 29 April — Virtual Console Update: A Venerable RPG Series Is Trumped By a Text Adventure |
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One thing that can always stand the test of time is a great story, and that's exactly what Famicom Tantei Club Part II: Ushiro ni Tatsu Shojo delivers. It's a text adventure about a boy running from mysterious enemies and searching for his parents. The cut scenes are top-notch, and smart use of the SNES sound chips adds additional atmosphere. Don't let the English text in these screenshots get your hopes up, though. This game was never released outside of Japan and I can't imagine Nintendo localising it for other regions now, given the massive amount of text that would need to be translated, and the demise of text-based adventure games as a genre. However, it is accessible in ROM form, thanks to an incredible fan translation, courtesy of Neo Demiforce and Tomato.
Phantasy Star III also joins the VC library this week, but in addition to being the weakest offering in an otherwise awesome franchise, it is totally overshadowed by Tantei Club Part II's cinematic storytelling and rich characters. |
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| 28 April — Light in Variety, at Least This Release Packs Double the Dragon |
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It's hard for me to come up with additional commentary for Double Dragon. There should be little of surprise here: it arrives in America immediately after the European VC update; it's one of the most iconic examples of the beat 'em up genre; and to be brutally honest, Technos' sequel, River City Ransom, is a better game overall.
That's not to say that Double Dragon doesn't have it's perks. Remember that, proboably more than any other video game, Double Dragon put the beat 'em up genre on the map. That's got to pique your interest a bit. And did you know that in River City Ransom the penultimate boss fight is against Randy and Andy, the infamous twins of Double Dragon fame? That it's the hardest boss fight in the game is appropriate, since Double Dragon is such a milestone for the genre.
Double Dragon has also appeared on Xbox Live Arcade for the Xbox 360, with updated grahics, but amazingly the NES classic retains its supremacy. The supposedly updated port suffers from slowdown and other bugs. While the NES version may not be crisp and beautiful it works and plays very consistently.
Replaying Double Dragon all these years later on the NES, what surprised me most was the quality of the music in the first stage. It starts off quite well and ends with an excellent finale, before looping back to the beginning. Check it out here. |
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| 25 April — Dragons x2, World Games, and the Supposedly Last Ninja |
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All of a sudden we're spoiled with all these classic Technos games. Last week, River City Ransom finally made it to the United States, and this week the most famous Technos game, Double Dragon, gets rereleased in the EU+. Anyway, in my mind the beat 'em up genre began with Double Dragon, even if older titles like Kung Fu really invented this type of gameplay. Whatever, Double Dragon put the genre on the map.
Well, Double Dragon for the NES is a faithful adaptation of the arcade classic. Losing two-player simultaneous action is tough, but one has to respect the limitations of the hardware. On the plus side, the graphics and sound are quite good--they were even admired back in the day. The biggest problem with Double Dragon has nothing to do with the game, itself, but the far superior Street Gangs (aka River City Ransom, Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari), which was released only a year later. Expressive graphics, much deeper gameplay, and something awesomely impossible to properely describe that remains fresh to this day. That's why Double Dragon is a reluctant smile, compared to the enthusiastic thumbs up for its successor. |
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There are also two Commodore 64 additons this week: The Last Ninja and World Games. Truth be told, console games are my forté, so I'm a little out of my element here. World Games seems like an obvious sequel to California Games, but it's a little forced, less fun, and when you're not skateboarding or surfing how can anything compare?
The Last Ninja, on the other hand, is an early entry into the genre-bender sort of title that I deeply admire. To put it bluntly, it's an action-adventure game, but what that really means is a combination of exploration, combat, and puzzle-solving. Each level has a unique look, and combat is defined by authentic weapons like nunchaku, shuriken, and smoke bombs. Though not as "classic" as Double Dragon, The Last Ninja has style and gameplay galore. |
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22 April — Virtual Console Update: One of the Greatest Ever! |
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| Two of the new titles this week are mindblowingly good, and leading the pack is a game that everyone has been looking forward to since the Wii started emulating TurboGrafx-16 CD games. Since I've already lavished this game with extensive praise, I'll just direct you to the review. For those readers not blessed with a Japanese Wii, let's pray that Nintendo makes it available to us as an import. Soon! |
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The update could have ended there and everyone would still be overjoyed, but Nintendo also spoiled us with an iconic Neo Geo game and one of the all-time greatest run 'n gun games is also now available. Metal Slug is as fine an combination of hand drawn sprites, bullet-riddled mayhem, and humorous encounters that you will ever find. Though it spawned many sequels, the original is clearly one of the best. One of my favorite details is that when you run into a foot solider, you don't die instantly or take damage like in so many similarly designed games. Instead, your solider pulls out his knife and dispatches the enemy without missing a beat.
