This review contains spoilers
I had to let this one go. There's something in here, but it really fizzles out with some very obnoxious design decisions. This review will be long, and I will be breaking it down into eight parts, for each game, and then one longer post about the game as an aggregate sum.
1) Cosmic Gate - basically the walkthrough game for the metagame you're playing. The four challenges you have to do are all super easy and the things it asks are explained via the magazines that you unlock during this part. It's basically a reskin of Galaxian, with not much more to it other than warps. It's the first game, and for what the game asks you to do at the point you unlock it, it's inoffensive.
2) Robot Ninja Haggle Man - There seems to be no clear indication of whether the title is Haggleman or Haggle Man. Anyway, I actually liked this game a lot which is what got me to start really getting into Retro Game Challenge. It has a bit of NES funk to it (which is nontrivially The Point) but for what it is Haggle Man is actually fun? If this was a full game I would play it. It's a simple yet effective platformer.
3) Rally King - If this game's goal was to achieve accurate simulation of early racing games, it achieved it, I guess. Rally King sucks. The drifting mechanic is super awkward and hard to get used to, the courses are confusing with no map so you can't plan too far ahead short of memorizing the courses, and it's easy to spin out and lose all of your momentum. One of Retro Game Challenge's concepts in the metagame is that you do have access to in-game "cheat codes", which I admittedly used here (they're part of the game), but they basically completely remove the difficulty and make you the ONLY character on the track and completely invincible. A slog. Challenge 3 is very difficult if you don't use cheats.
4) Star Prince - It's another space shooter, but far more complicated than Cosmic Gate/Galaxian this time. Not much to say about this one. It seems well designed, even it it's crazy difficult, I did have fun with it.
5) Rally King SP - this is the first time where the game gets outright offensive. Rally King SP is a complete clone of Rally King. The courses, the controls, the cheat codes, everything is identical other than the colors and a couple of graphics. I get it's supposed to be some sort of snide commentary on special editions being not different, but the fact that this game also has four challenges, with one of them being an insanely difficult time trial, is just offensive as hell. Rally King already sucked, we didn't have to do it again.
6) Robot Ninja Haggle Man 2 - I really liked Haggle Man 1, Haggle Man 2 is that but better. You can pull out the bosses early, the stages are wider, you can now use your special power (once you get it) on command rather than automatically when you pick up your third scroll. Much like the first one, I would unironically play this game in standalone.
7) Guadia Quest - I know that RPGs are a classic staple of the era that Retro Game Challenge is meant to embody. The problem is it doesn't really adapt to the meta-challenge format that the game asks you to play. So you get this RPG which is really short and content-devoid from an RPG perspective, but really long and drawn out from Retro Game Challenge's perspective, which just leads to it being a huge slog and not being fun. Which sucks! I like RPGs! The Guadia concept is barely used, it's basically a bonus party member you can pick up who sometimes attacks if you're in a pinch but largely just Vibes. The first dungeon is an enormous sprawling 4 level dungeon, with very dangerous enemies, no reliable healing items (there's a full heal tile bear the start), and worst: no in-game map at all. And sure, it's the 80's, they wouldn't have one, but part of Retro Game Challenge is that you can pause and look at game magazines/guides any time - and there's no map there either! And once you get to the end of the dungeon the boss there is super hard too - grinding is completely non-optional in this game and it drags Retro Game Challenge to a grinding halt with no payoff because the actual RPG content isn't good enough to warrant playing outside of this scope. This one is just offensively bad. The music is banger, at least, but I got very sick of the dungeon theme after spending hours in there.
8) Robot Ninja Haggle Man 3 - To end things off after Guadia Quest, you get Robot Ninja Haggle Man 3, which has gotten a complete facelift and is nothing like 1 or 2. It's fine. Not as fun as the first 2, but I didn't hate it. It was a little annoying though that the game force turned off after completing challenge 1 and 2, and challenge 4 is just "kill 100 enemies in zone 2" which is more grinding (which is brutal after Gaudia Quest, frankly).
If the game ended here I'd be a bit happier, but then after completing the 4 challenges for each, you get a "final challenge", which is to complete all 8 games all the way through. I liked Haggle Man 1 & 2 (and 3 is fine I guess), Cosmic Gate has a "skip the game" shortcut, and I could use invincibility for Star Prince, but playing Rally King twice (even with invincibility), and finishing Gaudia Quest sounds like absolute torture and I cannot bring myself to finish this game.
It's frustrating, this game squanders its creativity because it seems to be so wrapped up in the challenges and the idea of "play all these retro-inspired hits" that it failed to make some of them good, because it both had to fit the challenges and the idea that they had to be retro. If this was just a collection of retro-inspired games I think it would've been way better (if they fine-tuned Guadia Quest and removed Rally King SP entirely), but what we have just burns its goodwill away and misses the mark by the end. Still Haggle Man 1 & 2 are a hell of a lot of fun by themselves at least.
