but I can see how it's the dream game of the right audience, and ONLY of the right audience.
Meanwhile, so many games, even in the indie scene these days, don't shy away from what many games before theirs have already done, since it is already known that those games are well received. In the AAA scene, this is of course a very known issue, none more well-known than the Ubisoft open world games.
Anyway, you all already know this stuff, but my point is, game devs should have more balls to be creative, especially those that have the financial ability to do so. Rick & Morty creator Justin Roiland and his team I assume do have just that, and even if they don't, they certainly have the balls.
High on Life is unapologetically Justin Roiland's work, for both good and bad. More good if you enjoy the humor, more bad if you don't. So let me give my thoughts on the humor here. Quite a few times in this game, I actually did laugh out loud. Most games make me exhale out of my nose if they attempt to be funny, but few get me to laugh. Not because it's not funny, but because that's how I just am. Anyway, in High on Life, there was the funny intro that had me laugh, there was some of the dialogue between my guns and random NPCs that made me laugh, a certain conversation between two guys arguing in traffic, and in particular, there was something near the end of the game that had me actually crying laughing, though I do not wish to spoil that here.
But in between, I didn't really laugh at the monologues of my guns or the conversations between NPC. I certainly was intrigued by Roiland's style of comedy (have only watched a couple episodes of Rick & Morty in my life, so unfamiliar overall) and how vulgar it is. However, I was also intrigued by how explanatory his jokes are. Let me explain. A lot of the times, his characters feel the urge of why the things they say or the way they act is supposed to be funny. Or how funny their situation is supposed to be because it apparently is so ironic. And to me, this wasn't that funny. Considering that this is what happens a lot here, the middle parts of this game from time to time turned into a slog, if too many jokes didn't land in a row.
And here is why you won't enjoy the game if you don't enjoy the humor. The combat - this game is a first-person shooter - is certainly simple, in a good way, and works well, but it's also very repetitive and simple, in a bad way. If the humor doesn't stick in between these gun fights, the flaws of the combat do become more apparent. I'd say it is certainly good enough to warrant an 8-hour playthrough (without side content) and leave you mostly satisfied, but that's the thing. You'll either be very satisfied, if the humor hits or not satisfied if it doesn't, because the gameplay is not the focal point, it's the humor. The devs didn't build a script around the gameplay, they've built a game around the script and on that alone. So it doesn't matter that much, whether the gameplay it's great. It's simply good enough to not be a negative distraction in between of all the humor.
One thing this game does really well, whether you like the humor or not, is the visuals and the worlds they have crafted, especially Blim City. Whether it's in the small area that can be traversed or the rest of the city that you can't go to, but admire from afar, Blim City looks colorful and vibrant. The other worlds that you visit for your objectives look good, though a couple didn't seem different enough for my taste. Considering that there aren't that many worlds and that some are reused for multiple bosses, I feel like there could've been more done here.
The soundtrack gives off relaxed, laidback, lofi vibes and is definitely a highlight for me here. The voice acting is pretty good as well and the characters just sound untraditional, if that makes sense. It feels like you're watching a TV show rather than playing a video game, which often can have characters sounding too bland and robotic, though here, similarly to the South Park video games, the voice actors have treated it just like another episode of Rick & Morty.
And also regarding the characters, this game actually accomplished something that many games don't. I actually cared about some of the characters in this game, because the game spent an adequate amount of time on them and to develop their personalities, which are almost all unique and quirky from the start.
So yeah, all in all, I would really suggest to give this a try. You won't have played a game quite like this a whole lot in your life, and trying it out won't cost you a lot thanks to the fact that the game is on Xbox Game Pass. I don't think it's worth the full asking price right now, unless you KNOW that you will enjoy the humor, in which case you can have fun for two dozen hours if you go completionist and do two playthroughs (which in your case I'd recommend due to a lot of choices this game gives you) and likely feel like you got your money's worth. For me, I'm glad I played it, though I wouldn't have paid full price, if I knew what my thoughts about the game would be after I played it.
All this said, I hope there is a sequel some day, because this was definitely a fun use of my time overall.
The game is so unique in its presentation. I am always a big fan of games that try to do things differently, not scared of whether it is reviewer friendly or not. Hideo Kojima for example created, in very shallow terms, a delivery man simulator and he did not give a damn whether that game is for everyone or not. And it isn't. But games like that stick with those people that absolutely are the target audience. Or take my most recent review of STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl. Not my cup of tea, but I can see how it's the dream game of the right audience, and ONLY of the right audience.
Meanwhile, so many games, even in the indie scene these days, don't shy away from what many games before theirs have already done, since it is already known that those games are well received. In the AAA scene, this is of course a very known issue, none more well-known than the Ubisoft open world games.
Anyway, you all already know this stuff, but my point is, game devs should have more balls to be creative, especially those that have the financial ability to do so. Rick & Morty creator Justin Roiland and his team I assume do have just that, and even if they don't, they certainly have the balls.
High on Life is unapologetically Justin Roiland's work, for both good and bad. More good if you enjoy the humor, more bad if you don't. So let me give my thoughts on the humor here. Quite a few times in this game, I actually did laugh out loud. Most games make me exhale out of my nose if they attempt to be funny, but few get me to laugh. Not because it's not funny, but because that's how I just am. Anyway, in High on Life, there was the funny intro that had me laugh, there was some of the dialogue between my guns and random NPCs that made me laugh, a certain conversation between two guys arguing in traffic, and in particular, there was something near the end of the game that had me actually crying laughing, though I do not wish to spoil that here.
But in between, I didn't really laugh at the monologues of my guns or the conversations between NPC. I certainly was intrigued by Roiland's style of comedy (have only watched a couple episodes of Rick & Morty in my life, so unfamiliar overall) and how vulgar it is. However, I was also intrigued by how explanatory his jokes are. Let me explain. A lot of the times, his characters feel the urge of why the things they say or the way they act is supposed to be funny. Or how funny their situation is supposed to be because it apparently is so ironic. And to me, this wasn't that funny. Considering that this is what happens a lot here, the middle parts of this game from time to time turned into a slog, if too many jokes didn't land in a row.
And here is why you won't enjoy the game if you don't enjoy the humor. The combat - this game is a first-person shooter - is certainly simple, in a good way, and works well, but it's also very repetitive and simple, in a bad way. If the humor doesn't stick in between these gun fights, the flaws of the combat do become more apparent. I'd say it is certainly good enough to warrant an 8-hour playthrough (without side content) and leave you mostly satisfied, but that's the thing. You'll either be very satisfied, if the humor hits or not satisfied if it doesn't, because the gameplay is not the focal point, it's the humor. The devs didn't build a script around the gameplay, they've built a game around the script and on that alone. So it doesn't matter that much, whether the gameplay it's great. It's simply good enough to not be a negative distraction in between of all the humor.
One thing this game does really well, whether you like the humor or not, is the visuals and the worlds they have crafted, especially Blim City. Whether it's in the small area that can be traversed or the rest of the city that you can't go to, but admire from afar, Blim City looks colorful and vibrant. The other worlds that you visit for your objectives look good, though a couple didn't seem different enough for my taste. Considering that there aren't that many worlds and that some are reused for multiple bosses, I feel like there could've been more done here.
The soundtrack gives off relaxed, laidback, lofi vibes and is definitely a highlight for me here. The voice acting is pretty good as well and the characters just sound untraditional, if that makes sense. It feels like you're watching a TV show rather than playing a video game, which often can have characters sounding too bland and robotic, though here, similarly to the South Park video games, the voice actors have treated it just like another episode of Rick & Morty.
And also regarding the characters, this game actually accomplished something that many games don't. I actually cared about some of the characters in this game, because the game spent an adequate amount of time on them and to develop their personalities, which are almost all unique and quirky from the start.
So yeah, all in all, I would really suggest to give this a try. You won't have played a game quite like this a whole lot in your life, and trying it out won't cost you a lot thanks to the fact that the game is on Xbox Game Pass. I don't think it's worth the full asking price right now, unless you KNOW that you will enjoy the humor, in which case you can have fun for two dozen hours if you go completionist and do two playthroughs (which in your case I'd recommend due to a lot of choices this game gives you) and likely feel like you got your money's worth. For me, I'm glad I played it, though I wouldn't have paid full price, if I knew what my thoughts about the game would be after I played it.
All this said, I hope there is a sequel some day, because this was definitely a fun use of my time overall.
2016
I don't remember much about my time with this game, as it was about 6 years ago that I played it, but I remember liking the puzzles and the style of this game. Over on a different gaming site at the time, I seem to have found it important to mention that I liked the killmoves in this one, so there you go.
Looking at other reviews, I have noticed that the game has been removed and no one is able to play them again, unless through piracy and such I'm assuming, which is pretty terrible and I'm surprised a move like that didn't receive more backlash. I'm surprised that even the owners of this game can't play it anymore. Damn shame regardless. Leaving my own review here to fill out my own collection, and I guess it provides no use for anyone thinking about playing this in the future. Sad.
Looking at other reviews, I have noticed that the game has been removed and no one is able to play them again, unless through piracy and such I'm assuming, which is pretty terrible and I'm surprised a move like that didn't receive more backlash. I'm surprised that even the owners of this game can't play it anymore. Damn shame regardless. Leaving my own review here to fill out my own collection, and I guess it provides no use for anyone thinking about playing this in the future. Sad.
2017
While playing through some longer RPGs, I longed for a short little 'snack' in between. A Mortician's Tale looked like the ideal candidate thanks to its short run time (30 minutes of my 2 hours with this game I have optionally spent with its rendition of Minesweeper) and its interesting theme.
In this game you play Charlie, who joins a family-owned funeral home as a Mortician. The game spans about a year and you 'spawn' once a month or two, go on your computer to read some optional e-mails from colleagues, friends and prior 'customers', and also to see the mandatory e-mail that tells you what your task for the day is. You either ready bodies for closed-casket (you just have to clean them) or open-casket funerals (much more tasks involved) or you cremate them, based on the families wishes.
These tasks are rather simple and each step is carefully explained every time, so the goal is not to do it right, it's just to do it.
I know nothing about funeral homes, so I appreciated the game for showing me how they operate, how different requests are handled, about the environmental effects of embalming versus green burials, and about corporations that exploit both employees and customers even in this business.
Apart from that however, the game doesn't really manage to be emotionally impactful regarding its main character, which has no dialogue lines during the game. Anything she feels and thinks about her job, about how she handles it and anything else that could bring the players closer to her, doesn't exist, which I thought was a shame.
So while I appreciated the game for its topic, it doesn't succeed in being more than a tutorial/showcase for the 'industry', and I'm not sure if there was any intent to do anything beyond that.
In this game you play Charlie, who joins a family-owned funeral home as a Mortician. The game spans about a year and you 'spawn' once a month or two, go on your computer to read some optional e-mails from colleagues, friends and prior 'customers', and also to see the mandatory e-mail that tells you what your task for the day is. You either ready bodies for closed-casket (you just have to clean them) or open-casket funerals (much more tasks involved) or you cremate them, based on the families wishes.
These tasks are rather simple and each step is carefully explained every time, so the goal is not to do it right, it's just to do it.
I know nothing about funeral homes, so I appreciated the game for showing me how they operate, how different requests are handled, about the environmental effects of embalming versus green burials, and about corporations that exploit both employees and customers even in this business.
Apart from that however, the game doesn't really manage to be emotionally impactful regarding its main character, which has no dialogue lines during the game. Anything she feels and thinks about her job, about how she handles it and anything else that could bring the players closer to her, doesn't exist, which I thought was a shame.
So while I appreciated the game for its topic, it doesn't succeed in being more than a tutorial/showcase for the 'industry', and I'm not sure if there was any intent to do anything beyond that.
1990
(This is the 31st game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
You'll see many people compare StarTropics to The Legend of Zelda, and while I never played the first two Zelda's released in 86/87, I too can see the resemblance slash inspiration. Another game I would compare this to is something like Crystalis, a JRPG from earlier in 1990 that too had some unique mechanics similar to this game that was half-fun, half-detrimental to the gameplay and we'll get over that later on in the review. A big similarity my ears noticed when playing this however was the soundtrack and late-game level design. I was wondering if the game's had the same composer but nope, doesn't look like it. Either way, listen to some of the late game songs of StarTropics and the early game overworld track of Crystalis and you probably will hear the similarities as well. In addition, in both games you find yourself in a futuristic dungeon late-game.
Of course, StarTropics has none of the RPG mechanics, as it's an Action Adventure game, and ... did you know that this is a rare Japanese developed game that only released in the West? Yes, seriously. In NA in December 1990, and in EU in August 1992.
I'm not sure what the idea behind that was, because apart from calling every town something-something-cola, giving characters generic American names, mentioning 1492 and 1776 as ID codes and referencing Indiana Jones (?), nothing really screams "lots of appeal in the West". The game has a tropical island theme, your character literally has no recognizability (Mike, brown hair, blue shirt, your average kiddo) and, while I actually appreciated how the storytelling was more geared towards children (NPCs ask you if they should repeat "complicated" story parts, so that you can read them over and over again to get the story), the gameplay on the other hand is so difficult that I'm not sure who their target audience was exactly.
Let's take a step back. What do you do in StarTropics? You play Mike, an average kid who arrives at C-Land (shaped like a C, you see. And each village name ends with cola) in a damn helicopter. Village people say that you're an "ace pitcher", a reference made at the start twice and never again, and you find out that your scientist uncle has gone missing. In 8 chapters, you gotta try to find him and figure out what happened. Each chapter has a dungeon and potentially some overworld puzzles in it. All told, you'll probably spent around 10 hours with this game if you don't use any save states. If you use save states like me to "adjust" the checkpoint system in this game, you'll probably beat it in the time I did, which was around 6 hours.
There are two parts in this game, the overworld and the dungeons. In the overworld, you walk around the bland island and enter villages to talk to NPCs. Sometimes villages are harder to get to and you have to find secret passages to get there. You get a submarine later on to travel on water and get a robot buddy as well.
In the dungeons, there is a unique mechanic in this game, which is that there are special green tiles that you have to step on to either activate buttons that open doors, or you have to jump on them in a specific order to avoid falling into water or other liquids that lead to your death. It's a neat puzzle mechanic when used right and not an issue in itself, but the controls in this game are annoying and require some getting used to. When more enemies appear at once later in the game, it also becomes clear that the controls/mechanics weren't properly balanced with the enemies, because it becomes near-impossible to avoid getting hit.
Basically, to turn somewhere, you first press the button to look that way. Only by pressing it once more or holding down the button for a second longer does your character start walking that way. With the green tiles, you can actually chain jumps better, but it gets really repetitive after a while to jump, jump, jump, unlock a button, jump, jump over to the button, jump on it to press it and jump all the way back to the now-open door. Plus you have to jump one by one, but many enemies can simply walk over them, so it often happens that they outpace you and touch you to deal damage. Finally, there are a few awful sections where these tiles disappear for a second and then reappear for a second. That itself is OK, having to time your jumps is a nice challenge. But in these instances, three back to back tiles disappear, and the only way to jump through all of them is by PERFECTLY timing your first jump and mashing the jump button as fast as you can. Chances are, you'll fail your first 10 attempts anyway because it's that unforgiving.
Combat itself, if enemies are not so aplenty that they get on your nerves, is actually fine. You start off with a yo-yo, but get access to guns, ninja stars, reflecting shields and so on later on. There are also roller-skaters that attack every enemy on screen at the same time and illuminating staffs that reveal hiding ghosts. Lots of cool stuff that loses some of its magic due to the game's odd desire to be more challenging than it should be.
The story has a satisfying conclusion but is very simple otherwise. Something a kid will definitely enjoy as it's more fleshed out than many similar games and less prone to filler-talk. The soundtrack is solid. Graphics are too repetitive and bland in the overworld especially, but don't look bad.
Between the 8 dungeons, there are multiple that look unique (like the ghost town and final dungeon) and there is a tiny bit of reward for exploration, which is nice, in the form of health potions and permanent health rewards.
OVERALL
If you're into this sort of game and the old school look doesn't bother you, StarTropics is definitely a 2D Action Adventure worth adding to your play-list. It not being an RPG is great because with the stories these games had back in the day, those complicated RPG-features often drag games down for these retro-playthroughs. StarTropics is much more efficient in its gameplay as a result, even if being repetitive and unnecessarily difficult (especially late game) are flaws that pop up here.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
Couldn't find anything apart from a Walkthrough/Guide by Nintendo Power
You'll see many people compare StarTropics to The Legend of Zelda, and while I never played the first two Zelda's released in 86/87, I too can see the resemblance slash inspiration. Another game I would compare this to is something like Crystalis, a JRPG from earlier in 1990 that too had some unique mechanics similar to this game that was half-fun, half-detrimental to the gameplay and we'll get over that later on in the review. A big similarity my ears noticed when playing this however was the soundtrack and late-game level design. I was wondering if the game's had the same composer but nope, doesn't look like it. Either way, listen to some of the late game songs of StarTropics and the early game overworld track of Crystalis and you probably will hear the similarities as well. In addition, in both games you find yourself in a futuristic dungeon late-game.
Of course, StarTropics has none of the RPG mechanics, as it's an Action Adventure game, and ... did you know that this is a rare Japanese developed game that only released in the West? Yes, seriously. In NA in December 1990, and in EU in August 1992.
I'm not sure what the idea behind that was, because apart from calling every town something-something-cola, giving characters generic American names, mentioning 1492 and 1776 as ID codes and referencing Indiana Jones (?), nothing really screams "lots of appeal in the West". The game has a tropical island theme, your character literally has no recognizability (Mike, brown hair, blue shirt, your average kiddo) and, while I actually appreciated how the storytelling was more geared towards children (NPCs ask you if they should repeat "complicated" story parts, so that you can read them over and over again to get the story), the gameplay on the other hand is so difficult that I'm not sure who their target audience was exactly.
Let's take a step back. What do you do in StarTropics? You play Mike, an average kid who arrives at C-Land (shaped like a C, you see. And each village name ends with cola) in a damn helicopter. Village people say that you're an "ace pitcher", a reference made at the start twice and never again, and you find out that your scientist uncle has gone missing. In 8 chapters, you gotta try to find him and figure out what happened. Each chapter has a dungeon and potentially some overworld puzzles in it. All told, you'll probably spent around 10 hours with this game if you don't use any save states. If you use save states like me to "adjust" the checkpoint system in this game, you'll probably beat it in the time I did, which was around 6 hours.
There are two parts in this game, the overworld and the dungeons. In the overworld, you walk around the bland island and enter villages to talk to NPCs. Sometimes villages are harder to get to and you have to find secret passages to get there. You get a submarine later on to travel on water and get a robot buddy as well.
In the dungeons, there is a unique mechanic in this game, which is that there are special green tiles that you have to step on to either activate buttons that open doors, or you have to jump on them in a specific order to avoid falling into water or other liquids that lead to your death. It's a neat puzzle mechanic when used right and not an issue in itself, but the controls in this game are annoying and require some getting used to. When more enemies appear at once later in the game, it also becomes clear that the controls/mechanics weren't properly balanced with the enemies, because it becomes near-impossible to avoid getting hit.
Basically, to turn somewhere, you first press the button to look that way. Only by pressing it once more or holding down the button for a second longer does your character start walking that way. With the green tiles, you can actually chain jumps better, but it gets really repetitive after a while to jump, jump, jump, unlock a button, jump, jump over to the button, jump on it to press it and jump all the way back to the now-open door. Plus you have to jump one by one, but many enemies can simply walk over them, so it often happens that they outpace you and touch you to deal damage. Finally, there are a few awful sections where these tiles disappear for a second and then reappear for a second. That itself is OK, having to time your jumps is a nice challenge. But in these instances, three back to back tiles disappear, and the only way to jump through all of them is by PERFECTLY timing your first jump and mashing the jump button as fast as you can. Chances are, you'll fail your first 10 attempts anyway because it's that unforgiving.
Combat itself, if enemies are not so aplenty that they get on your nerves, is actually fine. You start off with a yo-yo, but get access to guns, ninja stars, reflecting shields and so on later on. There are also roller-skaters that attack every enemy on screen at the same time and illuminating staffs that reveal hiding ghosts. Lots of cool stuff that loses some of its magic due to the game's odd desire to be more challenging than it should be.
The story has a satisfying conclusion but is very simple otherwise. Something a kid will definitely enjoy as it's more fleshed out than many similar games and less prone to filler-talk. The soundtrack is solid. Graphics are too repetitive and bland in the overworld especially, but don't look bad.
Between the 8 dungeons, there are multiple that look unique (like the ghost town and final dungeon) and there is a tiny bit of reward for exploration, which is nice, in the form of health potions and permanent health rewards.
