The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures

The Short

Pros
- Very fun and furious co-op Zelda experience
- The inclusion of subtle competitive elements causes dissonance between teammembers, which is awesome
- Puzzles and dungeons are, for the most part, great fun with friends
- Controls are reasonable with regards to character management if you can't get the complete set of four buddies together
- Graphics look straight out of the SNES Link to the Past
- "Dark Link" verses mode is weirdly amazing, providing a four-player murder spree using 2D Zelda elements
- Seriously, it's a 2D Zelda game. We never get these anymore. I'm going to take what I can get here.

Cons
- Need at least two Game Boy Advances and the link to Gamecube cables to play co-op
- Playing single player is sort of a rotten experience
- Despite being mostly good, some puzzle elements are sloppily designed, especially for a Zelda game
- I praised the SNES style graphics, but they do look a bit...fuzzy in SD
- Music is all recycled from other Zelda games. As in, directly lifted. Well, there is one remix, I guess.
- Story is lame and forgettable; just a collect-a-thon quest
- Game puzzles get predictable at around the 7th or 8th world
- No real sense of exploration, a major staple of the Zelda franchise

The calm before the inevitable storm.

The Long

When people say Nintendo has never mixed up the Zelda formula since Ocarina of Time, I sort of cringe a little. Yeah, the 3D Zelda games have sort of gotten stale (not "sort of;" they have gotten stale), but there's been a good batch of weird offshoot games since then. The DS Zelda games are a good example of Nintendo using a touch screen to change the Zelda experience, but what particularly stands out in my memory is Four Swords Adventures on the Gamecube.

Please allow me a little self indulgence here. My first experience with Four Swords Adventures was my freshman year in college. A friend had the game but no Game Boys, and I (for some reason) had two Game Boy Advance SPs. We borrowed three cords from a friend, and then hauled my other buddy's portable TV, Gamecube, and Game Boy Player (the attachment for the Gamecube that lets you play Game Boy Advance games on it) into our tiny dorm room. with two friends on Game Boys and one using their Gamecube as a Game Boy, we burned through about half of the game in a night. Let me tell you this: things got violent. Very violent. I believe we had to ban a certain player from ever using the Fire Rod ever again...and I think that player was me. Yeah, I'm kind of a pyromaniac...but hey, that field of bushes needed to be burned! It's not my fault all my teammates were in it when I torched it!

All that aside, I've recently picked up the game as well as a few cables to play with my wife in two-player to see if the experience is still the frantic, at-each-other's-throats co-op experience I remembered fondly in college. Was it? Well, read on and I'll tell ya.

Had this been with my friends, somebody was probably in that explosion.

Zelda: Four Swords Adventures strips the Zelda formula down to it's absolute basic, and changes a good deal of things in order to make the co-op experience work. Gone is any sense of story (though, to be honest, Zelda games are hardly Shakespeare): six (or was it seven?) magic sage ladies have been stolen, as have four mystical gems for some knights or something. When Link yanks the fabled Four Sword (imaginative name, that) from the stone like King Arthur, he splits into four different colored versions of himself that love to fight, bicker, and throw each other off pits out of spite. It's also good that happens, because apparently the whole world was designed around four people navigating it, which seems really inconvenient if you start thinking about it too hard.

In stripping the formula down, you lose a lot of what makes Zelda, well, Zelda to people. There's no exploration here; the game is divided very evenly into nine worlds, each with three levels (hey, kind of like every Mario game ever). These worlds follow the usual themes (forest world, ice world, fire world, etc.), and there is no carry-over between levels. Items you find in each level such as boomerangs, bombs, and the dreaded fire rod, all stay in their worlds after you beat them. It's more "Zelda arcade" than anything.

Ooh...pretty. Now throw Purple over the ledge to get the force gems.

While purists might take offense, I applaud Nintendo for doing this, because Four Swords Adventures, at its core, is not a traditional Zelda game. At it's very forefront it's a co-op puzzle slash action game, and one that Nintendo knew would be hard to get friends together for. Nobody wants to slog through seven hours of Link to the Past on four player co-op; people have lives. Shrinking it into stages that last around thirty minutes to an hour and a half makes it a great "pick up and play" game, which is what it needed. You still get the basic Zelda gist of tossing boomerangs and opening doors with keys, just in bite sized chunks.

And it's good that way, because the puzzle are, frankly, some of the worst in the franchise. Now, let me remind you that this is the Zelda franchise we are talking about here, so even at its worst the puzzle are decent at least. My main issue with Four Swords Adventures is the lack of conveyance. You play a whole temple learning that sinking-sand is bad, adapting tricks to get through it quickly so you don't sink to the bottom and die. Then you have a room where the only way out is to sink to the bottom, with no indication, prompts, or even hints that this is the correct way to go. And that's far from the worst example. Many puzzles involve using items in ways the game never taught you, and only using them that way once. Rooms have levers and stuff you can push/pull that only works sometimes. And don't get me started on the bracelet that "lets you lift anything!" which actually translates into "some trees, sometimes, and only if you come at them from the right angle." But hey, at least you can toss the trees at your buddies.

And there we have the saving grace for this game: the fantastic competitive co-op. 

Game Boy Advance: Now a bomb shelter. 

If you have the resources (meaning at least two GBAs, link cables, and a willing friend), Four Swords is an absolute riot multiplayer. First off, the game is designed exceptionally well when it comes to co-op required puzzles. Enemies, including bosses, often are "color coded," meaning only a certain color Link can damage them. This requires your team to be fast on the draw, as this color can often shift after being hit, and gives each person a time to shine. Puzzles also do this, with certain blocks only able to be pushed by certain colors, and the limited number of sub-items causing each Link to be specialized for a specific thing. You have your guy who has the dash boots and can run across pits, but can't use the fire rod to melt the ice on the other size. You have to work together as a team to pull through most of the game.

