Donkey Kong 3

The Short

Pros

- Decently fun arcade shooter

- Music and sound effects are classic

- Platform idea for a shooter is clever and adds some interesting twists

- Very faithful to the original arcade game

Cons

- The original arcade game wasn't that great to begin with

- Stiff controls, which worked for the first two games, falter here in a shooter

- The bugs' patterns are maddening to try and figure out

- Like...it's a game where you shoot Donkey Kong between his legs. That's the game. Why. 

Yes, this is actually a real thing.

The Long

If your first reaction to seeing this review was "Wait, what? There's a Donkey Kong 3?" then you'd be in the majority. After the success of Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr, Nintendo decided to take the big brown ape on what would be his final arcade excursion in Donkey Kong 3: Galaga Edition. That's right, this isn't a platformer starring Mario or DK's lovable if somewhat dorky looking son, instead you're playing what is essentially a space shooter. And the enemy (aside from DK)? Bugs. Or bees, I guess, as they have hives. And little worms that block your path.

Really not swan song to end out on, guys.

DK summons pestilence from above, a sign of the oncoming ape-ocalypse.

In this game you aren't Mario, but Stanley. Stanley, as you can imagine, is very well known in that he hasn't appeared in a single game since Donkey Kong 3. Due to his purple hair and shoes I like to pretend that all the exposure to the toxins in the bugspray warped him, turning him into Waluigi, but that isn't confirmed by Miyamoto yet and he won't return my calls. So it's pretty much 100% fact. Hey, denial = proof. 

In Donkey Kong 3: To Bee or Not To Bee, you are charged with one simple task: shoot DK's...um...tender spot. His nether regions. Between his legs, so to speak. Stanley (looking straight up while firing, must be quite the view) has this big dumb monkey in his zoo or something and needs to get him out. So the logical solution is to blast him over and over until he crawls off the top of the screen. Yeah, ok, it isn't Mass Effect or anything but it gets the job done. 

DK's most embarrassing moment.

You can't reach him from ground level, as your spray has limited range. The game does, however, remedy this with it's feeble attempt at platforming. As in, there is a literal platform Stanley is standing on (and it's structure changes slightly between three variations as you play levels) and you can hop up or down it at will. Kind of different.

DK's end game (aside from reaching the bottom of the poles and murdering you viciously), is agitating nearby bees' nests. These bees are the size of a man and are way pissed off...but mostly pissed off at the flowers beneath Stanley. The bees'll try and make off with them, and Stanley has to murder the nefarious insects in order to recover the plants. Lose all the plants, you die. Get hit by a bee, you die. And, of course, DK can crush you because he's a monkey the size of Andre the Giant. 

A laff a minute in DK3

There's a few more tricks. Shoot DK enough and he might drop a spray power-up, which gives it max range and pierces multiple enemies. This also carries between levels if you still have time left on it, which is nice. There are also obnoxious caterpillars that will block your shots and are unkillable unless you have the upgraded gun. The goal is, obviously, to get a high score, as the game just cycles with more and more bees (and varying types) until you succumb to an awful, bee-infested death. 

Stanley, played by Nicholas Cage, in the film adaptation of DK3.

There are multiple problems with Donkey Kong 3 that made it far less memorable than it's predecessors. First, it isn't a platformer, and while it's a decent enough shooter the risk probably pushed most die-hard players away. Second, the bugs come off as unfair. Their patterns are only somewhat predictable, unlike most shooting games like Galaga where you can learn the patterns easily, and they're such small targets they can be hard to hit. Third, your weapon sucks, and having to constantly fight a war of attrition with an ever-lowering DK only makes this all the more evident. And lastly, the game's clunky controls don't work in it's favor at all. Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr.'s movement and platforming feel archaic compared to modern games, but it was clear the game was built and balanced around that. I got none of this in Donkey Kong 3. Most of my deaths felt cheap or unavoidable, whereas in the previous two games I knew my deaths were always my own fault.

Point being, it plays clunky, feels unfair, and isn't at all like the previous two games. And that was enough to doom it to obscurity (and essentially kill the franchise, save the Donkey Kong Game Boy game and later Donkey Kong Country games). 

Stanley's enormous eye might be my favorite part of the game.

