fe17
1991
(This is the 55th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
We found ourselves our first 1991 Game of the Year contender, ladies and gentlemen. Super Castlevania IV, an iconic platformer by Konami that originally released in Japan on October 31, 1991, is pretty much as good as advertised. And that says a lot considering that it was advertised as "one of the greatest games of all time". In many ways, from atmosphere to soundtrack to the simplicity of its gameplay loop, the game is timeless. In others, such as graphics, controls and features, it obviously lags behind more recent video games, but that's not a comparison we make here of course. For its time, Super Castlevania IV ranks high in those categories as well however.
Here is my in-depth review for the game. For the challenge, we'll be returning to the Castlevania series in October 1993 with Castlevania: Rondo of Blood.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 3/10
If you're a big fan of video games, you will know about Castlevania and the story set-up for its games, at least for most of them. There is a clan of vampire hunters called the Belmont family, who are tasked with defeating the evil Dracula, who resurrects himself every 100 years, when the "forces of the Good mysteriously become weak".
Super Castlevania IV doesn't do things differently, in very large part because this game is actually a remake of Castlevania for the NES from 1986. Or at least kind of it is.
The Japanese version, called Akumajō Dracula (the Japanese name for the Castlevania series), shows both in its name and in its story set-up that this is a remake of the first Castlevania. Simon Belmont, the main character for this game, is described as the young heir to the Belmont clan and prepares himself for its first adventure.
In the USA version, it is said that it is "time once again for Simon Belmont to take up his whip...", indicating that there was a different time when Simon Belmont had been active, which would be Castlevania II. See, Konami USA didn't actually factor in that this would be a remake, I suppose hence the name Super Castlevania IV (IV!), so it was actually considered a sequel all the way until 2005, when Konami released an "Xtreme desktop app" with the canon timeline, which didn't include Super Castlevania IV at all (as it is in essence a retelling of the first Castlevania, which IS included in the timeline).
With that out of the way, what IS the story here? You play Simon Belmont, as explained, who must defeat the evil Count Dracula in 1691 Transylvania. Equipped with a holy whip called 'Vampire Killer', which makes him the heir to the Belmont clan, Simon Belmont makes his way to Dracula's castle.
That's pretty much it. As per usual, story has no big considerations for these early 90 platformers, but there is enough here to set a dark, gothic atmosphere that will be palpable throughout your time with the game. For some additional lore, the manual states that "Simon has found an ancient tome left to him by his ancestors revealing the secret of the whip. In it, he learns that the whip can snap in eight directions." Some tiny little lore to explain a new gameplay mechanic is the kind of attention to detail I like to see, even if the game otherwise doesn't have a lot to offer in terms of storytelling.
GAMEPLAY | 16/20
This game is a platformer of the best kind. You know, I have my typical issues with platformers that are almost ubiquitous in the early 90s. Whether it's unfair hit boxes, long-distance jumps that you will die due to unless you can time them perfectly, too many enemies and obstacles on-screen at the same time, unresponsive controls, no ability to jump and hit, not being able to jump and redirect yourself, only having the ability to hit straight, no crouch-and-move function, ridiculously overpowered bosses and many many more things I often find that make these old-school platformers incredibly frustrating.
But Super Castlevania IV manages to elegantly incorporate so many QoL-improvements and the devs seem to have figured out how they can find a great balance of fun and challenging, even if it's not perfect at all times.
Simon Belmont is equipped with a whip. As per usual, you can use it to hit enemies and candles, the latter of which are almost everywhere and drop items. These items are food items, which give you health, heart items, which give you ammunition for special weapons (ok..) and the special weapons themselves (boomerang (goes across screen, comes back) axe (flies in an arc), fire bomb (burns anything in path), dagger (flies straight) and watch (stops most enemies and their attaks for a few seconds)). Next to these, you can also pick up special items that destroy all enemies on screen, grant you invincibility for a couple seconds (called 'invisibility' in the manual, hah), that allow you to shoot twice per ammunition and that increase the power of your weapons. So a nice variety here.
The whip itself has gained new functions in this game, and boy are they useful. First, the whip can be whipped in eight (!) directions now. So up, down, left, right and then in each direction diagonally as well. Second, the whip can be used at rings, which allows you to latch onto them and leap into the air like you're Spider-Man. Third, you can also hold the attack button, which allows you to swing the whip around in a sort of limb state, which is funny and kind of unnecessary, but I appreciated it existing for sure.
What this game really does well, and is what I opened with here, is to keep the cheap deaths to a minimum. Your own hit-box is reduced, so projectiles that graze your hair don't damage you. The enemy hit-boxes are extended, and you can even hit them from below through the blocks that they're standing on. Enemies that would take a lot more hits in previous versions take fewer this time. Jumps on distant blocks are successful, even if one of Simon's legs barely touches the platform. The majority of enemies are easy enough to hit and avoid, and not bouncy and very quick like in previous games. The fact that you can whip in 8 directions makes hitting enemies above and below you so much easier, especially when you're on stairs. Enemies attack slower, and the levels are designed much better in a way that you don't have to worry about fighting multiple enemies AND having to avoid environmental obstacles at the same time.
None of the points above make this game a cake walk. They just make it a lot more fair and a lot more fun without all the hours of frustration that don't really need to be there. Are there still frustrating parts? Sure. When you enter a new screen and enemies jump on top of you immediately, that kind of sucks. When you jump and fall out of the map instead of on the stairs that are right below your feet, that's still annoying. Spikes one-hitting you is kind of dumb.
But for the majority of the game, you actually feel like you can control the action and do so naturally, without having to adjust to the idiosyncracies of a game's particular control scheme.
For some, most boss fights might be very easy, and to me, from what I've seen, I'd place them between Castlevania 1 and 2 in terms of difficulty, though closer to 2. What this game does a lot better than 2 though is that boss fights are actually mostly cleverly designed, or at least each battle has its distinctive challenges it asks the player to overcome. Some bosses you CAN simply brute-force your way through by mashing the attack button, and those definitely could have been improved upon, and the final boss fight does have some annoying parts in particular, but I'd say the boss fights were enjoyable for the most part.
Heck, the whole game was enjoyable for the majority of it. If you're looking for a retro platformer, you'd be remiss to not check out Super Castlevania IV.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 10/10
No voice acting. It makes use of the sound engine of the SNES to create a satisfying group of sound effects, but where this game really shines in the aural category is with its soundtrack. Man is it fantastic and does it set the tone. The opening alone sounds so beautifully eerie and mysterious that it sets you off on the right foot before you even press START. The exact same can be said for the Prologue track and then some. That one got me bopping my head. The 'Stage 1 Theme of Simon Belmont' I can only imagine being iconic, but I loved listening to themes like 'Bloody Tears' and 'Beginning', which move the soundtrack from eerie to downright epic. Bloody Tears is originally from Castlevania II and I'd argue it sounds even more epic on there, but I'm glad it got re-used and re-mixed, so I could hear it here for the first time. It's literally one of my favorite video game tracks of all time now, it's like it's straight out of a symphony.
'Beginning' is from Castlevania III, as the NES trilogy's tracks were re-used in part here as you can tell, especially in the later levels.
And you know what else is amazing? When you are in the final stage of the lengthy final boss battle against Dracula and his two strongest goons, when both goons are defeated and Dracula is on his last few health bars, what music kicks in? Simon's theme. Not only is that a badass track to begin with, but the implications of using it just adds to the moment so much, as Simon knows he got Dracula, Dracula knows Simon's got him and now it's on the player to beat Dracula's ass one final time. Beautiful.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10
The SNES offers a big jump graphically, and this game makes use of it. Each level looks unique, with a lot of attention to detail in the design of the backgrounds and environments. There are some genuinely unique levels to explore here in terms of technical composition as well, like the rotating level that is powered thanks tothe Mode 7 graphics mode or the stage where you need to hang on to a ring with your whip while the screen itself is rotating. There is also the chandelier level with rotating chandeliers that you need to jump on, but oddly, the background for that level is simply black like it was more common to see in the NES days. These levels are pretty rare and don't really last that long and don't provide a big challenge, but it's still nice to see how creative the devs can get with this technology.
There hasn't been nearly as much work put into sprites and animations I felt like, which both end up feeling and looking like NES models a lot, but Simon himself has gotten some detail added to his sprite when it comes to the armor he is wearing, his hair and the definition in his arm and leg muscles.
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 9/10
Tremendously atmospheric. The soundtrack and story set-up already put you in the right mood for this one, but thanks to the power of the SNES, there is a lot more attention to detail in the graphical presentation, along with the Mode 7 feature that I just mentioned which allows some levels to come alive more. Now about those cooked meals that are hidden in the walls ...
CONTENT | 8/10
There are 9 numbered and two lettered levels, so a total of 11 stages. A full playthrough for someone who doesn't die once takes a bit more than an hour. For me, it took about 6-7 to get to the final stage, but I couldn't defeat the final boss gauntlet without using save states. These stages are varied in looks, sometimes even in design (keywords, again, Mode 7) but there is no progression system or any special hidden rooms or unique levels with different style of gameplay to mix it up. Regarding the progression system, you literally have all your abilities available to you from the first level and nothing new is introduced apart from different enemies in different stages. But your health stays the same, your strength can be temporarily improved by finding the appropriate items and you don't gain new skills. That's all fine of course, but a little bit more meat on the bone in some way wouldn't have been a bad thing I think.
That said, a game that can be beaten in one or two afternoons depending on your skill set, especially now with the power of emulation, and one that does what it focuses on really well, is a game with great content in my eyes.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 8/10
In its core, this is pretty basic. 11 total stages, each with their sub-stages and boss fights, either at the end or sometimes in the middle. What this game gets bonus points for is its execution of the basic, which is simply very well done and shows why this formula has been so popular among devs and players for so long in the first place. Some levels that show off the skills of the SNES in particular add to the variety of it all as well.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 7/10
There isn't anything particularly innovative about the core gameplay here. This game simply does a great job of putting it all together and bringing it to the 4th gen of consoles, while adding a lot of QoL improvements, a few very much welcomed additions to Simon's whip and creating a very dark and tense horror atmosphere.
REPLAYABILITY | 2/5
The main motivation to play this again would be to beat your high score. There are a couple secret rooms to find as well, though all they offer are a bunch of candles to find regular items. This is interestingly a step back for the series, as Castlevania III offered multiple different characters and multiple paths that you could take after specific stages, which added to replayability. Personally, I don't think this is a big deal at all, as I enjoyed the focus on Simon, who now had a lot more abilities, and not having multiple paths allowed for more focus on the fewer stages that had to be created. I'd be lying if I said I would have minded multiple paths for added replayability though.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL | 76/100
One of the best platformers of the early 90s for sure. It's a tremendous improvement on earlier entries of the series in pretty much every way, it's rather easy to progress in compared to its contemporaries and the much tighter controls along with the greatness that is the game's OST, the majority of you will have a great time playing this I'm sure.
We found ourselves our first 1991 Game of the Year contender, ladies and gentlemen. Super Castlevania IV, an iconic platformer by Konami that originally released in Japan on October 31, 1991, is pretty much as good as advertised. And that says a lot considering that it was advertised as "one of the greatest games of all time". In many ways, from atmosphere to soundtrack to the simplicity of its gameplay loop, the game is timeless. In others, such as graphics, controls and features, it obviously lags behind more recent video games, but that's not a comparison we make here of course. For its time, Super Castlevania IV ranks high in those categories as well however.
Here is my in-depth review for the game. For the challenge, we'll be returning to the Castlevania series in October 1993 with Castlevania: Rondo of Blood.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 3/10
If you're a big fan of video games, you will know about Castlevania and the story set-up for its games, at least for most of them. There is a clan of vampire hunters called the Belmont family, who are tasked with defeating the evil Dracula, who resurrects himself every 100 years, when the "forces of the Good mysteriously become weak".
Super Castlevania IV doesn't do things differently, in very large part because this game is actually a remake of Castlevania for the NES from 1986. Or at least kind of it is.
The Japanese version, called Akumajō Dracula (the Japanese name for the Castlevania series), shows both in its name and in its story set-up that this is a remake of the first Castlevania. Simon Belmont, the main character for this game, is described as the young heir to the Belmont clan and prepares himself for its first adventure.
In the USA version, it is said that it is "time once again for Simon Belmont to take up his whip...", indicating that there was a different time when Simon Belmont had been active, which would be Castlevania II. See, Konami USA didn't actually factor in that this would be a remake, I suppose hence the name Super Castlevania IV (IV!), so it was actually considered a sequel all the way until 2005, when Konami released an "Xtreme desktop app" with the canon timeline, which didn't include Super Castlevania IV at all (as it is in essence a retelling of the first Castlevania, which IS included in the timeline).
With that out of the way, what IS the story here? You play Simon Belmont, as explained, who must defeat the evil Count Dracula in 1691 Transylvania. Equipped with a holy whip called 'Vampire Killer', which makes him the heir to the Belmont clan, Simon Belmont makes his way to Dracula's castle.
That's pretty much it. As per usual, story has no big considerations for these early 90 platformers, but there is enough here to set a dark, gothic atmosphere that will be palpable throughout your time with the game. For some additional lore, the manual states that "Simon has found an ancient tome left to him by his ancestors revealing the secret of the whip. In it, he learns that the whip can snap in eight directions." Some tiny little lore to explain a new gameplay mechanic is the kind of attention to detail I like to see, even if the game otherwise doesn't have a lot to offer in terms of storytelling.
GAMEPLAY | 16/20
This game is a platformer of the best kind. You know, I have my typical issues with platformers that are almost ubiquitous in the early 90s. Whether it's unfair hit boxes, long-distance jumps that you will die due to unless you can time them perfectly, too many enemies and obstacles on-screen at the same time, unresponsive controls, no ability to jump and hit, not being able to jump and redirect yourself, only having the ability to hit straight, no crouch-and-move function, ridiculously overpowered bosses and many many more things I often find that make these old-school platformers incredibly frustrating.
But Super Castlevania IV manages to elegantly incorporate so many QoL-improvements and the devs seem to have figured out how they can find a great balance of fun and challenging, even if it's not perfect at all times.
Simon Belmont is equipped with a whip. As per usual, you can use it to hit enemies and candles, the latter of which are almost everywhere and drop items. These items are food items, which give you health, heart items, which give you ammunition for special weapons (ok..) and the special weapons themselves (boomerang (goes across screen, comes back) axe (flies in an arc), fire bomb (burns anything in path), dagger (flies straight) and watch (stops most enemies and their attaks for a few seconds)). Next to these, you can also pick up special items that destroy all enemies on screen, grant you invincibility for a couple seconds (called 'invisibility' in the manual, hah), that allow you to shoot twice per ammunition and that increase the power of your weapons. So a nice variety here.
The whip itself has gained new functions in this game, and boy are they useful. First, the whip can be whipped in eight (!) directions now. So up, down, left, right and then in each direction diagonally as well. Second, the whip can be used at rings, which allows you to latch onto them and leap into the air like you're Spider-Man. Third, you can also hold the attack button, which allows you to swing the whip around in a sort of limb state, which is funny and kind of unnecessary, but I appreciated it existing for sure.
What this game really does well, and is what I opened with here, is to keep the cheap deaths to a minimum. Your own hit-box is reduced, so projectiles that graze your hair don't damage you. The enemy hit-boxes are extended, and you can even hit them from below through the blocks that they're standing on. Enemies that would take a lot more hits in previous versions take fewer this time. Jumps on distant blocks are successful, even if one of Simon's legs barely touches the platform. The majority of enemies are easy enough to hit and avoid, and not bouncy and very quick like in previous games. The fact that you can whip in 8 directions makes hitting enemies above and below you so much easier, especially when you're on stairs. Enemies attack slower, and the levels are designed much better in a way that you don't have to worry about fighting multiple enemies AND having to avoid environmental obstacles at the same time.
None of the points above make this game a cake walk. They just make it a lot more fair and a lot more fun without all the hours of frustration that don't really need to be there. Are there still frustrating parts? Sure. When you enter a new screen and enemies jump on top of you immediately, that kind of sucks. When you jump and fall out of the map instead of on the stairs that are right below your feet, that's still annoying. Spikes one-hitting you is kind of dumb.
But for the majority of the game, you actually feel like you can control the action and do so naturally, without having to adjust to the idiosyncracies of a game's particular control scheme.
For some, most boss fights might be very easy, and to me, from what I've seen, I'd place them between Castlevania 1 and 2 in terms of difficulty, though closer to 2. What this game does a lot better than 2 though is that boss fights are actually mostly cleverly designed, or at least each battle has its distinctive challenges it asks the player to overcome. Some bosses you CAN simply brute-force your way through by mashing the attack button, and those definitely could have been improved upon, and the final boss fight does have some annoying parts in particular, but I'd say the boss fights were enjoyable for the most part.
Heck, the whole game was enjoyable for the majority of it. If you're looking for a retro platformer, you'd be remiss to not check out Super Castlevania IV.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 10/10
No voice acting. It makes use of the sound engine of the SNES to create a satisfying group of sound effects, but where this game really shines in the aural category is with its soundtrack. Man is it fantastic and does it set the tone. The opening alone sounds so beautifully eerie and mysterious that it sets you off on the right foot before you even press START. The exact same can be said for the Prologue track and then some. That one got me bopping my head. The 'Stage 1 Theme of Simon Belmont' I can only imagine being iconic, but I loved listening to themes like 'Bloody Tears' and 'Beginning', which move the soundtrack from eerie to downright epic. Bloody Tears is originally from Castlevania II and I'd argue it sounds even more epic on there, but I'm glad it got re-used and re-mixed, so I could hear it here for the first time. It's literally one of my favorite video game tracks of all time now, it's like it's straight out of a symphony.
'Beginning' is from Castlevania III, as the NES trilogy's tracks were re-used in part here as you can tell, especially in the later levels.
And you know what else is amazing? When you are in the final stage of the lengthy final boss battle against Dracula and his two strongest goons, when both goons are defeated and Dracula is on his last few health bars, what music kicks in? Simon's theme. Not only is that a badass track to begin with, but the implications of using it just adds to the moment so much, as Simon knows he got Dracula, Dracula knows Simon's got him and now it's on the player to beat Dracula's ass one final time. Beautiful.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10
The SNES offers a big jump graphically, and this game makes use of it. Each level looks unique, with a lot of attention to detail in the design of the backgrounds and environments. There are some genuinely unique levels to explore here in terms of technical composition as well, like the rotating level that is powered thanks tothe Mode 7 graphics mode or the stage where you need to hang on to a ring with your whip while the screen itself is rotating. There is also the chandelier level with rotating chandeliers that you need to jump on, but oddly, the background for that level is simply black like it was more common to see in the NES days. These levels are pretty rare and don't really last that long and don't provide a big challenge, but it's still nice to see how creative the devs can get with this technology.
There hasn't been nearly as much work put into sprites and animations I felt like, which both end up feeling and looking like NES models a lot, but Simon himself has gotten some detail added to his sprite when it comes to the armor he is wearing, his hair and the definition in his arm and leg muscles.
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 9/10
Tremendously atmospheric. The soundtrack and story set-up already put you in the right mood for this one, but thanks to the power of the SNES, there is a lot more attention to detail in the graphical presentation, along with the Mode 7 feature that I just mentioned which allows some levels to come alive more. Now about those cooked meals that are hidden in the walls ...
CONTENT | 8/10
There are 9 numbered and two lettered levels, so a total of 11 stages. A full playthrough for someone who doesn't die once takes a bit more than an hour. For me, it took about 6-7 to get to the final stage, but I couldn't defeat the final boss gauntlet without using save states. These stages are varied in looks, sometimes even in design (keywords, again, Mode 7) but there is no progression system or any special hidden rooms or unique levels with different style of gameplay to mix it up. Regarding the progression system, you literally have all your abilities available to you from the first level and nothing new is introduced apart from different enemies in different stages. But your health stays the same, your strength can be temporarily improved by finding the appropriate items and you don't gain new skills. That's all fine of course, but a little bit more meat on the bone in some way wouldn't have been a bad thing I think.
That said, a game that can be beaten in one or two afternoons depending on your skill set, especially now with the power of emulation, and one that does what it focuses on really well, is a game with great content in my eyes.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 8/10
In its core, this is pretty basic. 11 total stages, each with their sub-stages and boss fights, either at the end or sometimes in the middle. What this game gets bonus points for is its execution of the basic, which is simply very well done and shows why this formula has been so popular among devs and players for so long in the first place. Some levels that show off the skills of the SNES in particular add to the variety of it all as well.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 7/10
There isn't anything particularly innovative about the core gameplay here. This game simply does a great job of putting it all together and bringing it to the 4th gen of consoles, while adding a lot of QoL improvements, a few very much welcomed additions to Simon's whip and creating a very dark and tense horror atmosphere.
REPLAYABILITY | 2/5
The main motivation to play this again would be to beat your high score. There are a couple secret rooms to find as well, though all they offer are a bunch of candles to find regular items. This is interestingly a step back for the series, as Castlevania III offered multiple different characters and multiple paths that you could take after specific stages, which added to replayability. Personally, I don't think this is a big deal at all, as I enjoyed the focus on Simon, who now had a lot more abilities, and not having multiple paths allowed for more focus on the fewer stages that had to be created. I'd be lying if I said I would have minded multiple paths for added replayability though.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL | 76/100
One of the best platformers of the early 90s for sure. It's a tremendous improvement on earlier entries of the series in pretty much every way, it's rather easy to progress in compared to its contemporaries and the much tighter controls along with the greatness that is the game's OST, the majority of you will have a great time playing this I'm sure.
(This is the 54th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
We're a bit late into the 'Wonder Boy' series, as the Platformer / Action-Adventure 'Wonder Boy in Monster World', which released on October 25, 1991 for the Sega Genesis, is the fifth game in the Wonder Boy series already and only two more games release for this series from here on out in 1994 and, interestingly enough, 2018. The games preceding and succeeding this game I'm about to review also received remakes in the past decade, so the series has seen somewhat of a revival recently.
For its time, Wonder Boy in Monster World received positive reviews and currently carries a 7.5 Moby Score. Multiple magazines are quoted saying something to the tune of "Who needs Sonic, when you can have Wonder Boy", which I found funny to read in retrospect, but it should tell you that this isn't just some random character, but rather a relatively popular one. Some magazines weren't all too kind, like Sega Power's review saying that this is "one aimed at younger players, but I think that even they will find this very boring or repetitive." Who was right according to my taste? Well I'll start with this: I didn't beat the game.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 3/10
In this adventure of Wonder Boy, you play Wonder Boy, who needs to save Monster World, which is under attack by ... monsters? Where else did you think the monsters wanted to be at? The Wonder Boy by the way has a name, he is called Shion.
Shion gets the help of many residents of Monster World. He can use one girl's 'Ocarina', an instrument that unlocks door if the right melody is played. He can use Poseidon's trident to explore the underwater areas. He gets the assistant of a dwarven kid that unlocks the path to a cave filled with monsters.
There isn't a lot of dialogue here besides the generic few talks you will have with people who want you to help them, so that they agree to help you afterwards. You are thanked a lot for being a hero and on you go until you win the game. After you defeat the final boss, the end credits actually play immediately after, which is kind of anti-climactic, though there are post-credit scenes where the resolution of the story is quickly explained. Again, it's generic "the hero saved everyone, so that they can live on happily ever after, or until the sequel at least." talk.
As is usual for games that call themselves side-scrolling Action RPGs at this time, you discover towns and have a few people there that you can talk to (I wouldn't call this an RPG though). Though when I say a few, I do mean just a few, as there aren't many characters walking around.
This game is also another one of those that has you run around colorful worlds for most of it, only to have the final act be in some sort of futuristic looking area against a futuristic looking final boss. Why were so many end-game areas designed like this? The games often have no hint of sci-fi, but all of a sudden some rogue AI / robot from a distant planet wants to use his futuristic weaponry to destroy you, and you poor dude with just your sword are supposed to put an end to it. Well, you do in the end, but you know, it's getting hilarious at this point how this seems to be the resolution so often.
