1992

Another week goes by and I got around to playing through a year’s worth of releases from my collection. My thoughts on each game can be rather random. Most of what goes into one paragraph is just what I thought was worth mentioning right after I played it for about 30 minutes to a hour.

Anyway I need to get back on topic. Nintendo continues to add onto the SNES with a assortment of accessories like the SNES mouse. Most of these didn’t amount to much other than being a device I bought and then proceeded to almost never use it. In a line of poor moves that rarely ever pays off Sega started the train of portable devices that were much more advanced that what Nintendo had but end up doing poorly. As usual my selection of games is rather random but I can always count on having at least the most notable release that year mixed in with a bunch of licensed cartoon based video games.

Game Gear

Oh no my Game Gear appears to be broken. Looks like I’ll have to use the power of a emulator to play my collection of GG games. Sega really got me to buy into their device since at the time it really did seem like a Genesis on the go. If only I knew it took even more batteries and it drained them so fast I might have changed my mind. This device is not portable at all so almost all of my time with it was next to a power outlet. Along with that the list of games I own for it is rather small but I did get many hours of fun out of it.

Well this is a perfect recreation of clue. It is the board game with some additional scenes to spice up the accusations. The game I played ended weirdly. Scarlet accused herself of doing the killing with the wrench in the kitchen. So she succeeded in winning and losing at the same time. I haven’t really played clue very often so I don’t know if that is an occurrence that happens a lot.

Who cares about storylines the aliens are back and now they must be destroyed once again. That is really all you need to know to start a Contra game. Playing all these old games must be retuning my retro gaming skills since I’ve been getting much deeper into some of these hard games. I made it to the final level after continuing a few times. I was surprised to see that the Konami code doesn’t work in the US version. Oh well even if I don’t beat it often it is still a great side scrolling shooter.

My second Hal laboratory game. This one stars a daydreaming kid named Davey. Instead of paying attention in class he imagines being a knight, cowboy or a olympic hero. Each one has a few different mechanics. When Davy is in a western world he can fire guns and even switch from the top down perspective to a FPS shootout with a outlaw. To bad my single shot pistol wasn’t good enough to win. In the medieval time sections Davey uses a sword and it plays similar to Zelda. The rest of the sections play like that too it’s just that he uses a different weapon depending on what daydream he is in.

What better way to make a DD game than to make it like Mega Man. Although Darkwing doesn’t have the ability to get power ups from bosses he can get a few throughout each level. Which can then be used as an effective tool in beating bosses. Plus the game lets the player choose which stage they want to go to next as well. Difficulty wise this feels like an easier game than most. Maybe that is just thanks to the fact it doesn’t have disappearing blocks.

It wasn’t that long ago that I decided to play through all the Strike games. Which lead me to picking up the PS1 games. That was thanks to how much I enjoyed this one and the two follow up games. The entire plot is about being a badass helicopter pilot that must stop a terrorist plot by blowing up a bunch of targets. It has a isometric view that gives the game a unique look. These games were also known to be really hard as well. Plus it has a rocking musical intro on the Genesis although for most of the game you’ll be hearing helicopter sounds.

Another game based on a cartoon movie. If I remember correctly it was a weird and bad movie. The game turned out better than what it was based on. Yes it’s another platformer but Felix doesn’t jump on enemies he uses his magic tricks to defeat foes. Starting off with just a boxing glove if the player collects enough hearts he will turn into a tank. Because the developer thought it was good to have some variety every other level will either be air based or water based. Each one has its own unique transformations as well.

For some reason they also thought it was a good idea to have two different types of water levels. Above and below the water. A surprise space level even appears near the end of the game. Seeing the ending again made me wonder why Felix came all this way to save Kitty just to leave her tied up. At least it looked that way hah.

For a game that appears to be an introduction to the RPG genre it had the reverse effect on me. Plus it most likely made me ignore the Final Fantasy games till 7. The story isn’t that different than other Final Fantasy games since it is once again about collecting crystals to save the world. It has a more comedic tone too as noted by the intro where a wise old wizard tells a random knight to save the world. Yet afterwards the knight just wonders who that crazy old guy was.

Unlike the rest of the FF games it does not have random battles and instead you run into enemies on the overworld. Along with that you are limited to two members in your party at once which simplifies what options the player has during each battle. The one thing I did like was how each boss sprite gets battle damaged to let the player know how close they are to winning.

As a arcade game this was a favorite of mine in my local movie theater. As a home game its flaws are more apparent. It may look like you're battling giant monsters but this is really a wrestling game in disguise. The player can choose between 4 different giant monsters to take into battle. Once you're in the game it appears that randomness is the key to victory. Winning a grappling battle appears to be completely random. No matter how much I mashed my buttons or the dpad it almost never had an effect on if I would win the grapple war. After I beat the first 4 monsters the rest are just palette swaps too. If it only had more variety in the types of monsters it could have been a better home game.