Graphically it looks good, in both the arcades on NES. While I have very limited experience with the arcade version of Donkey Kong 3, the NES version felt just about arcade perfect, for better or for worse. Again, these machines are hard to find, so correct me if I'm way off track here, but it looks and sounds almost identical.

But it doesn't really mean much if the underlying game is just a monkey's worth of problems. While still technically mostly sound, Donkey Kong 3 feels like a chore to play and fighting for high scores just isn't as engaging. As an added bonus, the NES cart still doesn't save high scores, not that you'd be inviting all the cool kids on the block over to play some high-stakes DK3 anytime soon.

How the mighty apes have fallen, Donkey Kong 3 is a misstep in an otherwise perfect series of arcade games. Two out of five stars. 

He's the now-sterile member of the DK crew

Dynowarz: The Destruction of Spondylus

The Short

Pros
- You can ride a dinosaur
- You can ride a dinosaur
- YOU CAN RIDE A DINOSAUR
- IN SPACE

Cons
- Sometimes you are not riding the dinosaur

AAAH YSSSSSS

The Long

"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!"

That one hope? DINOSAURS. Or...Dynosaurs? Um...

Dynowarz is basically Blaster Master except replace the car Sophia with a giant killer T-Rex in space. There, review over.

Wait, no, there's more to say here, because that previous statement wasn't entirely factual. Yes, Dynowarz is split into two distinct parts: playing as a human with a gun in smaller, enclosed levels that require backtracking, and playing as a killer orange Dynosaur out to cause Space Dynosaur Extinction across the known galaxy. The difference here is that while Blaster Master is mostly about exploration, Dynowarz is a linear platforming game that does little to mix up the formula. Plus Blaster Master had those top-down shooter bits. Those were pretty good, actually. And rad music. Why am I not playing Blaster Master? 

Oh right, because Blaster Master is impossible. 

At any rate, Dynowarz, despite having the raddest name, cover art, and premise of any video game ever made, is really just a somewhat mediocre 2D beat-em-up. It's split into two sections (as mentioned previously): ones where you get out of the Dyno (usually to go inside a building), and one where you are driving the giant Dyno robot.

The sections where you are a person are fairly poor. You have a gun and you jump like you are on the moon, but the game is determined to make the platforming as difficult as possible by having tiny moving platforms as well as spikes everywhere to punish you for even the slightest screw-up. The first few aren't too difficult (actually, they all aren't that bad), but they come off as more stressful than actually fun.

It should also be pointed out that you usually get out of the Dyno to walk into buildings to destroy the Mother Brains inside of them which then destroy the buildings, when the Dyno is clearly bigger than the building and could probably just go Godzilla on its ass. Oh well, video game logic. I give the person segments a Not Dynosaur / 10.

This is boring. Go away. 

But the other half of the game involves the DYNOSAUR!!! (*sick guitar riff!!*) ON THE...MOON?! Or some sort of planet? Come to think of it, the title does say "The Destruction of Spondylus." Am I on Spondylus? Is this the wreckage of a former civilization? Maybe it's a crazy reversal, where I'm the last man alive, and only dynosaurs survived the apocalypse? Plz Namco-Bandai, release a reboot of Dynowarz with an intricate plot and cookie-cutter main characters to explain the massive backstory potential available with this series. I mean, if they can freaking reboot Strider and reboot Duck Tales and reboot Blaster Master and reboot Killer Instinct and reboot Mortal Kombat and reboot that one fighting game nobody knows about on the Xbox but is for some reason coming to Xbox One, then this is totally fair game!

Oh right, the DYNOSAUR part. It's a fairly linear 2d beat-em-up. You have to murder a whole variety of dynos, ranging from triceratops to stegosaurus to other t-rexes. The kind of weird thing is that your default attack is a really short-ranged punch, when I'm pretty sure T-Rexes were famous for having tiny, crappy front arms. It's like a cultural meme now. I have a pin with a T-Rex holding one of those grip extender things, with the text "I AM UNSTOPPABLE!" under it for the laughs. So clearly, we know T-Rex had garbage arms. Fact check next time, game designers, like go to a natural history museum or something I swear.