GAMEPLAY | 9/20
This is called a side-scrolling platformer / action adventure / RPG. The first genre is correct. The second as well. As far as RPG's go, this I wouldn't call one of them. There is no character progression in terms of stats or any decisions you can make, there is in general no choice you can make and the only stats that are there are for attack, defense and speed. Armor, weapons, shields and boots are what effect those stats. You get those by opening chests and going to stores, though you'll have to do a lot of grinding for gold to get many of those store items.
So yeah, it's not an RPG, you simply control Shion in this side-scrolling platformer. From the 3 hours I've played, there wasn't much exploration but rather convoluted level design that made you look around for where to go next. There isn't really any area or anything that opens up for optional exploration. There are some harder to reach chests in this game, some of which are tricky to find. I got to one by accident by pressing up randomly (you press up to enter rooms), and a room appearing in the middle of nowhere and leading me straight to a chest. That can hardly be called exploration though.
So you are equipped with a melee weapon and have to fight enemies, some of which can jump up, some of which can swoop down, some of which can throw stuff at you, rush you, guard with their own shields and all sorts. The problem is that the swinging animation of yours takes a few frames too long, so what happens way too often is that you try to time the swing right, but you are a split second too early and before you get a second swing off, you already get hit by an enemy rushing you. The tough part is that once you die, you are sent back to your last save, which will be at the previous inn. This can send you back many, many minutes, and there is often plenty of time between your last save and the boss fight for example.
Boss fights represent ridiculous difficulty spikes here. Until the first boss for example, apart from those swing animation issues, you won't have any problems. And then you reach the boss and it just jumps on top of you constantly whilst throwing up tiny minions that hurt you when they run into you. So you got 4-5 minions coming after you from both sides, the boss coming from the top and until you take a looong time to figure out how to beat this thing, you'll, well, lose a loooot of time, and it doesn't really fell satisfying either. This the case for a lot of boss fights where it feels like the enemy attack patterns are way too wild and random. The main thing this game does with boss fights is just throw a bunch of stuff at you at once, which makes it hard to dodge, but even harder to find an opening to strike. Not fun.
The worst issue comes a few hours in however, when you are supposed to use Poseidon's trident to go underwater and find Poseidon. Multiple times I found myself thinking "where the hell do you want me to go and why are you making it this so convoluted?" I looked up the solution for a while and you know it's not a good sign when you see the actual path and think to yourself that this is way too unnecessary.
In the end, the save system and repetitively annoying gameplay made me abandon this one a few hours before completion. It's not even like this is a game where it being so hard is the point. It's not necessarily even that hard in terms of combat, bosses excluded, but finding your path and having to go all the way back to inns due to the lack of save points just makes the game annoying to play.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 7/10
No voice acting. The soundtrack ranges from meh to really good. The intro track sets a good tone for a game this is both child-friendly and one that will kick your butt repeatedly, and while few tracks combine these themes, you'll have tracks do a pretty good job of using either one to give off a relaxing vibe or one that captures the tension well. However there are some true stinkers here as well, like Village Theme 1, not to be mistaken with Village Theme 2.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 7/10
This game has good looking graphics thanks to its use of a wide color palette and attention to detail in the scrolling backgrounds. One interesting thing the game does in its villages is a visual transition effect when you enter a house, which makes the inside of the house become visible.
The sprite work, enemy design and animation here is not great, but the devs created a cozy and inviting world here, at least graphically, though it kinda starts falling apart a bitonce you hit some rough patches when it comes to hard enemies/bosses or not knowing where to go.
ATMOSPHERE | 5/10
Welcome to monster world, a world called after monsters that is in turmoil as it gets invaded by monsters. The game uses all the tropes you'd expect from a platformer of the early 90s, so unless this was one of the few games you played over and over at the time, you will notice that it doesn't offer anything new and doesn't really pull you in like plenty of other games manage to do. The world that is created here in its basic form, thanks to its soundtrack and graphical presentation, is inviting overall though, however you'll be stuck at very hard bosses and puzzles multiple times, so more likely than not it's only inviting until a certain point, where you likely will find yourself stuck, especially if you were a kid in the 90s playing this.
CONTENT | 6/10
Enough content here for an Action Adventure like this. You got many boss fights, many different enemy types, different types of equipment, plenty of puzzles and hidden stuff too boot. Not all of this is good content, but you'll be busy for a good 10 hours if you decide to play it to the end.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 4/10
Most of the time, where you need to go is straightforward. Then there are times where you will keep running around in circles, unless you figure out that you need to go to X first or press Y, which unlocks a new path. That sort of environmental puzzle is pretty enjoyable. But most of the time when things aren't straightforward, you're meant to go to some place that is only described very imprecisely, and it's a lot of time away and makes it very easy to get lost with no positive impact on fun factor or satisfaction from figuring out the way. Add to that that if you die on your way there, you're sent back all the way to the last inn you saved at, and you can see where you'd get easily frustrated.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 2/10
Nothing new on offer here, it's a mix of features and a focus on themes and a theme for its world that you have seen in a lot of different games before. There isn't even a specific thing this game tries to focus on more than on other areas, the game is meh to alright in every area, which makes for a meh game overall. It's got average world building, basic gameplay, convoluted level design, a middle-of-the-pack soundtrack, frustrating boss fights, slow pace and a boring set of one-dimensional characters. I'm sure the series has done better than this, but this game isn't doing anything above-average unfortunately.
REPLAYABILITY | 2/5
You can look for some more of those hidden equipment or health items in a second playthrough, but there is no other motivation given to play through it twice.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL | 50/100
You know, I'll take a game that is below-average in most aspects of a video game, if it does a specific thing really well. But Wonder Boy in Monster World doesn't really rate better than "average" in anything, as it's a game that takes many features of better games, puts them together and ends up being a worse product. So it's a skip for me, there are plenty of better retro platformers / action adventures to play from this time period, though it's definitely not a 'terrible game'.
We're a bit late into the 'Wonder Boy' series, as the Platformer / Action-Adventure 'Wonder Boy in Monster World', which released on October 25, 1991 for the Sega Genesis, is the fifth game in the Wonder Boy series already and only two more games release for this series from here on out in 1994 and, interestingly enough, 2018. The games preceding and succeeding this game I'm about to review also received remakes in the past decade, so the series has seen somewhat of a revival recently.
For its time, Wonder Boy in Monster World received positive reviews and currently carries a 7.5 Moby Score. Multiple magazines are quoted saying something to the tune of "Who needs Sonic, when you can have Wonder Boy", which I found funny to read in retrospect, but it should tell you that this isn't just some random character, but rather a relatively popular one. Some magazines weren't all too kind, like Sega Power's review saying that this is "one aimed at younger players, but I think that even they will find this very boring or repetitive." Who was right according to my taste? Well I'll start with this: I didn't beat the game.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 3/10
In this adventure of Wonder Boy, you play Wonder Boy, who needs to save Monster World, which is under attack by ... monsters? Where else did you think the monsters wanted to be at? The Wonder Boy by the way has a name, he is called Shion.
Shion gets the help of many residents of Monster World. He can use one girl's 'Ocarina', an instrument that unlocks door if the right melody is played. He can use Poseidon's trident to explore the underwater areas. He gets the assistant of a dwarven kid that unlocks the path to a cave filled with monsters.
There isn't a lot of dialogue here besides the generic few talks you will have with people who want you to help them, so that they agree to help you afterwards. You are thanked a lot for being a hero and on you go until you win the game. After you defeat the final boss, the end credits actually play immediately after, which is kind of anti-climactic, though there are post-credit scenes where the resolution of the story is quickly explained. Again, it's generic "the hero saved everyone, so that they can live on happily ever after, or until the sequel at least." talk.
As is usual for games that call themselves side-scrolling Action RPGs at this time, you discover towns and have a few people there that you can talk to (I wouldn't call this an RPG though). Though when I say a few, I do mean just a few, as there aren't many characters walking around.
This game is also another one of those that has you run around colorful worlds for most of it, only to have the final act be in some sort of futuristic looking area against a futuristic looking final boss. Why were so many end-game areas designed like this? The games often have no hint of sci-fi, but all of a sudden some rogue AI / robot from a distant planet wants to use his futuristic weaponry to destroy you, and you poor dude with just your sword are supposed to put an end to it. Well, you do in the end, but you know, it's getting hilarious at this point how this seems to be the resolution so often.
GAMEPLAY | 9/20
This is called a side-scrolling platformer / action adventure / RPG. The first genre is correct. The second as well. As far as RPG's go, this I wouldn't call one of them. There is no character progression in terms of stats or any decisions you can make, there is in general no choice you can make and the only stats that are there are for attack, defense and speed. Armor, weapons, shields and boots are what effect those stats. You get those by opening chests and going to stores, though you'll have to do a lot of grinding for gold to get many of those store items.
So yeah, it's not an RPG, you simply control Shion in this side-scrolling platformer. From the 3 hours I've played, there wasn't much exploration but rather convoluted level design that made you look around for where to go next. There isn't really any area or anything that opens up for optional exploration. There are some harder to reach chests in this game, some of which are tricky to find. I got to one by accident by pressing up randomly (you press up to enter rooms), and a room appearing in the middle of nowhere and leading me straight to a chest. That can hardly be called exploration though.
So you are equipped with a melee weapon and have to fight enemies, some of which can jump up, some of which can swoop down, some of which can throw stuff at you, rush you, guard with their own shields and all sorts. The problem is that the swinging animation of yours takes a few frames too long, so what happens way too often is that you try to time the swing right, but you are a split second too early and before you get a second swing off, you already get hit by an enemy rushing you. The tough part is that once you die, you are sent back to your last save, which will be at the previous inn. This can send you back many, many minutes, and there is often plenty of time between your last save and the boss fight for example.
Boss fights represent ridiculous difficulty spikes here. Until the first boss for example, apart from those swing animation issues, you won't have any problems. And then you reach the boss and it just jumps on top of you constantly whilst throwing up tiny minions that hurt you when they run into you. So you got 4-5 minions coming after you from both sides, the boss coming from the top and until you take a looong time to figure out how to beat this thing, you'll, well, lose a loooot of time, and it doesn't really fell satisfying either. This the case for a lot of boss fights where it feels like the enemy attack patterns are way too wild and random. The main thing this game does with boss fights is just throw a bunch of stuff at you at once, which makes it hard to dodge, but even harder to find an opening to strike. Not fun.
The worst issue comes a few hours in however, when you are supposed to use Poseidon's trident to go underwater and find Poseidon. Multiple times I found myself thinking "where the hell do you want me to go and why are you making it this so convoluted?" I looked up the solution for a while and you know it's not a good sign when you see the actual path and think to yourself that this is way too unnecessary.
In the end, the save system and repetitively annoying gameplay made me abandon this one a few hours before completion. It's not even like this is a game where it being so hard is the point. It's not necessarily even that hard in terms of combat, bosses excluded, but finding your path and having to go all the way back to inns due to the lack of save points just makes the game annoying to play.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 7/10
No voice acting. The soundtrack ranges from meh to really good. The intro track sets a good tone for a game this is both child-friendly and one that will kick your butt repeatedly, and while few tracks combine these themes, you'll have tracks do a pretty good job of using either one to give off a relaxing vibe or one that captures the tension well. However there are some true stinkers here as well, like Village Theme 1, not to be mistaken with Village Theme 2.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 7/10
This game has good looking graphics thanks to its use of a wide color palette and attention to detail in the scrolling backgrounds. One interesting thing the game does in its villages is a visual transition effect when you enter a house, which makes the inside of the house become visible.
The sprite work, enemy design and animation here is not great, but the devs created a cozy and inviting world here, at least graphically, though it kinda starts falling apart a bitonce you hit some rough patches when it comes to hard enemies/bosses or not knowing where to go.
ATMOSPHERE | 5/10
Welcome to monster world, a world called after monsters that is in turmoil as it gets invaded by monsters. The game uses all the tropes you'd expect from a platformer of the early 90s, so unless this was one of the few games you played over and over at the time, you will notice that it doesn't offer anything new and doesn't really pull you in like plenty of other games manage to do. The world that is created here in its basic form, thanks to its soundtrack and graphical presentation, is inviting overall though, however you'll be stuck at very hard bosses and puzzles multiple times, so more likely than not it's only inviting until a certain point, where you likely will find yourself stuck, especially if you were a kid in the 90s playing this.
CONTENT | 6/10
Enough content here for an Action Adventure like this. You got many boss fights, many different enemy types, different types of equipment, plenty of puzzles and hidden stuff too boot. Not all of this is good content, but you'll be busy for a good 10 hours if you decide to play it to the end.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 4/10
Most of the time, where you need to go is straightforward. Then there are times where you will keep running around in circles, unless you figure out that you need to go to X first or press Y, which unlocks a new path. That sort of environmental puzzle is pretty enjoyable. But most of the time when things aren't straightforward, you're meant to go to some place that is only described very imprecisely, and it's a lot of time away and makes it very easy to get lost with no positive impact on fun factor or satisfaction from figuring out the way. Add to that that if you die on your way there, you're sent back all the way to the last inn you saved at, and you can see where you'd get easily frustrated.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 2/10
Nothing new on offer here, it's a mix of features and a focus on themes and a theme for its world that you have seen in a lot of different games before. There isn't even a specific thing this game tries to focus on more than on other areas, the game is meh to alright in every area, which makes for a meh game overall. It's got average world building, basic gameplay, convoluted level design, a middle-of-the-pack soundtrack, frustrating boss fights, slow pace and a boring set of one-dimensional characters. I'm sure the series has done better than this, but this game isn't doing anything above-average unfortunately.
REPLAYABILITY | 2/5
You can look for some more of those hidden equipment or health items in a second playthrough, but there is no other motivation given to play through it twice.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL | 50/100
You know, I'll take a game that is below-average in most aspects of a video game, if it does a specific thing really well. But Wonder Boy in Monster World doesn't really rate better than "average" in anything, as it's a game that takes many features of better games, puts them together and ends up being a worse product. So it's a skip for me, there are plenty of better retro platformers / action adventures to play from this time period, though it's definitely not a 'terrible game'.
(This is the 53rd game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
Following 1990's 'Gargoyle's Quest', the next release in the 'Ghosts 'n Goblins' series is Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, the third main entry after the 1985 and 1988 Arcade games. Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, developed and published by Capcom, is the first among these three to not be released for the arcade at all, instead focusing all efforts on a SNES release on October 4th, 1991 in Japan initially.
As the challenge started in 1990, I didn't play the other two games in the series, but I didn't have to to have heard of 1985's 'Ghosts 'n Goblins', which is infamous for being one of the hardest games of all time. Just by looking at gameplay for that game, I can tell you that 'Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts' for the SNES is a much easier game, though by no means easy.
Regarding the difficulty, there is a pretty noticeable difference in the NA and Europe versions. The European version is much simpler due to fewer enemies on screen, fewer of the harder enemies and, from what I can tell, less hits needed to take them out. Apart from the lower difficulty, this helps combat the slowdown effect that is more common in the USA version. A slowdown, for those who don't know, is literally that, the game slowing down. This happens when there are many sprites and/or special effects on-screen at the same time as, in this case for the SNES, it pushes the console to its limits. In the European version, I've experienced slowdown only once, and that was very brief. So if you want to play the game and are looking for an easier time, go with the European version.
Accessibility: I might lead off with this one from here on out for all games that have any sort of accessibility options, as those are still not common at all in 1991. For this game, as it is not originally designed for the Arcade I assume, there are some pretty nice options to make the experience even easier / more bearable for yourself. First, there are four difficulty levels, from beginner to professional. Higher difficulties increase enemy amount, boss health, how many money bags you need to collect to gain additional continues and a few other things I haven't noticed. In addition, you can choose the amount of lives you have from 1 to 9. Add to both of these that there is a checkpoint system and all this definitely makes the game much easier than the vanilla experience.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 2/10
Once again, you are knight Arthur. The setting for this one is described in the manual only. It's titled 'A Knight's Quest'.
"All hail, dauntless knight Arthur! Years ago you quelled the terrifying phantoms of the Ghoul Realm [...] and rescued Princess Guinevere. But now the kingdom is shrouded under an eerie spell. Sardius, the Emperor of Evil, has snatched Princess Guinevere [...]"
It's your typical old-school platformer sequel storyline set-up. Same things happened again, you must save everyone again. It's fine, you didn't play a game like this for the story back then.
In-game, the opening has Arthur and Guinevere in arms in her castle, as someone approaches through the large window behind them. It's Sardius, who kidnaps Princess Guinevere and flies off. Now you must go through 8 levels to defeat Sardius and get the Princess back. But there is a catch. Like is typical for this series, you don't go through the levels just once to win. Once you go through them for the first time, the Princess tells you that she was wearing a powerful bracelet. That bracelet was the reason she was kidnapped and using it is the only way you defeat Sardius. Luckily, she dropped it whilst kidnapped, so you gotta go through all levels and find it. That's the only dialogue in the game, so you're really not playing it for the story, but the game gets a bonus point for having continuity with its main character and, albeit just a tiny bit, for adding to its lore.
GAMEPLAY | 12/20
Let's compare some of this to 1985's 'Ghosts n' Goblins' here to show you where this game changed and, usually, improved.
You control knight Arthur in a 2D platformer where you kill enemies with some sort of a projectile whilst jumping from platform to platform to avoid falling to your demise. There are 8 total levels and a boss at the end of each level. Apart from throwing your projectiles (lance, dagger, crossbow, scythe, torch, axe, tri-blade - yes, these all act as projectiles here), you can double jump and crouch, which I don't think you could do in the NES title.
You have two hit points, which is unchanged from the original, so get hit twice and you die. You either are sent back to the start or, if you've made it far enough, start at a check-point. Each level has a 5 minute time limit, something I never had an issue with. You either die or make it in time.
Many enemies are the same from the NES title, and act the same. Most infamously, there is the "Red Arremer Ace", the red devil-like creature that constantly avoids your hits and swoops down on you out of nowhere. This thing is just as annoying here as in the NES game, because the worst part is, if you don't kill it, it will follow you until you do. Plus, depending on the weapon you got - and plenty of them suck - it will take multiple hits to die, but you're likely going to get hit at least once before you get it down, and often enough twice, which, again, means you die. Horrible little creature.
Gameplay on the easier difficulty levels is mostly controlling well, but there are some issues you will have to live with no matter how many enemies are on screen. For example, jumps can be very hard to control sometimes, a frustration that is exacerbated by the fact that platforms you need to jump on are very small sometimes. Plus, you need to choose the direction you want to jump in while you press jump. No changing direction mid-air, so you can imagine how frustrating that is. On top of that, there are ladders you can climb here. For some reason, you need to hold 'Up' while climbing for much longer than the ladder appears to be long, as your character is stuck in an animation at the top of the ladder for a good second before he stands upright. This second is usually vital as some sort of enemy or obstacle is often placed near the top of ladders. And if you are on top of a ladder and just want to crouch, to for example break open a chest next to it, too bad, your character will start climbing down the ladder instead.
Boss fights in this one, for the most part, are surprisingly easy. Especially if you get the right weapons into the boss fight, you can make a lot of damage quickly.
There are some unique environmental challenges to each level, which I enjoyed. In the first, you need to stand on top of the right platforms while a wave forms, otherwise it will take you out. In another, an avalanche approaches and can throw you to the start of the area, so you need to climb ladders or stand on a platform above that the avalanche can't reach to avoid that. There are some other things like that, which adds to the variety in gameplay, which otherwise isn't all too varied but mostly enjoyable.
The end game condition being that you have to find a bracelet does tank the overall fun factor however, because to get it, you need to open chest after chest without getting hit once until you can upgrade to the golden armor, at which point one of the next chests will reveal the bracelet. Get hit once and you lose your armor and need to keep opening chest after chest once again, because chest #1 gives you iron armor, then a random number of chests later you'll find emerald armor and after another random number of chests later you'll find the gold armor, so this takes a while.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 7/10
No voice acting. The sound design is fairly average, though with a few sound effects that are odd picks. For example, destroying stone statues gives off the sound of glass breaking. The soundtrack overall is quite fitting with the overall atmosphere that is present here, with some spooky tracks to enhance the immersion. Wouldn't place the OST among the greats, but fits the game well.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10
Compared to the NES game, this is a great jump in graphical quality in pretty much every aspect. Not a surprise given the jump to the SNES, but this definitely gives off sequel vibes just based on that. The devs did a great job in the enemy design and put plenty of effort in animations to make the game feel much more lively. A nice touch is that your health is indicated by what you're wearing. Wearing armor means you can get hit once without dying.
The first 5 levels have a pretty unique design and weather conditions. Stage 6 to 8 all play in Sardius castle and look similar.
ATMOSPHERE | 7/10
A spooky atmosphere is present throughout. Though the fact that you walk around in your underwear when one hit away from death is kind of an odd pick as it works contra to the atmosphere the game is going for otherwise.
CONTENT | 6/10
The game is not overly long, and most of the duration comes from the trial and error due to the difficulty. Apart from that, there is a slightly average amount of content here for a platformer, with more weapons than usual, more enemy variety than usual and different types of environmental challenges.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 5/10
Of the eight levels in this game, the final level is just the boss fight with Sardius, the two preceding ones are relatively similar (and one is very short) and then you have five that are unique in design. The mission design for these is pretty basic. Go through a level, defeat the boss at the end to move forward. The time limit present is not that relevant and I never had any issues with it. Having to go through the same levels with a slight increase in difficulty again after going through them once already is something I personally didn't necessarily enjoy, but your experience might vary there.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 4/10
It's pretty much the same game compared to the other ones. The most innovative part about this game is the fact that it was made much more accessible to players of lower skill.
REPLAYABILITY | 3/5
Apart from trying to beat your high score and trying to win with higher lives selected, you can also try to win the game on higher difficulty levels.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times. You'll experience a bit of slowdown, if you play the US version, so I'd recommend the European one.
OVERALL | 59/100
A very skippable game. It doesn't take advantage of the SNES at all from a graphical and technical standpoint, it's a much worse version than the one for the Arcades, it's in general a rather basic platformer, very repetitive and lacks features. Not the worst game of the year, but a Top 5 contender.
Following 1990's 'Gargoyle's Quest', the next release in the 'Ghosts 'n Goblins' series is Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, the third main entry after the 1985 and 1988 Arcade games. Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, developed and published by Capcom, is the first among these three to not be released for the arcade at all, instead focusing all efforts on a SNES release on October 4th, 1991 in Japan initially.
As the challenge started in 1990, I didn't play the other two games in the series, but I didn't have to to have heard of 1985's 'Ghosts 'n Goblins', which is infamous for being one of the hardest games of all time. Just by looking at gameplay for that game, I can tell you that 'Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts' for the SNES is a much easier game, though by no means easy.
Regarding the difficulty, there is a pretty noticeable difference in the NA and Europe versions. The European version is much simpler due to fewer enemies on screen, fewer of the harder enemies and, from what I can tell, less hits needed to take them out. Apart from the lower difficulty, this helps combat the slowdown effect that is more common in the USA version. A slowdown, for those who don't know, is literally that, the game slowing down. This happens when there are many sprites and/or special effects on-screen at the same time as, in this case for the SNES, it pushes the console to its limits. In the European version, I've experienced slowdown only once, and that was very brief. So if you want to play the game and are looking for an easier time, go with the European version.
Accessibility: I might lead off with this one from here on out for all games that have any sort of accessibility options, as those are still not common at all in 1991. For this game, as it is not originally designed for the Arcade I assume, there are some pretty nice options to make the experience even easier / more bearable for yourself. First, there are four difficulty levels, from beginner to professional. Higher difficulties increase enemy amount, boss health, how many money bags you need to collect to gain additional continues and a few other things I haven't noticed. In addition, you can choose the amount of lives you have from 1 to 9. Add to both of these that there is a checkpoint system and all this definitely makes the game much easier than the vanilla experience.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 2/10
Once again, you are knight Arthur. The setting for this one is described in the manual only. It's titled 'A Knight's Quest'.
"All hail, dauntless knight Arthur! Years ago you quelled the terrifying phantoms of the Ghoul Realm [...] and rescued Princess Guinevere. But now the kingdom is shrouded under an eerie spell. Sardius, the Emperor of Evil, has snatched Princess Guinevere [...]"
