Tiny Toons Adventures: Buster's Hidden Treasure

The Short

Pros

- Fun platformer on the Genesis with all the Tiny Toons dudes

- And by "all" I mean "you only play as Buster"

- A weird mix between Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario World

- Game is challenging but fair, making for an entertaining experience

- Graphics look great, and the music is top notch

- Bosses are fun and the game is just the right length

- Tons of secrets to find

- Passwords! At least they are short!

Cons

- Sometimes wants to be Sonic a bit too much, without conveying the whole "speed" thing

- Buster's default walking speed is "not very quick"

- A few cheap jumps 

- Game can get pretty difficult near the end

- The "slide" move is pretty much useless

- Still has the stupid Tiny Toons theme on a loop on the first level

Yep, it's another Tiny Toons game

The Long

I don't know what is is, but for some reason I'm gravitationally pulled towards any Tiny Toons games I find when out game shopping. I have no idea why this is; maybe it's because I really enjoyed the first Tiny Toons Adventures game despite its flaws? The point being: whenever I find a Tiny Toons game, even if I've never played or even heard of it before, I usually end up buying it. Good thing there aren't very many of these (two on the NES, two on the Genesis, and one on the SNES).

Anyway, Tiny Toons Adventures: Buster's Hidden Treasure was the Genesis offering from Konami, continuing the franchise's core design idea of "rip off a more popular game and just don't quite do it as well." For Tiny Toons Adventures on the NES it was Mario 3. For Buster's Hidden Treasure, it was Sonic the Hedgehog...sort of.

Hey, a world map! This looks familiar!

The "plot" is...nonexistant. It doesn't tell you what is going on. After digging around I found out Buster's buddies have all been kidnapped on this island, and you've got to bust (ha ha! PUNS) them all loose. Well, except Gogo Dodo, that weird plant guy with an umbrella for a hat. He's just the guy who is at the end of the level, so I guess he didn't get caught. Alrighty then.

You pretty much just fight your way through nine worlds, each with one to six levels on them. Simple enough. We don't need no plot in our Tiny Toons games! 

This game looks pretty stinkin' good. 

As mentioned, Buster's Hidden Treasure takes a few nods from Sonic the Hedgehog, though while I was playing it I also got some weird Jazz Jackrabbit vibes. Basically Buster accelerates the more he moves, before sprinting forward at super speeds (completely with the "spinning feet" look that Sonic's feet turn into when he's running fast). Some parts of the game require you to push back on springs to go up ramps, others have springboards that send you sailing. There's secret underground areas where you can backtrack for more carrots of hearts, and while there is a focus on going fast there's also a lot of platforming and several ways through the level. See, totally a Sonic game.

The difference is that Buster's Hidden Treasure isn't...fast. It isn't a speedy game like Sonic is. While you do get some speed at some points that isn't the goal of the game, and there aren't any sections where you just zoom ahead and watch what is going on like it's a cutscene (which Sonic has plenty of). The game is a bit slower and much more platform focused, with tricky jumps and tons of enemies you have to jump on to kill. It's actually more like a fusion between Sonic and Super Mario World, only without the powerups. Or Yoshi. Or coins. Or Tails. 

I see where you get your inspiration, Konami. 

Despite Konami apparently making it a trend to ape aspects from the hit games of the consoles it's on, Buster's Hidden Treasure is actually...pretty dang good. The mix of speed and platforming (as well as optional paths) is just the right balance, there are tons of secrets, and the game is never too difficult or too easy. Unlike Tiny Toons Adventures on NES, you have three lives this time, and hearts are reasonably plentiful if you screw up. Though, like Sonic, if you fall on spikes its an instant kill.

Platforming feels great, and there are even a few options. You can go into a slide (which is useless; I never used it), and you can also find hidden objects that you can use to bomb everything on the screen. I honestly never really used these "nukes," but it's neat they are there.

What's weird is this game doesn't give you lives for picking up carrots. Instead, every fifty you get gives you one of those nukes. At the end of a level, you get to keep the nukes but the number you have stockpiled gives you more points (die and you lose all your bombs). Get enough points, and then you'll get an extra life. It's weird and not normal for these kinds of games, but it still works. 

