fe17
1992
The Top Gear series, but especially this first title, was and is incredibly popular in South America. I found out about this pretty quickly when researching the game. What this game's unique selling propositions are would be three-fold.
First, Top Gear has a fast pace. Not F-Zero fast, but pretty fast. Especially if you're going up and down hills, it can get pretty hectic. Second, it comes with dozens of courses spanning the whole world, from Germany to Brazil, from LA to Tokyo. Is there enough variety to support these 32 total courses? Not quite. Most actually feel very similar, and are distinguished by pretty small additions (obstacles on the course) and length.
The third and final USP is pretty cool. The game adds strategy to races. There is your typical nitro system that is limited to 3 uses per race. There is the selection of one of four cars, which differ in speed, handling and fuel consumption. Finally, fuel consumption itself is a big deal, as you have limited fuel that will get depleted before you finish the race on certain courses that are up to 7 laps long I believe. This means you need to use pit stops and time your visits well, as you will lose ground while you're waiting for your fuel to charge.
Overall, I appreciated these elements. Adding this feature does mean however that some tracks can take up to 6 minutes though. That's something you might feel one way or the other about in arcade racers, but I enjoyed the shorter levels more, even without pit stops becoming a factor.
One negative I want to mention is that half of the screen is constantly blocked by a split-screen setup that shows a computer racing below you. This is no issue in 2-Player of course, but could have been removed for single player.
In terms of content, the game offers you the four aforementioned cars, the 32 maps and puts these two things together for one single mode, which is a campaign through all maps in the game. You start in the USA and have to finish in a certain spot on the ranking to qualify for the next set of maps. I finished 2nd once and still qualified, so up to half of the game, there was no need to finish 1st yet. Finishing 4th didn't do the job though.
Finally, the soundtrack is worth a mention. There are some great tracks here, but out of the 4 used for the 32 tracks, I felt indifferent about two, so I felt there wasn't enough variety here and it wasn't an F-Zero situation where I was bopping my head to pretty much all tracks and even listened to some of them outside of the game from time to time. In general, the soundtrack is seen as one of the highlights of this game, so your enjoyment of it may differ. I just found 4 tracks to be too few either way.
Overall, Top Gear is a fun racing game. It doesn't surpass F-Zero as my favorite racing game for the SNES (so far), but it is similarly addictive and I have no hard time figuring out why it's still popular at some parts of the Earth.
(I played this as part of my challenge to go through notable video games in chronological order starting in 1990.)
First, Top Gear has a fast pace. Not F-Zero fast, but pretty fast. Especially if you're going up and down hills, it can get pretty hectic. Second, it comes with dozens of courses spanning the whole world, from Germany to Brazil, from LA to Tokyo. Is there enough variety to support these 32 total courses? Not quite. Most actually feel very similar, and are distinguished by pretty small additions (obstacles on the course) and length.
The third and final USP is pretty cool. The game adds strategy to races. There is your typical nitro system that is limited to 3 uses per race. There is the selection of one of four cars, which differ in speed, handling and fuel consumption. Finally, fuel consumption itself is a big deal, as you have limited fuel that will get depleted before you finish the race on certain courses that are up to 7 laps long I believe. This means you need to use pit stops and time your visits well, as you will lose ground while you're waiting for your fuel to charge.
Overall, I appreciated these elements. Adding this feature does mean however that some tracks can take up to 6 minutes though. That's something you might feel one way or the other about in arcade racers, but I enjoyed the shorter levels more, even without pit stops becoming a factor.
One negative I want to mention is that half of the screen is constantly blocked by a split-screen setup that shows a computer racing below you. This is no issue in 2-Player of course, but could have been removed for single player.
In terms of content, the game offers you the four aforementioned cars, the 32 maps and puts these two things together for one single mode, which is a campaign through all maps in the game. You start in the USA and have to finish in a certain spot on the ranking to qualify for the next set of maps. I finished 2nd once and still qualified, so up to half of the game, there was no need to finish 1st yet. Finishing 4th didn't do the job though.
Finally, the soundtrack is worth a mention. There are some great tracks here, but out of the 4 used for the 32 tracks, I felt indifferent about two, so I felt there wasn't enough variety here and it wasn't an F-Zero situation where I was bopping my head to pretty much all tracks and even listened to some of them outside of the game from time to time. In general, the soundtrack is seen as one of the highlights of this game, so your enjoyment of it may differ. I just found 4 tracks to be too few either way.
Overall, Top Gear is a fun racing game. It doesn't surpass F-Zero as my favorite racing game for the SNES (so far), but it is similarly addictive and I have no hard time figuring out why it's still popular at some parts of the Earth.
(I played this as part of my challenge to go through notable video games in chronological order starting in 1990.)
1990
Final Fantasy III was released exclusively in Japan for NES on April 27, 1990 until it got a worldwide release multiple times since, the first of such occasions occurring in 2006 with the DS release (a 3D remake). Most recently, a Pixel Remaster released worldwide on July 28, 2021.
I have played the original NES version because the DS version, despite few QoL improvements, is a 3D remake and therefore differs significantly enough that I chose to stick with the original. If you're considering playing this game, I would only play the NES version if you are really into old school RPGs of this time and have already played and finished something similar. Even though I found this to be more than playable, it hasn't aged well in many aspects that make a playthrough without using any guide extremely difficult. The HowLongToBeat time on this game (~20 hours for a playthrough) is very wrong in that regard. You will be stuck multiple times, you will die multiple times and most importantly, you will have to grind a lot (though this will not differ much from version to version).
The grind part is probably my most significant issue with this game and the reason why I didn't finish the game, and I'd assume a reason for many others. The game introduced the "job system" to Final Fantasy. This is a system of different classes (white/black/red mages, warriors and knights, dragoons and ninjas etc.) that you can apply to your characters on the fly. Each job has a separate level to your overall level and only the job you are currently using gains XP. This is in itself a great system and we will learn how it gets refined over the next few entries as this challenge progresses, however the first time this is implemented creates quite a lot of pain to first time players, especially those who don't check guides for this game.
The game has multiple sections where specific jobs need to be used to actually progress through them, and especially once you get near the end, there only are very few jobs that will actually be good enough for you to beat the game. Since jobs don't get XP unless you use them, this means you either have to use a guide (1), have to be lucky and figure out a working group of jobs (2) or grind out multiple of them (3). Even if you end up using a guide, you will not be spared of the grind.
It is typical for JRPGs of this age that you are expected to grind, and it's something I have done for a few hours over my 15 total hours with this game, but ultimately even that wasn't enough to progress through the boss that I ultimately abandoned the game at. I've definitely extended my tolerance for grinding with this game, which was pretty much non-existent before starting this challenge due to my inexperience with games like these (current JRPGs I usually play on "easy"). If you have a high tolerance, again, without a guide there is a good chance you will have build the wrong "team" to face the final dungeon with, which makes this a tough game to recommend to first time players on multiple fronts.
But if you're OK with all of that and want to play this game to experience every Final Fantasy entry (if you haven't played any FF games before, I would have to suggest picking one from 4 onwards), then you can check out the following review sections to learn more on what this game has to offer and what I thought about it. :)
STORYTELLING
This game has a very basic story about darkness and light that ultimately is your typical "the world is about to end, so be its hero" plot. I've not played many games from this time but they've so far all been the same overall. The reason why they're the same is because it works and is motivating enough, but don't look for anything special in the plot of this game.
You control four orphans who at the beginning of the game check out a cave that opened up as a result of an earthquake and find a crystal of light. The crystal gives the four of them its power and tells them to restore the balance in this world. In the past (a thousand years ago), a group of Warriors of Darkness fought against a "flood of light" to restore the balance, now our heroes of Light need to do the opposite. There are light crystals and dark crystals, antagonists looking to abuse their power, a bunch of characters that are aiding our heroes and all that stuff that works but is ultimately not memorable.
What makes this game stand out in this aspect however is the lore and world building. Each town has multiple town-folk running around who are waiting to dump a tiny bit of lore on you when you talk to them. This is optional and you don't gain anything from it apart from immersion - some NPCs do offer you items though - but the immersion gained is definitely worth it. They talk about the town you are currently in, the towns that are near, secret caves and/or entry points, about important characters in the world, about what ails their town and so on. So if you're looking for something extra from this game's story, this is where you find it.
GAMEPLAY
You start by giving names to your four characters, who all have the Onion Knight "job" when you start. Once you find the crystal in the first dungeon, new jobs unlock and you can start turning your characters into Warriors, Monks and three types of Mages. With each new crystal you find later on, new job sets unlock, though some prove more useful than others. Especially the final one you find pretty much gives you some of the only viable jobs that will help you go through the end game portion. Unfortunately, since only an equipped job gains XP, choosing "wrong" ones at any point can make you lose hours to grinding up the level of your newly chosen job. Also, before switching jobs, you have to unequip all items a character currently has on them.
A character can have 2 weapons, head gear, body armor and something for their hands. To my knowledge there is no level requirement for gear, you just have to have the correct job for them, but I'm not 100% on that. You can buy gear in item shops, but also find a lot of gear in items throughout the game world. I found that the more useful gear usually was hidden in the game world. Unfortunately, you had no way of knowing what items do in this game, so I found myself looking that up online many times. For example, who knew that "MidgetBread" would reveal the map of a specific location you're in? Some items are explained through specific people in towns but you'd have to find that person first.
So whenever you would switch jobs, you would have to unequip the gear, switch the job and then equip new gear. Why gear wouldn't automatically unequip itself when you switch jobs? Well, that's because there is an arbitrary inventory limit, at least for the NES version. You can carry a billion potions, but you can't carry more than 40 different items. The only way to clear your inventory is to sell stuff or use a "Fat Chocobo" that can only be found in a few specific locations. Since a lot of items are useful and shouldn't be sold, I found myself having to quicksell some of the stuff that was useful whenever I found multiple chests in dungeons. The items in the chests wouldn't be shown until I had enough inventory space, so it happened that I quicksold something useful for something that I had no need for and that was cheaper.
The DS version I believe has unlimited inventory space, and this is yet another reason to go with that (I think most ports of the game are based on the DS version) or the Pixel Remaster.
The items you do get are pretty varied however. For mages, there are tons of spells to use, both to heal your party and to attack the enemy. For your hand-combat focused party members, there are swords, nunchaku, daggers, bows and more. Unfortunately, bows need arrows that in the NES version where limited, whilst in newer versions are unlimited. Plus, in all my time playing this game I didn't find a single store selling arrows. Still, a lot of variety here.
Combat is turn-based and you can take your time before choosing your action. Your characters can attack and depending on the items they carry and their jobs, they can parry or cast magic or even "jump" (jump in one round, attack from the top in the next). You can also run away (in the NES version this reduces your defense to 0 and doesn't always work, so you can insta-die this way) or use items. I used a Warrior, Monk, White Mage and Black Mage until I unlocked the Black Belt job, and this group worked pretty well since I just let my White Mage heal party members while auto attacking or using black magic with the others.
In the game world, you always find better weapons and spells and are always incentivized to explore, but ultimately will need to grind to get your character stats up.
There are no side missions, mini games or other gameplay features in this game besides the overworld travel and the combat. Overworld travel first happens on foot, but as you progress you unlock a boat, an airship and various improvements to the airship, which was pretty neat.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
No voice acting. Sound and soundtrack vary depending on the version you play. The Pixel Remaster for example modernized both but especially the soundtrack is still recognizable from the original, just remixed a bit. Since I'm rating the original, I can say that the sound design is great and that the music is for the most part excellent. As far as the tone of the music goes, I found that some boss fights could have gone for a bit more of an eerier tone since you're fighting this guy that is just pure evil to a rather cheery beat, but the soundtrack overall is pretty fun to listen to.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
The game looks really good for its time. Locations are really varied in terms of color, tiles and design, which is nice, and sprites look mostly clean but I also really like the attention to detail in a lot of areas or the dev's attempt to make some cutscenes look much more realistic than the technology allowed back then, like two characters having trouble falling asleep, the crystals sparkle transferring from west to east, NPCs dancing when you talk to them etc. There is also a huge variety of both enemy and character designs. With character designs I'm talking about the variety in how your own characters look when you change their jobs in particular. The models are different, unique and frankly some look pretty cool.
There are two minor gripes that I had that are worth talking about. First, some areas needed you to press a hidden button to progress. There was no indication that the button was at a specific wall, so I had to press every single one, which was not unique for this time but still annoying considering I sometimes had to fight multiple tough battles before I could find the right one. The other is that the NES version used a ton of flickering and flashing, which should be noted for those of you who have an issue with flashing lights. I believe this was toned down significantly in later versions.
ATMOSPHERE
Overall, the lore and world building, the soundtrack and the locations differing based on appearance and simply their placement in this world (Floating Continent, Flooded World etc.) made for a pretty atmospheric game.
CONTENT
There is a lot of content here. I got a bit over 1/3 of the way through this game as far as a walkthrough goes that I checked out after deciding to abandon the game, and that was after 15 hours where I used a guide a few times to not be stuck for too long when I didn't know where to go. I would be surprised if you get done with this game with less than 30, if not 40 hours of playing time on your first time with minimal uses of guides. The Pixel Remaster may be easier to go through since it provides you with maps but I don't think it saves you from the hours and hours of grinding that is necessary, which fills up your playing time but essentially is mostly qualitatively low content.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
The NES version doesn't have side missions from what I can tell, so you go from main target to main target. At times, NPCs will follow you who have their little sub-story to worry about (which still is part of the main mission). These NPCs usually aren't around for long and don't help in combat, but you can talk to them and they sometimes give you advise. Their own little stories are nice little distractions from the heroes main goal, even if they don't necessarily all have happy endings. Since you don't spend much time with them however, nice distractions is what they pretty much all amount to and their endings often fall flat emotionally. Still, it definitely breaks up the monotony to have traveling mates who have their own goals and actually help you at the location you're going to anyway.
Apart from that, here is how it usually goes. You go to a town, get a mission which requires you to travel to a different town or usually to a dungeon. The dungeons often have multiple floors and require you to fight through a couple dozen random encounters before you meet the dungeon boss. You return to the town, get an item necessary to progress further, and so you do. It is not always clear where you have to go to progress, though most of the time it can be figured out by reading the dialogue or talking to people. Since the NES version doesn't have a map unless you have "MidgetBread" in hand, finding a town you know you need to go to can still be annoying.
The developers did a good job, mostly, of planning out dungeons in a way that lets you go through them without having your Magic Points run out, which would make completing it otherwise pretty much impossible. However, some dungeons require you to use a specific item/spell or some require you to change jobs, so it can happen pretty quickly that you are out of that item, magic points or CP and therefore stuck. In this regard, planning done by the devs was suboptimal at best.
Finally, the final dungeon, which I didn't get to play but have heard more than enough about, obviously sucks. It's a 2/3 hour dungeon with no way to save and multiple boss fights, some of which don't let you heal up in between. Emulators luckily let you do save states, but if you're playing without the ability of saving, there is a very good chance that you will run out of patience to beat this final dungeon.
It also doesn't help that the job system was implemented poorly here in that only a few specific jobs will help you beat this game and in that it requires a ton of grinding to be strong enough to win.
On a final note, most areas offer "secret routes" to chests that offer some incentive to explore. Some of these locations also aren't arbitrary and are actually very slightly marked, though you're more likely to notice after you found it than before on many occasions.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
The job system of course was here to stay following its implementation into Final Fantasy 3. That alone means this game rates highly in that regard, however the implementation in FF3 itself is not great. Apart from offering a great variety, it's not like most of the jobs are viable for the end game. Actually, less than a handful are. On top of that, making some of these necessary for specific parts where they can be under leveled, or having you unable to switch due to a lack of CP (which admittedly will rarely be an issue) are other negative points worth mentioning.
In addition, the game focused a good amount of resources on the job & battle systems in favor of adding anything unique to the story.
REPLAYABILITY
This is a tough one to judge. On the one hand, there are a lot of jobs here that you'd think there is a lot more strategy to them that makes multiple playthroughs viable. On the other hand, it's unlikely you'll find much end-game success with more than a few of those jobs. Plus, you'll still be auto-attacking through multiple long grinding sessions.
PLAYABILITY
The game worked fine at all times.
OVERALL
When you're playing this, it's clear that this game is higher in quality than most of its competitors at the time. While the job system is rather simple now, it obviously was a much bigger deal at the time and if I had to guess, I would assume that grinding wasn't seen as nearly as big of an issue as I make it out to be. If anything, it added hours to the playing time and increased the value of the cartridge. Today, I'd say the games faults do stand out and later entries that still have the old school charm are also much improved in pretty much all aspects, so I'd recommend playing Final Fantasy 3 only if you're looking to experience all games in this series or want to get the internet points that come with beating that final dungeon.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
Japan only release, no magazine reviews for this one.
I have played the original NES version because the DS version, despite few QoL improvements, is a 3D remake and therefore differs significantly enough that I chose to stick with the original. If you're considering playing this game, I would only play the NES version if you are really into old school RPGs of this time and have already played and finished something similar. Even though I found this to be more than playable, it hasn't aged well in many aspects that make a playthrough without using any guide extremely difficult. The HowLongToBeat time on this game (~20 hours for a playthrough) is very wrong in that regard. You will be stuck multiple times, you will die multiple times and most importantly, you will have to grind a lot (though this will not differ much from version to version).
The grind part is probably my most significant issue with this game and the reason why I didn't finish the game, and I'd assume a reason for many others. The game introduced the "job system" to Final Fantasy. This is a system of different classes (white/black/red mages, warriors and knights, dragoons and ninjas etc.) that you can apply to your characters on the fly. Each job has a separate level to your overall level and only the job you are currently using gains XP. This is in itself a great system and we will learn how it gets refined over the next few entries as this challenge progresses, however the first time this is implemented creates quite a lot of pain to first time players, especially those who don't check guides for this game.
The game has multiple sections where specific jobs need to be used to actually progress through them, and especially once you get near the end, there only are very few jobs that will actually be good enough for you to beat the game. Since jobs don't get XP unless you use them, this means you either have to use a guide (1), have to be lucky and figure out a working group of jobs (2) or grind out multiple of them (3). Even if you end up using a guide, you will not be spared of the grind.
It is typical for JRPGs of this age that you are expected to grind, and it's something I have done for a few hours over my 15 total hours with this game, but ultimately even that wasn't enough to progress through the boss that I ultimately abandoned the game at. I've definitely extended my tolerance for grinding with this game, which was pretty much non-existent before starting this challenge due to my inexperience with games like these (current JRPGs I usually play on "easy"). If you have a high tolerance, again, without a guide there is a good chance you will have build the wrong "team" to face the final dungeon with, which makes this a tough game to recommend to first time players on multiple fronts.
But if you're OK with all of that and want to play this game to experience every Final Fantasy entry (if you haven't played any FF games before, I would have to suggest picking one from 4 onwards), then you can check out the following review sections to learn more on what this game has to offer and what I thought about it. :)
STORYTELLING
This game has a very basic story about darkness and light that ultimately is your typical "the world is about to end, so be its hero" plot. I've not played many games from this time but they've so far all been the same overall. The reason why they're the same is because it works and is motivating enough, but don't look for anything special in the plot of this game.
You control four orphans who at the beginning of the game check out a cave that opened up as a result of an earthquake and find a crystal of light. The crystal gives the four of them its power and tells them to restore the balance in this world. In the past (a thousand years ago), a group of Warriors of Darkness fought against a "flood of light" to restore the balance, now our heroes of Light need to do the opposite. There are light crystals and dark crystals, antagonists looking to abuse their power, a bunch of characters that are aiding our heroes and all that stuff that works but is ultimately not memorable.
What makes this game stand out in this aspect however is the lore and world building. Each town has multiple town-folk running around who are waiting to dump a tiny bit of lore on you when you talk to them. This is optional and you don't gain anything from it apart from immersion - some NPCs do offer you items though - but the immersion gained is definitely worth it. They talk about the town you are currently in, the towns that are near, secret caves and/or entry points, about important characters in the world, about what ails their town and so on. So if you're looking for something extra from this game's story, this is where you find it.
GAMEPLAY
You start by giving names to your four characters, who all have the Onion Knight "job" when you start. Once you find the crystal in the first dungeon, new jobs unlock and you can start turning your characters into Warriors, Monks and three types of Mages. With each new crystal you find later on, new job sets unlock, though some prove more useful than others. Especially the final one you find pretty much gives you some of the only viable jobs that will help you go through the end game portion. Unfortunately, since only an equipped job gains XP, choosing "wrong" ones at any point can make you lose hours to grinding up the level of your newly chosen job. Also, before switching jobs, you have to unequip all items a character currently has on them.
A character can have 2 weapons, head gear, body armor and something for their hands. To my knowledge there is no level requirement for gear, you just have to have the correct job for them, but I'm not 100% on that. You can buy gear in item shops, but also find a lot of gear in items throughout the game world. I found that the more useful gear usually was hidden in the game world. Unfortunately, you had no way of knowing what items do in this game, so I found myself looking that up online many times. For example, who knew that "MidgetBread" would reveal the map of a specific location you're in? Some items are explained through specific people in towns but you'd have to find that person first.
So whenever you would switch jobs, you would have to unequip the gear, switch the job and then equip new gear. Why gear wouldn't automatically unequip itself when you switch jobs? Well, that's because there is an arbitrary inventory limit, at least for the NES version. You can carry a billion potions, but you can't carry more than 40 different items. The only way to clear your inventory is to sell stuff or use a "Fat Chocobo" that can only be found in a few specific locations. Since a lot of items are useful and shouldn't be sold, I found myself having to quicksell some of the stuff that was useful whenever I found multiple chests in dungeons. The items in the chests wouldn't be shown until I had enough inventory space, so it happened that I quicksold something useful for something that I had no need for and that was cheaper.