It's your typical old-school platformer sequel storyline set-up. Same things happened again, you must save everyone again. It's fine, you didn't play a game like this for the story back then.
In-game, the opening has Arthur and Guinevere in arms in her castle, as someone approaches through the large window behind them. It's Sardius, who kidnaps Princess Guinevere and flies off. Now you must go through 8 levels to defeat Sardius and get the Princess back. But there is a catch. Like is typical for this series, you don't go through the levels just once to win. Once you go through them for the first time, the Princess tells you that she was wearing a powerful bracelet. That bracelet was the reason she was kidnapped and using it is the only way you defeat Sardius. Luckily, she dropped it whilst kidnapped, so you gotta go through all levels and find it. That's the only dialogue in the game, so you're really not playing it for the story, but the game gets a bonus point for having continuity with its main character and, albeit just a tiny bit, for adding to its lore.
GAMEPLAY | 12/20
Let's compare some of this to 1985's 'Ghosts n' Goblins' here to show you where this game changed and, usually, improved.
You control knight Arthur in a 2D platformer where you kill enemies with some sort of a projectile whilst jumping from platform to platform to avoid falling to your demise. There are 8 total levels and a boss at the end of each level. Apart from throwing your projectiles (lance, dagger, crossbow, scythe, torch, axe, tri-blade - yes, these all act as projectiles here), you can double jump and crouch, which I don't think you could do in the NES title.
You have two hit points, which is unchanged from the original, so get hit twice and you die. You either are sent back to the start or, if you've made it far enough, start at a check-point. Each level has a 5 minute time limit, something I never had an issue with. You either die or make it in time.
Many enemies are the same from the NES title, and act the same. Most infamously, there is the "Red Arremer Ace", the red devil-like creature that constantly avoids your hits and swoops down on you out of nowhere. This thing is just as annoying here as in the NES game, because the worst part is, if you don't kill it, it will follow you until you do. Plus, depending on the weapon you got - and plenty of them suck - it will take multiple hits to die, but you're likely going to get hit at least once before you get it down, and often enough twice, which, again, means you die. Horrible little creature.
Gameplay on the easier difficulty levels is mostly controlling well, but there are some issues you will have to live with no matter how many enemies are on screen. For example, jumps can be very hard to control sometimes, a frustration that is exacerbated by the fact that platforms you need to jump on are very small sometimes. Plus, you need to choose the direction you want to jump in while you press jump. No changing direction mid-air, so you can imagine how frustrating that is. On top of that, there are ladders you can climb here. For some reason, you need to hold 'Up' while climbing for much longer than the ladder appears to be long, as your character is stuck in an animation at the top of the ladder for a good second before he stands upright. This second is usually vital as some sort of enemy or obstacle is often placed near the top of ladders. And if you are on top of a ladder and just want to crouch, to for example break open a chest next to it, too bad, your character will start climbing down the ladder instead.
Boss fights in this one, for the most part, are surprisingly easy. Especially if you get the right weapons into the boss fight, you can make a lot of damage quickly.
There are some unique environmental challenges to each level, which I enjoyed. In the first, you need to stand on top of the right platforms while a wave forms, otherwise it will take you out. In another, an avalanche approaches and can throw you to the start of the area, so you need to climb ladders or stand on a platform above that the avalanche can't reach to avoid that. There are some other things like that, which adds to the variety in gameplay, which otherwise isn't all too varied but mostly enjoyable.
The end game condition being that you have to find a bracelet does tank the overall fun factor however, because to get it, you need to open chest after chest without getting hit once until you can upgrade to the golden armor, at which point one of the next chests will reveal the bracelet. Get hit once and you lose your armor and need to keep opening chest after chest once again, because chest #1 gives you iron armor, then a random number of chests later you'll find emerald armor and after another random number of chests later you'll find the gold armor, so this takes a while.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 7/10
No voice acting. The sound design is fairly average, though with a few sound effects that are odd picks. For example, destroying stone statues gives off the sound of glass breaking. The soundtrack overall is quite fitting with the overall atmosphere that is present here, with some spooky tracks to enhance the immersion. Wouldn't place the OST among the greats, but fits the game well.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10
Compared to the NES game, this is a great jump in graphical quality in pretty much every aspect. Not a surprise given the jump to the SNES, but this definitely gives off sequel vibes just based on that. The devs did a great job in the enemy design and put plenty of effort in animations to make the game feel much more lively. A nice touch is that your health is indicated by what you're wearing. Wearing armor means you can get hit once without dying.
The first 5 levels have a pretty unique design and weather conditions. Stage 6 to 8 all play in Sardius castle and look similar.
ATMOSPHERE | 7/10
A spooky atmosphere is present throughout. Though the fact that you walk around in your underwear when one hit away from death is kind of an odd pick as it works contra to the atmosphere the game is going for otherwise.
CONTENT | 6/10
The game is not overly long, and most of the duration comes from the trial and error due to the difficulty. Apart from that, there is a slightly average amount of content here for a platformer, with more weapons than usual, more enemy variety than usual and different types of environmental challenges.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 5/10
Of the eight levels in this game, the final level is just the boss fight with Sardius, the two preceding ones are relatively similar (and one is very short) and then you have five that are unique in design. The mission design for these is pretty basic. Go through a level, defeat the boss at the end to move forward. The time limit present is not that relevant and I never had any issues with it. Having to go through the same levels with a slight increase in difficulty again after going through them once already is something I personally didn't necessarily enjoy, but your experience might vary there.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 4/10
It's pretty much the same game compared to the other ones. The most innovative part about this game is the fact that it was made much more accessible to players of lower skill.
REPLAYABILITY | 3/5
Apart from trying to beat your high score and trying to win with higher lives selected, you can also try to win the game on higher difficulty levels.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times. You'll experience a bit of slowdown, if you play the US version, so I'd recommend the European one.
OVERALL | 59/100
A very skippable game. It doesn't take advantage of the SNES at all from a graphical and technical standpoint, it's a much worse version than the one for the Arcades, it's in general a rather basic platformer, very repetitive and lacks features. Not the worst game of the year, but a Top 5 contender.
(This is the 52nd game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
This is going to be a short review similarly to what I did for 1990's Wing Commander. The truth is, there are some genres and games that are not going to be my cup of tea. This means that my review for these games couldn't do them justice. The right person will absolutely love Wing Commander, and the right person will absolutely love Civilization I, despite its lack of QoL and overall features compared to newer entries. So in terms of this challenge, I don't think it would be fair for me to review these games with my review score.
That said, I can recognize an objectively well-made game when I see one, and Civilization definitely belongs in that category. I can't say I didn't have any fun with the game either, I definitely did in my 5 hours it. However, the game (and its manual) is so packed with features that take a while to get a grasp of in nature, and also get more difficult to figure out due to the old-school UI. Once you get somewhat of graps of the basics though, the game becomes kind of routine, where you use the cities you build to create settlers, militia, phalanx and more, where you use these characters to explore the world, where you meet other races and either go to war or make peace, and where you overall try to gain world domination before you lose.
The gameplay loop was definitely fun. If you're intro strategy games and you want to go into the Civilization series from the start, I'm sure you'll find a lot of enjoyment out of this. And even if I will likely not include most strategy games to my challenge playlist for the coming years, Civilization will likely become a mainstay.
This is going to be a short review similarly to what I did for 1990's Wing Commander. The truth is, there are some genres and games that are not going to be my cup of tea. This means that my review for these games couldn't do them justice. The right person will absolutely love Wing Commander, and the right person will absolutely love Civilization I, despite its lack of QoL and overall features compared to newer entries. So in terms of this challenge, I don't think it would be fair for me to review these games with my review score.
That said, I can recognize an objectively well-made game when I see one, and Civilization definitely belongs in that category. I can't say I didn't have any fun with the game either, I definitely did in my 5 hours it. However, the game (and its manual) is so packed with features that take a while to get a grasp of in nature, and also get more difficult to figure out due to the old-school UI. Once you get somewhat of graps of the basics though, the game becomes kind of routine, where you use the cities you build to create settlers, militia, phalanx and more, where you use these characters to explore the world, where you meet other races and either go to war or make peace, and where you overall try to gain world domination before you lose.
The gameplay loop was definitely fun. If you're intro strategy games and you want to go into the Civilization series from the start, I'm sure you'll find a lot of enjoyment out of this. And even if I will likely not include most strategy games to my challenge playlist for the coming years, Civilization will likely become a mainstay.
1991
(This is the 51st game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
Caveman Ninja, Joe & Mac, Caveman Ninja: Joe & Mac, whatever you want to call it, is a platformer that released some time in 1991 for the SNES, MS-DOS, and, in 1994, for the Sega Genesis. Developed and published by Data East (known for Windjammers), this platformer is the worst 'well-known' SNES game I've played to date, not only because it is a rather boring platformer, but because the Arcade version is just so much better for some reason. The Arcade version had better framerate, better sound, better graphical presentation, more diverse and interesting levels, more dynamic boss fights and just in general looks way more fun. As I don't review Arcade games for this challenge though, I was left with the uninspired and truly lazy SNES release that Data East dropped onto the gaming market.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 2/10
You play Joe, a caveman who has to fight Neanderthal 'nerds' who kidnapped the cavewomen. The prehistoric setting is described as 'days when "rock and roll" was just rock and "fast food" was dinner you couldn't catch.', which I thought was asuming. The main goal here is to go through each level, defeat the boss and rescue a cavewoman, who then run on-screen and give Joe a kiss on the cheek. Joe drops a peace sign and runs off to the next level. It's truly an unga-bunga game in all facets. At the end of the game, the credits roll as Joe & Mac just stand there motionless, smiling. I can only imagine Joe asking Mac where the hell he was while Joe himself was fighting for his life. In truth, this can be played with a buddy, who would control Mac.
GAMEPLAY | 7/20
This is an uninspired as platformers from the early 90s get without being a disaster on a technical level as well. You have access to five weapons, from throwing bones to boomerangs to fire to a stone wheel. They vary in speed that you can throw them and the power behind them. Most of the time, the weaker weapons are useless however. When you hit an enemy enough, they scream in pain and then become invincible for a few seconds and usually hit you with some sort of, let's call it 'super attack'. You wait, hit them again once they can be hit again and repeat this until the health bar depletes. Thing is, for some of the later bosses, if I throw the bones at them, the "screaming" animation plays but the boss doesn't actually lose one health point because the weapon is too weak. Alas, I still have to deal with the invincibility for a few seconds and defend their 'super attack'. But if I were to just use the stone wheel or fire, the bosses always lose one health point when they are hit. So there is no point in using the weaker weapons.
Before you meet the bosses, you do some platforming as you try to avoid those Neanderthal 'nerds', dinosaurs and rocks. It rarely takes you longer than a couple minutes to reach the boss area because all levels here are incredibly short. You could just run through levels without attacking a single enemy and overall they appear mostly pointless.
You have one ability in this game and that is to point upwards while jumping, which allows you to jump further.
In general, there appears to be a shocking lack of f*cks given for the SNES port. Apart from what I just mentioned, the devs just start re-using bosses in the second half of the game (they don't really become more difficult either). Apart from that one ability, if you can call that an ability, you can only run forward and throw your weapons. That's pretty boring. A level or two in and you've already seen it all.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 6/10
No voice acting. The OST is focused on two themes. Stone age and positive vibes. Most of the tracks will sound similar to many other games that try to go for the positive vibes theme, which isn't a bad thing but means the soundtrack for this game is pretty average with its use of the xylophone, flute and bongos that you'll instantly be familiar with. Out of all, I'd say the 'Stone Age Skirmish' boss music is the one that will sound most recognizable should I listen to the OST again in the future.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 5/10
It's not that good looking compared to the other SNES games that were available at this time. There is a nice variety of colors here and there, the general design of the levels are somewhat varied, but where this game again fails is in attention to detail. The sprite work is meh, the design of the water for example is just a jagged lines and blue color and no animation to it and speaking of animations, I've seen plenty of NES games with much, much better animation quality and depth than in this game.
ATMOSPHERE | 6/10
This is a stone age themed video game alright.
CONTENT | 4/10
Apart from the very short levels and the lack of variety in most aspects of this game, there are a few secret levels you can unlock by figuring out a way to collect equally secret keys that unlock these secret levels. You catch my drift? So say, in the first level for example, where you need to crack open an egg which releases a flying dinosaur that flies around for a bit, and if you stand still, picks you up and flies you off to one of these secret levels. Those are nice, but not that easy to find and apart from them, there isn't anything else to get you hooked.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 3/10
I mentioned that levels were short. But only until you play the game will you notice how short some levels are. There is one level in particular where you simply need to jump up a few times. In 10-15 seconds, you already reach the boss. What? There are some that also take a minute or less, and none take longer than 3-5 minutes, which would be an average level length for other platformers. It doesn't help that bosses are re-used in the second half, and multiple times as well.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 1/10
Literally nothing about this game is innovative in the slightest. This goes double for the SNES version. I'd even say it is worthy of a -1, because it sell the capabilities of the SNES well short. But in its form, all it does is use a bunch of elements from other platformers in a worse way and add its stone age theme to it.
REPLAYABILITY | 2/5
Hard to say that this game is worth the initial full playthrough. But if you do enjoy it, your main motivation to play again will be to figure out how to unlock those secret levels and to beat your high score.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL | 41/100
A very skippable game. It doesn't take advantage of the SNES at all from a graphical and technical standpoint, it's a much worse version than the one for the Arcades, it's in general a rather basic platformer, very repetitive and lacks features. Not the worst game of the year, but a Top 5 contender.
Caveman Ninja, Joe & Mac, Caveman Ninja: Joe & Mac, whatever you want to call it, is a platformer that released some time in 1991 for the SNES, MS-DOS, and, in 1994, for the Sega Genesis. Developed and published by Data East (known for Windjammers), this platformer is the worst 'well-known' SNES game I've played to date, not only because it is a rather boring platformer, but because the Arcade version is just so much better for some reason. The Arcade version had better framerate, better sound, better graphical presentation, more diverse and interesting levels, more dynamic boss fights and just in general looks way more fun. As I don't review Arcade games for this challenge though, I was left with the uninspired and truly lazy SNES release that Data East dropped onto the gaming market.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 2/10
You play Joe, a caveman who has to fight Neanderthal 'nerds' who kidnapped the cavewomen. The prehistoric setting is described as 'days when "rock and roll" was just rock and "fast food" was dinner you couldn't catch.', which I thought was asuming. The main goal here is to go through each level, defeat the boss and rescue a cavewoman, who then run on-screen and give Joe a kiss on the cheek. Joe drops a peace sign and runs off to the next level. It's truly an unga-bunga game in all facets. At the end of the game, the credits roll as Joe & Mac just stand there motionless, smiling. I can only imagine Joe asking Mac where the hell he was while Joe himself was fighting for his life. In truth, this can be played with a buddy, who would control Mac.
GAMEPLAY | 7/20
This is an uninspired as platformers from the early 90s get without being a disaster on a technical level as well. You have access to five weapons, from throwing bones to boomerangs to fire to a stone wheel. They vary in speed that you can throw them and the power behind them. Most of the time, the weaker weapons are useless however. When you hit an enemy enough, they scream in pain and then become invincible for a few seconds and usually hit you with some sort of, let's call it 'super attack'. You wait, hit them again once they can be hit again and repeat this until the health bar depletes. Thing is, for some of the later bosses, if I throw the bones at them, the "screaming" animation plays but the boss doesn't actually lose one health point because the weapon is too weak. Alas, I still have to deal with the invincibility for a few seconds and defend their 'super attack'. But if I were to just use the stone wheel or fire, the bosses always lose one health point when they are hit. So there is no point in using the weaker weapons.
Before you meet the bosses, you do some platforming as you try to avoid those Neanderthal 'nerds', dinosaurs and rocks. It rarely takes you longer than a couple minutes to reach the boss area because all levels here are incredibly short. You could just run through levels without attacking a single enemy and overall they appear mostly pointless.
You have one ability in this game and that is to point upwards while jumping, which allows you to jump further.
In general, there appears to be a shocking lack of f*cks given for the SNES port. Apart from what I just mentioned, the devs just start re-using bosses in the second half of the game (they don't really become more difficult either). Apart from that one ability, if you can call that an ability, you can only run forward and throw your weapons. That's pretty boring. A level or two in and you've already seen it all.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 6/10
No voice acting. The OST is focused on two themes. Stone age and positive vibes. Most of the tracks will sound similar to many other games that try to go for the positive vibes theme, which isn't a bad thing but means the soundtrack for this game is pretty average with its use of the xylophone, flute and bongos that you'll instantly be familiar with. Out of all, I'd say the 'Stone Age Skirmish' boss music is the one that will sound most recognizable should I listen to the OST again in the future.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 5/10
It's not that good looking compared to the other SNES games that were available at this time. There is a nice variety of colors here and there, the general design of the levels are somewhat varied, but where this game again fails is in attention to detail. The sprite work is meh, the design of the water for example is just a jagged lines and blue color and no animation to it and speaking of animations, I've seen plenty of NES games with much, much better animation quality and depth than in this game.
ATMOSPHERE | 6/10
This is a stone age themed video game alright.
CONTENT | 4/10
Apart from the very short levels and the lack of variety in most aspects of this game, there are a few secret levels you can unlock by figuring out a way to collect equally secret keys that unlock these secret levels. You catch my drift? So say, in the first level for example, where you need to crack open an egg which releases a flying dinosaur that flies around for a bit, and if you stand still, picks you up and flies you off to one of these secret levels. Those are nice, but not that easy to find and apart from them, there isn't anything else to get you hooked.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 3/10
I mentioned that levels were short. But only until you play the game will you notice how short some levels are. There is one level in particular where you simply need to jump up a few times. In 10-15 seconds, you already reach the boss. What? There are some that also take a minute or less, and none take longer than 3-5 minutes, which would be an average level length for other platformers. It doesn't help that bosses are re-used in the second half, and multiple times as well.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 1/10
Literally nothing about this game is innovative in the slightest. This goes double for the SNES version. I'd even say it is worthy of a -1, because it sell the capabilities of the SNES well short. But in its form, all it does is use a bunch of elements from other platformers in a worse way and add its stone age theme to it.
REPLAYABILITY | 2/5
Hard to say that this game is worth the initial full playthrough. But if you do enjoy it, your main motivation to play again will be to figure out how to unlock those secret levels and to beat your high score.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL | 41/100
A very skippable game. It doesn't take advantage of the SNES at all from a graphical and technical standpoint, it's a much worse version than the one for the Arcades, it's in general a rather basic platformer, very repetitive and lacks features. Not the worst game of the year, but a Top 5 contender.
1991
(This is the 50th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
Game #50. That's a nice milestone hit. We get there with Another World, a short cinematic platformer / adventure title developed by Delphine Software, who are also known for the game 'Flashback' and 'Shaq Fu'. This game is a unique one, so a good choice for #50, as it mixes up actual cinematics with gameplay, something that wouldn't become the norm until much later down the line as we all know. The game was initially developed and released for the Amiga in November 1991 but later came out for the SNES and Sega Genesis as well, among many other platforms.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 6/10
You play Lester Knight Chaykin, a physicist who at the start of the game arrives in his laboratory, rides an elevator down to his main office and starts an experiment. I couldn't figure out what it was about, but wikipedia describes it as 'attempting to reconstruct what happened when the universe was born'. During his experiment, the facility and him are hit by a lightning strike, which teleports Lester to an alien planet. Here, he has to evade monsters for a while until he is taken hostage by the locals. He escapes and helps free an alien creature that was captured with him called "Buddy", who henceforth assists Lester in his escape from this planet.
The manual itself only has a short diary entry from around the mid-way point of the game, where the main character talks about the friend he has found in the alien planet and how the energy weapon works that an enemy has dropped earlier.
The cinematics are mixed in between gameplay sessions of a game that will take you roughly an hour or two, and only 20 minutes if you know exactly what to do, which isn't too hard on a second attempt.
The plot itself is basic, but the inclusion of a friendly, strange creature is the kind of story element that will be used many more times in the future of gaming and that will pull at the heartstrings of many gamers. I doubt this was the first platformer to use this, but 'Buddy' definitely played a noteable and pretty useful role here.
GAMEPLAY | 11/20
This is a platformer / adventure, and your goal is to do platforming, solve some light puzzles, shoot a few bad guys and do so without dying a lot, as the checkpoint system can get pretty frustrating. If there is a particular part you are stuck at, it's not going to be unusual for you to go for a couple minutes of the previous parts over and over again. The most popular comparison I could give here would be the bonfire system in Souls games. Die to a boss and you respawn minutes of running away. Die here to anything and the same thing is true pretty much.
Sometimes, it's not quite clear where you are to go next, so you kind of end up shooting at everything and see if it opens up a path forward for example.
But other than, it's OK. The 'Buddy' character actually is quite useful in that he opens up holes for you to climb in and in general assist you through various means, which was pretty cool to see friendly AI this 'advanced' in 1991.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 9/10
No voice acting. The sound design has no business being this crisp and atmospheric. The echo of your steps when you run around in caves, the sound of the wind howling when you're outside, the sound of the water while you're swimming in it, the sound that translates the power behind those shots you take with your energy weapon really well and so much more is so well done.
The soundtrack is incredibly tense and perfect for the type of atmosphere this game is going for. Most of the game is played in silence and only accompanied by the various ambient sounds, but when the soundtrack kicks in, it only adds to the action.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10
Mostly a good looking game but partly a mixed bag, most notably in its design of the backgrounds in some areas, which look rather uninspired, and characters. On the other hand, you have great detail in particle effects, the cinematics and some of the backgrounds, especially when you first enter this alien planet. But overall, it's a good looking game compared to its 1991 peers.
ATMOSPHERE | 9/10
Very atmospheric, from start to finish. You start the game wondering what this odd looking dude is out to do late at night in his labratory. You continue wondering as Lester is teleported to an alien planet, with weirder and weirder looking creatures and natives. You build an unlikely relationship with this friendly stranger that you rescue, you try to make your escape through dark caves, squeeze your way through vents, use your energy weapon to shoot your path forward and do so while the soundtrack amplifies the tension in the right moments. It's really well done.
CONTENT | 4/10
The big focus on cinematics means there is less space left to make this a lengthy game, or at least so I'd assume. So you're left with good content here for the most part, but not a lot of it at all.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 6/10
The design, apart from the inclusion of cinematics, is pretty basic. You got the old-school issues with an unfair checkpoint system rearing its ugly head from time to time, but other than that, there isn't anything notable to add here.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 8/10
Very unique in the way it tells its own story using, for the time, sophisticated cinematics. If we're fair, it's questionable whether this type of game has a higher fun factor than many of the top-end platformers that would release in the early 90s, as the game has to balance the high quality cinematics with much less content overall, but the concept in itself is promising and brings the medium forward in its attempt to blend story and gameplay together.
REPLAYABILITY | 1/5
Once you've beaten it, there is no extra incentive given to replay it.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL | 67/100
Solid graphics, great atmosphere and sound, well done cinematics that were unusual for its time. Definitely worth a try.
Game #50. That's a nice milestone hit. We get there with Another World, a short cinematic platformer / adventure title developed by Delphine Software, who are also known for the game 'Flashback' and 'Shaq Fu'. This game is a unique one, so a good choice for #50, as it mixes up actual cinematics with gameplay, something that wouldn't become the norm until much later down the line as we all know. The game was initially developed and released for the Amiga in November 1991 but later came out for the SNES and Sega Genesis as well, among many other platforms.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 6/10
You play Lester Knight Chaykin, a physicist who at the start of the game arrives in his laboratory, rides an elevator down to his main office and starts an experiment. I couldn't figure out what it was about, but wikipedia describes it as 'attempting to reconstruct what happened when the universe was born'. During his experiment, the facility and him are hit by a lightning strike, which teleports Lester to an alien planet. Here, he has to evade monsters for a while until he is taken hostage by the locals. He escapes and helps free an alien creature that was captured with him called "Buddy", who henceforth assists Lester in his escape from this planet.
The manual itself only has a short diary entry from around the mid-way point of the game, where the main character talks about the friend he has found in the alien planet and how the energy weapon works that an enemy has dropped earlier.
