fe17
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
I don't know what I expected, but The Amazing Spider-Man for Game Boy was almost just as bad as the Amiga / Commodore 64 game which I had played a month prior.
This one came out in July 1990 for the Game Boy exclusively and was developed by Rare (who developed a different rather below average game in 1990 as well, Captain Skyhawk).
My first immediate complaint about the Commodore 64 game was how it looked like Spider-Man had back issues and how the assets used didn't have much to do with Spider-Man. The moment gameplay started for this Game Boy game, I noticed how Spidey walked like he was having back issues yet again, however the use of multiple Spider-Man villains and the typical Spider-Man quick-wittedness in dialogue at least gave me some Spider-Man vibes here.
That doesn't take away from the fact that this game was a bad one in pretty much any way you can think of, but here is a one-by-one rundown of it all.
____________
STORYTELLING
Mary Jane has been kidnapped by 6 villains, apparently, and Spider-Man needs to save her. He learns about this when Mysterio calls him by phone. Mysterio then is the boss of the first stage. The second stage begins with Hobgoblin giving him a call, the third stage boss is Scorpion and so it goes 6 times until the game ends.
The plot is not really of importance, but what this game does that I found fun was how every conversation is just filled with a bunch of one-liners and insults that Spider-Man and his enemies throw at each other. Spider-Man called Mysterio a "Fishbowl Face", Hobgoblin a "Pumpkin Brain", Scorpion a "Tail-Twirler" and so on. They are not necessarily clever or big zingers, but I can imagine especially younger players getting a kick out of it, so I see it as a plus.
Still, there isn't much here overall.
GAMEPLAY
There are two types of stages in this game. The first is the most common: Moving Spider-Man to the right in a horizontally scrolling 2D Action game with limited platforming. The other appears twice and involves you moving Spider-Man vertically up the wall of a tall building.
During the side-scrolling sections, platforming is really limited to jumping and web-swinging. Web-swinging has got to be working randomly, because I barely ever got it to work even though I always pressed the button like the manual says. Hold B. And yet, every 10th press or so actually started the animation, which sees you progress through the level up in the air, where you can't be hurt by most enemies and can actually swing over boxes that you would be unable to jump over.
Ugh, this just felt like a drag throughout. Spider-Man walks weird and slow, you can only throw a punch or shoot webs (at least until you run out of web fluids) and graphically this game is so simple that you can't even make out what kind of items the enemies drop when they die. Even the manual calls it "stuff" multiple times, so it literally is a bunch of pixels that they drop.
There is a level like this on a random street, but also on a train, but they play the same apart from the fact that Spider-Man crouches down automatically on the train to not get smashed by a brick wall.
The wall-climbing stages include rocks falling from above which you have to avoid and enemies looking out of windows to try to hit you. Pretty straightforward and easy. Not that fun.
Boss fights have some similarities but differences as well, but all of them have pretty simple patterns that you need to figure out and then counter attack until they die.
Later stages then include a whole bunch of crap coming across the screen that pretty much forces you to stay in place for a few seconds at a time before moving to avoid taking damage. You'll probably take damage anyway.
The game is also so feature-barren that bats that fly above you don't even fly down to attack because there is no ability to defend against it, so you literally move forward for several seconds while they just fly above your head.
It's just not that fun of a game to play.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
No voice acting. Standard sound design for the most part, but really low quality of the sound at some others, like for example the disgusting sound the poison dust of Mysterio makes. Music meanwhile was almost completely bad. I thought the Intro Theme was OK and the Boss Battles theme was definitely the highlight, but everything else - which mainly means the main stage theme which is on repeat almost throughout - is really bad. Not only does it sound low quality, but there are parts which almost got me nauseated. Check out Stage Theme 1 starting at 0:27 on YouTube to know what I mean. I didn't like it. Luckily the game is on the shorter side.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
Game Boy games often don't look that good, though there certainly are many better looking one's than this game and some that look pretty good, like Donkey Kong Land III. What makes that game stand out despite the technical limitations of the handheld console to me is the detail in animations. This game game had so few that you could count them with two hands, and it didn't look good or detailed in any way, but also not terrible since it is, after all, a Game Boy game.
ATMOSPHERE
The conversations did most of the carrying as far as hitting that Spider-Man atmosphere goes. Apart from that, there is nothing special here and with this soundtrack, I'd almost recommend playing it on mute, if at all.
CONTENT
It's on the shorter side. I've played for 1.5 hours and got to the final boss, where I died and decided it's not worth it to push on. Play the first two levels and you've pretty much seen what this game has to offer, which isn't much. If you really get a kick out of the conversations between Spidey and the villains, that might be enough motivation to push on, and the game being short is a blessing if you are more hardcore than me and are looking to beat all of these games, but there isn't much here in both quantity and quality.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
Two different styles of stages with an increasing amount of different enemies on screen as you go. You don't really become stronger as you go, there aren't any power up items to look for, the pace is slow and it all comes together to provide you with a bad and unrewarding experience overall, at least in my opinion.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
Web swinging, if it works, looked cool I guess and I liked how they at least tried to make the game stand out with all those light-insult-battles between Spider-Man and the enemies, but there isn't anything here besides that that stood out and was innovative in any way.
REPLAYABILITY
Apart from trying to beat your high score, there isn't any replayability here.
PLAYABILITY
The game worked well at all times. There was one big problem though, and that was that the aforementioned "Web Swinging" literally worked at random. Very weird. And it not working often means you will take damage in the meantime.
OVERALL
The game has one saving grace, and that's the interactions between Spider-Man and the villains. But that's just a tiny portion of this game, and the rest of it is simply filled with slow-paced, poorly-animated, feature-less platforming.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Maurice Molyneaux for VGCE, Issue 19 (Aug 90): "Spidey has a number of weapons and defenses at his disposal." | Now that's just a lie.
- Gideon for GamePro, Issue 11 (June 90): "The gameplay is top-notch, and the funky Spiderman theme is a groove."
This one came out in July 1990 for the Game Boy exclusively and was developed by Rare (who developed a different rather below average game in 1990 as well, Captain Skyhawk).
My first immediate complaint about the Commodore 64 game was how it looked like Spider-Man had back issues and how the assets used didn't have much to do with Spider-Man. The moment gameplay started for this Game Boy game, I noticed how Spidey walked like he was having back issues yet again, however the use of multiple Spider-Man villains and the typical Spider-Man quick-wittedness in dialogue at least gave me some Spider-Man vibes here.
That doesn't take away from the fact that this game was a bad one in pretty much any way you can think of, but here is a one-by-one rundown of it all.
____________
STORYTELLING
Mary Jane has been kidnapped by 6 villains, apparently, and Spider-Man needs to save her. He learns about this when Mysterio calls him by phone. Mysterio then is the boss of the first stage. The second stage begins with Hobgoblin giving him a call, the third stage boss is Scorpion and so it goes 6 times until the game ends.
The plot is not really of importance, but what this game does that I found fun was how every conversation is just filled with a bunch of one-liners and insults that Spider-Man and his enemies throw at each other. Spider-Man called Mysterio a "Fishbowl Face", Hobgoblin a "Pumpkin Brain", Scorpion a "Tail-Twirler" and so on. They are not necessarily clever or big zingers, but I can imagine especially younger players getting a kick out of it, so I see it as a plus.
Still, there isn't much here overall.
GAMEPLAY
There are two types of stages in this game. The first is the most common: Moving Spider-Man to the right in a horizontally scrolling 2D Action game with limited platforming. The other appears twice and involves you moving Spider-Man vertically up the wall of a tall building.
During the side-scrolling sections, platforming is really limited to jumping and web-swinging. Web-swinging has got to be working randomly, because I barely ever got it to work even though I always pressed the button like the manual says. Hold B. And yet, every 10th press or so actually started the animation, which sees you progress through the level up in the air, where you can't be hurt by most enemies and can actually swing over boxes that you would be unable to jump over.
Ugh, this just felt like a drag throughout. Spider-Man walks weird and slow, you can only throw a punch or shoot webs (at least until you run out of web fluids) and graphically this game is so simple that you can't even make out what kind of items the enemies drop when they die. Even the manual calls it "stuff" multiple times, so it literally is a bunch of pixels that they drop.
There is a level like this on a random street, but also on a train, but they play the same apart from the fact that Spider-Man crouches down automatically on the train to not get smashed by a brick wall.
The wall-climbing stages include rocks falling from above which you have to avoid and enemies looking out of windows to try to hit you. Pretty straightforward and easy. Not that fun.
Boss fights have some similarities but differences as well, but all of them have pretty simple patterns that you need to figure out and then counter attack until they die.
Later stages then include a whole bunch of crap coming across the screen that pretty much forces you to stay in place for a few seconds at a time before moving to avoid taking damage. You'll probably take damage anyway.
The game is also so feature-barren that bats that fly above you don't even fly down to attack because there is no ability to defend against it, so you literally move forward for several seconds while they just fly above your head.
It's just not that fun of a game to play.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
No voice acting. Standard sound design for the most part, but really low quality of the sound at some others, like for example the disgusting sound the poison dust of Mysterio makes. Music meanwhile was almost completely bad. I thought the Intro Theme was OK and the Boss Battles theme was definitely the highlight, but everything else - which mainly means the main stage theme which is on repeat almost throughout - is really bad. Not only does it sound low quality, but there are parts which almost got me nauseated. Check out Stage Theme 1 starting at 0:27 on YouTube to know what I mean. I didn't like it. Luckily the game is on the shorter side.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
Game Boy games often don't look that good, though there certainly are many better looking one's than this game and some that look pretty good, like Donkey Kong Land III. What makes that game stand out despite the technical limitations of the handheld console to me is the detail in animations. This game game had so few that you could count them with two hands, and it didn't look good or detailed in any way, but also not terrible since it is, after all, a Game Boy game.
ATMOSPHERE
The conversations did most of the carrying as far as hitting that Spider-Man atmosphere goes. Apart from that, there is nothing special here and with this soundtrack, I'd almost recommend playing it on mute, if at all.
CONTENT
It's on the shorter side. I've played for 1.5 hours and got to the final boss, where I died and decided it's not worth it to push on. Play the first two levels and you've pretty much seen what this game has to offer, which isn't much. If you really get a kick out of the conversations between Spidey and the villains, that might be enough motivation to push on, and the game being short is a blessing if you are more hardcore than me and are looking to beat all of these games, but there isn't much here in both quantity and quality.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
Two different styles of stages with an increasing amount of different enemies on screen as you go. You don't really become stronger as you go, there aren't any power up items to look for, the pace is slow and it all comes together to provide you with a bad and unrewarding experience overall, at least in my opinion.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
Web swinging, if it works, looked cool I guess and I liked how they at least tried to make the game stand out with all those light-insult-battles between Spider-Man and the enemies, but there isn't anything here besides that that stood out and was innovative in any way.
REPLAYABILITY
Apart from trying to beat your high score, there isn't any replayability here.
PLAYABILITY
The game worked well at all times. There was one big problem though, and that was that the aforementioned "Web Swinging" literally worked at random. Very weird. And it not working often means you will take damage in the meantime.
OVERALL
The game has one saving grace, and that's the interactions between Spider-Man and the villains. But that's just a tiny portion of this game, and the rest of it is simply filled with slow-paced, poorly-animated, feature-less platforming.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Maurice Molyneaux for VGCE, Issue 19 (Aug 90): "Spidey has a number of weapons and defenses at his disposal." | Now that's just a lie.
- Gideon for GamePro, Issue 11 (June 90): "The gameplay is top-notch, and the funky Spiderman theme is a groove."
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.
Based on the movie by the same name from 1988, Michael Jackson's Moonwalker is a beat 'em up game released initially on August 24, 1990 for the Sega Genesis and Master System. An Arcade version was released a month earlier, which is an isometric run and gun game.
The game is better than I expected for a game around a celebrity, and the good parts go beyond the soundtrack. More on my thoughts in detail below.
____________
STORYTELLING
The setup for the story is explained in the manual, while the game itself only has any explanation shortly before the boss fight. What your goal is, is self-explanatory as you play though.
You control Michael Jackson, duh, and go into hostile territory to free a bunch of kidnapped children. All children look like Katie from the movie and say "Michael!" when you free them whilst giving you a boost to your magic/health bar.
At the end of each stage, Mr. Big - the boss - shows up and tells you that "you will never catch me" before he sends a bunch of his goons at you.