The DS version I believe has unlimited inventory space, and this is yet another reason to go with that (I think most ports of the game are based on the DS version) or the Pixel Remaster.
The items you do get are pretty varied however. For mages, there are tons of spells to use, both to heal your party and to attack the enemy. For your hand-combat focused party members, there are swords, nunchaku, daggers, bows and more. Unfortunately, bows need arrows that in the NES version where limited, whilst in newer versions are unlimited. Plus, in all my time playing this game I didn't find a single store selling arrows. Still, a lot of variety here.
Combat is turn-based and you can take your time before choosing your action. Your characters can attack and depending on the items they carry and their jobs, they can parry or cast magic or even "jump" (jump in one round, attack from the top in the next). You can also run away (in the NES version this reduces your defense to 0 and doesn't always work, so you can insta-die this way) or use items. I used a Warrior, Monk, White Mage and Black Mage until I unlocked the Black Belt job, and this group worked pretty well since I just let my White Mage heal party members while auto attacking or using black magic with the others.
In the game world, you always find better weapons and spells and are always incentivized to explore, but ultimately will need to grind to get your character stats up.
There are no side missions, mini games or other gameplay features in this game besides the overworld travel and the combat. Overworld travel first happens on foot, but as you progress you unlock a boat, an airship and various improvements to the airship, which was pretty neat.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
No voice acting. Sound and soundtrack vary depending on the version you play. The Pixel Remaster for example modernized both but especially the soundtrack is still recognizable from the original, just remixed a bit. Since I'm rating the original, I can say that the sound design is great and that the music is for the most part excellent. As far as the tone of the music goes, I found that some boss fights could have gone for a bit more of an eerier tone since you're fighting this guy that is just pure evil to a rather cheery beat, but the soundtrack overall is pretty fun to listen to.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
The game looks really good for its time. Locations are really varied in terms of color, tiles and design, which is nice, and sprites look mostly clean but I also really like the attention to detail in a lot of areas or the dev's attempt to make some cutscenes look much more realistic than the technology allowed back then, like two characters having trouble falling asleep, the crystals sparkle transferring from west to east, NPCs dancing when you talk to them etc. There is also a huge variety of both enemy and character designs. With character designs I'm talking about the variety in how your own characters look when you change their jobs in particular. The models are different, unique and frankly some look pretty cool.
There are two minor gripes that I had that are worth talking about. First, some areas needed you to press a hidden button to progress. There was no indication that the button was at a specific wall, so I had to press every single one, which was not unique for this time but still annoying considering I sometimes had to fight multiple tough battles before I could find the right one. The other is that the NES version used a ton of flickering and flashing, which should be noted for those of you who have an issue with flashing lights. I believe this was toned down significantly in later versions.
ATMOSPHERE
Overall, the lore and world building, the soundtrack and the locations differing based on appearance and simply their placement in this world (Floating Continent, Flooded World etc.) made for a pretty atmospheric game.
CONTENT
There is a lot of content here. I got a bit over 1/3 of the way through this game as far as a walkthrough goes that I checked out after deciding to abandon the game, and that was after 15 hours where I used a guide a few times to not be stuck for too long when I didn't know where to go. I would be surprised if you get done with this game with less than 30, if not 40 hours of playing time on your first time with minimal uses of guides. The Pixel Remaster may be easier to go through since it provides you with maps but I don't think it saves you from the hours and hours of grinding that is necessary, which fills up your playing time but essentially is mostly qualitatively low content.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
The NES version doesn't have side missions from what I can tell, so you go from main target to main target. At times, NPCs will follow you who have their little sub-story to worry about (which still is part of the main mission). These NPCs usually aren't around for long and don't help in combat, but you can talk to them and they sometimes give you advise. Their own little stories are nice little distractions from the heroes main goal, even if they don't necessarily all have happy endings. Since you don't spend much time with them however, nice distractions is what they pretty much all amount to and their endings often fall flat emotionally. Still, it definitely breaks up the monotony to have traveling mates who have their own goals and actually help you at the location you're going to anyway.
Apart from that, here is how it usually goes. You go to a town, get a mission which requires you to travel to a different town or usually to a dungeon. The dungeons often have multiple floors and require you to fight through a couple dozen random encounters before you meet the dungeon boss. You return to the town, get an item necessary to progress further, and so you do. It is not always clear where you have to go to progress, though most of the time it can be figured out by reading the dialogue or talking to people. Since the NES version doesn't have a map unless you have "MidgetBread" in hand, finding a town you know you need to go to can still be annoying.
The developers did a good job, mostly, of planning out dungeons in a way that lets you go through them without having your Magic Points run out, which would make completing it otherwise pretty much impossible. However, some dungeons require you to use a specific item/spell or some require you to change jobs, so it can happen pretty quickly that you are out of that item, magic points or CP and therefore stuck. In this regard, planning done by the devs was suboptimal at best.
Finally, the final dungeon, which I didn't get to play but have heard more than enough about, obviously sucks. It's a 2/3 hour dungeon with no way to save and multiple boss fights, some of which don't let you heal up in between. Emulators luckily let you do save states, but if you're playing without the ability of saving, there is a very good chance that you will run out of patience to beat this final dungeon.
It also doesn't help that the job system was implemented poorly here in that only a few specific jobs will help you beat this game and in that it requires a ton of grinding to be strong enough to win.
On a final note, most areas offer "secret routes" to chests that offer some incentive to explore. Some of these locations also aren't arbitrary and are actually very slightly marked, though you're more likely to notice after you found it than before on many occasions.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
The job system of course was here to stay following its implementation into Final Fantasy 3. That alone means this game rates highly in that regard, however the implementation in FF3 itself is not great. Apart from offering a great variety, it's not like most of the jobs are viable for the end game. Actually, less than a handful are. On top of that, making some of these necessary for specific parts where they can be under leveled, or having you unable to switch due to a lack of CP (which admittedly will rarely be an issue) are other negative points worth mentioning.
In addition, the game focused a good amount of resources on the job & battle systems in favor of adding anything unique to the story.
REPLAYABILITY
This is a tough one to judge. On the one hand, there are a lot of jobs here that you'd think there is a lot more strategy to them that makes multiple playthroughs viable. On the other hand, it's unlikely you'll find much end-game success with more than a few of those jobs. Plus, you'll still be auto-attacking through multiple long grinding sessions.
PLAYABILITY
The game worked fine at all times.
OVERALL
When you're playing this, it's clear that this game is higher in quality than most of its competitors at the time. While the job system is rather simple now, it obviously was a much bigger deal at the time and if I had to guess, I would assume that grinding wasn't seen as nearly as big of an issue as I make it out to be. If anything, it added hours to the playing time and increased the value of the cartridge. Today, I'd say the games faults do stand out and later entries that still have the old school charm are also much improved in pretty much all aspects, so I'd recommend playing Final Fantasy 3 only if you're looking to experience all games in this series or want to get the internet points that come with beating that final dungeon.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
Japan only release, no magazine reviews for this one.
1992
When you think of a video game that is all presentation and no gameplay, Splatterhouse 2 is a good retro example to give. Its known for its gory, grotesque style as you walk the halls and punch, kick and smash enemies into pieces. Does doing that equate to fun though? Not really. Splatterhouse 2 was developed by Now Production and released in July 1992. It's similar in gameplay to the original Splatterhouse, and was followed up Splatterhouse 3 as well as a Splatterhouse remake in 2010.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 2/10
You contol a character called Rick. The game follows on the story of the first Splatterhouse game. I'm unfamiliar with that game, but the manual makes things relatively clear. The mask talks to you, and tells you that you can still save Jennifer, so you must go to some house to do so. An atmospheric introductory scroll through an onimous field alongside lines of dialogue by the mask talking to you set the tone. With that, the game starts.
Each stage is introduced with a still image showing the stage number you are now on and a short comment by the mask on the next location. That's pretty much it in terms of story presentation.
GAMEPLAY | 7/20
Where to start? I guess I should first mention that no, this game is not fun to play. First, there is the fact that you simply don't have much you can do here. You can punch, kick, jump and use melee weapons to smash.
Second, everything you do is very slow. Fittingly, you can not sprint, just walk or 'strudge' as I would call it. This applies to dodging as well. Enemies pretty quickly start jumping over you, and you simply don't have the agility to dodge these jumps unless you know you are coming and preemptively are positioning yourself appropriately. That sucks.
Rick's agility generally sucks out the enjoyment I could have had with this game. You need to get close enough to enemies to punch them, but this means you are putting yourself in harm's way with no reliable way to dodge, so a lot of times, you take an unfair hit. I wouldn't even call it a hit, it's a mere touch. Then there are all these smaller enemies, which can easily find a way to jump at you from angles that you cannot reliably attack, meaning with a standing punch or a jumping kick. Instead, they will find the inbetween position to attack from sometimes, like the piranhas jumping out of the water in one early stage.
Boss fights are OK and certainly the highlight of this game alongside its atmosphere, but they are a minor part of the game. The major part of the game is simply not fun.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 7/10
No voice acting. The soundtrack fits the theme of the game. I can't say I loved it or that it was memorable, but it was certainly fitting.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 7/10
Splatterhouse 2 looks pretty good, but mostly due to its graphical presentation. Few games on the SNES look quite like this. The animations bring it all home. For example, there is one thing the game does in its presentation that I love, which is that when you use a melee weapon against an enemy, you either strike them from above and squish them into the ground or you hit them from the side and leave them a gooey mess on a wall.
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 9/10
Definitely the best part about this game. The game does a great job with its atmosphere. It all starts with the introductory cutscene, continues with the design of each stage and culminates with the boss fights, which are all uniquely positively disgusting.
CONTENT | 3/10
The game takes less an hour to beat, once you know what you are doing. It takes multiple hours to beat if you're a new player, and most of it is spent frustrated by the game's controls. There is little variety in gameplay, so even with that short runtime, it overstood its welcome.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 5/10
Strudge through levels, maybe do a little bit of platforming by jumping over obstacles, and punch your way slowly through enemies. Get hit unfairly most of the time because of the enemy's attack patterns and reach, and there you go. You got pretty frustrating levels in your game. The saving grace here is the presentation of the boss fights at the end of each stage.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 4/10
You can praise the game a bit for its atmosphere and grotesque presentation, an inspiration which is felt in well-presented boss fights as well. However, from a gameplay standpoint, it's a below average 2D beat 'em up.
REPLAYABILITY | 2/5
Apart from trying to beat your high score, there is no replay value here.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
Works well at all times.
OVERALL | 51/100
Splatterhouse 2 is above average in presentation, below average in gameplay. Depending on what you favor, your experience may differ, but assuming that most gamers want fun gameplay, I'd make a guess and say you won't enjoy this game.
(This is the 72nd game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 2/10
You contol a character called Rick. The game follows on the story of the first Splatterhouse game. I'm unfamiliar with that game, but the manual makes things relatively clear. The mask talks to you, and tells you that you can still save Jennifer, so you must go to some house to do so. An atmospheric introductory scroll through an onimous field alongside lines of dialogue by the mask talking to you set the tone. With that, the game starts.
Each stage is introduced with a still image showing the stage number you are now on and a short comment by the mask on the next location. That's pretty much it in terms of story presentation.
GAMEPLAY | 7/20
Where to start? I guess I should first mention that no, this game is not fun to play. First, there is the fact that you simply don't have much you can do here. You can punch, kick, jump and use melee weapons to smash.
Second, everything you do is very slow. Fittingly, you can not sprint, just walk or 'strudge' as I would call it. This applies to dodging as well. Enemies pretty quickly start jumping over you, and you simply don't have the agility to dodge these jumps unless you know you are coming and preemptively are positioning yourself appropriately. That sucks.
Rick's agility generally sucks out the enjoyment I could have had with this game. You need to get close enough to enemies to punch them, but this means you are putting yourself in harm's way with no reliable way to dodge, so a lot of times, you take an unfair hit. I wouldn't even call it a hit, it's a mere touch. Then there are all these smaller enemies, which can easily find a way to jump at you from angles that you cannot reliably attack, meaning with a standing punch or a jumping kick. Instead, they will find the inbetween position to attack from sometimes, like the piranhas jumping out of the water in one early stage.
Boss fights are OK and certainly the highlight of this game alongside its atmosphere, but they are a minor part of the game. The major part of the game is simply not fun.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 7/10
No voice acting. The soundtrack fits the theme of the game. I can't say I loved it or that it was memorable, but it was certainly fitting.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 7/10
Splatterhouse 2 looks pretty good, but mostly due to its graphical presentation. Few games on the SNES look quite like this. The animations bring it all home. For example, there is one thing the game does in its presentation that I love, which is that when you use a melee weapon against an enemy, you either strike them from above and squish them into the ground or you hit them from the side and leave them a gooey mess on a wall.
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 9/10
Definitely the best part about this game. The game does a great job with its atmosphere. It all starts with the introductory cutscene, continues with the design of each stage and culminates with the boss fights, which are all uniquely positively disgusting.
CONTENT | 3/10
The game takes less an hour to beat, once you know what you are doing. It takes multiple hours to beat if you're a new player, and most of it is spent frustrated by the game's controls. There is little variety in gameplay, so even with that short runtime, it overstood its welcome.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 5/10
Strudge through levels, maybe do a little bit of platforming by jumping over obstacles, and punch your way slowly through enemies. Get hit unfairly most of the time because of the enemy's attack patterns and reach, and there you go. You got pretty frustrating levels in your game. The saving grace here is the presentation of the boss fights at the end of each stage.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 4/10
You can praise the game a bit for its atmosphere and grotesque presentation, an inspiration which is felt in well-presented boss fights as well. However, from a gameplay standpoint, it's a below average 2D beat 'em up.
REPLAYABILITY | 2/5
Apart from trying to beat your high score, there is no replay value here.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
Works well at all times.
OVERALL | 51/100
Splatterhouse 2 is above average in presentation, below average in gameplay. Depending on what you favor, your experience may differ, but assuming that most gamers want fun gameplay, I'd make a guess and say you won't enjoy this game.
(This is the 72nd game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
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.
1990
(This is the 22nd game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
I've abandoned, checks notes, 13 of the 22 games I've played so far. It's the nature of games in 1990. Many were designed to be unbeatable within a rental period, so the devs made their games annoyingly (or if you played these back in the day, endearingly) difficult.
Never have I however actually "rage quit" any of the previous 12 games, until I've played Mega Man 3 that is, a platformer developed by Capcom and initially released for the NES on September 28, 1990. I found myself extremely frustrated throughout my entire time playing this. The only time I was really vibing with the game was when I didn't move and just listened to the amazing soundtrack. Maybe that's a bid too harsh, but we'll go over everything one by one below, so you understand where my frustration comes from for a game that does plenty right as well.
____________
STORYTELLING
While I call this the "Storytelling" section, it really is a review on storytelling, but also the plot itself, the characters and how they interact with each other. And as far as characters go, this legendary series has introduced a couple pretty important ones for the series in Rush, the robot dog that helps you jump to higher surfaces in this game, and Proto Man, who shows up in almost every level for a quick battle to test your skills. He appears to what has to be the most satisfying whistle sound I've ever heard.
The setting and the plot here are not explained in the game, only in the manual, and actual advancement of the plot only happens much later into the game. The set up goes like this: Two scientists are working on a "peace-keeping project" and need a few more energy crystals to finish their work. They send Mega Man to collect them, but Mega Man will have to face a bunch of bad guys to get to them.
This comes from the short conversation printed onto the manuals. In-game, you simply see a screen with Mega Man in the middle of a 3x3 display, with each of the other squares showing a portrait of a boss. You can freely decide which level/boss you want to face first and will be brought back here to select the next once you're done. All bosses have unique looks and abilities, but they don't talk and they don't taunt or something along those lines for them to have any personality, unlike Proto-Man, who's part in the story gets explained the further you go.
Overall, the story that is here has a bit more than your average one, where you get some text at the start and at the end of the game, but nothing in between. Here, you get nothing at the start, but a bit more towards the end with a nice little twist.
GAMEPLAY
First of, we gotta address the performance in this game. I thought it was due to my emulator but no, the game has lagging issues throughout and it really is irritating. Obviously it wasn't such a big deal back then, as it was sold over a million times, was placed 3rd in the Nintendo Power Awards for 1990 and got 9/10s and 4/5s from many magazines at the time. By today's standards, or even by my comparably lower standards for 1990 games as part of this challenge, a game that requires so much precision just got that much more frustrating to play when every time you used a specific weapon that shot multiple projectiles, the screen would lag significantly. This would happen when too many enemies where on screen at once as well.
But in general, the timing and precision required just was a bit too much for me. Not only that, but the game forces you to stand still, step back, wait for an opening and take a precise shot multiple times per level, or you'll be having a bad time. Add to that the amount of cheap hits you get in this game by things like clouds popping into frame just as you jump into mid-air, leading you to miss a platform fall to your demise, and it just wasn't an enjoyable time for me for most of the time. There was also a moment where I managed to avoid all clouds, only for the platform beneath me to clip Mega Man in an unfortunate way and torpedo him dozens of feet into the sky before dropping him out of the screen.
With all of this however, I managed to beat all levels at some point, but I just couldn't beat the bosses a lot of the time. I'd say it's lack of skill on my end for the large part, but also exposes some of the game's flaws again. Once more, I have to mention the poor performance of this game, which made using many of the weapons you collect by beating bosses a chore. It's not like many of these are effective per boss anyway, but have the game lag when using almost all of these also messed with my timing, which, as a new player, I suck at to begin with. With your basic starter weapon, the battles just are very tough because you have to dodge so many things at once and find an opening to attack yourself (with little damage output). It doesn't help that this is another game where you cannot turn your character until he finishes his attack animation, and when you press attack 0.001 seconds before you press turn, he will shoot in the wrong direction as well. Some of you might say this is fair, you might be right, but it just didn't translate to fun to me.
To explain the game more objectively to wrap this up, you pick a boss on the select screen and go through a few-minute long level to face him. If you win, you get the boss' power and can use it in future boss fights. The way you go through these is optional, but unless you are really patient, you will not want to face bosses with the wrong powers and have them take too long. Some bosses can be killed in a few hits with the right weapon for example.
Most levels have a fight with Proto Man as well, you have your dog Rush that lets you jump to higher surfaces and you can collect items that give you points, health and 1 Ups.
This was my first Mega Man game to play and the difficulty in addition to the terrible performance did leave a bad taste in my mouth, but I will obviously try out future Mega Man games and considering how popular the series is, I'm sure I'll enjoy some of the future releases much more than this one.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
No voice acting. The sound design I found to be pretty average for a game from this year, I've certainly heard them all in other games already. The MVP in this game for me is the soundtrack, which ranged from good to amazing throughout. Even if you didn't play this game, but you enjoy 8 bit soundtracks, this game's OST is definitely worth a listen. It already starts with the intro theme, it continues with the oh-so satisfying Proto Man whistle which I already mentioned, and then you got an individual track per stage as well. My favorite definitely was the Spark Man track (and on a soundtrack that has so many bangers, I think Spark Man's track still stands out a lot).
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
The game looks pretty good in my opinion. Each boss has his own individual level, often with a unique theme. Shadow Man's level for example has a part where the stage darkens from time to time and the only thing you can see is the enemy coming at you. The Hard Man's level features rocky terrain, Spark Man has placed obstacles charged with electricity everywhere and Gemini Man's world offers two settings. Sprites look pretty good as well.
ATMOSPHERE
The game is supposed to take place on mining worlds. Now I don't know what that means, because most of the stages didn't really look like they were used for "mining" purposes, but disregarding that, most feel pretty atmospheric, but mostly in a cheery sense. Even the darker levels have cheerful music playing in the background, which makes sense due to the style and target group of these games. But due of that, it does waste some of the potential to create a more exciting and diverse atmosphere. Whenever the levels are colorful and cheery-looking as well however, the music fits very well.
CONTENT
On the surface, this appears to offer a lot. A bunch of boss fights, a little bit of storytelling, multiple different weapons and even the ability to choose the order of the fights yourself. In reality however, all of this is not only overshadowed by the regular lag issues, but there isn't as much here overall.
If you like Mega Man games and played these before, you maybe don't mind the lag by now. If a fellow newcomer to the series were to choose Mega Man 3 as their entry however, I don't know how many of that sort would be willing to stick with this.
Being able to choose boss fights randomly is correct, but I'd assume that unless you are very skilled, you will not be able to beat them in any order you want, but will have to rather rely on picking specific ones earlier to get specific weapons to make future boss fights that much easier. The weapons themselves do offer some variety, but since you can mostly use the basic weapon during the actual stages (where I personally died to gravity the most) and only need to use specific ones when you face bosses, I don't feel like they have as much purpose as I would have liked to see.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
As I mentioned above, being able to choose one of 8 bosses to start is cool, but you'll need to choose a much more specific order to get through this game in all likelihood. I also don't like how the stages themselves are designed in a way that you'll be taking cheap hits a lot and enemies pop into frame in a lot of unfortunate situations (like when you are mid-air), which forces you to anticipate this by jumping forward and back. Not only that but you're forced to stand still and wait a lot to be able to damage the enemy or at least walk pass without taking damage (if you're precise). Overall I found the game a bit too hard in the wrong places to find much enjoyment out of it, though I did like how each level had its own style and many of its own, unique challenges.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
The game innovates in a few pretty notable ways from Mega Man 2, namely introducing your companion Rush and giving you the ability to slide. The stages are also a bit longer (and I believe there are more stages overall as well), but other than that, the game doesn't do much else and is pretty similar to Mega Man 2, which I assume is what fans wanted in the first place. From what I've read however, Mega Man 3 is less adventurous with the design of stage challenges, bosses and weapons, which sounds like a step back to me.
