Mark of the Ninja

The Short

Pros
- Excellent, empowering 2D stealth game
- Wide variety of options lets you be both deadly an silent (hur hur)
- Multiple scenarios and suits let you play as either a killer or a pacifist
- Story is told through awesome cutscenes, and actually has a pretty cool twist
- Perfectly paced, structured, and balanced
- Challenges on each level add another level of excitement
- Liberal checkpoints mean the game is never overly frustrating
- Beautiful graphics

Cons
- Story itself isn't particularly thrilling or engrossing
- A few cheap enemies
- "Scoring" system feels out of place
- Ends too soon, but the New Game + mode helps rectify this

Can you spot the ninja in this picture? Of course not. 

The Long

I must confess: I love the idea behind stealth games, but I have yet to play very many that I actually enjoyed. The Metal Gear Solid games have a bit of their own thing going for them, and while you can learn the mechanics it still had that "fail and reload a checkpoint two years back" thing. Deus Ex: Human Revolution was the same way: play for stealth, but if you screw up once you're totally jumping back fifteen minutes. Honestly, I can only say the old Tenchu game on the PS1 as well as the older Thief games really stuck out to me as fun stealth gameplay. Mostly the issues lies in something simple: it's hard to determine when someone will see you and when they don't. And if the game screws up that, the whole stealth element sucks.

Luckily, Mark of the Ninja doesn't fall into this trap. In fact, the only ones that are going to fall into traps are the bad guys. Ninja death traps. Because, even to a stealth game snob like myself, Mark of the Ninja is pretty dang close to being perfect. It is easily the best game I've played that made me actually feel like I was a badass ninja of the night. And that's saying something.

The spider and the fly. 

Mark of the Ninja tells a story of a ninja clan that is the last of its kind, hidden away in modern society. That is, until a bunch of jerks with guns and lights show up and start gunning them all down. You play as some sort of uber-ninja, marked with a mystical red paint taken from ground up magic flowers. These give you some crazy ninja powers (mostly just so the game can give a plausible reason as to how you can see soundwaves of footsteps and use psychic powers to see through walls), but also drive you insane, leading to hallucinations and other nasty things. Point being: this is gonna be your last mission, one way or another.

As a story goes it's told through beautiful cutscenes (these are the dudes who did Shank, after all), but the story itself isn't really that compelling. It does have a pretty clever (if a little predictable) twist at the end, as well as two endings, though both are unsatisfying. Either way, the story is unimportant, because the real joy of Mark of the Ninja is spent lurking through its vents, suspended from its ceilings, and luring guards with the corpses of other guards only to grab them and string them up from a lightpost. 

This game's sense of style is fantastic, if the game is REALLY dark. 

Where Mark of the Ninja works is in its absolutely perfect stealth gameplay. Each level is basically a massive map, with buildings filled with rooms, vents, lights, and doors to traverse. The game guides you to objectives, but never blatantly tells you where to go. In most games the concept of "multiple paths" usually just ends up being one or two scripted alternatives, but in Mark of the Ninja there are really dozens of ways to approach each issue. I remember being stuck in one room at the very end of the game. Try as I might, I just couldn't sneak past this room of snipers and an invincible big dude. After several tries I realized I could actually climb outside the skyscraper, scale the whole building, and sneak in through completely the other side through a vent and assassinate that stupid sniper who had caused me so many problems. Could I have done it the other way? Possibly. There were about four I could see just in the room itself. But the fact the option was there and worked so well really sold me on this game's linear yet nonlinear style of gameplay.