This game is very colorful and - dare I say it - toony. 

The solid gameplay is complimented by it's fantastic graphics. Bright cartoony sprites mixed with some downright beautiful backdrops make for a very appealing game to look at. Animations are fluid and enemies all look fantastic as well. They did good with the colors in this game, making it visually impressive throughout. 

The music is also great, though for some reason it did the thing where the first handful of levels is just the Tiny Toons theme song over and over. Which is fine (and fun to compare the Genesis rendition to that on the NES), but man it gets annoying. 

You have found the ultimate secret. 

Buster's Hidden Treasure isn't perfect. It borrows heavily from better games, making a product that really isn't better than the sum of its parts. Despite this, the parts are fantastic, and the fair difficulty, good graphics, and mesh of multiple genre ideas result in a game that is quite a bit of fun. I'm willing to bet plenty of people overlook this game on the Genesis simply because it's just another licensed game, but if you can find it for cheap (I got my copy for $3) it's absolutely worth picking up. 

If only they'd taken it a bit further, it could easily be ranked amongst Mario and Sonic. Four out of five stars. 

And they all lived something after something. Until they played the SNES Tiny Toons game. 

Tiny Toons Adventures

The Short

Pros
- Fun, basic platformer
- Very solid controls keep gameplay tight
- Able to switch between a variety of 'toons from the show
- Graphics are great, as is (most) of the music

Cons
- Quite difficult
- Getting 1ups out of collecting carrots (coins) requires watching a lengthy trade in process
- Only have one hit (unless you find a rare heart) and you are dead
- The first few levels have the Tiny Toons theme repeating over, and over, and over...
- A bit too Mario 3 for its own good
- Short

They're tiny, they're toony...wait, toony? Is that even a word? 

The Long

Ah, Tiny Toons. I watched a chunky amount of this show during my childhood. It always amazed me that a show that was pretty much the Muppet Babies or A Pup Named Scooby Doo equivalent of the famous Loony Toons characters ended up being both unique and successful. I have rather fond memories of the show (as well as the theme song gets stuck in your head forever), of Buster Bunny and the...rest of them (does anybody really remember the rest of the characters?).

But somehow, nestled in this brain of mine, was a weird memory: a Tiny Toons NES game? Thinking back none of my friends or family owned it, and this was before hey-day of emulators. So where do these weird memories come from? 

Well, it doesn't matter now, because I've grabbed a cart and blasted through Tiny Toons Adventures on the NES. And guess what? It's a pretty good game, if really unforgiving.

This game just screams Mario 3. 

The "plot" to Tiny Toons Adventures is that Montana Max kidnapped Babes. I only know this because I looked up a different review on Gamefaqs that told me that. It's a generic "save the girl/princess" story that video games still can't seem to get away from, but hey...if it ain't broke don't think of something original or interesting to take its place.

Regardless, Tiny Toons Adventures is really your standard platformer, insomuch as to say it's Mario 3. So I'll make this review easy on myself. You know how in Mario 3 you jump on the heads of enemies to kill them? You do that in Tiny Toons Adventures. You know how in Mario 3 on an incline you can press "down" to slide, taking out baddies and getting more speed? You do that in Tiny Toons Adventures. You know how in Mario 3 you have only one hit and getting an extra hit is extremely difficult? Well...wait, no? Oh, yeah. Well, Tiny Toons Adventures is like that.

Floatin' around. 

But before I get to the difficulty, let's point out a few other differences between this game and Mario 3. First, you play primarily as Buster, but you can also pick between Plucky, Dizzy, or Furball as a backup. Randomly in the levels you'll find balls with stars that'll switch between Buster and your chosen backup character. The backup characters have unique moves: Plucky can hover mid-air if you mash the jump button, Dizzy can spin forward in an attack, and Furball can cling to the sides of walls. Buster's only real ability is he's fast and can jump the highest, so swapping him out is usually the best plan. The controls for each character are intuitive and the game feels good, which says a lot about an NES era platformer. 