REPLAYABILITY
Not as much replayability as I would have thought based on the boss structure, but still more than your typical 1990's platformer.
PLAYABILITY
It works, but the constant lag/slowdown just makes it an unpleasant playthrough for a lot of the time, especially since I don't bring any of the enthusiasm that someone who maybe has played the earlier versions back in the day, or some of the later more refined versions.
OVERALL
My experience with Mega Man 3 was ultimately disappointing, though I will remember it fondly for its soundtrack. And even though I didn't like a lot about the gameplay, I did enjoy other parts of it and I can see how people enjoyed both this, and later entries a lot, so I'm still looking forward to playing all the other 60 Mega Man games that have come out since. Next one on the list is Mega Man: Dr Wily's revenge on the Game Boy, which came out in July, 1990.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Tobar the 8 Man for GamePro, Issue 16 (Nov 90): "It's got everything that a great video game should have: incredible challenge, exceptional game play, stunning graphics and some nifty weaponry."
I've abandoned, checks notes, 13 of the 22 games I've played so far. It's the nature of games in 1990. Many were designed to be unbeatable within a rental period, so the devs made their games annoyingly (or if you played these back in the day, endearingly) difficult.
Never have I however actually "rage quit" any of the previous 12 games, until I've played Mega Man 3 that is, a platformer developed by Capcom and initially released for the NES on September 28, 1990. I found myself extremely frustrated throughout my entire time playing this. The only time I was really vibing with the game was when I didn't move and just listened to the amazing soundtrack. Maybe that's a bid too harsh, but we'll go over everything one by one below, so you understand where my frustration comes from for a game that does plenty right as well.
____________
STORYTELLING
While I call this the "Storytelling" section, it really is a review on storytelling, but also the plot itself, the characters and how they interact with each other. And as far as characters go, this legendary series has introduced a couple pretty important ones for the series in Rush, the robot dog that helps you jump to higher surfaces in this game, and Proto Man, who shows up in almost every level for a quick battle to test your skills. He appears to what has to be the most satisfying whistle sound I've ever heard.
The setting and the plot here are not explained in the game, only in the manual, and actual advancement of the plot only happens much later into the game. The set up goes like this: Two scientists are working on a "peace-keeping project" and need a few more energy crystals to finish their work. They send Mega Man to collect them, but Mega Man will have to face a bunch of bad guys to get to them.
This comes from the short conversation printed onto the manuals. In-game, you simply see a screen with Mega Man in the middle of a 3x3 display, with each of the other squares showing a portrait of a boss. You can freely decide which level/boss you want to face first and will be brought back here to select the next once you're done. All bosses have unique looks and abilities, but they don't talk and they don't taunt or something along those lines for them to have any personality, unlike Proto-Man, who's part in the story gets explained the further you go.
Overall, the story that is here has a bit more than your average one, where you get some text at the start and at the end of the game, but nothing in between. Here, you get nothing at the start, but a bit more towards the end with a nice little twist.
GAMEPLAY
First of, we gotta address the performance in this game. I thought it was due to my emulator but no, the game has lagging issues throughout and it really is irritating. Obviously it wasn't such a big deal back then, as it was sold over a million times, was placed 3rd in the Nintendo Power Awards for 1990 and got 9/10s and 4/5s from many magazines at the time. By today's standards, or even by my comparably lower standards for 1990 games as part of this challenge, a game that requires so much precision just got that much more frustrating to play when every time you used a specific weapon that shot multiple projectiles, the screen would lag significantly. This would happen when too many enemies where on screen at once as well.
But in general, the timing and precision required just was a bit too much for me. Not only that, but the game forces you to stand still, step back, wait for an opening and take a precise shot multiple times per level, or you'll be having a bad time. Add to that the amount of cheap hits you get in this game by things like clouds popping into frame just as you jump into mid-air, leading you to miss a platform fall to your demise, and it just wasn't an enjoyable time for me for most of the time. There was also a moment where I managed to avoid all clouds, only for the platform beneath me to clip Mega Man in an unfortunate way and torpedo him dozens of feet into the sky before dropping him out of the screen.
With all of this however, I managed to beat all levels at some point, but I just couldn't beat the bosses a lot of the time. I'd say it's lack of skill on my end for the large part, but also exposes some of the game's flaws again. Once more, I have to mention the poor performance of this game, which made using many of the weapons you collect by beating bosses a chore. It's not like many of these are effective per boss anyway, but have the game lag when using almost all of these also messed with my timing, which, as a new player, I suck at to begin with. With your basic starter weapon, the battles just are very tough because you have to dodge so many things at once and find an opening to attack yourself (with little damage output). It doesn't help that this is another game where you cannot turn your character until he finishes his attack animation, and when you press attack 0.001 seconds before you press turn, he will shoot in the wrong direction as well. Some of you might say this is fair, you might be right, but it just didn't translate to fun to me.
To explain the game more objectively to wrap this up, you pick a boss on the select screen and go through a few-minute long level to face him. If you win, you get the boss' power and can use it in future boss fights. The way you go through these is optional, but unless you are really patient, you will not want to face bosses with the wrong powers and have them take too long. Some bosses can be killed in a few hits with the right weapon for example.
Most levels have a fight with Proto Man as well, you have your dog Rush that lets you jump to higher surfaces and you can collect items that give you points, health and 1 Ups.
This was my first Mega Man game to play and the difficulty in addition to the terrible performance did leave a bad taste in my mouth, but I will obviously try out future Mega Man games and considering how popular the series is, I'm sure I'll enjoy some of the future releases much more than this one.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
No voice acting. The sound design I found to be pretty average for a game from this year, I've certainly heard them all in other games already. The MVP in this game for me is the soundtrack, which ranged from good to amazing throughout. Even if you didn't play this game, but you enjoy 8 bit soundtracks, this game's OST is definitely worth a listen. It already starts with the intro theme, it continues with the oh-so satisfying Proto Man whistle which I already mentioned, and then you got an individual track per stage as well. My favorite definitely was the Spark Man track (and on a soundtrack that has so many bangers, I think Spark Man's track still stands out a lot).
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
The game looks pretty good in my opinion. Each boss has his own individual level, often with a unique theme. Shadow Man's level for example has a part where the stage darkens from time to time and the only thing you can see is the enemy coming at you. The Hard Man's level features rocky terrain, Spark Man has placed obstacles charged with electricity everywhere and Gemini Man's world offers two settings. Sprites look pretty good as well.
ATMOSPHERE
The game is supposed to take place on mining worlds. Now I don't know what that means, because most of the stages didn't really look like they were used for "mining" purposes, but disregarding that, most feel pretty atmospheric, but mostly in a cheery sense. Even the darker levels have cheerful music playing in the background, which makes sense due to the style and target group of these games. But due of that, it does waste some of the potential to create a more exciting and diverse atmosphere. Whenever the levels are colorful and cheery-looking as well however, the music fits very well.
CONTENT
On the surface, this appears to offer a lot. A bunch of boss fights, a little bit of storytelling, multiple different weapons and even the ability to choose the order of the fights yourself. In reality however, all of this is not only overshadowed by the regular lag issues, but there isn't as much here overall.
If you like Mega Man games and played these before, you maybe don't mind the lag by now. If a fellow newcomer to the series were to choose Mega Man 3 as their entry however, I don't know how many of that sort would be willing to stick with this.
Being able to choose boss fights randomly is correct, but I'd assume that unless you are very skilled, you will not be able to beat them in any order you want, but will have to rather rely on picking specific ones earlier to get specific weapons to make future boss fights that much easier. The weapons themselves do offer some variety, but since you can mostly use the basic weapon during the actual stages (where I personally died to gravity the most) and only need to use specific ones when you face bosses, I don't feel like they have as much purpose as I would have liked to see.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
As I mentioned above, being able to choose one of 8 bosses to start is cool, but you'll need to choose a much more specific order to get through this game in all likelihood. I also don't like how the stages themselves are designed in a way that you'll be taking cheap hits a lot and enemies pop into frame in a lot of unfortunate situations (like when you are mid-air), which forces you to anticipate this by jumping forward and back. Not only that but you're forced to stand still and wait a lot to be able to damage the enemy or at least walk pass without taking damage (if you're precise). Overall I found the game a bit too hard in the wrong places to find much enjoyment out of it, though I did like how each level had its own style and many of its own, unique challenges.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
The game innovates in a few pretty notable ways from Mega Man 2, namely introducing your companion Rush and giving you the ability to slide. The stages are also a bit longer (and I believe there are more stages overall as well), but other than that, the game doesn't do much else and is pretty similar to Mega Man 2, which I assume is what fans wanted in the first place. From what I've read however, Mega Man 3 is less adventurous with the design of stage challenges, bosses and weapons, which sounds like a step back to me.
REPLAYABILITY
Not as much replayability as I would have thought based on the boss structure, but still more than your typical 1990's platformer.
PLAYABILITY
It works, but the constant lag/slowdown just makes it an unpleasant playthrough for a lot of the time, especially since I don't bring any of the enthusiasm that someone who maybe has played the earlier versions back in the day, or some of the later more refined versions.
OVERALL
My experience with Mega Man 3 was ultimately disappointing, though I will remember it fondly for its soundtrack. And even though I didn't like a lot about the gameplay, I did enjoy other parts of it and I can see how people enjoyed both this, and later entries a lot, so I'm still looking forward to playing all the other 60 Mega Man games that have come out since. Next one on the list is Mega Man: Dr Wily's revenge on the Game Boy, which came out in July, 1990.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Tobar the 8 Man for GamePro, Issue 16 (Nov 90): "It's got everything that a great video game should have: incredible challenge, exceptional game play, stunning graphics and some nifty weaponry."
This game is free. If you're a fan of Sonic and the Sonic universe, that's all you need to know. It's a train murder mystery adventure including Sonic and the gang, and you (a new employee for Mirage Express) work alongside detective Tails to unravel the mystery of who murdered Sonic. It's a unique setting for all these characters to find themselves in, and for what it is, it provides a fun two to three hours for Sonic fans.
If you're not a Sonic fan, and especially someone who (almost) never plays Sonic games, there won't be a point to playing this, as you won't know the characters and most of the charm of this game will probably be lost on you. I myself have played the first few Sonic games ever released within the past 12 months, so I know many, but not all of the characters that feature here, and I did feel like I'd get more enjoyment out of it if I were a more avid Sonic gamer.
That said, I did enjoy the game. The game plays itself for the most part a la visual novel, but interrogations include mini games in which you control Sonic from an isometric perspective as he collects enough rings to beat a level, which allows you to formulate an argument. Simple, but challenging enough. Just don't expect more from this game than it is, since it is free like I mentioned. If a gaming franchise I really like made a similar project like this, I'd definitely be really excited about it, and I think it's really nice that this exists.
If you're not a Sonic fan, and especially someone who (almost) never plays Sonic games, there won't be a point to playing this, as you won't know the characters and most of the charm of this game will probably be lost on you. I myself have played the first few Sonic games ever released within the past 12 months, so I know many, but not all of the characters that feature here, and I did feel like I'd get more enjoyment out of it if I were a more avid Sonic gamer.
That said, I did enjoy the game. The game plays itself for the most part a la visual novel, but interrogations include mini games in which you control Sonic from an isometric perspective as he collects enough rings to beat a level, which allows you to formulate an argument. Simple, but challenging enough. Just don't expect more from this game than it is, since it is free like I mentioned. If a gaming franchise I really like made a similar project like this, I'd definitely be really excited about it, and I think it's really nice that this exists.
2018
Wild to think that it's been less than a year since I beat Yakuza 2 and since then, two more Yakuza games released and another comes out next month. Even more wild is how these games are just bangers after bangers. So to quickly answer the question whether Yakuza 3 deserves its negative reputation in the community? In my opinion, NO. Yakuza 3 has tons of redeeming qualities, a solid story with many moments that nearly brought me to tears and to put the icing on the cake, is so unintentionally hilarious that I'm not surprised to have seen like a dozen moments already memed to death in the community. So if you ask me, do not skip Yakuza 3, but for many valid reasons, it wouldn't be a bad idea at all to focus more on the story in this one.
Those reasons? For one, the combat is not good for a while until you get upgrades. The game starts you off with very few moves, and it takes quite some time to get enough upgrades to make combat more interesting. Even then, it's still not as good as the combat in the three games preceding it, though it gets more and more OK as you play. Using items to hit enemies is especially satisfying, while heat actions generally felt like they lacked the punch of heat actions in previous games, both because they don't always feel so hard-hitting and often do little damage.
Another reason to rush the game is that substories weren't as good here as in 0, 1 or 2. Most are pretty short and don't tell those unique, funny stories that you'll be used to coming from those three games. There are still funny ones here of course, but I didn't really feel after doing 30 of them that I wanted to do another 70 more.
Finally, the other issue with the game you might have is the very slow start. The first few chapters are spent in the orphanage Kiryu took over called "Morning Glory", and for multiple hours, all you do is spend time with the children and their problems. These little mini stories always had a satisfying ending and I liked that you're supposed to get to know the children yourself. There were many moments in the main story as well where I felt grateful to have spent so much time with the kids, so overall I wouldn't say it's a negative. It's just that the tasks before you get these mini story conclusions are usually very boring, which is a drag. At some point I thought the game was taking the piss with how many times I got interrupted before I could finally leave for Kamurocho for the first time but once you do, the story picks up the pace.
As is the case in many Yakuza games, Kamurocho shares time with another location, this time with Okinawa, where the orphanage is at. It's a nice little place, but I'll always remember it as the place where I would sprint after Ayako who's doing the griddy and is still faster than Kiryu.
The soundtrack has some very solid tracks that add to the vibe, especially the New Serena track was very chill and is something I can see myself listening to outside of the game, but there is one battle theme that is just the worst. It's called D2A, and I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I laughed the first time I heard it, but I don't understand how it got a place in here. It's like if a Barbie song played in the Oppenheimer movie.
Overall though, Yakuza 3 feels like it gets more hate because I assume a lot of people come into this game after they played three remade / modern games in 0, 1 and 2 to play a game that was merely remastered, though the slow start and combat will also play a big role. If you can get past these things though, Yakuza 3 has some great characters, a story with many memorable moments and beautiful eyes to offer. Can't miss, if you ask me.
Those reasons? For one, the combat is not good for a while until you get upgrades. The game starts you off with very few moves, and it takes quite some time to get enough upgrades to make combat more interesting. Even then, it's still not as good as the combat in the three games preceding it, though it gets more and more OK as you play. Using items to hit enemies is especially satisfying, while heat actions generally felt like they lacked the punch of heat actions in previous games, both because they don't always feel so hard-hitting and often do little damage.
Another reason to rush the game is that substories weren't as good here as in 0, 1 or 2. Most are pretty short and don't tell those unique, funny stories that you'll be used to coming from those three games. There are still funny ones here of course, but I didn't really feel after doing 30 of them that I wanted to do another 70 more.
Finally, the other issue with the game you might have is the very slow start. The first few chapters are spent in the orphanage Kiryu took over called "Morning Glory", and for multiple hours, all you do is spend time with the children and their problems. These little mini stories always had a satisfying ending and I liked that you're supposed to get to know the children yourself. There were many moments in the main story as well where I felt grateful to have spent so much time with the kids, so overall I wouldn't say it's a negative. It's just that the tasks before you get these mini story conclusions are usually very boring, which is a drag. At some point I thought the game was taking the piss with how many times I got interrupted before I could finally leave for Kamurocho for the first time but once you do, the story picks up the pace.
As is the case in many Yakuza games, Kamurocho shares time with another location, this time with Okinawa, where the orphanage is at. It's a nice little place, but I'll always remember it as the place where I would sprint after Ayako who's doing the griddy and is still faster than Kiryu.
The soundtrack has some very solid tracks that add to the vibe, especially the New Serena track was very chill and is something I can see myself listening to outside of the game, but there is one battle theme that is just the worst. It's called D2A, and I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I laughed the first time I heard it, but I don't understand how it got a place in here. It's like if a Barbie song played in the Oppenheimer movie.
Overall though, Yakuza 3 feels like it gets more hate because I assume a lot of people come into this game after they played three remade / modern games in 0, 1 and 2 to play a game that was merely remastered, though the slow start and combat will also play a big role. If you can get past these things though, Yakuza 3 has some great characters, a story with many memorable moments and beautiful eyes to offer. Can't miss, if you ask me.
1992
Final Fantasy games, objectively, are really well done, at least from the fourth-generation games, as I didn't play any newer iterations yet. But let me start of this review by saying that I realize that 3 to 5 so far have not been for me. On the one hand, I think it has a lot to do with how the game has clearly a younger audience in mind, especially in its story presentation, so perhaps I would have fallen in love with the franchise like so many others, if I had played these games at a young age myself. On the other hand, young me was more interested in sports, fighting and platforming games, so I probably wouldn't have.
But having said this, if you are one of those who loves Super Famicom Final Fantasy games, I'm hoping you understand that I think fundamentally, Final Fantasy games are good, I just didn't gell with them yet. Final Fantasy IV I actually did beat, but both 3 and 5 I didn't, so let me go over why in this review.
As with IV, there are pre-named characters in this game's story and there clearly is a lot more attention being paid to it since IV then before. The production values are also off the charts here, and the game has added some QoL features to make life much easier than in III, which was the last game that had the well-known 'job system'. In this game, the job system is actually well explained and you quickly get a grasp of how it works. Many other features of this game are explained as well, making it less important to constantly look up a guide or the game's manual to figure stuff out.
The job system is something I want to quickly talk about here, as I finally understand why people rave about it. In III, I thought the job system was really lackluster and more of a gimmick forced on me than something I enjoyed using, while in V, it's really good. It's actually wild how many options it gives you to customize and mix&match your characters it gives you. From what I've seen, it only gets deeper the further you are in the game.
While that is great, to me it only affected my enjoyment of the game so much, as the gameplay itself is the same as in FF III, meaning it still uses constant random encounters that mostly either are too easy or too hard, though mainly the former, it still asks you to grind, and I don't want to know how much you need to grind for the final few dungeons, it still has a few enemy attacks that just make the gameplay straight up not fun for me (more on that in second) and it still uses the ATB system, which I'm not a fan of.
In terms of enemy attacks, the one in FF IV I disliked the most was the one that allowed your enemies to literally one-hit kill you regardless of your HP or whether you are guarding or not. I don't remember the name, but I found that to be a non-sensical thing, especially because it worked pretty much all the time.
In FF V, the thing that annoyed me the most was the "sap" skill that some enemies apparently have. From what I gathered, you couldn't even tell whether you were inflicted or not, and there is no telling when it would disappear, and I think no way to remove it, especially since it is easily inflicted on all party members at the same time. What it does is reduce the HP of all party members in a really quick way, which means you need to constantly heal against it until the effect runs out.
This issue gets exacerbated by the ATB system. The ATB system basically means that while this is a turn-based game, the enemies will not just wait out your turn. As their attack meter fully charges, they will just steal a turn, if you wait too long. And "waiting too long" is literally a couple seconds of thinking of what to do. To me, this places it between a true turn-based system and real time combat, both of which I enjoy a lot. The ATB system, I do not. Especially when I got sapped, turning on the proverbial jets to pick the skill I want got really annoying. The first boss that does this that you are fighting also has a bar that charges twice as fast, so as your party's HP is rapidly going down, getting hit is not a great thing to happen. There are only so many revive items I can use. And having to 'hurry' is not something that adds literally anything to combat. I either know what to do but can't do it quickly enough, or I don't know what to do and have to look at my options and strategize, which I can't do in a short amount of time. There is an option to turn the ATB system to "wait", but all this does apparently is have the enemy wait if you go into a specific menu like "Black Magic". Staying in the general command screen still lets the enemies steal a turn.
Finally, I want to go over the story. I played roughly 10 hours, so I got about a third of the way through the game I would imagine. So far, all I have seen about the story clearly tells me that it was written for a young audience. I don't mind this at all, that's most people who would play it at the time, and many people got emotionally connected to the cast with this story. Playing this now however, I can't say I enjoyed it simply because I'm clearly not the target audience. The game's way of endearing you to its characters is through multiple contrived events instead of genuine chemistry built up between the characters through its writing, which is understandable due to the Super Famicom's storage space but again, speaks to the target audience of this game's story.
So overall, again, I think this game is good and I can see why many people would enjoy the job system even today, but I can't say I enjoyed this game personally, both in terms of story and gameplay.
(This is the 82nd game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
But having said this, if you are one of those who loves Super Famicom Final Fantasy games, I'm hoping you understand that I think fundamentally, Final Fantasy games are good, I just didn't gell with them yet. Final Fantasy IV I actually did beat, but both 3 and 5 I didn't, so let me go over why in this review.
As with IV, there are pre-named characters in this game's story and there clearly is a lot more attention being paid to it since IV then before. The production values are also off the charts here, and the game has added some QoL features to make life much easier than in III, which was the last game that had the well-known 'job system'. In this game, the job system is actually well explained and you quickly get a grasp of how it works. Many other features of this game are explained as well, making it less important to constantly look up a guide or the game's manual to figure stuff out.
