Phenomina Movie Commentary

Happy Halloween everybody! I was going to write a review of Silent Hill: Revelations for the holiday, but that movie was so awful I decided I didn't want to devote any more energy to it.
So instead, Reset Tears and I watched Phenomina, the movie which the SNES Clock Tower game (which I love) was based off of. Here's a hint: It's nothing like the game.

Anyway, if you want to see our text commentary, check out his hilarious blog. Also if you read this blog you should be reading his blog, because his blog is funnier than mine. It also gets updated. :'(

Super Castlevania IV

The Short

Pros
- It's like Castlevania, only SUPER!
- We're back to Simon again in this...remake? Prequel? What is this game chronologically, anyway?
- Graphics are pretty dang snazzy
- Also, the music is awesome
- Has like five trillion levels
- Simon has learned how to look up, down, and diagonal. Meaning he can whip in all those directions for the first (and only time) in the series
- Some cool SNES effects like room spinning, chain wipping on stuff, and some giant bosses
- Throwbacks to earlier Castlevania are pretty great

Cons
- Your sprite and whip are so big it covers like 1/2 the screen
- Also, it's absurdly powerful when fully upgraded, and can hit in any direction, removing any challenge
- What I'm saying is this game is absurdly easy
- Lacks the feel of tight, meticulous design that permeated Castlevania and Castlevania 3. 
- Sub-weapons are useless because the whip just rocks everything.
- Less of an actual series upgrade and more of a side-step into a new development

Simondiana Jones

The Long

What is your opinion on whipping? Or perhaps whipping things good? 

If you said "I'm down with whippin' stuff!" then Super Castlevania IV has got that covered and in spades. If you aren't down with whipping a whole arsenal of baddies, then why the crap are you reading a review of a Castlevania game anyway?

So the Super Nintendo came out and Konami decided it was time to port their big fat vampire killing series over to the new hotness. However, after Castlevania 3 mixed up stuff with multiple characters, what could they do to spice up the gameplay for the new kids?

How about having Simon whip in every direction known to man? And, like Castlevania 3, have a whole first portion of the game take place outside the castle? And then add like fifteen quadzillion levels? 

Super Castlevania IV was Konami's attempt to take what was basically an untouched system of gameplay (we aren't counting Simon's Quest here) and spruce it up for a new console. And, while it certainly is...spruced, does that actually make it better? Well...sort of. And sort of not. And with that ambiguous statement, here's the actual review. 

More like Man-dusa. 

I'm like 99% sure that Super Castlevania is intended (chronologically) as a retelling of Castlevania 1, but I'm too lazy to look it up so you're just gonna have to take my word for it. The intro is the same (Simon strutting out in front of the castle and whipping angrily), many of the levels are homages to the original game, and you're Simon...so yeah. Pretty sure. But the story doesn't matter.

What matters is whipping, and whipping beasties, and boy does Super Castlevania have that and in spades. The game's loaded with a truckload of levels, with bosses capping off each level end to provide a fun challenge. You start by going into the castle (sort of?) but it's like a courtyard...then underground...then above ground...then inside...and yeah, it goes forever. While some may argue that old school platformers are short, nobody's gonna be saying that about Super Castlevania. It's a loooong game, with absolute loads of content and cool places to visit. And while this does mean the enemy designs kind of fall apart (a grass scribble monster that looks like a MissingNo from Pokemon? Really?), having this may levels, enemies, and bosses, is pretty incredible. They totally crammed all that data into the 8 MB or 16 MB or however big SNES carts are. 

Again, not doing research.

This game's got next-gen water effects going on. 

But the most important thing about a Castlevania game is Draculas and whipping them, and this is where the biggest major change happens. Well, minus Simon's bigger sprite. Seriously, while taking about "big changes," did he go on steroids or something? He was a little bitty dude in Castlevania and Simon's Quest, and now he's an absolute monster. He takes up a ton of screen space! But that's nothing compared to the whip.

Simon, it seems, has learned how to look up. Rather than being satisfied with just lobbing axes blindly in that "unviewable spot" in an arch ahead of him, now he can whip up, diagonal, or even down when jumping. Dude's graduated from whip college with a Doctorate in Vampire Ass-Whipping, and he's ready to show his skills to the emerging job market of Whippers Inc. I think there was supposed to be a joke in that sentence, but looking back now I'm really not seeing it. Whatever.

When the whip is fully upgraded, the sucker takes up roughly 1/3 off the screen with every swipe. Compare that to the rather pitiful, delayed action from previous games, and you'll see how this is a massive game changer. Sub-items, which were once necessities because of the whip limitation (a ranged weapon like the knife for distance, the bottle to hit low enemies or enemies on lower platforms, the all-necessary axe to hit enemies above you) are now totally useless. This also renders Hearts, which are back as currency for item uses, also totally pointless. Some other dude goes over this in greater detail, so I won't harp on it, but considering sub-weapons making up for your suckyness of having a totally lame whip is kind of a Castlevania staple, getting rid of it so you can just whip everywhere feels a bit like a misstep.

Like, seriously, you can use Mode 7 for good or for evil. Making a huge, nauseating rotating room in your platformer falls under the latter, good sirs. 

The overpowered-ness of the whip also makes Super Castlevania IV: Simon's Whatever a total freaking cakewalk. Enemies haven't really been retooled to match Simon's new skillset, and they sort of just do that "spawn in easy to kill places and exist to just easily die" thing that made Simon's Quest so boring. The main difference is it's satisfying as hell to whip the everloving bones out of a skellington (and thanks to the power of the SNES everything explodes in awesome violent fury), and the game does get challenging as it goes along. Just expect the first 4-5 levels to be kind of absurdly easy, and don't expect the same level of challenge and precision level design you got from Castlevania 1.