1) Cosmic Gate - basically the walkthrough game for the metagame you're playing. The four challenges you have to do are all super easy and the things it asks are explained via the magazines that you unlock during this part. It's basically a reskin of Galaxian, with not much more to it other than warps. It's the first game, and for what the game asks you to do at the point you unlock it, it's inoffensive.
2) Robot Ninja Haggle Man - There seems to be no clear indication of whether the title is Haggleman or Haggle Man. Anyway, I actually liked this game a lot which is what got me to start really getting into Retro Game Challenge. It has a bit of NES funk to it (which is nontrivially The Point) but for what it is Haggle Man is actually fun? If this was a full game I would play it. It's a simple yet effective platformer.
3) Rally King - If this game's goal was to achieve accurate simulation of early racing games, it achieved it, I guess. Rally King sucks. The drifting mechanic is super awkward and hard to get used to, the courses are confusing with no map so you can't plan too far ahead short of memorizing the courses, and it's easy to spin out and lose all of your momentum. One of Retro Game Challenge's concepts in the metagame is that you do have access to in-game "cheat codes", which I admittedly used here (they're part of the game), but they basically completely remove the difficulty and make you the ONLY character on the track and completely invincible. A slog. Challenge 3 is very difficult if you don't use cheats.
4) Star Prince - It's another space shooter, but far more complicated than Cosmic Gate/Galaxian this time. Not much to say about this one. It seems well designed, even it it's crazy difficult, I did have fun with it.
5) Rally King SP - this is the first time where the game gets outright offensive. Rally King SP is a complete clone of Rally King. The courses, the controls, the cheat codes, everything is identical other than the colors and a couple of graphics. I get it's supposed to be some sort of snide commentary on special editions being not different, but the fact that this game also has four challenges, with one of them being an insanely difficult time trial, is just offensive as hell. Rally King already sucked, we didn't have to do it again.
6) Robot Ninja Haggle Man 2 - I really liked Haggle Man 1, Haggle Man 2 is that but better. You can pull out the bosses early, the stages are wider, you can now use your special power (once you get it) on command rather than automatically when you pick up your third scroll. Much like the first one, I would unironically play this game in standalone.
7) Guadia Quest - I know that RPGs are a classic staple of the era that Retro Game Challenge is meant to embody. The problem is it doesn't really adapt to the meta-challenge format that the game asks you to play. So you get this RPG which is really short and content-devoid from an RPG perspective, but really long and drawn out from Retro Game Challenge's perspective, which just leads to it being a huge slog and not being fun. Which sucks! I like RPGs! The Guadia concept is barely used, it's basically a bonus party member you can pick up who sometimes attacks if you're in a pinch but largely just Vibes. The first dungeon is an enormous sprawling 4 level dungeon, with very dangerous enemies, no reliable healing items (there's a full heal tile bear the start), and worst: no in-game map at all. And sure, it's the 80's, they wouldn't have one, but part of Retro Game Challenge is that you can pause and look at game magazines/guides any time - and there's no map there either! And once you get to the end of the dungeon the boss there is super hard too - grinding is completely non-optional in this game and it drags Retro Game Challenge to a grinding halt with no payoff because the actual RPG content isn't good enough to warrant playing outside of this scope. This one is just offensively bad. The music is banger, at least, but I got very sick of the dungeon theme after spending hours in there.
8) Robot Ninja Haggle Man 3 - To end things off after Guadia Quest, you get Robot Ninja Haggle Man 3, which has gotten a complete facelift and is nothing like 1 or 2. It's fine. Not as fun as the first 2, but I didn't hate it. It was a little annoying though that the game force turned off after completing challenge 1 and 2, and challenge 4 is just "kill 100 enemies in zone 2" which is more grinding (which is brutal after Gaudia Quest, frankly).
If the game ended here I'd be a bit happier, but then after completing the 4 challenges for each, you get a "final challenge", which is to complete all 8 games all the way through. I liked Haggle Man 1 & 2 (and 3 is fine I guess), Cosmic Gate has a "skip the game" shortcut, and I could use invincibility for Star Prince, but playing Rally King twice (even with invincibility), and finishing Gaudia Quest sounds like absolute torture and I cannot bring myself to finish this game.
It's frustrating, this game squanders its creativity because it seems to be so wrapped up in the challenges and the idea of "play all these retro-inspired hits" that it failed to make some of them good, because it both had to fit the challenges and the idea that they had to be retro. If this was just a collection of retro-inspired games I think it would've been way better (if they fine-tuned Guadia Quest and removed Rally King SP entirely), but what we have just burns its goodwill away and misses the mark by the end. Still Haggle Man 1 & 2 are a hell of a lot of fun by themselves at least.
PinClock
4 months ago