But where the game is really fun is the parts where you don't work as a team and instead try to hack each others' faces off. Let me tell you about Force Gems for a second.

Force Gems: Making your friends hate you since 2004

Force Gems are the Rupee replacement in this game. Essentially, they drop all the time (mostly when solving puzzles or killing enemies), and when your team collectively gets 2,000 on tap you unlock a more powerful spin attack. However, where this matters is at the end of each stage you and your friends are ranked. You're given bonus points for killing the most enemies, having the most health at the end, and penalized for dying. And then they add your total Force Gems to the mix, and whomever is #1 gets to be awesome while the rest bow their heads in shame.

Add the mechanic that burning your friends with the fire rod causes them to drop Force Gems, and things get fiesty. 

There's a certain incentive to keep your gems so that you'll reach maximum power (and if someone drops 100 or more at once, Tingle will come from off screen and steal it away, so everybody loses), but depending on your friends the real goal is to beat the stuffing out of whomever has the most. This includes but it not limited to:

- Picking them up and throwing them off a cliff

- Baiting enemies to them so they get hit

- Burning them with the fire rod (my personal favorite)

- Luring them out into a field then burning the field with the fire rod

- Tossing them out of their GBA screen just when an insta-kill bomb goes off

- Grabbing them with a boomerang to pull them off cliffs or into enemies

- Throwing trees at them

- Generally being a butt to your "buddies"

This "co-op but competitive" vibe is what makes the game awesome. And you know Nintendo knew it, because they plan just enough dead time between puzzles that you'll get antsy and start being jerks. Not only that, usually when someone solves a puzzle they are rewarded with a hefty amount of Force Gems, incentivizing people to race to the solution (or just let your friends do it and steal the reward, HAHAHAHA!). 

Or you can all just fight. For like twenty minutes. On the same screen. That happens a lot, too.

I hate all my friends now. Thanks, Four Swords!

So as a Zelda game, Four Swords is just passable. But as a co-op (and, dare I say, "party") game, Four Swords is incredible. The Zelda elements are just icing on the cake, with the somewhat easy puzzles really being there to incite more and more vicious competition amongst friends. It's pretty brilliant, in a way.

All this is completely removed if you play single player, which is absolutely awful. While it's true you don't need a GBA to play Four Swords by yourself (a standard Gamecube controller will suffice), the rest of the Links trail behind you like obedient puppies, and the competitive nature (aka the best part of the game) is lost. Playing this like a normal single player Zelda is, frankly, super lame. And considering it isn't a great Zelda game under there, you'll probably either get bored or frustrated very quickly.

Which brings me to another point: the GBA usage. It's primarily used in two situations: going indoors (caves, houses, etc.) or when you are in the Dark World. And while I admit the game does one or two clever thing with it (you can pick up "light world" buddies while in "dark world," making for a few interesting puzzles), I hardly found it necessary. Splitting the screen might have been cumbersome, but the game probably could have been designed around four-player co-op on just one screen. Having to find four freaking GBAs (or somebody with an extra TV, Gamecube, and Game Boy Player) as well as cords was hard enough back when this game was new, and now it's just as big a pain. While I will say it's worth it if you already have the GBAs (link cords are on eBay for like $5, and the game is only around $20), I think the forced GBA linkage sort of killed this offshoot.

That looks totally safe. 

Graphically, I have mixed feelings. While I like the very obvious Link to the Past throwback, it doesn't look like they did any real graphical improvements except for fire effects. As in, this seriously looks exactly like Link to the Past. You know, the game that came out on a system two generations before the Gamecube. The obvious dissonance between the bits they wholesale ripped and the few new things they added makes it extra weird, and with modern games these days adapting a "retro" look much better, Four Swords feels a bit like a cash-in on the graphics department.

Same goes for the music, which again...mostly straight up ripped from Link to the Past or Ocarina of Time. There's maybe two or three remixes of themes (I like the snow mountain's song, which is Death Mountain with like a flutey, softer feel to it), but stuff like the castle and cave songs are the exact same song, in the exact same midi chipset from the SNES. Dudes, you had a disc. Reorchestrate them or something, seriously. 

Four Links enter, one Link leaves. 

I'll give a passing comment on two other minor features: Tingle's Tower and Shadow Link Battle. Tingle's Tower is a minigame collection that pops up after you beat the second level in each world. It's cute, but frankly crappy. Ignore it.

Shadow Link Battle is actually kind of cool. Basically it tosses the four of you in a small stage, then randomly spawns powerups, bombs, etc. You can even grab a chicken and toss it at enemies to steal life, which is downright awesome. While it's hardly Halo or anything, it's a laugh riot with friends, and helps you blow off steam if your friend was a particular Force Gem robbing jerk in the main game. 

All in all, Four Swords Adventures is a pretty dang great multiplayer experience, with its only real issues being the mediocre Zelda elements and the high bar for entry. All that aside, don't let my negativity bring you down: if you have a Gamecube (or a backwards compatible Wii) and a few GBAs lying around, pick up some cables, Four Swords, and some buddies and have a great time. I should also mention quickly: the game works great with just two players as well. While you have to micromanage Blue and Purple, it still is a lot of fun (if a bit less competitive, at least when playing with your significant other). Just...don't play it by yourself. Really.