The cinematics are mixed in between gameplay sessions of a game that will take you roughly an hour or two, and only 20 minutes if you know exactly what to do, which isn't too hard on a second attempt.
The plot itself is basic, but the inclusion of a friendly, strange creature is the kind of story element that will be used many more times in the future of gaming and that will pull at the heartstrings of many gamers. I doubt this was the first platformer to use this, but 'Buddy' definitely played a noteable and pretty useful role here.
GAMEPLAY | 11/20
This is a platformer / adventure, and your goal is to do platforming, solve some light puzzles, shoot a few bad guys and do so without dying a lot, as the checkpoint system can get pretty frustrating. If there is a particular part you are stuck at, it's not going to be unusual for you to go for a couple minutes of the previous parts over and over again. The most popular comparison I could give here would be the bonfire system in Souls games. Die to a boss and you respawn minutes of running away. Die here to anything and the same thing is true pretty much.
Sometimes, it's not quite clear where you are to go next, so you kind of end up shooting at everything and see if it opens up a path forward for example.
But other than, it's OK. The 'Buddy' character actually is quite useful in that he opens up holes for you to climb in and in general assist you through various means, which was pretty cool to see friendly AI this 'advanced' in 1991.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 9/10
No voice acting. The sound design has no business being this crisp and atmospheric. The echo of your steps when you run around in caves, the sound of the wind howling when you're outside, the sound of the water while you're swimming in it, the sound that translates the power behind those shots you take with your energy weapon really well and so much more is so well done.
The soundtrack is incredibly tense and perfect for the type of atmosphere this game is going for. Most of the game is played in silence and only accompanied by the various ambient sounds, but when the soundtrack kicks in, it only adds to the action.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10
Mostly a good looking game but partly a mixed bag, most notably in its design of the backgrounds in some areas, which look rather uninspired, and characters. On the other hand, you have great detail in particle effects, the cinematics and some of the backgrounds, especially when you first enter this alien planet. But overall, it's a good looking game compared to its 1991 peers.
ATMOSPHERE | 9/10
Very atmospheric, from start to finish. You start the game wondering what this odd looking dude is out to do late at night in his labratory. You continue wondering as Lester is teleported to an alien planet, with weirder and weirder looking creatures and natives. You build an unlikely relationship with this friendly stranger that you rescue, you try to make your escape through dark caves, squeeze your way through vents, use your energy weapon to shoot your path forward and do so while the soundtrack amplifies the tension in the right moments. It's really well done.
CONTENT | 4/10
The big focus on cinematics means there is less space left to make this a lengthy game, or at least so I'd assume. So you're left with good content here for the most part, but not a lot of it at all.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 6/10
The design, apart from the inclusion of cinematics, is pretty basic. You got the old-school issues with an unfair checkpoint system rearing its ugly head from time to time, but other than that, there isn't anything notable to add here.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 8/10
Very unique in the way it tells its own story using, for the time, sophisticated cinematics. If we're fair, it's questionable whether this type of game has a higher fun factor than many of the top-end platformers that would release in the early 90s, as the game has to balance the high quality cinematics with much less content overall, but the concept in itself is promising and brings the medium forward in its attempt to blend story and gameplay together.
REPLAYABILITY | 1/5
Once you've beaten it, there is no extra incentive given to replay it.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL | 67/100
Solid graphics, great atmosphere and sound, well done cinematics that were unusual for its time. Definitely worth a try.
1991
(This is the 49th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
Ugh, an EA game, I bet it's filled with microtransactions. Oh, right, we're in 1991. This game is called Road Rash, and is a racing game with some fighting elements. There is a spiritual successor for it called Road Redemption, which released in 2017.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 2/10
There actually is a set-up for this fictitious world in the manual. There once were two bitter rivals in Fang and Polygon. After Fang lost their final official race because Polygon tempered with Fang's bike beforehand, Fang challenged Polygon to an unofficial race, which started the cult behind 'Road Rash Races'. "Punching, kicking and clubbing and 150 miles per hour are the norm for Rashers".
In-game, you are greeted with messages by friends and foes before and sometimes after a race. Sometimes it's trash talk, sometimes it's a friendly hint and sometimes it's a police officer who tells you to not drive too fast, so he can catch you. After each level you beat, there is also a very short cutscene that plays where your character and, I presume, his girlfriend take their helmets off and enjoy the fresh air after winning all tracks in the previous level.
It's a bit more than the bare minimum, and I liked seeing those messages before races.
GAMEPLAY | 12/20
This got kind of addicting really quickly. Obviously I'm gonna move on as part of the challenge, but I'm sure I'll play this to chill out from time to time like I used to do for F-Zero.
You start with the standard bike and have 5 races available at the beginning. Your goal is to win each race against 15 or so competitors, which allows you to move up in levels and difficulty, until you reach the final race. After each race, you are compensated in $ based on your finish and can use it to upgrade to bikes that are faster and can be controlled better. Most of the time, progress is blocked because your bike simply won't be fast enough to win, so you'll need to farm money in races you know you'll lose to be able to afford a better bike. I can't say how much of a grind it is at later levels, but it was acceptable where I stopped, which was after I finished the second level.
The special feature of Road Rash is that during races, you can ram the bike of the other racers, punch/kick them and hit them with melee weapons. You have a meter for your bike and your character health. If your character health goes down to 0, you fall off your bike but it recovers over time. There are also cars on the road that drive in both directions, which you have to avoid. If you are hit, you usually fly far away from your bike and have to run all the way back to it to get back to driving, which takes a while. Cars can hit your bike after you already crashed and kick it even further away that way, which is a funny mechanic, but might get frustrating later down the line because after two crashes, you're pretty much not going to win. I didn't find any way to back out of a race other than a reset of the emulator. Finally, there is a police bike that drives around sometimes as well, and if you fall off your bike near the officer, he will bust you and fine you money.
I really like the idea of this, and it's recently gotten a spiritual successor in Road Redemption (2017), but at least for the first two levels, I never really saw much incentive to battle the bikers. You either don't catch up to the fastest bikes or you can blaze past them once you do, so there isn't a lot of time for when you could be in a confrontation with them. Plus, I never got a melee weapon up to this point and I'm not even sure how to attain one, so that was disappointing.
The racing was fun regardless. It's very simple, you have to try to stay on track in a vertically scrolling 2D track, avoid the cars and get past the other racers. Your bikes differ in speed and handling, though that is not indicated everywhere but in the description of the bikes as far as I could tell.
Road Rash got two sequels over the next years, which were both praised for the same fun factor that you got with the first, but also criticized for lack of innovation. For those reasons, I'm not going to try those, but Road Rash goes 3D in 1998, has a PlayStation release in 2000 and then one final release in 2009 on the EA Mobile site only (hello, modern EA) before it then started to sit dormant ever since.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 6/10
No voice acting. The sound design in this is actually not so good. There aren't many sound effects here to begin with, including when your opponents crash into cars or the sound of the engine of any car in general. The main sound you will hear is the tires screeching when you turn corners, and that sound doesn't even sound like how it sounds in reality or even close to it.
As far the OST, I think overall it's a plus. If you played this when you were younger and played these maps over and over again, it's a soundtrack that feels distinct enough to stick around with you for a while. The track I liked the most is probably the Pacific Coast one. All tracks have this element to them I can't really describe well, but if I had to make an attempt, I'd describe it as a low pitch bouncey sound, which definitely is a terrible description. But nevertheless, my point is that it didn't quite gell with me and it being the connecting theme in the OST, I can't say this would be among the great soundtracks of this year if I were to make a list. Unlike a game like F-Zero, the OST didn't have any really good tracks that I would gladly listen to outside of the game either.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 7/10
The game doesn't look bad, it doesn't look fantastic. You drive down a road that looks the same throughout for each map with forests and mountains visible in the horizon. You and your opponents look the same and are only distinguished by color. What I really like about the graphical presentation is the animations. The animations of the crash and how your bike and you fly into the air and down on your butt and how you rush back to your bike is pretty funnily presented here. In terms of graphical fidelity, your main issue here might be that you will have a hard time sometimes figuring out that you're approaching a car, as the low resolution from time to time makes them hard to see quickly enough.
ATMOSPHERE | 6/10
In terms of atmosphere, it hits best when you drive behind a group of bikers and see them drive into the trunk of the car in front of them and fly off their bikes as you leave them in the dust. Or when you are side-by-side with another biker and throw a punch or hit their bike with yours to drive them off course. That doesn't happen often enough though I thought.
CONTENT | 6/10
There are 5 levels with 5 races each and 8 total bikes you can unlock. It's a solid amount of content, nothing special here.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 7/10
Pretty basic but clean design here. You go through more and more difficult levels and continue to earn money to unlock faster and faster bikes. Effective, and I'd say you'll have a fun 10-15 hours or so trying to win all races.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 6/10
I like the concept of using illegal tactics during a race to gain an advantage. I just don't feel like it's fleshed out here and you rarely have a need to use these tactics. It would have also been more fun if we could have gone into a race having some sort of melee weapon pre selected, because I went through two levels without getting my hands on a single one.
REPLAYABILITY | 3/5
It's a racing game, so you'll have plenty of motivation to keep playing and trying to beat your previous high scores.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL | 60/100
It's an enjoyable racing game. If you're looking for a more modern experience though, I'd suggest checking out Road Redemption. Road Rash's main selling proposition, the fighting during the racing, is only a small part of the gameplay here and it quickly just turns into a normal racing game for the most part.
Ugh, an EA game, I bet it's filled with microtransactions. Oh, right, we're in 1991. This game is called Road Rash, and is a racing game with some fighting elements. There is a spiritual successor for it called Road Redemption, which released in 2017.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 2/10
There actually is a set-up for this fictitious world in the manual. There once were two bitter rivals in Fang and Polygon. After Fang lost their final official race because Polygon tempered with Fang's bike beforehand, Fang challenged Polygon to an unofficial race, which started the cult behind 'Road Rash Races'. "Punching, kicking and clubbing and 150 miles per hour are the norm for Rashers".
In-game, you are greeted with messages by friends and foes before and sometimes after a race. Sometimes it's trash talk, sometimes it's a friendly hint and sometimes it's a police officer who tells you to not drive too fast, so he can catch you. After each level you beat, there is also a very short cutscene that plays where your character and, I presume, his girlfriend take their helmets off and enjoy the fresh air after winning all tracks in the previous level.
It's a bit more than the bare minimum, and I liked seeing those messages before races.
GAMEPLAY | 12/20
This got kind of addicting really quickly. Obviously I'm gonna move on as part of the challenge, but I'm sure I'll play this to chill out from time to time like I used to do for F-Zero.
You start with the standard bike and have 5 races available at the beginning. Your goal is to win each race against 15 or so competitors, which allows you to move up in levels and difficulty, until you reach the final race. After each race, you are compensated in $ based on your finish and can use it to upgrade to bikes that are faster and can be controlled better. Most of the time, progress is blocked because your bike simply won't be fast enough to win, so you'll need to farm money in races you know you'll lose to be able to afford a better bike. I can't say how much of a grind it is at later levels, but it was acceptable where I stopped, which was after I finished the second level.
The special feature of Road Rash is that during races, you can ram the bike of the other racers, punch/kick them and hit them with melee weapons. You have a meter for your bike and your character health. If your character health goes down to 0, you fall off your bike but it recovers over time. There are also cars on the road that drive in both directions, which you have to avoid. If you are hit, you usually fly far away from your bike and have to run all the way back to it to get back to driving, which takes a while. Cars can hit your bike after you already crashed and kick it even further away that way, which is a funny mechanic, but might get frustrating later down the line because after two crashes, you're pretty much not going to win. I didn't find any way to back out of a race other than a reset of the emulator. Finally, there is a police bike that drives around sometimes as well, and if you fall off your bike near the officer, he will bust you and fine you money.
I really like the idea of this, and it's recently gotten a spiritual successor in Road Redemption (2017), but at least for the first two levels, I never really saw much incentive to battle the bikers. You either don't catch up to the fastest bikes or you can blaze past them once you do, so there isn't a lot of time for when you could be in a confrontation with them. Plus, I never got a melee weapon up to this point and I'm not even sure how to attain one, so that was disappointing.
The racing was fun regardless. It's very simple, you have to try to stay on track in a vertically scrolling 2D track, avoid the cars and get past the other racers. Your bikes differ in speed and handling, though that is not indicated everywhere but in the description of the bikes as far as I could tell.
Road Rash got two sequels over the next years, which were both praised for the same fun factor that you got with the first, but also criticized for lack of innovation. For those reasons, I'm not going to try those, but Road Rash goes 3D in 1998, has a PlayStation release in 2000 and then one final release in 2009 on the EA Mobile site only (hello, modern EA) before it then started to sit dormant ever since.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 6/10
No voice acting. The sound design in this is actually not so good. There aren't many sound effects here to begin with, including when your opponents crash into cars or the sound of the engine of any car in general. The main sound you will hear is the tires screeching when you turn corners, and that sound doesn't even sound like how it sounds in reality or even close to it.
As far the OST, I think overall it's a plus. If you played this when you were younger and played these maps over and over again, it's a soundtrack that feels distinct enough to stick around with you for a while. The track I liked the most is probably the Pacific Coast one. All tracks have this element to them I can't really describe well, but if I had to make an attempt, I'd describe it as a low pitch bouncey sound, which definitely is a terrible description. But nevertheless, my point is that it didn't quite gell with me and it being the connecting theme in the OST, I can't say this would be among the great soundtracks of this year if I were to make a list. Unlike a game like F-Zero, the OST didn't have any really good tracks that I would gladly listen to outside of the game either.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 7/10
The game doesn't look bad, it doesn't look fantastic. You drive down a road that looks the same throughout for each map with forests and mountains visible in the horizon. You and your opponents look the same and are only distinguished by color. What I really like about the graphical presentation is the animations. The animations of the crash and how your bike and you fly into the air and down on your butt and how you rush back to your bike is pretty funnily presented here. In terms of graphical fidelity, your main issue here might be that you will have a hard time sometimes figuring out that you're approaching a car, as the low resolution from time to time makes them hard to see quickly enough.
ATMOSPHERE | 6/10
In terms of atmosphere, it hits best when you drive behind a group of bikers and see them drive into the trunk of the car in front of them and fly off their bikes as you leave them in the dust. Or when you are side-by-side with another biker and throw a punch or hit their bike with yours to drive them off course. That doesn't happen often enough though I thought.
CONTENT | 6/10
There are 5 levels with 5 races each and 8 total bikes you can unlock. It's a solid amount of content, nothing special here.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 7/10
Pretty basic but clean design here. You go through more and more difficult levels and continue to earn money to unlock faster and faster bikes. Effective, and I'd say you'll have a fun 10-15 hours or so trying to win all races.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 6/10
I like the concept of using illegal tactics during a race to gain an advantage. I just don't feel like it's fleshed out here and you rarely have a need to use these tactics. It would have also been more fun if we could have gone into a race having some sort of melee weapon pre selected, because I went through two levels without getting my hands on a single one.
REPLAYABILITY | 3/5
It's a racing game, so you'll have plenty of motivation to keep playing and trying to beat your previous high scores.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL | 60/100
It's an enjoyable racing game. If you're looking for a more modern experience though, I'd suggest checking out Road Redemption. Road Rash's main selling proposition, the fighting during the racing, is only a small part of the gameplay here and it quickly just turns into a normal racing game for the most part.
(This is the 48th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
I think if you're looking to get into the much-beloved Metroid series for the first time, Metroid II: Return of Samus (Dev: Nintendo R&D1 / Pub: Nintendo) won't be the best place to start. The game released in November 1991 for the Game Boy, unlike the original which came out for the NES, and if you really don't want to pass by this game, you would probably be best served going for its remake from 2017 for the Nintendo 3DS.
The game isn't 'objectively bad', not even close actually, but it suffers from pretty much all the lack of QoL features that you'd expect from games of this time. This makes it tough to play unless you don't mind looking for the way forward for, potentially, hours at a time, and even then, the future releases will serve you with much more enjoyable gameplay in pretty much every way. But all of that I talk about in detail below.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 3/10
As in the original, you play Samus Aran, who is a Space Hunter working for the Galactic Federation. Her goal is once again to go to the planet SR388, where she is to exterminate the remaining Metroids after both a ship full of researchers and armed soldiers went missing. All of this can be found in the manual. In the game, you press START and are immediately loaded in and stand in front of your ship and are not given any further information.
The main things you will take away from this game in terms of story/characters are the following
Samus is a badass character just simply based on design and she gets shit done when others can't (not unlike many other one hero vs the world games, but effective)
The fact that there was no color for the Game Boy meant that the devs had to add the round metal shoulder pads to differentiate between her Power Suit and Varia Suit, a feature that has stayed with Samus ever since
POSSIBLE SPOILER: The ending cliffhanger, without dialogue and voice acting, is really well done. Samus finds an egg of a Metroid hatchling, which follows her to her ship. What will this cause in the sequel?
So Metroid II doesn't really do much different from many other platformers / Action Adventure types like this in terms of story, but it does manage to stand out a bit thanks to its ending and its main character.
GAMEPLAY | 9/20
You will most likely be familiar with the Metroid formula by now. Start with limited abilities, explore multi-pathed levels multiple times by leveraging new abilities that you gain constantly as you progress. It's a pretty popular genre, and Metroid games pretty much pioneered them. Unfortunately, early iterations come with some growing pains as the developers looked to find a balance of their vision and what they could realistically expect players to be willing to push through.
Before we get there, here is the gist of how this game plays. You control Samus in a 2D side-scrolling game where you can shoot projectiles, jump and even roll up into a ball to squeeze through holes. Your goal is to traverse this map and find all Metroids, which are parasitic creatures that, unsurprisingly, form the main enemy types in this series. Throughout your journey you get access to new skills and attacks, which not only allow you to stand a chance against later bosses, but to also unlock areas that were previously inaccessible.
I personally have a mixed relationship with Metroidvanias, though "utility-gated progression" usually isn't my main issue but rather the convoluted design of the maps and/or the gameplay itself, and both creep up their ugly heads here as well, though I can excuse it much more for a 30 year old game rather than some of the newer entries into the genre.
Firstly, this is a Game Boy game, and unlike the NES version, Samus covers 1/4 of the screen here, which from the get-go makes for an awkward affair when trying to dodge enemies reliably. Her jumps are not sensitive to button presses at all, so you need to press JUMP quite a while in order to make a long jump, and in areas where platforms are separated by some sort of health-evaporating substance in between, these jumps can become quite unreliable and hence frustrating.
Frustrating is actually a big thing with this game. The reason why you want to take hits as few times as possible is because there are few save points here and they are pretty far from each other, so you will constantly find yourself warp all the way back to the checkpoint whenever you die. And due to the level amount of health you're playing with, you'll find yourself die a lot. There are no immediate do-overs. Die and you go all the way back.
The worst part however is the fact that there is no map. So you either have to draw the map along as you play or have great memory. Plus, progress forward isn't as cut and dry as moving forward. Sometimes, progressing means finding some randomly placed hole in a wall that you can only reach by turning into the balled-up shape I was just talking about. It doesn't help that many areas look exactly the same in this game, adding to the confusion of it all.
Overall, the concept of this series I definitely like. This one just didn't age well and I don't know how children at the time could possibly beat this unless they'd spend dozens and dozens of hours of running through walls and having to rely on magazine guides, and whether it's fun to have to use those sources to beat a game is in the eye of the beholder I suppose.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 7/10
No voice acting. There is an interesting that happens from time to time where the music simply cuts off and you're left playing for a while whilst just listening to the sound effects. It's odd on the one hand, but satisfying on the other because I actually like the various sound effects that you hear, whether it's shooting your projectiles, the sound of each step you take, collecting items and some beep sounds that play that apparently are part of the "Caverns 1 Theme". Whenever the music does play, you've got to understand the limitations of the Game Boy sound engine. So what they managed to do with that is pretty impressive. Obviously, if you give a listen to the 3DS remake OST, you'll see what increased technical capabilities will allow you to do, but the soundtrack here plays into the atmosphere of the levels very well here, and gets downright eerie whenever you get into a boss fight. In contrast, the surface of SR388 theme sounded a bit too playful to me, but I get it considering that's the music that kids will spend most of their time listening to. Do you dare and get further into the game than you're expected to? That's where you are met with tracks that match the increased tension and where this gets a lot more atmospheric.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 5/10
If you rate this based on the capabilities of the Game Boy, the game doesn't look all too bad. If you rate it compared to what you would have gotten had this been an SNES game, it doesn't rate quite well. If you go somewhere down the middle, you can appreciate that this game was the reason that the Samus sprite got changes to it that would last until today, that the Metroids look positively disgusting and .. well yeah, that's pretty much it. The blackground is simply black, levels look very similar in design, the sprite size of Samus looks kind of awkward and creating holes in walls that hide progress and not giving any graphical indicator that something might be behind there is just an odd choice. And overall, the game simply doesn't look so good due to being a Game Boy game, which you might like yourself but is what I'd call an "acquired/nostalgic taste".
ATMOSPHERE | 8/10
The game does a pretty good job actually of throwing you into hostile territory filled with vile and disgusting creatures. Whenever the non-music track plays or the tracks that hit the eerie tones of the graphical presentation play, this can become quite atmospheric and immersive, and downright scary I'd imagine for young gamers whenever a Metroid is chasing you down.
CONTENT | 5/10
Many different abilities that you can get your hands on as you play the game. The journey there can be rough however, as you will spend many hours trying to figure out where to go next, which some might call intentional and I'd call boring and not well executed here. Apart from that, there isn't much content here, but if you enjoy the bashing your head against walls aspect of it, this will be enough to keep you occupied for a dozen hours+.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 3/10
I appreciate the idea behind this game of having to traverse a hostile environment and find your way through it without any hand-holding. Unfortunately, my idea of a fun game is in contrast to what the game design philosophy of Metroid's creators is, at least for the early entries in the series. No map is tough on its own, but progress hidden in walls (forcing you to check every wall), same looking areas and abilities that don't control all that well (the spider ability) makes for too many (subjective) issues here.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 6/10
The concept remains intriguing, though I'd say the sequel has not yet gotten it to where it will eventually go in this series.
REPLAYABILITY | 1/5
There isn't really any particular reason/motivation given for replaying this. Chances are, if you somehow beat this, you'll be satisfied and ready to move on.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL | 53/100
Unless you really enjoyed the original or really, really enjoyed the later entries in the Metroid series, I think this game is very skippable. Even if you did enjoy later Metroid games, you will likely miss the QoL features that will be introduced later. What this game does well is create a tense atmosphere, but I would agree that that's the gist of it, unless you are a big fan of the concept of hitting early wall to see if you can go through some of them, or if you enjoy drawing a map as you go. Otherwise, you will likely have to rely on guides to make progress, and have to do so many times. So right now I would call this a good proof on concept, just like the original, but the next step hasn't really been taken yet in my opinion.
I think if you're looking to get into the much-beloved Metroid series for the first time, Metroid II: Return of Samus (Dev: Nintendo R&D1 / Pub: Nintendo) won't be the best place to start. The game released in November 1991 for the Game Boy, unlike the original which came out for the NES, and if you really don't want to pass by this game, you would probably be best served going for its remake from 2017 for the Nintendo 3DS.
The game isn't 'objectively bad', not even close actually, but it suffers from pretty much all the lack of QoL features that you'd expect from games of this time. This makes it tough to play unless you don't mind looking for the way forward for, potentially, hours at a time, and even then, the future releases will serve you with much more enjoyable gameplay in pretty much every way. But all of that I talk about in detail below.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 3/10
As in the original, you play Samus Aran, who is a Space Hunter working for the Galactic Federation. Her goal is once again to go to the planet SR388, where she is to exterminate the remaining Metroids after both a ship full of researchers and armed soldiers went missing. All of this can be found in the manual. In the game, you press START and are immediately loaded in and stand in front of your ship and are not given any further information.