There are a few other minor differences. Aside from the multiple characters, the game also...um...well, now that I think about it, this game is pretty standard in terms of platforming. It never really mixes things up too heavily, but to be honest it doesn't have to. The level design is reasonably solid throughout, the controls feel great and the multiple characters are just icing on the cake. So in that regard, it's a good game.

Then you realize how hard this bastard is.

That's for me to know and you to find out. 

Maybe "hard" is the wrong word. "Punishing" might be more accurate. See, in Tiny Toons Adventures you get one hit. One single hit, and you are out and start the level over, sans a life. You can find random heart items in the level, but they are usually well hidden and very sparse. That means that a single mistake and you are back to square one. 

While this isn't that bad for the first half of the game, during the latter portions things start getting cheap. Enemies pop out of nowhere and without warning, meriting level memorization if you ever plan on beating the game. Projectiles fly everywhere, and jumps get trickier. While this would have been manageable with maybe two or three hits, with just one (two if you are lucky) you are going to die. A lot. 

I have never seen anyone so excited about carrots. 

There are also a few obnoxious little things that will frustrate players of that other 2D platformer where you can slide down hills and pick up coins/carrots. Collecting carrots doesn't earn you 1ups right off the bat; you have to find a secret room with Hamton on every level and cash them in. Every 30 gives you a life, but the fact you have to watch Hamton's stupid speech explaining the cash-in process every time is a chore. 

Another minor niggle is that the first boss is a beginner's trap. Elmyra (who I don't remember at all from the show) runs back and forth trying to grab you. At first you think you are supposed to jump on her (like every enemy) but this kills you, and not only that doesn't send you back to the checkpoint...you start the whole world over. Awesome. Turns out you are supposed to just dodge her until the exit magically shows up. Thanks for explaining that one, Konami.

Buster's got 99 problems, but an Elmyra ain't one. 

The game graphically looks quite good. While it isn't exactly a pillar of pixel art, I really dig the cartoony and clean look of everything. Colors mesh nicely, each character has a unique color scheme, and the levels are appealing to look at. I'd honestly say it's one of the better looking NES games, if only for it's clean design.

I also like the music, with one caveat (or "carrot-e-ot"...ok, that worked out funnier in my head). As much as I love the Tiny Toons theme song (and I love it, trust me), hearing it over and over in the first level was awesome the first couple of times (kind of like hearing the Duck Tales theme on the NES), but after a while I was about to go insane. Especially because it never resolves into the "And now our song is done" line from the intro of the show. Maddening. 

Hangin' on walls.

As it stands, Tiny Toons Adventures is a decent NES platformer that probably could have been a great one had Konami put just a little more thought into it. The character-swapping idea is really cool (something used in Mario 2 and later in Super Meat Boy) and the game controls wonderfully, it's just both too hard and too short to really be a classic.

That being said, considering NES games aren't exactly pricy, Tiny Toons Adventures is still worth picking up if you are an old school NES collector. It's a fun diversion and a good challenge to test your mettle against, and despite it's setbacks I really think it's a solid NES platformer. 

I can't believe I'm giving it the same score as stupid Karnov, but that's what happens when you use a 0-5 scale. Three out of five stars. 

Though both Karnov and Buster are blue, so I guess that works?

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. 

Tennis

The Short

Pros
- Has singles and doubles play
- Can play two players
- Set the stage for future tennis games, such as Mario Tennis

Cons
- Like the other launch sports titles, Tennis doesn't have much depth
- Only singles or doubles and only individual matches. That's it.
- Character moves weirdly fast and slippery for a tennis game
- A fun diversion, but little more than that

You should really just avoid most early NES sports games

The Long

Yes, we're back to this again. After ripping into 10 Yard Fight, Golf, and Baseball we're taking yet another launch title in the "Sports" set: Tennis. So...does this one finally redeem the Black Box Sports collection? Or is it just another mediocre NES sports game that was outdone by it's successors?

Hint: it's the latter. The only black box sports games I like are Pro Wrestling and Volleyball. 

