1993
The sun has finally made it into the air and we start to see the full force of the SNES. The GEN continues to be the system I bought to mainly play Sonic games. Meanwhile the sun is setting for the hard working NES. While the Game Boy continues to meander around. Oh of course the Game gear is already on fire and it hasn’t even been out that long. This is the state of the hobby during this time from my point of view.
My original plan was to split this year into two. But the more I think about it would be better to see the full picture at once instead of splitting it into two. Or does that make it way too long of a post? Questions still remain and if you have any suggestions let me know. Overall this year shows that having a healthy third party lineup can really help make a so-so release year into a great one. Both sides of the console war only had spin offs or remakes to bolster their releases. Nintendo at least had Star Fox to show off how badly the SNES can render 3D graphics. EDIT: I should have did another pass on this blog post before now. It had quite a few errors I didn't notice till I posted it. They are fixed now.
NES Top Loader
Kids like to break stuff. I wasn’t like that but when my Mom decided to take my NES over to school to use the variety of learning games as a new way to teach some basic skills to a 2nd grade class. It ended up broken a few weeks later. On the plus side I got the NES Top Loader as a replacement. This update brings a few advantages compared to the original NES. With the obvious fact that it can load games from the top. Loading games from the top of a console will be a fact that will continue for many years till the PS2 goes back to loading games from the side. It also has the dogbone controller which feels better in my hand compared to the square controller.
This is a part of my small collection of recent buys of old games. I didn’t know anything about it other than Enix made it so I thought it could be interesting. The first thing this game does is make the player choose the type of hero they want from a selection of 8. Depending on who you choose the kind of gear and magic you have access to will be different. The main goal as one one of the great heroes is to collect the runes and become the ruler of the world. This seems like it could change the tone of the story depending on if the player decides to work with the rest of the heroes or destroy them. If I had the time it might be a fun playthrough but the game itself is just the run of the mill turn based RPG.
Aka Super Battleship even on the Genesis. Yes this is a recreation of the board game. It does a good job of that but thankfully that isn’t the entire game. The other side is a tactical turn based mode. It looks like it has 8 different missions that give the player a assortment of ships to deal with an enemy fleet. The main issue with this game type is the fact it goes into real time combat when facing another ship. This makes the battle feel like they are up to chance if your ship will sink before the enemy. Maybe better use of different ammo types would have let me get a advantage but the cpu didn’t give me a chance to try.
So this is a weird way to make a Battletoads 2. Did the developers of Double Dragon just give up at this point? I ended up enjoying this a lot more than the grueling first game. It is much more of a beat em up although it still has other elements from Battletoads like the turbo tunnel. The fact that it mainly focuses on beat em up sections makes it a much fairer game to play through. Sure I still haven’t seen the ending but I’ve gotten much closer to it.
This version is a port of the arcade game. I thought it was a beat em up but turns out I was wrong. It may look like one but thanks to the invincibility frames after throwing one punch it is more accurate to call it a side scrolling shooter. Even when I was on foot it was a much better idea to use my ranged attack since going in just left me half dead thanks to counter attacks. Plus right after the first stage it turns into a game like Gradius for a bit. Unfortunately it keeps the quarter crunching mentality of the arcade game thus turning it into annoying game to beat with just 5 credits.
Spot has been transformed into Cool Spot. His constant goal is to gain even more coolness by picking up 7UP icons. With enough cool points he can rescue all of his friends at the end of each level. CS can shoot fizz to destroy any enemies in his way to the end of the level. The devs must have had issues with players getting lost since arrows constantly point in the direction of the caged Spot. This is another game that I got recently so it doesn’t hold much nostalgia value for me. It is a solid platformer at least.
Known as Assault Suit Vaiken in Japan Cybernator is a sequel to Assault Suit Leynos aka Target Earth. Like the previous game you play as a pilot of a heavy mech who must defeat the Axis Federation. This game starts out with a bang with a cruiser ramming into the side of a space colony to infiltrate it. The main addition to this game is the shield which is needed to block shots. If you even slightly want to get close to the end of this game good use of it will lead to victory. The mech itself feels really slow but powerful. It even has good maneuverability with the addition of booster jets and a dash. I also like how the tone of the game changes depending on if you succeed at stopping the enemy from enacting their devious plans.