The main things you will take away from this game in terms of story/characters are the following
Samus is a badass character just simply based on design and she gets shit done when others can't (not unlike many other one hero vs the world games, but effective)
The fact that there was no color for the Game Boy meant that the devs had to add the round metal shoulder pads to differentiate between her Power Suit and Varia Suit, a feature that has stayed with Samus ever since
POSSIBLE SPOILER: The ending cliffhanger, without dialogue and voice acting, is really well done. Samus finds an egg of a Metroid hatchling, which follows her to her ship. What will this cause in the sequel?
So Metroid II doesn't really do much different from many other platformers / Action Adventure types like this in terms of story, but it does manage to stand out a bit thanks to its ending and its main character.
GAMEPLAY | 9/20
You will most likely be familiar with the Metroid formula by now. Start with limited abilities, explore multi-pathed levels multiple times by leveraging new abilities that you gain constantly as you progress. It's a pretty popular genre, and Metroid games pretty much pioneered them. Unfortunately, early iterations come with some growing pains as the developers looked to find a balance of their vision and what they could realistically expect players to be willing to push through.
Before we get there, here is the gist of how this game plays. You control Samus in a 2D side-scrolling game where you can shoot projectiles, jump and even roll up into a ball to squeeze through holes. Your goal is to traverse this map and find all Metroids, which are parasitic creatures that, unsurprisingly, form the main enemy types in this series. Throughout your journey you get access to new skills and attacks, which not only allow you to stand a chance against later bosses, but to also unlock areas that were previously inaccessible.
I personally have a mixed relationship with Metroidvanias, though "utility-gated progression" usually isn't my main issue but rather the convoluted design of the maps and/or the gameplay itself, and both creep up their ugly heads here as well, though I can excuse it much more for a 30 year old game rather than some of the newer entries into the genre.
Firstly, this is a Game Boy game, and unlike the NES version, Samus covers 1/4 of the screen here, which from the get-go makes for an awkward affair when trying to dodge enemies reliably. Her jumps are not sensitive to button presses at all, so you need to press JUMP quite a while in order to make a long jump, and in areas where platforms are separated by some sort of health-evaporating substance in between, these jumps can become quite unreliable and hence frustrating.
Frustrating is actually a big thing with this game. The reason why you want to take hits as few times as possible is because there are few save points here and they are pretty far from each other, so you will constantly find yourself warp all the way back to the checkpoint whenever you die. And due to the level amount of health you're playing with, you'll find yourself die a lot. There are no immediate do-overs. Die and you go all the way back.
The worst part however is the fact that there is no map. So you either have to draw the map along as you play or have great memory. Plus, progress forward isn't as cut and dry as moving forward. Sometimes, progressing means finding some randomly placed hole in a wall that you can only reach by turning into the balled-up shape I was just talking about. It doesn't help that many areas look exactly the same in this game, adding to the confusion of it all.
Overall, the concept of this series I definitely like. This one just didn't age well and I don't know how children at the time could possibly beat this unless they'd spend dozens and dozens of hours of running through walls and having to rely on magazine guides, and whether it's fun to have to use those sources to beat a game is in the eye of the beholder I suppose.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 7/10
No voice acting. There is an interesting that happens from time to time where the music simply cuts off and you're left playing for a while whilst just listening to the sound effects. It's odd on the one hand, but satisfying on the other because I actually like the various sound effects that you hear, whether it's shooting your projectiles, the sound of each step you take, collecting items and some beep sounds that play that apparently are part of the "Caverns 1 Theme". Whenever the music does play, you've got to understand the limitations of the Game Boy sound engine. So what they managed to do with that is pretty impressive. Obviously, if you give a listen to the 3DS remake OST, you'll see what increased technical capabilities will allow you to do, but the soundtrack here plays into the atmosphere of the levels very well here, and gets downright eerie whenever you get into a boss fight. In contrast, the surface of SR388 theme sounded a bit too playful to me, but I get it considering that's the music that kids will spend most of their time listening to. Do you dare and get further into the game than you're expected to? That's where you are met with tracks that match the increased tension and where this gets a lot more atmospheric.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 5/10
If you rate this based on the capabilities of the Game Boy, the game doesn't look all too bad. If you rate it compared to what you would have gotten had this been an SNES game, it doesn't rate quite well. If you go somewhere down the middle, you can appreciate that this game was the reason that the Samus sprite got changes to it that would last until today, that the Metroids look positively disgusting and .. well yeah, that's pretty much it. The blackground is simply black, levels look very similar in design, the sprite size of Samus looks kind of awkward and creating holes in walls that hide progress and not giving any graphical indicator that something might be behind there is just an odd choice. And overall, the game simply doesn't look so good due to being a Game Boy game, which you might like yourself but is what I'd call an "acquired/nostalgic taste".
ATMOSPHERE | 8/10
The game does a pretty good job actually of throwing you into hostile territory filled with vile and disgusting creatures. Whenever the non-music track plays or the tracks that hit the eerie tones of the graphical presentation play, this can become quite atmospheric and immersive, and downright scary I'd imagine for young gamers whenever a Metroid is chasing you down.
CONTENT | 5/10
Many different abilities that you can get your hands on as you play the game. The journey there can be rough however, as you will spend many hours trying to figure out where to go next, which some might call intentional and I'd call boring and not well executed here. Apart from that, there isn't much content here, but if you enjoy the bashing your head against walls aspect of it, this will be enough to keep you occupied for a dozen hours+.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 3/10
I appreciate the idea behind this game of having to traverse a hostile environment and find your way through it without any hand-holding. Unfortunately, my idea of a fun game is in contrast to what the game design philosophy of Metroid's creators is, at least for the early entries in the series. No map is tough on its own, but progress hidden in walls (forcing you to check every wall), same looking areas and abilities that don't control all that well (the spider ability) makes for too many (subjective) issues here.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 6/10
The concept remains intriguing, though I'd say the sequel has not yet gotten it to where it will eventually go in this series.
REPLAYABILITY | 1/5
There isn't really any particular reason/motivation given for replaying this. Chances are, if you somehow beat this, you'll be satisfied and ready to move on.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL | 53/100
Unless you really enjoyed the original or really, really enjoyed the later entries in the Metroid series, I think this game is very skippable. Even if you did enjoy later Metroid games, you will likely miss the QoL features that will be introduced later. What this game does well is create a tense atmosphere, but I would agree that that's the gist of it, unless you are a big fan of the concept of hitting early wall to see if you can go through some of them, or if you enjoy drawing a map as you go. Otherwise, you will likely have to rely on guides to make progress, and have to do so many times. So right now I would call this a good proof on concept, just like the original, but the next step hasn't really been taken yet in my opinion.
1991
(This is the 47th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
It's always exciting to hit a milestone in video gaming with this challenge, and we certainly did that by arriving at the first 'Final Fantasy' game for the SNES, Final Fantasy IV. Called 'Final Fantasy II' in North America, because FF II and III didn't release in NA originally, Final Fantasy IV is a rather big step forward for the series in many ways. It originally released for the SNES on July 19, 1991 and was re-released for PlayStation in '97 before the decade was over. The game also got a 3-D release in 2007 for the Nintendo DS, which, if ever get there, will probably be the time where we revisit it. Is it worth revisiting? Absolutely it is, but I'll go through all of my thoughts one by one in this lengthy review, hope you enjoy the read.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 8/10
Finally a game with more to write about than "this is character X, he is hunting after evil person Y to save person/object Z". In Final Fantasy IV, the main character is Cecil, who is hunting after Golbez to save Earth. Just kidding, there is of course a lot more to this.
Cecil is a Dark Knight and Captain of the Red Wings at the start of the game, an elite air force unit of the kingdom of Baron. They are tasked to steal the Water Crystal from Mysidia, which makes Cecil feel guilty and ask the king of his motives. Due to this, he is relieved from his duties as Captain. He, along with his friend Kain, is taked to go to the Village of Mist and deliver a package there, a package that, once they arrive, releases bombs and destroys the village.
In the aftermath, he meets Rydia, who is a young and gifted Caller who loses her mother during the bombings and summons a Titan out of anger, a Titan that causes an earthquake. The earthquake separates Cecil and Kain, and leaves Cecil next to an unconcious Rydia, whom he brings to a nearby town. There, Baronian soldiers try to kill Rydia at night, but Cecil fights them off and he and Rydia become allies as a result, and Rydia can help you in battle.
From here, Cecil goes on to meet many important characters that have story impact and/or become playable characters. There are a dozen playable characters in fact, which regularly rotate throughout the game. There are Cecil, Kain and Rydia, then there is Cid, an aircraft engineer, Edward, the Prince of Damcyan, Tellah, a sage, Palom and Porom, twin mages, Rosa, Cecil's love interest and many more. Each character has a set class, so the job system from Final Fantasy III doesn't make it over here.
Final Fantasy IV is lauded for taking a big step forward in dramatic storytelling. Is that fair? If you compare it to games from the last decade, FFIV obviously does very little in comparison. If you compare it to the 46 other games I've played through this challenge, Final Fantasy IV is probably only outmatched by Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, and blows everything else out the water just thanks to its depth and its many, many, dramatic set pieces.
THE PART WITH THE SPOILERS: The problem? So, the dramatic scenes mainly include the death of some of the playable characters. Palom and Porom turn to stone to lean against walls that were closing in to crush the party. Tellah can't bring them back to life. "They have turned into stone by their own will." Yang, a monk from Fabul, sacrifices himself to do ... something in a control room to destroy artillery systems, I couldn't make sense of that one yet. Cid BLOWS HIMSELF up to allow Cecil and crew to leave an underground area. Tellah uses his life energy to use a powerful spell and scare off the antagonist, Golbez, for the time being at least. Some manage to feel more dramatic than others, but the issue is, that apart from Tellah, all of them return to life later on. What? It's like they couldn't do that to all the kids playing the game, so they reversed their decision a few hours later into the game. Are any of these returns explained? Nope. Palom and Porom's return is actually, but apparently it's because their elder unpetrified them, but I thought you couldn't do that because they turned into stone out of their own will? Oh well. As a result, all the dramatics that are being lauded end up being teases than anything else, which is a shame. The game also pulls one of my least favorite ploys of any story, in a game or any other medium, which is present you with a main antagonist for pretty much the entirety of the game, and then announcing an even bigger antagonist right before the end, an antagonist who you never meet until the final boss fight. All this said, some characters do stay dead, and the plot twist of Golbez being used by Zemus, being the brother of Cecil and killing all of these innocent characters does manage to stir one's emotions, especially as you are left feeling like all of this could have been avoided.
The main themes of the game are, of course, the interplay between the Dark and the Light, and the power of friendship / support of your loved ones. Especially the latter you will find to play a role in a ton of JRPGs near the end, but not only does it work, but FFIV is one of the earlier games to do it.
From a critical standpoint, obviously the story does not leave you impressed anymore. There are some plot holes, the dialogue being rather basic, characters being one-dimensional, characters being swapped in and out regularly (which doesn't allow for character development for most) and many of the tropes you've become used to.
But if you look at it from the perspective of your inner child, and, from the perspective of the early 90s, you can't help but feel impressed by what this game set out to do and what it accomplished. Knowing what I know about the reception of the Final Fantasy games that are to come, I'm pretty excited to dive further into the series, which this game accomplished a lot more than Final Fantasy III did.
GAMEPLAY | 13/20
Final Fantasy IV is at a glance of course the same as the previous one's from a gameplay perspective, and as the one's to come in the next years as well. You have your party on the right side, the enemy's appearing on the left side whenever you are randomly (or as part of boss fights) pulled into battle, and you order each member around on a turn-by-turn basis by telling them to attack, use special attacks, use healing magic or an item from your inventory.
But looking at it deeper, there are some additions, subtractions and changes compared to FFIII. First, the game introduces the 'Active Time Battle' (ATB) system, which means that you need to give orders in 'real-time'. So if you take too long, the enemy will not wait for you but instead start attacking again. Second, this is the first Final Fantasy where each character has a pre-determined job/class and unlike in FFIII, there is no job system, so it can't be changed. Third, this is the first and only Final Fantasy which allows your party size to be five. Finally, unlike the previous versions, this has a very simple character development system, in that spellcasters get to gain new spells as they reach pre-determined levels, so you can't purchase spells and give them to your characters anymore.
For the first half or so of this game, this was considerably easier than FFIII. Without having to grind at all, you could pretty much spam attack through the entirety of the boss fights in the first half and heal with your white mage. Done. Then, three things happened. 1) Bosses and regular enemy types start doing a ton of damage, 2) You pretty much have to find a bunch of hidden items in order to deal enough damage or have enough defense to withstand the stronger enemies and 3) The game introduces the single worst enemy attack ever to a bunch of enemies and to pretty much all late-game bosses, which is one-hit kills. Doesn't matter if you're at full health, if you are parrying or whatever, you will simply get one-shot.
This is the biggest game design flaw in my opinion, but there are a few more minor ones that become annoying. For example, if you want to heal someone and he dies before the healing animation plays, you pretty much wasted a heal. If, on the other hand, you anticipate a death and use LIFE on someone (to revive them), and the character does indeed die before the animation plays, you still do not revive them. If you want to punish me due to timing, I should be rewarded for anticipation as well. There are also a lot of late-game bosses that pretty much attack you after each turn of one of your characters, meaning that before you go through all five party members, you are attacked five times. If you don't grind a lot, look up a guide to find all those easily missable 'OP' items and go through OPTIONAL late game areas to grind/get items as well, those attacks all also do a ton of damage.
This all culminates for the final boss fight, where it is not difficult to arrive in a state where your entire party can get one-shotted. I think this is really poor game design where simply following along the main storyline is punished this way. Once you're there, grinding the area immediately prior to the boss fight for hours is pretty much the only thing you can do at that point, and as you can imagine, that's no fun.
Overall, the ATB system I'd say was more negative than positive to me, because you're essentially being punished for having to go through various menus to find the option that you're looking for, which gives your enemies ample time to skip the attack order and strike again. I'd have rather appreciated more time to choose and strategize.
But all the critique aside, if you want to look at it from a glass half-full perspective, the game rewards you for taking your time with the game and then some. It rewards you for not escaping out of fights more than a couple times, for going through optional dungeons, visiting optional areas and yeah, grinding a little bit, by allowing you to make your way through the game easier. At the same time, it makes completion impossible if you simply follow the main path, which is what irks me.
The gameplay itself, which does continue to involve from one Final Fantasy entry to another, is also still not varied enough to really make me feel like playing those extra 5 - 10 hours to do all those optional things or to pop open a guide to go through dungeons again and find those missable items hidden each and every way.
But ultimately, whether you enjoy this or not will pretty much depend on whether you enjoyed the combat system in the other turn-based Final Fantasy entries. This one will improve upon that in some ways, potentially worsen in others depending on your viewpoint (ATB system) but will stay the same more or less.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 9/10
No voice acting. This game takes it a step further with its sound design in that there are a bunch of different attacks with their own special sound effect. That's a small thing, but definitely noticeable. The soundtrack for the most part ranges from good to great. There were a few tracks that I remember hearing in the few hours that I had spent on FFVII before I started this challenge (Red Wings for example), and they were good tracks, so it bodes well for FFIV's soundtrack for those to be originating here. Of course, some tracks are relatively similar to earlier FF entries (battle themes) but the main beauty in the soundtrack of FFIV lies in its diversity and the way it hits the tone of the different dramatic scenarios. You have your romantic tracks (Theme of Love), your ominous tracks whenever you'd take a look at what the antagonists where doing (Ring of Bomb), bittersweet tracks that capture the feeling of powering through despite the loss of your loved ones very well (Rydia), the sad tracks for one of many sorrowful moments (Cry in Sorrow) and then your "shit's going down" track to top it off (Run!!!). Each city/town/village have their own themes as well, many of which differ in tone and theme. Overall, one of the great soundtracks of the early 90's.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10
The jump to the SNES from the NES obviously comes with an improvement in graphics. From improved sprite quality and detail, to increase in detail in the overworld, in locations and in dungeons, to more impressive looking special effects and enemies, and to actually have a background in the battle screen that aligns with the overworld location / dungeon you find yourself in, all of these points are improvements over the previous main entry. Then you add the underworld, some futuristic looking locations and the damn moon to add some variation to the environments and this is overall the kind of step up you would like to see with the jump to the 4th gen of consoles.
ATMOSPHERE | 5/10
You have a mash of themes here with medieaval fantasy along with elements of science fiction, both in terms of location and enemy design. At the same time, apart from using magic, your party is limited to weapons and skills you'd only see in medieaval fantasy, whilst you're being beamed with lasers and such from the enemies. The soundtrack would also support a focus on medieval fantasy rather than the science fiction elements, so it can feel out of place.
CONTENT | 7/10
You have 12 party members overall, about a dozen or so main + optional dungeons, about as many towns/villages/cities, plenty of different versions of your equipment, plenty of dialogue compared to pretty much any other game out there at this point in time and overall a good 20-30 hours of content depending on how much of the optional stuff you end up doing. The optional dungeons are more of the same compared to the main dungeons, of which more than a couple do unfortunately lack in variety and are much too big in size. Apart from those dungeons, and a little bit of optional dialogue here and there, there isn't much else as far as side content goes, but overall there is plenty to do here if you're not opposed to repetitive gameplay.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 5/10
The formula works in a specific way throughout. You go into a dungeon and go in deeper and deeper until you defeat the boss, get back to the quest-giver and get story progression. This game doesn't deviate much from that formula, but it's a good formula, so it doesn't have to. It would be appreciated if it did in some sort of fashion though, because unless you are really into using the same few moves for dozens of battles per dungeon for a dozen dungeons, it will get repetitive after a while.
But a part I subjectively don't like about these old-school RPGs and that I appreciate about more modern ones is the fact that, whether you go through the main path or grind a lot more and do optional dungeons/side quests, the game is designed in a way to be beaten either way. So for the game to be unbeatable at the final boss for me, I definitely didn't like that personally and would call that poor game design personally.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 6/10
This game successfully evolved the Final Fantasy formula and made a rather big leap in storytelling, which is great to see. It didn't put everything in terms of storytelling together quite yet, but it's much improved, and the jump in graphical quality makes this a big step forward compared to FFIII for sure.
REPLAYABILITY | 2/5
If you didn't do any or much of the optional content and still managed to beat this game, you have a few optional dungeons to look forward to for replay value.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL | 68/100
You want sequels to be better than the previous game in some shape or form. Final Fantasy IV is better in many ways compared to Final Fantasy III. Graphics are much improved thanks to the jump to the SNES, there is a much bigger focus on storytelling and the new ATB system, even if not ground-breaking, can be something that makes battles more enjoyable to you. So yes, FF IV is better than FF III in my opinion. But ultimately it comes down to this. Did you enjoy earlier FF versions? If yes, you will enjoy this more. If not, you won't enjoy this either. Personally, I enjoyed it but see a lot of room for improvement, and am excited to see what Square came up with for Final Fantasy V.
It's always exciting to hit a milestone in video gaming with this challenge, and we certainly did that by arriving at the first 'Final Fantasy' game for the SNES, Final Fantasy IV. Called 'Final Fantasy II' in North America, because FF II and III didn't release in NA originally, Final Fantasy IV is a rather big step forward for the series in many ways. It originally released for the SNES on July 19, 1991 and was re-released for PlayStation in '97 before the decade was over. The game also got a 3-D release in 2007 for the Nintendo DS, which, if ever get there, will probably be the time where we revisit it. Is it worth revisiting? Absolutely it is, but I'll go through all of my thoughts one by one in this lengthy review, hope you enjoy the read.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 8/10
Finally a game with more to write about than "this is character X, he is hunting after evil person Y to save person/object Z". In Final Fantasy IV, the main character is Cecil, who is hunting after Golbez to save Earth. Just kidding, there is of course a lot more to this.
Cecil is a Dark Knight and Captain of the Red Wings at the start of the game, an elite air force unit of the kingdom of Baron. They are tasked to steal the Water Crystal from Mysidia, which makes Cecil feel guilty and ask the king of his motives. Due to this, he is relieved from his duties as Captain. He, along with his friend Kain, is taked to go to the Village of Mist and deliver a package there, a package that, once they arrive, releases bombs and destroys the village.
In the aftermath, he meets Rydia, who is a young and gifted Caller who loses her mother during the bombings and summons a Titan out of anger, a Titan that causes an earthquake. The earthquake separates Cecil and Kain, and leaves Cecil next to an unconcious Rydia, whom he brings to a nearby town. There, Baronian soldiers try to kill Rydia at night, but Cecil fights them off and he and Rydia become allies as a result, and Rydia can help you in battle.
From here, Cecil goes on to meet many important characters that have story impact and/or become playable characters. There are a dozen playable characters in fact, which regularly rotate throughout the game. There are Cecil, Kain and Rydia, then there is Cid, an aircraft engineer, Edward, the Prince of Damcyan, Tellah, a sage, Palom and Porom, twin mages, Rosa, Cecil's love interest and many more. Each character has a set class, so the job system from Final Fantasy III doesn't make it over here.
Final Fantasy IV is lauded for taking a big step forward in dramatic storytelling. Is that fair? If you compare it to games from the last decade, FFIV obviously does very little in comparison. If you compare it to the 46 other games I've played through this challenge, Final Fantasy IV is probably only outmatched by Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, and blows everything else out the water just thanks to its depth and its many, many, dramatic set pieces.
THE PART WITH THE SPOILERS: The problem? So, the dramatic scenes mainly include the death of some of the playable characters. Palom and Porom turn to stone to lean against walls that were closing in to crush the party. Tellah can't bring them back to life. "They have turned into stone by their own will." Yang, a monk from Fabul, sacrifices himself to do ... something in a control room to destroy artillery systems, I couldn't make sense of that one yet. Cid BLOWS HIMSELF up to allow Cecil and crew to leave an underground area. Tellah uses his life energy to use a powerful spell and scare off the antagonist, Golbez, for the time being at least. Some manage to feel more dramatic than others, but the issue is, that apart from Tellah, all of them return to life later on. What? It's like they couldn't do that to all the kids playing the game, so they reversed their decision a few hours later into the game. Are any of these returns explained? Nope. Palom and Porom's return is actually, but apparently it's because their elder unpetrified them, but I thought you couldn't do that because they turned into stone out of their own will? Oh well. As a result, all the dramatics that are being lauded end up being teases than anything else, which is a shame. The game also pulls one of my least favorite ploys of any story, in a game or any other medium, which is present you with a main antagonist for pretty much the entirety of the game, and then announcing an even bigger antagonist right before the end, an antagonist who you never meet until the final boss fight. All this said, some characters do stay dead, and the plot twist of Golbez being used by Zemus, being the brother of Cecil and killing all of these innocent characters does manage to stir one's emotions, especially as you are left feeling like all of this could have been avoided.
The main themes of the game are, of course, the interplay between the Dark and the Light, and the power of friendship / support of your loved ones. Especially the latter you will find to play a role in a ton of JRPGs near the end, but not only does it work, but FFIV is one of the earlier games to do it.
From a critical standpoint, obviously the story does not leave you impressed anymore. There are some plot holes, the dialogue being rather basic, characters being one-dimensional, characters being swapped in and out regularly (which doesn't allow for character development for most) and many of the tropes you've become used to.
But if you look at it from the perspective of your inner child, and, from the perspective of the early 90s, you can't help but feel impressed by what this game set out to do and what it accomplished. Knowing what I know about the reception of the Final Fantasy games that are to come, I'm pretty excited to dive further into the series, which this game accomplished a lot more than Final Fantasy III did.
GAMEPLAY | 13/20
Final Fantasy IV is at a glance of course the same as the previous one's from a gameplay perspective, and as the one's to come in the next years as well. You have your party on the right side, the enemy's appearing on the left side whenever you are randomly (or as part of boss fights) pulled into battle, and you order each member around on a turn-by-turn basis by telling them to attack, use special attacks, use healing magic or an item from your inventory.
But looking at it deeper, there are some additions, subtractions and changes compared to FFIII. First, the game introduces the 'Active Time Battle' (ATB) system, which means that you need to give orders in 'real-time'. So if you take too long, the enemy will not wait for you but instead start attacking again. Second, this is the first Final Fantasy where each character has a pre-determined job/class and unlike in FFIII, there is no job system, so it can't be changed. Third, this is the first and only Final Fantasy which allows your party size to be five. Finally, unlike the previous versions, this has a very simple character development system, in that spellcasters get to gain new spells as they reach pre-determined levels, so you can't purchase spells and give them to your characters anymore.