It's tennis. Wee!

Long before Wii Sports totally made everybody play tennis by swinging their Wiimotes and lobbing them into their TVs, we had Tennis, a basic little game that launched with the NES. Now, unlike the previous sports game, this one at least isn't as boring. The very nature of having to volley back and forth in the sport of tennis means there's always something going on here, and the matches are quick and decent.

Too bad the controls are botched and there are next to no options.

For reasons I can't figure out, your character runs as if he's sprinting over ice. The feeling of moving the character is extremely loose and far to quick to properly control. First time players will have issue lining up ball shots, but once you get the hang of it the game becomes trivial. You move so fast you can counter every single ball, and so can the computer. Volleys last forever. 

And doubles! Wee.

The only time you score is when the computer seems to deliberately make a mistake. And while it's pretty easy for YOU to make mistakes (running on ice, remember?) this means the game feels like the computer is toying with you. "Here, I'll let you have a point, since I'm a perfect AI construct that can't fail!" Tennis' computer opponent chortles. Well I'm the one whose going to be doing the chortling, chortling as I stick this stupid game back on the shelf. 

You can play the game two-player, which makes it a bit more enjoyable, but unfortunately the lack of variety here kills it. You have singles or doubles and only one real match; once it's over all that's left is doing it over again. And while I'm all for simple games, Tennis just doesn't serve any real purpose here.

I am like the king of video game sports puns.

As you can see from the screenshots, Tennis is on par with the other offerings of its time. The game has no music (again, par for the course) and the sound effects work but are hardly exciting. 

All in all, Tennis isn't the worst of the sports line-up games (I'm still trying to decide which of the unholy trio mentioned above is on top of the suck pile), it certainly isn't particularly compelling. With a friend it's considerably more fun, but even so the core elements here are just bland. It's better than the rest of the batch, but not by much.

Here is where I wish I gave half stars, but since I don't I'm going to round up: Two out of Five stars.

"Strike! You're out!" I am so good at sports puns. 

Guilty Gear X2 #Reload

The Short


Pros
- The absolute best version of the X/XX iterations of Guilty Gear (it would be changed in Slash following)
- Insane roster of 22 characters plus 2 unlockable ones
- Improved controls make Dust attacks as well as specials easier to pull off
- Visuals look incredible
- Game has a massive amount of content, including a survival mode, challenge missions, story modes for each character, and more
- Combos and ariels are still fun and make the game quite accessible
- Thankfully it's one of the many backwards compatible games for Xbox 360.

Cons
- Movesets, while extremely similar, are a bit more tricky than in the original Guilty Gear X
- Online play, which was the main improvement of #Reload over the PS2 version, is gone since Microsoft cut orignal Xbox Live servers
- No widescreen support hurts
- Voices, while thankfully in the original Japanese, seem much more chatty and obnoxious than previous installments
- Xbox controller sucks at fighting games. Mostly because that d-pad is absolute garbage, especially on the 360.
- Still is, at its core, the same game as Guilty Gear X

Heaven or Hell: Let's Rock! Again!

The Long

First off, let me point out the actual full title of this game (according to the box) is Guilty Gear X2: The Midnight Carnival #Reload. Ho-ly piss. Great name, guys. No, seriously, good work on that. Rolls right off the tongue. 

Anyway, stupid name aside, Guilty Gear X2 #Reload (am I seriously going to type that every single time?) is the final tweaking of the game Arc Systems made way the crap back for the Dreamcast (and that, in turn, was an updated version of an arcade/PS1 game). It certainly has the fighting game syndrome down of releasing the same game over and over with minimal incremental update. Haven't these guys heard of patches? DLC?

This all doesn't matter anyway, because #Reload is an absolutely killer fighting game, and in my opinion the very best in the Guilty Gear franchise. So let's get on with it, shall we? 

The game still looks good to this day, even at 480p. 

I already reviewed Guilty Gear X, so if you haven't read that you should probably check it out. If you are too lazy then here's the sum up: Guilty Gear is an excellent series if you are just starting to get into fighting games, as it's advanced mechanics are very accessible and the game itself is flashy and fun and has some absolutely crazy characters. There, I summed the whole thing up. Why do I even bother writing the long reviews? That's a good question.