The same thing I said about Super Mario Land can be said about Kirby’s Dream Land. They are both short and easy. Kirby leans even more into the direction of being super easy as his games tend to be. He doesn’t even have his trademark power yet. Although it has shades of it thanks to the one time use bomb and microphone items. The game even gives Kirby the power of infinite flight and the ability to shoot deadly air puffs which never gets brought up.

Plus this is the only game that shows that Kirby isn’t the only one of his race. Does that mean every time Kirby dies he gets replaced by another one of his clone brothers? DUN DUN DUN Looking at the box art it appears they didn’t know what color Kirby was yet since they colored him white instead of pink.

For someone that has only seen a few episodes of the Simpsons I seem to own quite a few of their games. .The best game to compare this one to is Lemmings since the goal is to get a bunch of slow moving rats to the goal. At least early on the only ability Krusty has is placing one block on the ground to allow the rats to go over 2 block high walls. He also has a throwing weapon to deal with any enemies in the level as well. I might have played this more if the music in the first zone wasn’t so annoying.

Very few games keep my interest long enough for me to 100% them. Yet the first thing I notice is that I have a file with all of the hearts and gear. That was thanks to a unoffical guide that I own since I doubt I would have been able to find them all without it. This is an absolute timeless game that I have no issues with coming back to whenever. Nintendo honed what they started with the first Zelda game to a absolute fine point.

Plenty of unique bosses along with tons of puzzles must be figured out for Link to once again acquire the triforce. Like the first game in this series it is played from a top down perspective. Link uses his sword to fend off enemies while his array of items allow him to solve puzzles and defeat his foes. After I played through the intro castle dungeon I loaded up my 100% save and beat Ganon again. It was a good thing I cleaned my SNES pad since this game uses the start button a lot. My SNES start button seems to wear out after a while so I had to take it apart and clean it.

Both MP and TLOZ had a extra logo that stated that they sold a million copies. I must have gotten a later printing of them both since the normal box art doesn’t say that. So this is pretty much a painting app. Along with a 16 bit music generator. I doubt I ever got much out of either of those things other than drawing something bad looking and a bunch of jumbled musical tracks. Yet the stilly fly mini game was the reason I played this the most. It may just be swatting a bunch of flies and dodging their attacks. Yet it is just so addictive. Other than T2 The Arcade Game I don’t own any other game that uses the SNES mouse. Seems like a dead on arrival device.

So this is my favorite Mega Man game but it doesn’t have much company with MM8 being the other one I own. This may have been when they ran out ideas for robot masters but it is still a well put together game. The man addition to the gameplay was adding a charge shot to Mega Man’s buster. Storyline wise it throws a new villain into the mix with Dr Cossack but he still assembles the usual set of 8 robot masters. The great thing about Mega Man is that you start to get better at it the more times you die. Like noticing how to dodge boss attacks or knowing when to jump is something you’ll learn when playing through one of these. Since it is no easy task to finish a MM game.

Yup this is exactly like playing the board game. The main difference is that different animations play depending on which area the player lands on. The cards and game pieces are also animated as well. What more can I say about Monopoly? It’s the game everyone seems to end up playing even though it takes forever to finish.

The only thing I like about this game is that it has a bad end when the player gets a game over. I always like it when developers add extra scenes like that in games. At first this didn’t seem so bad but once I got to the sewer level I lost any interest in continuing. Not that it does anything bad but it really is just another generic platformer that gives Bart limited superpowers if you pick up different icons. Yet using the laser eyes power up would actually miss enemies compared to his normal attack. Along with slow moving platforms I was really ready to stop playing this game.

At least in my eyes this might be the best classic sonic game although CD is indeed a close second. At this point Sonic finally caught up with Mario sidekick wise and gameplay too. The addition of his speed dash gives the player the ability to get back up to speed quickly after coming to a stop. Tails gave me a way for my friends to play along with me even if they were left behind a lot. Even the new special stages became my favorite kind compared to the rest of the series.

This is a surprise but this NES game might just be better than the alternate SNES game coming up. The title tells you everything you need to know about the story. Spider-Man must stop the Sinister Six again. To do this he will need to punch his way through a level. For the first fight against Electro I found the jump kick to be the best way to deal with him. Since Spider-Man has limited web shot it makes it impossible to save them for the boss unless you don’t use them at all. His web slinging skills seem pretty pointless for most of the first level and the 2nd. I might have made it one more level into the game if the developers didn’t create a area that I wasn’t able to get out of. So Spider-Man met his end by a bunch of rats jumping on him about 10 times and I was out of continues too.

By the way both of these games were made by LJN which is always a mark of “quality.” So why is this game worst than the last one? At first it might seem better because after the first level you get to choose between 5 playable characters. Each one has a different flavor of bad. Spider Man must collect bombs in order to finish his first level which would be okay if that didn’t mean you had to collect 30 of them. Storm somehow gets the water level set which surprisingly was okay for that kind of level. Wolverine gets the standard kill everything level with a ton of enemies. Cyclops gets a similar level set as the last but it now has a instant death floor. Finally Gambit gets to run away from a giant spiked ball and he has a limited amount of cards. So yeah you get a lot of variety yet most of it just isn’t fun to play.