The job system is something I want to quickly talk about here, as I finally understand why people rave about it. In III, I thought the job system was really lackluster and more of a gimmick forced on me than something I enjoyed using, while in V, it's really good. It's actually wild how many options it gives you to customize and mix&match your characters it gives you. From what I've seen, it only gets deeper the further you are in the game.
While that is great, to me it only affected my enjoyment of the game so much, as the gameplay itself is the same as in FF III, meaning it still uses constant random encounters that mostly either are too easy or too hard, though mainly the former, it still asks you to grind, and I don't want to know how much you need to grind for the final few dungeons, it still has a few enemy attacks that just make the gameplay straight up not fun for me (more on that in second) and it still uses the ATB system, which I'm not a fan of.
In terms of enemy attacks, the one in FF IV I disliked the most was the one that allowed your enemies to literally one-hit kill you regardless of your HP or whether you are guarding or not. I don't remember the name, but I found that to be a non-sensical thing, especially because it worked pretty much all the time.
In FF V, the thing that annoyed me the most was the "sap" skill that some enemies apparently have. From what I gathered, you couldn't even tell whether you were inflicted or not, and there is no telling when it would disappear, and I think no way to remove it, especially since it is easily inflicted on all party members at the same time. What it does is reduce the HP of all party members in a really quick way, which means you need to constantly heal against it until the effect runs out.
This issue gets exacerbated by the ATB system. The ATB system basically means that while this is a turn-based game, the enemies will not just wait out your turn. As their attack meter fully charges, they will just steal a turn, if you wait too long. And "waiting too long" is literally a couple seconds of thinking of what to do. To me, this places it between a true turn-based system and real time combat, both of which I enjoy a lot. The ATB system, I do not. Especially when I got sapped, turning on the proverbial jets to pick the skill I want got really annoying. The first boss that does this that you are fighting also has a bar that charges twice as fast, so as your party's HP is rapidly going down, getting hit is not a great thing to happen. There are only so many revive items I can use. And having to 'hurry' is not something that adds literally anything to combat. I either know what to do but can't do it quickly enough, or I don't know what to do and have to look at my options and strategize, which I can't do in a short amount of time. There is an option to turn the ATB system to "wait", but all this does apparently is have the enemy wait if you go into a specific menu like "Black Magic". Staying in the general command screen still lets the enemies steal a turn.
Finally, I want to go over the story. I played roughly 10 hours, so I got about a third of the way through the game I would imagine. So far, all I have seen about the story clearly tells me that it was written for a young audience. I don't mind this at all, that's most people who would play it at the time, and many people got emotionally connected to the cast with this story. Playing this now however, I can't say I enjoyed it simply because I'm clearly not the target audience. The game's way of endearing you to its characters is through multiple contrived events instead of genuine chemistry built up between the characters through its writing, which is understandable due to the Super Famicom's storage space but again, speaks to the target audience of this game's story.
So overall, again, I think this game is good and I can see why many people would enjoy the job system even today, but I can't say I enjoyed this game personally, both in terms of story and gameplay.
(This is the 82nd game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
Doom II: Hell on Earth came out not too long after the original Doom. It took only 10 months, in fact. When you play the game, it's easy to see how the game was developed so quickly. It's basically the same game with larger levels, more enemy types and an additional weapon, among some other minor changes.
If you loved the original Doom, that's great. As someone who liked it, I didn't see that much reason to go through the entirety of Doom II though, since story is, understandably, irrelevant for the game (though not "not important" in general, John Carmack!).
From the couple hours I put into the game, what I realized was that the setting 'Earth' felt somewhat off-putting compared to the first game, that many of the tracks sounded way too tame for a game like Doom and that I've otherwise already played this game, as it plays exactly the same way, just with more levels now.
Don't get me wrong, if you enjoy boomer shooters and Doom in particular, you won't be looking for much else. Additionally, from what I was told, the modding scene is what makes the game so popular still, and having checked some of the user-made levels out, yeah, I can see why. Custom enemies, custom weapons, custom maps, custom music... You can probably spend the next few years solely playing this game and not run out of content.
I've got thousands of other games I would like to play, so I'm not gonna get into that rabbit hole, but you're invited to do so if that sounds interesting to you. Me personally, I'll gladly return to the series for the next game, but I'm hoping to see a little bit more innovation, if the story itself is irrelevant in these games.
(This is the 105th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet/blog is in my bio.)
If you loved the original Doom, that's great. As someone who liked it, I didn't see that much reason to go through the entirety of Doom II though, since story is, understandably, irrelevant for the game (though not "not important" in general, John Carmack!).
From the couple hours I put into the game, what I realized was that the setting 'Earth' felt somewhat off-putting compared to the first game, that many of the tracks sounded way too tame for a game like Doom and that I've otherwise already played this game, as it plays exactly the same way, just with more levels now.
Don't get me wrong, if you enjoy boomer shooters and Doom in particular, you won't be looking for much else. Additionally, from what I was told, the modding scene is what makes the game so popular still, and having checked some of the user-made levels out, yeah, I can see why. Custom enemies, custom weapons, custom maps, custom music... You can probably spend the next few years solely playing this game and not run out of content.
I've got thousands of other games I would like to play, so I'm not gonna get into that rabbit hole, but you're invited to do so if that sounds interesting to you. Me personally, I'll gladly return to the series for the next game, but I'm hoping to see a little bit more innovation, if the story itself is irrelevant in these games.
(This is the 105th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet/blog is in my bio.)
1995
(This is the 106th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet/blog is in my bio.)
How stupid am I? I played King's Field II instead of King's Field I because I didn't realize that King's Field II was called King's Field I in the US since King's Field I never released outside of Japan. You know? Either way, there is only a year that separates both of these games and apart from minor differences, they appear to be very similar in terms of gameplay. King's Field II is about twice as long though, which is worth pointing out.
Anyway, whether I played the game I wanted to or not, I got the King's Field experience alright, so I'd like to share my thoughts on the game for those of you curious about this game. As you probably know if you're looking to play (or have played) any King's Field game, they were some of the first games developed by From Software, who have built on the foundation here just a tiny bit to bring us games like Demon's Souls, Dark Souls and most recently, Elden Ring in an Action RPG subgenre that they've pretty much pioneered.
King's Field is not quite a soulslike than it is a dungeon crawler / Action RPG that doesn't change up the established genres all that much, but it's FromSoft finding their footing in the video game industry, so I wanted to see their first attempt (second attempt...) at developing a game by playing King's Field (II).
It's a game alright, and has some good ideas, but the experience is dragged down by sloooow combat and the obtuse nature of everything from dungeon design to itemization and overall progression.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 4/10
The game starts with the camera flying over the island of Melanat, where the game takes place. You find yourself washed up on the coast of Melanat, which is in control of either a god or a demon (the storyteller itself wasn't quite sure). The writing isn't so good in this one. Your purpose isn't explained much further, other than what you can make out yourself. Go into the depths of this place and kill whatever controls the island.
As you make your way through the labyrinthine island, you will stumble upon multiple NPCs, who either give you lore on the island, the enemies and important people, or they will ask you to find something or someone. They'll give you helpful tips as well, and in classic FromSoft manner, you gotta talk to them multiple times to get all the information out of them that they have to give. There was one character in particular who stopped eating his soup to tell me that he is too fat to go down into the underworld. What, there is only a tiny hole that leads there? I laughed quite hard at this line just because of how blunt and out of nowhere it was. If you're wondering whether characters have personality here, that's as much as you'll get out of the ones that you'll see within your first 5 or so hours of playing the game.
Still, there is an effort here to tell a story of a hostile place filled with hostile enemies and one that is bigger than 'em all. Even though it's a story that has been told 80000 times in games by now, effort counts, especially during the early 90s, though the bar is definitely about to be set much higher as more and more PS1 games come out.
GAMEPLAY | 7/20
I know every console has its stinkers and its diamonds, but I still find it fascinating that the only two PS1 games I've played for more than a few hours are THIS and Metal Gear Solid. Talk about two ends of a spectrum.
King's Field has its fans, and I never want to take anything away from them when I play and review these games myself, but if I'm addressing this review to not just obtuse and retro dungeon crawler / RPG fans, then I can only say that these people should stay far away from King's Field, or at least that they should expect to drop it after their initial curiosity as Soulslike fans runs off.
Controls can be optimized thanks to emulation these days, but the basic controls look like this. D-Pad buttons to walk in four directions, L1 and R1 to strafe left or right, L1 and R1 alongside a directional button to circle around an area and turn around, and L2 and R2 to look up and down respectively. You will kind of get used to it but I never got really comfortable.
The game runs at a solid (/s) 20 FPS for most of the game but has some spikes both up and down from time to time. Don't know if it's emulation that rescues some frames from time to time or whether it's simply the optimization of the game, but what you need to know is that frames correlate with speed of attacks. Not just your attacks, but enemy attacks. In a game where staggering your enemy is key, not attacking the second your stamina comes back means opening yourself up to being hit. Get hit a couple times against most enemies and you're dead. So if the game plays fluidly for a few seconds, it's not something to be happy about when you're in combat.
If the game runs at its normal FPS, combat is very slow. First, you need to position yourself. Facing an enemy head-on, especially when there are more than 1 enemies in a given room, is guaranteed death. When you swing towards an enemy from the front, the one who hits sooner wins. If you hit the enemy, you stagger it and avoid damage. If you are hit, you don't get staggered but a hefty sum is taken from your health pool and you might be poisoned or paralyzed to boot. And even if you do hit first, you know have to play a game of timing your next attacks. Each swing depletese your entire health pool, so you have to wait for 1% of it to come back in order to swing again. Time it right and you can stagger-lock the enemy for the duration of the battle. Click too early and you lose precious frames before your input is finally recognized, meaning the enemy can get a fatal attack in. And EVEN if you manage to time it correctly every time, killing an enemy takes an agonizingly long amount of time for the first few hours. Then you level up a couple times and instead of taking 30 seconds, it takes 20 or 25. I can live with a lot that this game has to offer but combat was at no point satisfying, and having to circle around enemies to cheaply hit them from the side or back to avoid damage very quickly felt repetitive and even less satisfying, as you never really are besting the enemy but the game.
As I mentioned, death comes quick, and unfortunately this means you usually lose a lot of progress as well. In fact, the game drops you back at the very beginning of the game, even if you reach the first save room that is likely 1-2 hours away at least when you first start playing. If you do save, you spawn at the start, have to go into the menu and load the save point, which takes 20 seconds longer than spawning at your save point immediately would. Emulation and save states will be your friends.
Talking about the menu, this is where you use and equip stuff. Being low on health means opening the menu, going into "Use Items" and using the item before exiting the menu and returning to gameplay. Being poisoned means the same thing. It's not a big deal though because you can rarely heal anyway (I could only bring one healing potion with me 5+ hours into the game), so you mostly open the menu to use items or equip stuff you find.
Stuff you find is another thing. Merchants usually give you items that you find in the game world anyway, and anything that you can't is really expensive, so they don't feel useful at all for the first half of the game at least. Finding stuff is kind of fun, but then you have items like the knight's helm which is in some random corner and not even visible on the spot it's supposed to be on.
Items also have no information on them, whether it's for their use or what kind of stats they have (for equipment), so you equip and then go back to the stats screen to figure out what changed. This is pretty archaic even for 1994.
This all creates a pretty unsatisfying gameplay loop for someone who is into retro games but not quite a hardcore retro RPG gamer. Combat can be fun in 1994, games don't have to be this obtuse in 1994 and games can perform better in 1994 ... well, maybe not quite for that last part, especially for the new 3D market. But still, more likely than not, King's Field will not be enjoyable for you, unless you are part of the more hardcore retro RPG fanbase I mentioned, in which case, go solve this island and hopefully, you'll have some fun along the way.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 6/10
There are 10 or so large areas in the game and one track playing in each. One. Luckily the first few actually are nice to listen to and set the tone nicely, but it still gets very repetitive. The ending music is pretty nice.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 4/10
The visuals look really bad. The only saving graces here are the villages, which have some retro charm to them thanks to the odd character design and the vibes the locations give off, as well as the enemy art design, which I found to be somewhat well done. Enemies repeat a lot, but they look disgusting, and I think that's a positive for a game like this.
Other than that though, the gray just tired me out after a while. Areas look way too similar, which in a game with no map is not great for getting your bearings. Textures look bland and I can't say that the visuals added much to the atmosphere as a result, other than telling me that I'm trapped in this ugly world, at least until I found the X to close the window.
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 5/10
The game is not scary, and the island does not have this mysterious feeling to it that I got in some other dungeon crawlers I've played as part of this challenge I'm doing. Even games from 1990 like Elvira: Mistress of the Dark oozes a lot more atmosphere than King's Field (II). 3D will have helped with immersion a lot more at the time, but I felt more immersed in those point-and-click style dungeon crawlers from years earlier. That said, death is truly around every corner in this game and the soundtrack at least pulls off a certain adventure-like vibe.
CONTENT | 6/10
It's a shame that I disliked combat and dungeon design so much, because the game has some fun content otherwise. Lots of locked doors, secret paths and items that unlock cool stuff can be found in this game. Finding a dragon stone to put into a stone tablet to finally get a MP-healing source was pretty nice for example. The game is pretty long, so I'm sure there is a lot more where that came from. Unfortunately, you gotta be OK with the gameplay itself, which will probably decide whether you have the interest to play on.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 5/10
Not the worst. As mentioned, areas have lots of secret rooms and paths to discover, which will lead you to lots of enemies and treasure. Much of it felt optional, so if you want to experience more of what King's Field has to offer, it felt like more was always next door, you just gotta find a way to get there. That said, the poor visuals and repetitive design of the dungeons as well as poor economy design are some clear weak points here.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 4/10
This Kings Field game wasn't the launch title, but it's still worth mentioning that that one was launched close to the release of the PS1, and games like these were not at all common at this time. Still, you can see the very short development time in the overall quality of the experience, which, no matter which way you put it, means that this sort of innovation was not for the best, at least not with the execution found here.
REPLAYABILITY | 3/5
You'll probably miss out on lots of secrets after your first playthrough. If you still want more after that, there will likely be plenty to find still.
PLAYABILITY | 4/5
Works well, but the low FPS is headache, and the odd spikes even more so. There is also head-bobbing enabled at the start, which I suggest you turn off asap through the options menu.
OVERALL | 49/100
There are many better dungeon crawlers and RPGs of all kinds available from 1994/5 or earlier. I'd suggest you play those. King's Field has very poor combat that is not only slow and hard to figure out at first, but once you do, you realize it's really not hard to cheese the game. The challenge for me was to stay awake as my character swung 25 times to kill a generic enemy. Maybe you'll feel differently, but I wouldn't personally recommend the game.
How stupid am I? I played King's Field II instead of King's Field I because I didn't realize that King's Field II was called King's Field I in the US since King's Field I never released outside of Japan. You know? Either way, there is only a year that separates both of these games and apart from minor differences, they appear to be very similar in terms of gameplay. King's Field II is about twice as long though, which is worth pointing out.
Anyway, whether I played the game I wanted to or not, I got the King's Field experience alright, so I'd like to share my thoughts on the game for those of you curious about this game. As you probably know if you're looking to play (or have played) any King's Field game, they were some of the first games developed by From Software, who have built on the foundation here just a tiny bit to bring us games like Demon's Souls, Dark Souls and most recently, Elden Ring in an Action RPG subgenre that they've pretty much pioneered.
King's Field is not quite a soulslike than it is a dungeon crawler / Action RPG that doesn't change up the established genres all that much, but it's FromSoft finding their footing in the video game industry, so I wanted to see their first attempt (second attempt...) at developing a game by playing King's Field (II).
It's a game alright, and has some good ideas, but the experience is dragged down by sloooow combat and the obtuse nature of everything from dungeon design to itemization and overall progression.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 4/10
The game starts with the camera flying over the island of Melanat, where the game takes place. You find yourself washed up on the coast of Melanat, which is in control of either a god or a demon (the storyteller itself wasn't quite sure). The writing isn't so good in this one. Your purpose isn't explained much further, other than what you can make out yourself. Go into the depths of this place and kill whatever controls the island.
As you make your way through the labyrinthine island, you will stumble upon multiple NPCs, who either give you lore on the island, the enemies and important people, or they will ask you to find something or someone. They'll give you helpful tips as well, and in classic FromSoft manner, you gotta talk to them multiple times to get all the information out of them that they have to give. There was one character in particular who stopped eating his soup to tell me that he is too fat to go down into the underworld. What, there is only a tiny hole that leads there? I laughed quite hard at this line just because of how blunt and out of nowhere it was. If you're wondering whether characters have personality here, that's as much as you'll get out of the ones that you'll see within your first 5 or so hours of playing the game.
Still, there is an effort here to tell a story of a hostile place filled with hostile enemies and one that is bigger than 'em all. Even though it's a story that has been told 80000 times in games by now, effort counts, especially during the early 90s, though the bar is definitely about to be set much higher as more and more PS1 games come out.
GAMEPLAY | 7/20
I know every console has its stinkers and its diamonds, but I still find it fascinating that the only two PS1 games I've played for more than a few hours are THIS and Metal Gear Solid. Talk about two ends of a spectrum.
King's Field has its fans, and I never want to take anything away from them when I play and review these games myself, but if I'm addressing this review to not just obtuse and retro dungeon crawler / RPG fans, then I can only say that these people should stay far away from King's Field, or at least that they should expect to drop it after their initial curiosity as Soulslike fans runs off.
Controls can be optimized thanks to emulation these days, but the basic controls look like this. D-Pad buttons to walk in four directions, L1 and R1 to strafe left or right, L1 and R1 alongside a directional button to circle around an area and turn around, and L2 and R2 to look up and down respectively. You will kind of get used to it but I never got really comfortable.
The game runs at a solid (/s) 20 FPS for most of the game but has some spikes both up and down from time to time. Don't know if it's emulation that rescues some frames from time to time or whether it's simply the optimization of the game, but what you need to know is that frames correlate with speed of attacks. Not just your attacks, but enemy attacks. In a game where staggering your enemy is key, not attacking the second your stamina comes back means opening yourself up to being hit. Get hit a couple times against most enemies and you're dead. So if the game plays fluidly for a few seconds, it's not something to be happy about when you're in combat.
If the game runs at its normal FPS, combat is very slow. First, you need to position yourself. Facing an enemy head-on, especially when there are more than 1 enemies in a given room, is guaranteed death. When you swing towards an enemy from the front, the one who hits sooner wins. If you hit the enemy, you stagger it and avoid damage. If you are hit, you don't get staggered but a hefty sum is taken from your health pool and you might be poisoned or paralyzed to boot. And even if you do hit first, you know have to play a game of timing your next attacks. Each swing depletese your entire health pool, so you have to wait for 1% of it to come back in order to swing again. Time it right and you can stagger-lock the enemy for the duration of the battle. Click too early and you lose precious frames before your input is finally recognized, meaning the enemy can get a fatal attack in. And EVEN if you manage to time it correctly every time, killing an enemy takes an agonizingly long amount of time for the first few hours. Then you level up a couple times and instead of taking 30 seconds, it takes 20 or 25. I can live with a lot that this game has to offer but combat was at no point satisfying, and having to circle around enemies to cheaply hit them from the side or back to avoid damage very quickly felt repetitive and even less satisfying, as you never really are besting the enemy but the game.
As I mentioned, death comes quick, and unfortunately this means you usually lose a lot of progress as well. In fact, the game drops you back at the very beginning of the game, even if you reach the first save room that is likely 1-2 hours away at least when you first start playing. If you do save, you spawn at the start, have to go into the menu and load the save point, which takes 20 seconds longer than spawning at your save point immediately would. Emulation and save states will be your friends.
Talking about the menu, this is where you use and equip stuff. Being low on health means opening the menu, going into "Use Items" and using the item before exiting the menu and returning to gameplay. Being poisoned means the same thing. It's not a big deal though because you can rarely heal anyway (I could only bring one healing potion with me 5+ hours into the game), so you mostly open the menu to use items or equip stuff you find.
Stuff you find is another thing. Merchants usually give you items that you find in the game world anyway, and anything that you can't is really expensive, so they don't feel useful at all for the first half of the game at least. Finding stuff is kind of fun, but then you have items like the knight's helm which is in some random corner and not even visible on the spot it's supposed to be on.
Items also have no information on them, whether it's for their use or what kind of stats they have (for equipment), so you equip and then go back to the stats screen to figure out what changed. This is pretty archaic even for 1994.
This all creates a pretty unsatisfying gameplay loop for someone who is into retro games but not quite a hardcore retro RPG gamer. Combat can be fun in 1994, games don't have to be this obtuse in 1994 and games can perform better in 1994 ... well, maybe not quite for that last part, especially for the new 3D market. But still, more likely than not, King's Field will not be enjoyable for you, unless you are part of the more hardcore retro RPG fanbase I mentioned, in which case, go solve this island and hopefully, you'll have some fun along the way.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 6/10
There are 10 or so large areas in the game and one track playing in each. One. Luckily the first few actually are nice to listen to and set the tone nicely, but it still gets very repetitive. The ending music is pretty nice.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 4/10
The visuals look really bad. The only saving graces here are the villages, which have some retro charm to them thanks to the odd character design and the vibes the locations give off, as well as the enemy art design, which I found to be somewhat well done. Enemies repeat a lot, but they look disgusting, and I think that's a positive for a game like this.