Four (swords) out of Five. And hey, Nintendo? This game would work great online, you hear? And since the WiiU doesn't suck online (and also has a big fat screen in the controller), maybe it's time for a reboot that doesn't require four handhelds to play?

Friends 'til the end. Until about five minutes into the game. 

WarioWare Inc.: Mega Party Game$

The Short

Pros
- 200 microgames playable in both single and multiplayer
- Eight multiplayer modes of a wide variety that focus on the microgames
- Minigames and modes are fun, especially with a group of friends
- WarioWare charm shines through
- Can play on a GBA with a link cable, though I have no idea why

Cons
- All the minigames are exactly the same ones in the GBA Warioware: Mega Microgames
- As such, the graphical quality looks like a GBA game
- While there are some really good multiplayer modes, a few are genuine duds
- Not as many wild unlockables as in the GBA versions of the game
- No real story mode for single player; mostly just playing through the minigames back to back

Send a cat to space. 

The Long

I guess I should have expect it. After all, the premise for WarioWare: Epic Microgames on the GBA was that Wario wanted to wring as much money out of people as possible by developing quick, easy games that ripped off other games. As such, I suppose this Gamecube iteration, WarioWare: Mega Party Games follows the ideology well: it's a complete rehash of the GBA game, just in multiplayer form. As such, I don't know if I should be mad at Nintendo for releasing what is essentially a cash grab, or praise them for making reality match the fiction set in the Wario universe.

I'm really overthinking this.

WarioWare: Mega Party Games is just that: a bunch of party games. However, unlike games like Mario Party where it's 75% awful board game and 25% fun minigames, Mega Party Games gets the balance right. It's streamlined, fast, and all the games are unlocked from the get go. 

It's just too bad there's really no original single player content here to speak of. 

Playing space minigame Othello. Yeah, why not. 

Mega Party Games has no "story" to speak of. That's right, they even got rid of the phoned in versions they made for Mega Microgames and Twisted. If you are the kind of person who is buying this game to play single player: you probably shouldn't, unless there is no way at all to get your hands on something that plays GBA games. The single player is a very stripped down version of the GBA original (again, with all the same microgames as the original) and as such lacks a lot of the charm and hooks that made the original so endearing. While, yes, the games are still a lot of fun single player, it's very obvious it was phoned-in for this installment.

Mega Party Games is meant to be played multiplayer, and as such that is where the most fun will be had. 

An impossible level of coordination. 

Mega Party Games has eight themed multiplayer modes with two little throwaway bonuses (jumprope and paper airplane race). Each of these modes ranges from "mediocre" to "great," and in order to unlock them all you have to play through each at least once. There's even one that's cooperative, oddly enough, where one person plays and the others shine lights so they can see what's going on. But the rest are full on competitive. 

I have to give them props for variety. One is space othello, where in order to capture a square you have to play a required number of minigames correctly (as one would guess, corners require long chains). Another is simply random microgame assignment with lives, where sometimes all four go at once. A Mario Party esque one in terms of random winning is an e-card one (based on the failed GBA e-reader), where one mess up can send you from first to last. It's a solid assortment.

Some are fantastic. Our house favorite is the balloon one, which is a variation of hot potato. One player is put through a microgame while the others pound the A button to fill a balloon. Once you beat the microgame the next player cycles through, and whomever the balloon pops on loses. It's fast and frantic with a good mix of random and strategy, so it works. 

Then you have the weird ones, or just plain bad. Mona's requires someone to play a minigame while doing something "weird" (such as covering one eye, holding their breath, etc) in real life, and after accomplishing the game the rest of the players "clap" to vote on how well they did. The microgames actually do nothing when it comes to scoring, so it's really just an example of what happens when you run out of ideas. 

Clap away, puppets! 

I will say this: the frantic pace of WarioWare makes for some excellent multiplayer. While I wish it had more options in terms of difficulty and speed, the game does scale based on performance, meaning better players will have harder challenges as things progress. Most modes last around five minutes, enhancing the whole "let's go one again!" mentality that party games are supposed to evoke. With a group of friends (intoxicated or otherwise), Mega Party Games can be a chaotic hoot. 

But I've been avoiding the elephant in the room: the microgames themselves. And how they are exactly the same 200 from the GBA game released just before this one.

They go so far as to show it being played on a GBA on your TV. Shameless, much?

I kid you not: there are maybe a dozen original microgames in this collection, and all those are the four-player specific ones. The rest of the microgames are cut-and-paste identical to the GBA release Mega Microgames. So much so that you can even plug a GBA in through the GBA+Gamecube connector and play them on your Game Boy instead, at the same graphical fidelity. Are you even trying, Nintendo?

To be fair, all the original microgames are fantastic, but as someone who played the first game to death I was genuinely disappointed to not see an original game in the bunch. Not to mention that since I had played the first game and none of my friends had, it made for a rather dramatic unfair advantage. If the idea behind the microgames is they are just a few seconds long and incredibly easy to create, why the heck did Nintendo not make a few more specific to this game?

Dance!

It gets even worse: not only are they the same games, they are the same graphical resolution as well, meaning they look pretty mediocre on the Gamecube. I thought the minigames were funny and had decent graphical quality on my tiny GBA screen, but blown up big-style on my TV I could absolutely see the GBA fuzziness. It's like they didn't even try.

The sounds are all directly ripped from the GBA version, with only a few originals in the mix. They're all just as memorable and catchy as before, but the digitized voices which were passable on the GBA because of the inferior hardware still sound like they are coming off a cartridge when we all know they're on one of those Gamecube minidiscs. For shame, Nintendo. For shame.

This game made sense on the GBA, because the GBA looks like that. On the Gamecube...not so much. 