Upgrades range from a arm gun, an arm that circles around you like a deranged boomerang, and a better punch. Overall, the gun is the most useful but also the weakest, and some enemies that are low to the ground you can't even hit with certain weapons. Also, if you pick up more of the same powerup it'll upgrade it, but if you mess up and pick up a different power-up, you get that one instead and all your upgrades go away. It's a little obnoxious. And by a little I mean a lot.

Welcome to Jurassic Park. Planet. Jurassic Planet. Isn't that the name of the fourth movie?

While the Dynosaur bits should have been the most badass parts, they're actually a hunk of hot garbage. Attacks, as mentioned before, feel weak and have horrible range. It's hard to even attack enemies without getting hit back. But what's even worse is the pits and jumping. Right off the bat there's a pit with a mine on the other side. If you jump across like a normal platformer, you'll hit the mine and it'll explode, knocking you into the pit for an instant death. You try to overshoot and it does the same thing. Only if you pull an Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and take a leap of faith into the abyss will you hopefully land on that one pixel just to the left of the mine but isn't in the pit, and then be able to hop the mine and continue on your way. I'm going off memory here, but I'm pretty sure that's the first pit jump in the game. Maybe the second. I dunno, it's a little hazy, all I can think of right now is Jurassic Park dubstep for some reason .

It is mandatory to listen to this while playing. 

Aside from the mediocre gameplay, Dynowarz also looks pretty trashy. The cutscenses when you get into your Dyno and at the end are straight up awesome, but the rest of the game is kind of a blurry, pixelated mess. Nearly every planet's background is just a black starry sky, no mountains or hills or background of any kind. It's kind of cool in like a "the bleakness of a destroyed world" way, but I mean...why is every planet like this? Was Spondylus like the entire solar system or something? Why is everything so flat? Is this the Iowa Midwest of galaxies?

Music is also subpar around the board. Tunes are tinny and entirely unmemorable, though not offensive. Sound effect are bland and sound bitcrunched to death, perfectly complimenting the bland blobs of pixels that are supposed to be dinosaurs on the screen. Sorry, dynosaurs. Dunno why I keep doing that.

Beating the bosses relies entirely on having the right weapon by sheer luck. 

Ok, real talk: I secretly kind of love Dynowarz. Real talk part two: it's crap. It seriously is straight up garbage. It's not broken (which, considering this is the NES, is actually a pretty big positive), but it most certainly isn't a good game. It's tedious, not hard enough to be challenging but not easy enough to be a fun cakewalk, and most of it's difficulty stems from awful design and, mostly, the bad controls. 

But still, it's a game where you freaking drive a robot dinosaur to punch other robot dinosaurs in space.  And all of a sudden all my problems with it dissolve into blissful, peaceful, dynophoria. 

Two out of five stars. 

Also, more games should end like this. "Congratulations! You've finished another great game from Phil Fish!"

Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

The Short
Pros
- Back to the linear Castlevania format
- Graphics are a hybrid between the first Castlevania and Simon's Quest, and look fantastic
- Music is kickin'
- Four playable characters (three of which you have to discover) help mix up the gameplay
- Branching and split paths
- Some of the levels are ingenious

Cons
- Really, really hard
- Like, absurdly hard. You won't beat it. Ever. Unless you have Game Genie
- Seriously though, sometimes I think this and the Mega Man games were invented solely to sell Game Genies.
- Not nearly as tightly designed as the first Castlevania game was

This looks really familiar.

The Long

Castlevania III: Breaking Dawn Part 2 feels like a compromise. It's as if the people who made Simon's Quest were insistent that Simon's Quest wasn't all bad, but it was clear that people really just wanted more of Castlevania's linear style. "But you go outside the castle!" the Simon's Quest fans cried. "That's cool! And you have options to go different places and in a different order!"

Castlevania III: Dracula's Purse is a good Castlevania game, unlike Simon's Quest. But it should have been the best one on the NES, and instead it's just in second place. And it's a game that goes to show that even if you add a bunch of stuff to a tried-and-true formula, if you don't nail the "tried-and-true formula" part, you're going to screw up your game.

What I'm trying to say is Castlevania III is too hard. 

It does have a pretty sick intro, though. 

Castlevania III is a prequel to the first Castlevania, though with these old NES games you really have to rely on the manuals or Nintendo Power to know that. It stars Trevor Belmont, who looks exactly like Simon from the first game except Trevor has a cape, and he's on a quest to whip Dracula into shape. As in kill him. Not jazzercise him into shape, if that was confusing.