For the first half or so of this game, this was considerably easier than FFIII. Without having to grind at all, you could pretty much spam attack through the entirety of the boss fights in the first half and heal with your white mage. Done. Then, three things happened. 1) Bosses and regular enemy types start doing a ton of damage, 2) You pretty much have to find a bunch of hidden items in order to deal enough damage or have enough defense to withstand the stronger enemies and 3) The game introduces the single worst enemy attack ever to a bunch of enemies and to pretty much all late-game bosses, which is one-hit kills. Doesn't matter if you're at full health, if you are parrying or whatever, you will simply get one-shot.
This is the biggest game design flaw in my opinion, but there are a few more minor ones that become annoying. For example, if you want to heal someone and he dies before the healing animation plays, you pretty much wasted a heal. If, on the other hand, you anticipate a death and use LIFE on someone (to revive them), and the character does indeed die before the animation plays, you still do not revive them. If you want to punish me due to timing, I should be rewarded for anticipation as well. There are also a lot of late-game bosses that pretty much attack you after each turn of one of your characters, meaning that before you go through all five party members, you are attacked five times. If you don't grind a lot, look up a guide to find all those easily missable 'OP' items and go through OPTIONAL late game areas to grind/get items as well, those attacks all also do a ton of damage.
This all culminates for the final boss fight, where it is not difficult to arrive in a state where your entire party can get one-shotted. I think this is really poor game design where simply following along the main storyline is punished this way. Once you're there, grinding the area immediately prior to the boss fight for hours is pretty much the only thing you can do at that point, and as you can imagine, that's no fun.
Overall, the ATB system I'd say was more negative than positive to me, because you're essentially being punished for having to go through various menus to find the option that you're looking for, which gives your enemies ample time to skip the attack order and strike again. I'd have rather appreciated more time to choose and strategize.
But all the critique aside, if you want to look at it from a glass half-full perspective, the game rewards you for taking your time with the game and then some. It rewards you for not escaping out of fights more than a couple times, for going through optional dungeons, visiting optional areas and yeah, grinding a little bit, by allowing you to make your way through the game easier. At the same time, it makes completion impossible if you simply follow the main path, which is what irks me.
The gameplay itself, which does continue to involve from one Final Fantasy entry to another, is also still not varied enough to really make me feel like playing those extra 5 - 10 hours to do all those optional things or to pop open a guide to go through dungeons again and find those missable items hidden each and every way.
But ultimately, whether you enjoy this or not will pretty much depend on whether you enjoyed the combat system in the other turn-based Final Fantasy entries. This one will improve upon that in some ways, potentially worsen in others depending on your viewpoint (ATB system) but will stay the same more or less.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 9/10
No voice acting. This game takes it a step further with its sound design in that there are a bunch of different attacks with their own special sound effect. That's a small thing, but definitely noticeable. The soundtrack for the most part ranges from good to great. There were a few tracks that I remember hearing in the few hours that I had spent on FFVII before I started this challenge (Red Wings for example), and they were good tracks, so it bodes well for FFIV's soundtrack for those to be originating here. Of course, some tracks are relatively similar to earlier FF entries (battle themes) but the main beauty in the soundtrack of FFIV lies in its diversity and the way it hits the tone of the different dramatic scenarios. You have your romantic tracks (Theme of Love), your ominous tracks whenever you'd take a look at what the antagonists where doing (Ring of Bomb), bittersweet tracks that capture the feeling of powering through despite the loss of your loved ones very well (Rydia), the sad tracks for one of many sorrowful moments (Cry in Sorrow) and then your "shit's going down" track to top it off (Run!!!). Each city/town/village have their own themes as well, many of which differ in tone and theme. Overall, one of the great soundtracks of the early 90's.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10
The jump to the SNES from the NES obviously comes with an improvement in graphics. From improved sprite quality and detail, to increase in detail in the overworld, in locations and in dungeons, to more impressive looking special effects and enemies, and to actually have a background in the battle screen that aligns with the overworld location / dungeon you find yourself in, all of these points are improvements over the previous main entry. Then you add the underworld, some futuristic looking locations and the damn moon to add some variation to the environments and this is overall the kind of step up you would like to see with the jump to the 4th gen of consoles.
ATMOSPHERE | 5/10
You have a mash of themes here with medieaval fantasy along with elements of science fiction, both in terms of location and enemy design. At the same time, apart from using magic, your party is limited to weapons and skills you'd only see in medieaval fantasy, whilst you're being beamed with lasers and such from the enemies. The soundtrack would also support a focus on medieval fantasy rather than the science fiction elements, so it can feel out of place.
CONTENT | 7/10
You have 12 party members overall, about a dozen or so main + optional dungeons, about as many towns/villages/cities, plenty of different versions of your equipment, plenty of dialogue compared to pretty much any other game out there at this point in time and overall a good 20-30 hours of content depending on how much of the optional stuff you end up doing. The optional dungeons are more of the same compared to the main dungeons, of which more than a couple do unfortunately lack in variety and are much too big in size. Apart from those dungeons, and a little bit of optional dialogue here and there, there isn't much else as far as side content goes, but overall there is plenty to do here if you're not opposed to repetitive gameplay.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 5/10
The formula works in a specific way throughout. You go into a dungeon and go in deeper and deeper until you defeat the boss, get back to the quest-giver and get story progression. This game doesn't deviate much from that formula, but it's a good formula, so it doesn't have to. It would be appreciated if it did in some sort of fashion though, because unless you are really into using the same few moves for dozens of battles per dungeon for a dozen dungeons, it will get repetitive after a while.
But a part I subjectively don't like about these old-school RPGs and that I appreciate about more modern ones is the fact that, whether you go through the main path or grind a lot more and do optional dungeons/side quests, the game is designed in a way to be beaten either way. So for the game to be unbeatable at the final boss for me, I definitely didn't like that personally and would call that poor game design personally.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 6/10
This game successfully evolved the Final Fantasy formula and made a rather big leap in storytelling, which is great to see. It didn't put everything in terms of storytelling together quite yet, but it's much improved, and the jump in graphical quality makes this a big step forward compared to FFIII for sure.
REPLAYABILITY | 2/5
If you didn't do any or much of the optional content and still managed to beat this game, you have a few optional dungeons to look forward to for replay value.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL | 68/100
You want sequels to be better than the previous game in some shape or form. Final Fantasy IV is better in many ways compared to Final Fantasy III. Graphics are much improved thanks to the jump to the SNES, there is a much bigger focus on storytelling and the new ATB system, even if not ground-breaking, can be something that makes battles more enjoyable to you. So yes, FF IV is better than FF III in my opinion. But ultimately it comes down to this. Did you enjoy earlier FF versions? If yes, you will enjoy this more. If not, you won't enjoy this either. Personally, I enjoyed it but see a lot of room for improvement, and am excited to see what Square came up with for Final Fantasy V.
1991
(This is the 46th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
Streets of Rage is Sega's answer to Capcom's very popular Arcade game Final Fight from 1989. In many ways, it's actually pretty much a copy of that game. It does have three reasons however, which make me happy about its existence. First: The challenge started in 1990, so I didn't play Final Fight. Second: The soundtrack in Streets of Rage is not only better, but it's one of the best soundtracks this challenge has seen so far. Third: The gameplay, while dated today, is actually quite addicting anyway.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 1/10
A criminal organization has taken over the city, and only three brave police offers are there to try and stop them. Adam Hunter, Axel Stone and Blaze Fielding. Wasn't expecting this much, let alone more from a game like this. They are slightly different from each other in terms of Power, Speed and Jump, and they specialize in a different fighting skill according to their bio, but from what I can tell their move-set is pretty much the same.
GAMEPLAY | 14/20
If you've played Final Fight, you've played Streets of Rage. It's a side-scrolling beat 'em up game where you walk through eight different locations, fight enemies and ultimately a boss. You use your fists, punch and slam combinations and melee weapons that you can pick up off the floor to beat up hostiles until they are knocked out. You have three lives per continue and three continues. There is one special ability you have that is the same for every fighter, which is police back-up that shoots a missile from far away to one-shot all enemies (excluding bosses) and to damage bosses significantly.
Overall, difference in characters is slim and there aren't many features here in general. You'd think that this makes the game very boring, and if you've played modern versions of this genre, it might be, but for someone who doesn't play beat 'em ups much, this was pretty fun. Combinations of combo attacks, followed by german suplexes and flying kicks can look pretty satisfying when it flows well. The simplicity of the gameplay itself even is enough to turn this into an enjoyable loop, though I do hope that next year's Streets of Rage 2 manages to build on everything, as that kind of potential is quite evident here.
Boss fights are a mess though. The majority of them are stupidly hard to even hit, so you often simply have to take the death and use the 1 special attack you have available after each time you die. You damage them enough this way to go to the next level. Unfortunately, this always meant the end for me at Level 6, which I assume is where the majority of players are stuck at, because fighting these bosses ultimately necessitates finding a way to "cheese the mechanics" and kind-of get bosses stuck in a loop they can't get out of. Even if you succed there, it doesn't really feel like you accomplished something, so there is lots of room for improvement here.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 8/10
Voice acting is limited to the "screeching sounds of death" as I'd like to call it, which seems to become a familiar sound for Sega Genesis games. I don't know if it's the soundboard on the Genesis, I assume it is, but the synthetic screetchy sounds are definitely ones I still am getting used to. These screeches are also your indicator for having killed/knocked out enemies, and it's also the sound your character makes after a particular combination of moves. Apart from that, on the sound design aspect, I feel like punches could sound meatier.
The soundtrack however is the true highlight of this game. It already starts with the vibey main menu track , and it continues into the character selection screen. Even the first thing you hear when you start a new playthrough, that kick, will get you into buttkicking-mode instantly. And it just continues to be kick-ass from there. Great soundtrack.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 7/10
The game definitely makes use of the Genesis' 16-bit tech by going into great detail with the environment itself. The first level, which plays on a street at night, has pretty much all buildings/stores in the back and their signs well-lit and has them flickering into different colors all the time to showcase the color-palette available here. In other levels, you are able to see the big city lights and buildings shine from afar and the lights reflect into the water even. What is less impressive here is the design of the enemies. There aren't many enemy types here, though enough of them do act differently, but instead, enemies are recycled by just changing the color of their clothes and/or hair to signal more difficult versions.
ATMOSPHERE | 8/10
It's Streets of Rage alright. You listen to kick-ass beats, kick ass and enjoy varied and partly beautiful, dark yet shiny environments.
CONTENT | 6/10
There are 8 levels, which is actually a pretty good length. Unfortunately, the boss design is supbar and I can't really say any boss fight has been enjoyable here. Fighting through hordes of enemies is fun before you get to those bosses, but the game does lack variety there or at least a better conclusion to those levels in terms of better bosses. Better, easier to fight bosses, a few more levels and less recycling of enemy assets wouldn't have hurt. Maybe in the next one.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 6/10
This is pretty simple level design for the time. Side-scrolling beat 'em up action with bosses at the end of each level. The game does well to change up the scenery enough to counteract the repetitive nature of the gameplay a tiny bit, but ultimately, where it fails is with the boss fights, which absolutely could and should have been less of a crapshoot in terms of "can I actually touch the boss before he evaporates all my health in a couple of hits?".
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 2/10
Can't really give many points here when all of this has pretty much been done in a shockingly similar fashion in Capcom's Final Fight. It's a simple and fun concept, but nearly completely copied nonetheless.
REPLAYABILITY | 3/5
There are three characters to mix new playthroughs up with, albeit limited in differentiating factors. Other than that, the main motivation to play again after beating this is to up your score.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL | 60/100
You got one of the best soundtracks of the early 90's here and some simple, fun gameplay. Unfortunately, the boss design isn't great, the gameplay is extremely similar to Capcom's Final Fight and these days, you're likely better off trying newer iterations in the series, though it's worth starting here if you haven't experienced Streets of Rage yet, simply to hear the soundtrack in action.
Streets of Rage is Sega's answer to Capcom's very popular Arcade game Final Fight from 1989. In many ways, it's actually pretty much a copy of that game. It does have three reasons however, which make me happy about its existence. First: The challenge started in 1990, so I didn't play Final Fight. Second: The soundtrack in Streets of Rage is not only better, but it's one of the best soundtracks this challenge has seen so far. Third: The gameplay, while dated today, is actually quite addicting anyway.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 1/10
A criminal organization has taken over the city, and only three brave police offers are there to try and stop them. Adam Hunter, Axel Stone and Blaze Fielding. Wasn't expecting this much, let alone more from a game like this. They are slightly different from each other in terms of Power, Speed and Jump, and they specialize in a different fighting skill according to their bio, but from what I can tell their move-set is pretty much the same.
GAMEPLAY | 14/20
If you've played Final Fight, you've played Streets of Rage. It's a side-scrolling beat 'em up game where you walk through eight different locations, fight enemies and ultimately a boss. You use your fists, punch and slam combinations and melee weapons that you can pick up off the floor to beat up hostiles until they are knocked out. You have three lives per continue and three continues. There is one special ability you have that is the same for every fighter, which is police back-up that shoots a missile from far away to one-shot all enemies (excluding bosses) and to damage bosses significantly.
Overall, difference in characters is slim and there aren't many features here in general. You'd think that this makes the game very boring, and if you've played modern versions of this genre, it might be, but for someone who doesn't play beat 'em ups much, this was pretty fun. Combinations of combo attacks, followed by german suplexes and flying kicks can look pretty satisfying when it flows well. The simplicity of the gameplay itself even is enough to turn this into an enjoyable loop, though I do hope that next year's Streets of Rage 2 manages to build on everything, as that kind of potential is quite evident here.
Boss fights are a mess though. The majority of them are stupidly hard to even hit, so you often simply have to take the death and use the 1 special attack you have available after each time you die. You damage them enough this way to go to the next level. Unfortunately, this always meant the end for me at Level 6, which I assume is where the majority of players are stuck at, because fighting these bosses ultimately necessitates finding a way to "cheese the mechanics" and kind-of get bosses stuck in a loop they can't get out of. Even if you succed there, it doesn't really feel like you accomplished something, so there is lots of room for improvement here.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 8/10
Voice acting is limited to the "screeching sounds of death" as I'd like to call it, which seems to become a familiar sound for Sega Genesis games. I don't know if it's the soundboard on the Genesis, I assume it is, but the synthetic screetchy sounds are definitely ones I still am getting used to. These screeches are also your indicator for having killed/knocked out enemies, and it's also the sound your character makes after a particular combination of moves. Apart from that, on the sound design aspect, I feel like punches could sound meatier.
The soundtrack however is the true highlight of this game. It already starts with the vibey main menu track , and it continues into the character selection screen. Even the first thing you hear when you start a new playthrough, that kick, will get you into buttkicking-mode instantly. And it just continues to be kick-ass from there. Great soundtrack.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 7/10
The game definitely makes use of the Genesis' 16-bit tech by going into great detail with the environment itself. The first level, which plays on a street at night, has pretty much all buildings/stores in the back and their signs well-lit and has them flickering into different colors all the time to showcase the color-palette available here. In other levels, you are able to see the big city lights and buildings shine from afar and the lights reflect into the water even. What is less impressive here is the design of the enemies. There aren't many enemy types here, though enough of them do act differently, but instead, enemies are recycled by just changing the color of their clothes and/or hair to signal more difficult versions.
ATMOSPHERE | 8/10
It's Streets of Rage alright. You listen to kick-ass beats, kick ass and enjoy varied and partly beautiful, dark yet shiny environments.
CONTENT | 6/10
There are 8 levels, which is actually a pretty good length. Unfortunately, the boss design is supbar and I can't really say any boss fight has been enjoyable here. Fighting through hordes of enemies is fun before you get to those bosses, but the game does lack variety there or at least a better conclusion to those levels in terms of better bosses. Better, easier to fight bosses, a few more levels and less recycling of enemy assets wouldn't have hurt. Maybe in the next one.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 6/10
This is pretty simple level design for the time. Side-scrolling beat 'em up action with bosses at the end of each level. The game does well to change up the scenery enough to counteract the repetitive nature of the gameplay a tiny bit, but ultimately, where it fails is with the boss fights, which absolutely could and should have been less of a crapshoot in terms of "can I actually touch the boss before he evaporates all my health in a couple of hits?".
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 2/10
Can't really give many points here when all of this has pretty much been done in a shockingly similar fashion in Capcom's Final Fight. It's a simple and fun concept, but nearly completely copied nonetheless.
REPLAYABILITY | 3/5
There are three characters to mix new playthroughs up with, albeit limited in differentiating factors. Other than that, the main motivation to play again after beating this is to up your score.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL | 60/100
You got one of the best soundtracks of the early 90's here and some simple, fun gameplay. Unfortunately, the boss design isn't great, the gameplay is extremely similar to Capcom's Final Fight and these days, you're likely better off trying newer iterations in the series, though it's worth starting here if you haven't experienced Streets of Rage yet, simply to hear the soundtrack in action.
(This is the 44th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
The SNES just keeps delivering. Here, we have a game I heard way less about than the other SNES titles I have played already. This game is called The Legend of the Mystical Ninja and is part of the Ganbare Goemon series. The game released in Japan on July 19, 1991 and is the first game of the series to release in the West (in 1992). It doesn't move the needle necessarily in its gameplay, however in its presentation and in its content, where many other games would have to be described as lackadaisical copy-cats, The Legend of the Mystical Ninja proves to be an exciting game that tries and succeeds in offering a lot of fun activities outside of its core gameplay loop.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 4/10
You are Kid Ying (or Goemon originally), and if you play this in two-player coop, the other player would be Dr. Yang (or Ebisumaru originally). You are two ninjas who go on a heroic adventure, which has the ultimate goal of finding and freeing Princess Yuki. On your journey, you will meet many characters, both named and simple NPCs, who will each at least have one line of dialogue, typical of most action adventures of this time. Some more important characters have a bit more to say, and in addition, the end of each level comes with a quick recap of what just happened and where Kid Ying and Dr. Yang are going to next. It's simple. It gets the job done.
GAMEPLAY | 15/20
I played this on my own, so I'm going to describe this through the perspective of Kid Ying. He has multiple weapons he can upgrade towards, starting with a pipe-type of weapon, which can ultimately transform into a yo-yo with much larger reach. An upgrade is made with each time you collect a cat item. Your main combat ability is to press Attack and swing the melee weapon. Most enemies die to one hit and that's what you do for the entire game combat-wise. There are also multiple types of Judo attacks you can learn in Dojo's. These are special abilities that usually don't last long and can only be used in the zone/level you acquire them, like riding a Tiger, flying yourself or shooting lightning that kills everyone on screen. It's a simple but neat mechanic.
All zones are interspersed with tons, and I mean TONS, of mini games to partake in. There is dice rolling, a memory game, a paint game, whack-a-mole, a lottery game, damn arcade games like Gradius, a quiz show and a lot more. These require you to pay a pretty big amount of money to play, and the goal usually is to do well enough to try and come out of it with more money than you put in. I can't say I wasn't vary of how this would introduce kids to gambling at a very young age. Some levels require you to buy items for up to $1000, whilst each enemy you kill would only give you $10. So to pass the grind, the fastest way to make money would be to try to double your money with dice rolling for example. Luckily for me, a loss isn't a big deal, because thanks to the power of emulation, I can rewind and try again, but for all the kids playing back in the day, this actually adds more stakes to the gambling by locking progress behind money, so I can't say I was a fan of all of these mini games. Notwithstanding that, most levels have no money requirements and you can kill a few enemies and play a bunch of different mini games to break up the monotony, which overall is a major plus here.
Finally, the absolute highlight here for me is the variety you find in the boss fights. Just do yourself the favor and go take a look at them. The amount of creativity put on display here with the technological availabilities at the time is just insane. The graphical presentation of the bosses just puts the icing on the cake. The only bad part here is that some bosses are very difficult, and unfairly so in my opinion, which is definitely a shame, but it doesn't take away from the fact that these boss fights have been among the most pleasant I've experienced since starting this challenge.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 8/10
There is no voice acting. The soundtrack here is truly wonderful, it has a great theme befitting a "ninja hero" adventure with lots of great tracks.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10
This is one of the first SNES games ever and the game certainly takes advantage of the 16-bit capabilities of the console by creating this colorful world that at times does lack in diversity, but makes up for it through attention to detail in many areas like the circus one. You'll find lots of environmental pieces to appreciate here, like in the bark of the trees or the water, which looks excellent for a game of this time. And as mentioned previously, the graphical presentation for the boss fights is top notch, and the same goes for the enemy design in general.
ATMOSPHERE | 7/10
The music, the art style and graphical presentation overall certainly makes for a great overall game from an atmospheric standpoint, however it does feel odd to have all these mini games present for the main character in an environment where he fights dozens of hostiles.
CONTENT | 8/10
Lots and lots of side content here to get distracted by. Minus points for not offering the same diversity in the main gameplay and for making certain levels too grinding or gambling focused.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 7/10
You find yourself in many different zones, each with a few map slides that you can walk through and fight enemies or play mini games in. In most, you are free to choose whether you want to grind for money, play those games or move on to the platforming type area with the boss at the end. You reach these areas by finding a bear guarding the entrance to them. Before you enter, he warns you that you are about to approach a "dangerous area".
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 7/10
I haven't seen any other game that offers this many mini games next to its main content, and that's certainly a unique concept. Apart from this, the game plays like a basic adventure/platformer, which is not a bad thing.
REPLAYABILITY | 2/5
Apart from trying to beat your high score, there isn't any other motivation given to play this game again. You could certainly go back and play some of the mini games you missed the first time through or use more of the Judo attacks.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL | 71/100
Definitely one of the few games in this challenge so far where I would recommend to go back and play it, though I wouldn't say it's a recommendation to all gamers like with Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake and Super Mario World, but rather a recommendation to those who enjoy retro games, as I'm sure plenty of retro gamers actually missed out on playing this game, which to me is pretty underrated due to what it has on offer here.
The SNES just keeps delivering. Here, we have a game I heard way less about than the other SNES titles I have played already. This game is called The Legend of the Mystical Ninja and is part of the Ganbare Goemon series. The game released in Japan on July 19, 1991 and is the first game of the series to release in the West (in 1992). It doesn't move the needle necessarily in its gameplay, however in its presentation and in its content, where many other games would have to be described as lackadaisical copy-cats, The Legend of the Mystical Ninja proves to be an exciting game that tries and succeeds in offering a lot of fun activities outside of its core gameplay loop.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 4/10
You are Kid Ying (or Goemon originally), and if you play this in two-player coop, the other player would be Dr. Yang (or Ebisumaru originally). You are two ninjas who go on a heroic adventure, which has the ultimate goal of finding and freeing Princess Yuki. On your journey, you will meet many characters, both named and simple NPCs, who will each at least have one line of dialogue, typical of most action adventures of this time. Some more important characters have a bit more to say, and in addition, the end of each level comes with a quick recap of what just happened and where Kid Ying and Dr. Yang are going to next. It's simple. It gets the job done.
GAMEPLAY | 15/20
I played this on my own, so I'm going to describe this through the perspective of Kid Ying. He has multiple weapons he can upgrade towards, starting with a pipe-type of weapon, which can ultimately transform into a yo-yo with much larger reach. An upgrade is made with each time you collect a cat item. Your main combat ability is to press Attack and swing the melee weapon. Most enemies die to one hit and that's what you do for the entire game combat-wise. There are also multiple types of Judo attacks you can learn in Dojo's. These are special abilities that usually don't last long and can only be used in the zone/level you acquire them, like riding a Tiger, flying yourself or shooting lightning that kills everyone on screen. It's a simple but neat mechanic.