The manual tells you that Mr. Big is kidnapping every kid in the world to turn them into his slaves and the text in-game only tells you that you can now face him, so there isn't much here. I'm probably the guy who dived the deepest into the storytelling of this game ever right now because it's barely existent and not the point of this game.
GAMEPLAY
Michael Jackson shows up in a club and flips a coin into a jukebox to flip on a banging soundtrack that provides the backdrop for a gaming experience that is fun despite its limitations, but is held back tremendously by the game's level design.
In this 2D beat 'em up game, you do two things. First, you beat up a bunch of bad guys using your feet (or your arms when you jump), which releases magical sparkles that apparently damage bad people. Second, you have to rescue children.
The Fighting Part: This was fun but had plenty of issues. You see, you have only ONE bar in this game, which represents both your health AND your magical spark tank. And once you drop below a certain amount, you can only do weak punches, not shoot magic anymore. There is a special attack that you can do by spinning, which however drains your bar very fast. If you spin for a little bit, you throw your hat and it creates an explosion. If you spin for half of your health bar, every enemy on screen stands next to Michael Jackson and they do a little dance, which kills every enemy afterwards. It's a great little gimmick for this game but it's unfortunate that it drains your health bar to do it, instead of getting its individual bar. This made me ignore this feature apart from a few small instances throughout the game.
Another issue I got was that you couldn't both turn and shoot magic. Especially in the final two "chapters", enemies would be thrown at you in bunches from both sides, and it felt like it was pretty much impossible to get through the levels unless you knew where to find the kids and therefore skipped most of the level.
The Finding Children Part: And so, let's talk about this part. Depending on the level you find yourself in, you have to check windows, doors, in car trunks, in caves, behind bushes or even behind tombstones to find children. There are dozens of these per level and there is a set number of children hiding in pre-determined hiding spots. As mentioned, I'm glad, because this is probably the only way to beat the game (which I didn't), but imagine missing ONE spot and having to go through the entire level again trying to find it, whilst enemies keep respawning and draining your health bar.
Some hiding spots you won't even find because you won't know where to look. For example you will have to look behind manhole cover that seem to be there as part of the scenery, but no, you actually have to do a spin on top of it to essentially screw it open.
Overall, the core gameplay loop was fun enough, but it all went to shizzles starting in around Chapter 4, where so many enemies would appear that it would make looking for kids tedious. The boss fight only triggers once you find them all, and even the boss fights become a pain, because all of a sudden, 10, nope 20, nope 30 enemies appear one after the other, if not even more than that, and in the graveyard level in particular, those damn zombies appear that can just detach from their legs and fly at you to deal a lot of damage. Meanwhile you can't use any special attacks because it would drain your health too much and you'd die shortly after. These zombies are beatable, I managed it, but it only gets worse from there and that's where I said I've played this enough.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
Not fair to call it voice acting, but the children do say "Michael" every time you rescue one, which I imagine will be instantly memorable for those who have played this a lot when they were young. I have mixed thoughts about the sound design. Some actions sound good, like the sparkle of the magic or Michael saying "wooo" when you jump-punch, but then you got the bad swooshing sound that plays whenever you check windows, doors, bushes and so on. Overall it's not too bad, not that great either.
What is great however is the soundtrack. It's a 16 bit remix of some of Michael Jackson's most popular songs and whether you like the beats or not will make or break this for you. I think his most popular songs are timeless classics, so naturally I enjoyed this quite a lot. My only issue was that there was no Thriller during the graveyard level (zombies and Michael even did the dance) but apparently there were licensing issues there.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
The design of Michael Jackson and enemies is great and the game has plenty of differently and nicely designed levels from a graphical standpoint.
ATMOSPHERE
Mixing beats from Michael Jackson songs alongside a graveyard level with zombies and Michael doing the Thriller dance is great and puts you in a great mood, even if the song Thriller itself is not licensed. Levels also have unique themes which I enjoyed, even if they didn't always feel like they suit Michael Jackson.
CONTENT
The overall package here is fun but there isn't a lot of variety. You don't gain any new abilities, there are no power up items, special moves are discouraged due to draining your health, mission objectives are always the same and most of the playing time you accrue comes from trial and error. As I said, the content overall is fun though, so I'll assume that most of you will enjoy a couple hours with it.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
This just gets progressively worse as more and more and more and more enemies are thrown at you, but your abilities never improve to properly tackle them on. Instead you just wildly shoot left and right and hope you get them all before your health runs out. Don't even think about using special items because that's basically suicide.
On a smaller scale, making it extremely hard to even figure out where to look for the children, making you go all the way to the boss fight whenever you die during one and making you run around the entire level if you miss a single child are some more annoyances with how this game is designed. Not good.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
The way they've added a bunch of Michael Jackson animation and dance moves, the dance he does with the enemies, the remix of his songs and designing the game to his likeness overall is pretty well done, however it doesn't really translate to other games.
REPLAYABILITY
No abilities to collect/find, no secrets apart from one if you somehow manage to catch a shooting star (check it out on YT if you don't want to play this game, it's pretty nice), no randomizing of hiding spots for children (though some of you might prefer this) and terrible level design in later chapters means a replay is only advisable if you really want to try and beat your high score.
PLAYABILITY
It works well from start to finish.
OVERALL
I liked the core gameplay here, even if its is feature-limited. Playing this to that great soundtrack was great fun for the first few hours but once I got into the latter stages of the graveyard chapter, it just got more and more annoying to play. Ultimately that makes it an average game for its time overall.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
This game was a big topic back in the day, with multiple magazines putting Michael Jackson on their covers.
- Andy Eddy for VGCE, Issue 19 (Aug 90): "Updated cartridges were constantly provided to Jackson, and his suggestions were then passed on to the programmers" | Not an 'opinion' but certainly awesome to hear Jackson being so involved in the creation of this game
- Andromeda for GamePro, Issue 13 (Aug 90): "The animation is smooth, realistic and eye-popping."
The game is better than I expected for a game around a celebrity, and the good parts go beyond the soundtrack. More on my thoughts in detail below.
____________
STORYTELLING
The setup for the story is explained in the manual, while the game itself only has any explanation shortly before the boss fight. What your goal is, is self-explanatory as you play though.
You control Michael Jackson, duh, and go into hostile territory to free a bunch of kidnapped children. All children look like Katie from the movie and say "Michael!" when you free them whilst giving you a boost to your magic/health bar.
At the end of each stage, Mr. Big - the boss - shows up and tells you that "you will never catch me" before he sends a bunch of his goons at you.
The manual tells you that Mr. Big is kidnapping every kid in the world to turn them into his slaves and the text in-game only tells you that you can now face him, so there isn't much here. I'm probably the guy who dived the deepest into the storytelling of this game ever right now because it's barely existent and not the point of this game.
GAMEPLAY
Michael Jackson shows up in a club and flips a coin into a jukebox to flip on a banging soundtrack that provides the backdrop for a gaming experience that is fun despite its limitations, but is held back tremendously by the game's level design.
In this 2D beat 'em up game, you do two things. First, you beat up a bunch of bad guys using your feet (or your arms when you jump), which releases magical sparkles that apparently damage bad people. Second, you have to rescue children.
The Fighting Part: This was fun but had plenty of issues. You see, you have only ONE bar in this game, which represents both your health AND your magical spark tank. And once you drop below a certain amount, you can only do weak punches, not shoot magic anymore. There is a special attack that you can do by spinning, which however drains your bar very fast. If you spin for a little bit, you throw your hat and it creates an explosion. If you spin for half of your health bar, every enemy on screen stands next to Michael Jackson and they do a little dance, which kills every enemy afterwards. It's a great little gimmick for this game but it's unfortunate that it drains your health bar to do it, instead of getting its individual bar. This made me ignore this feature apart from a few small instances throughout the game.
Another issue I got was that you couldn't both turn and shoot magic. Especially in the final two "chapters", enemies would be thrown at you in bunches from both sides, and it felt like it was pretty much impossible to get through the levels unless you knew where to find the kids and therefore skipped most of the level.
The Finding Children Part: And so, let's talk about this part. Depending on the level you find yourself in, you have to check windows, doors, in car trunks, in caves, behind bushes or even behind tombstones to find children. There are dozens of these per level and there is a set number of children hiding in pre-determined hiding spots. As mentioned, I'm glad, because this is probably the only way to beat the game (which I didn't), but imagine missing ONE spot and having to go through the entire level again trying to find it, whilst enemies keep respawning and draining your health bar.
Some hiding spots you won't even find because you won't know where to look. For example you will have to look behind manhole cover that seem to be there as part of the scenery, but no, you actually have to do a spin on top of it to essentially screw it open.
Overall, the core gameplay loop was fun enough, but it all went to shizzles starting in around Chapter 4, where so many enemies would appear that it would make looking for kids tedious. The boss fight only triggers once you find them all, and even the boss fights become a pain, because all of a sudden, 10, nope 20, nope 30 enemies appear one after the other, if not even more than that, and in the graveyard level in particular, those damn zombies appear that can just detach from their legs and fly at you to deal a lot of damage. Meanwhile you can't use any special attacks because it would drain your health too much and you'd die shortly after. These zombies are beatable, I managed it, but it only gets worse from there and that's where I said I've played this enough.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
Not fair to call it voice acting, but the children do say "Michael" every time you rescue one, which I imagine will be instantly memorable for those who have played this a lot when they were young. I have mixed thoughts about the sound design. Some actions sound good, like the sparkle of the magic or Michael saying "wooo" when you jump-punch, but then you got the bad swooshing sound that plays whenever you check windows, doors, bushes and so on. Overall it's not too bad, not that great either.
What is great however is the soundtrack. It's a 16 bit remix of some of Michael Jackson's most popular songs and whether you like the beats or not will make or break this for you. I think his most popular songs are timeless classics, so naturally I enjoyed this quite a lot. My only issue was that there was no Thriller during the graveyard level (zombies and Michael even did the dance) but apparently there were licensing issues there.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
The design of Michael Jackson and enemies is great and the game has plenty of differently and nicely designed levels from a graphical standpoint.
ATMOSPHERE
Mixing beats from Michael Jackson songs alongside a graveyard level with zombies and Michael doing the Thriller dance is great and puts you in a great mood, even if the song Thriller itself is not licensed. Levels also have unique themes which I enjoyed, even if they didn't always feel like they suit Michael Jackson.
CONTENT
The overall package here is fun but there isn't a lot of variety. You don't gain any new abilities, there are no power up items, special moves are discouraged due to draining your health, mission objectives are always the same and most of the playing time you accrue comes from trial and error. As I said, the content overall is fun though, so I'll assume that most of you will enjoy a couple hours with it.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
This just gets progressively worse as more and more and more and more enemies are thrown at you, but your abilities never improve to properly tackle them on. Instead you just wildly shoot left and right and hope you get them all before your health runs out. Don't even think about using special items because that's basically suicide.
On a smaller scale, making it extremely hard to even figure out where to look for the children, making you go all the way to the boss fight whenever you die during one and making you run around the entire level if you miss a single child are some more annoyances with how this game is designed. Not good.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
The way they've added a bunch of Michael Jackson animation and dance moves, the dance he does with the enemies, the remix of his songs and designing the game to his likeness overall is pretty well done, however it doesn't really translate to other games.
REPLAYABILITY
No abilities to collect/find, no secrets apart from one if you somehow manage to catch a shooting star (check it out on YT if you don't want to play this game, it's pretty nice), no randomizing of hiding spots for children (though some of you might prefer this) and terrible level design in later chapters means a replay is only advisable if you really want to try and beat your high score.
PLAYABILITY
It works well from start to finish.
OVERALL
I liked the core gameplay here, even if its is feature-limited. Playing this to that great soundtrack was great fun for the first few hours but once I got into the latter stages of the graveyard chapter, it just got more and more annoying to play. Ultimately that makes it an average game for its time overall.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
This game was a big topic back in the day, with multiple magazines putting Michael Jackson on their covers.
- Andy Eddy for VGCE, Issue 19 (Aug 90): "Updated cartridges were constantly provided to Jackson, and his suggestions were then passed on to the programmers" | Not an 'opinion' but certainly awesome to hear Jackson being so involved in the creation of this game
- Andromeda for GamePro, Issue 13 (Aug 90): "The animation is smooth, realistic and eye-popping."
1990
Spaceship combat sims are games that I did not grow up with and that are not really for me. Since I wouldn't do their legacy any justice by rating them as someone who is not in the game's target group, I'll just give quick random thoughts on games like this but otherwise leave them without a rating, in case you were following my challenge to go through as many games as possible starting chronologically in 1990. This would be game 21.