Adding diversity to the lineup is Herakles no Eikou IV - Kamigami Kara no Okurimono for the SNES. I'll admit that it was hard for me to assess this game with my limited understanding of Japanese. It looks like a pretty solid RPG, though, based on—surprise, surprise—Greek mythology. Nevertheless, the graphics and music definitely were not quite up to the standard of Square's games. In short, worth a look for RPG fans, but not a must download.
Staying in theme, there's also Phelios for the Sega Genesis. It's a vertical scrolling shoot 'em up where you play the roll of a sword-wielding knight atop a pegasus. While the graphics are pretty solid, the weak sound and boring gameplay are bad news. Options are ripped off from Gradius and it's lame that while you're holding your charged sword aloft you can't ram enemies with it for damage. |
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| 21 April — Virtual Console Update: Kunio-kun Knocks Some Sense into America |
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You’re probably familiar with Double Dragon, Final Fight, and Streets of Rage, but today you get the chance to discover one of the greatest beat ‘em ups that you never played: River City Ransom (a.k.a. Street Gangs, Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari). That Technos managed to squeeze such stylish graphics, deep gameplay, and zany humor into one little NES cartridge is testament to this great game developer.
As you make your way through the gang-infested streets, you periodically encounter shopping mall areas, where you buy food and learn new special attacks. The food boosts your player’s stats like in RPGs. There is also excellent collision detection and an unusually large variety of attacks for such an early beat ‘em up. Even now, over 18 years after its creation, it’s obvious that River City Ransom was well ahead of its time. |
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It’s also one of relatively few super deformed games, noticeable by the style of Japanese caricature where characters have stubby limbs and oversized heads. Adding to the lightheartedness, the bottom part of the screen displays comments made by gang members, giving the game a comic book feel that complements the super deformed style. The most famous quote by far is “Barf!” uttered by fallen enemies.
Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom is different in almost every way possible. The Phantasy Star series is widely recognized and admired, whereas the Kunio-kun games (as they’re known in Japan) have a much smaller—and cultish—fan base. You’ve got an action title versus a turn-based one. Looking at the series overall, PSIII represents a nadir, while River City Ransom is the zenith.
| 18 April — Virtual Console Update: Only One New Game, But It's Phantasy Star |
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Last week’s update is a tough act to follow, but tapping into the most famous RPG series ever created by Sega is a good start. Plus, the RPG library on the VC could use a boost. (Square Enix, where the hell are you? You don’t get any credit for King’s Knight. Stop being greedy with updated Final Fantasy games and give us the originals). Anyway, the disappointing truth is that Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom is clearly the weakest installment of the original four-part series. It had great ideas and potential, but they were not well executed.
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A great story is by far the most fundamentally important quality in an RPG, and PSIII starts off with the banal my bride is kidnapped and I need to rescue her plot. What follows from there is a near-total lack of character development. This failure is particularly glaring when one of the innovations that makes PSIII interesting is the generational gameplay where the protagonists completely (based on their offspring) as their lifetimes develop and end. While another then-unique offering in PSIII is branching story paths, this innovative approach is squandered too, because your choices only appear to affect when key events happen, rather than change the overall plot. |
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Graphically, the game has traded the bright colors and more anime look of Phantasy Star II for more realistic, and drab-colored visuals that look alarmingly similar to Sword of Vermillion. Towns also seem to have lost distinctive characteristics, too—even most of the random wandering NPCs are identical. Another weakness is the “refined” combat system. That the combat theme is awful and repetitive is bad enough, but dealing with an interface uglier and more awkward than that of PSII is even worse, and PSII’s combat certainly wasn’t ideal by any means! I’d recommend just about every Phantasy Star game ever made; just not this one. |
16 April — Akumajo Dracula X Chi no Rondo Review |
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The VC has definitely had some tough updates, and at the beginning of this year, when Japan missed an entire update and the flow of games to other regions slowed to a trickle, I feared that the VC might suffer a premature death. Fortunately, the list of upcoming releases for Japan shows the the VC is, indeed, alive and well.