At this point most kids had already left the Nes behind but not me. Which is why I ended up with a copy. Turns out this seems to be a rare cart if ebay is to be believed. The game itself is more Ducktales. Now with added abilities that can be used to earn more treasure. Basically Capcom added in extra tough blocks that can’t be pushed or pulled without a gadget from Gyro. Like the last game you can repeat levels to scour them for all the hidden treasures. If you get them all a hidden final level is accessed after seeing the normal ending.
Ecco The Dolphin is an odd game for someone to make during this time. You don’t have to go far to see that since the player plays as a Dolphin who must then rescue all of his friends from an alien invasion. This version of it on Game Gear seems to be about the same as the rest. I never got too far into it other than rescuing the baby killer whale in the first real level. Swimming through underwater mazes the entire time just wasn’t something that felt fun to me.
Another fighting game that I can’t play in its full potential thanks to me not owning a 6 button controller. Sure I can switch between punches and kicks with the start button but that isn’t going to help me succeed when facing the CPU. I can see they put a lot of time into these sprites since they are large and the entire cast is full of unique characters. But I don’t know why they made every character have charge moves or the fact that it limits how many standard special moves I could do before waiting for the Yin/Yang symbol to recharge. If I had more time to get used to this moveset I might have better understood what this game was aiming to do.
Like the last game Jungle Strike is about a ace pilot who must take down another madman. Unlike the last game they spent a lot of time setting up the plot with a nuclear blast. The cut scenes were improved from the last game as well. Everything else is the same except now the majority of the action happens in a jungle instead of a desert.
Welcome to Jurassic Park the video game. You remember when Grant went around shooting rockets from the movie right? Cause that happens a lot throughout this adventure. The outside sections have a top down Zelda like view. The more impressive moment was once I went inside for the first time. It turns into a FPS for a while till the player succeeds at finishing all the objectives in the building. In the past I was all whoa this is awesome. Yet these days I just notice how bad the frame rate is.
Whew my hands are tired after playing through this game. Wiggling the dpad back and forth rapidly to win grapple matches is just not easy. It isn’t as bad as the first one but it still has some RNG whether I would be able to win every match. They did exactly what I wanted from the first game. Having a unique opponent every level. To bad they aren’t playable but 3 monsters from the original cast have come back to defend earth from an alien monster invasion. Instead of one battle after another the developers added in some small beat em up sections between fights. This gives the player a break and the ability to gain a few power ups before facing each boss. But this game is still a wrestling game in disguise like the last one. Other than the final boss that happens to be Jabba the hutt’s spiky twin brother. Which requires the player to dodge a instant kill attack and punch him over 100 times.
The one thing that stuck in my mind from this game is the intro that quickly teaches the player how to draw Kirby. After I saw that Kirby has been my go to character when I feel like doodling. Which is thanks to how simple he is to draw. As for the game this is the one that introduced Kirby’s unique copy ability. Yet they overstretched what the NES could do. Plenty of slowdown moments await all who decide to check out this notable Kirby release. Even with that big flaw I still consider this to be my second favorite Kirby game. Adding in required collectibles in almost every Kirby game after this one wasn’t a good way to make me enjoy it more.
90’s Zelda apparently means I’ll 100% it because this game also had a file with all the heart pieces. Apparently after playing A Link To The Past I just wanted more Zelda. This is the game that melded the viewpoint from Zelda II with the top down view of the rest. Thanks to the addition of the roc’s feather Link can jump thus making sidescrolling platforming sections possible. Plus in general Nintendo made some quality of life improvements like playing a tone so the player knows a key is hidden in a room. Overall it is just a good game that gave me plenty of reasons to keep playing it.
The NES version has some odd button choices thanks to limited buttons. I had to look this up since I didn’t think someone would put the start button as a way to talk to people. I do think this game does a good job of teaching whoever is playing about a bunch of important landmarks all over the world. If only it was actually fun to play it might have had more of an impact on me and other players. With the gameplay loop consisting of going to a new city take out the 3 koopa troopas and then returning the stolen items it can be rather boring. Although I must have seen something I liked with this game in the past since I remember beating the final boss.