Controls felt pretty complicated and it didn't really feel enjoyable to play with a mouse + keyboard and at the low framerate that was offered, which I don't think was unusual for space combat sims. I'm not sure if people played this with a joystick back in the day or it didn't simply bother them, but I would have been overwhelmed even if the game played at double digits, so this only exacerbated my problems.
That said, I did get through two missions before calling it a day. The vet who accompanied me somehow died after the first mission and while I still have no idea why (she just said "my ancestors await me" as I was trying to figure out how to dock), I could tell that the interaction between the player and other characters - in addition to the neat cinematic story telling - was a big deal. If I had grown up with this genre, I can imagine my experience with this game being positive. That said, the missions already felt repetitive very early on and I can imagine that this is a common complaint about this game, and not a surprising one due to the game's age.
Controls felt pretty complicated and it didn't really feel enjoyable to play with a mouse + keyboard and at the low framerate that was offered, which I don't think was unusual for space combat sims. I'm not sure if people played this with a joystick back in the day or it didn't simply bother them, but I would have been overwhelmed even if the game played at double digits, so this only exacerbated my problems.
That said, I did get through two missions before calling it a day. The vet who accompanied me somehow died after the first mission and while I still have no idea why (she just said "my ancestors await me" as I was trying to figure out how to dock), I could tell that the interaction between the player and other characters - in addition to the neat cinematic story telling - was a big deal. If I had grown up with this genre, I can imagine my experience with this game being positive. That said, the missions already felt repetitive very early on and I can imagine that this is a common complaint about this game, and not a surprising one due to the game's age.
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."
1990
(This is the 23rd game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
Did you know? Journey to Silius was originally meant to be a Terminator game. As Sunsoft lost the license mid-development, story and graphics were changed. In more recent news, the game was ported over to Nintendo Switch in 2019 for Switch Online subscribers, in case you're curious.
Journey to Silius is a run & gun video game developed by Sunsoft and released on August 10th, 1990 for the NES. The composor is Naoki Kodaka, and I mention that because he was the composer for a game I reviewed more recently: Batman for the Sega Genesis (I was a big fan of the soundtrack).
Whether the soundtrack is good here too, what the game is even about and whether I liked it I will discuss in more detail below.
____________
STORYTELLING
You play Jay McCray, who is the son of a scientist who was responsible for the development of space colony #428 at a time where emigration to space colonies has become necessary due to overpopulation of the Earth. Jay's father dies during development and leaves behind a floppy disk, where he's recorded a message. He says that terrorists are looking to destroy the colony, so Jay sets out to protect the colony and avenge his dad.
This is where the story begins and the storytelling pretty much ends. From here on out, you find yourself on the space colony and kill terrorists / aliens and once you defeat the final boss, a few-second long cutscene plays before the end credits roll. So if you're here for any sort of story, you'll get a setting that is slightly more detailed than usual but nothing beyond that.
GAMEPLAY
This is another pretty average platformer in just about every way. You use a hand gun to start the game and get up to 6 by the end of it, the most unique being the homing missile. There are 5 stages, each side-by-side platforming stages with a boss at the end. That's a formula that has worked very well at that time but it is really simple, not innovative at all and since the game really doesn't have enough features or a fun enough gameplay loop, it grows stale quickly and the reliance on the same formula is not really justified.
The way the levels are designed (I'll crap on that a bit more later) is just so frustrating because it makes it very, very hard to reliably dodge enemy attacks. There are so many of them that just are at spots that you can't reach, which means you will most of the time just tank the damage and move forward.
I also can't say I got much out of the 6 weapons on offer. Once you knew what to do, the hand gun did just fine, but you only knew what to do after suffering through a part multiple times.
In the end, I did beat the game in about 3 hours, and the formula DOES work in that it offers a little bit of fun next to all the frustration. But it would have been a lot less fun without the great soundtrack on offer, as I describe below.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
No voice acting. Sound design ranged from OK to good, with the weapons sounding satisfying enough. The soundtrack is great, similarly to what the composer managed to do for the Batman Sega Genesis game. Banger after banger almost throughout. Unfortunately all boss fights use the same track and I would have definitely enjoyed more variety there, especially since the track that exists loops pretty quickly and isn't the highlight of the OST.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
The game looks pretty good. It was actually designed with a space colony in mind (plenty of games didn't always stay true to their setting among the games I've played so far). The game makes good use of colors, the enemy design is mostly solid (apart from the bosses) and especially the outside stages allow for some great, detailed background work. Unfortunately, some of the boss fights simply took place with a simple black background, whilst the final one for example showed distant planets, stars and space stations. Not sure why they did that.
ATMOSPHERE
The game does a good job here. The way the levels are designed artistically suit the theme.
CONTENT
The game is on the shorter side - it took me roughly 3 hours to beat it - and there isn't much to it. All levels are pretty much: move side to side, choose one of 6 weapons to fire and do some (not so great) platforming until you get to the boss. No other content to mix it up, no power up items or the like and no real story progression. What does exist is fine but this is a fairly skippable game as far as the history of video games is concerned.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
It's a pretty simple concept as far as the level design goes. A level starts and you have to go through a bunch of enemies, do some platforming and hope you don't die to gravity and then fight a boss. You do that a few times and then you beat the game, but the game is purposely frustrating to make it harder to beat within a rental time, which hopefully leads to the player (or their parents) to buy a copy outright.
The game doesn't shy away from this formula and there just aren't enough features here to justify it being so stale. Also, one of my biggest minor complaints, is that the game requires you to jump down a lot without being able to see what's there. And what's there usually is an enemy, so I very often either would step on them and take damage, or they would shoot a millisecond after I landed and I would take damage from that. It's just bad.
In its whole, level design isn't necessarily bad, it's just bland.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
There isn't really anything that I can think of that this game did that you didn't see before. Science fiction as a theme for a platformer, based on my experiences so far, were on the rarer side at the time, so there is that. Plus the soundtrack is definitely well above average and if you check the game's wikipedia page, you can read a bit about how the composer did some different stuff there, but other than that, this is a pretty forgettable game.
REPLAYABILITY
The game doesn't even have a high score system as far as I can tell, so the only reason you would want to replay it is for the sake of wanting to play it again. On its own the game doesn't incentivize this however.
PLAYABILITY
The game works well at all times.
OVERALL
"Make an average platformer, hire a great composer, slap the Terminator license on it and boom, you got a great seller. Oh but wait, you can't use the license anymore - Crap! Well then just make it its own world and release it." That's what I feel like the game's development looked like. This game is certainly playable and as I said, average, but I doubt many people remember it fondly for being a classic rather than a nostalgic and fun experience, which is fine if that's the case.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Andromeda for GamePro, Issue 16 (Nov 90): "Journey to Silius features great graphics and a dynamite sound track. However, in terms of substance, the game doesn't quite live up to the way it looks."
- Steve Harris for EGM, Issue 14 (Sep 90): "This game is not going to win any awards for being new or innovative, but Sunsoft does manage to introduce some new twists to the standard action/shooting theme." | Steve agrees with my opinion of 30+ years later as far as innovation goes, but I'd like to know what those "twists" are that the game apparently introduces
Did you know? Journey to Silius was originally meant to be a Terminator game. As Sunsoft lost the license mid-development, story and graphics were changed. In more recent news, the game was ported over to Nintendo Switch in 2019 for Switch Online subscribers, in case you're curious.
Journey to Silius is a run & gun video game developed by Sunsoft and released on August 10th, 1990 for the NES. The composor is Naoki Kodaka, and I mention that because he was the composer for a game I reviewed more recently: Batman for the Sega Genesis (I was a big fan of the soundtrack).
Whether the soundtrack is good here too, what the game is even about and whether I liked it I will discuss in more detail below.
____________
STORYTELLING
You play Jay McCray, who is the son of a scientist who was responsible for the development of space colony #428 at a time where emigration to space colonies has become necessary due to overpopulation of the Earth. Jay's father dies during development and leaves behind a floppy disk, where he's recorded a message. He says that terrorists are looking to destroy the colony, so Jay sets out to protect the colony and avenge his dad.
This is where the story begins and the storytelling pretty much ends. From here on out, you find yourself on the space colony and kill terrorists / aliens and once you defeat the final boss, a few-second long cutscene plays before the end credits roll. So if you're here for any sort of story, you'll get a setting that is slightly more detailed than usual but nothing beyond that.
GAMEPLAY
This is another pretty average platformer in just about every way. You use a hand gun to start the game and get up to 6 by the end of it, the most unique being the homing missile. There are 5 stages, each side-by-side platforming stages with a boss at the end. That's a formula that has worked very well at that time but it is really simple, not innovative at all and since the game really doesn't have enough features or a fun enough gameplay loop, it grows stale quickly and the reliance on the same formula is not really justified.
The way the levels are designed (I'll crap on that a bit more later) is just so frustrating because it makes it very, very hard to reliably dodge enemy attacks. There are so many of them that just are at spots that you can't reach, which means you will most of the time just tank the damage and move forward.
I also can't say I got much out of the 6 weapons on offer. Once you knew what to do, the hand gun did just fine, but you only knew what to do after suffering through a part multiple times.
In the end, I did beat the game in about 3 hours, and the formula DOES work in that it offers a little bit of fun next to all the frustration. But it would have been a lot less fun without the great soundtrack on offer, as I describe below.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
No voice acting. Sound design ranged from OK to good, with the weapons sounding satisfying enough. The soundtrack is great, similarly to what the composer managed to do for the Batman Sega Genesis game. Banger after banger almost throughout. Unfortunately all boss fights use the same track and I would have definitely enjoyed more variety there, especially since the track that exists loops pretty quickly and isn't the highlight of the OST.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
The game looks pretty good. It was actually designed with a space colony in mind (plenty of games didn't always stay true to their setting among the games I've played so far). The game makes good use of colors, the enemy design is mostly solid (apart from the bosses) and especially the outside stages allow for some great, detailed background work. Unfortunately, some of the boss fights simply took place with a simple black background, whilst the final one for example showed distant planets, stars and space stations. Not sure why they did that.
ATMOSPHERE
The game does a good job here. The way the levels are designed artistically suit the theme.
CONTENT
The game is on the shorter side - it took me roughly 3 hours to beat it - and there isn't much to it. All levels are pretty much: move side to side, choose one of 6 weapons to fire and do some (not so great) platforming until you get to the boss. No other content to mix it up, no power up items or the like and no real story progression. What does exist is fine but this is a fairly skippable game as far as the history of video games is concerned.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
It's a pretty simple concept as far as the level design goes. A level starts and you have to go through a bunch of enemies, do some platforming and hope you don't die to gravity and then fight a boss. You do that a few times and then you beat the game, but the game is purposely frustrating to make it harder to beat within a rental time, which hopefully leads to the player (or their parents) to buy a copy outright.
The game doesn't shy away from this formula and there just aren't enough features here to justify it being so stale. Also, one of my biggest minor complaints, is that the game requires you to jump down a lot without being able to see what's there. And what's there usually is an enemy, so I very often either would step on them and take damage, or they would shoot a millisecond after I landed and I would take damage from that. It's just bad.
In its whole, level design isn't necessarily bad, it's just bland.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
There isn't really anything that I can think of that this game did that you didn't see before. Science fiction as a theme for a platformer, based on my experiences so far, were on the rarer side at the time, so there is that. Plus the soundtrack is definitely well above average and if you check the game's wikipedia page, you can read a bit about how the composer did some different stuff there, but other than that, this is a pretty forgettable game.
REPLAYABILITY
The game doesn't even have a high score system as far as I can tell, so the only reason you would want to replay it is for the sake of wanting to play it again. On its own the game doesn't incentivize this however.
PLAYABILITY
The game works well at all times.
OVERALL
"Make an average platformer, hire a great composer, slap the Terminator license on it and boom, you got a great seller. Oh but wait, you can't use the license anymore - Crap! Well then just make it its own world and release it." That's what I feel like the game's development looked like. This game is certainly playable and as I said, average, but I doubt many people remember it fondly for being a classic rather than a nostalgic and fun experience, which is fine if that's the case.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Andromeda for GamePro, Issue 16 (Nov 90): "Journey to Silius features great graphics and a dynamite sound track. However, in terms of substance, the game doesn't quite live up to the way it looks."