OVERALL
If you're into this sort of game and the old school look doesn't bother you, StarTropics is definitely a 2D Action Adventure worth adding to your play-list. It not being an RPG is great because with the stories these games had back in the day, those complicated RPG-features often drag games down for these retro-playthroughs. StarTropics is much more efficient in its gameplay as a result, even if being repetitive and unnecessarily difficult (especially late game) are flaws that pop up here.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
Couldn't find anything apart from a Walkthrough/Guide by Nintendo Power
1991
(This is the 49th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
Ugh, an EA game, I bet it's filled with microtransactions. Oh, right, we're in 1991. This game is called Road Rash, and is a racing game with some fighting elements. There is a spiritual successor for it called Road Redemption, which released in 2017.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 2/10
There actually is a set-up for this fictitious world in the manual. There once were two bitter rivals in Fang and Polygon. After Fang lost their final official race because Polygon tempered with Fang's bike beforehand, Fang challenged Polygon to an unofficial race, which started the cult behind 'Road Rash Races'. "Punching, kicking and clubbing and 150 miles per hour are the norm for Rashers".
In-game, you are greeted with messages by friends and foes before and sometimes after a race. Sometimes it's trash talk, sometimes it's a friendly hint and sometimes it's a police officer who tells you to not drive too fast, so he can catch you. After each level you beat, there is also a very short cutscene that plays where your character and, I presume, his girlfriend take their helmets off and enjoy the fresh air after winning all tracks in the previous level.
It's a bit more than the bare minimum, and I liked seeing those messages before races.
GAMEPLAY | 12/20
This got kind of addicting really quickly. Obviously I'm gonna move on as part of the challenge, but I'm sure I'll play this to chill out from time to time like I used to do for F-Zero.
You start with the standard bike and have 5 races available at the beginning. Your goal is to win each race against 15 or so competitors, which allows you to move up in levels and difficulty, until you reach the final race. After each race, you are compensated in $ based on your finish and can use it to upgrade to bikes that are faster and can be controlled better. Most of the time, progress is blocked because your bike simply won't be fast enough to win, so you'll need to farm money in races you know you'll lose to be able to afford a better bike. I can't say how much of a grind it is at later levels, but it was acceptable where I stopped, which was after I finished the second level.
The special feature of Road Rash is that during races, you can ram the bike of the other racers, punch/kick them and hit them with melee weapons. You have a meter for your bike and your character health. If your character health goes down to 0, you fall off your bike but it recovers over time. There are also cars on the road that drive in both directions, which you have to avoid. If you are hit, you usually fly far away from your bike and have to run all the way back to it to get back to driving, which takes a while. Cars can hit your bike after you already crashed and kick it even further away that way, which is a funny mechanic, but might get frustrating later down the line because after two crashes, you're pretty much not going to win. I didn't find any way to back out of a race other than a reset of the emulator. Finally, there is a police bike that drives around sometimes as well, and if you fall off your bike near the officer, he will bust you and fine you money.
I really like the idea of this, and it's recently gotten a spiritual successor in Road Redemption (2017), but at least for the first two levels, I never really saw much incentive to battle the bikers. You either don't catch up to the fastest bikes or you can blaze past them once you do, so there isn't a lot of time for when you could be in a confrontation with them. Plus, I never got a melee weapon up to this point and I'm not even sure how to attain one, so that was disappointing.
The racing was fun regardless. It's very simple, you have to try to stay on track in a vertically scrolling 2D track, avoid the cars and get past the other racers. Your bikes differ in speed and handling, though that is not indicated everywhere but in the description of the bikes as far as I could tell.
Road Rash got two sequels over the next years, which were both praised for the same fun factor that you got with the first, but also criticized for lack of innovation. For those reasons, I'm not going to try those, but Road Rash goes 3D in 1998, has a PlayStation release in 2000 and then one final release in 2009 on the EA Mobile site only (hello, modern EA) before it then started to sit dormant ever since.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 6/10
No voice acting. The sound design in this is actually not so good. There aren't many sound effects here to begin with, including when your opponents crash into cars or the sound of the engine of any car in general. The main sound you will hear is the tires screeching when you turn corners, and that sound doesn't even sound like how it sounds in reality or even close to it.
As far the OST, I think overall it's a plus. If you played this when you were younger and played these maps over and over again, it's a soundtrack that feels distinct enough to stick around with you for a while. The track I liked the most is probably the Pacific Coast one. All tracks have this element to them I can't really describe well, but if I had to make an attempt, I'd describe it as a low pitch bouncey sound, which definitely is a terrible description. But nevertheless, my point is that it didn't quite gell with me and it being the connecting theme in the OST, I can't say this would be among the great soundtracks of this year if I were to make a list. Unlike a game like F-Zero, the OST didn't have any really good tracks that I would gladly listen to outside of the game either.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 7/10
The game doesn't look bad, it doesn't look fantastic. You drive down a road that looks the same throughout for each map with forests and mountains visible in the horizon. You and your opponents look the same and are only distinguished by color. What I really like about the graphical presentation is the animations. The animations of the crash and how your bike and you fly into the air and down on your butt and how you rush back to your bike is pretty funnily presented here. In terms of graphical fidelity, your main issue here might be that you will have a hard time sometimes figuring out that you're approaching a car, as the low resolution from time to time makes them hard to see quickly enough.
ATMOSPHERE | 6/10
In terms of atmosphere, it hits best when you drive behind a group of bikers and see them drive into the trunk of the car in front of them and fly off their bikes as you leave them in the dust. Or when you are side-by-side with another biker and throw a punch or hit their bike with yours to drive them off course. That doesn't happen often enough though I thought.
CONTENT | 6/10
There are 5 levels with 5 races each and 8 total bikes you can unlock. It's a solid amount of content, nothing special here.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 7/10
Pretty basic but clean design here. You go through more and more difficult levels and continue to earn money to unlock faster and faster bikes. Effective, and I'd say you'll have a fun 10-15 hours or so trying to win all races.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 6/10
I like the concept of using illegal tactics during a race to gain an advantage. I just don't feel like it's fleshed out here and you rarely have a need to use these tactics. It would have also been more fun if we could have gone into a race having some sort of melee weapon pre selected, because I went through two levels without getting my hands on a single one.
REPLAYABILITY | 3/5
It's a racing game, so you'll have plenty of motivation to keep playing and trying to beat your previous high scores.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL | 60/100
It's an enjoyable racing game. If you're looking for a more modern experience though, I'd suggest checking out Road Redemption. Road Rash's main selling proposition, the fighting during the racing, is only a small part of the gameplay here and it quickly just turns into a normal racing game for the most part.
Ugh, an EA game, I bet it's filled with microtransactions. Oh, right, we're in 1991. This game is called Road Rash, and is a racing game with some fighting elements. There is a spiritual successor for it called Road Redemption, which released in 2017.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 2/10
There actually is a set-up for this fictitious world in the manual. There once were two bitter rivals in Fang and Polygon. After Fang lost their final official race because Polygon tempered with Fang's bike beforehand, Fang challenged Polygon to an unofficial race, which started the cult behind 'Road Rash Races'. "Punching, kicking and clubbing and 150 miles per hour are the norm for Rashers".
In-game, you are greeted with messages by friends and foes before and sometimes after a race. Sometimes it's trash talk, sometimes it's a friendly hint and sometimes it's a police officer who tells you to not drive too fast, so he can catch you. After each level you beat, there is also a very short cutscene that plays where your character and, I presume, his girlfriend take their helmets off and enjoy the fresh air after winning all tracks in the previous level.
It's a bit more than the bare minimum, and I liked seeing those messages before races.
GAMEPLAY | 12/20
This got kind of addicting really quickly. Obviously I'm gonna move on as part of the challenge, but I'm sure I'll play this to chill out from time to time like I used to do for F-Zero.
You start with the standard bike and have 5 races available at the beginning. Your goal is to win each race against 15 or so competitors, which allows you to move up in levels and difficulty, until you reach the final race. After each race, you are compensated in $ based on your finish and can use it to upgrade to bikes that are faster and can be controlled better. Most of the time, progress is blocked because your bike simply won't be fast enough to win, so you'll need to farm money in races you know you'll lose to be able to afford a better bike. I can't say how much of a grind it is at later levels, but it was acceptable where I stopped, which was after I finished the second level.
The special feature of Road Rash is that during races, you can ram the bike of the other racers, punch/kick them and hit them with melee weapons. You have a meter for your bike and your character health. If your character health goes down to 0, you fall off your bike but it recovers over time. There are also cars on the road that drive in both directions, which you have to avoid. If you are hit, you usually fly far away from your bike and have to run all the way back to it to get back to driving, which takes a while. Cars can hit your bike after you already crashed and kick it even further away that way, which is a funny mechanic, but might get frustrating later down the line because after two crashes, you're pretty much not going to win. I didn't find any way to back out of a race other than a reset of the emulator. Finally, there is a police bike that drives around sometimes as well, and if you fall off your bike near the officer, he will bust you and fine you money.
I really like the idea of this, and it's recently gotten a spiritual successor in Road Redemption (2017), but at least for the first two levels, I never really saw much incentive to battle the bikers. You either don't catch up to the fastest bikes or you can blaze past them once you do, so there isn't a lot of time for when you could be in a confrontation with them. Plus, I never got a melee weapon up to this point and I'm not even sure how to attain one, so that was disappointing.
The racing was fun regardless. It's very simple, you have to try to stay on track in a vertically scrolling 2D track, avoid the cars and get past the other racers. Your bikes differ in speed and handling, though that is not indicated everywhere but in the description of the bikes as far as I could tell.
Road Rash got two sequels over the next years, which were both praised for the same fun factor that you got with the first, but also criticized for lack of innovation. For those reasons, I'm not going to try those, but Road Rash goes 3D in 1998, has a PlayStation release in 2000 and then one final release in 2009 on the EA Mobile site only (hello, modern EA) before it then started to sit dormant ever since.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 6/10
No voice acting. The sound design in this is actually not so good. There aren't many sound effects here to begin with, including when your opponents crash into cars or the sound of the engine of any car in general. The main sound you will hear is the tires screeching when you turn corners, and that sound doesn't even sound like how it sounds in reality or even close to it.
As far the OST, I think overall it's a plus. If you played this when you were younger and played these maps over and over again, it's a soundtrack that feels distinct enough to stick around with you for a while. The track I liked the most is probably the Pacific Coast one. All tracks have this element to them I can't really describe well, but if I had to make an attempt, I'd describe it as a low pitch bouncey sound, which definitely is a terrible description. But nevertheless, my point is that it didn't quite gell with me and it being the connecting theme in the OST, I can't say this would be among the great soundtracks of this year if I were to make a list. Unlike a game like F-Zero, the OST didn't have any really good tracks that I would gladly listen to outside of the game either.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 7/10
The game doesn't look bad, it doesn't look fantastic. You drive down a road that looks the same throughout for each map with forests and mountains visible in the horizon. You and your opponents look the same and are only distinguished by color. What I really like about the graphical presentation is the animations. The animations of the crash and how your bike and you fly into the air and down on your butt and how you rush back to your bike is pretty funnily presented here. In terms of graphical fidelity, your main issue here might be that you will have a hard time sometimes figuring out that you're approaching a car, as the low resolution from time to time makes them hard to see quickly enough.
ATMOSPHERE | 6/10
In terms of atmosphere, it hits best when you drive behind a group of bikers and see them drive into the trunk of the car in front of them and fly off their bikes as you leave them in the dust. Or when you are side-by-side with another biker and throw a punch or hit their bike with yours to drive them off course. That doesn't happen often enough though I thought.
CONTENT | 6/10
There are 5 levels with 5 races each and 8 total bikes you can unlock. It's a solid amount of content, nothing special here.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 7/10
Pretty basic but clean design here. You go through more and more difficult levels and continue to earn money to unlock faster and faster bikes. Effective, and I'd say you'll have a fun 10-15 hours or so trying to win all races.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 6/10
I like the concept of using illegal tactics during a race to gain an advantage. I just don't feel like it's fleshed out here and you rarely have a need to use these tactics. It would have also been more fun if we could have gone into a race having some sort of melee weapon pre selected, because I went through two levels without getting my hands on a single one.
REPLAYABILITY | 3/5
It's a racing game, so you'll have plenty of motivation to keep playing and trying to beat your previous high scores.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL | 60/100
It's an enjoyable racing game. If you're looking for a more modern experience though, I'd suggest checking out Road Redemption. Road Rash's main selling proposition, the fighting during the racing, is only a small part of the gameplay here and it quickly just turns into a normal racing game for the most part.
1992
(This is the 64th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
The Mega Man series and I don't get along. It's unfortunate, but it is what it is. So when I added Bucky O'Hare to my play-list, only to find out that it's a MegaMan-like right before playing it, I thought I was in for another frustrating - and short-lived - affair. Thankfully, this MegaMan-like I actually managed to beat and, despite the frustrations the game brings with it, I liked it as well.
Bucky O'Hare, the eponym of this video game, was the hero for a comic book and an animated TV series in the 80s and early 90s. Shortly after this game came out, Bucky O'Hare was rarely heard from again, though new action figures were released as recently as 2017. Don't expect to hear much from the rabbit in the future though.
This video game released on January 31, 1992 in both Japan and North America and was developed and published by Konami. Konami at this time was very well-known for releasing many quality games, and this game is definitely among their better titles at this time as well. This game released for the NES, though an Arcade game released the same year, too. These two games are the only games bearing Bucky's likeness. Reviews ranged from a 93 by Game Zone and 5 stars by Top Secret all the way down to 13.3/20 by Nintendo Power and 68% by Play Time.
My review is somewhere in between, if we consider that a 68% from me is way more complimentary than a 68% by a video game magazine.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 3/10
You play Bucky O'Hare, who is captain of the ship called "Righteous Indignation". Your crew consists of Dead-Eye, Jenny, Blinky and Willy, who are captured by the antagonist Toad Air Marshall at the start of the game. Go rescue them and take out Toad, you know the drill.
The intro, with a number of typo's in both game and manual (atacked, kidnaped, marshall), explains the scenario I just described. You know have to travel to four planets named after colors to rescue them. For each rescue, you receive thanks by your crewmates and the information that you can now use them and their special abilities. From there, each additional level has some short dialogue between the crew on what the next objective is.
My favorite little detail was a TV in one level depicting Toad with an "I hate you" speech bubble popping out of it.
Other than that, story is of course not a big deal here.
GAMEPLAY | 13/20
This is a mix of a platformer and a shoot 'em up. In addition, it is a MegaMan-like. You choose one of four planets that you want to go to. After long platforming levels, you meet the final boss. You kill the boss and rescue your crewmate, who you can now choose as your character. The difference to Mega Man is that the boss does not have the same skill as the crewmate you rescue. But you are free to choose which planet to tackle in what order (one exception).
One thing this game actually does way more conveniently than Mega Man: You can switch between characters by simply pressing SELECT. Sure, switching between eight characters in NES Mega Man games would be annoying, but I would like the option, especially when you still have 4-5 or fewer characters unlocked. The gameplay here is not interrupted thanks to this, though of course switching in a fast paced platforming game such as this will come with its share of annoyances when a timing-sensitive level kills you while you are trying to switch to the right character. Can't say this happened often enough for me to rather PAUSE the game each time I wanted to switch.
Bucky can shoot in four directions and also load up a POWER bar which lets him jump higher. Collecting P's increases the length of the POWER bar and lets you jump higher. Blinky, the android, is short and can destroy certain blocks, so he is the second-most useful character, and actually necessary to go through one of the planets. Each character has some sort of ability, though you won't need all for environmental puzzles, which should have been a thing in my opinion.
Most of the game is focused on platforming. Many of the tricks the game has on offer, actually all of them, other games will have already done. There are the slippery icey platforms which annoy everyone, there is a lava pit that you need to jump over, out of which fire is shot upwards, there are the projectiles flying down from the sky while you try to not fall down to your death, there are the disappearing platforms and the room that turns pitch black, with little fireflies giving you the tiniest hint of information on where there is a platform to jump on.
Few games manage to combine many of these things into one though, which is where this game is absolutely an above-average experience. The game doesn't take a few of those tropes and makes 10 levels repeating them, the game tries to offer a new and different challenge for each of its stages, even if they aren't new to the genre itself. Plus, there is a very lengthy shoot 'em up stage at the end as well, so variety is absolutely present here. From time to time, there are small environmental puzzles to solve as well, which isn't much but definitely more than most platformers offer. Usually, it's "50 things try to kill you, try to survive by memorizing stuff and timing your movement" and while Bucky O'Hare is exactly that for most of the game, there are also parts where you need to figure out where to place a boulder to avoid those spikes, which character to use to go through a section of the game most efficiently, which area to unlock to avoid being stuck in an infinite loop and how to come out of the other end of a turning wheel thing.
Are there frustrating parts? Absolutely. There are levels where you need to perform jumps with exact precision, where you need to out-run lava running down the edges of the walls at blazing speed, where you need jump, switch character in a second, load up the power bar in half a second, release it, hang on to a wall, climb a split second and jump again to get past a particularly frustrating bit and where you need to execute moves with a ship with such incredible timing that the controls simply don't reliably allow for. Oh, and there are no i-frames.
There is some really rough stuff here. It's like the elementary version of Battletoads, where you can't stop but wonder why the devs would make so many enjoyable levels, only to frustrate the hell out of the player and make these later levels inaccessible for 99% of the players who play the game. It's elementary here because instead of 99%, it's going to be more like 80-90% and the game absolutely IS beatable without selling your soul to the devil. I can't say I managed to go through everything without making use of the beautiful functions of my emulator, but the majority of the game I played as intended and did relatively well. Game magazines call this game easy for even non-players, a sentiment with which I couldn't disagree more.
But all in all, this is one of the more enjoyable platformers I've played during this challenge. Boss fights top it off by offering somewhat difficult, but certainly very beatable challenges. Bosses have a certain pattern that they repeat endlessly, and you simply master them to beat them. They're not the most creative bosses I've seen, but I'd call them slightly better than your average platforming bosses from this time period.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 9/10
No voice acting. The sound design is really good here, many sounds were really satisfying and I can't say I think the same for most NES games I've played on here, so it's absolutely above-average. The soundtrack is really good. It matches the fast-paced nature of most gameplay bits and it had me bopping my head along for most of the time that I've played this. The boss theme in particular just goes completely batshit insane. Though the majority of tracks in this soundtrack are great and worth a listen. I also think it's absolutely worth a mention that this soundtrack was composed by a female, Tomoko Sumiyama. She is only credited for 5 games, this game being the most recent.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10
Looks pretty good, actually better than some early SNES titles we've played on this challenge so far. Got nice looking sprites and character designs, very colorful levels with some nice scenery like in the outer space level, and in general varied environments.
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 5/10
Certainly there is a Bucky O'Hare theme used here to make this game, but in general it is your typical platformer in terms of presentation. These games don't try to have you immersed, they try to mainly get you hooked to the gameplay by offering you a challenge, sometimes fair, sometimes unfair. This is no different here, though the space theme is present regularly, especially in a fantastic stage where you jump from asteroid to asteroid and moon to moon to traverse.
CONTENT | 7/10
The two negatives with this game's content is 1) there isn't a lot of it and 2) there are a few very frustrating parts, which gatekeeps later content needlessly from lesser skilled players. Overall though, the content has plenty of variety and is enough to entertain for a couple afternoons. And what is here is higher quality than your average NES game for sure.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 6/10
There are some great levels here, nicely varied. Similarly to Battletoads, I'm not sure why the devs decided to add some very frustrating parts to make it harder to get to the later levels which are as excellently designed as the early ones, but that's what we got here. Finally, I feel like the last level, while I did enjoy it, was very long and I mean insanely long. Could definitely have been made shorter.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 5/10
There is plenty copied over from the Mega Man series, such as choosing which planet to tackle first, gaining new abilities after defeating each planet, and then having a final "castle" type stage where you go through multiple lengthy levels and some form of a boss rush. The way some stages are designed is definitely where the main innovation comes from, as Mega Man mainly sticks to being an Action-platformer with predictable level design, while Bucky O'Hare goes a bit more wild with one level where you hop from asteroid to asteroid, which all fly in different directions. There is the long shmup stage at the end as well, so it's definitely not a shameless copy or anything.
REPLAYABILITY | 2/5
Other than trying to beat your high score and potentially using certain characters more than you did in a previous playthrough, there is no motivation given to play the game again.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
Works well at all times.
OVERALL | 63/100
If you're looking to play platformers on the NES, Bucky O'Hare should be on your list. It's unlikely to get into your Top 5, but I'd argue that it will offer an above-average experience for the genre and the console for sure. Nice graphics, great soundtrack and varied levels is all you need to have a good time with these types of games.
The Mega Man series and I don't get along. It's unfortunate, but it is what it is. So when I added Bucky O'Hare to my play-list, only to find out that it's a MegaMan-like right before playing it, I thought I was in for another frustrating - and short-lived - affair. Thankfully, this MegaMan-like I actually managed to beat and, despite the frustrations the game brings with it, I liked it as well.
Bucky O'Hare, the eponym of this video game, was the hero for a comic book and an animated TV series in the 80s and early 90s. Shortly after this game came out, Bucky O'Hare was rarely heard from again, though new action figures were released as recently as 2017. Don't expect to hear much from the rabbit in the future though.