On it's surface it looks like a return to form from the series. Hearts again are used for subweapons, not as an economic staple. Levels are linear and challenging and are chock full of enemies ready to murder you. Stages end with a challenging boss fight (though the bosses have a tendency to be recycled) and give you a glowing orb thing that refills your health. It's Castlevania again, hooray!

With a few twists that should make it better, and...sort of do?

Finally, a female playable character in a Castlevania game!

First off, after every stage or two you're given an option to branch to a split path. A little background image on the far right shows you the general gist of what you're getting in each excursion, so you can easily identify the clock tower level and avoid it. Some paths contain hidden characters (like Syfa above) which you can then swap out for at any time in your journey. Others give you nothing but death and an empty feeling inside. All eventually get to Dracula's castle, but there is very distinctly a "right way" to get through the game, and the game doesn't tell you what way that is. You'll have to find out by playing it through a half-dozen times or going to Gamefaqs (or grabbing a Nintendo Power).

The extra characters, of which there are three (Grant, Syfa, and Alucard's first appearance) are all surprisingly unique and yet can all tackle each stage. I imagine that's why the stages don't feel as "tight" as they did in Castlevania 1: Eclipse; they had to be designed so that four distinctly different characters could beat them. That bit of "looseness" in the levels is a bit of a downer, as I'd imagine if they'd cut the characters back they probably could have made the levels feel more designed for the specific characters rather than a "one size fits all" thing.

Except that size is hard, and the fit is your death.

This seems fair. 

Castlevania III is infamous for it's absurd difficulty, and I'm just going to prove to be the echo in the Grand Canyon in that regard. The game is hard, really hard. About the time you hit the ghost ship you'll be thinking, "man, was Castlevania this hard?" When you hit the Red Keep (or that's what I call it anyway) you'll wonder if the game developers are sadists. And if you ever make it to Dracula...good luck. That's all I'm saying.

Since the game community is such a nonjudgemental and supporting one, I feel obligated to give this disclaimer: I like hard games. I'm not a "casual" or a "noob." One of my biggest draws to old-school gaming is the lack of handholding and the sometimes malicious difficulty curve. It's gaming at its purest, when it's pulled off successfully, and gaming at it's most frustrating when it isn't. Castlevania III skirts the line in that regard: it's a lot of fun for a good portion of the game, and it's very frustrating for another portion. As such, you'll probably play it for about half an hour before getting stuck, and only the elite will continue to bash their heads against the brick wall of whatever level it is until finally persisting through. That or they'll grab the Game Genie. 

See if you can find Trevor. Here's a hint: he's totally boned. 

The game still looks quite good, sort of a graphical hybrid of Simon's Quest and Castlevania (and probably another compromise between the Simon's Quest apologetics and the Castlevania purists). While Castlevania relied heavily on color contrasts, Castlevania III does as well...for the most part. In some instances it's impossible to tell the background from the black-outlined flight of stairs you're supposed to take down, and the dark-outlined enemies can often feel mashed into the background. It's still an incredibly gorgeous game and a monument of pixel art, and while it's certainly one of the best looking games on the system it doesn't have the "pop" that Castlevania had.

The music is some of the best in the series, top to bottom, though still pales in comparison to the first game. The opening theme, however, is killer.

Here's just the whole soundtrack because why not?

Castlevania III: Dracula's Quest is a fine decent game, but one few people will ever actually see the end of. If you're a collector then you've obviously got your eye set on it, but if you're browsing the Wii Virtual Console and needing a Castlevania fix, there's better options (not Simon's Quest, mind). If you want an absurdly hard challenge to bang your face against for the next few weeks (or months. Or years) then this game is an excellent example of "Nintendo Hard" for you to get all nostalgic over and then be glad they don't make games this difficult anymore. 

It's still one of the better Castlevania games, and since they don't make 2D linear ones any more your options are forever limited. Plus that cover art is just incredible. I guess the point I'm trying to make is in the compromise mentioned at the beginning, in the end the Castlevania guys won out. But that doesn't stop some bad decisions from Simon's Quest to nearly spoil the experience. 