Despite me not wanting to say this, I still like Mega Party Games, if only because the WarioWare formula works so well for a frantic multiplayer experience. This game is an absolutely shameless cash grab (and at least Nintendo seemed to know it, as they released it at budget price of $30 back when it first came out) and undeniably lazy, but despite that I still had a lot of fun with it. If you are getting it because you want more single player WarioWare: don't. This is not a single player game, even though it touts such on the back of the box. But if you want a frantic multiplayer experience and are sick of the obnoxious Mario Party games, WarioWare is an excellent alternative. 

Just don't think too much about how Nintendo survives of selling you the same games over and over and over until the end of time. Three out of five stars.

The eReader: Truly ahead of its time.

Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters

The Short

Pros
- Fight through another batch of robot masters in a boss rush mode
- Wider arrange of masters mixed up better across multiple games
- Improved HUD and UI
- Masters actually get unique stages this time around, which is appreciated
- Enemies also get more advanced movesets when you knock down their heath, increasing the challenge
- New playable character Duo.
- Lets you actually pick the order rather than some pseudo-random thing from the first game
- Still playable co-op

Cons
- While a bit harder than the first game, it's still too easy
- Duo is stupid. Just...in general.
- Again, music doesn't match the stages
- Also again, I find Capcom's taste in robot masters questionable, as is some of their 32-bit redesigns
- Can beat the whole game in under 45 minutes

Bubble Man, your redesign is awful. 

The Long

I liked Mega Man: The Power Battles, despite giving it a low score. I mean, sure, it was a really easy game and didn't properly execute on it's awesome premise, but it's still a fun co-op romp. When I heard they made a second one (which, if I remember correctly, never made it to American arcades), I was excited to see what they'd changed between games. Maybe it would have X in it? Maybe it would actually be hard? Maybe they'd pick less stupid robot masters?

Well...Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters (great title, BTW. That was sarcasm.) is certainly a sequel, and it's certainly at least a little better than the original, but to be honest it still makes all the same mistakes. 

Those are totally the SNES sprites. 

First off let's go over the differences between this and the first Power Battles. Most everything is actually the same with a few minor nuances. Duo, that space...police...guy whose name doesn't have anything to do with music is now playable. He's bigger and slower and does more damage but has less range. Basically he sucks because he's a stupid character and besides...whenever you pick Protoman it plays his little whistle theme at the start of every battle. Why would you pick anybody else?!

Another key difference is the three scenarios. Rather than segregating the games into their own clusters, they just mix 'em all together across three unique campaigns. You can search for Wily, rescue Roll (seriously? Does she do anything useful?), or...search for parts. Um...yeah. Parts, Dr. Light? When all this other stuff is going on? Ok...

I'm just saying, the first two should probably take priority. 

Anyway, it's still just Mega Man 1-7 (no 8 here) across these missions, but at least they are all mixed up. You have a lot of recycled robot masters from the first game, but they also mixed in a few new ones this time around...and most are stupid ones. Centaur Man? Gyro Man? Bubble Man? At least we finally get Air Man up in here (aka the best robot master), but still, I find their taste in robot masters lacking. At least we didn't have Hard Man, and Pharaoh Man is finally in here. 

Heat Man...where you always that short?

There are a few other minor changes. The game lets you pick the order manually this time, while in the first one it just sort of randomly shuffled them. This actually makes the game easier if you know the boss order (or can guess, based on previous Mega Man experiences) because whenever you hit somebody with their weakness in this game it does an overblown attack animation letting you know that, yep, you got the right powerup. Game's about to get easy. 

Luckily they (sort of) compensate for this by having the difficulty continue as it moves on at a more dramatic climb than the first game. Robot Masters also have "desperation" attacks, meaning when their health drops below half they get a more powerful, more obnoxious batch of attacks that you have to work with. While not accurate to the original games, it certainly is a much appreciated increase in challenge.

More like Cen-tard man. 

The game looks decent, though some of the arcade redesigns look a bit dumb. Again, they recycled a lot of content from the first game but it looked fine to begin with so I'm not complaining. The new HUD is a bit better with an actual health bar and a cleaner interface, which is appreciated, and the backgrounds tend to be more exciting, colorful, and fit the characters you are fighting better. 

The music is also recycled with a few new remixes. They still couldn't bother to actually match the robot master with his song, but whatever...I'm past that at this point. 

Heat Man still looks like a tiny Zippo. 

I'll give Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters this: it's a bit more challenging, a slight improvement over the original, and still boasts fun two-player co-op. Aside from that, it's a very minor upgrade from the first game, so much so that I have a hard time discerning screenshots. The game is still way too easy, feels a bit unbalanced (in your favor), and only has a limited roster. As a sequel that should have offered substantial improvements over the original, this one just feels like a few minor upgrades.

I guess this is where I should insert a "Capcom Fighting Games Charging $60 For Next To No Upgrades" joke, but I'm tired and since I just explained it I guess that covers it...

As it stands, Power Fighters is technically better than Power Battles, but only by a small margin. However, the improved backgrounds, a better mix of robot masters, and overall minor improvements make it the arcade Mega Man fighting game to play, if you were in the market for one to begin with.

Three out of five. The game is also available on the Mega Man Anniversary Collection along with its predecessor, which is currently the only way to play this game in the US.

Duo is still stupid, though. 