This video game released on January 31, 1992 in both Japan and North America and was developed and published by Konami. Konami at this time was very well-known for releasing many quality games, and this game is definitely among their better titles at this time as well. This game released for the NES, though an Arcade game released the same year, too. These two games are the only games bearing Bucky's likeness. Reviews ranged from a 93 by Game Zone and 5 stars by Top Secret all the way down to 13.3/20 by Nintendo Power and 68% by Play Time.
My review is somewhere in between, if we consider that a 68% from me is way more complimentary than a 68% by a video game magazine.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 3/10
You play Bucky O'Hare, who is captain of the ship called "Righteous Indignation". Your crew consists of Dead-Eye, Jenny, Blinky and Willy, who are captured by the antagonist Toad Air Marshall at the start of the game. Go rescue them and take out Toad, you know the drill.
The intro, with a number of typo's in both game and manual (atacked, kidnaped, marshall), explains the scenario I just described. You know have to travel to four planets named after colors to rescue them. For each rescue, you receive thanks by your crewmates and the information that you can now use them and their special abilities. From there, each additional level has some short dialogue between the crew on what the next objective is.
My favorite little detail was a TV in one level depicting Toad with an "I hate you" speech bubble popping out of it.
Other than that, story is of course not a big deal here.
GAMEPLAY | 13/20
This is a mix of a platformer and a shoot 'em up. In addition, it is a MegaMan-like. You choose one of four planets that you want to go to. After long platforming levels, you meet the final boss. You kill the boss and rescue your crewmate, who you can now choose as your character. The difference to Mega Man is that the boss does not have the same skill as the crewmate you rescue. But you are free to choose which planet to tackle in what order (one exception).
One thing this game actually does way more conveniently than Mega Man: You can switch between characters by simply pressing SELECT. Sure, switching between eight characters in NES Mega Man games would be annoying, but I would like the option, especially when you still have 4-5 or fewer characters unlocked. The gameplay here is not interrupted thanks to this, though of course switching in a fast paced platforming game such as this will come with its share of annoyances when a timing-sensitive level kills you while you are trying to switch to the right character. Can't say this happened often enough for me to rather PAUSE the game each time I wanted to switch.
Bucky can shoot in four directions and also load up a POWER bar which lets him jump higher. Collecting P's increases the length of the POWER bar and lets you jump higher. Blinky, the android, is short and can destroy certain blocks, so he is the second-most useful character, and actually necessary to go through one of the planets. Each character has some sort of ability, though you won't need all for environmental puzzles, which should have been a thing in my opinion.
Most of the game is focused on platforming. Many of the tricks the game has on offer, actually all of them, other games will have already done. There are the slippery icey platforms which annoy everyone, there is a lava pit that you need to jump over, out of which fire is shot upwards, there are the projectiles flying down from the sky while you try to not fall down to your death, there are the disappearing platforms and the room that turns pitch black, with little fireflies giving you the tiniest hint of information on where there is a platform to jump on.
Few games manage to combine many of these things into one though, which is where this game is absolutely an above-average experience. The game doesn't take a few of those tropes and makes 10 levels repeating them, the game tries to offer a new and different challenge for each of its stages, even if they aren't new to the genre itself. Plus, there is a very lengthy shoot 'em up stage at the end as well, so variety is absolutely present here. From time to time, there are small environmental puzzles to solve as well, which isn't much but definitely more than most platformers offer. Usually, it's "50 things try to kill you, try to survive by memorizing stuff and timing your movement" and while Bucky O'Hare is exactly that for most of the game, there are also parts where you need to figure out where to place a boulder to avoid those spikes, which character to use to go through a section of the game most efficiently, which area to unlock to avoid being stuck in an infinite loop and how to come out of the other end of a turning wheel thing.
Are there frustrating parts? Absolutely. There are levels where you need to perform jumps with exact precision, where you need to out-run lava running down the edges of the walls at blazing speed, where you need jump, switch character in a second, load up the power bar in half a second, release it, hang on to a wall, climb a split second and jump again to get past a particularly frustrating bit and where you need to execute moves with a ship with such incredible timing that the controls simply don't reliably allow for. Oh, and there are no i-frames.
There is some really rough stuff here. It's like the elementary version of Battletoads, where you can't stop but wonder why the devs would make so many enjoyable levels, only to frustrate the hell out of the player and make these later levels inaccessible for 99% of the players who play the game. It's elementary here because instead of 99%, it's going to be more like 80-90% and the game absolutely IS beatable without selling your soul to the devil. I can't say I managed to go through everything without making use of the beautiful functions of my emulator, but the majority of the game I played as intended and did relatively well. Game magazines call this game easy for even non-players, a sentiment with which I couldn't disagree more.
But all in all, this is one of the more enjoyable platformers I've played during this challenge. Boss fights top it off by offering somewhat difficult, but certainly very beatable challenges. Bosses have a certain pattern that they repeat endlessly, and you simply master them to beat them. They're not the most creative bosses I've seen, but I'd call them slightly better than your average platforming bosses from this time period.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 9/10
No voice acting. The sound design is really good here, many sounds were really satisfying and I can't say I think the same for most NES games I've played on here, so it's absolutely above-average. The soundtrack is really good. It matches the fast-paced nature of most gameplay bits and it had me bopping my head along for most of the time that I've played this. The boss theme in particular just goes completely batshit insane. Though the majority of tracks in this soundtrack are great and worth a listen. I also think it's absolutely worth a mention that this soundtrack was composed by a female, Tomoko Sumiyama. She is only credited for 5 games, this game being the most recent.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10
Looks pretty good, actually better than some early SNES titles we've played on this challenge so far. Got nice looking sprites and character designs, very colorful levels with some nice scenery like in the outer space level, and in general varied environments.
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 5/10
Certainly there is a Bucky O'Hare theme used here to make this game, but in general it is your typical platformer in terms of presentation. These games don't try to have you immersed, they try to mainly get you hooked to the gameplay by offering you a challenge, sometimes fair, sometimes unfair. This is no different here, though the space theme is present regularly, especially in a fantastic stage where you jump from asteroid to asteroid and moon to moon to traverse.
CONTENT | 7/10
The two negatives with this game's content is 1) there isn't a lot of it and 2) there are a few very frustrating parts, which gatekeeps later content needlessly from lesser skilled players. Overall though, the content has plenty of variety and is enough to entertain for a couple afternoons. And what is here is higher quality than your average NES game for sure.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 6/10
There are some great levels here, nicely varied. Similarly to Battletoads, I'm not sure why the devs decided to add some very frustrating parts to make it harder to get to the later levels which are as excellently designed as the early ones, but that's what we got here. Finally, I feel like the last level, while I did enjoy it, was very long and I mean insanely long. Could definitely have been made shorter.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 5/10
There is plenty copied over from the Mega Man series, such as choosing which planet to tackle first, gaining new abilities after defeating each planet, and then having a final "castle" type stage where you go through multiple lengthy levels and some form of a boss rush. The way some stages are designed is definitely where the main innovation comes from, as Mega Man mainly sticks to being an Action-platformer with predictable level design, while Bucky O'Hare goes a bit more wild with one level where you hop from asteroid to asteroid, which all fly in different directions. There is the long shmup stage at the end as well, so it's definitely not a shameless copy or anything.
REPLAYABILITY | 2/5
Other than trying to beat your high score and potentially using certain characters more than you did in a previous playthrough, there is no motivation given to play the game again.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
Works well at all times.
OVERALL | 63/100
If you're looking to play platformers on the NES, Bucky O'Hare should be on your list. It's unlikely to get into your Top 5, but I'd argue that it will offer an above-average experience for the genre and the console for sure. Nice graphics, great soundtrack and varied levels is all you need to have a good time with these types of games.
(This is the 52nd game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
This is going to be a short review similarly to what I did for 1990's Wing Commander. The truth is, there are some genres and games that are not going to be my cup of tea. This means that my review for these games couldn't do them justice. The right person will absolutely love Wing Commander, and the right person will absolutely love Civilization I, despite its lack of QoL and overall features compared to newer entries. So in terms of this challenge, I don't think it would be fair for me to review these games with my review score.
That said, I can recognize an objectively well-made game when I see one, and Civilization definitely belongs in that category. I can't say I didn't have any fun with the game either, I definitely did in my 5 hours it. However, the game (and its manual) is so packed with features that take a while to get a grasp of in nature, and also get more difficult to figure out due to the old-school UI. Once you get somewhat of graps of the basics though, the game becomes kind of routine, where you use the cities you build to create settlers, militia, phalanx and more, where you use these characters to explore the world, where you meet other races and either go to war or make peace, and where you overall try to gain world domination before you lose.
The gameplay loop was definitely fun. If you're intro strategy games and you want to go into the Civilization series from the start, I'm sure you'll find a lot of enjoyment out of this. And even if I will likely not include most strategy games to my challenge playlist for the coming years, Civilization will likely become a mainstay.
This is going to be a short review similarly to what I did for 1990's Wing Commander. The truth is, there are some genres and games that are not going to be my cup of tea. This means that my review for these games couldn't do them justice. The right person will absolutely love Wing Commander, and the right person will absolutely love Civilization I, despite its lack of QoL and overall features compared to newer entries. So in terms of this challenge, I don't think it would be fair for me to review these games with my review score.
That said, I can recognize an objectively well-made game when I see one, and Civilization definitely belongs in that category. I can't say I didn't have any fun with the game either, I definitely did in my 5 hours it. However, the game (and its manual) is so packed with features that take a while to get a grasp of in nature, and also get more difficult to figure out due to the old-school UI. Once you get somewhat of graps of the basics though, the game becomes kind of routine, where you use the cities you build to create settlers, militia, phalanx and more, where you use these characters to explore the world, where you meet other races and either go to war or make peace, and where you overall try to gain world domination before you lose.
The gameplay loop was definitely fun. If you're intro strategy games and you want to go into the Civilization series from the start, I'm sure you'll find a lot of enjoyment out of this. And even if I will likely not include most strategy games to my challenge playlist for the coming years, Civilization will likely become a mainstay.
1990
I've just beaten Captain Skyhawk, a scrolling shooter with vehicular combat, developed by Rare (Battletoads, Conker's Bad Fur Day & Sea of Thieves) and released for the NES in June 1990. It was also released for Arcade machines.
In this game, you are Captain Skyhawk, pilot of the plane "F-14VTS" and have to fight back against an on-going alien invasion. You never really see any aliens, nor do their spaceships and ground weaponry look very alien. If the game wouldn't have told me, I would have thought that we're simply fighting human terrorists or shooting up space stations for the fun of it. This is where I always crack up when I read reviewers of the time try to hype up the game's setting before diving into the gameplay. The Good Witch for GamePro Magazine's 13th Issue for example writes: "Imagine the ultimate parasites, creatures that suck the very life out of Earth and leave her a useless hulk spinning in space. This is the problem you, as Captain Skyhawk, must face." And then it's just you flying over 3D terrain and shooting at very normal looking planes and ground vehicles. Of course I admire the effort of trying to immerse potential players from the start and I doubt I would have done it differently back in the day, but that doesn't make it less funny to me reading it today, but in a good way.
This game is a vertical scrolling shooter and you fly around mountainous 3D terrain and try to dodge both enemy projectiles (which all look like the same "ninja star"-esque projectile) and the mountains off to the sides. There are 9 levels of that, with three different types of goals. In between, you have a little mini game where you have to line up your plane to be able to dock it perfectly into your station, plus a 2D mini level where you look at your plane from the rear, dodge incoming bombs and shoot up enemy ships that otherwise don't offer any resistance to gain some bonus points, which are then used to buy equipment at your station.
The gameplay loop is enjoyable, and especially the more fast paced segments were really fun, but what this game offers is limited, and it's not a looker (which is fine) nor a "hearer" (which was not fine).
____________
STORYTELLING
Within the video game, there is the littlest of environmental storytelling and that's it. And even that doesn't occur until the final objective of the game. Apart from that, there is no mention of where this game is set in, what your ultimate goal is or who you are. It just says "Alien Fleet destroyed" when you beat the game.
The real plot you will find in the game's manual, but apart from the final objective, it doesn't really translate to the full game. If you don't care for a story in a scrolling shooter like this, this is a non-issue, and I would guess that most of you do only care about the gameplay and about pretty much anything but the story. Still, it is worth mentioning that the game has no storytelling.
According to the manual, Aliens have invaded Earth and have built bases to drain Earth's energy. The end goal is to use this energy as fuel to vaporize Earth with a laser blast. You have to stop them by destroying their stations on Earth and ultimately destroying their space station.
As I mentioned, the ludonarrative dissonance makes the choice of an alien invasion story an odd one but since it is barely present, I didn't really think about it much further than that.
GAMEPLAY
You control a plane over simulated 3D Terrain. You can move your plane from side-to-side whilst the display scrolls vertically at an automated speed. You can also adjust your plane's altitude, and I found that reaching the highest possible level was the best strategy in order to avoid crashing into mountains. There doesn't really seem to be a reason to fly low. You can't crash into enemy planes or anything else besides those mountains that either are small and placed in the middle of an area or stretch out from the sides and at certain points only leave a very small opening for your plane to fit through.
In this vertically scrolling 3D part of the game, you use your "Cannon" to shoot. I found myself holding the A-Button throughout a level since your ammo is unlimited and enemies can show up at a moment's notice. There are also three other weapon types that you can stock up on whenever you finish a mission and manage to dock into your station.
There are "Phoenix Air Intercept Missiles" for air-to-air combat and "Maverick Air-to-Ground Missiles" and "Hawk Bombs" for air-to-ground combat. Over time you also get upgrades to your Cannon to make it fire quicker.
Enemies fire back with the same projectile pretty much. It's a small gray-and-white colored square shape and only one of these is fired individually every few seconds. Unfortunately, its effects are devastating, as one hit destroys your "specially designed plane" that was made specifically to combat the aliens. These projectiles and their hit boxes were a mystery to me throughout, as I never really could accurately say when it would hit my plane when I would fly past it and when it wouldn't. Figuring that out and maneuvering past it is really the key to success in this game, which apart from the final boss is pretty straightforward otherwise.
There are 9 total missions and they all go pretty similarly. There is the vertical scrolling section first, then a 2D section where you shoot down enemy planes to collect extra points and a docking mini game. The vertical scrolling section has one of three goals until the final missions: (1) Destroy enemy station, where you have to destroy four of its circled bases to make it explode, (2) Find scientist, where you have to destroy a prison holding a scientist in similar fashion to free him and grab some plane upgrades and (3) Drop supplies, where you have to drop supplies into holes that are placed somewhere in the map. You have to do that two times to win the mission.
The 2D section has the ships come from out of screen and become smaller as seconds pass until they disappear. If you hit them, you get points, if you don't, you don't get points. There are only bombs to dodge, which sometimes the ships carry with them. And if they spawn right where you are, you can be hit with it without even seeing the bomb, which results in instant-death. Annoying.
Finally, there is the docking mini game. There is a very small hole in a docking station in front of you. You have to align your plane on its level, wait for the right moment and press B to see a little animation where your plane circles toward the station. If you aligned it correctly, you enter the station and progress with the game. You can buy ammo there. If you fail, you crash against the station and lose a life. It's not really difficult once you understand it but I guess it's there.
There are 3 continues throughout the game, so if you're playing this game without save states, it can be tough to beat and will be pretty frustrating. If you use save states like me, it'll still be frustrating but becomes much more beatable until the final boss, which took me so many tries and almost made me rage.
Controls of the plane where alright but only because you really didn't have too much to do. Dodge a bullet if you can and then just fly from west-to-east whilst shooting your cannons, pretty straightforward throughout. Some missions for some reason had your plane flying 3x the normal speed for some reason, which meant having to somehow manage to anticipate where those valleys between the two mountains would show up, because otherwise you'd crash to your death. That was frustrating but at the same time, if you did it right, these missions would flow really well.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
No voice acting. The music was good, nice to listen to, no complaints there. But the sound design was bad. The sound of the cannons firing was annoying and nothing cannon-like, so I'm not sure why each individual bullet you fired got its own sound, especially when having to auto-fire was almost a necessity. The sound of hitting enemies was unpleasant as well. There are some good parts about it, like the sound of enemy planes being destroyed or the sound in the 2D sections of far-away planes approaching. But overall, it wasn't good to listen to. Music would only play during boss fights or in the menu.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
Maps were all the same (more on that in "Atmosphere") and at no point did it feel like I was fighting aliens and their advanced technology. I've seen some comments on YT videos saying that "the game is one of the best graphically for the NES", but I don't really see it, it just looked bland and very simple.
ATMOSPHERE
I'd say the 2D sections were the ones that made me feel the most like I was flying a plane in the sky. Dodging bombs, hearing enemy planes approach from a distance and having to align just right to destroy them was an extremely simple task truth be told, but it was still able to draw me in the most. The docking mini game added a little bit to the immersion as well I guess, but the 3D vertical scrolling section just didn't make me feel like I was fighting back against an alien invasion in this super-plane that was specifically constructed to fight them. There was no music playing, the sound design was mostly bad and it was enough for one tiny projectile to kill me and destroy the flow of the attempt.
CONTENT
There are 9 same-y missions and very little variety to approach them. It doesn't have filler however and having less missions works in the game's favor. I'd definitely rather have 9 than 18 missions if they are going to be similar. There still is a lack of content overall.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
The 9 missions almost all play out exactly the same. The only ones I would call slightly different are the "supply drop" missions, which have no boss fight but rather just require you to time the drop of a package correctly. Other than that, you'll be doing the same thing over 9 missions in maps that pretty much are all the same. The only difference is that the placement of environmental obstacles is likely slightly different with each and that maps can have different colors. The terrain does only carry one (1) color (green or blue or orange), but it does change from mission to mission.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
I have never really played scrolling vehicular combat shooters like this one growing up, so this is almost entirely a foreign genre to me. Therefore I can't really judge this, but reviews I have read of the time don't mention this game excelling at any part or moving the needle in any way either. There is also no story component, very little adjustments you can make to your plane, the same maps with a different one-color terrain and very straightforward action.
REPLAYABILITY
There isn't really any variety here, so the only reason for replaying this after winning would be to beat your high score, which is as the devs intended it I'd assume.
PLAYABILITY
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL
It's the first game of this type I've played in probably 15 years, and even then I might have tried a vertical scrolling shooter with vehicular combat once or twice, so I have little experience to compare this to other similar games. On its own, it doesn't really seem to do anything particularly well, but its core gameplay loop and the challenge it provides is fun enough for a couple hours, if you're into this genre of games. But all of its features are very basic, which maybe is how these games were back then. I could also see this being more feature-poor than games that came out before or shortly after it, that is still be found out in the process of this project of mine.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- The Good Witch for GamePro Issue 13 (Aug 90): "Captain Skyhawk features a good combination of different game action [...]. Although the shoot-em-up action may not be challenging enough to keep an expert gamer busy for long, it's more than tough enough for the average player"
- ? for Nintendo Power Issue 16 (September-October 90): "Each level on this action packed flight simulation is fun and challenging"
In this game, you are Captain Skyhawk, pilot of the plane "F-14VTS" and have to fight back against an on-going alien invasion. You never really see any aliens, nor do their spaceships and ground weaponry look very alien. If the game wouldn't have told me, I would have thought that we're simply fighting human terrorists or shooting up space stations for the fun of it. This is where I always crack up when I read reviewers of the time try to hype up the game's setting before diving into the gameplay. The Good Witch for GamePro Magazine's 13th Issue for example writes: "Imagine the ultimate parasites, creatures that suck the very life out of Earth and leave her a useless hulk spinning in space. This is the problem you, as Captain Skyhawk, must face." And then it's just you flying over 3D terrain and shooting at very normal looking planes and ground vehicles. Of course I admire the effort of trying to immerse potential players from the start and I doubt I would have done it differently back in the day, but that doesn't make it less funny to me reading it today, but in a good way.
This game is a vertical scrolling shooter and you fly around mountainous 3D terrain and try to dodge both enemy projectiles (which all look like the same "ninja star"-esque projectile) and the mountains off to the sides. There are 9 levels of that, with three different types of goals. In between, you have a little mini game where you have to line up your plane to be able to dock it perfectly into your station, plus a 2D mini level where you look at your plane from the rear, dodge incoming bombs and shoot up enemy ships that otherwise don't offer any resistance to gain some bonus points, which are then used to buy equipment at your station.
The gameplay loop is enjoyable, and especially the more fast paced segments were really fun, but what this game offers is limited, and it's not a looker (which is fine) nor a "hearer" (which was not fine).
____________
STORYTELLING
Within the video game, there is the littlest of environmental storytelling and that's it. And even that doesn't occur until the final objective of the game. Apart from that, there is no mention of where this game is set in, what your ultimate goal is or who you are. It just says "Alien Fleet destroyed" when you beat the game.