Going back to the crazy new whip, this also adds a few new ideas that mix stuff up. Simon can whip diagonally onto hooks and such to make longer jumps, as well as some tricky room-spinning bits. This is cool but unfortunately underplayed; I'd love to have seen some more advanced jumps or platforming that uses the new whip options. The jumping still is a set angle that can't be altered, meaning you have to buy an engagement ring for every jump in terms of commitment level, so it's this weird mix of clunky platforming with new-fangled options and an super-buff weapon. It feels a bit weird, but hey...you can whip birds out of the sky. That's cool.

And don't get me started on the frogs. Those damn frogs. The hardest enemy in the game is little frogs hardly the size of your foot. Seriously. They never stop chasing you. 

Simon you fat lard, you're taking the bridge down!

The game looks phenomenal. While it wasn't the earth-shattering graphical masterpiece the first and third games were on the SNES, it still uses a ton of SNES processing power and has some cool 3D tricks amongst the 2D levels that spice it up. It's consistently good, which is more than one can say for most games, and the background especially are gorgeous. 

The music is also absolutely kickin', though again it doesn't quite match the level of the previous games in the series. The intro song packs one hell of a punch, though, and the remixes of classic songs are awesome.

Dis song is da bomb.

My only real grip with Super Castlevania IV is its attempt to innovate ended up kind of ruining what made the games great. The clunky whipping was always paired with sublime enemy placement, a combo that made the games really hard but also satisfying and an engaging challenge. Super Castlevania IV feels almost like God Mode of Castlevania 1; with this new screen filling, multi-directional whip you're just wrecking shop to any and everything that stands in your way. And while the game does get tricky later on, it never, ever reaches even the levels of the first game in terms of raw challenge. You're just too badass to get taken down.

It feels like they added that mechanic in at the last minute, like they'd designed the whole game around a forward-whipping only whip with the sub-weapons used (as before) to counter specific enemy types, and then at the last second were like, "Aw balls, we didn't add anything new except eighty jillion levels. What if we make him just whip all over the place? That's innovation, right?" and then didn't bother to rebalance the game for this new mechanic.

As a Castlevania game, it's still an absolute blast, and contains most of the small elements that make a Castlevania game great. I still wholly recommend it (it's practically essential for an SNES collector's library), but as a fan of the series it feels a bit like a black sheep.

Regardless, it's still a blast, and you can whip like all over dawg. Who don't want dat?

Four out of five stars.

"And I couldn't have done it without the power to whip at an angle not directly in front of me!"

Actraiser

The Short

Pros
- Awesome hybrid of a God/City Sim with an action platformer
- Music is amazing
- Graphics for the platforming segments are quite pretty
- Getting better towns levels your avatar, making you even cooler in the platforming segments
- Battery saves your game
- Like the box says, "Create order from chaos!" That totally happens. Sort of.

Cons
- City/God Sim segments seem under fleshed out
- Platforming segments have a really weird difficulty curve and controls are a bit clunky
- Shooting star magic negates half the game (ie IT'S TOO GOOD)
- Really deserved an amazing sequel, got stupid Actraiser 2 instead

Before Grumpy Cat, there was Grumpy Tree.

The Long

Enix really knocked it out of the park with the SNES. While their relationship with the NES will probably be best remembered by the Dragon Warrior games, on the SNES Enix was just like "Aw, screw it, let's make games with RPG elements in every genre ever." And they did. And it was rad. 

A common theme across these games was restoration, one that permeated the Actraiser games, their later Soul Blazer/Illusion of Gaia/Terrawhatever that game is called games. Of them all, Actraiser came first, in what we would now call "launch window." In Japan it came out about a month after the Super Famicom hit, and in the US it was the holiday season following the SNES's release. So this is a really early SNES game is what I'm saying.

And guess what? For being a near launch-title, it's one of the best games on the system, mashing genre's together like some deranged Jamba Juice employee does with fruit.

This review has already gotten off the wall, so I'd better just get on with it.

And you wonder why your real estate market crashed. YOU NAMED YOUR TOWN '"BLOODPOOL."

Actraiser puts you in the role of God. As in the literal, capital "G" "God," in a battle against Satan himself. That is, this happens if you are playing the Japanese version. In the US you're just the "Master" and the final boss is "Tanzra," but it's pretty obvious what's going on here.

As God/Master, you live in a flying cloud city and help your citizens of this magical world expand their cities, purge monsters from the world, and just generally expand into rampant overpopulation. It's pretty great.

How do you do this, you ask? Well, since you are the literal God, who in this game is sort of an incorporeal twinkling star thing with a baby cherub sidekick, you posses a badass warrior avatar to go murder monsters for you, because you are God and you can't be bothered. Every platforming segment starts and ends with God breathing life into this awesome stone statue (or unbreathing, at the end) and then kicking butt. I dunno why, but that's rad.

God's deadliest foe: angry floating faces. Also, is that one a cat?

The game follows a fairly simple pattern:

- Go to new area

- Warp down as God/Avatar/Master/Whatever and kill the boss monster so your people can populate

- Help the people expand the city, purge other monster lairs, and get some "plot"

- Usually by doing this another big beastie has appeared, so then you go back down again and kill this guy too.

- Move to the next city. Repeat 5-6 times (I can't be bothered to look it up) and you win the game. Yay!

Despite it appearing formulaic, the game is anything but. Each city provides new challenges and problems that you, as the Master, have to help your subjects deal with. As divinity you have the power to use the elements of nature to kick butt: Lightning to blast bushes to push city expansion (or kill baddies), Wind to blow...windmills, Rain to put out fires, Earthquake to destroy everything or change the shape of the world itself, or...actually I think that's it. Maybe there's some fire move that melts ice, I don't remember.

