1989

Welcome back to my weekly blog about all of the games I've collected over 29 years. We've now come to the end of the 80's. By this point Nintendo had proved that game consoles were still a viable business practice. So they decided to try releasing a portable device. Thanks to Tetris the Game Boy also succeeded in bringing in a sizable amount of money too. As for my collection the NES didn't see any notable Nintendo games this year. Although this was the start of Capcom's liberal use of many different Disney properties to make some good games like Duck Tales.

Game Boy

I do still own my black and white Game Boy although out of all the portable devices I didn't play it as much. This was mostly thanks to the fact it required 4 batteries so we eventually bought a battery pack. Looking at my collection of GB games again I didn't really own that many till the GBC. I guess the black and green color of all the games didn't really impress me much. Even if this was my first taste of playing a game on the go.

720 was my very first skateboarding game. Also most likely the first game to inspire hatred towards killer bees. I do wonder who's bright idea it was to make killer bees come out randomly to kill the skater once time ran out. Coming back to it now made me realize I would either need the instruction booklet to succeed or end up quickly losing. Either that or the fact this used to be a trackball game doesn't quite transfer very well to NES. At least the slalom event was easy enough that I always got gold.

Oh no a evil dark lord has stolen Lolo's girlfriend and it is up to him to go though a castle full of puzzles. One room puzzles seems to be the name of this game. Every room has heart icons that must be picked up to proceed. Different types of enemies stand in your way like Blocky who as his name implies likes to block you way. Thus forcing the player to suicide if they get caught in a corner. This also brings up the fact that Lolo has lives which is kinda a bummer for a puzzle game. After all it might take multiple attempts to compete a floor. Along with the fact the only way to continue is via a password system lead to me never finishing this game.

So the main thing I remember about this game before booting it up again was collecting a power up that buffed up Amagon and then some awesome 8 bit music starts up to go along with his newfound epic status. Turns out that was fairly accurate. Plus it is actually a alright game too. Whenever he isn't buffed up he uses a rife to shoot down enemies. Although it is more fun to uppercut everything once you do get the power up. I may have only gotten to the 2^nd set of levels but enemy patterns were pretty fair and bosses weren't to hard.

Other than featuring Scrooge McDuck who happens to be the master of cane pogo style of martial arts this game might just have the best space them ever. Scrooge's goal is to become even more rich by visiting 5 different locations and collect a bunch of treasures along the way to a boss encounter at the end of each stage. This is a platforming game but instead of using a normal jump it is required to pogo jump on enemies instead of just jumping on them regularly. This can lead to pogoing through a entire level which is really fun if you pull it off. Plus the music just makes a solid game into a memorable one.

So for most of these games I have at least a vague memory of playing them at some point in my life. Yet I don't remember even booting this game up till now. This was most likely thanks to the fact that I didn't start to appreciate RPG's till I played Dragon Quest 1 & 2 on the GBC. Ultima IV starts with the player creating a party of 4 who must then go out to defeat the dark god Exodus. Unlike most games I think of when I'm remembering this era it does not have random battles. Plus battles play out differently as well. From a top down view the player must move the different members of the party around and choose their attacks. Really this seems like it could be a fun RPG to play if I had some more time to play it.

Who knew moving a marble around a obstacle course could be so fun? I'm sure the arcade release using a trackball controls better but at least for me the 90degrees control scheme worked really well. Not sure how many levels it has but I've never been good at dodging the hammers in the 4^th level. Each level is pretty sort so even running out of time and getting a game over just means it'll take another few minutes to get back to where you left off.

Out of these two Sesame Street educational this one appears to be the one with the most potential for a child to actually learn some math. Even the game part is somewhat fun. That really has been the issue with a ton of educational games is that they aren't that fun to play. Learning basic math and recognizing basic shapes will be what any child would get from this game. It does a good job visually showing the player when they chose a correct answer.

Learning the alphabet is indeed a great basic skill to learn. To bad this game is a bit to simple. Plus some of the later types of learning exercises expect the player to guess the answer. Even the other mini game is just a pipe maze puzzle which has no timer. Thus no real reason to actually keep playing it after one playthrough.

The name of this game tells you everything. Shoot a bunch of targets in a western/haunted house/space theme without running out of time or energy. Unlike the other light gun game I own this one gives the player some margin for error. Although that leads to me seeing all the different environments quickly thus I do not have a reason to keep coming back. To hard or two easy developers just can't win with these light gun games.

Snoopy decided to make his own set of Olympic games which leads to a bunch of silly events. So instead of running 100 meters normally Snoopy turns it into a hackysack race. It also has a few that don't quite fit like a pushing competition on a boat or a test of endurance by trying to hold onto a bunch of pizzas until he reaches a goal. For a game that has a assortment of mini games it wasn't to hard to figure out most of them.

Sure it's a Game Boy game but my original expectations when first booting up this game were rather high. Thus I was disappointed when SML didn't even have 8 stages to play through along with it being rather easy. I was even able to play through all 4 levels during this revisit too. Sure I enjoyed my time with it and the platforming is spot on as well. At least they made up for this mistake with the sequel.

Ah the infamous TMNT NES game. Staring said ninja turtles that are tasked with saving April O'neil while also putting a stop to Shredders devious plans. Really the game leading up to the water level everyone remembers is okay. It's just a action platformer with some annoying enemies.

The fact that you get 4 player characters at once that can be switched out at any time is really unique. To bad half of them are weaker thanks to the range of their weapons. Leo and Don are the best turtles to use thanks to the long ranged attacks plus they do extra damage. After seeing the water level again I think this game is worth putting on my list of games that expect near perfection from the player to compete. The timer along with the electric water weeds made sure I never competed that level.

To The Earth This might be the most unbalanced light gun game I own. The Zapper may be somewhat accurate but the hit boxes on all of the spaceships in this game are just not fair. Along with the quick rate at which missiles get fired at the player I do wonder if it is even possible to beat this game without cheats. Losing energy whenever you fire a shot also makes sure you can't shoot down everything without still losing.

Conclusion

Hm this year really bought out the first educational games that might have actually helped me out. With my mom being a teacher she wanted to help me learn in as many ways as possible. Which lead to a few games like the Sesame Street games being bought every year. The pc at my school also helped out too since I got to play Number Muncher a lot along with other games. Otherwise this year was rather sporadic. Which is how most years will most likely turn out. Compared to everything post SNES I really don't have many memories of this time period. Like I seemed to always get rid of all my boxes but this block of time has me drawing a blank. Does that mean I manly got used games early one which could have lead to me deciding to get rid of any games that actually came in a box? A interesting theroy that might be worth bringing up again later. Next time we head to the 90's with more Disney games and a good TMNT game. More great 8 bit tunes await us next time with my first Castlevania game too. It might be my first year split into 2 blog posts since 22 games on one blog is a bit much.