The real plot you will find in the game's manual, but apart from the final objective, it doesn't really translate to the full game. If you don't care for a story in a scrolling shooter like this, this is a non-issue, and I would guess that most of you do only care about the gameplay and about pretty much anything but the story. Still, it is worth mentioning that the game has no storytelling.
According to the manual, Aliens have invaded Earth and have built bases to drain Earth's energy. The end goal is to use this energy as fuel to vaporize Earth with a laser blast. You have to stop them by destroying their stations on Earth and ultimately destroying their space station.
As I mentioned, the ludonarrative dissonance makes the choice of an alien invasion story an odd one but since it is barely present, I didn't really think about it much further than that.
GAMEPLAY
You control a plane over simulated 3D Terrain. You can move your plane from side-to-side whilst the display scrolls vertically at an automated speed. You can also adjust your plane's altitude, and I found that reaching the highest possible level was the best strategy in order to avoid crashing into mountains. There doesn't really seem to be a reason to fly low. You can't crash into enemy planes or anything else besides those mountains that either are small and placed in the middle of an area or stretch out from the sides and at certain points only leave a very small opening for your plane to fit through.
In this vertically scrolling 3D part of the game, you use your "Cannon" to shoot. I found myself holding the A-Button throughout a level since your ammo is unlimited and enemies can show up at a moment's notice. There are also three other weapon types that you can stock up on whenever you finish a mission and manage to dock into your station.
There are "Phoenix Air Intercept Missiles" for air-to-air combat and "Maverick Air-to-Ground Missiles" and "Hawk Bombs" for air-to-ground combat. Over time you also get upgrades to your Cannon to make it fire quicker.
Enemies fire back with the same projectile pretty much. It's a small gray-and-white colored square shape and only one of these is fired individually every few seconds. Unfortunately, its effects are devastating, as one hit destroys your "specially designed plane" that was made specifically to combat the aliens. These projectiles and their hit boxes were a mystery to me throughout, as I never really could accurately say when it would hit my plane when I would fly past it and when it wouldn't. Figuring that out and maneuvering past it is really the key to success in this game, which apart from the final boss is pretty straightforward otherwise.
There are 9 total missions and they all go pretty similarly. There is the vertical scrolling section first, then a 2D section where you shoot down enemy planes to collect extra points and a docking mini game. The vertical scrolling section has one of three goals until the final missions: (1) Destroy enemy station, where you have to destroy four of its circled bases to make it explode, (2) Find scientist, where you have to destroy a prison holding a scientist in similar fashion to free him and grab some plane upgrades and (3) Drop supplies, where you have to drop supplies into holes that are placed somewhere in the map. You have to do that two times to win the mission.
The 2D section has the ships come from out of screen and become smaller as seconds pass until they disappear. If you hit them, you get points, if you don't, you don't get points. There are only bombs to dodge, which sometimes the ships carry with them. And if they spawn right where you are, you can be hit with it without even seeing the bomb, which results in instant-death. Annoying.
Finally, there is the docking mini game. There is a very small hole in a docking station in front of you. You have to align your plane on its level, wait for the right moment and press B to see a little animation where your plane circles toward the station. If you aligned it correctly, you enter the station and progress with the game. You can buy ammo there. If you fail, you crash against the station and lose a life. It's not really difficult once you understand it but I guess it's there.
There are 3 continues throughout the game, so if you're playing this game without save states, it can be tough to beat and will be pretty frustrating. If you use save states like me, it'll still be frustrating but becomes much more beatable until the final boss, which took me so many tries and almost made me rage.
Controls of the plane where alright but only because you really didn't have too much to do. Dodge a bullet if you can and then just fly from west-to-east whilst shooting your cannons, pretty straightforward throughout. Some missions for some reason had your plane flying 3x the normal speed for some reason, which meant having to somehow manage to anticipate where those valleys between the two mountains would show up, because otherwise you'd crash to your death. That was frustrating but at the same time, if you did it right, these missions would flow really well.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
No voice acting. The music was good, nice to listen to, no complaints there. But the sound design was bad. The sound of the cannons firing was annoying and nothing cannon-like, so I'm not sure why each individual bullet you fired got its own sound, especially when having to auto-fire was almost a necessity. The sound of hitting enemies was unpleasant as well. There are some good parts about it, like the sound of enemy planes being destroyed or the sound in the 2D sections of far-away planes approaching. But overall, it wasn't good to listen to. Music would only play during boss fights or in the menu.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
Maps were all the same (more on that in "Atmosphere") and at no point did it feel like I was fighting aliens and their advanced technology. I've seen some comments on YT videos saying that "the game is one of the best graphically for the NES", but I don't really see it, it just looked bland and very simple.
ATMOSPHERE
I'd say the 2D sections were the ones that made me feel the most like I was flying a plane in the sky. Dodging bombs, hearing enemy planes approach from a distance and having to align just right to destroy them was an extremely simple task truth be told, but it was still able to draw me in the most. The docking mini game added a little bit to the immersion as well I guess, but the 3D vertical scrolling section just didn't make me feel like I was fighting back against an alien invasion in this super-plane that was specifically constructed to fight them. There was no music playing, the sound design was mostly bad and it was enough for one tiny projectile to kill me and destroy the flow of the attempt.
CONTENT
There are 9 same-y missions and very little variety to approach them. It doesn't have filler however and having less missions works in the game's favor. I'd definitely rather have 9 than 18 missions if they are going to be similar. There still is a lack of content overall.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
The 9 missions almost all play out exactly the same. The only ones I would call slightly different are the "supply drop" missions, which have no boss fight but rather just require you to time the drop of a package correctly. Other than that, you'll be doing the same thing over 9 missions in maps that pretty much are all the same. The only difference is that the placement of environmental obstacles is likely slightly different with each and that maps can have different colors. The terrain does only carry one (1) color (green or blue or orange), but it does change from mission to mission.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
I have never really played scrolling vehicular combat shooters like this one growing up, so this is almost entirely a foreign genre to me. Therefore I can't really judge this, but reviews I have read of the time don't mention this game excelling at any part or moving the needle in any way either. There is also no story component, very little adjustments you can make to your plane, the same maps with a different one-color terrain and very straightforward action.
REPLAYABILITY
There isn't really any variety here, so the only reason for replaying this after winning would be to beat your high score, which is as the devs intended it I'd assume.
PLAYABILITY
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL
It's the first game of this type I've played in probably 15 years, and even then I might have tried a vertical scrolling shooter with vehicular combat once or twice, so I have little experience to compare this to other similar games. On its own, it doesn't really seem to do anything particularly well, but its core gameplay loop and the challenge it provides is fun enough for a couple hours, if you're into this genre of games. But all of its features are very basic, which maybe is how these games were back then. I could also see this being more feature-poor than games that came out before or shortly after it, that is still be found out in the process of this project of mine.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- The Good Witch for GamePro Issue 13 (Aug 90): "Captain Skyhawk features a good combination of different game action [...]. Although the shoot-em-up action may not be challenging enough to keep an expert gamer busy for long, it's more than tough enough for the average player"
- ? for Nintendo Power Issue 16 (September-October 90): "Each level on this action packed flight simulation is fun and challenging"
This review contains spoilers
(This is the 61st game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
Sequel-time is always exciting, and even more so for games that were really enjoyable. With Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, the follow-up to The Secret of Monkey Island, we are in such a situation. This game probably requires no introduction for the majority of you. It released in December 1991 for the Amiga and MS-DOS, was developed and published by LucasArts, was led by Ron Gilbert and uses the SCUMM engine that was used for LucasArts adventure games until the late 90s.
While Monkey Island 2 was a critical success, commercially it fell below expectations. According to Ron Gilbert they sold relatively well, but "Sierra On-Line and King's Quest were still kicking our ass completely". Plus, he wanted to make adventure games for kids after releasing Monkey Island 2. Both of these points combined explain why he left LucasArts less than a year after Monkey Island 2 released to create his own company. Unfortunately, what Ron Gilbert's exit and Monkey Island's good-but-not-good-enough sales meant was that we would not only see no 3rd Monkey Island game until 1997, but that the 3rd game was also not written by its original creator.
I mention this for two reasons. First, 2022's Return to Monkey Island, finally directed and written by Ron Gilbert (and Dave Grossman) again, continues from the ending of this game, not the 4th (which I have never played). Second, this game has an infamous ending, and knowing what I know about the future of the Monkey Island series, I am kind of unsure on how to feel about it.
This is the final game in my challenge in the 1991 play-list. Here is my review for the game.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 8/10
This section is going to be a spoiler-heavy part, so skip this in case you didn't play this game yet and still want to. There are only spoilers for 1 and 2 however, not for 3, 4 and Return to Monkey Island, all of which I haven't played.
Once again, you are Guybrush Threepwood, the clumsy yet determined pirate; a title he has earned for himself in the first Monkey Island game. Now that Guybrush is a pirate and has defeated the evil ghost-pirate LeChuck, he is looking for a new adventure: Finding the treasure called "Big Whoop".
The game starts on Scabb Island, where Guybrush accidentally arrives in search of the lost treasure. I say accidental because the treasure is actually not here. It's not for naught however, as he learns more about the treasure and that there are four map pieces that he needs to acquire in order to find it. To start his search, he needs to get off the island, but that is not possible. While Scabb Island is known for being a lawless island, a man called Largo Lagrande took it upon himself to impose the "Largo Embargo" and to tax all ships arriving and departing with a heavy tax that no pirates in the area could afford. His angry demeanor and, more importantly, his connection to LeChuck as his right hand man in the past, make people scared of him. Everyone but Guybrush of course.
So Guybrush needs to figure out to cleanse Scabb Island from Largo. In the end, he does, but with a cost. He, inadvertently, gives Largo the 'still-alive' beard of LeChuck that he was carrying around to boast about his accomplishments. Largo steals this beard to resurrect LeChuck. So Scabb Island is free of Largo, but Guybrush, as he goes on to explore many other islands in search of the four map pieces, is not free of LeChuck any longer.
The game features many new, but also many returning characters from the original, just like you'd expect from a sequel of a graphical adventure, if you've ever played a different one. This creates both a sense of nostalgia and comfort, but also of a fresh adventure. It helps that the majority of returning characters were funny and quirky in the original, like the "Men of Low Moral Fiber" or Stan the used ship salesman, who opened his own mortuary in this game.
Dialogue is basically the same mix as the original, containing good humor, incredibly dry jokes (in a positive way), a few double entendre's, regular 4th-wall breaking and a contemptuous attitude by most characters towards Guybrush's clumsiness and habit of putting others into precarious positions in order to get himself closer to his goals. Don't get me wrong, Guybrush is a million times more competent than Deponia's Rufus (though both are equally as succesful I suppose), but his charm, pretty much everyone's charm in this world comes from their oddness and naivete. For example, the drycleaner is hard of hearing, the cartographer cannot see without his monocole, the bartender pays you unheard of sums of money upfront only to fire you minutes later without asking for his money back, guard's arrest someone else under your name after they had just arrested you for it minutes earlier etc.
So overall, as endearing as each character is on their own, the game's narrative is nearly entirely as lovely. I say nearly, because there is the ending 'showdown' between LeChuck and Guybrush, and the ending itself to discuss.
First, the showdown: As Guybrush attempts to uncover the treasure from its designated location, a hole opens up and he fall into it. When he comes to, everything is dark, but he locates a light switch. Guybrush finds himself in a room, though not alone. He finds LeChuck himself standing next to him with a voodoo doll. The voodoo doll supposedly will send Guybrush to an endless dimension of pain once LeChuck uses some sort of lightning power to pierce through his voodoo heart. Guybrush does get teleported, but only to the adjacent room. Looks like the doll was made of poor materials. There are 5 such rooms in this ending showdown, and you constantly need to run away from LeChuck, who shows up randomly, and assemble a bunch of items to create your own voodoo doll of him.
This is not a bad idea in itself. The problem arises, or did for me, when I had to find the last piece, which, for the life of me, I couldn't figure out without a guide. There is a room with a broken vending machine. You press the "coin return" and see a coin fly out of the machine and come to a halt at the door. LeChuck enters in a scripted moment to hunch down and grab the coin. At this point, you grab his underwear. Easy. But what you also are apparently supposed to do is give him your handkerchief, so he can blow his nose.
The problem? This is only possible in that room. If LeChuck shows up anywhere else, you can't give him the handkerchief. The bigger problem? There were a lot of times where LeChuck wouldn't show up for minutes (!) at a time, and if he did, he would never enter that one room again for a good 20 minutes. Why? Because it's entirely random where and when he shows up. And if you don't use a guide but did try to use the handkerchief in a different room (out of the 30 items in your inventory at this time), and that didn't work, I don't blame you for not trying it again in that one specific room. I did get it done after a long time, but it was frustrating as hell to get there.
And now, the ending: You assemble the voodoo doll, Guybrush uses it to rip out LeChuck's limbs, and LeChuck, in his final breaths, asks you to take off his mask. It reveals ... Guybrush's brother Chuckie. Apparently, Chuckie was asked of their parents to hunt Guybrush down. A maintenance worker of some sort shows up and tells them that they can't be down there. Scene fades to black, and we get a new scene showing a young Guybrush and a young Chuckie at an amusement park, with their parents scolding Guybrush for running off. As they go off, Chuckie gives a quick stare at the camera and shows a red glow in his eyes. The end. The after-credits scene shows Elaine Marley, Guybrush's love interest, standing over the hole on the surface and wondering whether Guybrush is down there hallucinating again. The actual end.
Wow. Reading opinions on it online, I realized that this was quite an unpopular ending at the time. Having it sit for a day, I'm mostly OK with it, as it allows for your own interpretation and for a lot of discussion without appearing tacked on or fully unreasonable.
So what's the truth here? Is it A) Guybrush is actually still a kid and just imagined the entire stories of 1 and 2? Or B) The "endless dimension of pain" curse that LeChuck was talking about actually manifested itself, and Guybrush will have to endure childhood with Chuckie, who likely bullies him? I am going to try to make a case for both scenarios, knowing full well that both the non-Ron Gilbert and with-Ron Gilbert explanations already exist by now.
Scenario A) There are surprisingly many arguments that can be made for this scenario. Guybrush appears in the first game out of nowhere and declares he wants to be a pirate. One of the requirements to be a pirate? Swordfighting, which apparently are just verbal duels where you try to out-wit your opponent. Another thing: Many characters are returning from the original, even though you explore island far away from Melee Island. Objects too, like the vending machine you destroyed in Monkey Island 1, which appears in the final stage again. The barkeeper won't sell grog to Guybrush without some ID. The "Big Whoop" treasure turns out to just be ... a ticket? To an amusement park perhaps? There are a lot more points I could mention, but to not have this be an essay on the ending, I'll leave it there.
Scenario B) A lot of points that can be made for Scenario B simply include arguing against the likelihood of Scenario A. First, Elaine's after-credits scene makes it seem like she actually exists. She asks if Guybrush is hallucinating again, which makes it likelier that the amusement park scene is not actual reality, but rather a false one created by LeChuck, or simply a dream. Second, the glow in LeChuck's eyes makes it appear, as if LeChuck pulled Guybrush into that universe on purpose. Third, this could have been an elaborate plan by LeChuck throughout the game. There is an earlier scene where Guybrush falls and hallucinates. He sees his parents, then LeChuck, then wakes up shortly after. The final showdown area also has a room where two skeletons lie and supposedly are Guybrush's parents. So has LeChuck been able to track Guybrush's whereabouts throughout the game and manipulate him discretely, to break Guybrush's will and have the curse be a success?
Having the outcome of the story be "it was just a dream" is obviously not the most satisfying, so I understand how players would find it bad. Again, I didn't mind it, but I do agree that Scenario B is preferrable.
All in all though, another enjoyable set of characters and funny dialogue was enough to pull me through this game on its own.
GAMEPLAY | 13/20
This is a graphical adventure by LucasArts / Lucasfilm Games in the style that you've all seen if you ever saw an old-school graphical adventure. The interface consists of the verbs on the bottom left side and your inventory on the bottom right side. You interact with people and objects by clicking on a verb and then on the person/object. It's the same as in the original. You use this interface to pick up items, solve puzzles and talk to people.
What a lot of these games fall victim to at least once or twice, especially old-school graphical adventures, is to create puzzle solutions that are entirely unintuitive and non-sensical, to the point that most players will be stuck and be left with no option but to try out everything possible in order to progress. Or, you know, use a guide. Luckily, this issue doesn't really creep up in Monkey Island 2, at least I found almost all puzzles to more or less make sense. Sure, using a monkey on a water pump is not the most logical solution, but it works in this game world. There were a few times where I had to use a hint, but the solutions made sense in hindsight.
There isn't really too much else that could be said here since this is through and through your average graphical adventure. One thing that I didn't find great was ship travel. You need to go through three different islands to find four map pieces, but this also means that you need items from one island to solve the puzzle on another. Since you need time to figure out what you need to do, you find yourself constantly driving from one island to the other. You need to go back to your ship on the overworld to travel, and the time it takes to do this definitely adds up to the point where the pacing of it all is not always the way you'd like it.
Overall, it's pretty much the same game as the original, just with a slightly better interface.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 9/10
I used the Special Edition but played the classic version. In this edition, there is voice acting, which the classic game didn't actually have at release. But since the Special Edition is the only one available and the one any of you would play, I'm going to say that there is voice acting here for the purposes of this rating. The voice acting is great and the majority of the characters sound unique. It's a situation where half the jokes work because of the writing and half work because of the way they are said. Couldn't really have had a better voive for Guybrush either.
The soundtrack is a fantastic mix of reggae, jazz and classical music, just like the original, with a tinge of whatever is required to set the atmosphere, like a spooky melody for the swamps for example. Plus, it's much longer than the soundtrack for the original as well, and the majority of scenes have a unique track reserved for themselves, which adds to their recognizability.
I'll give this a 9 because voice acting technically wasn't included in 1991, but think of it as a 10 if you play the voice acted versions.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 9/10
I adore the game's art direction. This was extremely well done, right down to the smallest details that suggest there is something you can interact with. From the quirky designs of each character you meet to the significantly more varied and detailed locations compared to the original, to the deep use of the color palette all the way to the distinctively decorated interiors.
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 9/10
You play a sympathetic oddball called Guybrush Threepwood in a world filled with sympathetic oddballs and embark on a pirate adventure spanning multiple different islands. The inhabitants all feel familiar and never out of place, whether it's characters that you met in the original or here for the first time.
CONTENT | 8/10
The game has a more or less perfect length for a graphical adventure at roughly 6 to 10 hours depending on how quickly you solve the puzzles. There are lots of puzzles to solve and a lot of different, distinct locations to visit. The majority of puzzles actually are very solvable and don't fall victim to the unintuitiveness that is commonplace at least once or twice in these games. My only main complaint is that the final half hour is not as well done in terms of puzzles as most of the rest of this game.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 8/10
I really like how many varied locations there are to visit, but it comes at the cost of pacing. You need to walk all the way back to your ship each time you want to move to a different island, and the further you are along, and the more stuck you are, the more common it is to keep traveling around. A fast-travel or shortcut to the ship would have been a big addition. The final showdown, as I already explained in much detail, I also found to be poorly done. Finally, there are many items that clog up your inventory that you never use, which I don't necessarily enjoy in these games. There are also items that you do use but that either don't leave your inventory or that you can pick up again under the impression that this means that you'll be using them later down the line. This never happens though, and since you need to constantly move up and down to pick the correct times, this surplus of items just get in the way for no added benefit.
Overall though, the levels are nicely designed, there is good variety in puzzles, there is logic behind almost all puzzles that I can get behind and locations look nice and are available in large numbers.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 5/10
At this point there have been multiple graphical adventures of this style at the time. This doesn't make them less fun necessarily, just less innovative as time goes on. The unique part about this game is that you got three islands that you constantly travel to and fro, but as I explained above, I see both positives and negatives with that approach, the negative namely being pacing from all the traveling.
REPLAYABILITY | 1/5
No motivation given to replay this game after having beaten it the first time. It's fairly linear, you could just pick up map pieces in different orders I presume. That's more than fine, there just isn't any replayability. If you use the Special Edition, there is the possibility of using dev commentary on a second playthrough to get some backstory on the game development. I didn't do that since I didn't know how much of the sequels would be spoiled potentially.
PLAYABILITY | 4/5
Worked well for 95% of the time. I had two crashes unfortunately (Special Edition) and, more notably, the final section literally didn't work for me for close to half an hour because LeChuck just wouldn't show up.
OVERALL | 74/100
Another great game in the Monkey Island series. I definitely understand why this has a cult following, the characters and dialogue is just very charming, the 4th wall breaking amusing and the "high stakes but not really" plot is enjoyable to follow. The sequel improves on graphics and adds more music, but is otherwise more of the same, with an ending that not everyone will enjoy. Even if you don't, the rest of the game is absolutely worth a playthrough.