Headlining that list is Akumajo Dracula X Chi no Rondo, easily one of the finest installments in the 20+ year-old series. That's not even debatable. The only real question is whether or not Dracula X (not to be confused with the sub-par Dracula X for the SNES) is the best Castlevania game ever. It's hard to compete with the Playstation's Symphony of Night, but then again it's not really a fair comparison. You're talking about an 8-bit processor against a 32-bit one. Indeed, given its lasting influence and pioneering level design, you can make a very strong case that the TG-16 CD's Dracula X is the most important title in the series, so read the review already! |
15 April — Virtual Console Update |
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With such an awesome April VC lineup, it’s hard to believe that this update doesn’t feature a single game that gets the coveted Borat two thumbs up. You know it’s bad when Europe’s last update features more titles and higher game quality overall. Well, bad for the Japanese gamers, at least.
Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards is the anticlimactic winner among this trio of updates. Why anticlimactic? We were spoiled with the SNES Kirby platformers, and everyone expected that legendary developer HAL Laboratory would dazzle players with a sequel on N64’s much more powerful hardware. In addition, the VC N64 titles clearly trounce the other emulated consoles in terms of overall raw quality, so you would expect every re-released N64 title to be incredible. In both cases, expectations are not met. Alas, Kirby 64 is merely good, rather than great.
The biggest—at least in terms of size—title this update is the TurboGrafx-16 CD spin-off of the Wonder Boy franchise known as Monster Lair. Nevertheless, Monster Lair never comes close to reaching the levels of greatness seen in so many other shooters for the venerable TG-CD. Offhand, here are four other shmups infinitely more deserving of a place in the VC library: Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams, Ginga Fukei Densetsu: Sapphire, Seirei Senshi Spriggan, and Star Parodier. And you thought there couldn’t possibly be any other worthy shooters remaining!
While the TurboGrafx-16 represents a glorious monument to shoot ‘em up fans, Digital Champ is a fine example why the console was never appreciated for its sports games. The overall Punch-Out concept can certainly succeed, as the NES demonstrated, but in the place of Little Mac Naxat Soft gives you an awkward pair of disembodied boxing gloves. And in front of the gloves is an opponent who jolts left, right, up, down, into the foreground, and into the background with the barest of animation. The result is a boxing game where your most fearsome adversary is the gameplay. |
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| 14 April— Virtual Console Update |
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If you like shooting things, you should be pretty happy this week. Maybe you prefer getting your dirty work done from the comfort of your spaceship. In that case, Fantasy Zone for the Sega Master System should please you. Or perhaps you’re the type who likes to get up close and personal, jogging across terrain with you own two feet and pulling the gun’s trigger. Then I recommend you check out Mega Turrican. |
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While Mega Turrican looks more impressive with its 16-bit visuals, don’t underestimate the little sentient spaceship known as Opa-Opa. Mega Turrican has to answer to the likes of Gunstar Heroes and Super Turrican (SNES). It’s a tough race. Fantasy Zone, on the other hand, doesn’t have to compete with any doppelgangers. Sure, there are lots of shoot ‘em ups on the VC, but none of them look or play like Fantasy Zone. Opa-Opa can scroll in the direction of its choosing, and the levels are populated by bright colors and graphics that challenge even the most hallucinogenic and acid-dropping of gamers. Who needs drugs when you can play Fantasy Zone? |
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| 11 April — Virtual Console Update: The Sega Master System Finally Arrives |
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It’s a HUGE week for Europe. The Sega Master System finally arrives on the Virtual Console. Why it took this long, I couldn’t tell you. After all, the SMS fared better in Europe than anywhere else in the world. So why did the Americans and Japanese get SMS titles for the VC earlier? In other hot news this update, the VC release slump is finally broken with a whopping four new titles. Best of all, there isn’t a single stinker in the bunch, although one game is obsolete, thanks to an excellent port for the TurboGrafx-16. |
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For the Master System’s inaugural update, the headliner is clearly Fantasy Zone. Amazingly, this shoot ‘em up retains a unique identity in the face of myriad alternative VC offerings in this genre. Fantasy Zone features free-scrolling, trippy colors, and a sentient spaceship called Opa-Opa. There’s even an impressive surprise ending. Also new for the SMS this week is Wonder Boy, but in this case I don’t understand Nintendo’s approach, especially when you’ve got the momentum of a new console’s appearance. Yes, Wonder Boy is a nice platformer that puts the SMS hardware to good use, but you’d be crazy to download this 8-bit relic rather than New Adventure Island for the TurboGrafx-16, which sports updated sound and graphics. |
Making the jump from consoles to computers, imagine this: You’ve got six hours to search Professor Atombender’s stronghold, assemble a 36-piece puzzle, and thwart the evil genius’s plans for world domination. Don’t let the hackneyed story mislead you, the Commodore 64 was graced with the original incarnation of Impossible Mission, a platformer that remains fantastic to this day. Random level generation goes a long way in replay value, and great gameplay is immortal. The other addition to the C64 lineup is California Games, but I’m a little less excited. This title that put skateboarding on the video game map has neither aged as well nor remained as unique. You can also make a reasonable argument that the Sega Genesis port is superior, so why haven’t we seen that yet on the VC?