Mega Man: The Power Battles

The Short

Pros
- Fun, arcade "boss rush" across robot masters and minibosses
- Covers bosses from Mega Man to Mega Man 7
- Three different batches of masters give you three different paths
- Can be played co-op as Mega Man, Protoman, or Bass
- Uses sprites from Mega Man 7 and looks pretty good

Cons
- Extremely easy...though for an arcade game this might be a plus
- Robot masters between different scenarios don't really change much
- Remixed music is nice but doesn't match the master you are fighting
- Mega Buster can wipe nearly everybody out. No weakness required.
- What should have been a hard challenge is more of a cakewalk
- They seriously picked some of the stupidest robot masters for this.

Ice Man...robot, or dude in a parka? The world may never know...

The Long

It's no surprise that I love the Mega Man games. The NES games provide a fantastic mix of difficult platforming, challenging bosses that each require unique strategy, and great graphics and music. But easily one of the most memorable parts of the game are the robot masters. Since a staple of Mega Man is killing people and taking their powers, knowing what weapon to use against who can help make near-impossible boss fights manageable, and you get a good deal of satisfaction by taking a guy down with his weakness.

So imagine, if you will, if you made a whole game just just forgoes the actual stages and skips you straight to the boss battles, a sort of "Mega Man Boss Rush" if you will. Sounds awesome, right? Yeah, I'd think so too. That, in a nutshell, is the idea behind Mega Man: The Power Battles, an arcade game that you can unlock as a bonus on the Mega Man Anniversary Collection on Gamecube and PS2. If you see this game in an arcade, is it worth punching a few quarters into and taking it for a spin?

Well, yes, but not for the reasons you might think. Read on! 

Wood Man has never looked dorkier. 

Again, the idea of a "boss rush" Mega Man experience sounds fantastic on paper. Take all the extreme challenge of boss fights from across Mega Man 1-7 and mix and match them in a "best of" experience...sounds awesome!

The setup is also pretty cool too. From the beginning you have have three options to start with, each associated with a certain collection of games' bossses. You can pick from a Mega Man 1-2 set, a Mega Man 3-6 set, or one that's just from Mega Man 7 (no Spring Man, though, so it's ok). This adds a bit of replayability so you'll see a fresh set of faces everytime you play...at least three times. 

Add to that the ability to pick three somewhat unique characters (Mega Man, Protoman, and Bass) and you have a lot of variability here. Everything seems set up to be an awesome, challenging boss rush experience.

The problem with Mega Man: The Power Battles appears after you actually start playing.

"Wax on, wax off."

This game is really, really easy. As in shamefully so. I think there's a reason the machines didn't take off in the states: they probably didn't make any money off of them. Anyone who has played any of the NES Mega Man games will easily cakewalk through this whole game, even without knowing the robot masters' weaknesses. The Mega Buster is absurdly overpowered when fully charged, both doing massive amounts of damage and knocking enemies out of their attack cycles. And while the masters get more life and deal more damage the further along you get, anybody with a remote understanding of the "slide" ability can easily get through most without taking any hits.

It isn't all bad. Each robot master faithfully follows their moveset from their respective games, and it's kind of cool to see them all in their arcade graphics glory using their signature abilities. I do have issue with some of the robots they picked. I'm guessing either I have awful taste in robot masters or Japan (or Capcom) likes different ones. Masters like Guts Man and Wood Man are fine, but why is Plant Man or freaking DUST MAN in this game? You seriously picked Dust Man over Pharaoh Man? Come on!

Even the infamous Yellow Devil isn't very hard. 

Another issue is there really isn't that much difference between the three different sets of masters (or characters, for that matter). Wood Man gives essentially the same power as Plant Man, who gives the same power as Junk Man. Luckily they fight you in a unique fashion, but the weapons gathered are all generally the same, which makes replays done in quick succession a bit repetitive.

The entire game can be played co-op, which is absolutely the best way to play it. While it makes an already easy game laughably simple, when were you last able to play with a friend as Mega Man and Protoman, side by side? Never, that's when! It's a lot of fun, if only they'd bothered making the game an actual challenge.

Cuttin' stuff with your head. 

Graphically the game looks good. the HUD is a bit stupid...why is the health bar this unreadable circle rather than...the usual line of life? Well, at least it's easy to read the robot masters' life. Most of the sprites look really similar to Mega Man 7, though I'll say they are a bit more colorful. The backgrounds are vibrant and fantastic, though there is one small problem which I'll address as I move on to music.

The songs are remixes of the most famous songs from the series, which is fantastic. However, I have one big annoyance: the songs (and their backgrounds) don't match the robot masters. Maybe this makes me a wonder nerd to know they are playing Flash Man's song when I'm fighting Wood Man, but it really irked me, especially since they recycle backgrounds and songs between the different sets you can fight through. 

Wily's Castle only has two stops. Way to underachieve. 

As it stands, Mega Man: The Power Battles is still a fun game...in small doses. A single run will usually last you only around 30-45 minutes at most, and odds are it'll only cost you two or three quarters. Play co-op and you might not ever die. A one-time run is a fun trip down memory lane, but burn through all three scenarios back to back and you start to feel the tedium. 

But what irks me the most is the lack of challenge. I mean, if you went through all the trouble to accurately represent each robot masters' attacks, and you have a freaking arcade game (which are designed to scarf quarters), then why would you make this game a total cakewalk? Make it really hard or at least challenging rather than absurdly easy!

All that aside, I still recommend checking it out if you are a Mega Man fan. It's a cheap investment for a playthrough if you manage to find an arcade machine at your local pizza place or something, or if you own a copy of Mega Man Anniversary Collection you can play it on that (and for free). Still, I can't help but think they could have done better here.

If only they made a sequel...(stay tuned!)

Two out of five for single player, but I'd say playing with a friend greatly increase the experience, so tack a star on if you play co-op. 