Sequel-time is always exciting, and even more so for games that were really enjoyable. With Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, the follow-up to The Secret of Monkey Island, we are in such a situation. This game probably requires no introduction for the majority of you. It released in December 1991 for the Amiga and MS-DOS, was developed and published by LucasArts, was led by Ron Gilbert and uses the SCUMM engine that was used for LucasArts adventure games until the late 90s.
While Monkey Island 2 was a critical success, commercially it fell below expectations. According to Ron Gilbert they sold relatively well, but "Sierra On-Line and King's Quest were still kicking our ass completely". Plus, he wanted to make adventure games for kids after releasing Monkey Island 2. Both of these points combined explain why he left LucasArts less than a year after Monkey Island 2 released to create his own company. Unfortunately, what Ron Gilbert's exit and Monkey Island's good-but-not-good-enough sales meant was that we would not only see no 3rd Monkey Island game until 1997, but that the 3rd game was also not written by its original creator.
I mention this for two reasons. First, 2022's Return to Monkey Island, finally directed and written by Ron Gilbert (and Dave Grossman) again, continues from the ending of this game, not the 4th (which I have never played). Second, this game has an infamous ending, and knowing what I know about the future of the Monkey Island series, I am kind of unsure on how to feel about it.
This is the final game in my challenge in the 1991 play-list. Here is my review for the game.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 8/10
This section is going to be a spoiler-heavy part, so skip this in case you didn't play this game yet and still want to. There are only spoilers for 1 and 2 however, not for 3, 4 and Return to Monkey Island, all of which I haven't played.
Once again, you are Guybrush Threepwood, the clumsy yet determined pirate; a title he has earned for himself in the first Monkey Island game. Now that Guybrush is a pirate and has defeated the evil ghost-pirate LeChuck, he is looking for a new adventure: Finding the treasure called "Big Whoop".
The game starts on Scabb Island, where Guybrush accidentally arrives in search of the lost treasure. I say accidental because the treasure is actually not here. It's not for naught however, as he learns more about the treasure and that there are four map pieces that he needs to acquire in order to find it. To start his search, he needs to get off the island, but that is not possible. While Scabb Island is known for being a lawless island, a man called Largo Lagrande took it upon himself to impose the "Largo Embargo" and to tax all ships arriving and departing with a heavy tax that no pirates in the area could afford. His angry demeanor and, more importantly, his connection to LeChuck as his right hand man in the past, make people scared of him. Everyone but Guybrush of course.
So Guybrush needs to figure out to cleanse Scabb Island from Largo. In the end, he does, but with a cost. He, inadvertently, gives Largo the 'still-alive' beard of LeChuck that he was carrying around to boast about his accomplishments. Largo steals this beard to resurrect LeChuck. So Scabb Island is free of Largo, but Guybrush, as he goes on to explore many other islands in search of the four map pieces, is not free of LeChuck any longer.
The game features many new, but also many returning characters from the original, just like you'd expect from a sequel of a graphical adventure, if you've ever played a different one. This creates both a sense of nostalgia and comfort, but also of a fresh adventure. It helps that the majority of returning characters were funny and quirky in the original, like the "Men of Low Moral Fiber" or Stan the used ship salesman, who opened his own mortuary in this game.
Dialogue is basically the same mix as the original, containing good humor, incredibly dry jokes (in a positive way), a few double entendre's, regular 4th-wall breaking and a contemptuous attitude by most characters towards Guybrush's clumsiness and habit of putting others into precarious positions in order to get himself closer to his goals. Don't get me wrong, Guybrush is a million times more competent than Deponia's Rufus (though both are equally as succesful I suppose), but his charm, pretty much everyone's charm in this world comes from their oddness and naivete. For example, the drycleaner is hard of hearing, the cartographer cannot see without his monocole, the bartender pays you unheard of sums of money upfront only to fire you minutes later without asking for his money back, guard's arrest someone else under your name after they had just arrested you for it minutes earlier etc.
So overall, as endearing as each character is on their own, the game's narrative is nearly entirely as lovely. I say nearly, because there is the ending 'showdown' between LeChuck and Guybrush, and the ending itself to discuss.
First, the showdown: As Guybrush attempts to uncover the treasure from its designated location, a hole opens up and he fall into it. When he comes to, everything is dark, but he locates a light switch. Guybrush finds himself in a room, though not alone. He finds LeChuck himself standing next to him with a voodoo doll. The voodoo doll supposedly will send Guybrush to an endless dimension of pain once LeChuck uses some sort of lightning power to pierce through his voodoo heart. Guybrush does get teleported, but only to the adjacent room. Looks like the doll was made of poor materials. There are 5 such rooms in this ending showdown, and you constantly need to run away from LeChuck, who shows up randomly, and assemble a bunch of items to create your own voodoo doll of him.
This is not a bad idea in itself. The problem arises, or did for me, when I had to find the last piece, which, for the life of me, I couldn't figure out without a guide. There is a room with a broken vending machine. You press the "coin return" and see a coin fly out of the machine and come to a halt at the door. LeChuck enters in a scripted moment to hunch down and grab the coin. At this point, you grab his underwear. Easy. But what you also are apparently supposed to do is give him your handkerchief, so he can blow his nose.
The problem? This is only possible in that room. If LeChuck shows up anywhere else, you can't give him the handkerchief. The bigger problem? There were a lot of times where LeChuck wouldn't show up for minutes (!) at a time, and if he did, he would never enter that one room again for a good 20 minutes. Why? Because it's entirely random where and when he shows up. And if you don't use a guide but did try to use the handkerchief in a different room (out of the 30 items in your inventory at this time), and that didn't work, I don't blame you for not trying it again in that one specific room. I did get it done after a long time, but it was frustrating as hell to get there.
And now, the ending: You assemble the voodoo doll, Guybrush uses it to rip out LeChuck's limbs, and LeChuck, in his final breaths, asks you to take off his mask. It reveals ... Guybrush's brother Chuckie. Apparently, Chuckie was asked of their parents to hunt Guybrush down. A maintenance worker of some sort shows up and tells them that they can't be down there. Scene fades to black, and we get a new scene showing a young Guybrush and a young Chuckie at an amusement park, with their parents scolding Guybrush for running off. As they go off, Chuckie gives a quick stare at the camera and shows a red glow in his eyes. The end. The after-credits scene shows Elaine Marley, Guybrush's love interest, standing over the hole on the surface and wondering whether Guybrush is down there hallucinating again. The actual end.
Wow. Reading opinions on it online, I realized that this was quite an unpopular ending at the time. Having it sit for a day, I'm mostly OK with it, as it allows for your own interpretation and for a lot of discussion without appearing tacked on or fully unreasonable.
So what's the truth here? Is it A) Guybrush is actually still a kid and just imagined the entire stories of 1 and 2? Or B) The "endless dimension of pain" curse that LeChuck was talking about actually manifested itself, and Guybrush will have to endure childhood with Chuckie, who likely bullies him? I am going to try to make a case for both scenarios, knowing full well that both the non-Ron Gilbert and with-Ron Gilbert explanations already exist by now.
Scenario A) There are surprisingly many arguments that can be made for this scenario. Guybrush appears in the first game out of nowhere and declares he wants to be a pirate. One of the requirements to be a pirate? Swordfighting, which apparently are just verbal duels where you try to out-wit your opponent. Another thing: Many characters are returning from the original, even though you explore island far away from Melee Island. Objects too, like the vending machine you destroyed in Monkey Island 1, which appears in the final stage again. The barkeeper won't sell grog to Guybrush without some ID. The "Big Whoop" treasure turns out to just be ... a ticket? To an amusement park perhaps? There are a lot more points I could mention, but to not have this be an essay on the ending, I'll leave it there.
Scenario B) A lot of points that can be made for Scenario B simply include arguing against the likelihood of Scenario A. First, Elaine's after-credits scene makes it seem like she actually exists. She asks if Guybrush is hallucinating again, which makes it likelier that the amusement park scene is not actual reality, but rather a false one created by LeChuck, or simply a dream. Second, the glow in LeChuck's eyes makes it appear, as if LeChuck pulled Guybrush into that universe on purpose. Third, this could have been an elaborate plan by LeChuck throughout the game. There is an earlier scene where Guybrush falls and hallucinates. He sees his parents, then LeChuck, then wakes up shortly after. The final showdown area also has a room where two skeletons lie and supposedly are Guybrush's parents. So has LeChuck been able to track Guybrush's whereabouts throughout the game and manipulate him discretely, to break Guybrush's will and have the curse be a success?
Having the outcome of the story be "it was just a dream" is obviously not the most satisfying, so I understand how players would find it bad. Again, I didn't mind it, but I do agree that Scenario B is preferrable.
All in all though, another enjoyable set of characters and funny dialogue was enough to pull me through this game on its own.
GAMEPLAY | 13/20
This is a graphical adventure by LucasArts / Lucasfilm Games in the style that you've all seen if you ever saw an old-school graphical adventure. The interface consists of the verbs on the bottom left side and your inventory on the bottom right side. You interact with people and objects by clicking on a verb and then on the person/object. It's the same as in the original. You use this interface to pick up items, solve puzzles and talk to people.
What a lot of these games fall victim to at least once or twice, especially old-school graphical adventures, is to create puzzle solutions that are entirely unintuitive and non-sensical, to the point that most players will be stuck and be left with no option but to try out everything possible in order to progress. Or, you know, use a guide. Luckily, this issue doesn't really creep up in Monkey Island 2, at least I found almost all puzzles to more or less make sense. Sure, using a monkey on a water pump is not the most logical solution, but it works in this game world. There were a few times where I had to use a hint, but the solutions made sense in hindsight.
There isn't really too much else that could be said here since this is through and through your average graphical adventure. One thing that I didn't find great was ship travel. You need to go through three different islands to find four map pieces, but this also means that you need items from one island to solve the puzzle on another. Since you need time to figure out what you need to do, you find yourself constantly driving from one island to the other. You need to go back to your ship on the overworld to travel, and the time it takes to do this definitely adds up to the point where the pacing of it all is not always the way you'd like it.
Overall, it's pretty much the same game as the original, just with a slightly better interface.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 9/10
I used the Special Edition but played the classic version. In this edition, there is voice acting, which the classic game didn't actually have at release. But since the Special Edition is the only one available and the one any of you would play, I'm going to say that there is voice acting here for the purposes of this rating. The voice acting is great and the majority of the characters sound unique. It's a situation where half the jokes work because of the writing and half work because of the way they are said. Couldn't really have had a better voive for Guybrush either.
The soundtrack is a fantastic mix of reggae, jazz and classical music, just like the original, with a tinge of whatever is required to set the atmosphere, like a spooky melody for the swamps for example. Plus, it's much longer than the soundtrack for the original as well, and the majority of scenes have a unique track reserved for themselves, which adds to their recognizability.
I'll give this a 9 because voice acting technically wasn't included in 1991, but think of it as a 10 if you play the voice acted versions.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 9/10
I adore the game's art direction. This was extremely well done, right down to the smallest details that suggest there is something you can interact with. From the quirky designs of each character you meet to the significantly more varied and detailed locations compared to the original, to the deep use of the color palette all the way to the distinctively decorated interiors.
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 9/10
You play a sympathetic oddball called Guybrush Threepwood in a world filled with sympathetic oddballs and embark on a pirate adventure spanning multiple different islands. The inhabitants all feel familiar and never out of place, whether it's characters that you met in the original or here for the first time.
CONTENT | 8/10
The game has a more or less perfect length for a graphical adventure at roughly 6 to 10 hours depending on how quickly you solve the puzzles. There are lots of puzzles to solve and a lot of different, distinct locations to visit. The majority of puzzles actually are very solvable and don't fall victim to the unintuitiveness that is commonplace at least once or twice in these games. My only main complaint is that the final half hour is not as well done in terms of puzzles as most of the rest of this game.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 8/10
I really like how many varied locations there are to visit, but it comes at the cost of pacing. You need to walk all the way back to your ship each time you want to move to a different island, and the further you are along, and the more stuck you are, the more common it is to keep traveling around. A fast-travel or shortcut to the ship would have been a big addition. The final showdown, as I already explained in much detail, I also found to be poorly done. Finally, there are many items that clog up your inventory that you never use, which I don't necessarily enjoy in these games. There are also items that you do use but that either don't leave your inventory or that you can pick up again under the impression that this means that you'll be using them later down the line. This never happens though, and since you need to constantly move up and down to pick the correct times, this surplus of items just get in the way for no added benefit.
Overall though, the levels are nicely designed, there is good variety in puzzles, there is logic behind almost all puzzles that I can get behind and locations look nice and are available in large numbers.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 5/10
At this point there have been multiple graphical adventures of this style at the time. This doesn't make them less fun necessarily, just less innovative as time goes on. The unique part about this game is that you got three islands that you constantly travel to and fro, but as I explained above, I see both positives and negatives with that approach, the negative namely being pacing from all the traveling.
REPLAYABILITY | 1/5
No motivation given to replay this game after having beaten it the first time. It's fairly linear, you could just pick up map pieces in different orders I presume. That's more than fine, there just isn't any replayability. If you use the Special Edition, there is the possibility of using dev commentary on a second playthrough to get some backstory on the game development. I didn't do that since I didn't know how much of the sequels would be spoiled potentially.
PLAYABILITY | 4/5
Worked well for 95% of the time. I had two crashes unfortunately (Special Edition) and, more notably, the final section literally didn't work for me for close to half an hour because LeChuck just wouldn't show up.
OVERALL | 74/100
Another great game in the Monkey Island series. I definitely understand why this has a cult following, the characters and dialogue is just very charming, the 4th wall breaking amusing and the "high stakes but not really" plot is enjoyable to follow. The sequel improves on graphics and adds more music, but is otherwise more of the same, with an ending that not everyone will enjoy. Even if you don't, the rest of the game is absolutely worth a playthrough.
(This is the 41st game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
I think this is the first time in this challenge that I'm playing an actual sequel, though Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom chronologically actually plays between Ninja Gaiden I and II. The game came out on June 21, 1991 for the NES. I've actually played this back in December, so my memory of the game isn't so fresh, which means this review will be a bit shorter.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 7/10
This series is known for an unusually big focus on its story at the time, giving players cutscenes that could last for minutes at a time after each level. Add a recognizable main character in Ryu Hayabusa, and I can't really not give this series a solid grade here. What has it stay a couple levels behind other story-heavy games of this time like Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake and graphical adventures, is that the story is missing that one ingredient which makes it memorable. Sure, there is the conspiracy with Irene, Ryu's love interest, being killed by a Ryu Hayabusa lookalike, and sure, there are a few twists present here, but it never really goes deeper than that. You don't gain deeper insight into the mind of Ryu, the antagonist simply has a "take over the world" motive that you see everywhere and the conclusion is pretty much what you would expect. That is not a bad story overall, it's just pretty basic with a few cool little moments and revelations. For video games at the time, again, it's great to see that a game spends so much time to tell a story, but it's not going to make you think about the game after playing it, or beyond the game whilst playing it like Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake for example.
GAMEPLAY | 12/20
The Ninja Gaiden series has hack & slash and platforming gameplay, and that's the same here. This is on the NES just like Ninja Gaiden II was, so there are no improvements here that an SNES release would have given. It did get released for the SNES as part of the Ninja Gaiden Trilogy years later however.
Ninja Gaiden to me felt a bit worse in terms of its gameplay than what I played of the second title. The enemy design felt worse for some, it felt like some features were missing like the ability for Ryu to clone himself, which added a different layer to everything in Ninja Gaiden 2, and so overall, this felt like a worse version of an older game, which is never great for a sequel.
In general though, the hack & slash gameplay in this series is not too bad, it just felt disappointing that this game was made for the NES again and didn't improve, which an SNES release surely would have accomplished.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 8/10
There is no voice acting. The soundtrack is really good. I really like the fast pace to all the beats and it definitely supplemented the game well.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10
The game looks good for an NES game. The graphical presentation, both overall and in cutscenes, is absolutely a plus here.
ATMOSPHERE | 8/10
Varied environments throughout. The urgency put forward by the story along with the great soundtrack make for an exciting affair throughout.
CONTENT | 6/10
The game is just about as long as the previous one I believe, and while the game has a high difficulty overall, what's on offer here is plentiful and challenging. The gameplay is pretty much the same throughout and there isn't much else to this game though, but that's not an issue here.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 5/10
Platforming / Hack & slash sections followed by a cut scene. You do this throughout and then the game ends. Unlike many other platformers, there aren't any levels that try to mix things up a little bit, and the game's difficulty is too high in my opinion.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 6/10
I can write pretty much the same thing here as for the 2nd game in this trilogy. Its focus on storytelling makes this be a pretty original game, the core gameplay is fun, but this is a small step back overall in my opinion.
REPLAYABILITY | 2/5
Apart from trying to beat your high score, there isn't any other motivation given to play this game again.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL | 67/100
Great soundtrack, big focus on storytelling, which is always a plus in my book for this time period, and pretty fun gameplay makes this a recommendation. However, I'd rather recommend the second game for newcomers to the series, which actually is an improvement over the first and probably the best game in this NES trilogy.
I think this is the first time in this challenge that I'm playing an actual sequel, though Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom chronologically actually plays between Ninja Gaiden I and II. The game came out on June 21, 1991 for the NES. I've actually played this back in December, so my memory of the game isn't so fresh, which means this review will be a bit shorter.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 7/10
This series is known for an unusually big focus on its story at the time, giving players cutscenes that could last for minutes at a time after each level. Add a recognizable main character in Ryu Hayabusa, and I can't really not give this series a solid grade here. What has it stay a couple levels behind other story-heavy games of this time like Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake and graphical adventures, is that the story is missing that one ingredient which makes it memorable. Sure, there is the conspiracy with Irene, Ryu's love interest, being killed by a Ryu Hayabusa lookalike, and sure, there are a few twists present here, but it never really goes deeper than that. You don't gain deeper insight into the mind of Ryu, the antagonist simply has a "take over the world" motive that you see everywhere and the conclusion is pretty much what you would expect. That is not a bad story overall, it's just pretty basic with a few cool little moments and revelations. For video games at the time, again, it's great to see that a game spends so much time to tell a story, but it's not going to make you think about the game after playing it, or beyond the game whilst playing it like Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake for example.
GAMEPLAY | 12/20
The Ninja Gaiden series has hack & slash and platforming gameplay, and that's the same here. This is on the NES just like Ninja Gaiden II was, so there are no improvements here that an SNES release would have given. It did get released for the SNES as part of the Ninja Gaiden Trilogy years later however.
Ninja Gaiden to me felt a bit worse in terms of its gameplay than what I played of the second title. The enemy design felt worse for some, it felt like some features were missing like the ability for Ryu to clone himself, which added a different layer to everything in Ninja Gaiden 2, and so overall, this felt like a worse version of an older game, which is never great for a sequel.
In general though, the hack & slash gameplay in this series is not too bad, it just felt disappointing that this game was made for the NES again and didn't improve, which an SNES release surely would have accomplished.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 8/10
There is no voice acting. The soundtrack is really good. I really like the fast pace to all the beats and it definitely supplemented the game well.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10
The game looks good for an NES game. The graphical presentation, both overall and in cutscenes, is absolutely a plus here.
ATMOSPHERE | 8/10
Varied environments throughout. The urgency put forward by the story along with the great soundtrack make for an exciting affair throughout.
CONTENT | 6/10
The game is just about as long as the previous one I believe, and while the game has a high difficulty overall, what's on offer here is plentiful and challenging. The gameplay is pretty much the same throughout and there isn't much else to this game though, but that's not an issue here.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 5/10
Platforming / Hack & slash sections followed by a cut scene. You do this throughout and then the game ends. Unlike many other platformers, there aren't any levels that try to mix things up a little bit, and the game's difficulty is too high in my opinion.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 6/10
I can write pretty much the same thing here as for the 2nd game in this trilogy. Its focus on storytelling makes this be a pretty original game, the core gameplay is fun, but this is a small step back overall in my opinion.
REPLAYABILITY | 2/5
Apart from trying to beat your high score, there isn't any other motivation given to play this game again.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL | 67/100
Great soundtrack, big focus on storytelling, which is always a plus in my book for this time period, and pretty fun gameplay makes this a recommendation. However, I'd rather recommend the second game for newcomers to the series, which actually is an improvement over the first and probably the best game in this NES trilogy.
1990
(This is the 25th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
It's milestone time. Stunts is a 3D racing game developed by Distinctive Software and initially released on October 5th, 1990 for IBM PC compatibles. It's also the 25th game I've beaten for this challenge and the 1st racing game.
It's by the same devs as for The Duel: Test Drive II, which is a very similar game to Stunts, but the big difference is that Stunts focuses on, well, stunts during its courses. I had some fun during my short time with this game, and I can confidently say that for better or worse, Stunts is a game ahead of its time.
____________
STORYTELLING
No surprise that there is no actual story here. But there are 6 characters in total that you can choose as your opponents for a race. I gotta give the game credit here, they could have have phoned it in here but the devs actually did much more than necessary. Characters have clever names and strengths and weaknesses to go with it. For example, there is Joe Stallin, who is slow on straightaways. Next to that, there even is a little bio on each of them that often explains their weaknesses. With Stallin, there is speculation that he "rear-ended another car on a straightaway" and has therefore developed a restraint. Pretty neat stuff, and they all perform differently during races based on their strengths, weaknesses and the track you choose, not to mention the car you choose to give them. Ahead of its time.
