DINOSAURS. AW YEAH.
Dynowarz: The Destruction of Spondylus
A little background
Dynowarz's box art is something wonderful to behold. A giant red dino, being shot through the head in a wanton act of violence by Spaceman Spiff there, with the hardcore, gangster font "DYNOWARZ" blasting itself across the screen. Also, they're on like the moon or something. This box art? Phenomenal.
The game itself? Uh...
Dynowarz was released in April of 1989 by...*sigh*...Bandai. Not to hate on Bandai all the time, but they really weren't on top of their game during the NES era. And they "modernized" by merging with Namco and selling you "Level Up" dlc for the Tales games. So, in truth, they're kind of still sucky.
I'm just gonna paste what's on the back of the box, here, and leave it at that.
"Something was terribly wrong in the distant man-made Spondylus Solar System. One by one the planet's central life support computers had been infected with a life threatening virus while the planet surfaces had been overrun with computerized dinosaurs known as Robosaurs. Under attack in his laboratory on Alpha Planet, Professor Proteus, the mastermind of the Spondylus System and the founder of the Robosaur project suddenly realized that this deadly sabotage could only be the work of his former partner, the deranged Dr. Brainius.
Years earlier, the doctor had fled Alpha Planet after Professor Proteus had exposed him for performing forbidden robotic experiments on human subjects. At last, he has returned to seek his revenge using the Professor's own creations! But little did he realize that Proteus had been hard at work for the past few years perfecting the ultimate Robosaur, Cyborasaurus.
There was only one hope to save the Spondylus System."
First impressions last forever
You don't start off as a dinosaur. Instant negative points. You play as a blob of blue that I think is a guy. He can jump like 200 feet in the air and has really bad platforming controls. However, after blasting through other nondescript blobs, you find a giant dino head sticking up through the floor and you jump into it.
Begun, the Dynowarz has!
Also, since you technically get in and out of your robot dinosaur, this basically makes this Blaster Master, except replace the car with a giant metal T-Rex. Point: Dynowarz.
But as I played further...
Dynowarz is honestly just a mediocre platformer. While as midget pixel blob man you can jump 3/4 of the way up the screen and get a variety of gun powerups, as Dyno (who is engaging in the "Warz") you have a limited, clunky jump, and start armed with just your fists. Yeah. You know how T-Rexes have tiny arms? That's your starting weapon: punch with tiny arms. Great.
You later get other totally not dinosaur related powerups, like a boomerang fist (?!) a sort of laser shot, and some other power up I can't remember off the top of my head. You can upgrade them, but only if you get the same upgrade powerup two times in a row. Or else it'll switch you back to another one at level one, which sucks.
After beating the level and the painfully easy bosses, you'll switch to the guy again and jump into a nearby building to blow up Mother Brain. Why the dino couldn't just destroy it from the outside is beyond me. Then you beam up (literally) and start the process over.
The controls aren't great, the graphics are ok I guess, and while I do like they try to switch up gameply styles between dino and man, neither are very fun. But hey, I'm punching robot Stegosauri in the face with a Robot T-Rex on an alien world. That's a'ight.
So what's the conclusion?
I secretly have a soft spot in my cold, dead heart for Dynowarz: The Destruction of Spondylus. It gives you one life but unlimited continues, and the only real difficulty in the game is the pits and the fact that when you get hit you leap back like a quarter of the screen (usually into the aforementioned pits). The human levels aren't that great and the bosses are lame and easy, but it's still...charming? Somehow?
Maybe my love of dinosaurs is overwhelming me. Speaking of which, why don't we make any dinosaur games anymore? What, did they stop being cool?
Copies are cheap; usually $3-5.
Elevator Action
A little background
Elevator Action is the NES port of the classic arcade game of the same name. Made, released, and ported by Taito in August of 1987, this game has the honor of being the second most played game on my TI-86 calculator, the most played being Tetris. It also stars a kleptomaniac ginger, so I can relate to that as well. Odds are you've at least heard of this game, and probably played it, so the question is if the NES port is still any good.
First impressions last forever
I remember why I both like and hate this game: it involves elevators. Lots of elevators. A bit of action, but mostly just elevators.
The goal's simple: get the documents and get out. You can manually control the elevator and have it pause between floors until the coast is clear (unlike any elevator ever), and also hide in doors and shoot dudes who pop out of doors. So that's kind of like Rolling Thunder or Codename: Viper. Only not at all.
Also, sometimes they turn out the lights, and the game gets hard.
But as I played further...
This is a classic arcade game, but honestly one I found kind of boring. To be fair, it's a bit different than most: it requires a lot of planning ahead and devising strategy, hanging back when necessary rather than always moving forward (though you will need to move forward at some point). Killing people isn't necessarily the way to win, as the only goal you have is to get the documents and get out. It's fun, pretty crazy, and not too frustrating compared to other arcade games (like Burger Time). I never really dug it, but I can still appreciate it.
So what's the conclusion?
I like how I said I "don't really dig it" right after saying I played it a ton on my calculator. Hey, it's not like I had a lot of TI-86 games.
Point being: Elevator Action is still solid, and as far as ports go it's near perfect. While this, like all other arcade games, depends entirely on if you liked the original arcade game, I'd say Elevator Action is well-rounded enough that everybody can at least get a few solid rounds out of it. Whether you'll pick it up after that is up to you (and again, NES carts like this don't save scores after you turn them off). But still, a fun little diversion.
Copies are usually $5-10
Excitebike
A little background
So hey, the Excitebike theme is pretty great, even if it's only nine seconds long. Just put it on repeat and have a happy day.
Excitebike is an NES launch game in October of 1985, and is well remembered among fans. This game was re-released as "Vs. Excitebike" on the Famicom disc system, with the option to actually save your custom tracks. It's also worth pointing out that the Wii port in the Virtual Console also allows you to save tracks. So that's great.
And the "brrrrrpppp" sound of the motor of the bike always goes through my head whenever I see that box art, so you got that too.
First impressions last forever
Man, this game is classic. Also, tons of fun!
There's two modes: one where you race other players (but they just sort of...are there. You're really going against time and they're in the way) and one by yourself. Yourself is boring but lets you not have to worry about anything but the tracks, but I prefer playing with other racers because it's less drab.
Mastering the jumps, speeds, and when to use nitro is tricky but easy to figure out. I'm sure some people have gotten absurdly masterful at the game, but for me it's just a fine time trying to not biff it.
Also, the track editor is pretty good.
But as I played further...
It really sucks they didn't save your tracks with a battery. I know this was a launch title, but it still sucks. Can you imagine making tracks, then loaning the cart to a friend to have them test them out? That would have been cool. Also, having two player would have been nice.
Regardless, this is nitpicks. Excitebike is a simple concept (drive over a complex track of jumps, bumps, etc. while not biffing it) with a sadly limited number of tracks, but it's so fun you'll forgive it. I love Excitebike, and spent way too much time playing it for this retrospective review.
So what's the conclusion?
While I could argue that Trials and Joe Danger are better, more modern sequels (and they are), there's still something inherently charming about the original Excitebike. While a few minor niggles exist, most are from the point of view of Future Game Development, looking back (like saving tracks, etc.). For what it is, Excitebike does well enough, and is an essential part of any collection.
Copies usually are cheap; around $5.
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