You made like eighty robot masters and none of them could kill Mega Man, dude. Why do you suck so bad?

Metroid Prime

The Short


Pros
- Fantastic revival/reimagining of the Metroid franchise after years of nothin'
- Absolutely beautiful graphics and effects look great even to this day
- Sound design and music is top of its class in every category
- Manages to keep the Metroid feel while still being in a first person shooter perspective
- Plenty of puzzle solving and exploration for the hungry Metroid fans
- Scanning stuff in the environment was a clever and cool way to present story and flavor text
- The only first person game to date where I have felt in control of my jumps
- Seriously, I thought this game was going to ruin the franchise and it ended up being amazing


Cons
- Might have actually stayed too familiar to Metroid lore so much that it didn't branch out much on the creativity found in Super Metroid
- Scanning, while a cool idea, could get tedious
- Lock-on shooting is a great idea when it works, which is about 50% of the time
- While it does have a few "warps," worlds can take an extremely long time to traverse
- Places you go look beautiful but feel generic (grass world, water world, ice world, etc.)

This is how you revive a franchise. 

The Long

First things first: we are going to do a whole "listen to a song while reading this review" thing, like we did with the Lifeforce review. So get ready to crank up your speakers or headphones or whatever and listen to what I consider to be the best menu music of all time. 

This song is freaking amazing.

Got it going? Excellent. Let's get on with the review.

As stated in my Metroid Fusion review, the Metroid series went on a sort of hiatus after Super Metroid until November of 2002. Then we were blessed with not one, but TWO Metroid games released a single day apart: Metroid Fusion and Metroid Prime. They couldn't be more different. Fusion was a handheld game, a callback to the original 2D Metroids, while Metroid Fusion was a first-person shooter developed by Retro Studios, a Texas based developer. 

Fans flipped the crap out, doing the usual fan thing where they panned a game before even playing it, arguing that Metroid Prime was going to ruin the Metroid series and destroy everything they hold dear, as well as murder their cat and hold their mother hostage. You know, gamers. 

Then the game came out, and I kid you not when I say it was the best Metroid game since Super Metroid. And the trilogy that followed is easily one of the finest gaming has to offer. 

So let's dive in, shall we?

Hey, this ain't the Metroid I 'member!

Metroid Prime is, as stated, a first-person shooter. But it plays completely unlike one you've ever played before. In most FPS games on consoles, you aim with both sticks and the game requires tricky precision and skill. This is not the case in Metroid Prime. Either because the second stick on the Gamecube controller sucked, or because they needed it for other menu options, Retro opted that Metroid Prime have a lock-on system, actually more similar to the 3D Zelda games than anything else. "Doesn't that take out the challenge?" you ask. Well, no. Actually, it makes it so this game works as a Metroid game.

Let's glance back for a second at Metroid games before this one. There were three: Metroid on the NES, Metroid 2 on the Game Boy, and Super Metroid on the SNES. All these games were similar (and 2D) but there was one important aspect: these games are not really about shooting stuff. Blasting alien life comes second. The main point of the Metroid games is the combination of atmosphere with exploration (dare I say...atmospheric exploration is the point of Metroid?). Like most Nintendo games they were less focused on creating a diverse gameplay experience and more focused on taking you to a wondrous and interesting place for you to explore. Zelda has been doing this for years (and not doing anything with their gameplay...), and even the Mario games like Galaxy make you feel like you are going somewhere special. It's Nintendo's thing.

Pictured: goopy immersion

Retro Studios nailed this with Metroid Prime. By making the shooting easier they dropped the intense focus that one would normally have in these types of games. Instead, they made a game where shooting was secondary to the adventure at hand, which involved more exploration and environmental puzzle solving than anything else.

But hey, it's a "first person shooter." Doesn't that mean Retro screwed the pooch on this? How do you make an FPS game without any "S?" Well...like this game, actually.

Metroid Prime feels more Metroid than most in the series (and especially Other M). After an absolutely killer intro sequence where you land on a space pirate ship and then blow it out of existence, you are dumped on Tallon IV with the mission to find out what the crap those stupid pirates are up to. The world is wide open from the start, with you only being limited by what powerups you've obtained. Sound familiar?

WHAT OTHER GAMES DOES THIS REMIND ME OF?

The different areas of the world are gorgeous, diverse, and interesting to explore. The graphics of this game are completely stunning, with polygonal edges hardly noticeable and the effects particularly top notch. It does a ton to add to the immersion, which is exactly what you want when the goal of the game is to, you know, immerse you.

It should also be noted that while this game requires a hefty amount of first-person jumping, it never felt bad. Most games I never know where I'm jumping or landing, but in Metroid Prime the jumping was just floaty yet heavy enough that I easily grasped a hold of it. Not to mention when you jump Samus naturally looks down a little, allowing for easier landings. 

Oh hey, did the song above run out? Here's another one for ya.

Soundtrack = so good.

Anyway, everything Metroid is here. You use weapons to find secrets like more energy and missile tanks to get stronger. Bosses are on a massive scale and require some genuine cleverness to defeat. You can easily switch between the various "beam" weapons Samus obtains, and it even has a new trick with different "visors" that allow you to see heat-patterns on enemies (which is required for some). It all fits together so well it's almost unbelievable, creating an experience that I've yet to see done by any other company.

The only complaint I have with the design is this game might have been too afraid of its fans. By that I mean that, besides the change to a FPS view, the game borrows heavily from other Metroid staples. This isn't bad, and it's nice to see old favorites like the Varia Suit and Ice Beam back, but it makes the game feel like it's missing its own unique flavor. You also have blatant boring usual video game stuff in the worlds (fire world, plant world, desert world, ice world) that is not bad but not entirely original. Luckily they totally mixed this up in the sequel, which...I still haven't beaten. Video endurance run?