This sense of being a badass ninja is presented to you right from the start with the game's way of showing you everything you need to know right in the world. Most stealth games just sort of throw you into a room, letting you figure out what the field of vision is (or isn't) for enemies and hoping for the best. Mark of the Ninja, however, knows what makes stealth games frustrating and avoids it completely. All guards have a very obvious line of sight in front of their face, which is extended when they search with a flashlight. If you are hidden in the shadows your ninja will be black and blend in, while when visible his colors change dramatically. You have actual field of vision, too: you'll only see based on the direction your ninja is facing and what is available. If he loses sight of an enemy a slight mark will appear where he was last spotted, but you can also see sound waves, so you can watch his footsteps and know exactly when to pop out and nab him. Sound waves play a key role in the game, actually, as you can distract, bait, and see enemies almost better with sound than actual vision.

Lights are your enemy, but the sound of them shattering can be a great distraction. 

The game trickles in this information at a near perfect clip. The first level is essentially a tutorial, but not a boring one. You learn how free you are to traverse, how you have a plethora of ways to distract people, and how killing is easy but not necessary. You also learn how fragile you are: remember in Batman: Arkham Asylum where if you screwed up you didn't last long? Well, double that for Mark of the Ninja: a few well placed bullets and you are done. This adds even more incentive to be sneaky, and makes the kills all the more satisfying. I really felt awesome when I managed to evade a pair of snipers, swing around the ceiling behind them, distract them by breaking the lights above their heads with bamboo knives, and stab both in the back. It's incredible how smooth it all is.

It's hard to say anything further without sounding like a broken record, so let me end this segment with a blanket statement: this is the most accessible and empowering stealth game I've ever played. Everything, from your heightened senses, to the art style, to the clever assortment of enemies, to the powers you can choose to best match your playstyle, to the traps and tools; all of it combines to make you feel extremely able and yet still fragile enough that you have to be careful. The game liberally checkpoints, meaning if you do screw up a reload takes just a few seconds, though that only really happened when I was sloppy or generally un-ninjalike.

Leap down and stab him in the back? Shoot the light and get him in the distraction? Hide beneath him and throw him to his death? Curl up behind the door and wait from him to be just on the other side? So many choices for just one guy. 

The controls are near-perfect with only one very minor issue. Often time "A" is used for both jump and drop, depending on how you point the analog stick. Sometimes he'd drop down when I just wanted him to climb down to a nearby handhold, resulting in me leaping like a moron in front of dudes armed to the teeth. Needless to say, they turned me into ninja swiss cheese. I only very rarely had this issue and, since the on screen HUD was so incredibly well designed, often times it was my own fault for not paying attention. Aside from that, controls work masterfully. Time freezes when preparing sub weapons, and it indicates exactly how much sound will emit from a device and who will hear it. Your ninja sneaks at a decent enough speed (I hate "sneaking" slowly in stealth games) and can run, but people will hear it. There's also a fair amount of speedy platforming required in the later levels, which makes me think this game could have also been an awesome platformer, had they wanted it to be. 

For longevity, Mark of the Ninja is actually a fairly lengthy game. I'd say the first run could last you anywhere between 5-10 hours, depending on how much of a perfectionist (and checkpoint abuser) you are. After you beat it you get New Game +, which is super fun awesome mode because you no longer see sounds and the guards are both smarter and tougher. It's a great playground to use all your power-ups you've been accumulating. There are also a bunch of challenge rooms hidden throughout the levels that test your platforming skills, though to be honest I never really did them because they interrupted the flow of the main game. 

I really hate these freaking dogs.

As stated, Mark of the Ninja is made by klei, who also made the beautiful Shank. The well animated and cartoony style is present here, though to be honest you don't see much of it because 90% of the game is in the dark (but it's never too dark to know what you are doing, which is nice). The cutscenes are pretty and the voicework is pretty solid for an indie studio. There is next to no music unless you set off an alert, but what there is works fine. I like the song that plays during the final stage in particular. 

Don't mess with a ninja. 

There's more I didn't mention, such as the scoring system (which gives you a bonus if you make it through a level undetected or without killing anyone) that earns you upgrades, and the fantastic challenge system that unlocks both upgrades and new suits. Essentially in each level you have three unique "challenges" to accomplish in addition to your main goals, and doing them unlocks new ninja uniforms as well as points for power-ups. It's a nice metagame over the main one, and some of the challenges are really tricky.