All zones are interspersed with tons, and I mean TONS, of mini games to partake in. There is dice rolling, a memory game, a paint game, whack-a-mole, a lottery game, damn arcade games like Gradius, a quiz show and a lot more. These require you to pay a pretty big amount of money to play, and the goal usually is to do well enough to try and come out of it with more money than you put in. I can't say I wasn't vary of how this would introduce kids to gambling at a very young age. Some levels require you to buy items for up to $1000, whilst each enemy you kill would only give you $10. So to pass the grind, the fastest way to make money would be to try to double your money with dice rolling for example. Luckily for me, a loss isn't a big deal, because thanks to the power of emulation, I can rewind and try again, but for all the kids playing back in the day, this actually adds more stakes to the gambling by locking progress behind money, so I can't say I was a fan of all of these mini games. Notwithstanding that, most levels have no money requirements and you can kill a few enemies and play a bunch of different mini games to break up the monotony, which overall is a major plus here.
Finally, the absolute highlight here for me is the variety you find in the boss fights. Just do yourself the favor and go take a look at them. The amount of creativity put on display here with the technological availabilities at the time is just insane. The graphical presentation of the bosses just puts the icing on the cake. The only bad part here is that some bosses are very difficult, and unfairly so in my opinion, which is definitely a shame, but it doesn't take away from the fact that these boss fights have been among the most pleasant I've experienced since starting this challenge.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 8/10
There is no voice acting. The soundtrack here is truly wonderful, it has a great theme befitting a "ninja hero" adventure with lots of great tracks.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10
This is one of the first SNES games ever and the game certainly takes advantage of the 16-bit capabilities of the console by creating this colorful world that at times does lack in diversity, but makes up for it through attention to detail in many areas like the circus one. You'll find lots of environmental pieces to appreciate here, like in the bark of the trees or the water, which looks excellent for a game of this time. And as mentioned previously, the graphical presentation for the boss fights is top notch, and the same goes for the enemy design in general.
ATMOSPHERE | 7/10
The music, the art style and graphical presentation overall certainly makes for a great overall game from an atmospheric standpoint, however it does feel odd to have all these mini games present for the main character in an environment where he fights dozens of hostiles.
CONTENT | 8/10
Lots and lots of side content here to get distracted by. Minus points for not offering the same diversity in the main gameplay and for making certain levels too grinding or gambling focused.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 7/10
You find yourself in many different zones, each with a few map slides that you can walk through and fight enemies or play mini games in. In most, you are free to choose whether you want to grind for money, play those games or move on to the platforming type area with the boss at the end. You reach these areas by finding a bear guarding the entrance to them. Before you enter, he warns you that you are about to approach a "dangerous area".
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 7/10
I haven't seen any other game that offers this many mini games next to its main content, and that's certainly a unique concept. Apart from this, the game plays like a basic adventure/platformer, which is not a bad thing.
REPLAYABILITY | 2/5
Apart from trying to beat your high score, there isn't any other motivation given to play this game again. You could certainly go back and play some of the mini games you missed the first time through or use more of the Judo attacks.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL | 71/100
Definitely one of the few games in this challenge so far where I would recommend to go back and play it, though I wouldn't say it's a recommendation to all gamers like with Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake and Super Mario World, but rather a recommendation to those who enjoy retro games, as I'm sure plenty of retro gamers actually missed out on playing this game, which to me is pretty underrated due to what it has on offer here.
(This is the 41st game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
I think this is the first time in this challenge that I'm playing an actual sequel, though Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom chronologically actually plays between Ninja Gaiden I and II. The game came out on June 21, 1991 for the NES. I've actually played this back in December, so my memory of the game isn't so fresh, which means this review will be a bit shorter.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 7/10
This series is known for an unusually big focus on its story at the time, giving players cutscenes that could last for minutes at a time after each level. Add a recognizable main character in Ryu Hayabusa, and I can't really not give this series a solid grade here. What has it stay a couple levels behind other story-heavy games of this time like Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake and graphical adventures, is that the story is missing that one ingredient which makes it memorable. Sure, there is the conspiracy with Irene, Ryu's love interest, being killed by a Ryu Hayabusa lookalike, and sure, there are a few twists present here, but it never really goes deeper than that. You don't gain deeper insight into the mind of Ryu, the antagonist simply has a "take over the world" motive that you see everywhere and the conclusion is pretty much what you would expect. That is not a bad story overall, it's just pretty basic with a few cool little moments and revelations. For video games at the time, again, it's great to see that a game spends so much time to tell a story, but it's not going to make you think about the game after playing it, or beyond the game whilst playing it like Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake for example.
GAMEPLAY | 12/20
The Ninja Gaiden series has hack & slash and platforming gameplay, and that's the same here. This is on the NES just like Ninja Gaiden II was, so there are no improvements here that an SNES release would have given. It did get released for the SNES as part of the Ninja Gaiden Trilogy years later however.
Ninja Gaiden to me felt a bit worse in terms of its gameplay than what I played of the second title. The enemy design felt worse for some, it felt like some features were missing like the ability for Ryu to clone himself, which added a different layer to everything in Ninja Gaiden 2, and so overall, this felt like a worse version of an older game, which is never great for a sequel.
In general though, the hack & slash gameplay in this series is not too bad, it just felt disappointing that this game was made for the NES again and didn't improve, which an SNES release surely would have accomplished.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 8/10
There is no voice acting. The soundtrack is really good. I really like the fast pace to all the beats and it definitely supplemented the game well.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10
The game looks good for an NES game. The graphical presentation, both overall and in cutscenes, is absolutely a plus here.
ATMOSPHERE | 8/10
Varied environments throughout. The urgency put forward by the story along with the great soundtrack make for an exciting affair throughout.
CONTENT | 6/10
The game is just about as long as the previous one I believe, and while the game has a high difficulty overall, what's on offer here is plentiful and challenging. The gameplay is pretty much the same throughout and there isn't much else to this game though, but that's not an issue here.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 5/10
Platforming / Hack & slash sections followed by a cut scene. You do this throughout and then the game ends. Unlike many other platformers, there aren't any levels that try to mix things up a little bit, and the game's difficulty is too high in my opinion.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 6/10
I can write pretty much the same thing here as for the 2nd game in this trilogy. Its focus on storytelling makes this be a pretty original game, the core gameplay is fun, but this is a small step back overall in my opinion.
REPLAYABILITY | 2/5
Apart from trying to beat your high score, there isn't any other motivation given to play this game again.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL | 67/100
Great soundtrack, big focus on storytelling, which is always a plus in my book for this time period, and pretty fun gameplay makes this a recommendation. However, I'd rather recommend the second game for newcomers to the series, which actually is an improvement over the first and probably the best game in this NES trilogy.
I think this is the first time in this challenge that I'm playing an actual sequel, though Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom chronologically actually plays between Ninja Gaiden I and II. The game came out on June 21, 1991 for the NES. I've actually played this back in December, so my memory of the game isn't so fresh, which means this review will be a bit shorter.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 7/10
This series is known for an unusually big focus on its story at the time, giving players cutscenes that could last for minutes at a time after each level. Add a recognizable main character in Ryu Hayabusa, and I can't really not give this series a solid grade here. What has it stay a couple levels behind other story-heavy games of this time like Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake and graphical adventures, is that the story is missing that one ingredient which makes it memorable. Sure, there is the conspiracy with Irene, Ryu's love interest, being killed by a Ryu Hayabusa lookalike, and sure, there are a few twists present here, but it never really goes deeper than that. You don't gain deeper insight into the mind of Ryu, the antagonist simply has a "take over the world" motive that you see everywhere and the conclusion is pretty much what you would expect. That is not a bad story overall, it's just pretty basic with a few cool little moments and revelations. For video games at the time, again, it's great to see that a game spends so much time to tell a story, but it's not going to make you think about the game after playing it, or beyond the game whilst playing it like Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake for example.
GAMEPLAY | 12/20
The Ninja Gaiden series has hack & slash and platforming gameplay, and that's the same here. This is on the NES just like Ninja Gaiden II was, so there are no improvements here that an SNES release would have given. It did get released for the SNES as part of the Ninja Gaiden Trilogy years later however.
Ninja Gaiden to me felt a bit worse in terms of its gameplay than what I played of the second title. The enemy design felt worse for some, it felt like some features were missing like the ability for Ryu to clone himself, which added a different layer to everything in Ninja Gaiden 2, and so overall, this felt like a worse version of an older game, which is never great for a sequel.
In general though, the hack & slash gameplay in this series is not too bad, it just felt disappointing that this game was made for the NES again and didn't improve, which an SNES release surely would have accomplished.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 8/10
There is no voice acting. The soundtrack is really good. I really like the fast pace to all the beats and it definitely supplemented the game well.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10
The game looks good for an NES game. The graphical presentation, both overall and in cutscenes, is absolutely a plus here.
ATMOSPHERE | 8/10
Varied environments throughout. The urgency put forward by the story along with the great soundtrack make for an exciting affair throughout.
CONTENT | 6/10
The game is just about as long as the previous one I believe, and while the game has a high difficulty overall, what's on offer here is plentiful and challenging. The gameplay is pretty much the same throughout and there isn't much else to this game though, but that's not an issue here.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 5/10
Platforming / Hack & slash sections followed by a cut scene. You do this throughout and then the game ends. Unlike many other platformers, there aren't any levels that try to mix things up a little bit, and the game's difficulty is too high in my opinion.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 6/10
I can write pretty much the same thing here as for the 2nd game in this trilogy. Its focus on storytelling makes this be a pretty original game, the core gameplay is fun, but this is a small step back overall in my opinion.
REPLAYABILITY | 2/5
Apart from trying to beat your high score, there isn't any other motivation given to play this game again.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL | 67/100
Great soundtrack, big focus on storytelling, which is always a plus in my book for this time period, and pretty fun gameplay makes this a recommendation. However, I'd rather recommend the second game for newcomers to the series, which actually is an improvement over the first and probably the best game in this NES trilogy.
1991
(This is the 40th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
This review of Battletoads comes months after I initially played the game, as I took a break from the challenge shortly after, so I might be iffy on some details in this review. One thing I know for sure though is that I was impressed by it and how, in a lot of ways, Battletoads did things I have not seen any other game do up to this point. At the same time, it's ridiculously difficult, which is counterintuitive when the developers clearly put a lot of energy and passion into creating all the levels this game has on offer.
Battletoads released on June 1, 1991 for the NES and later got released for the Sega Mega Drive, Game Gear and Game Boy. It's a beat 'em up / platformer game, was developed by Rare and just a few years ago, in 2020, actually got a reboot, but released to an underwhelming reception. One thing that is critized about the reboot is that it lacks the difficulty of the original, however, having played the original, I can't say that in itself is a bad thing, considering that this game goes way overboard with that. But if you want to reboot a game like this and take advantage of the name recognition among its fans, you need to realize that those fans most likely remember this game FOR its difficulty, so I guess that criticism is justified in that regard.
However, all my thoughts about the game you can find in my review below.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 2/10
There is very little story here apart from the set-up. There are three Battletoads called Pimple, Zitz and Rash. Yeah I know, very endearing names. They are escorting Princess Angelica. Pimple and Princess Angelica find themselves kidnapped by the Dark Queen and her gang, so Rash and Zitz are sent to rescue them. Rash and Zitz are differentiated in color but in this game, there aren't really any other differences between the two. The SNES game that released in 1993 actually gives each character different powers.
GAMEPLAY | 14/20
This is a very fun game to play, at least over the first third/half of the game. Most levels are actually unique in design, in some you just beat up enemies, in one you climb down a "wookie hole" and fight enemies whilst hanging from a rope, then there is an ice level where you dodge rocks and throw snowballs, a level where you surf, where you climb snakes, where you have to quickly run through tubes while large gears try to mow you down and much, much more. There is incredible variety here, and so much creativity in the design of each level, that you just have to wonder why they decided to make this game so difficult.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Battletoads would have done just fine, if its levels were actually beatable without having to spend dozens and dozens of hours to collect the muscle memory to beat this thing. For the majority of players,, most of the levels this game has to offer will simply be unachievable, whether through lack of skill or 'willpower', though I'd rather call it thickheadedness to put oneself through the torture of perfecting every button press in order to win.
In one level for example, you have to race a rat to the bottom of the map. The rat is so fast, that you simply will not beat it unless you figure out when exactly to move exactly where in the exact millisecond to avoid losing momentum. I simply could not do it after hours. That includes using an emulator and rewinding every time to try and get it down perfectly. To think that people had to do it through trial and error and with limited continues, and the thought of that just makes me nauseous.
Somehow, I got to the next level however, which is actually the penultimate level in this game. Here, you hold on to a tire and have to run away from a lollipop-like looking circle that rushes after you. To not lose your speed, you need to move left, right, up and down through many many corners and have to press the appropriate button at the exact moment that you reach the edge of the line that you are currently driving on. Miss it by a tiny bit and you already lose speed and I think just a couple of those misses are already enough to have you be outrun and overrun. It's just brutal and a little more leeway would still have this game last many hours, but actually be beatable in a proper amount of time.
As it is, the game is incredibly varied in its level design, a lot of fun, but incredibly frustrating altogether.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 6/10
There is no voice acting. Both the music and sounds are not really anything special in my opinion as far as the NES goes. Playing this game for dozens of hours to beat it will of course burn the music for the first few levels into the players brains, and I personally found the first few songs to be the best (best being slightly above average) but the overall soundtrack to be average, if not below average.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 9/10
This game looks good graphically for an NES game. Where it is very good is in the sprite quality and especially in its animation. I chuckled the first time I saw Rash's jaw literally drop to the floor when he saw a strong enemy. But even apart from that, good animation work is omnipresent in this game and it definitely adds a lot to the presentation here.
ATMOSPHERE | 8/10
The vibes in this game are pretty positive based on the presentation. Sounds, graphical design, level design and soundtrack combine to trick you into thinking this will be a fun little affair, but then you add the difficulty to the mix, which we frankly have to as it is such a big factor in this game, and it starts to get a little weird. I can't tell if it's positive or negative weird.
CONTENT | 5/10
On the one hand, I want to give a much better score here because the content is so varied and original, but on the other hand, the majority of these levels come with the caveat that they are simply very, very tough to beat without hours and hours of frustration and/or the use of the rewind feature of an emulator of your choosing.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 7/10
I got similar feelings here as in the "content" section, however, I'm gonna be a bit more friendly here because the levels are just that creative. You gotta think though, was the design choice to make it so difficult made before the levels were designed or after? Either way, I'd like to know what the devs who designed these thought about the choice to make the game so difficult, because it really is a waste of the creativity and passion put on display here for the latter levels.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 7/10
Few games are these varied and creative during this time period of gaming, especially amongst platformers. Many devs however chose to make their games more difficult than they would in a world where making games last longer without the added difficulty had been possible.
REPLAYABILITY | 1/5
Unless you're a masochist, you're not replaying this after/if you beat it.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL | 64/100
A fantastic showcase of how creative developers were at this time in video gaming history. They pulled a lot out of the NES and then some, made each level unique, put a lot of love and attention to detail, only to decide to make this game tough as nails and not allow most of the players to even see the majority of levels the devs spent so much time on designing. Very weird, but it's clear why Battletoads has its hardcore fans. I'd say absolutely check it out, but don't be surprised if you don't make it far before you drop it.
This review of Battletoads comes months after I initially played the game, as I took a break from the challenge shortly after, so I might be iffy on some details in this review. One thing I know for sure though is that I was impressed by it and how, in a lot of ways, Battletoads did things I have not seen any other game do up to this point. At the same time, it's ridiculously difficult, which is counterintuitive when the developers clearly put a lot of energy and passion into creating all the levels this game has on offer.
Battletoads released on June 1, 1991 for the NES and later got released for the Sega Mega Drive, Game Gear and Game Boy. It's a beat 'em up / platformer game, was developed by Rare and just a few years ago, in 2020, actually got a reboot, but released to an underwhelming reception. One thing that is critized about the reboot is that it lacks the difficulty of the original, however, having played the original, I can't say that in itself is a bad thing, considering that this game goes way overboard with that. But if you want to reboot a game like this and take advantage of the name recognition among its fans, you need to realize that those fans most likely remember this game FOR its difficulty, so I guess that criticism is justified in that regard.
However, all my thoughts about the game you can find in my review below.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 2/10
There is very little story here apart from the set-up. There are three Battletoads called Pimple, Zitz and Rash. Yeah I know, very endearing names. They are escorting Princess Angelica. Pimple and Princess Angelica find themselves kidnapped by the Dark Queen and her gang, so Rash and Zitz are sent to rescue them. Rash and Zitz are differentiated in color but in this game, there aren't really any other differences between the two. The SNES game that released in 1993 actually gives each character different powers.
GAMEPLAY | 14/20
This is a very fun game to play, at least over the first third/half of the game. Most levels are actually unique in design, in some you just beat up enemies, in one you climb down a "wookie hole" and fight enemies whilst hanging from a rope, then there is an ice level where you dodge rocks and throw snowballs, a level where you surf, where you climb snakes, where you have to quickly run through tubes while large gears try to mow you down and much, much more. There is incredible variety here, and so much creativity in the design of each level, that you just have to wonder why they decided to make this game so difficult.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Battletoads would have done just fine, if its levels were actually beatable without having to spend dozens and dozens of hours to collect the muscle memory to beat this thing. For the majority of players,, most of the levels this game has to offer will simply be unachievable, whether through lack of skill or 'willpower', though I'd rather call it thickheadedness to put oneself through the torture of perfecting every button press in order to win.
In one level for example, you have to race a rat to the bottom of the map. The rat is so fast, that you simply will not beat it unless you figure out when exactly to move exactly where in the exact millisecond to avoid losing momentum. I simply could not do it after hours. That includes using an emulator and rewinding every time to try and get it down perfectly. To think that people had to do it through trial and error and with limited continues, and the thought of that just makes me nauseous.
Somehow, I got to the next level however, which is actually the penultimate level in this game. Here, you hold on to a tire and have to run away from a lollipop-like looking circle that rushes after you. To not lose your speed, you need to move left, right, up and down through many many corners and have to press the appropriate button at the exact moment that you reach the edge of the line that you are currently driving on. Miss it by a tiny bit and you already lose speed and I think just a couple of those misses are already enough to have you be outrun and overrun. It's just brutal and a little more leeway would still have this game last many hours, but actually be beatable in a proper amount of time.
As it is, the game is incredibly varied in its level design, a lot of fun, but incredibly frustrating altogether.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 6/10
There is no voice acting. Both the music and sounds are not really anything special in my opinion as far as the NES goes. Playing this game for dozens of hours to beat it will of course burn the music for the first few levels into the players brains, and I personally found the first few songs to be the best (best being slightly above average) but the overall soundtrack to be average, if not below average.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 9/10
This game looks good graphically for an NES game. Where it is very good is in the sprite quality and especially in its animation. I chuckled the first time I saw Rash's jaw literally drop to the floor when he saw a strong enemy. But even apart from that, good animation work is omnipresent in this game and it definitely adds a lot to the presentation here.
ATMOSPHERE | 8/10
The vibes in this game are pretty positive based on the presentation. Sounds, graphical design, level design and soundtrack combine to trick you into thinking this will be a fun little affair, but then you add the difficulty to the mix, which we frankly have to as it is such a big factor in this game, and it starts to get a little weird. I can't tell if it's positive or negative weird.
CONTENT | 5/10
On the one hand, I want to give a much better score here because the content is so varied and original, but on the other hand, the majority of these levels come with the caveat that they are simply very, very tough to beat without hours and hours of frustration and/or the use of the rewind feature of an emulator of your choosing.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 7/10
I got similar feelings here as in the "content" section, however, I'm gonna be a bit more friendly here because the levels are just that creative. You gotta think though, was the design choice to make it so difficult made before the levels were designed or after? Either way, I'd like to know what the devs who designed these thought about the choice to make the game so difficult, because it really is a waste of the creativity and passion put on display here for the latter levels.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 7/10
Few games are these varied and creative during this time period of gaming, especially amongst platformers. Many devs however chose to make their games more difficult than they would in a world where making games last longer without the added difficulty had been possible.
REPLAYABILITY | 1/5
Unless you're a masochist, you're not replaying this after/if you beat it.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL | 64/100
A fantastic showcase of how creative developers were at this time in video gaming history. They pulled a lot out of the NES and then some, made each level unique, put a lot of love and attention to detail, only to decide to make this game tough as nails and not allow most of the players to even see the majority of levels the devs spent so much time on designing. Very weird, but it's clear why Battletoads has its hardcore fans. I'd say absolutely check it out, but don't be surprised if you don't make it far before you drop it.
1991
(This is the 44th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
Duke Nukem is not a franchise I'm familiar with, apart from the endless negative things I heard about Duke Nukem Forever over the last decade. I was surprised to learn that the game has its roots right here, all the way back in July 1991 on the MS-DOS. The series would go on to have three more releases over the following 20 years, including two 3D games, whereas this one is a 2D platformer/action shooter.
I've played this game for 2 hours in total and did not beat it. My main issue, which I will, among other things, touched on below, was the headache-inducing (literally unfortunately) sounds. But here are my overall thoughts.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 5/10
This game has a lengthy explanation on what's going on before you start, plus dialogue that happens between Duke and the game's antagonist, Dr. Proton, which I always appreciate for this time period. Dr. Proton is a scientist who has turned evil and wants to take over Earth (a popular backstory for video game antagonists at the time I must say). You are Duke Nukem (called Duke Nukum in game because an animated series apparently had a character with the same name, so the devs wanted to avoid a lawsuit), and have to stop Dr. Proton. The intro says the following: "Armed only with his pistol and his can-do attitude, duke is hte one person who might stand a chance of success." Really? A squad of hundreds equipped with that same pistol (or more?) couldn't stand a better chance? Duke then drops a brutal one-liner: "I'll be done with you and still have time to watch Oprah." I appreciate the silliness and am shocked at how long Oprah has managed to stay relevant, despite being one of the fakest and obnoxious people I have ever seen on television. It makes me wonder whether I should like Duke now. I digress.
GAMEPLAY | 9/20
There is nothing wrong with the gameplay in Duke Nukem other than the fact that it is very repetitive and limited in the amount of things you are able to do.
You control your character with the left and right arrow keys, you use the UP arrow key as the "action" key, like taking elevators upwards or teleporting, you use CTRL to jump and ALT to shoot your pistol.
Your goal is to reach the EXIT of an area, which can be pretty much anywhere in a given level. The game uses the space it has fully both vertically and horizontally. This means you can fall down the entire map in some levels, you have lots of space to cover from left to right and a lot of the levels are designed in a kind of labyrinth sort of fashion, as you have no pointers on where to go and some areas can be kind of similar looking. Your goal usually is to find a key to unlock access to other areas and/or the exit itself.
While you are on the lookout for the key, you have to fight off robot enemies and helicopters, you have to break crates which can either have healing items, miscellaneous items that give you points for your total score and dynamite, which explodes, so you have to watch out. There are also cameras that "watch your every move", and if you destroy every camera in a given map, you get bonus points. There is some light platforming here as well to top it off.
The game this reminds me of the most in terms of design is actually Bugs Bunny's Birthday Blowout. In that game, you also work your way through relatively large open areas with exits that can seemingly be everywhere, and on your way there, you fight enemies and collect stuff.
Unlike that game, Duke Nukem doesn't suffer from 3 FPS and basically 0 difficulty level, but I can't say I liked the level design of either game.
Duke Nukem doesn't really have the variety to keep you engaged for the 10+ hours it will take you to beat it on your first playthrough and for me, playing it at all was literally headache-inducing, which is a first for any video game I have ever played, mainly because there is no soundtrack here at all and all you here is those typical MS-DOS sound effects, which I never realized sounded so horrible until I played a game without any music.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 1/10
There is no voice acting, which is pretty typical and no big deal. But there also is no soundtrack, which is very odd. Literally no music at all. And then there is the sound design, which, if this didn't exist either, I would be inclined to at least give one point, but the sounds are so horrible and headache-inducing that I'd give this minus points, if it were to be in my rating system.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 4/10
The game looks like your cut and dry MS-DOS game. The sprite for Duke is a man who just constantly is grinding his teeth, the game lacks detail in environment and animation, there is some use of too strong colors in the background which isn't too kind on the eye and the background itself is either a still image or just pitch black. There are definitely stronger games than this that released for the MS-DOS at the time, so this wasn't that impressive.