- Steve Harris for EGM, Issue 14 (Sep 90): "This game is not going to win any awards for being new or innovative, but Sunsoft does manage to introduce some new twists to the standard action/shooting theme." | Steve agrees with my opinion of 30+ years later as far as innovation goes, but I'd like to know what those "twists" are that the game apparently introduces
(This is the 24th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
I've never been a skater, which I think is pretty important as a disclaimer before I review Skate or Die 2: The Search for Double Trouble, which released in September 1990 in the US only (according to Google results) and was developed/published by Electronic Arts for the NES.
This is a sequel, obviously, and I did not play the first game before playing this, which would introduce you to some of the characters here. It tells its own story though, so playing the first is by no means necessary.
In this game, you ride a skateboard from side to side and can also shoot with a paintball gun. That will be necessary as there are plenty of enemies who shoot you back or simply run into you.
While I dive into a bit more detail below, let me tell you that I would have probably been less forgiving of the game's rougher parts, of which there are plenty. As it stands, some potentially more low key presentation of skater-life has definitely flown over my head and I will simply judge how I experienced it. If you're all about the skater lifestyle, I'd keep this in mind when reading the review.
____________
STORYTELLING
The part that positively surprised me the most, the storytelling in this game - or at least the attempt - is definitely above average compared to all other games of this year I've played so far. The game starts by introducing you to the cast with pictures and lines of text. There is you (the hero), CJ (your girlfriend), Rodney (who sells skateboards) and Lester (who teaches you tricks), among others. There is also an antagonist, Icepick, who even has a catchphrase (he calls you a Poseur a lot).
But even more admirable is that there are several cutscenes in the game, one playing at the start and end of the game and one after each level is complete. They actually tell a full story with ups and downs, there is a little bit of character development present and there is the antagonist, Icepick, who gets in your way a few times and practically asks for a beating. Some of the scenes I did find to be humorous and I learned a new insult in "Poseur". Granted, the game never got me to laugh out loud and it never even was "exhale out of my nose" like funny, but it helped set the tone. And having a story unfold definitely provided some extra motivation. I have to say though that I wouldn't have beat this game if it weren't for the short length of the game overall and the fact that I used a guide. The story itself definitely wasn't nearly enough motivation for that, but it helped a little bit.
GAMEPLAY
There are 4 levels in this game. In the first, you skate on a street and can finish it by finding and killing an old woman. Yes, really. During this level, you can collect food items like tacos, but also CDs, which you use as currency. The currency is useful for whenever you find Rodney and Lester during the levels, as they give you new skateboards or teach you new skills. During this level, you go into a bunch of areas, where you either find enemies or items, until you find the old woman somewhere and kill her to finish the level. Enemies run into you (like dogs) or shoot at you. You can dodge them by placing yourself above or below the projectile (still am not used to that) and you can defeat dogs and such by jumping on top of them.
In the next level, you are in a shopping mall and have to go to a bunch of stores and deliver something, as you get a job as a delivery person to collect some money as part of the story. This is literally the same thing over and over again until you lose your mind or the level ends, whichever comes first. During your run, you are attacked of course and this is where I started using a guide because I was losing my mind.
This is also where I should mention that the game controls like ass. The worst part about it is that once you stand still. Turning around and starting up your skateboard again literally takes 5 seconds every time. This makes the game an incredible slog. It doesn't help that it's really hard to figure out where exactly you are supposed to stand to dodge stuff, because it's projected so poorly (check graphics/art design for my thoughts).
The third level then has you collect 16 (?) blueprint parts on a beach, which, again, is very repetitive. Oh and by the way, both this level and the last have timers, which makes it worse.
The final level is probably the worst level I have played out of all games in 1990. You have to find the building permit somewhere and fight the final boss, but you have to go through a maze of about 7 billion screens that you can easily get lost in. Plus there are enemies everywhere. Again, I used a guide to get through it and just have another "YES" under "Beaten?" on my spreadsheet, but I otherwise recommend to not even force yourself through this. It's so bad and not fun at all.
Finally, let me mention that you use a paintball gun to shoot, but can also throw firecrackers and eggs at enemies.
Overall, gameplay sucks and the awful controls are only the second worst part behind the mission objectives.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
There actually are some digitized lines in this game, which, hey, fair enough. I've only played three other games with voice acting so far and one of them was Loom, and the version of the game with voice acting wasn't even available in 1990 (the others: Michael Jackson's Moonwalker where the single line that was said was "Michael", and Elivra: Mistress of the Dark, where Elvira just said some gibberish that didn't align with the dialogue). So props to EA for including a few lines like "Major Bummer, dude" in this game.
Sound design was meh but turned into horrifying after the final level with all those elevators. Music was alright but can't say I liked the soundtrack that much.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
While it doesn't look to bad graphically, I do have a few complaints. Namely it's the issues I've had with the perception of depth in this game. It's a 2D game, sure, but platforms that are supposed to be higher don't really feel that way, it just seems like you're moving wider rather than higher up. Also, to avoid crashing into others, you can't stand right in front of them, you have to move aside. Unfortunately, it is incredibly hard to tell when you actually are in collision course with someone. And sometimes others will walk/skate below your position and your entire sprite will still show up on top of them as if you were the one in a lower position.
Finally, as mentioned plenty of times, it's just important to understand that over half of the story will take place in that god awful warehouse, so it matters much less to me if the beach level actually looks pretty good, since that part is over relatively quickly.
ATMOSPHERE
For the most part the game sets fitting atmosphere but it's hard for me to praise it anymore than that when over half the game takes place in a warehouse with the same rooms over and over and over again, just with a different color filter plastered on top.
CONTENT
Again, over half the story mode takes place in the same place and is incredibly boring. Overall, the story takes about 2-3 hours (longer if you don't use any guide, but not in a good way). There also is a freestyle mode where you can do some tricks, which is a welcome addition but not that much fun.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
The first level is actually well designed all things considered. You have no time limit, you can get acquainted with the controls, collect some stuff, go into garages and manholes to do things, find a couple guys who give you items/upgrades and then finish the level whenever you are ready to. Then you get a bunch of levels that have time limits and are incredibly repetitive, before you find yourself in the worst level of all, the warehouse level, which is simply there to push the playing time of this game.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
Skate around a level and do a bunch of optional stuff and stumble upon a few guys who are willing to trade you skateboards and tricks. You almost think that you're playing a sandbox game in those levels, though on a much, much smaller scale than you're accustomed to when hearing "sandbox". Still, that's probably what I enjoyed the most about the game. Other than that, the game certainly is unique in that it's a skateboarding game, but mostly in a negative way.
REPLAYABILITY
I didn't get all moves and skateboards, which is something you can try to achieve in a subsequent playthrough. Other than that, there is no reason to replay this, and after that final level, it's unlikely that you will want to.
PLAYABILITY
The game works well at all times.
OVERALL
In general, this is not a good game. If you play this today, you will probably not even care enough to finish it as a non-skater. If you are part of the skater-life, you'll probably at least appreciate the game, but it will still take a lot of determination to finish this without using a guide. It just has too many holes in gameplay and level design.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Slo Mo for GamePro, Issue 13 (Aug 90): "You don't have to be a die-hard side-walk surfer to get into S or D 2" | I respectfully disagree
- Howard H. Wen for VGCE, Issue 20 (Sep 90): "Skate or Die 2 doesn't take itself too seriously but rather does what's fun. And after all, that's what video gaming is all about, right?"
I've never been a skater, which I think is pretty important as a disclaimer before I review Skate or Die 2: The Search for Double Trouble, which released in September 1990 in the US only (according to Google results) and was developed/published by Electronic Arts for the NES.
This is a sequel, obviously, and I did not play the first game before playing this, which would introduce you to some of the characters here. It tells its own story though, so playing the first is by no means necessary.
In this game, you ride a skateboard from side to side and can also shoot with a paintball gun. That will be necessary as there are plenty of enemies who shoot you back or simply run into you.
While I dive into a bit more detail below, let me tell you that I would have probably been less forgiving of the game's rougher parts, of which there are plenty. As it stands, some potentially more low key presentation of skater-life has definitely flown over my head and I will simply judge how I experienced it. If you're all about the skater lifestyle, I'd keep this in mind when reading the review.
____________
STORYTELLING
The part that positively surprised me the most, the storytelling in this game - or at least the attempt - is definitely above average compared to all other games of this year I've played so far. The game starts by introducing you to the cast with pictures and lines of text. There is you (the hero), CJ (your girlfriend), Rodney (who sells skateboards) and Lester (who teaches you tricks), among others. There is also an antagonist, Icepick, who even has a catchphrase (he calls you a Poseur a lot).
But even more admirable is that there are several cutscenes in the game, one playing at the start and end of the game and one after each level is complete. They actually tell a full story with ups and downs, there is a little bit of character development present and there is the antagonist, Icepick, who gets in your way a few times and practically asks for a beating. Some of the scenes I did find to be humorous and I learned a new insult in "Poseur". Granted, the game never got me to laugh out loud and it never even was "exhale out of my nose" like funny, but it helped set the tone. And having a story unfold definitely provided some extra motivation. I have to say though that I wouldn't have beat this game if it weren't for the short length of the game overall and the fact that I used a guide. The story itself definitely wasn't nearly enough motivation for that, but it helped a little bit.
GAMEPLAY
There are 4 levels in this game. In the first, you skate on a street and can finish it by finding and killing an old woman. Yes, really. During this level, you can collect food items like tacos, but also CDs, which you use as currency. The currency is useful for whenever you find Rodney and Lester during the levels, as they give you new skateboards or teach you new skills. During this level, you go into a bunch of areas, where you either find enemies or items, until you find the old woman somewhere and kill her to finish the level. Enemies run into you (like dogs) or shoot at you. You can dodge them by placing yourself above or below the projectile (still am not used to that) and you can defeat dogs and such by jumping on top of them.
In the next level, you are in a shopping mall and have to go to a bunch of stores and deliver something, as you get a job as a delivery person to collect some money as part of the story. This is literally the same thing over and over again until you lose your mind or the level ends, whichever comes first. During your run, you are attacked of course and this is where I started using a guide because I was losing my mind.
This is also where I should mention that the game controls like ass. The worst part about it is that once you stand still. Turning around and starting up your skateboard again literally takes 5 seconds every time. This makes the game an incredible slog. It doesn't help that it's really hard to figure out where exactly you are supposed to stand to dodge stuff, because it's projected so poorly (check graphics/art design for my thoughts).
The third level then has you collect 16 (?) blueprint parts on a beach, which, again, is very repetitive. Oh and by the way, both this level and the last have timers, which makes it worse.
The final level is probably the worst level I have played out of all games in 1990. You have to find the building permit somewhere and fight the final boss, but you have to go through a maze of about 7 billion screens that you can easily get lost in. Plus there are enemies everywhere. Again, I used a guide to get through it and just have another "YES" under "Beaten?" on my spreadsheet, but I otherwise recommend to not even force yourself through this. It's so bad and not fun at all.
Finally, let me mention that you use a paintball gun to shoot, but can also throw firecrackers and eggs at enemies.
Overall, gameplay sucks and the awful controls are only the second worst part behind the mission objectives.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
There actually are some digitized lines in this game, which, hey, fair enough. I've only played three other games with voice acting so far and one of them was Loom, and the version of the game with voice acting wasn't even available in 1990 (the others: Michael Jackson's Moonwalker where the single line that was said was "Michael", and Elivra: Mistress of the Dark, where Elvira just said some gibberish that didn't align with the dialogue). So props to EA for including a few lines like "Major Bummer, dude" in this game.
Sound design was meh but turned into horrifying after the final level with all those elevators. Music was alright but can't say I liked the soundtrack that much.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
While it doesn't look to bad graphically, I do have a few complaints. Namely it's the issues I've had with the perception of depth in this game. It's a 2D game, sure, but platforms that are supposed to be higher don't really feel that way, it just seems like you're moving wider rather than higher up. Also, to avoid crashing into others, you can't stand right in front of them, you have to move aside. Unfortunately, it is incredibly hard to tell when you actually are in collision course with someone. And sometimes others will walk/skate below your position and your entire sprite will still show up on top of them as if you were the one in a lower position.
Finally, as mentioned plenty of times, it's just important to understand that over half of the story will take place in that god awful warehouse, so it matters much less to me if the beach level actually looks pretty good, since that part is over relatively quickly.