Anyway, the point of all this is that Mark of the Ninja is downright masterfully constructed. It's a real shame that this game was released on a Friday (?!) to XBLA with no fanfare and no announcement whatsoever. I didn't even know this game existed until Twitter went all abuzz over it. Then I booted up the demo and was sold after the first minute. Seriously, we are looking at one of the best crafted stealth games ever made, and it's getting looked over? For shame, Microsoft!

Luckily you are reading this blog, though, so you know about this game and how incredible it is. Mark of the Ninja was one of the funnest experiences I've had on my Xbox 360 in recent memory (trumping even the joy that was Dust: An Elysian Tail), and the minute I beat it I started running through it again to beat leaderboard scores and experience New Game+. Usually I balk at $15 price tags for XBLA games, but they seriously could sell this as a $60 disc game and I'd be all over it. Here's hoping it sells enough to earn some DLC, because I cannot get enough of this game.

Masterfully done, klei. Five out of five stars. 

You'll have to forgive the Naruto, but this song is too funny to not post. 

Rock Band Blitz

The Short

Pros
- Fast paced, Frequency or Rock Band Unplugged style of gameplay
- Play a bunch of awesome music without having to buy all the plastic instruments!
- Comes with 25 songs that can be exported to Rock Band 3 for free
- Utilizes all your DLC library from Rock Band, ramping up the replay value tremendously
- Easy controls and a variety of powerups encourage variation and unique playstyles
- Horrendously addicting
- Facebook/Rock Band World integration makes it a blast to compare scores

Cons
- "Coins" system seems a little out of place, especially considering how easily they are obtained after the most recent patch
- Some powerups are completely useless; there's usually one or two main builds that are always the best
- The algorithm that converts your old songs doesn't always do the best job across the board
- With only 25 included songs, those who don't have a Rock Band library already will find the experience a bit lacking
- The disconnect between the game and Facebook kind of slows down the competitive spirit
- Only like three of my friends own this game! Get on the ball, people!
- So addicting it sucked up almost a week's worth of my evenings already. Wonder where the reviews from me have been? Now you know.

Every day I'm Blitzin'

The Long

It's pretty well established I'm a huge Rock Band fan. From Green Day to Beatles I've played 'em all, and compounded a 600+ song DLC library to boot. But after a while you get kind of tired of hauling out the plastic instruments, the guitar track from Dreamchaser by Amberian Dawn is pretty much burned into your mind, and you start wondering what else you can do with all these songs you have lying around.

Well, Harmonix must have read my freaking mind, because here comes Rock Band Blitz, a new game from the music game masters meant to breath new life into their DLC market and your DLC library. You thought rhythm games were dead? Well, they might be struggling a bit, but Rock Band Blitz is easily the best reason for this genre to see a resurgence. It's fast, fun, addicting arcade action with a plethora of side features that are just icing on the cake.

This game is an ADHD person's dream come true. 

So what exactly is Rock Band Blitz? At first glance it looks a heck of a lot like Rock Band: Square notes moving towards you down a highway (and it's a literal highway this time. Harmonix, masters of humor) that you gotta smash up for points. However, things are different here. Rather than playing just one instrument, you are tasked to keep the whole band in line.  How do you do it? By maximizing multipliers. Seriously, that's really the key part of the game.

Essentially you start with a multiplier range from x1 - x5 (a six point range). As you play well in lanes their individual multipliers for that specific instrument rises up until you hit max. Then you shift to a different lane and do the same (or shift inbetween, if you are a skilled crazy person). Why max these out? Because at various intervals throughout the song you'll pass "gates," where whichever instrument has the lowest multiplier will become the new minimum, and the max multiplier will increase. For example, if all my instruments were at 5x except vocals, which were at 3x, then the max would be increased to 7x. Whereas if I'd played good and gotten all of 'em at 5x, it would have jumped to x9, and so on and so forth. 