ATMOSPHERE | 5/10
Pretty nice to see each episode move to a different setting (earth, moon, future), but visually, this game is rather basic looking and apart from the handful of dialogue that you see throughout the game, and the 0 music and ambient sound, there isn't really anything to give the impression of anything atmospheric, apart from the lack of which on the moon I guess.
CONTENT | 4/10
Game is pretty long but has pretty repetitive gameplay and mission design. Rewards for doing some extra stuff, like destroying all cameras, pretty much always is just some bonus points, so there is a lack of incentive to go through each corner of the map as well (if you can find your way there).
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 4/10
A long game with labyrinth/maze like levels for no real reason. The gameplay variety here does not really justify the maps being so convoluted. The game has its fair share of fans still, just like any game from the past pretty much, but I doubt any new players will find a lot of enjoyment out of finding their way to the target, especially since the maps don't seem to be designed all too well.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 3/10
This is a platformer that doesn't really do anything differently. Perhaps it was an above average platformer on the PC, but there several other platformers who have done just about everything better than Duke Nukem does here.
REPLAYABILITY | 1/5
No real replayability after you're done, unless you want to get those bonus points and increase your score.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL | 39/100
This game is celebrated for being one of the best platformers for the MS-DOS at the time. Flux magazine ranked it the 39th best video game of all time in 1995. I have played 44 games for this challenge and this score would rank it 39th also. The lack of music and the terrible sound design really make for a brutal experience, and couple that with the repetitive nature of the gameplay and you really feel like you're in for a nightmare. Play it on mute, and it's not quite that bad, but still hasn't aged well.
Duke Nukem is not a franchise I'm familiar with, apart from the endless negative things I heard about Duke Nukem Forever over the last decade. I was surprised to learn that the game has its roots right here, all the way back in July 1991 on the MS-DOS. The series would go on to have three more releases over the following 20 years, including two 3D games, whereas this one is a 2D platformer/action shooter.
I've played this game for 2 hours in total and did not beat it. My main issue, which I will, among other things, touched on below, was the headache-inducing (literally unfortunately) sounds. But here are my overall thoughts.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 5/10
This game has a lengthy explanation on what's going on before you start, plus dialogue that happens between Duke and the game's antagonist, Dr. Proton, which I always appreciate for this time period. Dr. Proton is a scientist who has turned evil and wants to take over Earth (a popular backstory for video game antagonists at the time I must say). You are Duke Nukem (called Duke Nukum in game because an animated series apparently had a character with the same name, so the devs wanted to avoid a lawsuit), and have to stop Dr. Proton. The intro says the following: "Armed only with his pistol and his can-do attitude, duke is hte one person who might stand a chance of success." Really? A squad of hundreds equipped with that same pistol (or more?) couldn't stand a better chance? Duke then drops a brutal one-liner: "I'll be done with you and still have time to watch Oprah." I appreciate the silliness and am shocked at how long Oprah has managed to stay relevant, despite being one of the fakest and obnoxious people I have ever seen on television. It makes me wonder whether I should like Duke now. I digress.
GAMEPLAY | 9/20
There is nothing wrong with the gameplay in Duke Nukem other than the fact that it is very repetitive and limited in the amount of things you are able to do.
You control your character with the left and right arrow keys, you use the UP arrow key as the "action" key, like taking elevators upwards or teleporting, you use CTRL to jump and ALT to shoot your pistol.
Your goal is to reach the EXIT of an area, which can be pretty much anywhere in a given level. The game uses the space it has fully both vertically and horizontally. This means you can fall down the entire map in some levels, you have lots of space to cover from left to right and a lot of the levels are designed in a kind of labyrinth sort of fashion, as you have no pointers on where to go and some areas can be kind of similar looking. Your goal usually is to find a key to unlock access to other areas and/or the exit itself.
While you are on the lookout for the key, you have to fight off robot enemies and helicopters, you have to break crates which can either have healing items, miscellaneous items that give you points for your total score and dynamite, which explodes, so you have to watch out. There are also cameras that "watch your every move", and if you destroy every camera in a given map, you get bonus points. There is some light platforming here as well to top it off.
The game this reminds me of the most in terms of design is actually Bugs Bunny's Birthday Blowout. In that game, you also work your way through relatively large open areas with exits that can seemingly be everywhere, and on your way there, you fight enemies and collect stuff.
Unlike that game, Duke Nukem doesn't suffer from 3 FPS and basically 0 difficulty level, but I can't say I liked the level design of either game.
Duke Nukem doesn't really have the variety to keep you engaged for the 10+ hours it will take you to beat it on your first playthrough and for me, playing it at all was literally headache-inducing, which is a first for any video game I have ever played, mainly because there is no soundtrack here at all and all you here is those typical MS-DOS sound effects, which I never realized sounded so horrible until I played a game without any music.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 1/10
There is no voice acting, which is pretty typical and no big deal. But there also is no soundtrack, which is very odd. Literally no music at all. And then there is the sound design, which, if this didn't exist either, I would be inclined to at least give one point, but the sounds are so horrible and headache-inducing that I'd give this minus points, if it were to be in my rating system.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 4/10
The game looks like your cut and dry MS-DOS game. The sprite for Duke is a man who just constantly is grinding his teeth, the game lacks detail in environment and animation, there is some use of too strong colors in the background which isn't too kind on the eye and the background itself is either a still image or just pitch black. There are definitely stronger games than this that released for the MS-DOS at the time, so this wasn't that impressive.
ATMOSPHERE | 5/10
Pretty nice to see each episode move to a different setting (earth, moon, future), but visually, this game is rather basic looking and apart from the handful of dialogue that you see throughout the game, and the 0 music and ambient sound, there isn't really anything to give the impression of anything atmospheric, apart from the lack of which on the moon I guess.
CONTENT | 4/10
Game is pretty long but has pretty repetitive gameplay and mission design. Rewards for doing some extra stuff, like destroying all cameras, pretty much always is just some bonus points, so there is a lack of incentive to go through each corner of the map as well (if you can find your way there).
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 4/10
A long game with labyrinth/maze like levels for no real reason. The gameplay variety here does not really justify the maps being so convoluted. The game has its fair share of fans still, just like any game from the past pretty much, but I doubt any new players will find a lot of enjoyment out of finding their way to the target, especially since the maps don't seem to be designed all too well.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 3/10
This is a platformer that doesn't really do anything differently. Perhaps it was an above average platformer on the PC, but there several other platformers who have done just about everything better than Duke Nukem does here.
REPLAYABILITY | 1/5
No real replayability after you're done, unless you want to get those bonus points and increase your score.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times.
OVERALL | 39/100
This game is celebrated for being one of the best platformers for the MS-DOS at the time. Flux magazine ranked it the 39th best video game of all time in 1995. I have played 44 games for this challenge and this score would rank it 39th also. The lack of music and the terrible sound design really make for a brutal experience, and couple that with the repetitive nature of the gameplay and you really feel like you're in for a nightmare. Play it on mute, and it's not quite that bad, but still hasn't aged well.
1991
(This is the 43rd game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
I took a few-month-long break from this challenge, only to return to arguably one of the most well-known video games of all time: Sonic the Hedgehog, which released on June 23rd, 1991 for the Sega Genesis. As someone who's childhood was dominated by Mario and Nintendo rather than Sonic and Sega, this was the first time I actually tried not only the original Sonic game, but any Sonic game period.
Expecting a fast paced variation to the multitude of same-y platformers that the video game industry printed out in and around 1991, I was not disappointed. For the most part.
More on the game in detail below.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 4/10
This is another one of those games that doesn't really have any in-game storytelling apart from the boss encounters. You have to stop evil Dr. Ivo Robotnik, who snatches innocent animals and turns them into evil robots.
You, of course, are Sonic the Hedgehog. I'll give the manual of this game the honors to describe him to you: "It's Sonic, the real cool hedgehog with the spiked haircut and power sneakers that give him super speed." That's a cute description. Obviously, Sega finally found their answer to Nintendo's Mario with Sonic after trying with Alex Kidd from 1986 up until Sonic replaced him. Dr. Robotnik himself turned into an iconic video game antagonist as well, though after his first appearance here, I'd think it's either because he was just the villain millions of children were chasing back in the day, or because he has a more prominent role in future entries. Either way, Sega created one of the most iconic characters in video games here, and for that they deserve all the praise they got through the years.
Every other character you know and love from the series isn't present here yet.
GAMEPLAY | 13/20
This is a 2D platformer the likes you've seen before. At least for the most part. You have to jump attack enemies to make them pop or avoid them altogether. You have to watch for spikes at the bottom of the screen, lest you want to see your demise. You need to take out bosses after the end of each area. You have to do this for multiple areas until you defeat the final boss. And you start with 3 lives to accomplish this.
The catch: You gain in speed as you gain in momentum. This means, the longer you can run forward uninterrupted, the faster you become. I don't know why I am explaining this, you all know Sonic. ... Running fast allows you to reach otherwise unreachable heights and areas to boost your score, find secrets and generally avoid the pitfalls that avoid you at the bottom of the screen.
Those pitfalls? Those aforementioned spikes for example. There are platforms you can jump on mixed in with spikes, and if you fall into them, you take a hit.
["Health" in this game explained: Taking a hit is not fatal as long as you carry 1 coin or more with you. If you get hit, you lose that coin. You can try to pick it back up before it disappears. If you run around with no coins, any hit is fatal, unless you have picked up a power-up item that acts like a shield. This is similar to Mario in that he'll instantly die if you are small Mario, but get infinite health as long as you can find mushrooms after every time you take a hit.]
With the spikes, the problem is, it doesn't matter whether you carry coins, because you don't gain i-frames if you take a hit from them. So you end up taking the hit, which throws you vertically into the air and back down on top of the spikes, which then kills you. That was pretty annoying, though they are easy to avoid once you start remembering the level map.
There are also snakes which you can only hit if you jump on top of their head, but it's easy to miss to at first and jump on top of its tail, which will damage you. Early on, there is also spike bridge which keeps spinning, and I still haven't figured out when to jump on top of it without avoiding the spikes.
I haven't gotten too deep into the game to see what about half of the levels look like, but as you can see, it's a typical design of figuring things out as you keep playing. The Arcade design with these types of games hasn't really aged well because instead of spending a couple hours and beating the game, devs put these mechanics in place to keep you playing for dozens of hours before you win, as otherwise you'd notice that the game in actuality is quite short. One full playthrough takes less than an hour, if you can actually win. And unlike a game like Super Mario World, where I would collect 30+ 1Up's without any issue, the extra lives are much more hidden, and presumable scarce, here.
There are some parts where you have to hop on platforms as they slowly appear, or where you have to avoid spikes at the bottom as previously mentioned, and those sectioned kind of felt out of place in a game that has speed as its main theme.
When you reach full speed though, and everything loops quite well, the gameplay becomes satisfying. But to reach that kind of fluidity will take you a while, at least in this specific game.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 6/10
No voice acting. I have mixed feelings about the sound design, as I thought that some effects sounded pretty good, but some pretty bad. The sound of the ground beneath me collapsing just sounds unnecessarily aggressive, the sound that keeps playing when you have the shield power-up equipped just shouldn't exist (I would describe it as such: "hatufff") and the 18 sounds that play at the same time whilst you are in the secret 'floating maze' area sounded unnerving. I think Sega could improve a lot in this area in future iterations, though I'm obviously complaining on a high level here. The soundtrack, at least for the first half of levels which I was able to play, sounded pretty good. The Green Hill Zone music I was already familiar with through, among other things, it being sampled into rap songs. In general, I thought the soundtrack was nice to listen to.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 7/10
The graphics here look pretty good for its time. Some zones are rather basic looking in presentation, some way too busy, but overall, the game is definitely above average visually. If you have played a future entry, this might be a bit harder to look, I can't say, but if you're a newcomer to the series, this game definitely fits right in with just about any game in this era. Though to me, this game is many steps behind Super Mario World in graphical presentation nonetheless thanks to Super Mario World's variety in presentation and much cleaner and unique animations. Though back then, this wasn't the predominant opinion, and you might feel differently today as well.
ATMOSPHERE | 6/10
There isn't really much here to put into a cohesive unit that emanates an immersive "Sonic-like atmosphere", and I feel like that's something that will work itself out in the upcoming releases.
The mix of sounds with everything that happens on the screen through the music and sound effects feels excessive and unconnected at times and the zones don't really tell me much about where Sonic is and what this world feels like. The soundtrack, while nice to listen to on its own, sounds like it lacks a little bit of punch to the speedster that Sonic is. Look, I know rambling about this is way too serious and ridiculous, and I agree, but that's what this section is for. I doubt many share these thoughts, but that's what I thought about whilst playing the game. Hello to you, if you actually are reading this. :-)
CONTENT | 6/10
This is a short game, if you actually manage to beat it. It takes less than one hour for a normal full playthrough. Of course, it'll take you 10+ hours to actually beat it because of all the trial and error. Besides blazing through the levels, there are some hidden secret areas that will grant you some power up items, extra lives and a boost to your total score, plus those Secret Zones where you can collect "Chaos Emeralds". The Chaos Emeralds in the original version are there to give you the good ending, if you collect them all. In some other entries, and in a 2013 remaster entry of this title, acquiring them all enables Super Sonic, an OP golden version of Sonic.
In terms of the zone differences, the game does continue to mix things up the further you progress, though not in a major way. There are also no deviations from the core gameplay here by introducing other mechanics, which makes sense, as this is the first Sonic game. For example in Super Mario World, you have levels where you can acquire Yoshi, which changes gameplay up a bit, or you have special boss and ghost zones which play differently, among other things.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 7/10
The levels in this game are put into 6 different zones plus a final zone, with each zone differing in style. Levels are for the most part designed to enhance Sonic's strength, speed, by for example giving him spirals to run through and gain momentum. At the same time, some levels include parts that force the player to take it slower, unless the player is already extremely skilled and knowledgeable about the game to rarely run into any obstacles. Either way, there are some parts where you simply need to wait for platforms to carry you somewhere or to come down to your level so you can jump on top of them.
Overall, the level design is unique thanks to the speed factor, but otherwise doesn't really stray far from the average platformer formula. That is to be expected though, as this is the first Sonic game made.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 9/10
This game gets a big bonus for giving us the debut of Sonic and introducing speed as such a prevalent feature in its design, something you didn't really see anywhere else on this level. Is it very unique apart from those things? Definitely not, but I don't think it needs to be, at least until Sonic the Hedgehog 2 releases in November 1992.
REPLAYABILITY | 2/5
How replayable would this game be after you beat it once? Not a lot. You are unlikely to collect all Chaos Emeralds your first time through and will likely receive the bad ending, so the main motivations to play this again would be to beat your previous score and obtain the good ending.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times, apart from the very few areas where I experienced slowdown, though that was a given for pretty much all Sega Genesis games at the time, and in the number of times it happened here, not a big deal at all.
OVERALL | 65/100
You want to know if Sonic the Hedgehog is worth playing today? I'd say so. Unlike Super Mario World, which was this game's main competitor at the time, I can't say Sonic the Hedgehog aged quite as well. That's tough to do however, as I would say that Super Mario World is probably the best platformer of the early 90s. Sonic the Hedgehog remains the debut game for Sonic however, and this piece of video gaming history is definitely worth experiencing, and once you get comfortable with the game, gaining more and more speed with Sonic will feel more and more satisfying. Future entries will of course present you with much cleaner experiences however.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
Steve Harris for EGM, Issue 24 (July '91): "Definitely, without a doubt, positively the most incredible action game ever created for the Genesis!"
Boogie Man for Game Pro, Issue 23 (June '91): "Sonic the Hedgehog's multi-scrolling graphics are a knockout"
I took a few-month-long break from this challenge, only to return to arguably one of the most well-known video games of all time: Sonic the Hedgehog, which released on June 23rd, 1991 for the Sega Genesis. As someone who's childhood was dominated by Mario and Nintendo rather than Sonic and Sega, this was the first time I actually tried not only the original Sonic game, but any Sonic game period.
Expecting a fast paced variation to the multitude of same-y platformers that the video game industry printed out in and around 1991, I was not disappointed. For the most part.
More on the game in detail below.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 4/10
This is another one of those games that doesn't really have any in-game storytelling apart from the boss encounters. You have to stop evil Dr. Ivo Robotnik, who snatches innocent animals and turns them into evil robots.
You, of course, are Sonic the Hedgehog. I'll give the manual of this game the honors to describe him to you: "It's Sonic, the real cool hedgehog with the spiked haircut and power sneakers that give him super speed." That's a cute description. Obviously, Sega finally found their answer to Nintendo's Mario with Sonic after trying with Alex Kidd from 1986 up until Sonic replaced him. Dr. Robotnik himself turned into an iconic video game antagonist as well, though after his first appearance here, I'd think it's either because he was just the villain millions of children were chasing back in the day, or because he has a more prominent role in future entries. Either way, Sega created one of the most iconic characters in video games here, and for that they deserve all the praise they got through the years.
Every other character you know and love from the series isn't present here yet.
GAMEPLAY | 13/20
This is a 2D platformer the likes you've seen before. At least for the most part. You have to jump attack enemies to make them pop or avoid them altogether. You have to watch for spikes at the bottom of the screen, lest you want to see your demise. You need to take out bosses after the end of each area. You have to do this for multiple areas until you defeat the final boss. And you start with 3 lives to accomplish this.
The catch: You gain in speed as you gain in momentum. This means, the longer you can run forward uninterrupted, the faster you become. I don't know why I am explaining this, you all know Sonic. ... Running fast allows you to reach otherwise unreachable heights and areas to boost your score, find secrets and generally avoid the pitfalls that avoid you at the bottom of the screen.
Those pitfalls? Those aforementioned spikes for example. There are platforms you can jump on mixed in with spikes, and if you fall into them, you take a hit.
["Health" in this game explained: Taking a hit is not fatal as long as you carry 1 coin or more with you. If you get hit, you lose that coin. You can try to pick it back up before it disappears. If you run around with no coins, any hit is fatal, unless you have picked up a power-up item that acts like a shield. This is similar to Mario in that he'll instantly die if you are small Mario, but get infinite health as long as you can find mushrooms after every time you take a hit.]
With the spikes, the problem is, it doesn't matter whether you carry coins, because you don't gain i-frames if you take a hit from them. So you end up taking the hit, which throws you vertically into the air and back down on top of the spikes, which then kills you. That was pretty annoying, though they are easy to avoid once you start remembering the level map.
There are also snakes which you can only hit if you jump on top of their head, but it's easy to miss to at first and jump on top of its tail, which will damage you. Early on, there is also spike bridge which keeps spinning, and I still haven't figured out when to jump on top of it without avoiding the spikes.
I haven't gotten too deep into the game to see what about half of the levels look like, but as you can see, it's a typical design of figuring things out as you keep playing. The Arcade design with these types of games hasn't really aged well because instead of spending a couple hours and beating the game, devs put these mechanics in place to keep you playing for dozens of hours before you win, as otherwise you'd notice that the game in actuality is quite short. One full playthrough takes less than an hour, if you can actually win. And unlike a game like Super Mario World, where I would collect 30+ 1Up's without any issue, the extra lives are much more hidden, and presumable scarce, here.
There are some parts where you have to hop on platforms as they slowly appear, or where you have to avoid spikes at the bottom as previously mentioned, and those sectioned kind of felt out of place in a game that has speed as its main theme.
When you reach full speed though, and everything loops quite well, the gameplay becomes satisfying. But to reach that kind of fluidity will take you a while, at least in this specific game.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 6/10
No voice acting. I have mixed feelings about the sound design, as I thought that some effects sounded pretty good, but some pretty bad. The sound of the ground beneath me collapsing just sounds unnecessarily aggressive, the sound that keeps playing when you have the shield power-up equipped just shouldn't exist (I would describe it as such: "hatufff") and the 18 sounds that play at the same time whilst you are in the secret 'floating maze' area sounded unnerving. I think Sega could improve a lot in this area in future iterations, though I'm obviously complaining on a high level here. The soundtrack, at least for the first half of levels which I was able to play, sounded pretty good. The Green Hill Zone music I was already familiar with through, among other things, it being sampled into rap songs. In general, I thought the soundtrack was nice to listen to.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 7/10
The graphics here look pretty good for its time. Some zones are rather basic looking in presentation, some way too busy, but overall, the game is definitely above average visually. If you have played a future entry, this might be a bit harder to look, I can't say, but if you're a newcomer to the series, this game definitely fits right in with just about any game in this era. Though to me, this game is many steps behind Super Mario World in graphical presentation nonetheless thanks to Super Mario World's variety in presentation and much cleaner and unique animations. Though back then, this wasn't the predominant opinion, and you might feel differently today as well.
ATMOSPHERE | 6/10
There isn't really much here to put into a cohesive unit that emanates an immersive "Sonic-like atmosphere", and I feel like that's something that will work itself out in the upcoming releases.
The mix of sounds with everything that happens on the screen through the music and sound effects feels excessive and unconnected at times and the zones don't really tell me much about where Sonic is and what this world feels like. The soundtrack, while nice to listen to on its own, sounds like it lacks a little bit of punch to the speedster that Sonic is. Look, I know rambling about this is way too serious and ridiculous, and I agree, but that's what this section is for. I doubt many share these thoughts, but that's what I thought about whilst playing the game. Hello to you, if you actually are reading this. :-)
CONTENT | 6/10
This is a short game, if you actually manage to beat it. It takes less than one hour for a normal full playthrough. Of course, it'll take you 10+ hours to actually beat it because of all the trial and error. Besides blazing through the levels, there are some hidden secret areas that will grant you some power up items, extra lives and a boost to your total score, plus those Secret Zones where you can collect "Chaos Emeralds". The Chaos Emeralds in the original version are there to give you the good ending, if you collect them all. In some other entries, and in a 2013 remaster entry of this title, acquiring them all enables Super Sonic, an OP golden version of Sonic.
In terms of the zone differences, the game does continue to mix things up the further you progress, though not in a major way. There are also no deviations from the core gameplay here by introducing other mechanics, which makes sense, as this is the first Sonic game. For example in Super Mario World, you have levels where you can acquire Yoshi, which changes gameplay up a bit, or you have special boss and ghost zones which play differently, among other things.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 7/10
The levels in this game are put into 6 different zones plus a final zone, with each zone differing in style. Levels are for the most part designed to enhance Sonic's strength, speed, by for example giving him spirals to run through and gain momentum. At the same time, some levels include parts that force the player to take it slower, unless the player is already extremely skilled and knowledgeable about the game to rarely run into any obstacles. Either way, there are some parts where you simply need to wait for platforms to carry you somewhere or to come down to your level so you can jump on top of them.
Overall, the level design is unique thanks to the speed factor, but otherwise doesn't really stray far from the average platformer formula. That is to be expected though, as this is the first Sonic game made.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 9/10
This game gets a big bonus for giving us the debut of Sonic and introducing speed as such a prevalent feature in its design, something you didn't really see anywhere else on this level. Is it very unique apart from those things? Definitely not, but I don't think it needs to be, at least until Sonic the Hedgehog 2 releases in November 1992.
REPLAYABILITY | 2/5
How replayable would this game be after you beat it once? Not a lot. You are unlikely to collect all Chaos Emeralds your first time through and will likely receive the bad ending, so the main motivations to play this again would be to beat your previous score and obtain the good ending.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
The game worked well at all times, apart from the very few areas where I experienced slowdown, though that was a given for pretty much all Sega Genesis games at the time, and in the number of times it happened here, not a big deal at all.
OVERALL | 65/100
You want to know if Sonic the Hedgehog is worth playing today? I'd say so. Unlike Super Mario World, which was this game's main competitor at the time, I can't say Sonic the Hedgehog aged quite as well. That's tough to do however, as I would say that Super Mario World is probably the best platformer of the early 90s. Sonic the Hedgehog remains the debut game for Sonic however, and this piece of video gaming history is definitely worth experiencing, and once you get comfortable with the game, gaining more and more speed with Sonic will feel more and more satisfying. Future entries will of course present you with much cleaner experiences however.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
Steve Harris for EGM, Issue 24 (July '91): "Definitely, without a doubt, positively the most incredible action game ever created for the Genesis!"
Boogie Man for Game Pro, Issue 23 (June '91): "Sonic the Hedgehog's multi-scrolling graphics are a knockout"