Those 'dem space pirates are still up to no good.

As previously stated, this game looks incredible. Even with regular composite cables from a 4:3 outputting Gamecube, Metroid Prime is a very pretty game. This is mostly due to the smooth transitions between artifacts, and the fact the whole thing just oozes its style. The visor looks extremely cool, and moves with your face with a sort of delay, like Samus is actually turning and the HUD is catching up. Other cool things that BLEW OUR MIND back in 2002 were when you look up at the rain drops appear on the visor, or if you are hit by a bright enough flash of light you can see Samus' eyes reflecting on the glass. This stuff is pretty common in FPS games now-a-days, but in 2002 it was a bloody amazing revelation. Even now I argue this game does it better than any other. 

The music is also absolutely standout. In a game based on atmosphere, music is everything. Super Metroid has probably the most atmospheric soundtrack of any game ever (well...except maybe the Silent Hill games). Metroid Prime delivers on all fronts with a soundtrack that is both catchy and sinister, hitting all the right notes and recycling old themes for good measure. I'm still amazed at how well they pulled this off.

Rocks shouldn't move like that. If rocks move like that, shoot 'em. 

There's been a weird amount of "fan" backlash towards this game in recent years (I swear it bounces up and down like a yo-yo; one minute they love it, the next they hate it, so on and so forth), but I still maintain the fact that this game is an absolute masterpiece. Is it perfect? Well, no...no game is. But even today replaying it I found it hard to quit, I would get so caught up in the beauty and of the world and the adventure of exploring. This is even more amazing when taken in context: Retro had next to nothing to go off of, yet were tasked to revive one of the most beloved franchises Nintendo had. The cards were completely stacked against them on every level, and still they blew all expectations away. There's a reason this is considered by many to be one of the best games of its generation: it's incredible.

Minor flaws aside, Metroid Prime is a game you really have to play. While it isn't a 2D Metroid game, I really couldn't care less. For me (and I'm sure any many, many others), this game was the catalyst that really sold us on the Metroid series, and because of it we became hardcore fans of all the rest of the games. So you did good, Retro. You did very, very good.

Five out of five stars. 

This is the part where I'm supposed to say something like "It was the Portal 2 of its generation" but I'm not going to. Because that's a stupid thing to say. 

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

The Short


Pros
- Still the same extremely solid platforming from the first two games of the series
- Setting of the ruined city of Babylon is unique and makes for some fun areas to traverse
- "Dark" tone from Warrior Within has been diminished substantially. Thank goodness.
- Mixes things up with the "Dark Prince" gameplay segments and combat
- "Quick kills" are a great idea for this series, focusing on platforming and quick reflexes
- Music is back to its awesome Persian-sounding roots
- Provides decent closure to the Sands of Time series

Cons
- A bit "more of the same" from Warrior Within's gameplay in both combat and platforming
- Combat is still weak overall, with "quick kills" working only about 25% of the time
- While I appreciate the attempt to lighten the tone, it still doesn't come close to Sands of Time's brilliance
- Almost feels like a "best of" between the last two games, without bringing anything of its own to the table
- New gameplay bits like chariot races are ok, but hardly necessary
- Dark Prince isn't particularly fun to play, even if his concept is interesting

Yay! The old Prince is back! Sort of...

The Long

I was so mad at what Warrior Within did to the Prince's character that I didn't play The Two Thrones until nearly two years after its release. Yeah, the game was still awesome to play, but the sour taste in my mouth was so prevalent that every time I even looked at The Two Thrones' box I could just remember the Prince screaming "YOU BITCH" and stupid Nu-Metal blasting in the background. Ugh. 

When I finally did get around to playing The Two Thrones, I was pleasantly surprised. Ubisoft apparently had an entirely different game in the works for this one, but after an E3 showing that revealed it was going to be another dark, Warrior Within-esque sequel, the fan backlash was so bad they went back and redesigned it. Now you get what we have now: a mix between The Sands of Time's charismatic, quip-friendly Prince, Warrior Within's combat and excellent platforming, and general aesthetics more loyal to the original game. Sounds like a match made in heaven, right? 

Well...sort of. 

Man, this series is just so much fun. 

The story picks up immediately after the "true" ending of Warrior Within. The Prince is heading back to his home city of Babylon with the Empress of Time, intent on making things right. Once he gets there, however, he finds the city under siege. Apparently since he undid everything that happened during both the first and second games (rendering them irrelevant, which kind of sucks) the Vizier from The Sands of Time invaded Babylon (even though that...wasn't his role in the story in Sands of Time. Whatever.) and is generally ruining everything. The Prince's boat is sunk, the Empress captured, and off he goes to save her.

First off: this game's tone is certainly more Sands of Time than Warrior Within, though some of the "hardcore"-ness from Warrior Within does poke through from time to time. The original voice actor for the Prince is back, with the Empress of Time narrating over the story. This storytelling idea ties it in perfectly with Sands of Time. Farah, the love interest from the first game, shows up again in this one (this isn't that big of a spoiler; you'll live) and we get more of their silly banter as they quest about the city.

Together again! Yay!

The ending is really satisfying, as I said before, and ties everything up almost perfectly. Yeah, it's a bit corny and maybe isn't exactly had in mind when I beat Sands of Time back in 2004, but whatever; it works, and it isn't the Prince cutting himself or whatever the original plan was. That being said, this game is not Sands of Time. While the Prince and Farah throwing insults back and forth is great, it isn't nearly as clever or believable as it was in the first game. It almost seems forced at times, like Ubisoft was saying "You liked this, remember? We liked it too! We don't know what we were thinking, taking it out last game!" which sort of works, but still doesn't have that same magic.