It isn't as complicated as it sounds. Goal: PLAY GOOD. 

This means that by the end of the song you can have some crazy multipliers, like up in the 20s, so playing good throughout and boosting that multiplier means crazier scores. But since tracks don't consistently have notes, this means you have to switch frequently to keep those multipliers up. Add in a "Blitz" mechanic, where playing a bunch of notes without missing (including when you do a lane switch) gives a fickle score boost, and you've got yourself a crazy ride. Do you switch over to grab a certain lane now and risk losing your Blitz, or do you ride it out for a safe pause? It's a very simple mechanic that goes a long way.

And we haven't even talked about the powerups. Before songs you can purchase with "Blitz Coins" a variety of powerups. These range from simple things that blow up notes, score multipliers, etc. all the way to crazy stuff like using your lane-selector to bounce a ball ala Breakout, or chasing down runaway purple notes. These powerups mesh nicely together, and because they are unlocked gradually they encourage you to experiment before fitting into a groove. 

That, in a nutshell, is the core idea behind Rock Band Blitz. So let's hit some specifics, shall we?

This game is stupid addicting. 

The big "hook" for Rock Band Blitz is the fact that it utilizes all your previously purchased DLC songs to add to the song roster. So the Rock Band faithful will jump into this game with a massive song count to play through and enjoy. It's a great idea, except for the people who don't own any Rock Band songs. While Blitz on its own is a great game, no doubt, one of the appeals comes from having a lot of songs to play. The 25 included are a nice variety (though they seem a bit heavy on the pop-rock), but not nearly enough to quench the thirst of a hardcore player. I guess that means Harmonix are actually evil geniuses because now we'll spend all our money buying more songs, but just be warned going in: if you don't already own songs, plan on buying some to really enjoy Blitz. 

The other hook is Facebook integration through the Rock Band World app. This essentially lets you go into your Facebook and sign up for goals, challenge friends to score wars, and generally compare yourself to all your buddies. While the challenges are great (and worked awesome in Rock Band 3) the fact that they require Facebook kind of...sucks, honestly. Since there's the obvious delay between when you play the song and when Facebook realizes it, that can really pull you out of the addictive spirit to have to wait. Also, if you lose connection to Rock Band Central during the game (or just don't have a constant internet connection) your scores won't save and you can't use powerups. So buy only if your Xbox/PS3 is always hooked up to the net. 

The Jackpot powerups is a great way to ramp up score, assuming you don't screw up. 

The UI in game is fantastic, letting you know exactly on the track where you have to play a particular instrument in order to bump up the multiplier. Really my only complaint is that it doesn't show you (or tell you) when the multiplier gates are coming up. A little line on the side showing your progress would be helpful for those of us really trying for that "perfect run," but I guess memorization is the name of the game.

Another weird UI thing is the song list. Rock Band 3 introduced an awesomely dynamic method by which to sort songs. Rock Band Blitz for some reason is back to a very basic sorting structure that is downright archaic in comparison. Plus it is missing the absolutely most necessary sorting method: Sort by songs that your friends have higher scores than you on. Seriously, considering how hopelessly addicted I am to leaderboard climbing and crushing the hopes and dreams of all my Facebook friends, not being able to sort in that way really hurts the experience. 

Pinball looks cool, but it's a stupid powerup, honestly. 

Let me be honest here: all those complaints are really minor, because when you are actually playing the game you couldn't care less about freaking menu sorting. Seriously, Rock Band Blitz is an absolutely fantastic game regardless of how you slice it. It's fast, fun, and surprisingly difficult. Those naysayers who came off of Frequency and Amplitude and complained because there's only two note options per lane (vs 3 from those games) and that "simplified" things need only play this game for a few songs before realizing this game is chaotic as crap. In order to be good you have to switch lanes like a madman, hunting down the purple notes and white notes while trying to stay in blitz, use power-ups, and lane manage. You feel like a total badass when you get good at this game (or at least I do), as sad as that may sound. It's stupid satisfying, even if the learning curve might be a little overwhelming for those not ready for the stimulation overload.