Most of the time spent over the city you're your chubby cherubic minion, who floats around and can down baddies with his extremely weak crossbow. Killing enemies is a temporary thing to get them to stop harassing your cities (and some enemies get genuinely difficult), but the real goal is to clear a path to direct your villagers to get to the monster "lairs" (read: spawn points) and seal them (read: kill the spawns). While they do this they automatically expand, gain in population, and find you items that they offer up to you as a devotion of their fealty and faith.

And sometimes they're sad and whiny.

There are usually two main villagers in each city who act as spokespeople for your followers (I guess these guys are like prophets or something?), but mostly you just see them as tiny dots. You have minimal influence over what they build where, though you can guide the city's expansion directions (as in, point them towards monster lairs) as well as provide some bonuses as you find more items (music makes them happy, grain makes them expand/get more population faster, etc.).

What is worth noting is that, despite these guys being tiny little pixels on the map, some of the stories they tell are genuinely touching. One devout follower risks his life to help other villagers and is on the brink of death. Knowing you can't restore his life (or just afraid to ask for that), he instead asks that you shed your tears on him (read: summon rain on him) before he dies. He then passes away, and the next time the village prays there's only one person. It's actually kind of sad!

My favorite village is where the people go off and worship some other deity instead of you, so that the temple is abandoned. So you obviously have to go down and kick this false god's butt, which brings the people back to you (after you Earthquake their entire city to show them who is boss. Or maybe I just do that). 

Point is that these small stories aren't melodramatic or overwrought, but they're still oddly compelling. You really get to feeling for your little cities and you want to help the people expand. Or you're a douche and lightning their houses; hey, you decided what kind of god you are.

And the Lord said unto them, "Addith some sick drops," and thus Dubstep was born. 

The platforming segments range from easy to absolutely unfairly difficult. Each city has two stages as mentioned above, one that cleans the city and prepares it for habitation, and one at the end of the "plot arc" where you have to free the city of evil once and for all. As you expand your cities, the villagers give you gifts that improve you (such as magic or more MP to use magic in the platforming segments), and the higher your overall population, the more experience you as god/master/whatever get and your health increases. So you want your cities to be as awesome as possible before you go killin'.

The problem here is the platforming is a bit clunky at first, and takes some getting used to. Your jumping feels a bit like gravity likes you too much, and your sword-swings have a rather long recovery time after stabbing (unless you are duck stabbing) and stabbing in the air can be tricky to time. They also designed a bunch of jumps that can only be made if you are exactly on the edge, which is frustrating when the game is throwing a trillion projectiles at you.

The bosses are also hard...for a while. Eventually, in like the third city, you get the Shooting Star magic. This magic is absurdly overpowered and murders most bosses in just a few casts, littering the screen with damage. It kind of breaks the game, to be honest, though it doesn't make the stages before the bosses any easier.

A nice touch, though, is that if you lose all your lives and fail it isn't a game over, you just get punched back to the Sky Palace with your health and magic restored to try again. In fact, I don't think there is a Game Over screen in this entire game. Which makes sense, as you are God. Not like you're gonna die or anything (unless you're in Xenogears I guess).

"What if two swallows carried it together?"

The graphics are outstanding, especially for an early SNES game. Enemies are rarely pallet swapped, most stages having a unique blend of mythological creatures for you to bash up. Bosses are especially gorgeous, as are the vibrant backgrounds that really use the power of the SNES to do some awesome things. Panning down to your city shows some Mode-7 goodness, and the whole game has an artistic theme to it that I really enjoy.

But on top of that is the amazing music. The game starts with a punch to the face with the best song in the game (Fillmore's stage), but the music when you are helping your cities expand and in other stages is great too. Some of the sound effects are a bit weak (your guy's "HWAA!" sound and "UUH!" sound is weird, and is recycled in Enix's Soul Blazer game), but it doesn't detract. I also like that EVERYTHING EXPLODES WHEN YOU KILL IT. AS IT SHOULD BE. 

My only gripe with Actraiser is it's a bit short and all the elements, while amazing that they work together, could have been fleshed out more to make it an even better game. This is the kind of game you play and think, "That was amazing, but holy cow...the sequel's gonna rock my socks off!"

Unfortunately, Actraiser 2 ditched the whole city-sim portion (aka the glue that held this game together) for a straight platformer, and a really hard one at that, which is unfortunate. As such, Actraiser hasn't seen any future installments, which is a damned shame. Hey, Enix! I have an idea! Actraiser reboot on next-gen systems! Make the action levels like Dark/Demon's Souls and expand the city-building to be more robust! Oh my gosh, that would be the greatest thing ever!

Regardless, as a "launch window" game, Actraiser really blew it away. It's a bit short (if you are good at platforming and get Shooting Star you can beat the game in something like 3-5 hours) and it's elements come off as a tad clunky, but that doesn't matter. It's an exceptionally cool idea and executed well enough to be fun (and super addicting; I had a hard time quitting to write this review) and is a must for people who like games that hybridize genres. Or like games in general. Just play it, already.

The game I believe is out on the Wii's Virtual Console for like $10, but carts are pretty cheap too (usually around $20-25). This is an essential SNES game. Go get it, play it, love it. And skip the sequel.

Four out of five stars. 

Bubbles. God's chosen mode of transportation since 10,000,000,000,000 BC

Games That Changed My Life Part 1: Final Fantasy IV

"Games That Changed My Life" is a multi-part series on games of particular personal note in my own history. These games have incredible significance to me in one way or another, and I'll be explaining exactly why on each reoccurring episode. 