So what is different between Guilty Gear X and #Reload? Well...not a whole lot, but still enough to look at. First off, the character roster has improved significantly. A total of twenty-two crazies now join the fray, including two secret boss characters that have to be unlocked. All the originals from the original Guilty Gear X are here, and the new ones are just as insane as the previous ones. And yes, this game has the infamous Bridget, the boy raised as a girl nun who fights with a yo-yo. Because Japan.

Yeah, that's a dude. But the nuttier part is he isn't even the weirdest character in the game. 

The new characters are a blast to play, though I found most of them to be more "advanced" in terms of movesets. While the originals play almost exactly the same, the newcomers employ tricker strategies that took a while to get accustomed to. Still, it's good to have more characters, and the immaculate balance of these games (despite the moves being absolutely crazy) means you have nobody to blame but yourself if you die.

On the subject of advanced moves, it's worth noting that many previous moves have been somewhat "bumped up" in difficulty from Guilty Gear X. It's mostly small stuff, like quarter-circle specials being replaced by half-circle ones for a few characters. Nothing major, just worth noting. On the other side, Dust attacks are much easier to pull off, and the window to chain regular combos together (you have to press the next attack button just as the previous one hits) seems to be much easier. Oh, and this is one of those rare instances that the manual is actually in full color and has a complete moveset for every character. Man, I really miss manuals. 

"Puny god."

In addition to the new roster, an absolute insane amount of extra content is here. Aside from the usual pictures you can unlock by playing the game enough, every character has their own "Story" mode (with branching paths and different endings) in addition to the regular "Arcade" mode. There's a staggering number of challenges as well (100!) to test your ability to pull off certain moves quickly and under difficult situations, and the "M.O.M." and "Survival" modes are both variations on the idea of fighting as many characters in rapid succession while on the same health bar. This is also in addition to the usual two player vs mode and a variety of sound options, including sound-test for every song and sound effect in the game. Loads of content here if you are into that.

On the down side, #Reload's main feature over the PS2 release of X2 - Xbox Live play - is no longer available due to Microsoft cutting the servers a few years back. Meaning there is literally no way in this day and age to play against somebody over the internet with a Guilty Gear game. Wait, maybe my Dreamcast can still connect, via dialup! There's hope yet!

This game has some crazy finishers. 

At it's core, however, this game is about sitting on the couch with a group of friends and handing it off as you beat the crap out of each other. As I've said before, #Reload is like the original Guilty Gear X: very available for new players. It's much easier to get enemies in the air on this one, as well as countering and breaking out of guards. It's a fun rush that's weird but still frantic, and as such makes for a great time with a group of buddies.

The only downside is that the Xbox controller is the worst controller ever for fighting games, in my opinion. It does have the option to turn on the analog stick over the d-pad (WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!), but it still doesn't help that the controller just sort of sucks. Fightpads? Yes. Or find a way to hook my Dreamcast controller into my 360. 

This game is still so very, very peculiar. 

The game is still drop-dead beautiful, even at the low resolution of 480p. Character sprites are hand-drawn and masterfully detailed, with animations and effects smooth and flashy. It still looks fantastic even today (and even next to the future released BlazBlue from the same company), though the lack of widescreen support is a big bummer. Come on, Banjo-Tooie on the freaking N64 supported widescreen, why can't these guys get with the program?

Most of the music is recycled from previous home console releases, with a few new tracks for new characters. There is voice-over for all story segments and frequently in battle. While I'm glad it's in Japanese instead of being butchered by some low-rent English voice actors, the yells and grunts get really repetitive, and the characters just seem way more chatty in this game than previous installments. Regardless, you can turn the voices down if they really bug you that much. 

A guy being possessed/groped by the girl from The Ring? Sure, why not? 