ATMOSPHERE
For the most part the game sets fitting atmosphere but it's hard for me to praise it anymore than that when over half the game takes place in a warehouse with the same rooms over and over and over again, just with a different color filter plastered on top.
CONTENT
Again, over half the story mode takes place in the same place and is incredibly boring. Overall, the story takes about 2-3 hours (longer if you don't use any guide, but not in a good way). There also is a freestyle mode where you can do some tricks, which is a welcome addition but not that much fun.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
The first level is actually well designed all things considered. You have no time limit, you can get acquainted with the controls, collect some stuff, go into garages and manholes to do things, find a couple guys who give you items/upgrades and then finish the level whenever you are ready to. Then you get a bunch of levels that have time limits and are incredibly repetitive, before you find yourself in the worst level of all, the warehouse level, which is simply there to push the playing time of this game.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
Skate around a level and do a bunch of optional stuff and stumble upon a few guys who are willing to trade you skateboards and tricks. You almost think that you're playing a sandbox game in those levels, though on a much, much smaller scale than you're accustomed to when hearing "sandbox". Still, that's probably what I enjoyed the most about the game. Other than that, the game certainly is unique in that it's a skateboarding game, but mostly in a negative way.
REPLAYABILITY
I didn't get all moves and skateboards, which is something you can try to achieve in a subsequent playthrough. Other than that, there is no reason to replay this, and after that final level, it's unlikely that you will want to.
PLAYABILITY
The game works well at all times.
OVERALL
In general, this is not a good game. If you play this today, you will probably not even care enough to finish it as a non-skater. If you are part of the skater-life, you'll probably at least appreciate the game, but it will still take a lot of determination to finish this without using a guide. It just has too many holes in gameplay and level design.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Slo Mo for GamePro, Issue 13 (Aug 90): "You don't have to be a die-hard side-walk surfer to get into S or D 2" | I respectfully disagree
- Howard H. Wen for VGCE, Issue 20 (Sep 90): "Skate or Die 2 doesn't take itself too seriously but rather does what's fun. And after all, that's what video gaming is all about, right?"
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.
(This is the 26th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
Quick word on the challenge I'm doing. This will be needless for those of you who are looking for a review of the game, but it's still something I'd like to mention quickly for those following along (those +-0 of you).
The Sega Genesis obviously launched in Aug 1989 in NA already, so it's not like Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse is the first 16 bit game to come out since I started this, nor is it even the first Sega Genesis game I've played. So far I've played Batman and Michael Jackson's Moonwalker for the system.
But we're now in November 1990, and this game actually released on the same date as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, which would be November 21st, 1990. That console, as is well-known, is the best-selling 16-bit home console, so that's why we're starting to really get into 16-bit territory here, and I am incredibly excited to try out a bunch of classics for the first time from an era many still call the best for console games - if not games in general.
Is this game, developed and published by Sega for the Sega Genesis, the highlight of the era already? Some say it's right up there with Super Mario World as one of the best platformers of this time (SMW also released on November 21, 1990) but to spoiler my conclusion a little bit, I don't really think it's close. This game is fun but has plenty of flaws, so let's get into it.
____________
STORYTELLING
The story is explained at the beginning and in the manual. Minnie is kidnapped by the evil witch Mizrabel (great name btw), because she is jealous of Minnie's beauty. So Mickie makes his way to the Castle of Illusion to save Minnie. An old man there tells him that he needs seven gems of the rainbow to rescue her. Why? Who knows.
There will be an epilogue as well but no other form of storytelling in between from what I can tell, so nothing worth talking about here.
GAMEPLAY
The gameplay is very simple and basic. You move from side to side in this 2D platformer and can either jump on enemies or shoot projectiles (often fruit) at them. If you jump on them, it catapults you up and enables you to reach otherwise unreachable platforms. That's definitely the most unique part about this game's gameplay.
Levels are heavy on platforming and the likelihood that you will fall to your death increases with each level you pass. One cave level where the next platform was so easily miss able if you jump a milli-second too early was especially frustrating.
The game starts you off with three health, 3 lives per continue and 2 continues. Your i-frames after taking a hit only last a second or so, so it's very easy to die within seconds. Since hit frames are sometimes too big, enemies sometimes just pop out of the ground with almost no forewarning and a jump on the enemy's head doesn't get recognized properly (you get damage for missing it), you often lose health unfairly. This is precisely where any comparison to a game like Super Mario World is just not reasonable. I'm playing Super Mario World as we speak and the difference in quality is so high that it actually surprised me quite a lot to see people actually comparing the two.
I've also encountered a bug where I somehow jumped over a tree during a boss fight and couldn't go back to the other direction, meaning that I was stuck.
Gems are acquired by beating bosses after the end of each level, which aren't too difficult, but I failed the second one twice because my jumps on his head just didn't register for some reason. I decided to abandon the game some time after the third boss because while I was doing platforming on tiny tiny platforms, I realized the game didn't immediately register that you let go of the forward button, which made me slip off the platform and fall to my demise.
Apart from these issues it's not a very difficult game, but there is also nothing really exciting about it. There is plenty of stuff you can argue for here apart from its gameplay, and I'll likely agree with you, but I must say that this was not that fun to play.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
No voice acting. Sound design was mostly pretty good and I liked how a lot of actions actually got a sound to accompany them, like even jumping or throwing stuff, which doesn't happen in a lot of platformers I've played recently. The music was fine overall but I can't say I liked it that much. My favorite track definitely was the one used for the boss fights but the soundtrack just didn't get me into a playful/whimsical kinda mood like I would have expected.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
Lots and lots of colorful, bright worlds are present in this game, with plenty of variety between them. To mention something a little more lowkey, I liked how the clouds outside kept moving even if you were standing still and how much detail was put into the horizon, even if it's not something a player will really focus on a lot.
But simply graphically, this is definitely one of the best one's you will find from this entire year.
ATMOSPHERE
I didn't always feel like the music used for a particular level necessarily fit the mood, but overall the colorful levels and their overall designs managed to do a solid enough job of putting me in the mood of playing a Mickey Mouse platform adventure. If someone is reading this: Sometimes I feel silly seriously critiquing a game like this, at the end of the day it's a game for children that isn't meant to be taken apart this way. Right? I don't know, I'm definitely going to be glad when a lot more mature games start coming up on the playlist.
CONTENT
There is some fine content here for platformer enthusiasts. This game should take about 3 hours for your average gamer and lead you through a variety of different worlds. But the game overall has pretty basic gameplay and plenty of frustration to come with it, even if there certainly is much worse out there in that regard.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
Mostly the levels are designed pretty much as you would expect. The difficulty is definitely lower than for many comparable platformers. Most of the time you just go into a specific direction and are offered with very little choice in how to deal with the dangers. Move, kill or avoid, beware of gravity, find the exit at the end of the screen.
Some levels also include underwater sections, and these just frankly sucked. A piranha would usually wait for you in there and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to move past it without taking damage.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
The worlds are definitely lookers here, and there even is one part where you have to trigger a button to flip the level over. Your character can then still walk upside down, while all others fall down. Nothing major but a nice changeup. Other than that, this is a pretty basic licensed platformer, though it does look pretty good graphically for its time.
REPLAYABILITY
Apart from trying to beat your high score, there also are some secrets to discover, which might warrant a second playthrough for you.
PLAYABILITY
The game works well at pretty much all times, but I did encounter one bug and I disliked how letting go of the forward button would only register like a second later.
OVERALL
The game looks great for a 1990 game, and certainly it was a big deal when it released. You'll be hard-pressed to find a review below 9/10 back in the day. But in today's day and age, we have a game that simply shows its flaws and can't wow in the same way with its strengths. And turns out, its flaws, at least to me, are worse than in many other games I've played from this year recently. And if we just compare to Super Mario World, we can also see that a big difference in quality exists on pretty much every level. Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse is fine and should probably be played if you're looking to go through gaming history like I am, even if in a much more condensed way. Why? Because the ratings tell me you shouldn't look into my thoughts too deeply. But at the same time, I've played too many comparable games to really feel bad about standing where I do on this game.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- J. M. for VGCE, Issue 24 (Jan 91): "Castle of Illusion is, quite plainly, one of the most fabulous run-and-jump games ever created."
- Sushi-X, Issue 17 (Dec 90): "Music... a 10+!"
Quick word on the challenge I'm doing. This will be needless for those of you who are looking for a review of the game, but it's still something I'd like to mention quickly for those following along (those +-0 of you).
The Sega Genesis obviously launched in Aug 1989 in NA already, so it's not like Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse is the first 16 bit game to come out since I started this, nor is it even the first Sega Genesis game I've played. So far I've played Batman and Michael Jackson's Moonwalker for the system.
But we're now in November 1990, and this game actually released on the same date as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, which would be November 21st, 1990. That console, as is well-known, is the best-selling 16-bit home console, so that's why we're starting to really get into 16-bit territory here, and I am incredibly excited to try out a bunch of classics for the first time from an era many still call the best for console games - if not games in general.
Is this game, developed and published by Sega for the Sega Genesis, the highlight of the era already? Some say it's right up there with Super Mario World as one of the best platformers of this time (SMW also released on November 21, 1990) but to spoiler my conclusion a little bit, I don't really think it's close. This game is fun but has plenty of flaws, so let's get into it.
____________
STORYTELLING
The story is explained at the beginning and in the manual. Minnie is kidnapped by the evil witch Mizrabel (great name btw), because she is jealous of Minnie's beauty. So Mickie makes his way to the Castle of Illusion to save Minnie. An old man there tells him that he needs seven gems of the rainbow to rescue her. Why? Who knows.
There will be an epilogue as well but no other form of storytelling in between from what I can tell, so nothing worth talking about here.
GAMEPLAY
The gameplay is very simple and basic. You move from side to side in this 2D platformer and can either jump on enemies or shoot projectiles (often fruit) at them. If you jump on them, it catapults you up and enables you to reach otherwise unreachable platforms. That's definitely the most unique part about this game's gameplay.
Levels are heavy on platforming and the likelihood that you will fall to your death increases with each level you pass. One cave level where the next platform was so easily miss able if you jump a milli-second too early was especially frustrating.
The game starts you off with three health, 3 lives per continue and 2 continues. Your i-frames after taking a hit only last a second or so, so it's very easy to die within seconds. Since hit frames are sometimes too big, enemies sometimes just pop out of the ground with almost no forewarning and a jump on the enemy's head doesn't get recognized properly (you get damage for missing it), you often lose health unfairly. This is precisely where any comparison to a game like Super Mario World is just not reasonable. I'm playing Super Mario World as we speak and the difference in quality is so high that it actually surprised me quite a lot to see people actually comparing the two.
I've also encountered a bug where I somehow jumped over a tree during a boss fight and couldn't go back to the other direction, meaning that I was stuck.
Gems are acquired by beating bosses after the end of each level, which aren't too difficult, but I failed the second one twice because my jumps on his head just didn't register for some reason. I decided to abandon the game some time after the third boss because while I was doing platforming on tiny tiny platforms, I realized the game didn't immediately register that you let go of the forward button, which made me slip off the platform and fall to my demise.
Apart from these issues it's not a very difficult game, but there is also nothing really exciting about it. There is plenty of stuff you can argue for here apart from its gameplay, and I'll likely agree with you, but I must say that this was not that fun to play.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
No voice acting. Sound design was mostly pretty good and I liked how a lot of actions actually got a sound to accompany them, like even jumping or throwing stuff, which doesn't happen in a lot of platformers I've played recently. The music was fine overall but I can't say I liked it that much. My favorite track definitely was the one used for the boss fights but the soundtrack just didn't get me into a playful/whimsical kinda mood like I would have expected.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
Lots and lots of colorful, bright worlds are present in this game, with plenty of variety between them. To mention something a little more lowkey, I liked how the clouds outside kept moving even if you were standing still and how much detail was put into the horizon, even if it's not something a player will really focus on a lot.
But simply graphically, this is definitely one of the best one's you will find from this entire year.
ATMOSPHERE
I didn't always feel like the music used for a particular level necessarily fit the mood, but overall the colorful levels and their overall designs managed to do a solid enough job of putting me in the mood of playing a Mickey Mouse platform adventure. If someone is reading this: Sometimes I feel silly seriously critiquing a game like this, at the end of the day it's a game for children that isn't meant to be taken apart this way. Right? I don't know, I'm definitely going to be glad when a lot more mature games start coming up on the playlist.