Other than that though, the gray just tired me out after a while. Areas look way too similar, which in a game with no map is not great for getting your bearings. Textures look bland and I can't say that the visuals added much to the atmosphere as a result, other than telling me that I'm trapped in this ugly world, at least until I found the X to close the window.
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 5/10
The game is not scary, and the island does not have this mysterious feeling to it that I got in some other dungeon crawlers I've played as part of this challenge I'm doing. Even games from 1990 like Elvira: Mistress of the Dark oozes a lot more atmosphere than King's Field (II). 3D will have helped with immersion a lot more at the time, but I felt more immersed in those point-and-click style dungeon crawlers from years earlier. That said, death is truly around every corner in this game and the soundtrack at least pulls off a certain adventure-like vibe.
CONTENT | 6/10
It's a shame that I disliked combat and dungeon design so much, because the game has some fun content otherwise. Lots of locked doors, secret paths and items that unlock cool stuff can be found in this game. Finding a dragon stone to put into a stone tablet to finally get a MP-healing source was pretty nice for example. The game is pretty long, so I'm sure there is a lot more where that came from. Unfortunately, you gotta be OK with the gameplay itself, which will probably decide whether you have the interest to play on.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 5/10
Not the worst. As mentioned, areas have lots of secret rooms and paths to discover, which will lead you to lots of enemies and treasure. Much of it felt optional, so if you want to experience more of what King's Field has to offer, it felt like more was always next door, you just gotta find a way to get there. That said, the poor visuals and repetitive design of the dungeons as well as poor economy design are some clear weak points here.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 4/10
This Kings Field game wasn't the launch title, but it's still worth mentioning that that one was launched close to the release of the PS1, and games like these were not at all common at this time. Still, you can see the very short development time in the overall quality of the experience, which, no matter which way you put it, means that this sort of innovation was not for the best, at least not with the execution found here.
REPLAYABILITY | 3/5
You'll probably miss out on lots of secrets after your first playthrough. If you still want more after that, there will likely be plenty to find still.
PLAYABILITY | 4/5
Works well, but the low FPS is headache, and the odd spikes even more so. There is also head-bobbing enabled at the start, which I suggest you turn off asap through the options menu.
OVERALL | 49/100
There are many better dungeon crawlers and RPGs of all kinds available from 1994/5 or earlier. I'd suggest you play those. King's Field has very poor combat that is not only slow and hard to figure out at first, but once you do, you realize it's really not hard to cheese the game. The challenge for me was to stay awake as my character swung 25 times to kill a generic enemy. Maybe you'll feel differently, but I wouldn't personally recommend the game.
This game was such a trip. The Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout, developed by Kemco for the NES and initially released in Japan on August 3, 1990, is a very odd game. If you'd ask me about the structure of this game after I played AND FINISHED IT, I would just say "I dunno".
The game is easy and frustrating at the same time and it goes on for far longer than it has the right to. It uses Looney Tunes characters as both the protagonist and all antagonists, which does add a certain charm, but it's also probably the only reason why it's relevant enough for me to have put on my 1990 playlist.
More on the game in detail below.
____________
STORYTELLING
The game starts with a short cutscene with text and stand still images of Bugs Bunny opening a letter. The Bugs Bunny character is celebrating its 50th birthday and his friends are throwing a birthday party for him. Some of the Looney Tunes characters are jealous, so they decide to stand in Bugs Bunny's way as he tries to get to his party. We're talking characters like Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Foghorn Leghorn, Pepé Le Pew and Sylvester.
Once you beat the game, you get a similar cutscene that has a little surprise in store.
It's about the minimum you'd expect for a game that wants to have any sort of story in it.
GAMEPLAY
You control Bugs Bunny through a variety of different levels in a game that features roughly 20 FPS and is pretty consistent with that. You are armed with a hammer and go through a colorful world filled with a bunch of random assets and bear similarities to Super Mario games in design. You even warp through "pipes", though here these signify the end of a stage most of the time and lead to a boss.
The assets are truly random here. You'll be hit by rocks, walking alarm clocks that explode, lava that shoots up from the ground, some weird moist-looking orange texture that can fly, guys dressed like milk cartons and characters that have a hammer for their heads. At least the boss fights are only against Looney Tunes characters that you'll recognize.
The problem is, there are about 50 stages and that many boss fights throughout the game. I'm exaggerating, but only kind of, and each boss is repeated at least 3 times until it all of a sudden just ends. It's not like levels are creatively designed to warrant this. At points it feels like you are walking through pretty much the same levels over and over again with only slight changes here and there. The boss fights sure are the same, so why are you making the player suffer more by overextending the playtime? Again, it doesn't help that the game runs at a locked 20 FPS.
After each stage you beat, you enter one of two mini games and can play those multiple times if you collected enough carrots. One has a Bingo like card on it and you have to try and match 3 or more stars horizontally/vertically/diagonally. If you do, you get 1Ups. This is no challenge at all and you will find yourself with 50+ 1Ups left by the time you beat the game. Then there is a Whac-A-Mole type mini game as well. Both just become annoying necessities after you've played them a few times.
The 1 Ups makes the completion of this game much easier already, but it's not like the levels are difficult either way. You find plenty of items to regenerate your health (you'll need them because there is a lot of stuff that you can't reliably dodge in this game) and platforming barely offers any challenges. Your only enemy there is gravity.
There are barely any features in this game and in today's day and age, we've seen plenty of these licensed game that are only made as cash-grabs, as there really wasn't much effort put into this one.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
No voice acting. Sound design is OK and the soundtrack is as well. The music is not terrible to listen to, it's very average as far as OSTs from this time go, but the repetitive and at parts non-sensical level design might cause anxiety whenever you listen to it after your time with this game is over.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
The game is certainly colorful and Looney Tunes characters add to the charm of this game, but the game starts looking pretty basic the further you get into it, there isn't much creativity here and the fact that a bunch of random assets are thrown together here does reduce the aesthetical quality of the game in my opinion.
ATMOSPHERE
The game doesn't really do anything special graphically, it has a very average soundtrack and to add to this, your eyes are strained from looking at this 20 FPS, blurry, headache-inducing presentation.
CONTENT
It took me about 3 hours to beat the game and it should take you as much as well. Unlike some other platformers that take much longer for a first time player - but probably less than 3 hours for experienced players - 3 hours is all The Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout has to offer. I rarely died, the game has barely any features that you could miss out on and it's a pretty straightforward experience. And even with a game that is 3 hours long, I was asking for it to be over very early on into my playthrough due to the sheer repetitiveness of it.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
Terrible. I don't really think much thought went into creating a cohesive structure at any point. They simply seem to have created a start and end point for a level, throw together a bunch of random assets in between and added about half a dozen rotating bosses at the end of each stage. Very poor.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
There is nothing innovative about this one. They seem to have copied a bunch of platformers that were more popular without understanding what makes platformers popular.
REPLAYABILITY
You can try to beat your high score, sure, but I doubt that anyone who starts playing this today would want to replay it.
PLAYABILITY
It works from start to finish, but playing it at 20 FPS or so throughout, if even that, really hurts the experience (replace 'experience' with 'eyes').
OVERALL
This is definitely in the running for Worst Game of 1990. It's the only game I've played so far that performed this poorly. If not for the Looney Tunes setting, this game wouldn't have anything to offer apart from boring, repetitive and simple platforming.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
Couldn't find any thoughts, just two notices of the game's release in Electronic Gaming Monthly and Nintendo Power magazines.
The game is easy and frustrating at the same time and it goes on for far longer than it has the right to. It uses Looney Tunes characters as both the protagonist and all antagonists, which does add a certain charm, but it's also probably the only reason why it's relevant enough for me to have put on my 1990 playlist.
More on the game in detail below.
____________
STORYTELLING
The game starts with a short cutscene with text and stand still images of Bugs Bunny opening a letter. The Bugs Bunny character is celebrating its 50th birthday and his friends are throwing a birthday party for him. Some of the Looney Tunes characters are jealous, so they decide to stand in Bugs Bunny's way as he tries to get to his party. We're talking characters like Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Foghorn Leghorn, Pepé Le Pew and Sylvester.
Once you beat the game, you get a similar cutscene that has a little surprise in store.
It's about the minimum you'd expect for a game that wants to have any sort of story in it.
GAMEPLAY
You control Bugs Bunny through a variety of different levels in a game that features roughly 20 FPS and is pretty consistent with that. You are armed with a hammer and go through a colorful world filled with a bunch of random assets and bear similarities to Super Mario games in design. You even warp through "pipes", though here these signify the end of a stage most of the time and lead to a boss.
The assets are truly random here. You'll be hit by rocks, walking alarm clocks that explode, lava that shoots up from the ground, some weird moist-looking orange texture that can fly, guys dressed like milk cartons and characters that have a hammer for their heads. At least the boss fights are only against Looney Tunes characters that you'll recognize.
The problem is, there are about 50 stages and that many boss fights throughout the game. I'm exaggerating, but only kind of, and each boss is repeated at least 3 times until it all of a sudden just ends. It's not like levels are creatively designed to warrant this. At points it feels like you are walking through pretty much the same levels over and over again with only slight changes here and there. The boss fights sure are the same, so why are you making the player suffer more by overextending the playtime? Again, it doesn't help that the game runs at a locked 20 FPS.
After each stage you beat, you enter one of two mini games and can play those multiple times if you collected enough carrots. One has a Bingo like card on it and you have to try and match 3 or more stars horizontally/vertically/diagonally. If you do, you get 1Ups. This is no challenge at all and you will find yourself with 50+ 1Ups left by the time you beat the game. Then there is a Whac-A-Mole type mini game as well. Both just become annoying necessities after you've played them a few times.
The 1 Ups makes the completion of this game much easier already, but it's not like the levels are difficult either way. You find plenty of items to regenerate your health (you'll need them because there is a lot of stuff that you can't reliably dodge in this game) and platforming barely offers any challenges. Your only enemy there is gravity.
There are barely any features in this game and in today's day and age, we've seen plenty of these licensed game that are only made as cash-grabs, as there really wasn't much effort put into this one.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
No voice acting. Sound design is OK and the soundtrack is as well. The music is not terrible to listen to, it's very average as far as OSTs from this time go, but the repetitive and at parts non-sensical level design might cause anxiety whenever you listen to it after your time with this game is over.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
The game is certainly colorful and Looney Tunes characters add to the charm of this game, but the game starts looking pretty basic the further you get into it, there isn't much creativity here and the fact that a bunch of random assets are thrown together here does reduce the aesthetical quality of the game in my opinion.
ATMOSPHERE
The game doesn't really do anything special graphically, it has a very average soundtrack and to add to this, your eyes are strained from looking at this 20 FPS, blurry, headache-inducing presentation.
CONTENT
It took me about 3 hours to beat the game and it should take you as much as well. Unlike some other platformers that take much longer for a first time player - but probably less than 3 hours for experienced players - 3 hours is all The Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout has to offer. I rarely died, the game has barely any features that you could miss out on and it's a pretty straightforward experience. And even with a game that is 3 hours long, I was asking for it to be over very early on into my playthrough due to the sheer repetitiveness of it.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
Terrible. I don't really think much thought went into creating a cohesive structure at any point. They simply seem to have created a start and end point for a level, throw together a bunch of random assets in between and added about half a dozen rotating bosses at the end of each stage. Very poor.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
There is nothing innovative about this one. They seem to have copied a bunch of platformers that were more popular without understanding what makes platformers popular.
REPLAYABILITY
You can try to beat your high score, sure, but I doubt that anyone who starts playing this today would want to replay it.
PLAYABILITY
It works from start to finish, but playing it at 20 FPS or so throughout, if even that, really hurts the experience (replace 'experience' with 'eyes').
OVERALL
This is definitely in the running for Worst Game of 1990. It's the only game I've played so far that performed this poorly. If not for the Looney Tunes setting, this game wouldn't have anything to offer apart from boring, repetitive and simple platforming.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
Couldn't find any thoughts, just two notices of the game's release in Electronic Gaming Monthly and Nintendo Power magazines.
This review contains spoilers
Shin Megami Tensei II, which released exclusively in Japan on March 18, 1994 for the Super Famicom, is the direct sequel to Shin Megami Tensei - not just in number like for most of the Megami Tensei games - and has become a video game that I have very conflicted feelings for. It is a game I enjoyed a lot overall, but one I can't recommend to anyone who isn't a big Megami Tensei fan. It is a game that confirmed once again that the Megami Tensei franchise is one of my favorites in gaming, but is also a game I don't see myself ever playing again (unless we get a remake). Though I'll explain what I thought about the game in detail in this review.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 9/10
(To preface this, as with the original, it's worth cautioning that if you are a deeply religious individual, you might take offense to the portrayal of the Messians in this game. Personally, I think a work of fiction should be treated as such, and I think the social commentary in this game goes way beyond the Messians (who appear to be portraying Christians) but if this kind of portrayal is a no-go for you, I'd stay away from the game. Some say this fear within Atlus is why the games never released in the West at the time, but who knows.)
SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST GAME: This game starts several decades after the first game ended. From the ashes of Tokyo, the Messian religion created a new encapsulated city called "Tokyo Millenium". Millenium's purpose for the Messians is to bring about the Thousand Year Kingdom, an age where people can live in peace. This concept was put forth in the first game as well, but did not come to fruition for the Messians yet, who are awaiting their Savior / Messiah who can guide them there. These seemingly noble amibitions aside, looking at the layout of the Millenium paints a different picture of perhaps not only their intentions, but definitely of their actions.
See, Millenium is divided into several districts, with one central tower controlling and ruling them all, aptly named "The Center". This is where the Messians and the elite live. The other districts include "Factory", the industrial center where commodities are produced and mining and excavation projects take place, "Arcadia", a demon-free district filled with care-free citizens, and "Valhalla", a zone more or less free of control by the Center and one where its citizens can pursue earthly delights as well as fight in a "Collosseum" in deadly tournaments, the winners of which get to live in the Center themselves.
You are one such fighter called "Hawk". Your trainer, Okamoto, wakes you up one day to train for the upcoming finale of the tournament. You are also an amnesiac who Okamoto "found", took in and named one day after you were unable to do so yourself. As you prepare for the final battle, many mysterious characters show themselves to you in odd visions. There is an old man in most of them standing next to bodies of men and women who are standing motionless in chambers, as the man asks you if you remember their names. Apparently, they are tied to your destiny. There is also a guy named Steven, who you will remember from SMT 1 if you played it, who appears in a "Virtual Battling Program" to give you something he calls the "Demon Summoning Program", which he gives to many capable people because of certain events that he fears will take place soon.
From here, you become demon-summoning Hawk, though that's just the start of who you are. What is your real name? Who are you and why are you strong? Why did the old man come to you in these visions? How do you tie in with the Center and their plans for the Thousand Year Kingdom?
Know that the characters you name ARE tied to your destiny somehow and that the reveal of who you really are is a big deal in this game and a pretty awesome moment. In general, characters feel a lot more fleshed out here than in the original. While two of the characters you are asked to name appear very briefly in this game, multiple of them play a massive role and the others have their own storylines that are interesting to follow for many hours. The resolution to all of their invidiual stories were satisfying in my opinion. The characters, both yourself and the others, have canon names which you can let the old man give them, or you can look them up and give the names yourself. The difference here is that letting the old man name them somehow means you get a lot of points towards the "Law" alignment.
Yes, the Law and Chaos alignments return in this game and as with SMT 1, there are many ways that your alignment at any given moment impact the way the game is played. During the end game part, you once again then decide which path to ultimately follow and you get one of three endings from there, Law, Neutral and Chaos.
SPOILERS REST OF THE WAY
Unlike SMT 1 though, I feel like Atlus played around with these alignments a bit more. While Law was not your "Objectively morally good" path then, it is even less so here, with some surprises along the way in terms of the characters that are supposed to portray and follow the Law path. Whatever you were expecting in that regard, it likely will not have been what this game throws out there. While the game starts off with a heavy focus on the Messian religion and would make you seem that this game becomes a negative commentary on Christianity, it moves beyond that to provide general social commentary about humanity's need for guidance and the leader's tendency to exploit it.
In that regard, I found the Law ending that I achieved in the end to be really satisfying. Unlike the Neutral ending, where guiders / leaders / saviors are generally rejected, or the Chaos ending, where you follow Lucifer's anarchic path to freedom (which I personally think could never last), the Law ending, to me, presents the best path to achieve true peace.
While the Messians used their ambitions as a pretense to make a luxurious life for themselves and let the majority of citizens in Millenium slave away for them, the Law ending takes things in a different way when the Archangel Gabriel takes the protagonist to the top of the Center, where the garden of Eden is located. The idea is to create the Thousand Year Kingdom here, as Eden turns out to be on a "spaceship" that will take its inhabitants away from the Earth while the Earth. Instead of taking those with them who pretend to be working for the ideals that they propose, such as the leaders of the Center, you find that regular citizens of Millenium were chosen and brought to Eden, people who devoted their lives to make the Thousand Year Kingdom a reality in pursuit of true peace, with no ulterior motives. Meanwhile, you can find followers of the Messian religion remaining in the lower floors of the Center, wondering whether God made a mistake because they weren't chosen.
What really tops it off for me is the fact that at the end of the game, YHVH himself is challenged by you and Satan (yes, Satan), despite the fact that you seemingly follow the same ideals. I presume this was done because Satan didn't want a being to be mindlessly worshipped and one everyone attempts to please and be judged by. Instead, killing him and bringing all those pure-souled people with them achieves the reality of the Thousand Year Kingdom, where people truly work for each other's benefit, while those with the exact same ideals, the protagonist and Hiroko (who turns out to be the protagonist's surrogate mother), are presented as the "leaders", mainly to satisfy humanity's desire for "leaders" to cling to, instead of actually acting as the sort of leader YHVH or the Elders in the Center would have been.
I think an argument can be made for all three alignments however, which is why I like the alignment system, even though I am by no means someone who has more than basic knowledge on any religion, political ideologies or mythologies.
All this is brought home with the cyberpunk aesthetic of this game, both through the art design and its themes, which makes this stand out over the first SMT game. I don't SMT II's story is among the best in the history of video games, but it is certainly among the best for its time, it is certainly a notable one for the medium despite its shortcomings in pacing and character development at times (lack of memory storage at the time would play a big role there) and it is certainly one worth retelling thorugh a remake (PS: the genocide in the Law alignment is indeed fucked up, but I think it works as part of what the Law alignment proposes I feel).
GAMEPLAY | 13/20
Shin Megami Tensei II's gameplay is a tale of two sides. There is the Great side and the Terrible side. The Great side is just as great as the original with some quality of life improvements but little innovation, while the Terrible side slightly improves upon the issues that were present in the original, but adds a couple more terrible things. Well, and then there is some stuff that is not terrible, but also not great.
The Great side
This game features the same gameplay as SMT I but improves upon it in some areas. The screen is divided into two halves akin to a Nintendo DS, with the top half presenting the gameworld and its dungeons, and the bottom half showing you the up to 6 humans and demons you have on your team. You and one other human character are together for most of the game, while the remaining 4 slots can be filled by demons. You acquire demons by negotiating with them and persuading them to join you by selecting the correct dialogue options, giving the demon presents and sometimes, hoping that the invisible stat-checks work in your favor. Once you acquire demons, you can summon them for battle. In the Cathedral of Shadows, here 'Jakyou', you can fuse 2 or 3 demons together to create even stronger demons, which you will need to do in order to be strong enough for the battles ahead. As you level up, you have access to higher level demons and as you progress in the game, you get into areas where some of these stronger demons can be found and negotiated with. As with the majority of the Megami Tensei series, this gameplay loop is more or less the same and pretty addicting.
As you traverse dungeons or the overworld, a multitude of random encounters await you where you need to battle demons and figure out a way to your destination, where you fight bosses to progress the story. Random encounters are not difficult for the most part, so you can use the Auto Battle function to quickly dispose of the enemies, but there are enough tough enemies to make you face them manually, and besting them will require you to have a certain strategy to do so. There are no affinities here like in future games, but you still have to see if the enemy is more susceptible to physical or magic attacks and you will need to find demons with certain skills that will make your life easier like "-kaja" attacks that can buff your attack or defense. Getting those demons requires a lot of negotiating, fusing and testing, which is, again, a really fun gameplay loop that can entertain for dozens of hours, as is the case here.
The game is your typical early 90s RPG, with story moments mixed in between all the dungeon crawling you do. Dungeons are more or less the same in the way you traverse them and in their layout, but traversing feels a lot smoother here, which makes doing so more satisfying. There are also a lot more different challenges dungeons have for you. There are the fog levels as in SMT 1, but there is also a dungeon that pushes you around in a specific pattern which you will need to fight to reach the stairs, there are a lot of dungeons with traps that will throw you down a couple flights of stairs if you walk into them and more. I have this listed under "the Great side" because I like that there are more challenges than simply walking forward, but this aspect certainly has a negative side to it that I will get to later.
There are also a lot of optional dungeons and areas you can enter, many of which will grant you pretty nice bonuses for your playthrough, such as better equipment or boosts to your stats like "Strength", "Magic", "Vitality/Stamina" and "Speed". Even in mandatory dungeons, you can go straight to the destination or be rewarded for exploring every nook and cranny with item drops and sometimes entrances to areas that provide you with a Save point.
Finally, the best quality of life improvement here is that you can now instantly access the map by pressing the left bumper, which is such a big deal here.