Ultimately, if you liked any of the past Guilty Gear games, pick this sucker up (either this version or the PS2 release, though I'd preference #Reload). If you have yet to dive into the series, this is probably the one you should test out. It's absurdly cheap (it was released at a budget price of $20, and currently goes for about $6-7 on Amazon) and an total blast. After playing it for only a few hours I was convinced that it could very well be my most favorite fighting game ever. Yeah, I'm really digging it.

It's sloppy, tricky, and (if I haven't mentioned it enough) weird, but I think it's safe to say there really isn't any other fighter like it. 

Five out of five stars. 

And hey, the music still rocks, too. 

Blades of Steel

The Short


Pros
- Fast paced, intuitive hockey game
- Actual voice clips and grunts! TECHNOLOGY.
- Different teams with different stats
- Had a built in system for fights. Yes. Really.
- Excellent arcade hockey action throughout
- Best in-game ads in history
- An absolute blast two-player

Cons
- No customization options for length of games, etc.
- Lacked Ice Hockey's ability to alter your character stats to customize your game

"Blades of Steel!"
Oh...it says it right there. Um...imagine it being read in a really tinny NES voice. Ok? Thanks. 

The Long

Ah, sports games on the NES. You can be such a mixed bag; either awesome or total mediocre crapola. Nintendo released their own Ice Hockey game a while before Blades of Steel came out and it was a'ight, but Blades of Steel I will always consider to be the absolute best ice hockey game on the system. Actually, scratch that, the best ice hockey game ever. Yeah. Even better than NHL '09 or whatever the good year for those games was. You can tell I really play a lot of modern sports games.

Anyway, Blades of Steel kicks ice, and this is why.

Wait, is that "kicks ice" joke from Batman and Robin? Oh geez...I'm so sorry. 

At it's core, Blades of Steel is a pretty elementary hockey game. Like Kings of the Beach it doesn't overly complex itself with controls or whatever (I mean, come on: they only really had two buttons to work with anyway, this WAS the NES). You have a button to shoot and a button to pass, though you have to sort of point it in the right direction when passing or you might pass it to the other team. Your goal is...wait, I'm not going to explain freaking hockey. I already felt stupid when I explained football in that other review and didn't bother deleting it because editing is for tools. 

The game automatically switches you to whatever player has the puck (if you are on offense), and if you are defense it tries to pick the best player for you to...defend with. You also always have full control of the goalie, so if somebody scores it's totally your own fault. It does try to soften the blow by putting a moving arrow going up and down the goal posts, so when somebody shoots you at least have a general idea where it will go, though blocking shots can still be a bit tricky. 

See the arrow? It's...um...yeah, you see it. 

Where Blades of Steel excels is in two key points. First: it just feels good to play. It's hard to describe controls or the feel of a game without actually, you know, playing it, but trust me: Blades of Steel has absolutely excellent controls. Players feel like they have actual weight, and when you ram them into each other to try and steal the puck the sound effects of hockey suits slamming into each other sounds accurate...or as good as it's going to get on the NES. Unlike Ice Hockey, it's easy to know exactly which player you are in control of, so you always feel in control. Your team is also reasonably helpful but not too interfering (a problem 10-Yard-Fight had...and Baseball now that I think about it: the game gave too much control to itself rather than you). It's fast, furious, and extremely easy to pick up and play. Two-players, this game feels great.

Get ready to rumble. 

The second is the little details that make Blades of Steel memorable. Like Kings of the Beach (which was also published by Konami...I mean Ultra...who am I kidding we all know they are the same company), Blades of Steel is loaded with small nifty details. Fouls allowing for penalty shots. Your team cheering when you score while the opposing goalie freaks out. The ref stopping you when plays get too heated.

Oh, and of course, the fights.

HEAVEN OR HELL, LET'S...ok, yeah, that's a lame joke. 

This is actually what most people probably remember from Blades of Steel. Get in front of an opponent who has the puck, and the gloves come off and the game has an honest-to-god fighting minigame in it. It's nothing too complex (block until your enemy throws a punch, then counter and you'll win every time), but the most hilarious part is whomever gets knocked out goes to the penalty box, not the dude who did the knocking. Seriously? That's fantastic. And the other team will be out a player for a minute or so. So great. I wonder if you could punch their whole team into the penalty box? I should try that sometime.