Get this game if you hate yourself. Three out of five stars. 

Purple tombstones are what I want to be buried in. 

Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest

The Short

Pros

- Feels like a grand adventure

- Adds a leveling/currency sense of progression to the series

- Attempts to give an open world, which oddly enough is believable

- Has phenomenal music

- Looks decent enough

- Has a day/night cycle that actually changes how the game is played

Cons

- Level design is a joke

- Bad translations and obscure puzzles are a poor mixture

- Next to no bosses to speak of

- The game turns into farming for hearts (currency) to continue

- Graphics lack the visual "pop" from Castlevania

Say what you like about the game, I love the way this forest background looks.

The Long

If there's one thing I can really say that's positive about Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest it's that it made me realize how much time and care had to have gone into the original Castlevania. That or the first game was a total fluke, in which case I am sad.

Simon's Quest is universally scorned by gamers, and is considered one of the "unholy trinity" of odd game sequels to come out of the NES (the other two being Mario 2 and Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link, both of which I think are great games). More than a few people have made videos about it, and honestly it seems you can't be a frustrated gamer on youtube these days without covering Simon's Quest at some point. But what it boils down to is this: Simon's Quest clearly meant well, it was just misguided. And in an industry where gaming journalists scoff and scorn at the lack of innovation only to criticize a game a moment later for not fitting their review criteria, Simon's Quest probably deserves another, fresher look.

The game is still pretty rotten, don't get me wrong. But there's a good deal to still enjoy here.

There's a Death Cab for Cutie song about this, I think. 

Simon's Quest is rare as it is a direct sequel story-wise to Castlevania, something they didn't really do until Dracula X --> Symphony of the Night and Aria of Sorrow --> Dawn of Sorrow later down the road. Simon has killed Dracula, but he seems to be under a curse. Not Dracula's Curse (that's the third game), but some sort of other curse. Anyway, the only way to fix it is to gather up various parts of Dracula's anatomy, put them all in a pot, and revive him. And then kill him again. No, I don't get it either.

Story doesn't matter, what matters is the game objectives. You start by finding yourself in a town, not Dracula's castle, in fact his whole castle seems to be missing in this game and is instead replaced by a variety of mansions. It's almost as if the developers played Legend of Zelda, realized that they liked the puzzles, items, rupees, and dungeons on that game and wanted to make it in a 2D platformer sense. Which, now that I've typed that out, sounds pretty great. Too bad Simon's Quest isn't. 

Well, at least I know my neck is safe. 

Simon's Quest differs from Castlevania so dramatically I hesitate to even call it a Castlevania game. Gone is the linear platforming, the obvious tight level design and arcade-style points system. Instead we're on an adventure, or a "quest" if you will. Simon murders various Halloween-style monsters to procure hearts, which have gone from ammo to currency in the weirdest economy known to man, and then spends those bloodbags on powerups he needs to beat the game. Shields, flame whips, holy water, and so forth. Most of the sub weapons are now used for specific objectives rather than primarily as weapons (again, this is Zelda-esque) and can be employed to uncover secrets.

The world itself is also quite nice to look it. It does fall into that "everything has a black outline so the game looks darker than the back of the moon" vibe that many third-party NES games fell victim to, but the sprites are well detailed and the backgrounds especially are large and feel detailed. The forest is genuinely claustrophobic and the open mountain spaces feel as real to me as the planes of Skyrim, if that's saying something.

So for the first ten to fifteen minutes of Simon's Quest you're probably going to have a great time, just soaking in the atmosphere, great music, and the familiar controls. It's when you try to progress in the game that the big deep problems emerge.

Thank you. That is very helpful.

Simon's Quest, first off, is heavily dependent on grinding. Stuff costs lots of hearts, and so you'll be bashing monsters left and right for them. Seeing as dying to a Continue causes you to lose all your hearts, you'll quickly realize the best way to get hearts is to stay close to whatever village has the item you want and just murder easy werewolves or skeletons outside. Which means running back and forth over the same two or three screens for half an hour to buy the item you need. Strike one.