Overall, the best part about this game is simply the gameplay loop of demon negotiating, fusing and battling, which is I think some of the most engaging combat in an RPG for its time. It's not nearly as fleshed out as in later entries of the series (obviously) but I think it is satisfying enough to still be enjoyed here. Unfortunately, distractions from this come in many negative forms.
The Terrible Side
It starts off easy enough. One of the early objectives you get is to go to a place called "Holytown" and kill two bosses. There are 4 districts you can go to on this overworld where you get the task, all of which could be "Holytown". If you talked to a specific NPC in a bar, you will know which it is without having to potentially go through all four. Nice, you get rewarded for exploring with this useful piece of info. Once you get to Holytown, you explore the dungeons and find one of the bosses. Great, no hand holding and you get it done, no problem. The other boss however is not in these dungeons. Instead, I stumble upon it by walking through a semi-random spot on the overworld. Hm, ok, no problem.
Then, it gets progressively worse. To unlock a new area, you need to find six pillars. I found most of them, but one gave me trouble and one would give all players trouble who go into this blind I think. That is that you need to win a now infamous dancing contest to get one of the pillars. This is done in a disco. Finding the disco can take a while on its own if you don't mark every notable location somewhere on a notepad or something while you play, walking through the disco is a pain because no matter where you go or where you look, each individual step is interrupted with a good 3-5 seconds of uninterruptable dialogue showing people who dance and a text that states that they dance. Once you finally find the spot, you may enter the dancing contest, but ONLY if you have 10 magic. Magic is a useless stat for your protagonist because he can't do magic, so you wouldn't level magic due to this. If you read up on a couple small tips beforehand, you will know, but if you don't and are stuck with the 4 magic at the start of the game, you may be in some trouble and have to grind for a while. Getting a certain drink and wearing a certain equippable item can get your magic up by up to 4 points temporarily I believe however.
The other thing that I myself had trouble with was with one pillar that you apparently get by going to a super-random location in one of the, by this point, dozens of dungeons you unlocked, and finding one random NPC. Getting these pillars can generally be random (buy something from the junk store to get one, go to a digging site on one overworld map to get another) but this felt over the top. There are countless times where the solution to progression is not intuitive at all and talking to NPCs doesn't help either, which I think takes it way too far. On top of that, there is absurd amounts of backtracking that you are meant to do, and that's if you even know where to go. If you don't, you can easily spend hours per task just to find where you needed to go, so I can't imagine anyone wanting to go through this without a guide. It didn't stop me from enjoying the game (it actually helped with that) but I can imagine this being a dealbreaker for some and is the primary reason why I can't recommend this game. Late in the game for example, I need to enter a certain area. I can't, and so I apparently have to go all the way back to a different area, have one short chat, and go all the way back to the area I wanted to enter to be able to do so. This can easily take 45 minutes and is just one instance of backtracking being brutal here.
In terms of the combat, while I enjoyed it, there is one issue and that is that it is way too easy after you reach about the mid-way point of the game. I got a Gun at this point that let my protagonist and other human partner shoot 3-6 shots per turn, which absolutely obliterated the majority of random encounters. Get one or two demons that have the Tarukaja spell (increases damage) and you will do absurd amounts of damage. This has made pretty much every boss fight from that point on trivial and simply a matter of depleting their health. Some bosses are resistant to Gun attacks, like the final one, but even there the damage the boss dished out was so low (and they only get one action per turn) that I just had to wait for the boss to go down. Part of me was glad because I notoriously am terrible at JRPGs, but obviously being able to spam one tactic for half of the game is not very fulfilling.
I also can't end this part without mentioning the encounter rate. There are many areas where the encounter rate is actually more than OK, but there still are too many where the encounter rate is way too high. It's especially infuriating when you are lost and trying to figure out where to go, or when you are thrown down two flights of stairs and have to go back. It is an improvement over 1 though.
The "Meh" Side
This game still has the Magnetite system, which I believe will stick around for a while, and I can't say I like it that much, though it's not a big deal, if you know how to deal with it. Magnetite is a resource that is spend with each step you take, if you have a demon in your lineup. The more demons you have active, the quicker it goes down. As dungeons get larger and more complex, your Magnetite can run out insanely fast if you have two or more demons active. If you have 0 Magnetite, each step dishes out damage to your demons, so you should always have Magnetite. This forced me to grind for Magnetite at multiple points early on to have enough (luckily some enemies give you a lot of Magnetite) but what you can also do is simply walk around without any demons being active. This means you will be in a tough position if you can't get away from an encounter and it means you need to re-summon demons, which costs a little bit of money, but it was a great trade-off in my opinion. In the end game, you get so much Magnetite but dungeons are so massive that even that is not enough, so I never felt secure with the Magnetite I had in stock right until the end, and it's a system I can definitely live without.
There are also some activities you can do on the side, like go to the Casino or play in a "Code Breaker" game. While I didn't play in the casino (I hear you can get some near-game-breaking items from there), I found the Code Breaker game to be not really rewarding. You need to guess 5 numbers in the right order and have about 10 guesses to do so. If you picked one of the correct numbers, a B is shown to indicate that. Get the number in the correct spot and an H is shown. 12345 could for example show you "HBBB", which means one of the numbers is in the correct spot and three others are in the solution. 21358 for example could be the solution, and the quicker you get it, the better the reward. Unfortunately, the only rewards that are worth it were for the first two guesses, and you can imagine how unlikely it is to get those right, so either use your emulator to cheat a win or don't bother. Plus, you need Metal Cards to participate, but you get so many and these Code Breaker stores appear so rarely that they only end up clogging up your limited inventory space, and I didn't realize they were a waste of time until I got to play the game again and truly understand how poor the rewards were.
In general, a lot of items in this game are pretty useless. "Maha-" stones for example are attacks that can damage multiple enemies. Usually, if you face one enemy, it would just hit that enemy, at least if you use "Maha" attacks as part of a demon's magic. If you use the item, it doesn't even work unless there are multiple enemies on the screen. Then there are tons of other items which have 0 use for boss battles and are ineffective compared to your other attacks, so I went through almost all of the game without using any. Only time I needed to use some was during the final few boss fights, when I was locked out from going to any stores and the last 5 or so stores only sold guns, which meant my protagonist (who went from Neutral to Law at this point) couldn't equip his sword anymore, couldn't find a new sword anymore and was useless because he has no Magic attacks and all Gun attacks were blocked, so I just ended up using his turns to waste all the items I had been carrying for almost the entirety of the game.
OVERALL
Overall, I can't say I would have finished this game if it weren't for the fact that I played it on an emulator that let me use save states and let me fast forward whenever I needed to and used a guide. The pacing of everything being slow can really be frustrating when most of the time you are simply trying to figure out what even to do, and backtracking for ages just to get a nugget of info (if it even was available) just felt too ridiculous. I did want to beat it though because I think it is worth it for the story, but I'd recommend watching someone else play it to not potentially lose your mind with this.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 8/10
No voice acting. I'd say the sound design was a mild improvement over the original, but not too noticeable in that regard. The soundtrack was great once again here, though I'd say a step down from SMT 1's soundtrack. There weren't enough tracks that were as notable as in that game, and even worse, a select few would play for roughly 80% of your playtime. Truthfully, I did not get fed up with these tracks and could gladly listen to them right now, but I can see how it would get on people's nerves after 30+ hours. There are plenty of bangers here however and it is one of my favorite soundtracks out of all games I played as part of this challenge I am doing, so I can't complain, I just know that Atlus has done better a lot of times.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10
This game is not technically impressive by any means, so the majority of time is spent looking at wall tiles in first-person dungeon crawling that, while they look improved from the original thanks to actual textures being used (and a variety of them), each dungeon's tiles all look the same and each texture is reused multiple times, apart from later ones. The other part of the game is spent in the overworld, which has an odd mix of blue-yellowish colors but, after getting used to it, is definitely a step up to the originals. Where the game really shines visually is in the design of its demons, which are pretty much all looking excellent and also in its cyberpunk aesthetic, which I think could have been more prominent but shone through whenever it needed to. The UI in this game also looks much better compared to the original, as it has been cleaned up and doesn't take nearly as much space anymore.
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 10/10
Shin Megami Tensei II is just as atmospheric as the first game, and the series in general has some of the best atmosphere out of any video game I've played. To do this despite the clear technical limiations at the time is quite impressive, and it couldn't be done without the game's soundtrack, its art design and the story. There are multiple events that really surprise you and make you realize that in this fucked up world, everything is fair game and no one is safe. Its an atmosphere that is as depressing and hopeless as in the first game due to the state of the world, but I think the options of resolution offered here made me feel more hopeful once it was all said and one than I felt with the first.
CONTENT | 7/10
Dozens of mandatory dungeons, a handful of optional ones, plenty of which provide you with really useful stuff. A huge list of 100-200 demons to choose from, a fun battle system and more story content than in the majority of games at the time and among the highest quality story content for sure. The game will take you 30+ hours, though closer to 40 to 50 if you do the Neutral route and closer to 70 hours, if you decide not to use a guide at all. Unfortunately, as you can tell, a lot of these hours come from not knowing where to go and/or backtracking, so a lot of very good content feels slightly buried in between these nuisances.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 5/10
There are a ton of really interesting areas to explore in this game, such as the multiple districts in the Millenium, the underworld and the Abyss, but the backtracking and cryptic progression are just so bad. If you want to show a horrible example to the "I liked when games didn't hold your hands" crowd, this is it.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 6/10
The concept still feels really fresh here, simply because there was no game like it at the time. All RPGs I've played focused on the same style of turn-based combat and put the onus on level-grinding to be able to beat tough enemies. This game offers a lot more strategic options beyond putting man-hours into playing it, which is what I really appreciate about its system, and its approach to storytelling is unique to this day. Its such a demonic story that the developers, to this day, go to a shrine to cleanse themselves before working on one of these games, and I am glad that their superstition didn't lead them to stop making these outright. In an era where console games where nearly exclusively aimed at kids, I am glad this was made.
That said, the game doesn't innovate a lot over the original, though that is to change over the coming years when SMT moves from mainline to the Devil Summoner and Persona series.
REPLAYABILITY | 3/5
Once beaten, you can decide to go for the other two routes, which will not only change the path to the ending but will also allow you to use different demons and equipment. Replayability is reduced a bit by the fact that progression has a big focus on backtracking.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
Works well at all times.
OVERALL | 74/100
In many ways, this is an improvement over the original and in some ways, it's a step back. It's a game that shows its age a lot and will be tough to play and enjoy for the majority of people who try it these days, which is why I can only recommend this to hardcore SMT fans. The story is worth experiencing and is the main reason why this game is worthy of a remake, and it didn't do anything to stop me from being excited to play Shin Megami Tense if... in a couple weeks / months, but I'm unlikely to want to play SMT II again in its current state, though happy to have done so.
(This is the 93rd game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet/blog is in my bio.)
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 9/10
(To preface this, as with the original, it's worth cautioning that if you are a deeply religious individual, you might take offense to the portrayal of the Messians in this game. Personally, I think a work of fiction should be treated as such, and I think the social commentary in this game goes way beyond the Messians (who appear to be portraying Christians) but if this kind of portrayal is a no-go for you, I'd stay away from the game. Some say this fear within Atlus is why the games never released in the West at the time, but who knows.)
SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST GAME: This game starts several decades after the first game ended. From the ashes of Tokyo, the Messian religion created a new encapsulated city called "Tokyo Millenium". Millenium's purpose for the Messians is to bring about the Thousand Year Kingdom, an age where people can live in peace. This concept was put forth in the first game as well, but did not come to fruition for the Messians yet, who are awaiting their Savior / Messiah who can guide them there. These seemingly noble amibitions aside, looking at the layout of the Millenium paints a different picture of perhaps not only their intentions, but definitely of their actions.
See, Millenium is divided into several districts, with one central tower controlling and ruling them all, aptly named "The Center". This is where the Messians and the elite live. The other districts include "Factory", the industrial center where commodities are produced and mining and excavation projects take place, "Arcadia", a demon-free district filled with care-free citizens, and "Valhalla", a zone more or less free of control by the Center and one where its citizens can pursue earthly delights as well as fight in a "Collosseum" in deadly tournaments, the winners of which get to live in the Center themselves.
You are one such fighter called "Hawk". Your trainer, Okamoto, wakes you up one day to train for the upcoming finale of the tournament. You are also an amnesiac who Okamoto "found", took in and named one day after you were unable to do so yourself. As you prepare for the final battle, many mysterious characters show themselves to you in odd visions. There is an old man in most of them standing next to bodies of men and women who are standing motionless in chambers, as the man asks you if you remember their names. Apparently, they are tied to your destiny. There is also a guy named Steven, who you will remember from SMT 1 if you played it, who appears in a "Virtual Battling Program" to give you something he calls the "Demon Summoning Program", which he gives to many capable people because of certain events that he fears will take place soon.
From here, you become demon-summoning Hawk, though that's just the start of who you are. What is your real name? Who are you and why are you strong? Why did the old man come to you in these visions? How do you tie in with the Center and their plans for the Thousand Year Kingdom?
Know that the characters you name ARE tied to your destiny somehow and that the reveal of who you really are is a big deal in this game and a pretty awesome moment. In general, characters feel a lot more fleshed out here than in the original. While two of the characters you are asked to name appear very briefly in this game, multiple of them play a massive role and the others have their own storylines that are interesting to follow for many hours. The resolution to all of their invidiual stories were satisfying in my opinion. The characters, both yourself and the others, have canon names which you can let the old man give them, or you can look them up and give the names yourself. The difference here is that letting the old man name them somehow means you get a lot of points towards the "Law" alignment.
Yes, the Law and Chaos alignments return in this game and as with SMT 1, there are many ways that your alignment at any given moment impact the way the game is played. During the end game part, you once again then decide which path to ultimately follow and you get one of three endings from there, Law, Neutral and Chaos.
SPOILERS REST OF THE WAY
Unlike SMT 1 though, I feel like Atlus played around with these alignments a bit more. While Law was not your "Objectively morally good" path then, it is even less so here, with some surprises along the way in terms of the characters that are supposed to portray and follow the Law path. Whatever you were expecting in that regard, it likely will not have been what this game throws out there. While the game starts off with a heavy focus on the Messian religion and would make you seem that this game becomes a negative commentary on Christianity, it moves beyond that to provide general social commentary about humanity's need for guidance and the leader's tendency to exploit it.
In that regard, I found the Law ending that I achieved in the end to be really satisfying. Unlike the Neutral ending, where guiders / leaders / saviors are generally rejected, or the Chaos ending, where you follow Lucifer's anarchic path to freedom (which I personally think could never last), the Law ending, to me, presents the best path to achieve true peace.
While the Messians used their ambitions as a pretense to make a luxurious life for themselves and let the majority of citizens in Millenium slave away for them, the Law ending takes things in a different way when the Archangel Gabriel takes the protagonist to the top of the Center, where the garden of Eden is located. The idea is to create the Thousand Year Kingdom here, as Eden turns out to be on a "spaceship" that will take its inhabitants away from the Earth while the Earth. Instead of taking those with them who pretend to be working for the ideals that they propose, such as the leaders of the Center, you find that regular citizens of Millenium were chosen and brought to Eden, people who devoted their lives to make the Thousand Year Kingdom a reality in pursuit of true peace, with no ulterior motives. Meanwhile, you can find followers of the Messian religion remaining in the lower floors of the Center, wondering whether God made a mistake because they weren't chosen.
What really tops it off for me is the fact that at the end of the game, YHVH himself is challenged by you and Satan (yes, Satan), despite the fact that you seemingly follow the same ideals. I presume this was done because Satan didn't want a being to be mindlessly worshipped and one everyone attempts to please and be judged by. Instead, killing him and bringing all those pure-souled people with them achieves the reality of the Thousand Year Kingdom, where people truly work for each other's benefit, while those with the exact same ideals, the protagonist and Hiroko (who turns out to be the protagonist's surrogate mother), are presented as the "leaders", mainly to satisfy humanity's desire for "leaders" to cling to, instead of actually acting as the sort of leader YHVH or the Elders in the Center would have been.
I think an argument can be made for all three alignments however, which is why I like the alignment system, even though I am by no means someone who has more than basic knowledge on any religion, political ideologies or mythologies.
All this is brought home with the cyberpunk aesthetic of this game, both through the art design and its themes, which makes this stand out over the first SMT game. I don't SMT II's story is among the best in the history of video games, but it is certainly among the best for its time, it is certainly a notable one for the medium despite its shortcomings in pacing and character development at times (lack of memory storage at the time would play a big role there) and it is certainly one worth retelling thorugh a remake (PS: the genocide in the Law alignment is indeed fucked up, but I think it works as part of what the Law alignment proposes I feel).
GAMEPLAY | 13/20
Shin Megami Tensei II's gameplay is a tale of two sides. There is the Great side and the Terrible side. The Great side is just as great as the original with some quality of life improvements but little innovation, while the Terrible side slightly improves upon the issues that were present in the original, but adds a couple more terrible things. Well, and then there is some stuff that is not terrible, but also not great.
The Great side
This game features the same gameplay as SMT I but improves upon it in some areas. The screen is divided into two halves akin to a Nintendo DS, with the top half presenting the gameworld and its dungeons, and the bottom half showing you the up to 6 humans and demons you have on your team. You and one other human character are together for most of the game, while the remaining 4 slots can be filled by demons. You acquire demons by negotiating with them and persuading them to join you by selecting the correct dialogue options, giving the demon presents and sometimes, hoping that the invisible stat-checks work in your favor. Once you acquire demons, you can summon them for battle. In the Cathedral of Shadows, here 'Jakyou', you can fuse 2 or 3 demons together to create even stronger demons, which you will need to do in order to be strong enough for the battles ahead. As you level up, you have access to higher level demons and as you progress in the game, you get into areas where some of these stronger demons can be found and negotiated with. As with the majority of the Megami Tensei series, this gameplay loop is more or less the same and pretty addicting.
As you traverse dungeons or the overworld, a multitude of random encounters await you where you need to battle demons and figure out a way to your destination, where you fight bosses to progress the story. Random encounters are not difficult for the most part, so you can use the Auto Battle function to quickly dispose of the enemies, but there are enough tough enemies to make you face them manually, and besting them will require you to have a certain strategy to do so. There are no affinities here like in future games, but you still have to see if the enemy is more susceptible to physical or magic attacks and you will need to find demons with certain skills that will make your life easier like "-kaja" attacks that can buff your attack or defense. Getting those demons requires a lot of negotiating, fusing and testing, which is, again, a really fun gameplay loop that can entertain for dozens of hours, as is the case here.
The game is your typical early 90s RPG, with story moments mixed in between all the dungeon crawling you do. Dungeons are more or less the same in the way you traverse them and in their layout, but traversing feels a lot smoother here, which makes doing so more satisfying. There are also a lot more different challenges dungeons have for you. There are the fog levels as in SMT 1, but there is also a dungeon that pushes you around in a specific pattern which you will need to fight to reach the stairs, there are a lot of dungeons with traps that will throw you down a couple flights of stairs if you walk into them and more. I have this listed under "the Great side" because I like that there are more challenges than simply walking forward, but this aspect certainly has a negative side to it that I will get to later.
There are also a lot of optional dungeons and areas you can enter, many of which will grant you pretty nice bonuses for your playthrough, such as better equipment or boosts to your stats like "Strength", "Magic", "Vitality/Stamina" and "Speed". Even in mandatory dungeons, you can go straight to the destination or be rewarded for exploring every nook and cranny with item drops and sometimes entrances to areas that provide you with a Save point.
Finally, the best quality of life improvement here is that you can now instantly access the map by pressing the left bumper, which is such a big deal here.
Overall, the best part about this game is simply the gameplay loop of demon negotiating, fusing and battling, which is I think some of the most engaging combat in an RPG for its time. It's not nearly as fleshed out as in later entries of the series (obviously) but I think it is satisfying enough to still be enjoyed here. Unfortunately, distractions from this come in many negative forms.
The Terrible Side
It starts off easy enough. One of the early objectives you get is to go to a place called "Holytown" and kill two bosses. There are 4 districts you can go to on this overworld where you get the task, all of which could be "Holytown". If you talked to a specific NPC in a bar, you will know which it is without having to potentially go through all four. Nice, you get rewarded for exploring with this useful piece of info. Once you get to Holytown, you explore the dungeons and find one of the bosses. Great, no hand holding and you get it done, no problem. The other boss however is not in these dungeons. Instead, I stumble upon it by walking through a semi-random spot on the overworld. Hm, ok, no problem.
Then, it gets progressively worse. To unlock a new area, you need to find six pillars. I found most of them, but one gave me trouble and one would give all players trouble who go into this blind I think. That is that you need to win a now infamous dancing contest to get one of the pillars. This is done in a disco. Finding the disco can take a while on its own if you don't mark every notable location somewhere on a notepad or something while you play, walking through the disco is a pain because no matter where you go or where you look, each individual step is interrupted with a good 3-5 seconds of uninterruptable dialogue showing people who dance and a text that states that they dance. Once you finally find the spot, you may enter the dancing contest, but ONLY if you have 10 magic. Magic is a useless stat for your protagonist because he can't do magic, so you wouldn't level magic due to this. If you read up on a couple small tips beforehand, you will know, but if you don't and are stuck with the 4 magic at the start of the game, you may be in some trouble and have to grind for a while. Getting a certain drink and wearing a certain equippable item can get your magic up by up to 4 points temporarily I believe however.