The only downer is the lack of customization. You can't pick the lengths of each match, meaning you are in for the long haul every time. And while teams do have unique stats, you can't really ever see those stats or tweak them. At least Ice Hockey let me make a team of fatties if I wanted (and I do. EVERY TIME).

GOOOOAAAAALLLLLL!

Graphically the game looks great, ditching the cartoony look of Ice Hockey for a more realistic approach, and it looks nice. Though I do miss the Zambonis that ice the rink between stages from that other hockey game I've mentioned far too much in this review. The crowd cheers at appropriate times, and this game has some awesome in-game ads during breaks. Seriously, Konami put ads for their other games during the down times. "All your friends will love it!" So incredible.

Sounds are also great, using a lot of voice work, though I got pretty tired of hearing the ref shout "FACE OFF!" in his awful tinny NES voice. Still, everything sounds quite good, especially for an NES title.

You're going the wrong way, goalie dude. 

There's been an ages-long debate between pretty much nobody whether Ice Hockey or Blades of Steel is the best hockey game on the NES. While I like Ice Hockey well enough (my wife hates it, though), I just enjoy the feel of Blades of Steel much better. While the lack of customization is a bit of a downer, the game just plays so damn good that I can't help but prefer it. If you are looking for fast paced hockey action, I absolutely give Blades of Steel my baby seal of approval.

Oh, and yes: two players is the way to play this game. Grab friends, make friends, have imaginary friends; whatever. Just get people over and play this game. Plus, it's on the Wii for only 500 Wii Points ($5), so you have no excuse at all to not get it (though this is a rare instance where I found the NES cart was cheaper than the Virtual Console release).

Five out of five stars. 

And now a video that is only sort of relevant. 

Vampire Chronicle for Matching Service

Disclaimer: I am not a fighting game master. While I'd consider myself pretty good at some of them, I don't play competitively or know any serious level of strategy when it comes to the genre. These reviews are from the perspective of a beginner to intermediate level player, and thus I can't analyze them to the particular depth many fighting game fans would need.

The Short


Pros
- The definitive collection of Darkstalkers games
- Allows you to play as any character and in any playstyle in the Darkstalkers series
- Wide roster of characters that are both weird and fantastic
- Surprisingly newcomer accessible, especially when compared to the Street Fighter games
- Characters are well animated and have lots of delightful quirks that make them fun
- Seriously, there's just a ton of content here

Cons
- Was never released in the United States, and in Japan in very limited quantities
- Sprites look like they were up-converted for the Dreamcast, and not very well
- While having a ton of options is nice, it can be overwhelming to know what to pick for what game
- The "Auto" block option is the cheapest thing ever on VS.

Ah, Darkstalkers. What happened to you? 

The Long


I absolutely love Darkstalkers. Created by Capcom after the success of their Street Fighter franchise, it was that "other" Capcom fighting game with all the movie monsters and weird characters. It's also the game the voluptuous Morrigan is from (though I bet most people know her from the Marvel vs Capcom games at this point), so it's got a bit of star cred that way.

Back during my freshman year of college, we really got into arcade emulators, and with that fighting games. We had tons of tournaments, mostly playing Marvel vs Capcom and Darkstalkers. I would like to say I got pretty good at the game, except it was against people who never play fighting games (myself included), so instead I'll just say I got really good at beating other noobs. Regardless, Darkstalkers is a fighting games series you should absolutely look at, especially if you are a modern fan of the Street Fighter IV resurgence.

A Queen Bee vs Little Red...Blue Riding Hood? Sure, why not. 