Between Mega Man X and the remake I’ve played through it so many times. Something about the X series clicked with me compared to Mega Man. They are both similar games with the biggest addition is X’s ability to wall jump. X still copies abilities of bosses but now Sigma is the big bad instead of Willy. I do really enjoy the music of this series with the upbeat tunes and the rapid fire boss theme. This is also where I start to like collectibles since they aided me in my quest to beat the game. Between the awesome armor and energy tanks I always collect everything before taking on the final levels.
So close yet so far away from making a well rounded learning game. Mickey’s Safari In Letterland managed to be a solid platformer. To bad it isn’t even possible to get hurt. Each level is also criminally short so I doubt anyone that already knows their ABC’s will get anything out of this game. As a way to learn the alphabet it does a good job at it along with trying to teach a few basic 3 letter words if the player collects the 3 diamonds in each level. Learning games in general on the NES seem to have a high chance of including voice over. I’m sure that is thanks to how well a voice can better convey something to a kid.
Welcome to the gritty future of outrun. By gritty future I mostly mean someone has strapped a jet cockpit/engine onto a Ferrari and decided to boost his way throughout the world. Some of the night time scenes do fit the futuristic setting they were going for but that is countered by driving by normal looking houses later in the game. The car handling feels just as good as the rest of the series. While the frame rate remains steady even if it can’t quite give the impression of driving 700MPH like the meter tells me I’m going whenever the boost kicks in. As for the boost it was mostly pointless thanks to it making me run off the track whenever I left it on during a curve.
Here we go again. Another platformer starring a cartoon character. Pink and all of the enemies are way to large. I ended up accidentally running into a bunch of enemies. Other than a bad platformer it also has the player collect coins to use at tolls to create stairs or some type of helpful object. Since the plot is about Pink running through random movie back lots it let the developer craft a variety of level sets. For example a western stage or a robin hood level. They all give Pink a different ranged weapon to deal with enemies but it is all just aesthetics.
Most of my memories of this game is making it to the 2nd level and then proceeding to get a game over. The idea of having access to a robo cycle/ship at all times is pretty cool. Till it becomes not able to lock onto the boss's weak point after the first level. Then it just becomes a extra life bar to tank a few hits since surviving to the end of one can be tough. As for how each level is set up. They require the player to blow up a certain amount of objectives then it switches over to a giant robot boss. This game also has some early examples of polygonal models that introduce each mission.
Stimpy has made a console that prints money if the player does well. Ren decides to play it and it actually works. I assume each level in this game is based on a different episode of the cartoon. The first level had me controlling Stimpy as he prodded Ren across the level with different items. Since it is spaced themed a few seconds into the game it switches to a side scrolling shooter for a few moments. The next few levels have Ren on his on own. He doesn’t have a ranged attack until picking up some ammo. Like the show every moment of this game is completely random. Otherwise it is a okay platformer that starts to get kinda annoying 3 levels in.
Out of the many mascot characters of this era Rocket Knight Adventures stood out as being a awesome game. Quite a surprise that a game starting a rocket pack wielding possum would turn out so well. This is thanks to the always impressive Genesis sound chip and the ranged ability of Sparkster’s sword. Really it acts more like a gun than a sword. The rocket pack is also usable at any time and is required for certain sections. The wide variety of giant bosses to that go through 3 phases just to finish them off is cool as well. Even if the game gets bogged down a bit by instant death forced scrolling levels later on. At least the Gradius like shooter levels make up for that. As a side note the USA version must really want to belittle its audience by calling easy difficulty children.
My first introduction to the gritty cyberworld future we are fated to end up in. This would also be the first time playing a action RPG as well. In some aspects this is a open world game too. Since it begins with Jake waking up in a morgue not remembering what happened to him last night. After waking it was up to the player to roam around the city to figure out who he is and why someone wanted him dead. After scaring the mortician Jake meets a thug who conveniently gets shot and drops a pistol.