Final Fantasy IV

RPGs are all over the place today. It seems like you can't shake a stick without hitting one, or at least games that incorporate what was once considered "RPG" (aka "Role-playing game") elements. Experience points make their way into Call of Duty, Halo, Puzzle Quest, and all sorts of genres. But it wasn't really that long ago when RPGs were considered somewhat "niche," and the rift between JRPGs and Western RPGs was that much more massive.

What does this have to do with my memories of Final Fantasy IV? Well...not much, but I needed some sort of intro to make me look reasonably intelligent.

Just roll with it, ok?

I'll be frank here: I was probably the biggest terror ever to raise. Not because I was a bad kid or anything (I always tried to be good), but because I was a super hyperactive one. Say what you want about ADHD and how we overdiagnose, I was the poster child for that. Add that my two younger brothers were probably not the most darling little angels ever, and you have yourself a nice stressed mom and the inability to keep a consistant babysitter for more than two or three sessions. Think of us as Calvin and Hobbes, except there's three Calvins.

The only babysitter that I remember lasting multiple times was Carson (last name withheld to protect the innocent), and this was because he had a tactic. First, he was male (and we were all males) so that somehow made things easier. Second, he let us do anything we wanted until bedtime, then he didn't take any guff. And third, he snuck his Super Nintendo over quite regularly.

The incident in question began when my parents decided to take a day trip to L.A. Carson was the only one willing to deal with the trio of terror for that long of a period, so his skills were enlisted. On the way over he made probably the smartest decision he made that day: picked up a copy of Final Fantasy IV from the Video Rental store a few blocks from my house.

He got stuck on this boss for a while. Didn't know to just use Lit-3 and end it in one hit.

As ADHD kids, we glued ourselves to video games. Hell, I still do (I'll admit it). We never had any systems growing up, so playing on an NES, Genesis, or SNES was a real treat. So when he came over with this new game for us, we were thoroughly engrossed.

I remember everything from that game. He played the game from the beginning all the way up to the point where Tellah died (then got stuck on Barbaricca, the Elemental Fiend of Wind) and we watched over the course of who knows how many hours.

Now, I'd played games before (I don't remember how old I was, but it couldn't have been above ten) on the computer, but nothing like this. Nothing that had a story to it. I remember my brother and I being elated when Palom and Parom were enlisted, and so mortified when they turned to stone to save Cecil and the crew that my brother literally cried and we had to turn the game off for a while to comfort him. Tellah's death was equally impactful, as he was one of our favorite characters because of his awesome magic spells and spiffy attire (or at least, that's why I assume we liked him so much).

Dance for me!

This was the moment when I realized something. Video games aren't just toys. I'd cut my teeth on things like The Incredible Machine 2 and played truckloads of NES and Genesis games as friends' houses, but this was the first time a game was more than just a fun little interactive activity. It had a story, like a book. It had characters. It had emotion. It had memorable scenes (Tellah casting "Meteo" on Goblez was embedded in my mind for nearly seven years as I searched for this game after I'd forgotten the title. It wasn't until the advent of the internet in the late 90s that I actually rediscovered it). It has beautiful music on par with the classical stuff we were learning on the piano. It was more than a book could be, because it had images. It was more than a movie could be, because it was interactive. It was something wholly unique, a means to present story on a plane unlike anything we've ever seen.

Needless to say, it was impactful. We liked it so much we named a truckload of our Lego characters (we were way too big into Legos) after the characters, with the "Tellah Guy" being a mainstay who worked his way into all our of Lego adventures. When Carson got stuck on the three sisters boss for several hours (he couldn't figure out how "Wall" worked) we thought they were, in fact, the final boss of the game (I was relieved several years later when I replayed it and found the three sisters are cake). I remember Edward's girlfriend dying, and Tellah being furious. I remember the hovercraft (and even then I thought it was weird that this was in a medieval setting) and floating over water. I remember "Jump, Kain, Jump!" as Carson got stuck on Barbaricca for forever. And I remember Cid being my second favorite character, if only because of his huge hammer and love of airships.

Never Forget. 

For me, this was an impactful moment in my childhood and my gaming career. It introduced me to RPGs, a genre I would not rediscover until nearly half a decade later. It showed me story in games, with real emotional weight. It blew my young mind on so may levels that video games could be like this, something the industry (and those outside of it in particular) are still trying to comprehend even to this day. It's something I'll never forget.

Fly on, Red Wings

Even as I replay the game today and realize it's...well, let's say "dated," to be nice...I can't help but be completely engrossed and wrapped up in nostalgia as I re-remember and rediscover things buried in my mind. Granted, that only lasts until after Tellah dies (though Carson did load another save on the rental copy that was on the Moon, which lead to mass confusion), but the music, the feel of the game; all of it is still there, buried deep in my brain. It's something special.

As a final, maybe not relevant anecdote, many years later when I went to college I had another weird Final Fantasy IV experience. This was around the time iTunes was starting to get big (2004ish) and they just introduced the network-sharing feature. Naturally, everybody on our dorm shared all their iTunes music so the whole building could see everybody's library. They could also see their playlists, including their "Top twenty-five most played" and playcounts.

The sound of my ruined college.

Due to some freak accident (that or I left it on overnight or something), Hello, Fat Chocobo got something like two-thousand playcount. Again, no idea why. However, this quickly became a huge in-joke that I was unaware of. People from four or five floors above would walk past my room, humming the song loudly. They taught their friends to do it too, so whenever we went to social gatherings somebody would hum or whistle it absently at some point during the visit. To this day I have no idea why the playcount was so high, but it pretty much cursed me for my entire freshman year of college.