The other thing that I myself had trouble with was with one pillar that you apparently get by going to a super-random location in one of the, by this point, dozens of dungeons you unlocked, and finding one random NPC. Getting these pillars can generally be random (buy something from the junk store to get one, go to a digging site on one overworld map to get another) but this felt over the top. There are countless times where the solution to progression is not intuitive at all and talking to NPCs doesn't help either, which I think takes it way too far. On top of that, there is absurd amounts of backtracking that you are meant to do, and that's if you even know where to go. If you don't, you can easily spend hours per task just to find where you needed to go, so I can't imagine anyone wanting to go through this without a guide. It didn't stop me from enjoying the game (it actually helped with that) but I can imagine this being a dealbreaker for some and is the primary reason why I can't recommend this game. Late in the game for example, I need to enter a certain area. I can't, and so I apparently have to go all the way back to a different area, have one short chat, and go all the way back to the area I wanted to enter to be able to do so. This can easily take 45 minutes and is just one instance of backtracking being brutal here.
In terms of the combat, while I enjoyed it, there is one issue and that is that it is way too easy after you reach about the mid-way point of the game. I got a Gun at this point that let my protagonist and other human partner shoot 3-6 shots per turn, which absolutely obliterated the majority of random encounters. Get one or two demons that have the Tarukaja spell (increases damage) and you will do absurd amounts of damage. This has made pretty much every boss fight from that point on trivial and simply a matter of depleting their health. Some bosses are resistant to Gun attacks, like the final one, but even there the damage the boss dished out was so low (and they only get one action per turn) that I just had to wait for the boss to go down. Part of me was glad because I notoriously am terrible at JRPGs, but obviously being able to spam one tactic for half of the game is not very fulfilling.
I also can't end this part without mentioning the encounter rate. There are many areas where the encounter rate is actually more than OK, but there still are too many where the encounter rate is way too high. It's especially infuriating when you are lost and trying to figure out where to go, or when you are thrown down two flights of stairs and have to go back. It is an improvement over 1 though.
The "Meh" Side
This game still has the Magnetite system, which I believe will stick around for a while, and I can't say I like it that much, though it's not a big deal, if you know how to deal with it. Magnetite is a resource that is spend with each step you take, if you have a demon in your lineup. The more demons you have active, the quicker it goes down. As dungeons get larger and more complex, your Magnetite can run out insanely fast if you have two or more demons active. If you have 0 Magnetite, each step dishes out damage to your demons, so you should always have Magnetite. This forced me to grind for Magnetite at multiple points early on to have enough (luckily some enemies give you a lot of Magnetite) but what you can also do is simply walk around without any demons being active. This means you will be in a tough position if you can't get away from an encounter and it means you need to re-summon demons, which costs a little bit of money, but it was a great trade-off in my opinion. In the end game, you get so much Magnetite but dungeons are so massive that even that is not enough, so I never felt secure with the Magnetite I had in stock right until the end, and it's a system I can definitely live without.
There are also some activities you can do on the side, like go to the Casino or play in a "Code Breaker" game. While I didn't play in the casino (I hear you can get some near-game-breaking items from there), I found the Code Breaker game to be not really rewarding. You need to guess 5 numbers in the right order and have about 10 guesses to do so. If you picked one of the correct numbers, a B is shown to indicate that. Get the number in the correct spot and an H is shown. 12345 could for example show you "HBBB", which means one of the numbers is in the correct spot and three others are in the solution. 21358 for example could be the solution, and the quicker you get it, the better the reward. Unfortunately, the only rewards that are worth it were for the first two guesses, and you can imagine how unlikely it is to get those right, so either use your emulator to cheat a win or don't bother. Plus, you need Metal Cards to participate, but you get so many and these Code Breaker stores appear so rarely that they only end up clogging up your limited inventory space, and I didn't realize they were a waste of time until I got to play the game again and truly understand how poor the rewards were.
In general, a lot of items in this game are pretty useless. "Maha-" stones for example are attacks that can damage multiple enemies. Usually, if you face one enemy, it would just hit that enemy, at least if you use "Maha" attacks as part of a demon's magic. If you use the item, it doesn't even work unless there are multiple enemies on the screen. Then there are tons of other items which have 0 use for boss battles and are ineffective compared to your other attacks, so I went through almost all of the game without using any. Only time I needed to use some was during the final few boss fights, when I was locked out from going to any stores and the last 5 or so stores only sold guns, which meant my protagonist (who went from Neutral to Law at this point) couldn't equip his sword anymore, couldn't find a new sword anymore and was useless because he has no Magic attacks and all Gun attacks were blocked, so I just ended up using his turns to waste all the items I had been carrying for almost the entirety of the game.
OVERALL
Overall, I can't say I would have finished this game if it weren't for the fact that I played it on an emulator that let me use save states and let me fast forward whenever I needed to and used a guide. The pacing of everything being slow can really be frustrating when most of the time you are simply trying to figure out what even to do, and backtracking for ages just to get a nugget of info (if it even was available) just felt too ridiculous. I did want to beat it though because I think it is worth it for the story, but I'd recommend watching someone else play it to not potentially lose your mind with this.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 8/10
No voice acting. I'd say the sound design was a mild improvement over the original, but not too noticeable in that regard. The soundtrack was great once again here, though I'd say a step down from SMT 1's soundtrack. There weren't enough tracks that were as notable as in that game, and even worse, a select few would play for roughly 80% of your playtime. Truthfully, I did not get fed up with these tracks and could gladly listen to them right now, but I can see how it would get on people's nerves after 30+ hours. There are plenty of bangers here however and it is one of my favorite soundtracks out of all games I played as part of this challenge I am doing, so I can't complain, I just know that Atlus has done better a lot of times.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10
This game is not technically impressive by any means, so the majority of time is spent looking at wall tiles in first-person dungeon crawling that, while they look improved from the original thanks to actual textures being used (and a variety of them), each dungeon's tiles all look the same and each texture is reused multiple times, apart from later ones. The other part of the game is spent in the overworld, which has an odd mix of blue-yellowish colors but, after getting used to it, is definitely a step up to the originals. Where the game really shines visually is in the design of its demons, which are pretty much all looking excellent and also in its cyberpunk aesthetic, which I think could have been more prominent but shone through whenever it needed to. The UI in this game also looks much better compared to the original, as it has been cleaned up and doesn't take nearly as much space anymore.
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 10/10
Shin Megami Tensei II is just as atmospheric as the first game, and the series in general has some of the best atmosphere out of any video game I've played. To do this despite the clear technical limiations at the time is quite impressive, and it couldn't be done without the game's soundtrack, its art design and the story. There are multiple events that really surprise you and make you realize that in this fucked up world, everything is fair game and no one is safe. Its an atmosphere that is as depressing and hopeless as in the first game due to the state of the world, but I think the options of resolution offered here made me feel more hopeful once it was all said and one than I felt with the first.
CONTENT | 7/10
Dozens of mandatory dungeons, a handful of optional ones, plenty of which provide you with really useful stuff. A huge list of 100-200 demons to choose from, a fun battle system and more story content than in the majority of games at the time and among the highest quality story content for sure. The game will take you 30+ hours, though closer to 40 to 50 if you do the Neutral route and closer to 70 hours, if you decide not to use a guide at all. Unfortunately, as you can tell, a lot of these hours come from not knowing where to go and/or backtracking, so a lot of very good content feels slightly buried in between these nuisances.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 5/10
There are a ton of really interesting areas to explore in this game, such as the multiple districts in the Millenium, the underworld and the Abyss, but the backtracking and cryptic progression are just so bad. If you want to show a horrible example to the "I liked when games didn't hold your hands" crowd, this is it.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 6/10
The concept still feels really fresh here, simply because there was no game like it at the time. All RPGs I've played focused on the same style of turn-based combat and put the onus on level-grinding to be able to beat tough enemies. This game offers a lot more strategic options beyond putting man-hours into playing it, which is what I really appreciate about its system, and its approach to storytelling is unique to this day. Its such a demonic story that the developers, to this day, go to a shrine to cleanse themselves before working on one of these games, and I am glad that their superstition didn't lead them to stop making these outright. In an era where console games where nearly exclusively aimed at kids, I am glad this was made.
That said, the game doesn't innovate a lot over the original, though that is to change over the coming years when SMT moves from mainline to the Devil Summoner and Persona series.
REPLAYABILITY | 3/5
Once beaten, you can decide to go for the other two routes, which will not only change the path to the ending but will also allow you to use different demons and equipment. Replayability is reduced a bit by the fact that progression has a big focus on backtracking.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
Works well at all times.
OVERALL | 74/100
In many ways, this is an improvement over the original and in some ways, it's a step back. It's a game that shows its age a lot and will be tough to play and enjoy for the majority of people who try it these days, which is why I can only recommend this to hardcore SMT fans. The story is worth experiencing and is the main reason why this game is worthy of a remake, and it didn't do anything to stop me from being excited to play Shin Megami Tense if... in a couple weeks / months, but I'm unlikely to want to play SMT II again in its current state, though happy to have done so.
(This is the 93rd game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet/blog is in my bio.)
1995
(This is the 116th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet/blog is in my bio.)
I kept this game in my playlist for the challenge because it looked unique and kind of reminded me of Hotline Miami, which is a gaming series I really like. It's a top down shoot 'em up where you pick one of 6 playable characters that differ in speed, health, weaponry and their ultra attack. Then you walk through levels and shoot up some bad guys and watch blood splatter everywhere. It's gory, it's grotesque, it's macabre. Basically, what many teenage gamers would be kind of into at the time.
Obviously, its shock factor is pretty much nonexistent by today's standards, but what strikes me as most notable about the game for its time is that unlike other criticized games like Doom, where you kill demonic creatures, or Night Trap, where you try to save the good kids, Loaded has you play psychotic killers and perverts. The goal is the same, you are supposed to stop a supervillain (likely because the game would not be allowed to release without an actual reason given to the killing in the game) but since none of the backstory is in the game, I never got the impression that I was doing any good. It feels like you enter a prison, kill its psycho inhabitants and try to escape yourself.
Anyway, while I wouldn't be bothered by this either way but just find it to be something interesting to add to this review, the gameplay itself I did take offense to. Levels were seemingly designed by an 8 year old, as they are incredibly repetitive and uninspired. Combat itself is pretty bland as well, as you can use your special attack a few times before charges run out and otherwise just have to hold down the shoot button as you run through door after door after door. Similarly to a Doom, you need to find key cards to unlock more doors and escape from each level or find a specific target.
One annoyance is that enemies get right at you when they spot you, and shooting at an enemy that is right at your face doesn't kill them for some reason. You need to find at least an inch of distance to kill the enemies, which is an odd bug. Worse, turning and shooting at enemies is pretty difficult because your shot only covers so little of the screen and enemies keep moving, so sometimes I found myself turning around multiple times to finally hit an enemy.
The worst part? After all this turning for an hour, I actually got a massive headache from my session. I don't remember which games they were but this happened to me for the 2nd or 3rd time ever over all these years that a game gave me a headache. You might not feel the same while playing this, but even without the headache-inducing nature of the game, I wouldn't recommend playing it. The soundtrack is probably the best part about it, but there are only 8 tracks or so in the game and they range from meh to solid.
I kept this game in my playlist for the challenge because it looked unique and kind of reminded me of Hotline Miami, which is a gaming series I really like. It's a top down shoot 'em up where you pick one of 6 playable characters that differ in speed, health, weaponry and their ultra attack. Then you walk through levels and shoot up some bad guys and watch blood splatter everywhere. It's gory, it's grotesque, it's macabre. Basically, what many teenage gamers would be kind of into at the time.
Obviously, its shock factor is pretty much nonexistent by today's standards, but what strikes me as most notable about the game for its time is that unlike other criticized games like Doom, where you kill demonic creatures, or Night Trap, where you try to save the good kids, Loaded has you play psychotic killers and perverts. The goal is the same, you are supposed to stop a supervillain (likely because the game would not be allowed to release without an actual reason given to the killing in the game) but since none of the backstory is in the game, I never got the impression that I was doing any good. It feels like you enter a prison, kill its psycho inhabitants and try to escape yourself.
Anyway, while I wouldn't be bothered by this either way but just find it to be something interesting to add to this review, the gameplay itself I did take offense to. Levels were seemingly designed by an 8 year old, as they are incredibly repetitive and uninspired. Combat itself is pretty bland as well, as you can use your special attack a few times before charges run out and otherwise just have to hold down the shoot button as you run through door after door after door. Similarly to a Doom, you need to find key cards to unlock more doors and escape from each level or find a specific target.
One annoyance is that enemies get right at you when they spot you, and shooting at an enemy that is right at your face doesn't kill them for some reason. You need to find at least an inch of distance to kill the enemies, which is an odd bug. Worse, turning and shooting at enemies is pretty difficult because your shot only covers so little of the screen and enemies keep moving, so sometimes I found myself turning around multiple times to finally hit an enemy.
The worst part? After all this turning for an hour, I actually got a massive headache from my session. I don't remember which games they were but this happened to me for the 2nd or 3rd time ever over all these years that a game gave me a headache. You might not feel the same while playing this, but even without the headache-inducing nature of the game, I wouldn't recommend playing it. The soundtrack is probably the best part about it, but there are only 8 tracks or so in the game and they range from meh to solid.
1990
Dr. Mario released on July 27, 1990 for Game Boy and NES in Japan before releasing in NA later that year. It was often compared to Tetris and Columns at the time, as it's a game about blocks (in this game: pills) falling from above, which need to be placed in a way that creates matches before you run out of space.
The game was a commercial success thanks to the popularity of Mario, as it sold over 10 million copies worldwide. It received a bit of backlash for including pills in a kids game (see What They Said At The Time section), but has otherwise been received very well, leading to multiple follow-ups being released over the years.
I found Dr. Mario to be a fun alternative to Tetris with a lot to like. More on the game in detail below.
____________
STORYTELLING
There is no story in-game. All you will find in the manual is a small convo between Dr. Mario and nurse Toadstool where she tells him that an experiment has gone out of control and led to the quick spreading of viruses.
It's a different premise for a Mario game, especially at the time, and some didn't find it as charming as Nintendo may have intended, though you can read more on that in the "What They Said At The Time" section. Personally, I understand how some parents wouldn't buy this game for their children, but I wouldn't get worried that such a theme would have a negative effect on my children myself, especially with proper supervision if needs be (not that I have any as of now).
But yes, beware, the game is about throwing pills into a jar to kill viruses because Mario and his nurse have had experiments go wrong.
GAMEPLAY
This is Nintendo's take on Tetris pretty much, though there is more than enough of a difference to warrant it being its own thing. First off, it has a theme. Mario is a Doctor in this one and instead of throwing differently shaped blocks, he throws pills. He throws them in a jar that has viruses in it, which come in three different colors, blue, yellow and red.
Pills have two halves and each half can be one of the three colors, so you can half blue-yellow, yellow-red or even red-red pills. These can be lined up vertically or horizontally and also be flipped, as you would expect. You need to stack up four of them either horizontally next to, or vertically on top of, one of the viruses to kill it. Removing all viruses clears the stage and lets you move to the next one, where there are more viruses than before, up until a max level of Level 20 with 84 viruses, though I've read that you can go all the way to Level 24 even (not selectable in the menu from the start).
You can adjust the speeds from low to medium to high and start with the lowest amount of viruses if you want. You can also choose one of two tracks to listen to while you play, "Feverish" or "Chill". Plus, there is a 2 Player mode too, which is pretty fun if you are looking for an unusual coop game to play.
Overall, I'd say I enjoy Tetris more and find it more addicting, but Dr. Mario certainly scratches the itch of a Puzzle game of this type. My main complaint that negatively affected the pacing of gameplay was whenever you would put four pill-halves of the same color on top of each other and they would 'pop', the adjacent pill-halves would fall down in this agonizingly slow pace. It just doesn't suit a game like this to wait for up to 5 seconds for the half to fall down in my opinion.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
No voice acting. Sound design is fine, would have sometimes liked a more cheerful sound when pills would break. The music is the highlight here. There are two main tunes, one called "Feverish" and one called "Chill", both of which are extremely catchy and fit the mood of the gameplay perfectly. It's a shame that the soundtrack is pretty much limited to these two tracks but it's a minor complaint considering how nice to listen to both tracks are. Couldn't tell you which one I prefer, but I'm gonna go with Chill for today.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
It's nothing special graphically. If anything, the only noticeable part was the background during gameplay, which made me kinda dizzy when staring at it for too long.
ATMOSPHERE
This game was pretty much focused on both gameplay and the soundtrack combining to provide an addictive experience. The presentation was made to be cute in the typical Nintendo style, and it definitely is a charming game, but there isn't really much to it since it's a static game where you simply see pills moving down and viruses reacting to being killed. It's fine.
CONTENT
There are a few options to adjust difficulty, and then there is the gameplay. There isn't much else you need when playing a game like this, so it's good content for gameplay-only enthusiasts, but not for full-package connoisseurs.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
As mentioned somewhere above, my only frustration with this game is how it can take you out of it whenever pill-halves fall for up to 5 seconds and all you can do is watch. It's an odd pace-breaker for a game that is supposed to be paced more or less fast, depending on the speed you put it on. But even if you have it on slow, you can just pull the pills down fast by pressing the down button. You can't accelerate the very slow fall of pill-halves.
Next to adjusting speed, you can adjust the amount of viruses in the jar when you start. If you start at the lowest setting, the amount will increase over time until you lose. Additionally, you can select which song you want to listen to.
And finally, there is a local 2 Player Mode, which is a pretty cool addition. It's hard to not have a good time with that when playing with someone else.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
It's a different take on Tetris, and I'd argue it's not necessarily a better one. Clearly it had a ton of people who liked it, and for good reason, but I wouldn't say it moved the needle in any direction as much as Nintendo just smartly capitalized on the popularity of both Tetris and especially Mario at the time.
REPLAYABILITY
There is an ending to this game believe it or not. Usually replayability AFTER beating a game is what I consider for this segment, but for a game like this, I'll have to adjust my definition, because obviously the game is replayable as heck. It's the main idea behind the game. Play it. Play it some more. Get good at it. Get even better. It's a lot of fun and easy to jump into at whichever difficulty you prefer, so replayability is as high as it gets.
PLAYABILITY
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL
If you enjoy Tetris and Tetris-likes, and have no issues with Mario, I don't see you not enjoying your time with this one. It's fun, it's response, it's difficulty-adjustable and it has two banger tracks. If you're mainly looking for fun gameplay, you'll get your fill here. If you're looking for a more complete package, I'd look elsewhere however.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Andy Eddy for VGCE, Issue 21 (Oct 90): "It's disturbing to think that a parent may find a video game "teaching" their child that playing with pills is okay." | I've gone over this topic in the "Storytelling" part of my review, but this is the loudest opposition I've read on Dr. Mario and thought it was worth sharing. I understand how some parents don't like the idea behind this game, but I thought he was overreacting a bit when reading this. Looking into it a bit closer, it turns out Andy Eddy was suing a doctor for giving his child wrong prescriptions (according to Wiki), so suddenly his rant made a lot more sense, though I still disagree that this game could have turned any child into a pill addict.
- Steve Harris for Electronic Gaming Monthly, Issue 16 (Nov 90): "Dr. Mario is an annoyingly over-involved version of Tetris meets Columns" | Unexpectedly poor reviews by the two magazines I found that talked about the game, but player reception tells a different tale
The game was a commercial success thanks to the popularity of Mario, as it sold over 10 million copies worldwide. It received a bit of backlash for including pills in a kids game (see What They Said At The Time section), but has otherwise been received very well, leading to multiple follow-ups being released over the years.
I found Dr. Mario to be a fun alternative to Tetris with a lot to like. More on the game in detail below.
____________
STORYTELLING
There is no story in-game. All you will find in the manual is a small convo between Dr. Mario and nurse Toadstool where she tells him that an experiment has gone out of control and led to the quick spreading of viruses.
It's a different premise for a Mario game, especially at the time, and some didn't find it as charming as Nintendo may have intended, though you can read more on that in the "What They Said At The Time" section. Personally, I understand how some parents wouldn't buy this game for their children, but I wouldn't get worried that such a theme would have a negative effect on my children myself, especially with proper supervision if needs be (not that I have any as of now).
But yes, beware, the game is about throwing pills into a jar to kill viruses because Mario and his nurse have had experiments go wrong.
GAMEPLAY
This is Nintendo's take on Tetris pretty much, though there is more than enough of a difference to warrant it being its own thing. First off, it has a theme. Mario is a Doctor in this one and instead of throwing differently shaped blocks, he throws pills. He throws them in a jar that has viruses in it, which come in three different colors, blue, yellow and red.
Pills have two halves and each half can be one of the three colors, so you can half blue-yellow, yellow-red or even red-red pills. These can be lined up vertically or horizontally and also be flipped, as you would expect. You need to stack up four of them either horizontally next to, or vertically on top of, one of the viruses to kill it. Removing all viruses clears the stage and lets you move to the next one, where there are more viruses than before, up until a max level of Level 20 with 84 viruses, though I've read that you can go all the way to Level 24 even (not selectable in the menu from the start).
You can adjust the speeds from low to medium to high and start with the lowest amount of viruses if you want. You can also choose one of two tracks to listen to while you play, "Feverish" or "Chill". Plus, there is a 2 Player mode too, which is pretty fun if you are looking for an unusual coop game to play.