Regardless, Rock Band Blitz is a fantastic rebirth of the music genre, and a great arcade-style experience in its own right. While it might be somewhat of a lesser experience to those who don't own some Rock Band songs already, it's a game worth investing in for those who preserver. Before you know it you'll be leaderboard-stalking and constantly refreshing Rock Band World to see if you are still #1 on that Amberian Dawn song and THAT JERK CAME BACK AND KNOCKED ME DOWN TO #2 BY 300 POINTS I'M GOING TO KILL HIM!

Anyway, four out of five stars, but if you have any love of Rock Band or have exported from even a single disc (and thus have a DLC library) tack another star on this sucker. It's seriously the most addicting game I've played in a long while, and I show no sign of stopping any time soon.

Plus I can gold star most songs on my first try now. That's how bananas good I am at this game. 

Gyromite

The Short

Pros
- Fun two-player puzzle game
- Awesome music
- One of the only two games in existence that supports R.O.B. the robot.

Cons
- Playing with R.O.B. is actually less fun than playing with another person
- Because of R.O.B.'s handicap, the game is scaled down in difficulty and can be pretty easy
- Extra mode, where you guide the sleeping professor, is extremely boring

And now we have Gyromite...or...Robot Gyro? Eh?

The Long

Ah, the early days of the Nintendo. Coming off the big fat video game crash of the 80s, Nintendo wanted to bring the video game market back, in a big way. However, most consumers were pretty turned off to the concept of video games at the time, making any attempts to revitalize the market dangerous if almost impossible.

Nintendo's alleged "counter" to the stigma against video games was to market the NES not just as a video game console, but as a toy. After all, people were more likely to buy toys that video games at this point in time. They solidified this position with crazy attachments like the light gun and tons of other crap they put out, but really the icing that solidified this idea was the R.O.B. the robot. And I just realized the icing analogy didn't work. 

The future of toy technology. 

R.O.B. (which stood for "Robot Operating Buddy") was a toy that could interact with your NES games, specifically two NES games: Gyromite and Stack-Up. Each required a buttload of things you had to plug into his base for it to work, so you had to have both the attachments and the robot to make the stupid game work. R.O.B. took a truckload of batteries and was generally pretty cumbersome, so in truth he wasn't the best with regard to being a "Buddy" to play games with.

How was R.O.B. controlled? Well, since I'm waiting further time before this review, I'll explain. Using some sort of TV devil magic, when you issued commands to R.O.B. in the game the screen would flash in specific ways (kind of like how the screen flashed for the Zapper). R.O.B. would see the flashes with his robot eyes, and those would translate into commands. Crazy. 

On to the game. 

Gyromite was called such because of the way R.O.B.'s base was set up. There was a motorized spinny thing that, aside from taking its own set of batteries, spun around a gyro (not the sandwich) next to R.O.B.. R.O.B. would then pick up said gyro and put it on specific platforms, which would push buttons on the NES controller for the second player. He could press up to two buttons at a time (and hold it down, not just tap it) and that, in a nutshell, is how he "played" with you.

So how the crap do you play Gyromite? Well, it's actually pretty simple. You play as a professor stuck in a room full of bombs. Your goal is to collect all those bombs to end the level. The trick is there are red and blue...pillars? I guess? that block your way to the exit. These corresponded to the red and blue buttons on R.O.B.'s gyro controls. By pressing and holding the A or B button, you could raise or lower these pillars. Since the professor can't jump (though he can climb), you'd have to issue commands to R.O.B. to move the pillars for you to collect all the bombs and beat the game.

If only I had a capable robot buddy right now!