CONTENT
There is some fine content here for platformer enthusiasts. This game should take about 3 hours for your average gamer and lead you through a variety of different worlds. But the game overall has pretty basic gameplay and plenty of frustration to come with it, even if there certainly is much worse out there in that regard.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
Mostly the levels are designed pretty much as you would expect. The difficulty is definitely lower than for many comparable platformers. Most of the time you just go into a specific direction and are offered with very little choice in how to deal with the dangers. Move, kill or avoid, beware of gravity, find the exit at the end of the screen.
Some levels also include underwater sections, and these just frankly sucked. A piranha would usually wait for you in there and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to move past it without taking damage.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
The worlds are definitely lookers here, and there even is one part where you have to trigger a button to flip the level over. Your character can then still walk upside down, while all others fall down. Nothing major but a nice changeup. Other than that, this is a pretty basic licensed platformer, though it does look pretty good graphically for its time.
REPLAYABILITY
Apart from trying to beat your high score, there also are some secrets to discover, which might warrant a second playthrough for you.
PLAYABILITY
The game works well at pretty much all times, but I did encounter one bug and I disliked how letting go of the forward button would only register like a second later.
OVERALL
The game looks great for a 1990 game, and certainly it was a big deal when it released. You'll be hard-pressed to find a review below 9/10 back in the day. But in today's day and age, we have a game that simply shows its flaws and can't wow in the same way with its strengths. And turns out, its flaws, at least to me, are worse than in many other games I've played from this year recently. And if we just compare to Super Mario World, we can also see that a big difference in quality exists on pretty much every level. Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse is fine and should probably be played if you're looking to go through gaming history like I am, even if in a much more condensed way. Why? Because the ratings tell me you shouldn't look into my thoughts too deeply. But at the same time, I've played too many comparable games to really feel bad about standing where I do on this game.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- J. M. for VGCE, Issue 24 (Jan 91): "Castle of Illusion is, quite plainly, one of the most fabulous run-and-jump games ever created."
- Sushi-X, Issue 17 (Dec 90): "Music... a 10+!"
2015
Played this about 3 or 4 months ago, thought I'd drop this review from somewhere else here now :)
I gave Yakuza Kiwami a 10/10 when I beat it in late 2018 or early 2019. Probably would change that to a 9/10 now, but the gist of it is, I loved the game. I love games that have a good story and are more on the grounded side (though I don't at all mind the occasional supernatural JRPG story, I mean Persona games are among my favorite ever). I also like it when games are funny. But I like it the most when these two parts are strung together by fun gameplay mechanics.
There aren't many games that work really well in all three aspects (GTA games would probably be the closest, but the story in those isn't as noteworthy as the very memorable characters are). So for someone always interested in games that combine those three aspects, it probably doesn't get much better than Yakuza games, so I always facepalm when I think about how long it takes for me to play through this series.
For those of you who still do not know what Yakuza games are about, it's about Kazuma Kiryu and his life in the Japanese mafia (the Yakuza). The game usually has serious and badass story bits including politics, betrayal, drama and scenes that will simply make a grown man cry. Meanwhile, there are also tons of side characters and especially side stories that can be found in the world that usually include some ridiculous requests and hilariously weird things happening in them. Somehow, these games manage to mix the serious in with the ridiculous very well, especially since the player himself can mostly decide how much of the ridiculous he wants to experience. These side stories and silly mini games can almost entirely be ignored if one wants to, to me they are what make these games that much more special.
Yakuza 0 itself is a prequel to Yakuza Kiwami, so we experience Kazuma Kiryu's first footsteps as a Yakuza. In addition, Kiryu's rival Goro Majima, who plays a role in the other games as well, is featured as a playable protagonist in Yakuza 0 too, so you play through both Kiryu's and Majima's story.
I really don't want to say much else about the story. Just know this. Shit gets real. I don't think you can create a prequel much better than this one, excluding you, Vince Gilligan. Despite many events being pre-determined through the story of Yakuza 1, the story had me on the edge of my seat, especially for the entire second half of it. I was hyped, sad, excited, happy, shocked throughout this game in a way that only my favorite games have ever made me feel. I'm talking The Witcher 3, RDR2, The Last of Us, Persona 3/4 and God of War. As far as I'm concerned, that's the GOAT list right there and Yakuza 0 fits right in.
If you've never played any games in this series, I have a hard time choosing which starting point to recommend. Yakuza 1 (Yakuza Kiwami) introduces you to the characters and will create intrigue as to what happened to them before. However, starting with Yakuza 0 and finding out about the battles all of them faced before will surely make the events of Yakuza 1 feel more impactful. But just like with Better Call Saul, maybe the impact of the prequel itself will just be slightly lower if you didn't know about the characters through the original game/series before.
While I can't figure this one out, I do know that I CAN recommend the entire series either way. I have yet to play Yakuza 2 myself, but I can't imagine being disappointed by that game either. The series follows a winning formula and everything I've witnessed in Yakuza 0 makes me trust in the writers ability to create thrilling scripts and stories.
PS: Yakuza 1 is relatively "short" at 20-30 hours depending on how much side content you choose to do, while Yakuza 0's main story itself is already going to take you 30+ hours, never mind the side content that you shouldn't miss. So if I were you, I'd probably start with Yakuza 1.
To conclude this, Yakuza 0 is a masterpiece worthy of 10/10, 5 stars and 90+/100.
I gave Yakuza Kiwami a 10/10 when I beat it in late 2018 or early 2019. Probably would change that to a 9/10 now, but the gist of it is, I loved the game. I love games that have a good story and are more on the grounded side (though I don't at all mind the occasional supernatural JRPG story, I mean Persona games are among my favorite ever). I also like it when games are funny. But I like it the most when these two parts are strung together by fun gameplay mechanics.
There aren't many games that work really well in all three aspects (GTA games would probably be the closest, but the story in those isn't as noteworthy as the very memorable characters are). So for someone always interested in games that combine those three aspects, it probably doesn't get much better than Yakuza games, so I always facepalm when I think about how long it takes for me to play through this series.
For those of you who still do not know what Yakuza games are about, it's about Kazuma Kiryu and his life in the Japanese mafia (the Yakuza). The game usually has serious and badass story bits including politics, betrayal, drama and scenes that will simply make a grown man cry. Meanwhile, there are also tons of side characters and especially side stories that can be found in the world that usually include some ridiculous requests and hilariously weird things happening in them. Somehow, these games manage to mix the serious in with the ridiculous very well, especially since the player himself can mostly decide how much of the ridiculous he wants to experience. These side stories and silly mini games can almost entirely be ignored if one wants to, to me they are what make these games that much more special.
Yakuza 0 itself is a prequel to Yakuza Kiwami, so we experience Kazuma Kiryu's first footsteps as a Yakuza. In addition, Kiryu's rival Goro Majima, who plays a role in the other games as well, is featured as a playable protagonist in Yakuza 0 too, so you play through both Kiryu's and Majima's story.
I really don't want to say much else about the story. Just know this. Shit gets real. I don't think you can create a prequel much better than this one, excluding you, Vince Gilligan. Despite many events being pre-determined through the story of Yakuza 1, the story had me on the edge of my seat, especially for the entire second half of it. I was hyped, sad, excited, happy, shocked throughout this game in a way that only my favorite games have ever made me feel. I'm talking The Witcher 3, RDR2, The Last of Us, Persona 3/4 and God of War. As far as I'm concerned, that's the GOAT list right there and Yakuza 0 fits right in.
If you've never played any games in this series, I have a hard time choosing which starting point to recommend. Yakuza 1 (Yakuza Kiwami) introduces you to the characters and will create intrigue as to what happened to them before. However, starting with Yakuza 0 and finding out about the battles all of them faced before will surely make the events of Yakuza 1 feel more impactful. But just like with Better Call Saul, maybe the impact of the prequel itself will just be slightly lower if you didn't know about the characters through the original game/series before.
While I can't figure this one out, I do know that I CAN recommend the entire series either way. I have yet to play Yakuza 2 myself, but I can't imagine being disappointed by that game either. The series follows a winning formula and everything I've witnessed in Yakuza 0 makes me trust in the writers ability to create thrilling scripts and stories.
PS: Yakuza 1 is relatively "short" at 20-30 hours depending on how much side content you choose to do, while Yakuza 0's main story itself is already going to take you 30+ hours, never mind the side content that you shouldn't miss. So if I were you, I'd probably start with Yakuza 1.
To conclude this, Yakuza 0 is a masterpiece worthy of 10/10, 5 stars and 90+/100.
(This is the 27th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
After giving up on the game some 5 years ago, I gave The Secret of Monkey Island another chance thanks to this challenge I'm currently doing, and I can take this away right now: I'm glad to have seen it through.
This game released all the way back in October 1990, 32 years ago now, and has released in multiple editions for multiple platforms. To play it today, the easy recommendation would be to purchase the Special Edition that came out on July 15, 2009 and is available for PC and PS3/Xbox 360.
The Special Edition added voice acting, improved the graphics, a remastered musical score and even added hints for those of you that are like me and either can't think outside the box enough to figure out a puzzle and/or don't have the patience to think about a single solution for hours.
I played the Special Edition myself, which goes against the idea of the challenge slightly, but not only does the game seamlessly allow you to switch between Classic and Special Edition mode, but this way I also got to experience the full experience, including the voice work, which adds so much to the whole thing.
In this game you play Guybrush Threepwood, who makes his way to Mêlée Island in hopes of becoming a pirate. A group of pirates make him take on the Three Trials and that's where the game, a point & click adventure in case you didn't know, begins. Immediately in the first location, you can find a guy who talks about LOOM, a different LucasArts game from the same year that I actually played a couple months ago when I started the challenge, so that was a fun little surprise and pretty meta.
And breaking the 4th wall is a frequent occurrence in this game. It's one that doesn't take itself too seriously and jokes are at the forefront of every conversation. Even the three trials all end up putting you in humorous situations. For example, you need to hunt for treasure. You need to seek out the map to find the treasure, but when you get it, it actually has dancing lessons on the piece of paper. What that means you need to figure out yourself. For another trial, you need to beat the Sword Master. But turns out, sword-fighting isn't just about sword-fighting, but it's much more important to be able to drop witty insults (or comebacks) during the short breathing breaks. [Have you stopped wearing diapers yet? // Why, did you want to borrow one?]
Stuff like this makes the game comical at worst, hilarious at its best. I can't say everything fully hit my sense of humor like it likely did with others, but I laughed out loud plenty of times, which is more than I can say for many other games that are meant to be funny. There are many jokes I don't want to mention so that you can hear it in game yourself, but here is one silly thing that I laughed more about than I should have. When a guy teaches you to insult during sword fights, he asks you what you would respond with, if someone told you: "Soon you'll be wearing my sword like a shish kebab". And one of the options you could respond with was "So's your mother!". Same with the next question. That line itself works with everything and will always make me laugh, but the voice work by Dominic Armato (voice actor for Guybrush) just was the cherry on top.
In general, the voice acting in this game is phenomenal and so varied. Characters are all caricatures and over the top, so it's really a job well done to have all of them have different personalities like that, though of course many at the end of the day have one combining trait: They're stupid.
The game is divided into four chapters, and the puzzles remained clever throughout, though that's not to say that I didn't find some areas a bit tedious. The third chapter in particular became really tiresome, because you had to go from A to B to C to D multiple times over and the track was slow each time. Being stuck on a puzzle during that part was like a vacation almost, because it meant you could just stay in one place and keep your brain active instead of clicking the mouse to your destination and look as Guybrush took 15 seconds to get there.
That and the fact that some of the puzzles were a bit silly or required you to do things in a certain order are probably my only two complaints here. For example, for one puzzle, I did one thing first, the other next and then wanted to do the third part but it never worked. Finally, I checked a guide and it turns out, I had to do the one thing second, and the other thing first, to successfully be able to do the third part. The thing is, either way should have worked.
That said, I think there are these adventures out there that can be way more tricky and way worse with its puzzles, so it's not that bad here. I think overall the game did a good job of incorporating its areas and puzzles into an overarching story that was actually fun to follow, even if it felt like there could have been a bit more, especially in the second half of the game.
OVERALL
Overall, The Secret of Monkey Island is a great point & click adventure and one any fan of the genre should play. If you're curious about the genre, I'd recommend this, Day of the Tentacle or Grim Fandango as starting points personally, and I'd not shy away from using a guide or a hint (if available), in case you're stuck. All of these games have a ton of charm and even if you do find yourself being stuck here and there, to me it's just really a comfortable and relaxing time to play through these games that all have this chill vibe to them.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Otter Matic for GamePro, Issue 43 (Feb 93): "The dialogue is funnier than a simian's uncle."