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8 April — Virtual Console Update |
With names like Metal Slug, Dracula X, and Phantasy Star III thrown around at the beginning of this month, it’s hard to appreciate this trio of updates. Leading the pack is Super Wonder Boy, distinguished member of the most idiotically inconsistently named franchise in video game history. Super Wonder Boy is known as Revenge of Drancon (North American Game Gear release) and just regular Wonder Boy (U.S. and European Master System releases). Back in the day, this was a good platformer where you race through levels, avoiding enemies, and grabbing fruit to replenish your ever-depleting life. Nevertheless, a certain TurboGrafx-16 game dooms the SMS version of Wonder Boy to walk the plank. For a mere 100 Wii points extra, you can download the vastly superior Takahashi Meijin no Shin Bouken Jima (which translates to Master Takahashi's New Adventure Island). Don't be fooled by the odd name change, this is Super Wonder Boy with much catchier music and a vibrant color palette. Thus, this weeks Boy is lacking in Wonder, and gets left looking redundant and obsolete. |
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Growing up with the NES and being a huge fan of import games, I usually at least recognize most of the consoles game library, but this week the following mystified me at first glance: Bokosuka Wars and Volguard II. Had I totally missed some sweet Japanese imports in my manic NES playing? No way! These titles were better lest undiscovered. Bokosuka Wars is a very early entry into the RPG/strategy genre. Volguard II, similarly is an ancient shoot ‘em up. Rather than get into details, both games feature some of the worst sound and animation I’ve even seen on the NES. Playing them for more than five minutes is painful. Maybe if you grew up with them they still have that nostalgic appeal, but I’d amazed if even the most hardcore Japanese retro gamer could actually enjoy playing these two games.
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| 7 April— Virtual Console Update |
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It may not be the greatest update ever, but at least it’s one more game than the Europeans got last Friday. I already covered Yoshi’s Cookie last week, so I’m not going to go into detail about it here. The skinny is: Decent puzzle game, but nothing remarkable. The other update for the NES this week is Bases Loaded. It presents a unique view of the great American sport, from behind the pitcher’s mound, and at the time the graphics were considered state of the art. Overall, this is a quality baseball game. Granted, it can’t compare to Baseball Stars 2 and it’s huge hardware advantage, but for $5 you can play a league series of 100+ games in Bases Loaded. That’s a hell of a lot of bang for your buck. You just need to put up with the repetitive soundtrack. I’d really like to see Legends of the Diamond or Baseball Stars or Base Wars become available, but in the meantime, Bases Loaded holds down the fort as a very solid 8-bit offering.
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| 4 April — Virtual Console Update |
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Another European Virtual Console update, another one-hit wonder. Well, technically, there really isn’t anything wondrous about Yoshi’s Cookie for the NES. It’s a solid puzzle game, but there’s nothing here that blows you away. Let me attempt to describe the gameplay. Think Tetris, with falling blocks, but the blocks fall from the top-left of the screen and the lower-right of the screen. Like a rubik’s cube, you can rearrange the puzzle pieces at the bottom-left of the screen. You win by clearing the screen entirely, and you have to match is two pieces next to each other to make things disappear.
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2 April — Hudson Soft's Trifecta! |
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In horse racing terminology a trifecta is a bet in which you predict the exact the horses that will finish 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in the exact order. Combing the recent news on the Net, it’s clear that Hudson Soft has three upcoming winners on their hands: Deca Sports (Wii), Dracula X (Wii Virtual Console), and Alien Crush (WiiWare).