That's all for this time, but expect some more trips into Nathan's psyche and personal game history soon. Because that's what you always wanted: to get inside my brain. Yeah you did. Admit it.

Mega Man X

The Short

Pros
- Perfect evolution of the Mega Man formula from the NES
- New additions dashing and wall jumping add a whole new level to the series
- Stages are a perfect blend of difficulty and reward
- Replaying stages to find secrets is an absolute blast, especially since the stages are dynamic based on who you've defeated
- Controls just like the NES Mega Man games, which is to say...perfectly
- Absolutely incredible soundtrack
- Gorgeous graphics
- One of the finest platformers I'e ever played

Cons
- Stages can be a bit easy and short, while the final fortress is a massive jump in challenge
- Story is sort of non-existant
- Sigma's fortress can be a bit unfair at times
- What the heck is a "Kuwanger?"

Mega Man's back, baby! 

The Long

I have a very embarrassing confession. Despite my oft-proclaimed love for the Mega Man series, I never actually played a single Mega Man X game until only a few months ago. While I'd blitzed through all the Mega Man NES games and even the GBA Zero series, for some reason I'd avoided the Mega Man X bunch. Maybe it's because the later games looked so...weird that I avoided the whole batch all together.

I am an absolute idiot for that. 

You should listen to this during the review.

Mega Man X is a rare game. One that, all these years later, even a newcomer such as myself can only stand back in awe and sort of bask in its glory. As far as platformers go, it's one of the finest I've ever played in my entire life. As a gaming experience, it's almost transcendental. 

But enough of my flowery soliloquies and blanket statements, let's explain why Mega Man X is downright phenomenal and the very best Capcom could have done to bring it's beloved series to the 16-bit era.

Dr. Light's dead, long live Dr. Light. 

The story for Mega Man X might be it's only real weakness. Capcom made a big deal about it when developing the game and promoting it back in the day, saying they were "rebooting" the franchise with a heavier emphasis on story. In a sense, sure, there's a little more story here than the regular Mega Man games (which tend to just have an intro movie and...that's it), but in reality it still is hardly anything substantial.

Mega Man X takes place several hundred years after Mega Man 6. Dr. Light has long since passed away, and Dr. Wily isn't even mentioned. Light's final and greatest creation, X, has been revived because a new baddie, Sigma, hasa awoken and created several robot mavericks (aka Robot Masters) to cause trouble. X and his new ally Zero have to stop Sigma by sucking up the powers of the mavericks, yada yada yada.

There is maybe one or two cutscenes that deal with the idea that Light wanted X to be a friendly robot with the freedom to choose a peaceful path (though if he really did that I don't know why Dr. Light put a freaking GUN ON HIS ARM), but it doesn't get any deeper than that. Minus a few in-game scenes there is little to no plot, and the story seems just tacked on. It's nice it's there, but in truth it adds a minimal amount. 

Luckily, Mega Man X don't need no story to rock!

The core gameplay of Mega Man X is extremely similar to the NES Mega Man games, and anyone familiar with them will be able to jump right in and feel right at home. X moves at a very similar clip as Rock did, all the way down to jumping, fire rate, and charge time. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But Mega Man X does mix things up in two very crucial ways: wall jumping and dashing.

Wall jumping is something you unlock from the start, and it completely changes the way the game is played. Rather than simply jumping and shooting, X can traverse walls and do tricky jumps by clinging and sliding off walls (as well as jump off them). This allows more levels to have trickier jumps, having more vertical-based stages that rely on climbing, and completely changes strategies for end level bosses. Being able to leap up boss walls like a monkey adds a whole slew of new strategies. 

The second ability, dashing, is also a rather dramatic change. Unlike wall-jumping you unlock it in a stage (though everybody does that particular stage first because it's the easiest boss anyway), and it in turn allows for a bunch of new changes. Dashing increases distance of jumps, can be executed any time you are on the ground (it's a short burst, not a prolonged run), and is necessary for many tricky leaps of faith. The only downside is that, since you have to get it, no stages actually require it until you get to the final Sigma stages, which feels like a slightly wasted effort. 

Plus you ride a giant punching robot suit. AMAZING. 

The stages are also different from the original Mega Man. In Mega Man, each level was broken up between sets of screens, each providing a unique but brief challenge before it would pan to the next one. This was obviously a design choice and not a hardware limitation (or so I'd think; games like Mario 2 had massive scrolling worlds), but it made the series unique. Mega Man X chucks this for a more traditional style of level: a long, streaming world to explore and backtrack. It does feel a bit weird at first, but it still has the boss doors (and you can still jump through them) so it's forgivable.

The expanded real estate also allows for yet another great improvement: replaying stages with new powerups to find secrets. As you progress, the powerups you get from bosses (and find in the world) allow access to new areas you might have missed before. Mega Man on the NES (specifically 2) did this (use Crash Bombs to get secrets) but it didn't allow you to replay it, and that wasn't part of the core experience regardless. In Mega Man X, replaying stages is almost completely necessary, as there are a plethora of secrets to find. This would be tedious in any other game, but Mega Man X plays so smoothly and the controls are so incredibly responsive it's an absolute joy to replay levels. Plus, you're all powered up, so you can stomp everything with your new weapons. 

Burn, baby, burn. 

I'm going to take a second to gush about something that's hard to express in words, and that's how incredibly good this game feels to control. Again, that's really something you can't describe but have to experience, but when a game gets it right the experience becomes so much more enjoyable. Mega Man X is probably the best controlling game I've ever played, hands down. It's so incredibly responsive, I never felt like I died or failed on a jump because of the game's fault. Jumping and falling all feel exactly how they should, momentum from your dash perfectly translating into far jumps, and wall slides are easy to master and darn satisfying when you do a tricky leap from one tiny spot to another. It's a Super Meat Boy kind of feeling, except perhaps even more so. After just a few minutes of playing I knew I was gonna love this game based on feel alone.