- Ed Dille, Issue 27 (Apr 91): "The control interface for Monkey Island is superb."
After giving up on the game some 5 years ago, I gave The Secret of Monkey Island another chance thanks to this challenge I'm currently doing, and I can take this away right now: I'm glad to have seen it through.
This game released all the way back in October 1990, 32 years ago now, and has released in multiple editions for multiple platforms. To play it today, the easy recommendation would be to purchase the Special Edition that came out on July 15, 2009 and is available for PC and PS3/Xbox 360.
The Special Edition added voice acting, improved the graphics, a remastered musical score and even added hints for those of you that are like me and either can't think outside the box enough to figure out a puzzle and/or don't have the patience to think about a single solution for hours.
I played the Special Edition myself, which goes against the idea of the challenge slightly, but not only does the game seamlessly allow you to switch between Classic and Special Edition mode, but this way I also got to experience the full experience, including the voice work, which adds so much to the whole thing.
In this game you play Guybrush Threepwood, who makes his way to Mêlée Island in hopes of becoming a pirate. A group of pirates make him take on the Three Trials and that's where the game, a point & click adventure in case you didn't know, begins. Immediately in the first location, you can find a guy who talks about LOOM, a different LucasArts game from the same year that I actually played a couple months ago when I started the challenge, so that was a fun little surprise and pretty meta.
And breaking the 4th wall is a frequent occurrence in this game. It's one that doesn't take itself too seriously and jokes are at the forefront of every conversation. Even the three trials all end up putting you in humorous situations. For example, you need to hunt for treasure. You need to seek out the map to find the treasure, but when you get it, it actually has dancing lessons on the piece of paper. What that means you need to figure out yourself. For another trial, you need to beat the Sword Master. But turns out, sword-fighting isn't just about sword-fighting, but it's much more important to be able to drop witty insults (or comebacks) during the short breathing breaks. [Have you stopped wearing diapers yet? // Why, did you want to borrow one?]
Stuff like this makes the game comical at worst, hilarious at its best. I can't say everything fully hit my sense of humor like it likely did with others, but I laughed out loud plenty of times, which is more than I can say for many other games that are meant to be funny. There are many jokes I don't want to mention so that you can hear it in game yourself, but here is one silly thing that I laughed more about than I should have. When a guy teaches you to insult during sword fights, he asks you what you would respond with, if someone told you: "Soon you'll be wearing my sword like a shish kebab". And one of the options you could respond with was "So's your mother!". Same with the next question. That line itself works with everything and will always make me laugh, but the voice work by Dominic Armato (voice actor for Guybrush) just was the cherry on top.
In general, the voice acting in this game is phenomenal and so varied. Characters are all caricatures and over the top, so it's really a job well done to have all of them have different personalities like that, though of course many at the end of the day have one combining trait: They're stupid.
The game is divided into four chapters, and the puzzles remained clever throughout, though that's not to say that I didn't find some areas a bit tedious. The third chapter in particular became really tiresome, because you had to go from A to B to C to D multiple times over and the track was slow each time. Being stuck on a puzzle during that part was like a vacation almost, because it meant you could just stay in one place and keep your brain active instead of clicking the mouse to your destination and look as Guybrush took 15 seconds to get there.
That and the fact that some of the puzzles were a bit silly or required you to do things in a certain order are probably my only two complaints here. For example, for one puzzle, I did one thing first, the other next and then wanted to do the third part but it never worked. Finally, I checked a guide and it turns out, I had to do the one thing second, and the other thing first, to successfully be able to do the third part. The thing is, either way should have worked.
That said, I think there are these adventures out there that can be way more tricky and way worse with its puzzles, so it's not that bad here. I think overall the game did a good job of incorporating its areas and puzzles into an overarching story that was actually fun to follow, even if it felt like there could have been a bit more, especially in the second half of the game.
OVERALL
Overall, The Secret of Monkey Island is a great point & click adventure and one any fan of the genre should play. If you're curious about the genre, I'd recommend this, Day of the Tentacle or Grim Fandango as starting points personally, and I'd not shy away from using a guide or a hint (if available), in case you're stuck. All of these games have a ton of charm and even if you do find yourself being stuck here and there, to me it's just really a comfortable and relaxing time to play through these games that all have this chill vibe to them.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Otter Matic for GamePro, Issue 43 (Feb 93): "The dialogue is funnier than a simian's uncle."
- Ed Dille, Issue 27 (Apr 91): "The control interface for Monkey Island is superb."
1990
(This is the 28th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
Hey, finally a game I can remember playing as kid. Super Mario World is a game that some of you may have heard of. It is one of two games that originally released with the SNES on November 21st, 1990 (the other: F-Zero). It was kinda popular. It sold over 20 million copies worldwide. Yeah, so that means I've played the best-selling SNES game ever already.
I mean, I don't need to explain Super Mario games to you, so I won't. What made this one stand out of course is that it was the first Mario game for a 16 bit console and one that used a much larger color palette, so it looked really good when it came out.
Plus, this game has a big difference over Super Mario Bros. 3, and that's of course that you have an ally in Yoshi. But before I get into that, I just gotta start with my conclusion for this game.
Because yes, this game is amazing STILL and honestly, not just easily the best game I've played out of 1990, but one of the best games I've played period. The best part is, I played this on my Steam Deck and not only did it run well, but it was a super smooth experience from beginning to the "end" (didn't beat the game yet). The controls are super responsive, the game looks fantastic, the sound quality is crisp and I was constantly in awe with how well this game aged in pretty much all areas.
The game has a ton of uniquely designed levels. That's a compliment of both the quality and quantity of them. I knew the game was good in that regard, but having played a couple dozen platformers that released in the same year previously, I can't believe how big of a jump in quality Super Mario World makes over every other game. Not only can you enjoy a variety of different levels, not only can you enjoy the challenges for well over a dozen hours for one playthrough, but the game is also just crammed full with features and secrets that allows for your future playthroughs to play out very differently over your first.
It starts with the power ups. Granted, not each power up will be as useful as some others, but you got the power up to increase in size, you got the ability to shoot fire, you can fly, you can turn invincible for a few seconds and you can even combine these when you are with Yoshi.
It took me a little while, but then I discovered that you can sprint, I discovered that you can spin in the air which allows you to destroy blocks below you, I discovered that Yoshi can eat enemies and shoot some of them back out even, and I discovered a bunch of other secrets, like special paths that you can take to finish a level, which opens up hidden paths. These aren't just there for padding, but completing them then adds new colored platforms to all other levels and makes them easier. This adds tons of replayability for multiple reasons.
OVERALL
I could really go on and on here, but I think I made my thoughts clear by now. The game was not just revolutionary at the time, but is still a damn fine video game by today's standards. That's the biggest compliment we can really give to games of old and this game deserves it and more.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Steve Harris for EGM, Issue 25 (Aug 91): "While Super Mario World may not be the ideal cart to show off al the fancy things that the SNES can do..." | and the game goes on to be the best-selling game of the entire console. Not sure what was expected but expectations certainly were high
- ? for Nintendo Power, Issue 27 (Aug 91): "Mario's latest adventure is gigantic."
Hey, finally a game I can remember playing as kid. Super Mario World is a game that some of you may have heard of. It is one of two games that originally released with the SNES on November 21st, 1990 (the other: F-Zero). It was kinda popular. It sold over 20 million copies worldwide. Yeah, so that means I've played the best-selling SNES game ever already.
I mean, I don't need to explain Super Mario games to you, so I won't. What made this one stand out of course is that it was the first Mario game for a 16 bit console and one that used a much larger color palette, so it looked really good when it came out.
Plus, this game has a big difference over Super Mario Bros. 3, and that's of course that you have an ally in Yoshi. But before I get into that, I just gotta start with my conclusion for this game.
Because yes, this game is amazing STILL and honestly, not just easily the best game I've played out of 1990, but one of the best games I've played period. The best part is, I played this on my Steam Deck and not only did it run well, but it was a super smooth experience from beginning to the "end" (didn't beat the game yet). The controls are super responsive, the game looks fantastic, the sound quality is crisp and I was constantly in awe with how well this game aged in pretty much all areas.
The game has a ton of uniquely designed levels. That's a compliment of both the quality and quantity of them. I knew the game was good in that regard, but having played a couple dozen platformers that released in the same year previously, I can't believe how big of a jump in quality Super Mario World makes over every other game. Not only can you enjoy a variety of different levels, not only can you enjoy the challenges for well over a dozen hours for one playthrough, but the game is also just crammed full with features and secrets that allows for your future playthroughs to play out very differently over your first.
It starts with the power ups. Granted, not each power up will be as useful as some others, but you got the power up to increase in size, you got the ability to shoot fire, you can fly, you can turn invincible for a few seconds and you can even combine these when you are with Yoshi.
It took me a little while, but then I discovered that you can sprint, I discovered that you can spin in the air which allows you to destroy blocks below you, I discovered that Yoshi can eat enemies and shoot some of them back out even, and I discovered a bunch of other secrets, like special paths that you can take to finish a level, which opens up hidden paths. These aren't just there for padding, but completing them then adds new colored platforms to all other levels and makes them easier. This adds tons of replayability for multiple reasons.
OVERALL
I could really go on and on here, but I think I made my thoughts clear by now. The game was not just revolutionary at the time, but is still a damn fine video game by today's standards. That's the biggest compliment we can really give to games of old and this game deserves it and more.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Steve Harris for EGM, Issue 25 (Aug 91): "While Super Mario World may not be the ideal cart to show off al the fancy things that the SNES can do..." | and the game goes on to be the best-selling game of the entire console. Not sure what was expected but expectations certainly were high
- ? for Nintendo Power, Issue 27 (Aug 91): "Mario's latest adventure is gigantic."
1990
(This is the 29th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
Game #2 of the release day offerings for SNES release day in Japan. F-Zero is a futuristic racing game developed by Nintendo EAD - developers of the early Super Mario games and Legend of Zelda games as well - and F-Zero is just yet another example of how much talent Nintendo had at the time (still has of course). It released on November 21st, 1990 and seemingly was used to as a tech demo of sorts to show what the SNES is capable of.
Going into this, I had heard of F-Zero before but to be completely honest, though it was a JRPG or something like that and not simply a racing game. To see it mentioned that often for 'just' being a racing game, I thought this must be pretty good. Opening the game up and looking at the title screen, I then started to think that this game was probably popular based on nostalgia and the advancements in technology for racing games will probably make F-Zero a frustrating and bland experience.
Oh boy, was I wrong.
F-Zero has a total of 15 tracks in 3 different "leagues" of 5 tracks each. You choose the league and the difficulty and face off against multiple other cars, though I'll get into that a bit more later. You start with 3 continue's, a full life (power) bar and on track #1. You have to go through 5 laps to finish a track.
During the race, your car can crash into the walls, you can lose power by driving over the edges, which are filled with power-zapping tiles of sorts, and you can bump into other cars, which either throws you into the sides or at worst, has you almost reverse as well.
There are other cars that drive with you, both cars that actually participate in the race and others that just seemingly drive on the track for fun, just so you can bump into them when they stand in your way all the GODDAMN TIME. GET OUT OF THE WAY JACKASS, THIS IS A RACE TRACK!
I can't really say if I enjoyed the existence of these cars for the additional challenge, or if I despised the fact that they made me lose both my speed and my life bar by being so annoying. Oh wait, I can say how I feel, and that is that the existence of these sucked.
The other cars in the race are not that present as these non-racing ones, because the non-racing ones keep spawning and keep doing so in front of you, no matter what place you're in. Out of the other cars that are actually participants, the fastest car (the yellow one) is usually the only one you see after the 2nd lap, unless you crash really bad.
But the game doesn't actually have these cars drive at a certain speed once you get past them, but rather has them show up as soon as you lose your top speed for as little as a second. And once they overtake your spot, they start driving at slower speeds than you again. This means that in reality, you should be 20 seconds in front of the second spot by Lap 5, but instead a tiny crash means you can lose the race even though you just broke your record and had won the race the previous time you tried, where it took you 10 seconds longer. This was pretty annoying because having any car in front of you in these tight tracks meant that you could lose your full power bar within the last two laps simply because the other cars love to screw with you. The controls don't really allow you to crash them into the sides to gain an advantage yourself because unless you're incredibly skilled, it will be YOU who loses control from any kind of contact.