GAMEPLAY
Before a race, you pick an opponent (one of the characters or the clock), your own car and the track. Then the race begins. You gotta beat your opponent (you can see the opponent's car as well) and you gotta try to survive. Because once you crash, it's game over.
You can use mouse, keyboard or a joystick for controls. I used my mouse, which was pretty simple to use. You click the right mouse button to accelerate and just move it to turn. The control of your vehicle seems pretty fair. Drive too fast and you'll lose control. Pretty straightforward. And yet, I've crashed more often than I can admit, and that's mainly due to how tracks are designed.
There are tons of stunt pieces on each track, and not only did I find myself flying out of a loop, but I often was driving too fast into a jump while I couldn't keep my car straight, so I'd fly off to the side.
It never really feels unfair, but it also shows its age at the end of the day. Turning feels stiff, the motion is not really smooth. This is to be expected, but it's hard to hide that one is spoiled by racing games of today, or even of the late 90s.
That's a complaint that will pretty much make or break this game for you. Do you need a fresher experience? Then look a few years ahead. Do you enjoy old school racing games? Then you should have already given this game a try. Because here comes the best part.
You can build your own tracks! Yes, seriously. Did I mention that this game is ahead of its time? You can change road surfaces, you can add road pieces like ramps and crossroads and you can add a bunch of stunt pieces to your hearts content. You can do some pretty wild stuff and I can only imagine how hilarious it must have been to build tracks for yourself or especially friend back in the day.
And finally, the game actually saves your replays! That's right, you can actually re-watch your performance. I don't know if this stuff is a first for racing video games or not, but it's definitely pretty advanced stuff either way.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
No voice acting. Cars sound pretty good for a 1990s racing game I'd say, though I don't really have any comparison as of now. The sound's a bit weird on curves, but otherwise it doesn't sound too bad. There isn't much music here but what is there is... alright.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
I like the design of the cars and there is some detail to the scenery during races. The world is drawn with 3D polygon graphics and it translates speed pretty well.
ATMOSPHERE
Not necessarily the game's strength. I would have liked a bit more of an aggressive atmosphere for a game focusing on risky stunts. As it stands, this is a pretty basic racing game's atmosphere.
CONTENT
There is no career mode or online play, and almost no car customization. Naturally, there is only so much you can expect from a 1990 racing game, so none of this is a big deal. What you do have are about half a dozen pre-made tracks, an ability to make some of your own, and races that can be tweaked by choosing opponents with different abilities, not to mention all those test drives you can make to familiarize yourself with tracks, where you can take multiple routes and have a bunch of obstacles to overcome. It's a good racing game for the time.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
Really impressed with how the game managed to add variety to races by adding unique strengths/weaknesses to opponents. I know I mention it a lot but it really is impressive and it's funny to see opponents crash when the track is unfavorable to them.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
A replay system, opponents with strengths and weaknesses and a damn track builder are all in this game, which is pretty impressive.
REPLAYABILITY
Lots of replayability thanks to multiple different opponents, multiple tracks, multiple cars and the ability to create your own tracks.
PLAYABILITY
The game works well at all times.
OVERALL
The theme of this review was "ahead of its time", because the game had some really fun ideas, and plenty were executed well, but with more technical leeway, the features could have really been fleshed out. As it stands, this is a game that shows its age but is pretty fun anyway.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
Couldn't find anything.
It's milestone time. Stunts is a 3D racing game developed by Distinctive Software and initially released on October 5th, 1990 for IBM PC compatibles. It's also the 25th game I've beaten for this challenge and the 1st racing game.
It's by the same devs as for The Duel: Test Drive II, which is a very similar game to Stunts, but the big difference is that Stunts focuses on, well, stunts during its courses. I had some fun during my short time with this game, and I can confidently say that for better or worse, Stunts is a game ahead of its time.
____________
STORYTELLING
No surprise that there is no actual story here. But there are 6 characters in total that you can choose as your opponents for a race. I gotta give the game credit here, they could have have phoned it in here but the devs actually did much more than necessary. Characters have clever names and strengths and weaknesses to go with it. For example, there is Joe Stallin, who is slow on straightaways. Next to that, there even is a little bio on each of them that often explains their weaknesses. With Stallin, there is speculation that he "rear-ended another car on a straightaway" and has therefore developed a restraint. Pretty neat stuff, and they all perform differently during races based on their strengths, weaknesses and the track you choose, not to mention the car you choose to give them. Ahead of its time.
GAMEPLAY
Before a race, you pick an opponent (one of the characters or the clock), your own car and the track. Then the race begins. You gotta beat your opponent (you can see the opponent's car as well) and you gotta try to survive. Because once you crash, it's game over.
You can use mouse, keyboard or a joystick for controls. I used my mouse, which was pretty simple to use. You click the right mouse button to accelerate and just move it to turn. The control of your vehicle seems pretty fair. Drive too fast and you'll lose control. Pretty straightforward. And yet, I've crashed more often than I can admit, and that's mainly due to how tracks are designed.
There are tons of stunt pieces on each track, and not only did I find myself flying out of a loop, but I often was driving too fast into a jump while I couldn't keep my car straight, so I'd fly off to the side.
It never really feels unfair, but it also shows its age at the end of the day. Turning feels stiff, the motion is not really smooth. This is to be expected, but it's hard to hide that one is spoiled by racing games of today, or even of the late 90s.
That's a complaint that will pretty much make or break this game for you. Do you need a fresher experience? Then look a few years ahead. Do you enjoy old school racing games? Then you should have already given this game a try. Because here comes the best part.
You can build your own tracks! Yes, seriously. Did I mention that this game is ahead of its time? You can change road surfaces, you can add road pieces like ramps and crossroads and you can add a bunch of stunt pieces to your hearts content. You can do some pretty wild stuff and I can only imagine how hilarious it must have been to build tracks for yourself or especially friend back in the day.
And finally, the game actually saves your replays! That's right, you can actually re-watch your performance. I don't know if this stuff is a first for racing video games or not, but it's definitely pretty advanced stuff either way.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
No voice acting. Cars sound pretty good for a 1990s racing game I'd say, though I don't really have any comparison as of now. The sound's a bit weird on curves, but otherwise it doesn't sound too bad. There isn't much music here but what is there is... alright.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
I like the design of the cars and there is some detail to the scenery during races. The world is drawn with 3D polygon graphics and it translates speed pretty well.
ATMOSPHERE
Not necessarily the game's strength. I would have liked a bit more of an aggressive atmosphere for a game focusing on risky stunts. As it stands, this is a pretty basic racing game's atmosphere.
CONTENT
There is no career mode or online play, and almost no car customization. Naturally, there is only so much you can expect from a 1990 racing game, so none of this is a big deal. What you do have are about half a dozen pre-made tracks, an ability to make some of your own, and races that can be tweaked by choosing opponents with different abilities, not to mention all those test drives you can make to familiarize yourself with tracks, where you can take multiple routes and have a bunch of obstacles to overcome. It's a good racing game for the time.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
Really impressed with how the game managed to add variety to races by adding unique strengths/weaknesses to opponents. I know I mention it a lot but it really is impressive and it's funny to see opponents crash when the track is unfavorable to them.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
A replay system, opponents with strengths and weaknesses and a damn track builder are all in this game, which is pretty impressive.
REPLAYABILITY
Lots of replayability thanks to multiple different opponents, multiple tracks, multiple cars and the ability to create your own tracks.
PLAYABILITY
The game works well at all times.
OVERALL
The theme of this review was "ahead of its time", because the game had some really fun ideas, and plenty were executed well, but with more technical leeway, the features could have really been fleshed out. As it stands, this is a game that shows its age but is pretty fun anyway.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
Couldn't find anything.
1991
(This is the 47th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
It's always exciting to hit a milestone in video gaming with this challenge, and we certainly did that by arriving at the first 'Final Fantasy' game for the SNES, Final Fantasy IV. Called 'Final Fantasy II' in North America, because FF II and III didn't release in NA originally, Final Fantasy IV is a rather big step forward for the series in many ways. It originally released for the SNES on July 19, 1991 and was re-released for PlayStation in '97 before the decade was over. The game also got a 3-D release in 2007 for the Nintendo DS, which, if ever get there, will probably be the time where we revisit it. Is it worth revisiting? Absolutely it is, but I'll go through all of my thoughts one by one in this lengthy review, hope you enjoy the read.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 8/10
Finally a game with more to write about than "this is character X, he is hunting after evil person Y to save person/object Z". In Final Fantasy IV, the main character is Cecil, who is hunting after Golbez to save Earth. Just kidding, there is of course a lot more to this.
Cecil is a Dark Knight and Captain of the Red Wings at the start of the game, an elite air force unit of the kingdom of Baron. They are tasked to steal the Water Crystal from Mysidia, which makes Cecil feel guilty and ask the king of his motives. Due to this, he is relieved from his duties as Captain. He, along with his friend Kain, is taked to go to the Village of Mist and deliver a package there, a package that, once they arrive, releases bombs and destroys the village.
In the aftermath, he meets Rydia, who is a young and gifted Caller who loses her mother during the bombings and summons a Titan out of anger, a Titan that causes an earthquake. The earthquake separates Cecil and Kain, and leaves Cecil next to an unconcious Rydia, whom he brings to a nearby town. There, Baronian soldiers try to kill Rydia at night, but Cecil fights them off and he and Rydia become allies as a result, and Rydia can help you in battle.
From here, Cecil goes on to meet many important characters that have story impact and/or become playable characters. There are a dozen playable characters in fact, which regularly rotate throughout the game. There are Cecil, Kain and Rydia, then there is Cid, an aircraft engineer, Edward, the Prince of Damcyan, Tellah, a sage, Palom and Porom, twin mages, Rosa, Cecil's love interest and many more. Each character has a set class, so the job system from Final Fantasy III doesn't make it over here.
Final Fantasy IV is lauded for taking a big step forward in dramatic storytelling. Is that fair? If you compare it to games from the last decade, FFIV obviously does very little in comparison. If you compare it to the 46 other games I've played through this challenge, Final Fantasy IV is probably only outmatched by Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, and blows everything else out the water just thanks to its depth and its many, many, dramatic set pieces.
THE PART WITH THE SPOILERS: The problem? So, the dramatic scenes mainly include the death of some of the playable characters. Palom and Porom turn to stone to lean against walls that were closing in to crush the party. Tellah can't bring them back to life. "They have turned into stone by their own will." Yang, a monk from Fabul, sacrifices himself to do ... something in a control room to destroy artillery systems, I couldn't make sense of that one yet. Cid BLOWS HIMSELF up to allow Cecil and crew to leave an underground area. Tellah uses his life energy to use a powerful spell and scare off the antagonist, Golbez, for the time being at least. Some manage to feel more dramatic than others, but the issue is, that apart from Tellah, all of them return to life later on. What? It's like they couldn't do that to all the kids playing the game, so they reversed their decision a few hours later into the game. Are any of these returns explained? Nope. Palom and Porom's return is actually, but apparently it's because their elder unpetrified them, but I thought you couldn't do that because they turned into stone out of their own will? Oh well. As a result, all the dramatics that are being lauded end up being teases than anything else, which is a shame. The game also pulls one of my least favorite ploys of any story, in a game or any other medium, which is present you with a main antagonist for pretty much the entirety of the game, and then announcing an even bigger antagonist right before the end, an antagonist who you never meet until the final boss fight. All this said, some characters do stay dead, and the plot twist of Golbez being used by Zemus, being the brother of Cecil and killing all of these innocent characters does manage to stir one's emotions, especially as you are left feeling like all of this could have been avoided.
The main themes of the game are, of course, the interplay between the Dark and the Light, and the power of friendship / support of your loved ones. Especially the latter you will find to play a role in a ton of JRPGs near the end, but not only does it work, but FFIV is one of the earlier games to do it.
From a critical standpoint, obviously the story does not leave you impressed anymore. There are some plot holes, the dialogue being rather basic, characters being one-dimensional, characters being swapped in and out regularly (which doesn't allow for character development for most) and many of the tropes you've become used to.
But if you look at it from the perspective of your inner child, and, from the perspective of the early 90s, you can't help but feel impressed by what this game set out to do and what it accomplished. Knowing what I know about the reception of the Final Fantasy games that are to come, I'm pretty excited to dive further into the series, which this game accomplished a lot more than Final Fantasy III did.
GAMEPLAY | 13/20
Final Fantasy IV is at a glance of course the same as the previous one's from a gameplay perspective, and as the one's to come in the next years as well. You have your party on the right side, the enemy's appearing on the left side whenever you are randomly (or as part of boss fights) pulled into battle, and you order each member around on a turn-by-turn basis by telling them to attack, use special attacks, use healing magic or an item from your inventory.
But looking at it deeper, there are some additions, subtractions and changes compared to FFIII. First, the game introduces the 'Active Time Battle' (ATB) system, which means that you need to give orders in 'real-time'. So if you take too long, the enemy will not wait for you but instead start attacking again. Second, this is the first Final Fantasy where each character has a pre-determined job/class and unlike in FFIII, there is no job system, so it can't be changed. Third, this is the first and only Final Fantasy which allows your party size to be five. Finally, unlike the previous versions, this has a very simple character development system, in that spellcasters get to gain new spells as they reach pre-determined levels, so you can't purchase spells and give them to your characters anymore.
For the first half or so of this game, this was considerably easier than FFIII. Without having to grind at all, you could pretty much spam attack through the entirety of the boss fights in the first half and heal with your white mage. Done. Then, three things happened. 1) Bosses and regular enemy types start doing a ton of damage, 2) You pretty much have to find a bunch of hidden items in order to deal enough damage or have enough defense to withstand the stronger enemies and 3) The game introduces the single worst enemy attack ever to a bunch of enemies and to pretty much all late-game bosses, which is one-hit kills. Doesn't matter if you're at full health, if you are parrying or whatever, you will simply get one-shot.
This is the biggest game design flaw in my opinion, but there are a few more minor ones that become annoying. For example, if you want to heal someone and he dies before the healing animation plays, you pretty much wasted a heal. If, on the other hand, you anticipate a death and use LIFE on someone (to revive them), and the character does indeed die before the animation plays, you still do not revive them. If you want to punish me due to timing, I should be rewarded for anticipation as well. There are also a lot of late-game bosses that pretty much attack you after each turn of one of your characters, meaning that before you go through all five party members, you are attacked five times. If you don't grind a lot, look up a guide to find all those easily missable 'OP' items and go through OPTIONAL late game areas to grind/get items as well, those attacks all also do a ton of damage.
This all culminates for the final boss fight, where it is not difficult to arrive in a state where your entire party can get one-shotted. I think this is really poor game design where simply following along the main storyline is punished this way. Once you're there, grinding the area immediately prior to the boss fight for hours is pretty much the only thing you can do at that point, and as you can imagine, that's no fun.
Overall, the ATB system I'd say was more negative than positive to me, because you're essentially being punished for having to go through various menus to find the option that you're looking for, which gives your enemies ample time to skip the attack order and strike again. I'd have rather appreciated more time to choose and strategize.
But all the critique aside, if you want to look at it from a glass half-full perspective, the game rewards you for taking your time with the game and then some. It rewards you for not escaping out of fights more than a couple times, for going through optional dungeons, visiting optional areas and yeah, grinding a little bit, by allowing you to make your way through the game easier. At the same time, it makes completion impossible if you simply follow the main path, which is what irks me.
The gameplay itself, which does continue to involve from one Final Fantasy entry to another, is also still not varied enough to really make me feel like playing those extra 5 - 10 hours to do all those optional things or to pop open a guide to go through dungeons again and find those missable items hidden each and every way.
But ultimately, whether you enjoy this or not will pretty much depend on whether you enjoyed the combat system in the other turn-based Final Fantasy entries. This one will improve upon that in some ways, potentially worsen in others depending on your viewpoint (ATB system) but will stay the same more or less.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 9/10
No voice acting. This game takes it a step further with its sound design in that there are a bunch of different attacks with their own special sound effect. That's a small thing, but definitely noticeable. The soundtrack for the most part ranges from good to great. There were a few tracks that I remember hearing in the few hours that I had spent on FFVII before I started this challenge (Red Wings for example), and they were good tracks, so it bodes well for FFIV's soundtrack for those to be originating here. Of course, some tracks are relatively similar to earlier FF entries (battle themes) but the main beauty in the soundtrack of FFIV lies in its diversity and the way it hits the tone of the different dramatic scenarios. You have your romantic tracks (Theme of Love), your ominous tracks whenever you'd take a look at what the antagonists where doing (Ring of Bomb), bittersweet tracks that capture the feeling of powering through despite the loss of your loved ones very well (Rydia), the sad tracks for one of many sorrowful moments (Cry in Sorrow) and then your "shit's going down" track to top it off (Run!!!). Each city/town/village have their own themes as well, many of which differ in tone and theme. Overall, one of the great soundtracks of the early 90's.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10
The jump to the SNES from the NES obviously comes with an improvement in graphics. From improved sprite quality and detail, to increase in detail in the overworld, in locations and in dungeons, to more impressive looking special effects and enemies, and to actually have a background in the battle screen that aligns with the overworld location / dungeon you find yourself in, all of these points are improvements over the previous main entry. Then you add the underworld, some futuristic looking locations and the damn moon to add some variation to the environments and this is overall the kind of step up you would like to see with the jump to the 4th gen of consoles.
ATMOSPHERE | 5/10
You have a mash of themes here with medieaval fantasy along with elements of science fiction, both in terms of location and enemy design. At the same time, apart from using magic, your party is limited to weapons and skills you'd only see in medieaval fantasy, whilst you're being beamed with lasers and such from the enemies. The soundtrack would also support a focus on medieval fantasy rather than the science fiction elements, so it can feel out of place.
CONTENT | 7/10
You have 12 party members overall, about a dozen or so main + optional dungeons, about as many towns/villages/cities, plenty of different versions of your equipment, plenty of dialogue compared to pretty much any other game out there at this point in time and overall a good 20-30 hours of content depending on how much of the optional stuff you end up doing. The optional dungeons are more of the same compared to the main dungeons, of which more than a couple do unfortunately lack in variety and are much too big in size. Apart from those dungeons, and a little bit of optional dialogue here and there, there isn't much else as far as side content goes, but overall there is plenty to do here if you're not opposed to repetitive gameplay.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 5/10
The formula works in a specific way throughout. You go into a dungeon and go in deeper and deeper until you defeat the boss, get back to the quest-giver and get story progression. This game doesn't deviate much from that formula, but it's a good formula, so it doesn't have to. It would be appreciated if it did in some sort of fashion though, because unless you are really into using the same few moves for dozens of battles per dungeon for a dozen dungeons, it will get repetitive after a while.
But a part I subjectively don't like about these old-school RPGs and that I appreciate about more modern ones is the fact that, whether you go through the main path or grind a lot more and do optional dungeons/side quests, the game is designed in a way to be beaten either way. So for the game to be unbeatable at the final boss for me, I definitely didn't like that personally and would call that poor game design personally.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 6/10
This game successfully evolved the Final Fantasy formula and made a rather big leap in storytelling, which is great to see. It didn't put everything in terms of storytelling together quite yet, but it's much improved, and the jump in graphical quality makes this a big step forward compared to FFIII for sure.
REPLAYABILITY | 2/5
If you didn't do any or much of the optional content and still managed to beat this game, you have a few optional dungeons to look forward to for replay value.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL | 68/100
You want sequels to be better than the previous game in some shape or form. Final Fantasy IV is better in many ways compared to Final Fantasy III. Graphics are much improved thanks to the jump to the SNES, there is a much bigger focus on storytelling and the new ATB system, even if not ground-breaking, can be something that makes battles more enjoyable to you. So yes, FF IV is better than FF III in my opinion. But ultimately it comes down to this. Did you enjoy earlier FF versions? If yes, you will enjoy this more. If not, you won't enjoy this either. Personally, I enjoyed it but see a lot of room for improvement, and am excited to see what Square came up with for Final Fantasy V.
It's always exciting to hit a milestone in video gaming with this challenge, and we certainly did that by arriving at the first 'Final Fantasy' game for the SNES, Final Fantasy IV. Called 'Final Fantasy II' in North America, because FF II and III didn't release in NA originally, Final Fantasy IV is a rather big step forward for the series in many ways. It originally released for the SNES on July 19, 1991 and was re-released for PlayStation in '97 before the decade was over. The game also got a 3-D release in 2007 for the Nintendo DS, which, if ever get there, will probably be the time where we revisit it. Is it worth revisiting? Absolutely it is, but I'll go through all of my thoughts one by one in this lengthy review, hope you enjoy the read.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 8/10
Finally a game with more to write about than "this is character X, he is hunting after evil person Y to save person/object Z". In Final Fantasy IV, the main character is Cecil, who is hunting after Golbez to save Earth. Just kidding, there is of course a lot more to this.