Which introduces Shadowrun’s combat which is a mixture of dice rolls and pointing a crosshair at a enemy. Afterwards he meets a dog that talks to him about the fact he is being watched by the dog god. If the magic menu didn’t tip you off that random bit of dialogue lets you know that this world is a bit strange. Unfortunately I didn’t remember how to get the tickets so I spent the rest of my time wandering around the world getting shot by random hitmen everywhere.
At the time this game was most likely very impressive as it is an accurate recreation of a Sonic game. These days I’m mostly just noticing odd design decisions. First every level is easily beatable in under 30 seconds. Sonic may be fast but that is just a bit too quick. Some of the level designs are odd as well like the one level where they bounce Sonic up into the air 5 times for no real reason. Finally the music just can’t compare to the quality of playing the console releases.
Sonic is cool so why not put him into a pinball table? Ehh that might have worked if they balanced the tables a bit more. Punishing the player by making them go all the way to the start of the table after a death is just a bit to much. As a pinball table it is fine but just like a normal table it feels really random. Maybe you thought Sonic would go in one direction then a surprise enemy pops up and sends him directly into acid.
If you thought N64 graphics haven't aged well then I don’t think you’ll be able to handle this game. The FX chip couldn’t even handle rendering the full image on my 32 inch tv screen. Not sure if that is the same on smaller tvs or not. Other noticeable workarounds for the limited 3D the SNES could handle would be when the game goes into FPS mode. I’m assuming it couldn’t handle that many polygons without causing the frame rate to tank so they had to find a workaround. Starfox still has its moments like flying through a battleship to blow up the core will never get old.
So I can’t really play SFII in the correct way. I don’t have a 6 button Genesis controller which limits me to using only punches. The game is still playable but I can’t pull off all the moves. At least I managed to get the version that added made the boss characters playable. As for the game it is the one that standardized what a fighting game would be. All of the attacks do a lot of damage compared to what I’m used to these days. That just makes every move or punch count a lot more than before. Of course this also was the game that introduced what might be one of the greatest character themes ever.
We may never be able to play this in Game Room but we can still play it on a SNES. My copy has seen better days so it ended up freezing in the 2nd level. I can always tell which games I played the most by how hard they are to get working again. Sunsetriders continues the trend of Konami making great sidescrolling shooters like Contra. This one is western themed and has one of the best death quotes from a boss. Not much variety here other than shooting a bunch of dudes and then getting paid for it.
4 Mario games in package. The only way this could get better is if I got the version with Super Mario World. Nintendo recreated all then NES games including the lost levels which never came out over here till this release. They updated the graphics and sound to match the power of a 16 bit console. Could this be considered to be the very first remaster? After all they did just repackage a bunch of old games to sell them again.
Well I don’t know any of the tricks to beat this game. So I got to the AT-ST boss and then proceeded to say this sucks and ran out of continues. Like the last game it is pretty awesome how much this is just 100% a video game that doesn’t try to adhere to what was in the movie. As an example Luke fights a giant wampa and then proceeds to fight his way through the AT - AT after blowing up a ton of enemies in a Snowspeeder. On that same level tow cabling a 2-D sprite really looks odd.
LJN can make a good game if all they needed to do was port it. But this is a case of a arcade game being better than the home version. They did fatefully recreate the arcade release. Yet without my SNES mouse I doubt I would have ever beaten this version. This game unfortunately has one of my most hated sections in a video game and that is the part where the player needs to escort a truck. In both versions they do not give any margin for error leading to a unfun mission objective that I get to see a few times till I somehow make it through. The rest of the game is a test of hand eye coordination but it feels a lot fairer and at least somewhat enjoyable.
Well we have already seen that TMNT Tournament Fighters may is one of the best fighters of all time. I don’t know if that carries over to the Genesis version though. As you might expect it has been simplified to two buttons. I’m not saying that makes it bad since it still has the usual set of special moves. If only the CPU wasn’t annoying good at predicting my every move I might have enjoyed my time with it more. Instead I used the power of spamming special movies like Raphael's drill spin attack to win. As for the story I’m left wondering why April is a ninja and the fact Krang made a bunch of evil clones of everyone.