The worst thing a beat em up can do is slow down the combat to a glacial pace. Super Double Dragon may add more ways to beat foes but when it takes 3-4 knockdowns to just take out a Williams it starts to get bogged down. During this revisit I was always happy to see nunchucks since it takes down enemies at a much more reasonable rate. Partially thanks to the slow pace they added in a block button which is actually quite awesome since it allowed me to counter attacks if timed correctly. Seeing an early example of timed counters in a video game is interesting.

Making a Superman game is hard so why not make him really weak? That seems to be the motto they went with this time because it is really easy to die. Sure Superman can take about 10 hits but levels go on for so long unless you know how to dodge every attack getting to the end of round 1 is tough. Until today I’m not sure I ever saw the 2nd level. This also goes into my pile of action platformer games. Although it does have side scrolling flying levels if you manage to get to them. As for the plot Superman must save a bunch of random people and kids. Going by the game over screen Brainiac seems to be planning something. My “favorite” power limiting system is in effect here too with the player required to wait a while before using more heat vision etc.

Super Mario Land 2 keeps the unique environments from the first game while also expanding the level set to better match his console games. This is the first appearance of Wario who has captured Mario’s castle (Uh where did Mario get a castle?) and sealed the door that needs 6 golden coins to unlock. Mario will need to travel to 6 worlds that all have unique enemies that fit their design. Like the Halloween themed level has Vampires and Yokai in it. Power up wise Mario still has his fire flower and an additional one that gives him bunny ears that allow him to glide. I don’t think enlarging sprites on the GB is always a good choice but in this case it works well.

Super Star wars has been one of my favorite SW games even though it is a tough game to beat. Playing on easy may seem like a cop out but if you want to have fun it is the best way to play this. Taking less damage allowed me to beat this game even though I usually had to cheat to win. Must be thanks to me watching the speed run from AGDQ. I also love how much liberty the developers took with creating bosses. Fighting the sarlacc pit at the beginning and even fighting the tractor beam core near the end is really hilarious.

Wrestling games is another ? in my gaming library. Why is that? Well other than seeing clips of it while surfing tv I’ve never even watched one show. Thanks to GB I now know a lot more than I really should know about the crazy world of wrestling. Also that most of the games based on it are pretty bad like this one. It feels super slow since punches and kicks take forever to come out. It doesn’t appear to have a grapple button so it mainly seems to happen if you just get close to an opponent. The worst thing about it is that it has no progression which means all you can do is set up one fight and then you go back to the menu afterward.

I slightly remember the cartoon this game was based one. The game itself is like if someone took the car from outrun and put Taz in its place. While also giving him the task of eating all the Kiwi’s. Other than grabbing things to eat Taz’s main skill is his whirlwind dash which should be used sparingly since most of the time it lead to me getting hit by a bus. The amount of stuff the game throws at you the closer you get to the end makes it really tough to win. Every level also looks similar with the only variation being that that they change the palette. Which makes a game I doubt I’ll come back to often.

Turtles III might just be the other TMNT beat em up you didn’t know about. It may use a lot of assets from the previous arcade port but this is an unique game. With its own set of bosses that are brand new. Unlike the last game this one is better made for the NES difficulty wise. It may get tough but it never feels like it is trying to eat all my qualters like many arcade games. The added downward throw attack is a great way to kill everything but bigger enemies in one hit so it isn’t too hard to get to the boss without losing a life. If you enjoy the other TMNT beat em ups you should check this one out.

The Majors proves that following the rule of simplicity is sometimes more fun than a complex game. Similar to RBI baseball timing is key to victory here. Getting a home run or even just a nice base hit will play a small animation celebrating your victory. This was also my first taste of playing a baseball game and I ended up playing it a lot. It may not do anything special but I still enjoyed playing it again.

This wasn’t the Yoshi game you expected huh. This is a match 2 puzzle game. As you might think this doesn’t give the player much chance for puzzling out a crazy combo. Instead it is about using Yoshi eggs to clear the entire stack. If the a bottom of a Yoshi egg is at the bottom of a mixed stack of icons it will clear the entire roll. This seems especially vital once the game starts throwing 3 blocks at a time since it will quickly fill up the board. I never played this game often and whenever I did play it just came down to playing it till I got one game over.

Conclusion

Alright so what can I say about another random collection of games again. Wrestling based games started to show up here but they won’t get seen again till the next generation of consoles. The Sonic game that convinced me to buy every Sonic game on the Genesis was released this year. At this point Nintendo put most of their eggs into the SNES and gameboy. The NES will still get one more great game by them but that won’t happen this year. Looking ahead I will need to split my blog posts into two parts to even be able to put them up in a reasonable amount of time. I may do all this writing in advance but inserting all the photos takes a lot longer than you might think. I’ve gotta look to the future which is why next time will feature giant robots and a rocket powered car.