Cecil is a Dark Knight and Captain of the Red Wings at the start of the game, an elite air force unit of the kingdom of Baron. They are tasked to steal the Water Crystal from Mysidia, which makes Cecil feel guilty and ask the king of his motives. Due to this, he is relieved from his duties as Captain. He, along with his friend Kain, is taked to go to the Village of Mist and deliver a package there, a package that, once they arrive, releases bombs and destroys the village.
In the aftermath, he meets Rydia, who is a young and gifted Caller who loses her mother during the bombings and summons a Titan out of anger, a Titan that causes an earthquake. The earthquake separates Cecil and Kain, and leaves Cecil next to an unconcious Rydia, whom he brings to a nearby town. There, Baronian soldiers try to kill Rydia at night, but Cecil fights them off and he and Rydia become allies as a result, and Rydia can help you in battle.
From here, Cecil goes on to meet many important characters that have story impact and/or become playable characters. There are a dozen playable characters in fact, which regularly rotate throughout the game. There are Cecil, Kain and Rydia, then there is Cid, an aircraft engineer, Edward, the Prince of Damcyan, Tellah, a sage, Palom and Porom, twin mages, Rosa, Cecil's love interest and many more. Each character has a set class, so the job system from Final Fantasy III doesn't make it over here.
Final Fantasy IV is lauded for taking a big step forward in dramatic storytelling. Is that fair? If you compare it to games from the last decade, FFIV obviously does very little in comparison. If you compare it to the 46 other games I've played through this challenge, Final Fantasy IV is probably only outmatched by Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, and blows everything else out the water just thanks to its depth and its many, many, dramatic set pieces.
THE PART WITH THE SPOILERS: The problem? So, the dramatic scenes mainly include the death of some of the playable characters. Palom and Porom turn to stone to lean against walls that were closing in to crush the party. Tellah can't bring them back to life. "They have turned into stone by their own will." Yang, a monk from Fabul, sacrifices himself to do ... something in a control room to destroy artillery systems, I couldn't make sense of that one yet. Cid BLOWS HIMSELF up to allow Cecil and crew to leave an underground area. Tellah uses his life energy to use a powerful spell and scare off the antagonist, Golbez, for the time being at least. Some manage to feel more dramatic than others, but the issue is, that apart from Tellah, all of them return to life later on. What? It's like they couldn't do that to all the kids playing the game, so they reversed their decision a few hours later into the game. Are any of these returns explained? Nope. Palom and Porom's return is actually, but apparently it's because their elder unpetrified them, but I thought you couldn't do that because they turned into stone out of their own will? Oh well. As a result, all the dramatics that are being lauded end up being teases than anything else, which is a shame. The game also pulls one of my least favorite ploys of any story, in a game or any other medium, which is present you with a main antagonist for pretty much the entirety of the game, and then announcing an even bigger antagonist right before the end, an antagonist who you never meet until the final boss fight. All this said, some characters do stay dead, and the plot twist of Golbez being used by Zemus, being the brother of Cecil and killing all of these innocent characters does manage to stir one's emotions, especially as you are left feeling like all of this could have been avoided.
The main themes of the game are, of course, the interplay between the Dark and the Light, and the power of friendship / support of your loved ones. Especially the latter you will find to play a role in a ton of JRPGs near the end, but not only does it work, but FFIV is one of the earlier games to do it.
From a critical standpoint, obviously the story does not leave you impressed anymore. There are some plot holes, the dialogue being rather basic, characters being one-dimensional, characters being swapped in and out regularly (which doesn't allow for character development for most) and many of the tropes you've become used to.
But if you look at it from the perspective of your inner child, and, from the perspective of the early 90s, you can't help but feel impressed by what this game set out to do and what it accomplished. Knowing what I know about the reception of the Final Fantasy games that are to come, I'm pretty excited to dive further into the series, which this game accomplished a lot more than Final Fantasy III did.
GAMEPLAY | 13/20
Final Fantasy IV is at a glance of course the same as the previous one's from a gameplay perspective, and as the one's to come in the next years as well. You have your party on the right side, the enemy's appearing on the left side whenever you are randomly (or as part of boss fights) pulled into battle, and you order each member around on a turn-by-turn basis by telling them to attack, use special attacks, use healing magic or an item from your inventory.
But looking at it deeper, there are some additions, subtractions and changes compared to FFIII. First, the game introduces the 'Active Time Battle' (ATB) system, which means that you need to give orders in 'real-time'. So if you take too long, the enemy will not wait for you but instead start attacking again. Second, this is the first Final Fantasy where each character has a pre-determined job/class and unlike in FFIII, there is no job system, so it can't be changed. Third, this is the first and only Final Fantasy which allows your party size to be five. Finally, unlike the previous versions, this has a very simple character development system, in that spellcasters get to gain new spells as they reach pre-determined levels, so you can't purchase spells and give them to your characters anymore.
For the first half or so of this game, this was considerably easier than FFIII. Without having to grind at all, you could pretty much spam attack through the entirety of the boss fights in the first half and heal with your white mage. Done. Then, three things happened. 1) Bosses and regular enemy types start doing a ton of damage, 2) You pretty much have to find a bunch of hidden items in order to deal enough damage or have enough defense to withstand the stronger enemies and 3) The game introduces the single worst enemy attack ever to a bunch of enemies and to pretty much all late-game bosses, which is one-hit kills. Doesn't matter if you're at full health, if you are parrying or whatever, you will simply get one-shot.
This is the biggest game design flaw in my opinion, but there are a few more minor ones that become annoying. For example, if you want to heal someone and he dies before the healing animation plays, you pretty much wasted a heal. If, on the other hand, you anticipate a death and use LIFE on someone (to revive them), and the character does indeed die before the animation plays, you still do not revive them. If you want to punish me due to timing, I should be rewarded for anticipation as well. There are also a lot of late-game bosses that pretty much attack you after each turn of one of your characters, meaning that before you go through all five party members, you are attacked five times. If you don't grind a lot, look up a guide to find all those easily missable 'OP' items and go through OPTIONAL late game areas to grind/get items as well, those attacks all also do a ton of damage.
This all culminates for the final boss fight, where it is not difficult to arrive in a state where your entire party can get one-shotted. I think this is really poor game design where simply following along the main storyline is punished this way. Once you're there, grinding the area immediately prior to the boss fight for hours is pretty much the only thing you can do at that point, and as you can imagine, that's no fun.
Overall, the ATB system I'd say was more negative than positive to me, because you're essentially being punished for having to go through various menus to find the option that you're looking for, which gives your enemies ample time to skip the attack order and strike again. I'd have rather appreciated more time to choose and strategize.
But all the critique aside, if you want to look at it from a glass half-full perspective, the game rewards you for taking your time with the game and then some. It rewards you for not escaping out of fights more than a couple times, for going through optional dungeons, visiting optional areas and yeah, grinding a little bit, by allowing you to make your way through the game easier. At the same time, it makes completion impossible if you simply follow the main path, which is what irks me.
The gameplay itself, which does continue to involve from one Final Fantasy entry to another, is also still not varied enough to really make me feel like playing those extra 5 - 10 hours to do all those optional things or to pop open a guide to go through dungeons again and find those missable items hidden each and every way.
But ultimately, whether you enjoy this or not will pretty much depend on whether you enjoyed the combat system in the other turn-based Final Fantasy entries. This one will improve upon that in some ways, potentially worsen in others depending on your viewpoint (ATB system) but will stay the same more or less.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 9/10
No voice acting. This game takes it a step further with its sound design in that there are a bunch of different attacks with their own special sound effect. That's a small thing, but definitely noticeable. The soundtrack for the most part ranges from good to great. There were a few tracks that I remember hearing in the few hours that I had spent on FFVII before I started this challenge (Red Wings for example), and they were good tracks, so it bodes well for FFIV's soundtrack for those to be originating here. Of course, some tracks are relatively similar to earlier FF entries (battle themes) but the main beauty in the soundtrack of FFIV lies in its diversity and the way it hits the tone of the different dramatic scenarios. You have your romantic tracks (Theme of Love), your ominous tracks whenever you'd take a look at what the antagonists where doing (Ring of Bomb), bittersweet tracks that capture the feeling of powering through despite the loss of your loved ones very well (Rydia), the sad tracks for one of many sorrowful moments (Cry in Sorrow) and then your "shit's going down" track to top it off (Run!!!). Each city/town/village have their own themes as well, many of which differ in tone and theme. Overall, one of the great soundtracks of the early 90's.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10
The jump to the SNES from the NES obviously comes with an improvement in graphics. From improved sprite quality and detail, to increase in detail in the overworld, in locations and in dungeons, to more impressive looking special effects and enemies, and to actually have a background in the battle screen that aligns with the overworld location / dungeon you find yourself in, all of these points are improvements over the previous main entry. Then you add the underworld, some futuristic looking locations and the damn moon to add some variation to the environments and this is overall the kind of step up you would like to see with the jump to the 4th gen of consoles.
ATMOSPHERE | 5/10
You have a mash of themes here with medieaval fantasy along with elements of science fiction, both in terms of location and enemy design. At the same time, apart from using magic, your party is limited to weapons and skills you'd only see in medieaval fantasy, whilst you're being beamed with lasers and such from the enemies. The soundtrack would also support a focus on medieval fantasy rather than the science fiction elements, so it can feel out of place.
CONTENT | 7/10
You have 12 party members overall, about a dozen or so main + optional dungeons, about as many towns/villages/cities, plenty of different versions of your equipment, plenty of dialogue compared to pretty much any other game out there at this point in time and overall a good 20-30 hours of content depending on how much of the optional stuff you end up doing. The optional dungeons are more of the same compared to the main dungeons, of which more than a couple do unfortunately lack in variety and are much too big in size. Apart from those dungeons, and a little bit of optional dialogue here and there, there isn't much else as far as side content goes, but overall there is plenty to do here if you're not opposed to repetitive gameplay.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 5/10
The formula works in a specific way throughout. You go into a dungeon and go in deeper and deeper until you defeat the boss, get back to the quest-giver and get story progression. This game doesn't deviate much from that formula, but it's a good formula, so it doesn't have to. It would be appreciated if it did in some sort of fashion though, because unless you are really into using the same few moves for dozens of battles per dungeon for a dozen dungeons, it will get repetitive after a while.
But a part I subjectively don't like about these old-school RPGs and that I appreciate about more modern ones is the fact that, whether you go through the main path or grind a lot more and do optional dungeons/side quests, the game is designed in a way to be beaten either way. So for the game to be unbeatable at the final boss for me, I definitely didn't like that personally and would call that poor game design personally.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 6/10
This game successfully evolved the Final Fantasy formula and made a rather big leap in storytelling, which is great to see. It didn't put everything in terms of storytelling together quite yet, but it's much improved, and the jump in graphical quality makes this a big step forward compared to FFIII for sure.
REPLAYABILITY | 2/5
If you didn't do any or much of the optional content and still managed to beat this game, you have a few optional dungeons to look forward to for replay value.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL | 68/100
You want sequels to be better than the previous game in some shape or form. Final Fantasy IV is better in many ways compared to Final Fantasy III. Graphics are much improved thanks to the jump to the SNES, there is a much bigger focus on storytelling and the new ATB system, even if not ground-breaking, can be something that makes battles more enjoyable to you. So yes, FF IV is better than FF III in my opinion. But ultimately it comes down to this. Did you enjoy earlier FF versions? If yes, you will enjoy this more. If not, you won't enjoy this either. Personally, I enjoyed it but see a lot of room for improvement, and am excited to see what Square came up with for Final Fantasy V.
1990
(This is the 28th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
Hey, finally a game I can remember playing as kid. Super Mario World is a game that some of you may have heard of. It is one of two games that originally released with the SNES on November 21st, 1990 (the other: F-Zero). It was kinda popular. It sold over 20 million copies worldwide. Yeah, so that means I've played the best-selling SNES game ever already.
I mean, I don't need to explain Super Mario games to you, so I won't. What made this one stand out of course is that it was the first Mario game for a 16 bit console and one that used a much larger color palette, so it looked really good when it came out.
Plus, this game has a big difference over Super Mario Bros. 3, and that's of course that you have an ally in Yoshi. But before I get into that, I just gotta start with my conclusion for this game.
Because yes, this game is amazing STILL and honestly, not just easily the best game I've played out of 1990, but one of the best games I've played period. The best part is, I played this on my Steam Deck and not only did it run well, but it was a super smooth experience from beginning to the "end" (didn't beat the game yet). The controls are super responsive, the game looks fantastic, the sound quality is crisp and I was constantly in awe with how well this game aged in pretty much all areas.
The game has a ton of uniquely designed levels. That's a compliment of both the quality and quantity of them. I knew the game was good in that regard, but having played a couple dozen platformers that released in the same year previously, I can't believe how big of a jump in quality Super Mario World makes over every other game. Not only can you enjoy a variety of different levels, not only can you enjoy the challenges for well over a dozen hours for one playthrough, but the game is also just crammed full with features and secrets that allows for your future playthroughs to play out very differently over your first.
It starts with the power ups. Granted, not each power up will be as useful as some others, but you got the power up to increase in size, you got the ability to shoot fire, you can fly, you can turn invincible for a few seconds and you can even combine these when you are with Yoshi.
It took me a little while, but then I discovered that you can sprint, I discovered that you can spin in the air which allows you to destroy blocks below you, I discovered that Yoshi can eat enemies and shoot some of them back out even, and I discovered a bunch of other secrets, like special paths that you can take to finish a level, which opens up hidden paths. These aren't just there for padding, but completing them then adds new colored platforms to all other levels and makes them easier. This adds tons of replayability for multiple reasons.
OVERALL
I could really go on and on here, but I think I made my thoughts clear by now. The game was not just revolutionary at the time, but is still a damn fine video game by today's standards. That's the biggest compliment we can really give to games of old and this game deserves it and more.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Steve Harris for EGM, Issue 25 (Aug 91): "While Super Mario World may not be the ideal cart to show off al the fancy things that the SNES can do..." | and the game goes on to be the best-selling game of the entire console. Not sure what was expected but expectations certainly were high
- ? for Nintendo Power, Issue 27 (Aug 91): "Mario's latest adventure is gigantic."
Hey, finally a game I can remember playing as kid. Super Mario World is a game that some of you may have heard of. It is one of two games that originally released with the SNES on November 21st, 1990 (the other: F-Zero). It was kinda popular. It sold over 20 million copies worldwide. Yeah, so that means I've played the best-selling SNES game ever already.
I mean, I don't need to explain Super Mario games to you, so I won't. What made this one stand out of course is that it was the first Mario game for a 16 bit console and one that used a much larger color palette, so it looked really good when it came out.
Plus, this game has a big difference over Super Mario Bros. 3, and that's of course that you have an ally in Yoshi. But before I get into that, I just gotta start with my conclusion for this game.
Because yes, this game is amazing STILL and honestly, not just easily the best game I've played out of 1990, but one of the best games I've played period. The best part is, I played this on my Steam Deck and not only did it run well, but it was a super smooth experience from beginning to the "end" (didn't beat the game yet). The controls are super responsive, the game looks fantastic, the sound quality is crisp and I was constantly in awe with how well this game aged in pretty much all areas.
The game has a ton of uniquely designed levels. That's a compliment of both the quality and quantity of them. I knew the game was good in that regard, but having played a couple dozen platformers that released in the same year previously, I can't believe how big of a jump in quality Super Mario World makes over every other game. Not only can you enjoy a variety of different levels, not only can you enjoy the challenges for well over a dozen hours for one playthrough, but the game is also just crammed full with features and secrets that allows for your future playthroughs to play out very differently over your first.
It starts with the power ups. Granted, not each power up will be as useful as some others, but you got the power up to increase in size, you got the ability to shoot fire, you can fly, you can turn invincible for a few seconds and you can even combine these when you are with Yoshi.
It took me a little while, but then I discovered that you can sprint, I discovered that you can spin in the air which allows you to destroy blocks below you, I discovered that Yoshi can eat enemies and shoot some of them back out even, and I discovered a bunch of other secrets, like special paths that you can take to finish a level, which opens up hidden paths. These aren't just there for padding, but completing them then adds new colored platforms to all other levels and makes them easier. This adds tons of replayability for multiple reasons.
OVERALL
I could really go on and on here, but I think I made my thoughts clear by now. The game was not just revolutionary at the time, but is still a damn fine video game by today's standards. That's the biggest compliment we can really give to games of old and this game deserves it and more.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Steve Harris for EGM, Issue 25 (Aug 91): "While Super Mario World may not be the ideal cart to show off al the fancy things that the SNES can do..." | and the game goes on to be the best-selling game of the entire console. Not sure what was expected but expectations certainly were high
- ? for Nintendo Power, Issue 27 (Aug 91): "Mario's latest adventure is gigantic."
(This is the 27th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
After giving up on the game some 5 years ago, I gave The Secret of Monkey Island another chance thanks to this challenge I'm currently doing, and I can take this away right now: I'm glad to have seen it through.
This game released all the way back in October 1990, 32 years ago now, and has released in multiple editions for multiple platforms. To play it today, the easy recommendation would be to purchase the Special Edition that came out on July 15, 2009 and is available for PC and PS3/Xbox 360.
The Special Edition added voice acting, improved the graphics, a remastered musical score and even added hints for those of you that are like me and either can't think outside the box enough to figure out a puzzle and/or don't have the patience to think about a single solution for hours.
I played the Special Edition myself, which goes against the idea of the challenge slightly, but not only does the game seamlessly allow you to switch between Classic and Special Edition mode, but this way I also got to experience the full experience, including the voice work, which adds so much to the whole thing.
In this game you play Guybrush Threepwood, who makes his way to Mêlée Island in hopes of becoming a pirate. A group of pirates make him take on the Three Trials and that's where the game, a point & click adventure in case you didn't know, begins. Immediately in the first location, you can find a guy who talks about LOOM, a different LucasArts game from the same year that I actually played a couple months ago when I started the challenge, so that was a fun little surprise and pretty meta.
And breaking the 4th wall is a frequent occurrence in this game. It's one that doesn't take itself too seriously and jokes are at the forefront of every conversation. Even the three trials all end up putting you in humorous situations. For example, you need to hunt for treasure. You need to seek out the map to find the treasure, but when you get it, it actually has dancing lessons on the piece of paper. What that means you need to figure out yourself. For another trial, you need to beat the Sword Master. But turns out, sword-fighting isn't just about sword-fighting, but it's much more important to be able to drop witty insults (or comebacks) during the short breathing breaks. [Have you stopped wearing diapers yet? // Why, did you want to borrow one?]
Stuff like this makes the game comical at worst, hilarious at its best. I can't say everything fully hit my sense of humor like it likely did with others, but I laughed out loud plenty of times, which is more than I can say for many other games that are meant to be funny. There are many jokes I don't want to mention so that you can hear it in game yourself, but here is one silly thing that I laughed more about than I should have. When a guy teaches you to insult during sword fights, he asks you what you would respond with, if someone told you: "Soon you'll be wearing my sword like a shish kebab". And one of the options you could respond with was "So's your mother!". Same with the next question. That line itself works with everything and will always make me laugh, but the voice work by Dominic Armato (voice actor for Guybrush) just was the cherry on top.
In general, the voice acting in this game is phenomenal and so varied. Characters are all caricatures and over the top, so it's really a job well done to have all of them have different personalities like that, though of course many at the end of the day have one combining trait: They're stupid.
The game is divided into four chapters, and the puzzles remained clever throughout, though that's not to say that I didn't find some areas a bit tedious. The third chapter in particular became really tiresome, because you had to go from A to B to C to D multiple times over and the track was slow each time. Being stuck on a puzzle during that part was like a vacation almost, because it meant you could just stay in one place and keep your brain active instead of clicking the mouse to your destination and look as Guybrush took 15 seconds to get there.
That and the fact that some of the puzzles were a bit silly or required you to do things in a certain order are probably my only two complaints here. For example, for one puzzle, I did one thing first, the other next and then wanted to do the third part but it never worked. Finally, I checked a guide and it turns out, I had to do the one thing second, and the other thing first, to successfully be able to do the third part. The thing is, either way should have worked.
That said, I think there are these adventures out there that can be way more tricky and way worse with its puzzles, so it's not that bad here. I think overall the game did a good job of incorporating its areas and puzzles into an overarching story that was actually fun to follow, even if it felt like there could have been a bit more, especially in the second half of the game.
OVERALL
Overall, The Secret of Monkey Island is a great point & click adventure and one any fan of the genre should play. If you're curious about the genre, I'd recommend this, Day of the Tentacle or Grim Fandango as starting points personally, and I'd not shy away from using a guide or a hint (if available), in case you're stuck. All of these games have a ton of charm and even if you do find yourself being stuck here and there, to me it's just really a comfortable and relaxing time to play through these games that all have this chill vibe to them.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Otter Matic for GamePro, Issue 43 (Feb 93): "The dialogue is funnier than a simian's uncle."