Vampire Chronicle for Matching Service, despite having a stupid name, is the absolute best collection of Darkstalkers games available. By this point in the game there had been around five Darkstalkers games (though one of them was just a re-release of a previous one with old characters...this is really starting to sound like a Capcom fighting game joint, isn't it?), with four having distinct changes in style (Darkstalkers/Vampire, Night Warriors/Vampire Hunter, Darkstalkers 3/Vampire Savior, and Vampire Savior 2). What makes Vampire Chronicle cool is the fact that you can actively interchange the fighting/playstyles between these four games on the fly (assuming the character you selected was in those games), allowing for an absolutely insane amount of customization. Was Demitri your favorite character, but you only liked the way he played in Night Warriors? Well, now you can play with him in that mode! Prefer Bulleta in her Savior 2 iteration? Well, that means you lived in Japan since Savior 2 only came out in arcades there, but hey...you can do that too! 

It's kind of nuts it lets you do this...can you imagine if you bought a Street Fighter collection and could pick if Ryu played like in Street Fighter II vs Street Fighter III Third Strike or something? It would be bananas! If anything, it shows (to what might be a negative degree) how little the Darkstalkers games have changed that older styles can still compete with newer ones. Regardless, it's usually just movesets; before any match you can pick which of the three games (Vampire, Hunter, Savior) the game will be custom-tailored too, while characters only change ever so slightly. Regardless, it's a cool thing, and has never been seen again. Even the collection released in Japan on the PS2 in 2005 is just straight ports of the three games separate; none of this inter-weaving madness we got on the Dreamcast. Dreamcast: 1, PS2: 0. 

Minus the whole "quit the console business" thing...

So how does Vampire Chronicle play? Well...like Darkstalkers, which is to say if you like Capcom fighting games you'll feel right at home here. Darkstalkers has a heavy emphasis on "Chain Combos," which is essentially the idea that normal attacks can chain together just as well as ones that chain into specials. If that just flew over your head that's ok: the point is that this game does lots of chains (though not nearly as bad as the insane Killer Instinct). Expect a lot of flashy, crazy moves that flow together well and can also be reversed/countered. Button mashers, rejoice. 

Because of this, I found Vampire Chronicle to be very friendly for beginners in terms of control. While the initial option of what playstyle to choose can be overwhelming (especially since the game is in Japanese), anyone with even a basic understanding of how fighting games work can easily start chaining together moves, throwing projectiles, and just generally doing well at the game. Similar to Guilty Gear X, this is a good game for getting your friends into fighting games, as it's weirdness and ease to pick up makes it very inviting.

You've got options is what I'm sayin'. 

Speaking of the weirdness, Vampire Chronicle has it and in spades. Going with a "monster movie" motif, it rivals the Guilty Gear series in terms of sheer oddness. You have your typical assortment of vampires (sexy or otherwise), as well as zombies, frankenstein monsters, a yeti, a werewolf, and a...robot? Little Red Riding Hood? What? 

So yeah, it's out there, but that's what makes the game fun. Attacks are flashy and absurd and make the fights almost hilarious to watch. This is matched with some really funky jazz tracks that play as you pummel each other into submission, which somehow works despite the fact that it absolutely shouldn't. 

If there's anything I can complain about the presentation it's that the game is horribly low-res. Unlike Guilty Gear X, where they bumped up all the sprites and backgrounds to match the increased output of the Dreamcast, Vampire Chronicle is pretty much a straight port from the older arcade games, and thus the game looks really fuzzy. It doesn't detract (much) from the silly animations and great character designs, but it does look dated. 

Open season on vampires. 

It's really a shame this game is so hard to find (unless you are cool with downloading and burning import Dreamcast isos), and an even bigger one that this has never been released on XBLA or PSN. Darkstalkers has been left in the dark (hur hur) for a very long time, a casualty of when fighting games dropped in popularity in the early 2000s. With the recent resurgence of the genre, it would make sense to bring out another Darkstalkers game, or at least rerelease Vampire Chronicle. It's an extremely solid fighting game, and the multitude of options is just icing on the cake.

Regardless, if you have a Dreamcast that can play imports (or *coughburntgamescough*), Vampire Chronicle for Matching Service is absolutely worth trying to find. It was rare even in Japan so you might have some troubles, but it is the best compilation of one of the funnest forgotten fighting games. 

So gather some friends together and find out of Little Red Riding Hood really would win against the Big Bad Werewolf. 

Four out of five stars. 

You said it, Morrigan