He's just mad 'cause he looks like a purple Boba Fett. 

The formula here is a standard one: burn through the game, kill mavericks, get their powers to kill other mavericks, replay levels to get secrets, face the final fortress. If there's anything I can complain about it's that the stages themselves (for the mavericks) aren't nearly as difficult as the ones found in the NES Mega Man games (Mega Man 2 excluded), and seem to have a weird variance in length. Some are super short, while the underwater stage feels like it drags on and on. Overall, however, they feel a lot shorter, which makes sense since they were designed to be replayed.

All this changes when you get to Sigma's fortress, which completely beats the everloving crap out of you. If you don't know the secret to charged Armored Armadillo's power, you are going to get very frustrated. Extremely hard wall jumps, plethoras of respawning enemies, and long checkpoints make it genuinely stressful to beat. However, it never reaches a point where I felt it was unfair, just challenging. Plus, if you've spent the time to prepare and find all the secrets, you'll feel vindicated as you plow through it without having to worry too much. It's several stages up in difficulty when compared to the rest of the game, sure, but the fortress is a good finisher for those wanting an old-school Mega Man challenge. 

In the year 200X, Dr. Wily created eight...hey, wait!

Graphically, Mega Man X is beautiful. It pushes the SNES to its limits with excellently designed enemies, stunning environments, and awesome effects. It does stutter a bit with framerate drops on some stages (specifically when riding the mine carts), but when it matters the game is smooth and looks absolutely incredible.

The sound design is also phenomenal, with punchy sound effects that really make you feel like you are making an impact with your mega buster. But the show-stealer is easily the fantastic soundtrack. It's just straight up insane how good this soundtrack is, rivaling anything released on the NES (even the show-stopping Mega Man 2 and Mega Man 3's soundtracks). If I had any complaint it's that it is heavy on the midi-synth electric guitar (a sound I always felt the Genesis did better than the SNES), but that's really a very minor complaint for what is easily one of the best soundtracks on the system.

We're talking "Squaresoft" levels of music, here. 

As I said at the beginning, I can't believe I waited this long before finally picking up a cart of Mega Man X and giving it a spin. While it almost hurts me to say this, I really think it completely outshines the NES Mega Man games in nearly every aspect. While those games are still mind-blowingly incredible, Mega Man X is an evolution of that framework that does everything right. From the perfect controls, the satisfying levels, the gorgeous graphics and phenomenal music, Mega Man X is downright masterful. 

This is easily one of the finest platformers ever made, perhaps even the best. I'll be honest: writing this review right now I'm having difficulty thinking of one I would consider better. So, considering you can get this game at a decent price of around $20 for an SNES cart, or at the absolutely absurd price of $10 on the Wii's Virtual Console, if you are any fan of the 2D platforming genre you need to get this game.

It'll mega bust(er) its way into your heart. Yeah...I don't know what that means either.

Five out of five stars. 

"HADOKEN!"

Tiny Toons Adventures: Buster Busts Loose!

The Short

Pros
- Another Tiny Toons branded platformer from Konami
- Actually incorporates something original rather than ripping off Mario 3 or Sonic
- Centering around a "sprint" mechanic is challenging yet also quite creative
- Hefty amount of charm that follows the theme of the show
- Multiple difficulty modes

Cons
- Buster's only attack is woefully underwhelming
- Sprinting, despite having a meter, can be difficult to tell when it runs out
- Some of the platforming (especially the sprinting/wall running) can be merciless
- Extremely short
- Minigames between stages are a nice touch, but aren't particularly compelling and tend to be as long as the stages themselves
- Playing on "Children" actually omits levels from the game. I hate it when games do that.

Buster Bunny: One suave mofo.

The Long

I've had relative success with the Tiny Toons games thus far. Tiny Toons Adventures was hard but still a fun platformer, and Buster's Hidden Treasure was an excellent game with plenty of secrets and a solid base.  But now we are hitting the Super Nintendo, the powerhouse of the 16-bit era, and with it comes yet another Tiny Toons game. How does Buster Busts Loose! fare when compared to it's predecessors? 

Well, it's ok. But as someone who has literally no nostalgia for the game, it can be a hard sell.

I ain't afraid of no ghosts. 

The story is actually what makes the game interesting: it takes place on a literal movie set, where Montana Max is causing trouble and Buster has to jump between the various sets to take him out. Because of that, the game can send you all sorts of wacky places, like the wild west, a haunted house, and much more. It's a neat idea and allows for a frequent shift of scenery, which keeps things fresh. 

Aside from that, this is far from a deep narrative, but come on...it's freaking Tiny Toons. If you went in expecting Shakespeare, you really need to get your head examined. 

Oh yeah, and you play football. 

So how does Buster Busts Loose! play? Well, Tiny Toons Adventures aped from Mario 3, and Buster's Hidden Treasure drew inspiration from Sonic, but Buster Busts Loose! actually kind of does it's own thing. Shocking, I know. 

The main mechanic in the game is the sprint meter. When sprinting, Buster has many more options than when he's just hopping around (because, you know, what kind of rabbit hops?!). His jump is extended, but more importantly he can run up the sides of walls. He can also leap back and forth between two walls, sprinting up the sides of cliffs with the greatest of ease. Tricky. 