- Ed Dille, Issue 27 (Apr 91): "The control interface for Monkey Island is superb."
After giving up on the game some 5 years ago, I gave The Secret of Monkey Island another chance thanks to this challenge I'm currently doing, and I can take this away right now: I'm glad to have seen it through.
This game released all the way back in October 1990, 32 years ago now, and has released in multiple editions for multiple platforms. To play it today, the easy recommendation would be to purchase the Special Edition that came out on July 15, 2009 and is available for PC and PS3/Xbox 360.
The Special Edition added voice acting, improved the graphics, a remastered musical score and even added hints for those of you that are like me and either can't think outside the box enough to figure out a puzzle and/or don't have the patience to think about a single solution for hours.
I played the Special Edition myself, which goes against the idea of the challenge slightly, but not only does the game seamlessly allow you to switch between Classic and Special Edition mode, but this way I also got to experience the full experience, including the voice work, which adds so much to the whole thing.
In this game you play Guybrush Threepwood, who makes his way to Mêlée Island in hopes of becoming a pirate. A group of pirates make him take on the Three Trials and that's where the game, a point & click adventure in case you didn't know, begins. Immediately in the first location, you can find a guy who talks about LOOM, a different LucasArts game from the same year that I actually played a couple months ago when I started the challenge, so that was a fun little surprise and pretty meta.
And breaking the 4th wall is a frequent occurrence in this game. It's one that doesn't take itself too seriously and jokes are at the forefront of every conversation. Even the three trials all end up putting you in humorous situations. For example, you need to hunt for treasure. You need to seek out the map to find the treasure, but when you get it, it actually has dancing lessons on the piece of paper. What that means you need to figure out yourself. For another trial, you need to beat the Sword Master. But turns out, sword-fighting isn't just about sword-fighting, but it's much more important to be able to drop witty insults (or comebacks) during the short breathing breaks. [Have you stopped wearing diapers yet? // Why, did you want to borrow one?]
Stuff like this makes the game comical at worst, hilarious at its best. I can't say everything fully hit my sense of humor like it likely did with others, but I laughed out loud plenty of times, which is more than I can say for many other games that are meant to be funny. There are many jokes I don't want to mention so that you can hear it in game yourself, but here is one silly thing that I laughed more about than I should have. When a guy teaches you to insult during sword fights, he asks you what you would respond with, if someone told you: "Soon you'll be wearing my sword like a shish kebab". And one of the options you could respond with was "So's your mother!". Same with the next question. That line itself works with everything and will always make me laugh, but the voice work by Dominic Armato (voice actor for Guybrush) just was the cherry on top.
In general, the voice acting in this game is phenomenal and so varied. Characters are all caricatures and over the top, so it's really a job well done to have all of them have different personalities like that, though of course many at the end of the day have one combining trait: They're stupid.
The game is divided into four chapters, and the puzzles remained clever throughout, though that's not to say that I didn't find some areas a bit tedious. The third chapter in particular became really tiresome, because you had to go from A to B to C to D multiple times over and the track was slow each time. Being stuck on a puzzle during that part was like a vacation almost, because it meant you could just stay in one place and keep your brain active instead of clicking the mouse to your destination and look as Guybrush took 15 seconds to get there.
That and the fact that some of the puzzles were a bit silly or required you to do things in a certain order are probably my only two complaints here. For example, for one puzzle, I did one thing first, the other next and then wanted to do the third part but it never worked. Finally, I checked a guide and it turns out, I had to do the one thing second, and the other thing first, to successfully be able to do the third part. The thing is, either way should have worked.
That said, I think there are these adventures out there that can be way more tricky and way worse with its puzzles, so it's not that bad here. I think overall the game did a good job of incorporating its areas and puzzles into an overarching story that was actually fun to follow, even if it felt like there could have been a bit more, especially in the second half of the game.
OVERALL
Overall, The Secret of Monkey Island is a great point & click adventure and one any fan of the genre should play. If you're curious about the genre, I'd recommend this, Day of the Tentacle or Grim Fandango as starting points personally, and I'd not shy away from using a guide or a hint (if available), in case you're stuck. All of these games have a ton of charm and even if you do find yourself being stuck here and there, to me it's just really a comfortable and relaxing time to play through these games that all have this chill vibe to them.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Otter Matic for GamePro, Issue 43 (Feb 93): "The dialogue is funnier than a simian's uncle."
- Ed Dille, Issue 27 (Apr 91): "The control interface for Monkey Island is superb."
(This is the 54th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
We're a bit late into the 'Wonder Boy' series, as the Platformer / Action-Adventure 'Wonder Boy in Monster World', which released on October 25, 1991 for the Sega Genesis, is the fifth game in the Wonder Boy series already and only two more games release for this series from here on out in 1994 and, interestingly enough, 2018. The games preceding and succeeding this game I'm about to review also received remakes in the past decade, so the series has seen somewhat of a revival recently.
For its time, Wonder Boy in Monster World received positive reviews and currently carries a 7.5 Moby Score. Multiple magazines are quoted saying something to the tune of "Who needs Sonic, when you can have Wonder Boy", which I found funny to read in retrospect, but it should tell you that this isn't just some random character, but rather a relatively popular one. Some magazines weren't all too kind, like Sega Power's review saying that this is "one aimed at younger players, but I think that even they will find this very boring or repetitive." Who was right according to my taste? Well I'll start with this: I didn't beat the game.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 3/10
In this adventure of Wonder Boy, you play Wonder Boy, who needs to save Monster World, which is under attack by ... monsters? Where else did you think the monsters wanted to be at? The Wonder Boy by the way has a name, he is called Shion.
Shion gets the help of many residents of Monster World. He can use one girl's 'Ocarina', an instrument that unlocks door if the right melody is played. He can use Poseidon's trident to explore the underwater areas. He gets the assistant of a dwarven kid that unlocks the path to a cave filled with monsters.
There isn't a lot of dialogue here besides the generic few talks you will have with people who want you to help them, so that they agree to help you afterwards. You are thanked a lot for being a hero and on you go until you win the game. After you defeat the final boss, the end credits actually play immediately after, which is kind of anti-climactic, though there are post-credit scenes where the resolution of the story is quickly explained. Again, it's generic "the hero saved everyone, so that they can live on happily ever after, or until the sequel at least." talk.
As is usual for games that call themselves side-scrolling Action RPGs at this time, you discover towns and have a few people there that you can talk to (I wouldn't call this an RPG though). Though when I say a few, I do mean just a few, as there aren't many characters walking around.
This game is also another one of those that has you run around colorful worlds for most of it, only to have the final act be in some sort of futuristic looking area against a futuristic looking final boss. Why were so many end-game areas designed like this? The games often have no hint of sci-fi, but all of a sudden some rogue AI / robot from a distant planet wants to use his futuristic weaponry to destroy you, and you poor dude with just your sword are supposed to put an end to it. Well, you do in the end, but you know, it's getting hilarious at this point how this seems to be the resolution so often.
GAMEPLAY | 9/20
This is called a side-scrolling platformer / action adventure / RPG. The first genre is correct. The second as well. As far as RPG's go, this I wouldn't call one of them. There is no character progression in terms of stats or any decisions you can make, there is in general no choice you can make and the only stats that are there are for attack, defense and speed. Armor, weapons, shields and boots are what effect those stats. You get those by opening chests and going to stores, though you'll have to do a lot of grinding for gold to get many of those store items.
So yeah, it's not an RPG, you simply control Shion in this side-scrolling platformer. From the 3 hours I've played, there wasn't much exploration but rather convoluted level design that made you look around for where to go next. There isn't really any area or anything that opens up for optional exploration. There are some harder to reach chests in this game, some of which are tricky to find. I got to one by accident by pressing up randomly (you press up to enter rooms), and a room appearing in the middle of nowhere and leading me straight to a chest. That can hardly be called exploration though.
So you are equipped with a melee weapon and have to fight enemies, some of which can jump up, some of which can swoop down, some of which can throw stuff at you, rush you, guard with their own shields and all sorts. The problem is that the swinging animation of yours takes a few frames too long, so what happens way too often is that you try to time the swing right, but you are a split second too early and before you get a second swing off, you already get hit by an enemy rushing you. The tough part is that once you die, you are sent back to your last save, which will be at the previous inn. This can send you back many, many minutes, and there is often plenty of time between your last save and the boss fight for example.
Boss fights represent ridiculous difficulty spikes here. Until the first boss for example, apart from those swing animation issues, you won't have any problems. And then you reach the boss and it just jumps on top of you constantly whilst throwing up tiny minions that hurt you when they run into you. So you got 4-5 minions coming after you from both sides, the boss coming from the top and until you take a looong time to figure out how to beat this thing, you'll, well, lose a loooot of time, and it doesn't really fell satisfying either. This the case for a lot of boss fights where it feels like the enemy attack patterns are way too wild and random. The main thing this game does with boss fights is just throw a bunch of stuff at you at once, which makes it hard to dodge, but even harder to find an opening to strike. Not fun.
The worst issue comes a few hours in however, when you are supposed to use Poseidon's trident to go underwater and find Poseidon. Multiple times I found myself thinking "where the hell do you want me to go and why are you making it this so convoluted?" I looked up the solution for a while and you know it's not a good sign when you see the actual path and think to yourself that this is way too unnecessary.
In the end, the save system and repetitively annoying gameplay made me abandon this one a few hours before completion. It's not even like this is a game where it being so hard is the point. It's not necessarily even that hard in terms of combat, bosses excluded, but finding your path and having to go all the way back to inns due to the lack of save points just makes the game annoying to play.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 7/10
No voice acting. The soundtrack ranges from meh to really good. The intro track sets a good tone for a game this is both child-friendly and one that will kick your butt repeatedly, and while few tracks combine these themes, you'll have tracks do a pretty good job of using either one to give off a relaxing vibe or one that captures the tension well. However there are some true stinkers here as well, like Village Theme 1, not to be mistaken with Village Theme 2.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 7/10
This game has good looking graphics thanks to its use of a wide color palette and attention to detail in the scrolling backgrounds. One interesting thing the game does in its villages is a visual transition effect when you enter a house, which makes the inside of the house become visible.
The sprite work, enemy design and animation here is not great, but the devs created a cozy and inviting world here, at least graphically, though it kinda starts falling apart a bitonce you hit some rough patches when it comes to hard enemies/bosses or not knowing where to go.
ATMOSPHERE | 5/10
Welcome to monster world, a world called after monsters that is in turmoil as it gets invaded by monsters. The game uses all the tropes you'd expect from a platformer of the early 90s, so unless this was one of the few games you played over and over at the time, you will notice that it doesn't offer anything new and doesn't really pull you in like plenty of other games manage to do. The world that is created here in its basic form, thanks to its soundtrack and graphical presentation, is inviting overall though, however you'll be stuck at very hard bosses and puzzles multiple times, so more likely than not it's only inviting until a certain point, where you likely will find yourself stuck, especially if you were a kid in the 90s playing this.
CONTENT | 6/10
Enough content here for an Action Adventure like this. You got many boss fights, many different enemy types, different types of equipment, plenty of puzzles and hidden stuff too boot. Not all of this is good content, but you'll be busy for a good 10 hours if you decide to play it to the end.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 4/10
Most of the time, where you need to go is straightforward. Then there are times where you will keep running around in circles, unless you figure out that you need to go to X first or press Y, which unlocks a new path. That sort of environmental puzzle is pretty enjoyable. But most of the time when things aren't straightforward, you're meant to go to some place that is only described very imprecisely, and it's a lot of time away and makes it very easy to get lost with no positive impact on fun factor or satisfaction from figuring out the way. Add to that that if you die on your way there, you're sent back all the way to the last inn you saved at, and you can see where you'd get easily frustrated.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 2/10
Nothing new on offer here, it's a mix of features and a focus on themes and a theme for its world that you have seen in a lot of different games before. There isn't even a specific thing this game tries to focus on more than on other areas, the game is meh to alright in every area, which makes for a meh game overall. It's got average world building, basic gameplay, convoluted level design, a middle-of-the-pack soundtrack, frustrating boss fights, slow pace and a boring set of one-dimensional characters. I'm sure the series has done better than this, but this game isn't doing anything above-average unfortunately.
REPLAYABILITY | 2/5
You can look for some more of those hidden equipment or health items in a second playthrough, but there is no other motivation given to play through it twice.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL | 50/100
You know, I'll take a game that is below-average in most aspects of a video game, if it does a specific thing really well. But Wonder Boy in Monster World doesn't really rate better than "average" in anything, as it's a game that takes many features of better games, puts them together and ends up being a worse product. So it's a skip for me, there are plenty of better retro platformers / action adventures to play from this time period, though it's definitely not a 'terrible game'.
We're a bit late into the 'Wonder Boy' series, as the Platformer / Action-Adventure 'Wonder Boy in Monster World', which released on October 25, 1991 for the Sega Genesis, is the fifth game in the Wonder Boy series already and only two more games release for this series from here on out in 1994 and, interestingly enough, 2018. The games preceding and succeeding this game I'm about to review also received remakes in the past decade, so the series has seen somewhat of a revival recently.
For its time, Wonder Boy in Monster World received positive reviews and currently carries a 7.5 Moby Score. Multiple magazines are quoted saying something to the tune of "Who needs Sonic, when you can have Wonder Boy", which I found funny to read in retrospect, but it should tell you that this isn't just some random character, but rather a relatively popular one. Some magazines weren't all too kind, like Sega Power's review saying that this is "one aimed at younger players, but I think that even they will find this very boring or repetitive." Who was right according to my taste? Well I'll start with this: I didn't beat the game.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 3/10
In this adventure of Wonder Boy, you play Wonder Boy, who needs to save Monster World, which is under attack by ... monsters? Where else did you think the monsters wanted to be at? The Wonder Boy by the way has a name, he is called Shion.
Shion gets the help of many residents of Monster World. He can use one girl's 'Ocarina', an instrument that unlocks door if the right melody is played. He can use Poseidon's trident to explore the underwater areas. He gets the assistant of a dwarven kid that unlocks the path to a cave filled with monsters.
There isn't a lot of dialogue here besides the generic few talks you will have with people who want you to help them, so that they agree to help you afterwards. You are thanked a lot for being a hero and on you go until you win the game. After you defeat the final boss, the end credits actually play immediately after, which is kind of anti-climactic, though there are post-credit scenes where the resolution of the story is quickly explained. Again, it's generic "the hero saved everyone, so that they can live on happily ever after, or until the sequel at least." talk.
As is usual for games that call themselves side-scrolling Action RPGs at this time, you discover towns and have a few people there that you can talk to (I wouldn't call this an RPG though). Though when I say a few, I do mean just a few, as there aren't many characters walking around.
This game is also another one of those that has you run around colorful worlds for most of it, only to have the final act be in some sort of futuristic looking area against a futuristic looking final boss. Why were so many end-game areas designed like this? The games often have no hint of sci-fi, but all of a sudden some rogue AI / robot from a distant planet wants to use his futuristic weaponry to destroy you, and you poor dude with just your sword are supposed to put an end to it. Well, you do in the end, but you know, it's getting hilarious at this point how this seems to be the resolution so often.
GAMEPLAY | 9/20
This is called a side-scrolling platformer / action adventure / RPG. The first genre is correct. The second as well. As far as RPG's go, this I wouldn't call one of them. There is no character progression in terms of stats or any decisions you can make, there is in general no choice you can make and the only stats that are there are for attack, defense and speed. Armor, weapons, shields and boots are what effect those stats. You get those by opening chests and going to stores, though you'll have to do a lot of grinding for gold to get many of those store items.
So yeah, it's not an RPG, you simply control Shion in this side-scrolling platformer. From the 3 hours I've played, there wasn't much exploration but rather convoluted level design that made you look around for where to go next. There isn't really any area or anything that opens up for optional exploration. There are some harder to reach chests in this game, some of which are tricky to find. I got to one by accident by pressing up randomly (you press up to enter rooms), and a room appearing in the middle of nowhere and leading me straight to a chest. That can hardly be called exploration though.
So you are equipped with a melee weapon and have to fight enemies, some of which can jump up, some of which can swoop down, some of which can throw stuff at you, rush you, guard with their own shields and all sorts. The problem is that the swinging animation of yours takes a few frames too long, so what happens way too often is that you try to time the swing right, but you are a split second too early and before you get a second swing off, you already get hit by an enemy rushing you. The tough part is that once you die, you are sent back to your last save, which will be at the previous inn. This can send you back many, many minutes, and there is often plenty of time between your last save and the boss fight for example.
Boss fights represent ridiculous difficulty spikes here. Until the first boss for example, apart from those swing animation issues, you won't have any problems. And then you reach the boss and it just jumps on top of you constantly whilst throwing up tiny minions that hurt you when they run into you. So you got 4-5 minions coming after you from both sides, the boss coming from the top and until you take a looong time to figure out how to beat this thing, you'll, well, lose a loooot of time, and it doesn't really fell satisfying either. This the case for a lot of boss fights where it feels like the enemy attack patterns are way too wild and random. The main thing this game does with boss fights is just throw a bunch of stuff at you at once, which makes it hard to dodge, but even harder to find an opening to strike. Not fun.
The worst issue comes a few hours in however, when you are supposed to use Poseidon's trident to go underwater and find Poseidon. Multiple times I found myself thinking "where the hell do you want me to go and why are you making it this so convoluted?" I looked up the solution for a while and you know it's not a good sign when you see the actual path and think to yourself that this is way too unnecessary.
In the end, the save system and repetitively annoying gameplay made me abandon this one a few hours before completion. It's not even like this is a game where it being so hard is the point. It's not necessarily even that hard in terms of combat, bosses excluded, but finding your path and having to go all the way back to inns due to the lack of save points just makes the game annoying to play.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 7/10
No voice acting. The soundtrack ranges from meh to really good. The intro track sets a good tone for a game this is both child-friendly and one that will kick your butt repeatedly, and while few tracks combine these themes, you'll have tracks do a pretty good job of using either one to give off a relaxing vibe or one that captures the tension well. However there are some true stinkers here as well, like Village Theme 1, not to be mistaken with Village Theme 2.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 7/10
This game has good looking graphics thanks to its use of a wide color palette and attention to detail in the scrolling backgrounds. One interesting thing the game does in its villages is a visual transition effect when you enter a house, which makes the inside of the house become visible.
The sprite work, enemy design and animation here is not great, but the devs created a cozy and inviting world here, at least graphically, though it kinda starts falling apart a bitonce you hit some rough patches when it comes to hard enemies/bosses or not knowing where to go.
ATMOSPHERE | 5/10
Welcome to monster world, a world called after monsters that is in turmoil as it gets invaded by monsters. The game uses all the tropes you'd expect from a platformer of the early 90s, so unless this was one of the few games you played over and over at the time, you will notice that it doesn't offer anything new and doesn't really pull you in like plenty of other games manage to do. The world that is created here in its basic form, thanks to its soundtrack and graphical presentation, is inviting overall though, however you'll be stuck at very hard bosses and puzzles multiple times, so more likely than not it's only inviting until a certain point, where you likely will find yourself stuck, especially if you were a kid in the 90s playing this.
CONTENT | 6/10
Enough content here for an Action Adventure like this. You got many boss fights, many different enemy types, different types of equipment, plenty of puzzles and hidden stuff too boot. Not all of this is good content, but you'll be busy for a good 10 hours if you decide to play it to the end.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 4/10
Most of the time, where you need to go is straightforward. Then there are times where you will keep running around in circles, unless you figure out that you need to go to X first or press Y, which unlocks a new path. That sort of environmental puzzle is pretty enjoyable. But most of the time when things aren't straightforward, you're meant to go to some place that is only described very imprecisely, and it's a lot of time away and makes it very easy to get lost with no positive impact on fun factor or satisfaction from figuring out the way. Add to that that if you die on your way there, you're sent back all the way to the last inn you saved at, and you can see where you'd get easily frustrated.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 2/10
Nothing new on offer here, it's a mix of features and a focus on themes and a theme for its world that you have seen in a lot of different games before. There isn't even a specific thing this game tries to focus on more than on other areas, the game is meh to alright in every area, which makes for a meh game overall. It's got average world building, basic gameplay, convoluted level design, a middle-of-the-pack soundtrack, frustrating boss fights, slow pace and a boring set of one-dimensional characters. I'm sure the series has done better than this, but this game isn't doing anything above-average unfortunately.
REPLAYABILITY | 2/5
You can look for some more of those hidden equipment or health items in a second playthrough, but there is no other motivation given to play through it twice.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL | 50/100
You know, I'll take a game that is below-average in most aspects of a video game, if it does a specific thing really well. But Wonder Boy in Monster World doesn't really rate better than "average" in anything, as it's a game that takes many features of better games, puts them together and ends up being a worse product. So it's a skip for me, there are plenty of better retro platformers / action adventures to play from this time period, though it's definitely not a 'terrible game'.