Another in a line of mascot games that were rather mediocre. Our hero this time is a robot named TinHead who must got to different planets to rescue captured stars. The villain's plan this time was to capture all the stars in the universe and then spread them throughout the many planets. Since they don’t harm anyone it is a odd plan. The one thing this game does compared to the rest is that it allows Tinhead to shoot in 3 different directions. Which could have been unique if Contra didn’t already let me fire in every direction.
For once Tom is actually the playable character this time. Sega decided to make Tom control like a character from Prince Of Persia. As expected every level has Jerry running away from Tom and the goal is to catch in at the end of each level. Jerry spends the entire game dropping mine and bombs in the player's way. The end of every level has a boss although one of them can be skipped. The most I had to do was dodge a object that then let it return to the boss. The rest were just tests of endurance. Overall most of the game is rather easy although the last stage was made to kill any players that didn’t get all the heart upgrades.
Round 2 even more Tiny Toon Adventures. Still primary a platformer but with an amusement park theme. 3 of the 4 first levels are auto scrollers that have no checkpoints. Not a great start although they try to add some diversity by adding new mechanics like being able to flip the roller coaster car over to dodge attacks. The one unique mission is a mini game with bumper cars. Nothing to amazing about it other than being really easy to beat compared to the rest of the stages.
Mindscape apparently wanted to imply that the player was watching in a movie in the SNES version. They even added a crowd in the intro. Not having a instruction booklet to go with his game seems like a bad thing. I got to the end of the first patrol and I don’t know how to land. Flying around in space bowing up Kilrati was fun. The extensive introductions and being able to talk to the crew before each mission seems like something I would have liked if I played this back when I first bought my SNES. This was another of my I’d buy that for 3$ collection I mentioned in one of my previous blogs.
Whenever I first check out a fighting game I always assume the first character will be similar to Ryu. That fact is true most of the time and Hanzo is indeed a Ryu clone. None of the special moves are hard to pull off and the fighting feels solid. The game doesn’t seem very balanced but that doesn't mean I didn’t enjoy wiping the CPU out. Although I could say the same thing about the CPU throwing me to death as well. The additional death battle mode sets the arena on fire make the stakes go up. That mode also has a few other various deadly arenas depending on the opponent.
I really liked the X-men. All the way up to the PS1 I bought a lot of games based on them. Once again because of the cartoon. I didn’t actually buy that many comic books with my main one actually being about Sonic The Hedgehog. The game itself can be thrown into the pile of action platformers I own. Like most X-men games you have a selection of playable characters. They are mixed between a brawler type and the ranged type. No matter who you choose they have a limited power bar for special attacks. Going by the first mid boss Juggernaut the game does a bad job of showing the player if they are winning. Juggernaut has a life bar but it never goes down. Sure he is almost invincible with his helmet on but it seemed like I needed to hit him to trigger him randomly dying. Such a horrible introduction to what could have been mediocre game.
Here we are again another Yoshi related puzzle game. Yet he isn’t even the one controlling the puzzle in either game. Yoshi just stands around doing nothing as chef Mario does all the baking. Well you will see a few Yoshi shaped cookies at least. They are the wild card in this puzzle game. Which plays more like a standard match 3 game. Although you can only match a full line of cookies unless the ones dropping down from above match the cookies they end up touching. This continued till I got a game over by filling the entire board full of cookies.
Conclusion
Hm this was the year I was introduced to Fighting games. From this point I have always played these games in a similar way. In a VS format against a friend we end up playing through the entire roster. Sure we might be better with certain characters but I’ve never spent a bunch of time learning just one till I mastered all of his combos. Really playing through arcade mode is where I spend most of my time in a fighting game to this day. On the opposite end of the spectrum I noticed that beat em ups have started to show up more than before. This style of gameplay may not seem like something that would last till modern times but you might be surprised to find out it does.
If you’ve made it this far thanks for taking the time to look through another year of my retrospective. Tune in next time to see the end of the NES with the revenge of Zoda and the power of lock on technology. In case you missed 1992 click on the date to go to my previous blog post
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