To get one more bad thing out of the way about this otherwise really good racing game, there were a couple maps that I didn't really like but none were as frustrating as the White Land maps. Especially the second one. 10 tries and I still can't make that one jump.
But enough about the bad, let's talk about the good. And there are two things about this game that are really good.
First, it's the pace. The game does a great job of translating pace and if you'd ask me about anything about this game that is timeless, I would have said this is it. However, there is something even more timeless here, and that is the soundtrack. Almost every song here is so good, and I'd almost be inclined to put some of them in the GOATed tier. The Port Town song immediately became a favorite of mine, and after listening to the entire OST on YouTube, I've become a big fan of Big Blue and Fire Field as well.
But going back to the gameplay, the game has really tight controls and plays at a smooth 60 FPS (played it on Steam Deck), and it's really up to your skill on how you perform, though again, those stupid non-racing cars did get me annoyed a lot.
I found myself starting this game up about once a day even though I've "beaten" it for the purposes of this challenge 3 days ago, that's how much fun I'm having with it, and I'm sure the sequels build on this in all the right ways, though I was saddened to see no new F-Zero game in almost two decades.
Finally, I quickly want to mention that the game records your best times for each map, which I think is a great little feature to add to this game, because it gives even more incentive to play these tracks over and over again, and I can only imagine how many hours kids of yore put into beating their own records back in the day.
OVERALL
If you're looking for an old school, fast paced racing game with a great soundtrack, this is it. Especially on a portable device, this is a lot of fun overall.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Ed Semrad or EGM, Issue 25 (Aug 91): "The perspective used really gives [...] a sense of speed and the scrolling is superb."
- Speedy Buns for GamePro, Issue 30 (Jan 92): "F-Zero shows what the SNES can really do, with futuristics racing action and head-spinning 3-D graphics."
Game #2 of the release day offerings for SNES release day in Japan. F-Zero is a futuristic racing game developed by Nintendo EAD - developers of the early Super Mario games and Legend of Zelda games as well - and F-Zero is just yet another example of how much talent Nintendo had at the time (still has of course). It released on November 21st, 1990 and seemingly was used to as a tech demo of sorts to show what the SNES is capable of.
Going into this, I had heard of F-Zero before but to be completely honest, though it was a JRPG or something like that and not simply a racing game. To see it mentioned that often for 'just' being a racing game, I thought this must be pretty good. Opening the game up and looking at the title screen, I then started to think that this game was probably popular based on nostalgia and the advancements in technology for racing games will probably make F-Zero a frustrating and bland experience.
Oh boy, was I wrong.
F-Zero has a total of 15 tracks in 3 different "leagues" of 5 tracks each. You choose the league and the difficulty and face off against multiple other cars, though I'll get into that a bit more later. You start with 3 continue's, a full life (power) bar and on track #1. You have to go through 5 laps to finish a track.
During the race, your car can crash into the walls, you can lose power by driving over the edges, which are filled with power-zapping tiles of sorts, and you can bump into other cars, which either throws you into the sides or at worst, has you almost reverse as well.
There are other cars that drive with you, both cars that actually participate in the race and others that just seemingly drive on the track for fun, just so you can bump into them when they stand in your way all the GODDAMN TIME. GET OUT OF THE WAY JACKASS, THIS IS A RACE TRACK!
I can't really say if I enjoyed the existence of these cars for the additional challenge, or if I despised the fact that they made me lose both my speed and my life bar by being so annoying. Oh wait, I can say how I feel, and that is that the existence of these sucked.
The other cars in the race are not that present as these non-racing ones, because the non-racing ones keep spawning and keep doing so in front of you, no matter what place you're in. Out of the other cars that are actually participants, the fastest car (the yellow one) is usually the only one you see after the 2nd lap, unless you crash really bad.
But the game doesn't actually have these cars drive at a certain speed once you get past them, but rather has them show up as soon as you lose your top speed for as little as a second. And once they overtake your spot, they start driving at slower speeds than you again. This means that in reality, you should be 20 seconds in front of the second spot by Lap 5, but instead a tiny crash means you can lose the race even though you just broke your record and had won the race the previous time you tried, where it took you 10 seconds longer. This was pretty annoying because having any car in front of you in these tight tracks meant that you could lose your full power bar within the last two laps simply because the other cars love to screw with you. The controls don't really allow you to crash them into the sides to gain an advantage yourself because unless you're incredibly skilled, it will be YOU who loses control from any kind of contact.
To get one more bad thing out of the way about this otherwise really good racing game, there were a couple maps that I didn't really like but none were as frustrating as the White Land maps. Especially the second one. 10 tries and I still can't make that one jump.
But enough about the bad, let's talk about the good. And there are two things about this game that are really good.
First, it's the pace. The game does a great job of translating pace and if you'd ask me about anything about this game that is timeless, I would have said this is it. However, there is something even more timeless here, and that is the soundtrack. Almost every song here is so good, and I'd almost be inclined to put some of them in the GOATed tier. The Port Town song immediately became a favorite of mine, and after listening to the entire OST on YouTube, I've become a big fan of Big Blue and Fire Field as well.
But going back to the gameplay, the game has really tight controls and plays at a smooth 60 FPS (played it on Steam Deck), and it's really up to your skill on how you perform, though again, those stupid non-racing cars did get me annoyed a lot.
I found myself starting this game up about once a day even though I've "beaten" it for the purposes of this challenge 3 days ago, that's how much fun I'm having with it, and I'm sure the sequels build on this in all the right ways, though I was saddened to see no new F-Zero game in almost two decades.
Finally, I quickly want to mention that the game records your best times for each map, which I think is a great little feature to add to this game, because it gives even more incentive to play these tracks over and over again, and I can only imagine how many hours kids of yore put into beating their own records back in the day.
OVERALL
If you're looking for an old school, fast paced racing game with a great soundtrack, this is it. Especially on a portable device, this is a lot of fun overall.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Ed Semrad or EGM, Issue 25 (Aug 91): "The perspective used really gives [...] a sense of speed and the scrolling is superb."
- Speedy Buns for GamePro, Issue 30 (Jan 92): "F-Zero shows what the SNES can really do, with futuristics racing action and head-spinning 3-D graphics."
1990
(This is the 30th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
Silver Surfer is a scrolling shooter released exclusively in NA regions for the NES in November 1990. It was developed by Software Creations (defunct since 2004) and published by Arcadia Systems and it's based on the Marvel Comics character "Silver Surfer".
I have watched my fair share of Marvel movies, have played my fair share of Marvel hero games, but I'm by no means a Marvel expert or anything beyond a novice in Marvel lore. Just a quick glance of Silver Surfer's description however already tells me that the game doesn't really seem to fit the character.
The game is a slow scrolling shooter where you have to fight hordes of enemies from all types of angles, and a single hit kills you. You'd think the sections where nothing happens for a few seconds is great because it gives you a breather, but instead it creates a dichotomy where, in one moment, your forehead is sweating and your finger hurts from pressing A all the time, and in the next, you are bored to tears from sloooowly waiting for the screen to scroll far enough for enemies to appear.
Looking at the Silver Surfer description on Wiki, it says that he can travel faster than light on his surfboard-like craft. Looking at his Marvel Fandom description, it gets even worse. Under Powers, they list "Godlike Strength". In this game, my guy dies by lightly tapping any wall or obstacle, not to mention that, again, HE ONLY HAS ONE HIT POINT.
It is such a weird way to design a scrolling shooter like this and, if it weren't for emulators and their save state capabilities, I definitely wouldn't have been able to experience every stage and the ending of this game. It wouldn't have mattered either way, because the ending sucks, but still.
Wanna know how the ending sucks? Well the story of this game involves Silver Surfer, Galactus (who gives him orders) and an unidentified villain who apparently will destroy the world if Silver Surfer doesn't stop him and some Cosmic Device that Silver Surfer has to assemble. Beat the final boss and Galactus drops a line like "now the Cosmic Device can be ALL MINE", which is a classic final-boss-twist-reveal type of line, right? Instead, Silver Surfer says "No, no one can have it, it's too dangerous, I will hide it" and the game just fucking ends. This game is insignificant enough for this to not matter but it is a fitting ending to a bad game.
Despite the one-hit wonder that is Silver Surfer, I think this game isn't as difficult to beat as some other games I've played out of 1990. I think through enough repetition of maybe 10-15 hours or so, you'll beat this game, but it's really not worth the effort and it doesn't hide the fact that the devs idea of a challenge was to simply make their game unfair and death your first time through inevitable at nearly all moments.
What I did like about the game though is the sound design and a kick ass soundtrack. Graphics didn't look too bad either but most levels didn't look too realistic and especially the over the top levels just were a jumbled mess of assets and colors.
OVERALL
Hard for the sake of being hard without providing a fair or fun challenge. If you want to experience any of this game, I'd recommend just going to YT and looking up the OST of this.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Martin Alessi or EGM, Issue 17 (Dec 90): "The graphics are nothing special, but the soundtrack is absolutely awesome." | A different reviewer from EGM said the "cinema storyline is cool", there literally was nothing in here other than 10 lines of "I've seen this a billion times before, and a million of those did it better" type storytelling, even from a 1990 perspective
- Slo' Mo for GamePro, Issue 20 (Mar 91): "To beat Silver Surfer, you probably have to be an outer space being yourself." | Or have save states
Silver Surfer is a scrolling shooter released exclusively in NA regions for the NES in November 1990. It was developed by Software Creations (defunct since 2004) and published by Arcadia Systems and it's based on the Marvel Comics character "Silver Surfer".
I have watched my fair share of Marvel movies, have played my fair share of Marvel hero games, but I'm by no means a Marvel expert or anything beyond a novice in Marvel lore. Just a quick glance of Silver Surfer's description however already tells me that the game doesn't really seem to fit the character.
The game is a slow scrolling shooter where you have to fight hordes of enemies from all types of angles, and a single hit kills you. You'd think the sections where nothing happens for a few seconds is great because it gives you a breather, but instead it creates a dichotomy where, in one moment, your forehead is sweating and your finger hurts from pressing A all the time, and in the next, you are bored to tears from sloooowly waiting for the screen to scroll far enough for enemies to appear.
Looking at the Silver Surfer description on Wiki, it says that he can travel faster than light on his surfboard-like craft. Looking at his Marvel Fandom description, it gets even worse. Under Powers, they list "Godlike Strength". In this game, my guy dies by lightly tapping any wall or obstacle, not to mention that, again, HE ONLY HAS ONE HIT POINT.
It is such a weird way to design a scrolling shooter like this and, if it weren't for emulators and their save state capabilities, I definitely wouldn't have been able to experience every stage and the ending of this game. It wouldn't have mattered either way, because the ending sucks, but still.
Wanna know how the ending sucks? Well the story of this game involves Silver Surfer, Galactus (who gives him orders) and an unidentified villain who apparently will destroy the world if Silver Surfer doesn't stop him and some Cosmic Device that Silver Surfer has to assemble. Beat the final boss and Galactus drops a line like "now the Cosmic Device can be ALL MINE", which is a classic final-boss-twist-reveal type of line, right? Instead, Silver Surfer says "No, no one can have it, it's too dangerous, I will hide it" and the game just fucking ends. This game is insignificant enough for this to not matter but it is a fitting ending to a bad game.
Despite the one-hit wonder that is Silver Surfer, I think this game isn't as difficult to beat as some other games I've played out of 1990. I think through enough repetition of maybe 10-15 hours or so, you'll beat this game, but it's really not worth the effort and it doesn't hide the fact that the devs idea of a challenge was to simply make their game unfair and death your first time through inevitable at nearly all moments.
What I did like about the game though is the sound design and a kick ass soundtrack. Graphics didn't look too bad either but most levels didn't look too realistic and especially the over the top levels just were a jumbled mess of assets and colors.
OVERALL
Hard for the sake of being hard without providing a fair or fun challenge. If you want to experience any of this game, I'd recommend just going to YT and looking up the OST of this.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Martin Alessi or EGM, Issue 17 (Dec 90): "The graphics are nothing special, but the soundtrack is absolutely awesome." | A different reviewer from EGM said the "cinema storyline is cool", there literally was nothing in here other than 10 lines of "I've seen this a billion times before, and a million of those did it better" type storytelling, even from a 1990 perspective
- Slo' Mo for GamePro, Issue 20 (Mar 91): "To beat Silver Surfer, you probably have to be an outer space being yourself." | Or have save states