The Vizier also turns into some weird sand-monster-god thing that looks kind of like a mix between Kefka and a Silent Hill monster, so...there's that too. 

At least he isn't calling himself "The Vizier...OF TIME" or anything stupid like that. 

As it stands, it blends elements of the previous two games together, which I appreciate because Sands of Time was so good, but really...you could have just not put the Warrior Within bits. He erased that timeline anyway; just pretend it never happened and go straight Sands of Time. That might have worked better, but I'm satisfied with what I'm given. They even tried giving the Prince another growth arc this time, this one about becoming brave enough to face his mistakes and lead his people (something he's been avoiding since the first game), which again works but not as well as the arc in the first game. As it stands, it's a good story, and fixes enough of the Warrior Within's problems that I'm willing to forgive this series.

On to the rest of it, then. 

Gameplay wise, not much has changed with the platforming. At all. The Prince still has his same skillset from Warrior Within, though he's replaced his sword with the Dagger of Time ("See, guys? We remembered what you liked!"). You still pick up weapons that break, have almost exactly the same combos (and the same ones still work), the running and jumping is identical, etc. As regular Prince, this game plays remarkably like Warrior Within, which is a good thing, though it would have been nice to mix it up.

The biggest change in regular Prince combat is the "quick kill" system. Basically, if you can be both quick, sneaky, and have perfect timing, you can leap from a wall towards say, an enemy on a balcony, and if you time it right you can tap a button and kill them instantly. It's a cool idea, one that works well with the Prince's acrobatics as well as the idea of him needed skill to face overwhelming odds, but the problem is it doesn't work. Each situation usually only has one right way of doing it, and if you mess it up all enemies are alerted and you are basically forced to fight them normally. Since there really isn't a stealth mechanic in play, you either get it or you don't, and you can't go "hide" or anything to reset it. It's stupid that they took this idea and didn't bother fleshing it out well at all, because again: it compliments the Prince's style. Oh well.

Then we got this guy. 

The most radical shift is the Dark Prince, who your regular Prince transforms to when he runs through fire or something like that. He's supposed to represent all the pent up anger and douchyness the Prince had in Warrior Within (so casting him as a villain really pushes the point home that even Ubisoft knew they'd messed up), and often can be heard talking to the Prince inside his head (which is a cool touch). The Dark Prince is absurdly overpowered when it comes to fighting, meaning you won't need any stealth kills, though he does have a big weakness: his health keeps draining down to a tiny sliver unless you keep collecting sand (either by killing or finding it in the environment). The Dark Prince also platforms a little differently because he has a chain that lets him swing, but the environments are built completely around this so it isn't that big of a mixup. Ultimately, the Dark Prince just makes the game easier, and while I'm glad for the variety he just seems sort of tacked on.

And now we see some Warrior Within bits creeping through. 

There are a few other new elements. Most enemies can only be killed when in light, leading to some cool underground portions where you have to lure them to light in order to finish them off. Chariot races are a fun diversion but hardly necessary, though the slow-mo enemy chariot explosion when you run them off the road is kind of hilariously awesome. Bosses, despite looking really stupid, are actually pretty fun. Most require use of the platforms around to get up on and then kick the crap out of (though they do the "quick time event" thing that was just now starting to become the norm), which means you are actually using the platforming elements of the game to fight them. Good work, Ubisoft! Only took you three games to realize you probably should use your series' strongest feature in the boss fights!

Of course, some of them don't do this, relying on the still-decent-but-not-great combat system to pull through, and those are disappointing. As it stands, however, this game is pretty much Warrior Within but with easy Dark Prince areas and a brighter, more lighthearted approach. Which I am totally fine with.

Every room is a puzzle, and as Professor Layton would say "Every puzzle has an answer."

This game is still using a heavily modified version of the Quake engine, and it shows. While great lengths have been made to modernize the graphics, this engine is just outdated by now. Considering this came out the same year God of War did (and almost a full year after Resident Evil 4), it looks a bit dated. Still, the brighter color pallet and cityscape setting reminds me a lot of their future work on Assassin's Creed, and since the scenery and climbing was the best part about that game, I'm fine with it.

Sounds are so much better. As I said already, the original voice cast is back, complete with over-story narration, and it's fantastic. Though the Empress of Time kind of talks a bit too much in a whispy, "I'm so mystical" voice like Galadriel from the Lord of the Rings movies, she isn't annoying. The music is back to its Persian rock roots, and it all sounds really good. 

The Prince, before he loses his shirt. He and Jacob from Twilight share that character motif. 

As it stands, The Two Thrones was a step back in the right direction. It provided a satisfying conclusion to the series, helped repair some of the damage caused by Warrior Within, and was a pretty good game in its own right. It's a pity nothing it brought new to the table was particularly good, the game heavily resting on the shoulders of its predecessors to succeed, but those are excellent shoulders to rest on and so the game still works.

It doesn't reach the heights of Sands of Time, not even close. But for the end of the trilogy and the conclusion of the story, it does it all well enough. As I said before, you can get all three of these games in HD on the PS3 for only around $20-30, and I really suggest picking them up if you haven't ever played them. This is one of the best game series' I can think of, and really should be played. Just...treat Warrior Within nicely, ok? It's been through some rough times, and we just now got it on antidepressants. 

I'm sad to see the Prince go. Four out of five stars.

And they all lived happily ever after. Awww...