The next problem comes with knowing where to go. While you may brave out past the three safe screens near town to explore this monster-ridden world, odds are you won't find much in ways of guidance. The village people aren't much help - it appears English is their fifteenth language - and signs and even hints you can buy a cryptic or flat out wrong. While finding the first mansion is certainly possible by simple exploration, will you know you need a wooden stake to destroy the orb at the end? Well, you do. Just FYI. You can thank me later. Strike two.

Pray all you want, it won't fix their bad translations.

Lastly, the dungeons themselves. Obviously meant to be the best parts of the game (or at least, I'd imagine that's the case) even they're rather unfun. There's a handful of reasons (bad enemy placement, having to backtrack back out after completion) but what really buttered my biscuit was the invisible drops. Some blocks you can walk on. Others, you can't. How do you tell them apart? By lobbing holy water at them like a deranged priest. Since there's no visual indication whatsoever without seeing of the water jar passes through, you'll have to lob every single square of floor in these mansions just to be certain you don't fall down and get impaled on spikes or something. Whomever thought that idea up should have been fired on the spot and slapped, not necessarily in that order. It's a load of rot and an absolutely unforgivable waste of gamers' time. Strike Three.

Now, I am going to be fair here: Simon's Quest did lay a framework for what would eventually become games like Symphony of the Night and the GBA and DS Castlevania games. Persistent leveling, a non-linear world, money to buy stuff with, dungeons to explore; all of these things carried over in one way or another. And I applaud them for at least trying to experiment with it. But while I can commend them for their attempt, I can't reconcile the final product. Simon's Quest just isn't fun, and is designed with systems that exist only to waste your time and provide frustration. While much of this game could be a good idea in theory, little of it transitions over to being ok in practice. 

At least the music is great. Or this song, anyway. 

Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest is the only one of the unholy triforce of NES sequels that I think is a rotten apple, and even then it isn't...horrible. It mean, it's totally playable. It controls decently enough, looks fine, and has...a lot of...content. 

Who am I kidding? This game's rubbish. Though it does go to show one thing: many of the design choices in this game developed solely to waste your time are being actively used today. Providing minor rewards to give the illusion of progress, an open world with a whole lot of nothing actually in it, and other such "advances" are usually given high marks in reviews these days. The difference is that modern games have done a lot better at hiding the fact that these elements are there to waste your time, either by upping the immersion factor (which is almost enough to save Simon's Quest for me, if I'm being totally honest here) or making them so addicting you just don't notice the fact you're being abused. And I realize now I might have no idea what I'm talking about, so I'm going to shut up.

Point being: Simon's Quest isn't good. It exists to waste your time, and as such playing it will...waste your time. Bet you didn't see that one coming. 

It's not completely irredeemable, but it sure tries its hardest to be. Though I will say you may get some enjoyment booting it up clean and just wandering about for a half-hour or so with no actual intent of getting anywhere. Just soak in those great graphics and sense of adventure. Then put it away and repeat the process in a few months when you need to justify having bought it.

Two out of five stars. 

Sorry Simon, your quest is in another castle.

Nathan vs His Game Collection: Day 21 - Fester Can Suck It

So, what happens when you reverse Cookie Monster? Something fantastic, that's what!
That has nothing to do with today's reviews, I just wanted to post it up here. Two for you today, because I'm tired and have to leave to work shortly. But hey, it's the weekend! Almost! Hooray!

Faxanadu

A little background

 Oh man, somebody really went crazy with the sharpie on that one. Wanted to make sure everybody knew you owned it forever, huh? Until it showed up at the used game store, I guess.

Faxanadu is a Hudson Soft joint (makers of such fine products as Adventure Island and Bomberman), released in August of 1989. It's a classic story of Elves vs Dwarves, and the people stuck in the middle. It's a classic action RPG in the vein of Zelda 2, The Battle of Olympus or (shudder) 8 Eyes. This is also a game I wanted for a really long time but could never find a copy in stores, so when one showed up (even with a ruined label) I still had to pick it up.

First impressions last forever

 This game is really, really brown. Lots of dark browns and muddy greens here. It also looks like the world graphics of Zelda 2 had a baby with the UI from 8 Eyes. Which I guess can be good or bad depending on what you like.

The game has solid controls, though, and I like the music. It's also extremely difficult. 

But as I played further...