Deca Sports cannot avoid being compared to Wii Sports, and that’s not a bad thing. As the name suggests, Deca Sports features ten different sports, each having a distinctive Wii contoller scheme. Rumor has it that it is currently the most popular game that employees play at Hudson Soft’s headquarters, and it may very well be the game that best takes advantage of the Wii’s unique controls since, well, Wii Sports. Initial sales in Japan are very promising for Hudson Soft; Deca Sports debuted at 2nd place in the charts with weekly sales of over 65,000. |
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Dracula X (officially known as Akumaj? Dracula X Chi no Rondo in Japan), is 15 years old, yet it remains the most significant Castlevania game ever created. Following an excellent start in the 8-bit era, the Castlevania franchise faltered and very nearly failed entirely—think Castlevania 2: Belmont’s Revenge (Game Boy), Castlevania 64 (N64), and Castlevania Chronicles (Playstation). The sequel that saved the series, Castlevania: Symphony of Night, drew heavily from the gameplay of the original—and Japan only—Dracula X. The 1993 Arcade-card enabled Turbo Grafx-16 CD-ROM has aged incredibly well and remains one of the greatest Castlevania games ever. |
While pinball games will never die and continue to be widely imitated in digital form, only one franchise in this genre ever pushed the gameplay envelop and developed a cult following: Crush Pinball (Alien Crush, Devil’s Crush/Devil Crash, Jacki Crush, and Dragon’s Revenge). What sets these games apart from their peers is the fantasy theme and the addition of Gauntletesque elements. What happens is that certain parts of the pinball board spawn creatures, and by destroying them you get points and can unlock bonuses. There are even boss battles! Not much has been revealed yet, but here’s an early screenshot of an Alien Crush sequel for WiiWare. I applaud Hudson Soft’s use of the Virtual Console to reintroduce the original Crush title, and taking advantage of WiiWare to give fans the sequel they’ve been waiting for. |
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1 April — Virtual Console Update |
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Valkyries, airborne kids, mutant turtles, street brawls, and even a Full Metal Fighter Ellinor—this set of new games has it all. But there is definitely some filler padding the numbers. I’ll start with the most Wii-space-threatening one of them all: Riot Zone for the Turbo Grafx-16 CD. Beat ‘em up games are not exactly known for their complexity, originality, or variety, but Riot Zone establishes record lows in all of those categories. Think generic. Think boring. Think Streets of Rage 2 instead—much kinder on your precious disk space as well.
Sky Kid for the NES is very first-generation in every bad way imaginable. Piloting the Kid during takeoff, I counted a total of 8 different colors displayed on the screen. The music and sound effects operate at a similar level. There are already so many better shoot ‘em ups available. Konami’s platformer Gekikame Ninja Den (a.k.a. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) at least taps the potential of Nintendo’s 8-bit hardware. Nevertheless, it’s not among Konami’s many critical successes. While the game offers good scope and variety in gameplay, the finishing touches are lacking. You can only take so many cheap hits from annoying enemies before you lose it. |
| Valkyrie no Densetsu is one of the most unknown and underappreciated Turbo Grafx-16 games I can think of. It’s also one of the best action-adventure games for the console. Last year, I discovered Valkyrie for the first time and was pleasantly surprised by the vivid colors, distinct visual style, and creative level designs. While obviously inspired by the hack-and-slash elements of Legend of Zelda, Valkyrie carves out its own distinct niche instead of stealing shamelessly like Neutopia did. The graphics and animation have a quirky and amusingly cartoony look. And the TG-16 sound chip cranks out an excellent musical score. While much simpler than Zelda, overall, the gameplay is still quite challenging. I kept coming back for more with this one, even though the Japanese language made it challenging, especially when buying items in stores. |
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Musha Aleste: Full Metal Fighter Ellinor (known simply as M.U.S.H.A. outside Japan) is a freakin’ awesome shoot ‘em up—one of the best for the Genesis—and it’s no wonder, since the talented developer Compile designed it. While I know it’s hard to get excited about the bazillionth shooter for the VC, please bear with me. The graphical style is feudal Japan meets cyberpunk. Your battle armor features two drones that you can customize on the fly. The action is furious with no flicker or slowdown ever interfering, and the soundtrack rocks, too. I’ll admit that I like this genre more than most people, but the technical and gameplay prowess make Musha Aleste wells deserving of two thumbs up. If only Compile were still around today to make a sequel for WiiWare. Alas, Compile closed its doors in 2002.
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