Sprinting can also double as an attack...sometimes. On Children sprinting always kills the enemy you run into. On the difficulty you should be playing the game at (read: anything but "Children"), he seems to do damage sort of randomly. I first thought it was only when he was at top speed (and when he's accelerating he's still susceptible to hits), but I swear I tested this and still took damage. It's this sort of dissonance that I'll discuss further...after this sweet screenshot!

Nathan: Master of transitions. 

Anyway, you can pick up Gogo Dodo statues to extend your Dash time (as it is powered by a meter at the top of the screen) though I never figured out exactly how much it refills you. Many times I've messed up at the end of long sprinting runs because of a fraction of a second mistake, when I swore the last trophy I picked up made me run longer. Again, I might just suck at the game, but considering I did beat it (begrudgingly so) I'd like to say I grasped the basic mechanics at the very least. Well, as best as I could with it never really explaining itself.

There's other minor issues too. Your attack is this weird jump/backflip that seems to kill enemies by going off near them, not actually kicking them. Jumping on enemies normally like every other game in existence hurts you, which makes me wonder why they put a normal jump. Just put the attack jump! Or, better yet, just have jumping kill enemies and then get rid of the "attack" button! It worked fine for all the previous Tiny Toons games (and Mario. And Sonic.). Having your only form of offense being a weird sprint that sometimes works and a funky kick backflip is just confusing.

Fun fact: Buster has pants on the box art, but only a shirt in the game. I have no idea why that fact was "fun," but I did just notice it right now. 

Between levels you get to participate in a handful of minigames, and "get to participate" I mean "are forced to play." Most of these are simple, ranging from bingo to bouncing a ball against a wall in an attempt to keep a volley going. They are there to earn you some more extra lives, as there really isn't a way to earn them in levels, but the disconnect here is...weird. Especially since the minigames can go on longer than the actual levels did (at least the Wild West level...that one's short, even with the train segment). Minigames are...there, but they aren't particularly fun. I guess I should be thankful for more lives, regardless. 

But the biggest issue is the game length. While all the Tiny Toons games I reviewed haven't been particularly long, Buster Busts Loose! is offensively short. On "Children" difficulty (which cuts out stages, which is annoying) you could probably burn through the whole game in 45 minutes, with most time spent in the minigames. On normal, maybe one to two hours, and this is in one sitting. There are only six stages total and each has around three to four areas, most of which are short. In terms of value proposition, Buster Busts Loose! kind of falls flat. 

Nice hair, Babs. What a hilarious Star Wars reference.

Graphically, Buster Busts Loose! is cartoony and vibrant, and reaches the bar of this era of SNES platformers. My only gripe is it doesn't do anything particularly interesting; while it looks good, it lacks the visual punch that Buster's Hidden Treasure had. Still, it's a cute looking game and animates well, and the "film" aesthetic that overlays the whole thing is charming to boot.

The music earns credit for not using the Tiny Toons theme over and over during the first level, though it does variate on the theme. Most of the music is original and catchy and fits with the silliness onscreen. While not particularly memorable, it still works. 

Protip: Avoid the giant laser gun. 

Buster Busts Loose! was a hard game to review, if only because of its fanbase. I was surprised at the unreal amount of praise this game got from fellow reviewers, though I will admit most were mining their childhood nostalgia when doing so. As someone coming in fresh (and off a bunch of better Tiny Toons games), Buster Busts Loose! seemed more busted than busting, if you know what I'm saying. And if you do, please let me know, because I've read that sentence twice now and don't know what I was getting at. 

While the sprint mechanic is a clever new idea and I love the level variety, the lack of length and general cumbersomeness of the game really makes it hard for me to love it. I'd still recommend it to fans of the cartoon (and if you had fond memories of it), but for newcomers there's plenty of options on other systems that blow Buster's jams out of the water. 

You know, the ones he is wearing on the box and never wearing in the game. Two out of five stars.

Is that Tails I see up there? Oh...my mistake. 

Jurassic Park 2: The Chaos Continues

The Short

Pros
- Unofficial sequel to the movie (of all things) where you shoot dinos
- Lots of weapon choices, from lethal to non-lethal
- Game plays a bit like Contra with dinosaurs, so I can dig it
- Lots of stages and missions to choose from
- Can be played two player

Cons
- Two players actually makes the game harder
- Actually, in general this game is pretty tough, even on Easy
- Shooting dinosaurs is not really as fun as you think
- Lots of stages have bad directions and are difficulty to navigate
- Why are a good portion of the stages about shooting people? I just wanna shoot dinos!
- Music, while atmospheric, is repetitive

Life finds a way. To make game sequels to movies. 

The Long

I loved this game as a kid. We didn't have an SNES growing up, but our dentist did. All he had in his office was Super R-Type, Super Mario World, and Jurassic Park 2: The Chaos Continues. Considering my brother and I was totally dino-myte about dinosaurs, we loved going to the dentist if only because we got to play Jurassic Park 2. We never got anywhere in the game (we were completely awful at it), but hey, good memories.

So when I picked up a cart a few weeks ago and decided to see how the game had aged well, I had pretty high expectations. And while I'll say a few of them were met, even more were...not. Unfortunately.

You have six missions to start with, and more unlock if you beat them. 

There is no backstory to this game unless you leave it on the title screen long enough, then an awful looking cinematic plays explaining what is going on. Apparently a corporation is trying to stage a hostile take-over of InGen (the company that made dinos in Jurassic Park) and is sending dudes to the original island to...do something. I have no idea.

I still love how nobody seems to tell these people that they are going to an island full of freaking dinosaurs. It like blew everybody's minds in the Lost World movie (that or they were stupid and didn't bring guns), and the same is here: you get a shocked army guy who flips when he sees his first dino. Does anybody debrief these guys? It would have been nice to let them know. 