Overall, I'd say I enjoy Tetris more and find it more addicting, but Dr. Mario certainly scratches the itch of a Puzzle game of this type. My main complaint that negatively affected the pacing of gameplay was whenever you would put four pill-halves of the same color on top of each other and they would 'pop', the adjacent pill-halves would fall down in this agonizingly slow pace. It just doesn't suit a game like this to wait for up to 5 seconds for the half to fall down in my opinion.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
No voice acting. Sound design is fine, would have sometimes liked a more cheerful sound when pills would break. The music is the highlight here. There are two main tunes, one called "Feverish" and one called "Chill", both of which are extremely catchy and fit the mood of the gameplay perfectly. It's a shame that the soundtrack is pretty much limited to these two tracks but it's a minor complaint considering how nice to listen to both tracks are. Couldn't tell you which one I prefer, but I'm gonna go with Chill for today.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
It's nothing special graphically. If anything, the only noticeable part was the background during gameplay, which made me kinda dizzy when staring at it for too long.
ATMOSPHERE
This game was pretty much focused on both gameplay and the soundtrack combining to provide an addictive experience. The presentation was made to be cute in the typical Nintendo style, and it definitely is a charming game, but there isn't really much to it since it's a static game where you simply see pills moving down and viruses reacting to being killed. It's fine.
CONTENT
There are a few options to adjust difficulty, and then there is the gameplay. There isn't much else you need when playing a game like this, so it's good content for gameplay-only enthusiasts, but not for full-package connoisseurs.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
As mentioned somewhere above, my only frustration with this game is how it can take you out of it whenever pill-halves fall for up to 5 seconds and all you can do is watch. It's an odd pace-breaker for a game that is supposed to be paced more or less fast, depending on the speed you put it on. But even if you have it on slow, you can just pull the pills down fast by pressing the down button. You can't accelerate the very slow fall of pill-halves.
Next to adjusting speed, you can adjust the amount of viruses in the jar when you start. If you start at the lowest setting, the amount will increase over time until you lose. Additionally, you can select which song you want to listen to.
And finally, there is a local 2 Player Mode, which is a pretty cool addition. It's hard to not have a good time with that when playing with someone else.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
It's a different take on Tetris, and I'd argue it's not necessarily a better one. Clearly it had a ton of people who liked it, and for good reason, but I wouldn't say it moved the needle in any direction as much as Nintendo just smartly capitalized on the popularity of both Tetris and especially Mario at the time.
REPLAYABILITY
There is an ending to this game believe it or not. Usually replayability AFTER beating a game is what I consider for this segment, but for a game like this, I'll have to adjust my definition, because obviously the game is replayable as heck. It's the main idea behind the game. Play it. Play it some more. Get good at it. Get even better. It's a lot of fun and easy to jump into at whichever difficulty you prefer, so replayability is as high as it gets.
PLAYABILITY
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL
If you enjoy Tetris and Tetris-likes, and have no issues with Mario, I don't see you not enjoying your time with this one. It's fun, it's response, it's difficulty-adjustable and it has two banger tracks. If you're mainly looking for fun gameplay, you'll get your fill here. If you're looking for a more complete package, I'd look elsewhere however.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Andy Eddy for VGCE, Issue 21 (Oct 90): "It's disturbing to think that a parent may find a video game "teaching" their child that playing with pills is okay." | I've gone over this topic in the "Storytelling" part of my review, but this is the loudest opposition I've read on Dr. Mario and thought it was worth sharing. I understand how some parents don't like the idea behind this game, but I thought he was overreacting a bit when reading this. Looking into it a bit closer, it turns out Andy Eddy was suing a doctor for giving his child wrong prescriptions (according to Wiki), so suddenly his rant made a lot more sense, though I still disagree that this game could have turned any child into a pill addict.
- Steve Harris for Electronic Gaming Monthly, Issue 16 (Nov 90): "Dr. Mario is an annoyingly over-involved version of Tetris meets Columns" | Unexpectedly poor reviews by the two magazines I found that talked about the game, but player reception tells a different tale
1995
(This is the 112th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet/blog is in my bio.)
Funny how I played this right after Chrono Trigger and both games include clocks as part of their main menu. Couldn't be more different in tone and gameplay though.
Clock Tower is one of the first ever survival horror games, mixed with point & click adventure gameplay, and was released on September 14, 1995 for the SNES. Developed by Human Entertainment, it would go on to be ported over to PC, PlayStation and the WonderSwan (yes, really) but it never got released outside of Japan. That changes next year (2024) when a remaster makes the game available for Western audiences finally. If you want to play the original, you have to get a fan translation patch until then.
Clock Tower is heavily inspired by the 1985 film Phenomena, so much so that the main character is designed to look like that film's main character and shares the same name, Jennifer. I believe Clock Tower might just be the earliest rendition of a horror game with "run away" instead of "confrontational gameplay". You got Alone in the Dark as possibly the first ever Western survival horror game, but you got combat there. Sweet Home might be the first real overall survival horror game, but you got combat there too. So it makes sense that the game's director has been told that run away horror would not be fun when he tried to make this game, but Alien Isolation, Outlast, Amnesia etc. have proved them wrong over the years I'd say, including Clock Tower itself.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 4/10
Jennifer is an orphan. She, alongside three other orphans, are adopted by a Simon Barrows and taken to his secluded mansion by a woman named Mary. The mansion is named "Clock Tower" because ... it has a clock tower. Mary goes to find Mr. Barrows when they arrive, you wait around for a minute, the girls get impatient and you start looking for her. As you enter the adjacent room, screams come from the room you just left, so you go back to see all the girls disappeared.
Now you go look for them and try to escape. There is some storytelling from here on, but it is limited to only key plot points. Where are the girls, who is responsible, what's the secret and how is the story resolved?
The cool thing is that things are semi-dynamic, in that events play out differently depending on which areas of the mansion you go to first. Your first encounter with the main antagonist for example can play out 3 different ways depending on whether you go to the courtyard, walk into the foyer or enter a bathroom. They're all pretty memorable scenes as well. Even the faith of the other girls is left to your path, as they can live or die depending on what you do, without knowing that you did it. This doesn't help flesh out any characters or make the story more compelling, but it's a really nice touch.
Figuring out the secret and getting the best out of 9 possible endings is not the very satisfying resolution you might think it is, but the variety of outcomes shows the passion involved in making this and helps your journey to be a little bit more unique than the majority of "static" horror experiences.
GAMEPLAY | 10/20
This game has elements of survival horror and point & click adventure. You move Jennifer around on a 2D plane by either using the directional pad to walk, the L and R buttons to run (on SNES) and the Y button to interact with objects. Walking is painfully, and I mean painfully, slow. Running is quick, but the game discourages it by having Jennifer's health gradually deteriorate as you run. This is indicated by the background color of her avatar in the bottom left corner, which changes from green all the way to orange. To be honest, there isn't really a notable difference between walking around with a green or orange background - not that I noticed anyway - so I'd say just run, because whatever good atmosphere the game sets, it's offset by the sleep-inducingly slow walking speed they gave Jennifer.
Progressing in this game is done by walking into one of the dozens of doors, finding key items and then finding a location to use these items on, which then unlocks more doors to enter. It's standard stuff, even for 1995, with the key difference being that there is a man with big ass scissors roaming about trying to kill you.
Interestingly, encounters with him are not randomly occuring after some time passes, but rather scripted events. I'm not going to go into the details of when and how you meet him, but the scenes range from surprising to funny in a good way and I'm sure those will be what I remember the longest out of my Clock Tower experience. To get away, I found that I had to either find a specific spot to trigger something or I'd have to wait for many minutes to pass while I run around. Because while he is chasing you, you can't interact with stuff, so you basically have to do one of the two. The way you evade him through triggers is pretty clever. One example is a bedroom, which has a parrot in it. If you hide unter the bed, the parrot will actually rat you out and you will die. If you however let the parrot out of its cage and trip it in one of the beds, you can come back here later and successfully hide under the bed. It's pretty cool how they pull it off.
Regarding death: It will find you in your first playthrough, but is more or less easily avoided in subsequent playthroughs. This makes encounters with Scissorman not so scary, but should you die, don't fret, as auto saves happen all the time. With the game's run time of 30 to 120 minutes, you basically can't not beat the game UNLESS:
You miss out on one key item. This might force you to go through the entire house again to find something hidden away in a difficult-to-see interactable spot. To prevent this, make sure you check every inch of every room for something interactable. If you do that, you'll be fine.
Overall, it's really not bad for its time, but the walking speed really did kill a lot of the enjoyment for me, and the layout of the mansion is so confusing that you'll be walking around the same halls and not find that one door you need to go into because they all look the same. In the end, I got 3 different endings on 3 playthroughs, and I did have fun with it overall because things occuring differently from playthrough to playthrough (unless you take the same path) was a nice surprise.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 6/10
No voice acting apart from the screams you'll hear throughout the game. There is also a low number of tracks used for the game's soundtrack, which makes sense when you understand that the game purposely sets the atmosphere of its game by having you listen to Jennifer's footsteps for like 90% of your playthrough. As mentioned before, the slow walking speed made me tired of the footsteps than kept on edge by them, but your experience may differ based on your patience. The soundtrack mainly consists of one theme that is remixed in subtle ways and played regularly throughout your playthrough. It is unnerving and works well though.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 6/10
The game features multiple gory scenes, which are pretty detailed and disturbing. There are plenty of those as well and you'll see them at regular intervals. The main visuals of the game are rather average looking however and you spend most of the game walking through halls that look the same. Most rooms are also simple-looking as they are adorned with pictures of random people and filled with regular furniture. The rooms that do stand out usually do so because of the one surprise hidden in there, but outside of that, the visuals you get for 90% of the game are nothing special.
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 6/10
If I played this in my younger days, I'd crap my pants. If you're in your late teens or 20s like me, you might still feel that way if you're particularly easy to scare. I'm on the other extreme of the spectrum in that I haven't had a horror game/movie scare me in well over 10 years. I'm not proud of it but rather saddened by that burden, however I mention it because me giving my thoughts on a game's atmosphere comes from that frame of mind. The game is considered to have a tremendous atmosphere, one that has you on edge throughout and positively disturbed. I can definitely attest to that in the game's key moments, and it's certainly among the scariest games the SNES has to offer.
That said, the walking speed and long silences really kill a lot of the atmosphere the game builds for me. It's a concious design choice I'm sure, but it hasn't aged well. It's worsened by the fact that these silences are obviously supposed to make enemy encounters more meaningful as the anticipation for them build up, but Scissorman is such a weak enemy once you figure him out that he's a nuisance more than a threat. Heck, Jennifer can simply grab his scissors and throw him to the ground like he's a toddler.
That combination makes me reserved about calling this game scary or very atmospheric for most parts, but I'm sure some of that comes from my relationship with horror media than from the game, though I can't say the game is not at fault for it a big amount too.
CONTENT | 8/10
For a game that can be finished in 15 minutes if Jennifer could actually run up stairs fast and open doors quicker, there is a lot more content here than meets the eye. There are 9 different endings, dozens of doors that include puzzles / jumpscares / grotesque scenes / key items to collect, enemy encounters to run away from and 3 friends to find, which can occur in a variety of ways. You can easily get 5-10 hours worth of the game, if you want to see all endings. For a SNES survival horror game, I appreciate that the game doesn't overstay its welcome.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 6/10
The mansion is a lot more confusing than it should be. You got halls in the first and second floor and you enter them to find the way to the final area, where you will reach the finale. Simple enough. But was I already in this room? Or that room? Where even am I? Where have I not been yet? Some different looking doors and maybe some objects to remember areas by would have been nice.
That said, the fact that you can get different scenarios based on routes you take is a nice touch and works well, even though it might not make sense if you think about it too much. There is a scream you hear in one corridor for example. If you look out the window, that friend dies. If you don't look, the friend stays alive. But overall, this variety adds a lot more to the game than it detracts from it.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 7/10
This might not be the best (run away) survival horror game ever made, but it was unique for its time and did things people didn't deem enjoyable before the game came out. Then Clock Tower released and not only was praised, but also sold well. We got many games in this sub-genre since, both in 2D and 3D variety. It all started here (as far as run away horror goes), or got its first big star of the sub-genre at least.
REPLAYABILITY | 4/5
Plenty of replayability thanks to the multiple endings and the different scenes you can trigger.
PLAYABILITY | 4/5
Works well at all times. The walking speed is just brutal though.
OVERALL | 61/100
Clock Tower is only the second survival horror game I've played since this challenge started in 1990. It might just be the second survival horror that released since 1990 regardless of whether I played them or not, so I will remember it fondly for that alone. It has the same growing pains many games have though, that are some of the first of a genre. It hasn't aged well in the gameplay department and your enjoyment of it will vary greatly based on your patience for the walking speed and your susceptibility to being scared easily in horror games. It brought the survival horror genre forward at time though, for which I appreciate it.
Funny how I played this right after Chrono Trigger and both games include clocks as part of their main menu. Couldn't be more different in tone and gameplay though.
Clock Tower is one of the first ever survival horror games, mixed with point & click adventure gameplay, and was released on September 14, 1995 for the SNES. Developed by Human Entertainment, it would go on to be ported over to PC, PlayStation and the WonderSwan (yes, really) but it never got released outside of Japan. That changes next year (2024) when a remaster makes the game available for Western audiences finally. If you want to play the original, you have to get a fan translation patch until then.
Clock Tower is heavily inspired by the 1985 film Phenomena, so much so that the main character is designed to look like that film's main character and shares the same name, Jennifer. I believe Clock Tower might just be the earliest rendition of a horror game with "run away" instead of "confrontational gameplay". You got Alone in the Dark as possibly the first ever Western survival horror game, but you got combat there. Sweet Home might be the first real overall survival horror game, but you got combat there too. So it makes sense that the game's director has been told that run away horror would not be fun when he tried to make this game, but Alien Isolation, Outlast, Amnesia etc. have proved them wrong over the years I'd say, including Clock Tower itself.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 4/10
Jennifer is an orphan. She, alongside three other orphans, are adopted by a Simon Barrows and taken to his secluded mansion by a woman named Mary. The mansion is named "Clock Tower" because ... it has a clock tower. Mary goes to find Mr. Barrows when they arrive, you wait around for a minute, the girls get impatient and you start looking for her. As you enter the adjacent room, screams come from the room you just left, so you go back to see all the girls disappeared.
Now you go look for them and try to escape. There is some storytelling from here on, but it is limited to only key plot points. Where are the girls, who is responsible, what's the secret and how is the story resolved?
The cool thing is that things are semi-dynamic, in that events play out differently depending on which areas of the mansion you go to first. Your first encounter with the main antagonist for example can play out 3 different ways depending on whether you go to the courtyard, walk into the foyer or enter a bathroom. They're all pretty memorable scenes as well. Even the faith of the other girls is left to your path, as they can live or die depending on what you do, without knowing that you did it. This doesn't help flesh out any characters or make the story more compelling, but it's a really nice touch.
Figuring out the secret and getting the best out of 9 possible endings is not the very satisfying resolution you might think it is, but the variety of outcomes shows the passion involved in making this and helps your journey to be a little bit more unique than the majority of "static" horror experiences.
GAMEPLAY | 10/20
This game has elements of survival horror and point & click adventure. You move Jennifer around on a 2D plane by either using the directional pad to walk, the L and R buttons to run (on SNES) and the Y button to interact with objects. Walking is painfully, and I mean painfully, slow. Running is quick, but the game discourages it by having Jennifer's health gradually deteriorate as you run. This is indicated by the background color of her avatar in the bottom left corner, which changes from green all the way to orange. To be honest, there isn't really a notable difference between walking around with a green or orange background - not that I noticed anyway - so I'd say just run, because whatever good atmosphere the game sets, it's offset by the sleep-inducingly slow walking speed they gave Jennifer.
Progressing in this game is done by walking into one of the dozens of doors, finding key items and then finding a location to use these items on, which then unlocks more doors to enter. It's standard stuff, even for 1995, with the key difference being that there is a man with big ass scissors roaming about trying to kill you.
Interestingly, encounters with him are not randomly occuring after some time passes, but rather scripted events. I'm not going to go into the details of when and how you meet him, but the scenes range from surprising to funny in a good way and I'm sure those will be what I remember the longest out of my Clock Tower experience. To get away, I found that I had to either find a specific spot to trigger something or I'd have to wait for many minutes to pass while I run around. Because while he is chasing you, you can't interact with stuff, so you basically have to do one of the two. The way you evade him through triggers is pretty clever. One example is a bedroom, which has a parrot in it. If you hide unter the bed, the parrot will actually rat you out and you will die. If you however let the parrot out of its cage and trip it in one of the beds, you can come back here later and successfully hide under the bed. It's pretty cool how they pull it off.
Regarding death: It will find you in your first playthrough, but is more or less easily avoided in subsequent playthroughs. This makes encounters with Scissorman not so scary, but should you die, don't fret, as auto saves happen all the time. With the game's run time of 30 to 120 minutes, you basically can't not beat the game UNLESS:
You miss out on one key item. This might force you to go through the entire house again to find something hidden away in a difficult-to-see interactable spot. To prevent this, make sure you check every inch of every room for something interactable. If you do that, you'll be fine.
Overall, it's really not bad for its time, but the walking speed really did kill a lot of the enjoyment for me, and the layout of the mansion is so confusing that you'll be walking around the same halls and not find that one door you need to go into because they all look the same. In the end, I got 3 different endings on 3 playthroughs, and I did have fun with it overall because things occuring differently from playthrough to playthrough (unless you take the same path) was a nice surprise.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 6/10
No voice acting apart from the screams you'll hear throughout the game. There is also a low number of tracks used for the game's soundtrack, which makes sense when you understand that the game purposely sets the atmosphere of its game by having you listen to Jennifer's footsteps for like 90% of your playthrough. As mentioned before, the slow walking speed made me tired of the footsteps than kept on edge by them, but your experience may differ based on your patience. The soundtrack mainly consists of one theme that is remixed in subtle ways and played regularly throughout your playthrough. It is unnerving and works well though.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 6/10
The game features multiple gory scenes, which are pretty detailed and disturbing. There are plenty of those as well and you'll see them at regular intervals. The main visuals of the game are rather average looking however and you spend most of the game walking through halls that look the same. Most rooms are also simple-looking as they are adorned with pictures of random people and filled with regular furniture. The rooms that do stand out usually do so because of the one surprise hidden in there, but outside of that, the visuals you get for 90% of the game are nothing special.
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 6/10
If I played this in my younger days, I'd crap my pants. If you're in your late teens or 20s like me, you might still feel that way if you're particularly easy to scare. I'm on the other extreme of the spectrum in that I haven't had a horror game/movie scare me in well over 10 years. I'm not proud of it but rather saddened by that burden, however I mention it because me giving my thoughts on a game's atmosphere comes from that frame of mind. The game is considered to have a tremendous atmosphere, one that has you on edge throughout and positively disturbed. I can definitely attest to that in the game's key moments, and it's certainly among the scariest games the SNES has to offer.
That said, the walking speed and long silences really kill a lot of the atmosphere the game builds for me. It's a concious design choice I'm sure, but it hasn't aged well. It's worsened by the fact that these silences are obviously supposed to make enemy encounters more meaningful as the anticipation for them build up, but Scissorman is such a weak enemy once you figure him out that he's a nuisance more than a threat. Heck, Jennifer can simply grab his scissors and throw him to the ground like he's a toddler.
That combination makes me reserved about calling this game scary or very atmospheric for most parts, but I'm sure some of that comes from my relationship with horror media than from the game, though I can't say the game is not at fault for it a big amount too.
CONTENT | 8/10
For a game that can be finished in 15 minutes if Jennifer could actually run up stairs fast and open doors quicker, there is a lot more content here than meets the eye. There are 9 different endings, dozens of doors that include puzzles / jumpscares / grotesque scenes / key items to collect, enemy encounters to run away from and 3 friends to find, which can occur in a variety of ways. You can easily get 5-10 hours worth of the game, if you want to see all endings. For a SNES survival horror game, I appreciate that the game doesn't overstay its welcome.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 6/10
The mansion is a lot more confusing than it should be. You got halls in the first and second floor and you enter them to find the way to the final area, where you will reach the finale. Simple enough. But was I already in this room? Or that room? Where even am I? Where have I not been yet? Some different looking doors and maybe some objects to remember areas by would have been nice.
That said, the fact that you can get different scenarios based on routes you take is a nice touch and works well, even though it might not make sense if you think about it too much. There is a scream you hear in one corridor for example. If you look out the window, that friend dies. If you don't look, the friend stays alive. But overall, this variety adds a lot more to the game than it detracts from it.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 7/10
This might not be the best (run away) survival horror game ever made, but it was unique for its time and did things people didn't deem enjoyable before the game came out. Then Clock Tower released and not only was praised, but also sold well. We got many games in this sub-genre since, both in 2D and 3D variety. It all started here (as far as run away horror goes), or got its first big star of the sub-genre at least.
REPLAYABILITY | 4/5
Plenty of replayability thanks to the multiple endings and the different scenes you can trigger.
PLAYABILITY | 4/5
Works well at all times. The walking speed is just brutal though.
OVERALL | 61/100
Clock Tower is only the second survival horror game I've played since this challenge started in 1990. It might just be the second survival horror that released since 1990 regardless of whether I played them or not, so I will remember it fondly for that alone. It has the same growing pains many games have though, that are some of the first of a genre. It hasn't aged well in the gameplay department and your enjoyment of it will vary greatly based on your patience for the walking speed and your susceptibility to being scared easily in horror games. It brought the survival horror genre forward at time though, for which I appreciate it.