 Faxanadu is widely considered a cult classic, but I just think it's ok. Don't get me wrong; it isn't bad by any means, it's just...really hard. It's hard, ok? Lots of level grinding, lots of people to talk to, lots of stuff to buy, lots of dying; you get the point. The action RPG elements help make it so the grind isn't as tedious, and I do like the various locations you can explore and the little quirks the game has to offer. For example, you can buy "titles" (like "Warrior," etc.) from a title...selling guy, and then flaunt these titles around town to get people to give you money. Yeah, it's weird, but that's Faxanadu!

Part of me thinks this game could have been better than Zelda II if only they'd put more effort into it, but after several hours I'm just sort of lukewarm to the whole game. Though I do like it a bit better than The Battle of Olympus, it still didn't quite suck me in. 

So what's the conclusion? 

I still think Faxanadu is worth getting, especially if you're a fan of Zelda II. While the game is very brown (what a muted color pallet!) and also very hard, it's a classic action RPG that still manages to do just about everything right. If you're into those kinds of games, and want a long, action-rpg quest with plenty of locations to visit and enemies to kill, you could do a lot worse than Faxanadu.

Copies (if you can find them) are usually $10 or less. 

Fester's Quest

A little background

Sunsoft, you tards. Sometimes you make really good games, like Batman and Blaster Master. And sometimes you make total, undefendable trash, like Fester's Quest.

Obviously based on the Addams Family, Fester's Quest was forcefully ejected into the world by Sunsoft in September of 1989. It's interesting to note that the overhead engine used for most of the game was the same engine used for the overhead sections in Blaster Master, as this game came after Blaster Master. Why it's still so horrible after they made that excellent game is beyond me. 

Also, he should probably do something about that spider on his head. Just sayin.  

First impressions last forever

For using the Blaster Master engine, this game looks hideous. Fester is like a black mound of round pixels, and the enemies are either unidentifiable objects or toads. The controls aren't half bad (probably, again, because of the Blaster Master engine) but the power-ups are just awful. The wave gun doesn't pass through anything, so if you're in an enclosed space the shots just...go away! Who designed this? 

But as I played further...

 There are I guess one or two interesting things about Festers Quest. The big one being the 3D rooms when you go inside houses. Those are actually kind of cool, even if the rooms are completely empty mazes. I guess.

It seems I only had one nice thing to say, not two. This game is trash. Complete and utter trash. 

So what's the conclusion? 

I have a weird knack for buying games AVGN references because frequently I think he's wrong about them (for example, Jaws really isn't that awful), but he nailed this one right on the head: Fester's Quest is just not a good game. Even for curiosity, it isn't worth picking up. You'll play it for a few seconds, get annoyed, and quit. This is one of the few instances I'd suggest trying it first on an emulator before buying it, because the two minutes you spend playing it will be enough to last you the rest of your life.

It's a mess, don't buy it, don't look at it, don't acknowledge its existence.

Copies are too much, whatever the price. 

Nathan vs His Game Collection Day 20 - The Destruction of Spondylus

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. 

Nathan vs His Game Collection Day 19: Ducks and Dungeons

Smooth McGroove is back with an even crazier song, one that was the famous piano "Death Waltz" thing that was making its way around the internet a while back.
Two reviews for you today! Let's do it!

Duck Tales

A little background

DuckTales (a woo-hoo), released in September of 1989, is probably one of the best known NES Disney games. Widely remembered and regarded as a classic, it's also currently undergoing the Wayforward treatment to be remade with modern graphics and the original voice actors. Does the game really need to be reworked for a modern age? Eh, probably not, but since they never bothered re-releasing it I'll take what I can get here.

It's worth pointing out that in Japan this game is called "Naughty Ducks Dream Adventures," which is, again, brilliant. I don't know where Japan gets these awesome names for their games, but they're really something else. 

This also was the start of a long and glorious line of Capcom Disney games, that would run all the way up to the SNES era before Disney started making their own sucky games. Duck Tales also spawned a sequel, but it came out late in the NES's lifespan and is considered one of the more difficult (and expensive) games to get for the system. 

First impressions last forever

Man, this game was so obviously made by the Mega Man team. Mega Man style graphics, Mega Man style music, Mega Man style stage select: it's crazy! Crazy I tell you!