You've got your spitting Dilopho...Dilafo...Spittersaurus. 

Anyway, you play as white guy in body armor (or black guy in body armor, if you are playing two player) and your goal is to kick dino butt. Well, some of the time. Of the six starter missions, four involve killing dinosaurs, and two involve killing guys. Yeah, like regular other people with guns, Contra style. Ok?

It doesn't matter; what matters is there are dinosaurs, and you are here to shoot them. The game has pretty simple controls: hold a button to shoot, press another to jump, and lastly you have this useless "dodge" move that I never got to work (your dude just sort of strikes a pose and...that's it). So your best bet is jumpin' and shootin' (hey, like Mega Man!) while progressing forward. 

I bet there aren't any dinosaurs in that bunker. Nope. Not-a-one.

While shooting dinosaurs is great and all, the poor level design and enemy AI quickly brings the experience down. Let's do level design first.

One of the main issues with Jurassic Park 2 is that, despite having six unique missions, most look really similar. Four of the six above start with you in the same stupid jungle, with the same music and same looking trees with foreground mist. Bland. 

Luckily they tend to shake things up, or at least High Petra does. That one is a vertical based level, jumping up the side of a mountain while blasting pterodactylus and avoiding rocks. The rest (Raptor Attack, T-Rex Carnage, and Seek and Destroy) all follow a same pattern: wander around, find an area you can press "up" to go to a new area, and get lost. The only difference between the first two and Seek and Destroy is in Seek and Destroy you do it in a volcano. Which actually looks pretty cool, if it isn't extremely easy to get lost. 

Expect to see a lot of this. 

It's hard to figure out where you are going based on the little passageways, and some are downright hidden. When I first played Raptor Attack I thought the level had ended when I hit the far right side, when in fact I was supposed to press Up next to a little passage (the foreground bushes had, brilliantly, been placed to cover the arrow telling me that). As stated before, in many other missions (but especially Seek and Destroy), it's easy to lose your bearings and get lost. 

But hey, it's better than stupid Protect the Gallimimus, which is the worst level ever. Just run right and shoot guys with the mediocre shooting. That's the whole level. It's like Contra but not as good. 

Hold on to your butts. 

The other main issue is the enemies. There's only a handful of dinos throughout. You have little crawly guys you have to duck to shoot, flying obnoxious guys that go down easy but are the typical "flying bird" enemy from games we all hate, and the spitters as seen above (they just stand still). But the absolute worst are the raptors. They run at you, pounce, then turn around and do it again. Added bonus that if they hit you, you fall flat on your back, and it takes a second for your guy to get back up annoying.

What makes it funny, however, is your character can actually jump higher than the raptor. So it turns into a strategy of you leaping over the dinosaur before it pounces, blasting it mid-air (serious Devil May Cry vibes), before turning to repeat. You can get it in an easy enough pattern to take most of them down, assuming you aren't playing two-player and messing up the repetitive cycle.

That's some quality cutscenes. 

And you'll need to master this, because Jurassic Park 2 is hard. You only have one life (but thankfully a health bar), and once it's gone you start the mission completely over. Missions aren't particularly long (15-20 minutes at most), but with limited health and ammo drops you might find yourself getting stomped quickly.

This is absolutely exacerbated in any level fighting other guys. While dinos at least have to melee you to hit you, people have guns and are extremely obnoxious. Bullets are just not slow enough to dodge (unlike Sunset Riders, where all their bullets were trapped in the Matrix), meaning lots of cheap hits. These are by far the most frustrating levels. 

Jumpin' over dinos. 

I've really ripped into this game from a gameplay standpoint, so I'd like to backpedal a bit: I still think Jurassic Park 2 is pretty fun. Is it fair? No. Is it actually easier single player? Well...mostly, yes. At least against raptors. Does it recycle a lot of assets between missions? Absolutely. But despite all this, Jurassic Park 2 is still a fun game. For all my Contra comparisons, this game is actually way different. While Contra is a balls hard arcade shooter where you blitz through a level as fast as possible, Jurassic Park 2 is about taking things slow, conserving ammo, and outwitting your enemies. It's almost the game's polar opposite, to be honest, and you'll have to act like you would if you were actually stuck on a park with a bunch of pissed off extinct creatures (and dudes with guns). Because of that slower, more cautious pace, it's almost like a horror game. Almost.

There is no way this is going to end well for anybody involved. 

Graphically, Jurassic Park 2 looks a bit muddy. While it does quite well layering it's backgrounds of forests and trees, as well as adding foreground bushes and fog, the whole thing sort of looks like I'm squinting at it the whole time. Still, it's passable, and the dinosaurs look good. Environments aside from the forest are decent, though they seem to be just missing that final "punch" to make them look awesome. I love the way the volcano looks, though.

Musically there's really only one or two songs, though they do well with the environment to set the mood. Hey, it's no Super Metroid, but it tried at least. My favorite song is the ominous "DOOM DOOM DOOM" note that plays whenever you fail a mission and is unskippable. I swear that five note cycle will be stuck in my brain forever.

You're gonna hear this song a lot.

I may be rose-tint nostalgiaing the hell out of this game, but despite all my complaints I still recommend checking it out. It's hard, cheap, and doesn't really do any of it's parts exceptionally, but aside from that Jurassic Park 2 is still a solid game, if an under-ambitious one. It certainly is better than 90% of the other Jurassic Park games that were released, and as an action game where you shoot dinosaurs it is absolutely serviceable. 

Plus if you get a friend and the two of you are determined to beat it, there might be some challenging fun to be have. Just...play the game on Easy. Trust me. It'll save a lot of frustration.

Three out of five stars.