But the game certainly doesn't play all that much like Mega Man (though I square Scrooge's walk cycle and animation are dangerously close). In fact, it doesn't play like any platformer I can think of to date. You have two attacks: you can swing your cane like a golf club and strike objects into enemies (or just out of the way, but you can't strike enemies) or you can bounce on the pogo Commander Keen style and jump on top of enemies. Scrooge's basic jump is kind of garbage, so the pogo is the way to go.  

But as I played further...

I might as well link the Moon stage song, because everybody just loves that song to death (myself included). 

What is cool about DuckTales is how it's secretly kind of an open-world game. You adventure through the various stages, finding unlocks and secrets, but if you get to Launchpad you can always take the treasure you got and head back to the base and go somewhere else (or the same location from the start). The game is more about exploration than combat and bosses (although there is both), which is probably why Scrooge isn't really all that well equipped to attack, but is very well stocked to do platforming with his pogo stick. 

Since there aren't really any upgrades to speak of, the stages can be tackled in any order (unlike Mega Man, which wants you to do them in order of weakness). Also, the goal is different as well: just get money. Lots and lots of money. You can beat the bosses, but be sure to get money. Delicious money. 

Exploring the stages can be tricky, but as you dig deeper and find secrets as well as master the cane jumping (which is tricky at first), you'll get the hang of it. This game also begs to be replayed, and since there's no option to save or continue, you'll need to take what you learned before for future playthroughs. Kind of like Dark Souls. Only with ducks. Duck Souls. 

So what's the conclusion? 

I could easily go on and on about DuckTales. About a "no money" run, or playing the game on Difficult or otherwise. About all the fantastic graphics, music, and locations. About how it pretty much did something no other 2D platformer had done (or has done since, with the exception of its direct sequel). 

But I won't, because everybody knows this game is fantastic. Even today, after replaying it, I'm surprised they felt the need to "Remaster" the game at all. They could re-release this game as a straight up port and it would hold up. Though I guess a save system wouldn't hurt it (or adding a few more levels to explore). Maybe in the Remaster they'll fuse it and DuckTales II together. That would be cool.

Regardless, this is one of the best NES games ever released. It's clever, original, has great production values, and is a blast to play. If you have a NES, this needs to be in your collection.

Copies are usually reasonably priced, around $10. 

Dungeon Magic: Sword of the Elements

A little background

Dungeon Magic: Sword of the Elements is another Taito game, which some may find similar to Bard's Tale. It was released in July of 1990 and designed specifically for the NES system, which is crazy because usually games like this are ports (or at least it felt like a port when I played it). This was an era of "Let's try really hard to rip of Dungeons and Dragons but not get sued" level of games, and Dungeon Magic certainly gets close. 

It's also in first person, 3D. Yeah. Crazy. 

First impressions last forever

 Ok, so it's a Daggerfall-esque game but on the NES. Which means literally no draw distance. I can only see the square in front of me and nothing else. This isn't going to make walking around town hard.

Also, the HUD takes up 90% of the screen. Like Hydlide. The Daggerfall reference was a compliment, this one isn't. 

I do think it's crazy they have a full 3D world on the NES, though. I also like talking to townspeople. 

But as I played further...

 This game was too ambitious for the system it is on, which is too bad because it might have been ok. The first thing I did was, after the townspeople told me to go do something and I ignored it, run out of town and battle the snake that's on the cover. It killed me in two hits. 

So I decided to attempt wandering this town of bad draw distance, finally finding what I need to to progress. I got some gear and headed out of town, battling that snake again. And it killed me again.

That's when I started using a guide. After playing a bit further I found a few more minor details: you gain XP but have to go to a church to "cash it in" to gain levels. You can save (hooray for batteries!) but only an an inn. There's a magic fusing system, but despite touting "Over 125 spells!" they all seem to be either Heal or Fireball. Plus, I still can't see where I'm going. Ever. 

So what's the conclusion? 

This isn't a game worth getting. I really tried hard to like it, because I admired its ambition. But, in the end, it's cumbersome and not fun. The lack of any ability to see where you going is a massive problem, and paired with the boring battles and not-as-good-as-it-sounds magic system, the game's just another bad NES RPG.

I wouldn't even consider it worth it as a novelty. Avoid. I have no idea how much copies are, but I'd imagine between $5-10.