As the professor you have a few options. A batch of enemies called Smucks are running around trying to kill you, but you can distract them by picking up and placing radishes. You can also smosh the Smucks under the pillars if you could get R.O.B. to time it right.

The problem is that R.O.B. sucks as a playing buddy. He's extremely imprecise, and often will pick up the gyro incorrectly or set it down wrong on a button. The gryo also had to be "re-revved" up after every couple of stages, which was a pain. R.O.B. was also painfully slow when moving, making stages that would normally take a few seconds take quite some time. Hence the generous timer. Overall, playing with R.O.B. was novel but hardly idea.

Because you could always just turn this into a two-player co-op game. Which makes it much more enjoyable.

Yeah, like you literally cannot play it alone.

While the puzzles are dumbed down to account for R.O.B., which makes playing with another person quite a breeze, it's still a charming co-op game. You can switch off levels to decide who does the pillars and who controls the professor, and if you want to spite your buddy you can squish the professor under a pillar. It's much more fun that playing with R.O.B., that's for sure.

There's also another side game that I'm pretty sure is R.O.B. only, if you want to have any fun, that is. The professor is sleepwalking beyond your control, and you have to move the pillars out of the way to get him across the screen. It's stupidly easy, but hey...with a handicap like R.O.B. it might be enjoyable. I guess.

Or you can just smoosh his slow-walking butt. Like I did. 

The graphics in Gyromite are...there. You know what's going on, but the black backdrop is boring. It really looks like an early NES game, in the vein of the old arcade games.

What stands out, however, is the music. Yeah there's only really one song, but it's a kickin song, written by the same composer who wrote the absolutely stunning Metroid soundtrack. So at least you're playing puzzles to a kick-ass beat. 

Pretty excellent. 

As it stands, Gyromite is actually fairly ok when playing with two people. It isn't much of a challenge, but it's at least enjoyable. Heck, it's so easy you can plug in two controllers and just hold both and play the game by yourself if you really want. While it isn't anything particularly compelling, it's a decent bit of history, and is one of the only two games that work with that stupid robot.

If you have a buddy, Gyromite is still worth picking up for the retro-enthusiast. If not, you probably shouldn't bother. Unless you have a ROBOT OPERATING BUDDY!

Three out of five stars. 

R.O.B. and his evil red Satan eyes. 

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. 

Monster Party

The Short

Pros
- Hard as nails platformer with a movie-monster theme going on
- Surprising amount of blood, gore, and weirdness for an NES game
- Fantastic music and graphics
- Actually can be pretty creepy
- Infinite continues

Cons
- Really difficult to the point of unfair
- Playing as not-Bert (the demon you can transform into) sucks
- Annoying empty rooms without bosses slow down the action
- Some bosses are stupidly hard

It's time for a party. And I think you know what kind. 

The Long

Yeah, Monster Party! 

One of the reasons I love the NES is the insane number of straight up weird games that get put on it. It was the wild west back in those days (much like early PC/DOS gaming) with people punching out whatever they thought would sell and often using weirdness to push that point home. Enter Monster Party, a 1989 Bandai game starring, you guessed it, cliche movie monsters. This game flew under everybody's radar until a beta cart sold for an insane sum of money in Japan, revealing the game was originally darker and gorier. Still, no matter how you look at it, Monster Party is a wonderfully weird game, and one you can use the phrase "they sure don't make 'em like this anymore" liberally when describing. 

"Ya know, nothin, just playing some Monster Party. You?"

You play as Mark, a baseball kid who, on his way home, encounters a purple demon bird guy named Bert. Bert says that his planet of monsters is under attack and he needs help to clean stuff up. Why he needs a punk kid with a baseball bat is beyond me, but before Mark can protest Bert fuses (yes fuses?!) with him and they are whisked away on a magical adventure in the land of the monsters.

This game also has the most f***ed up ending of any NES game I've played (well, except maybe Hitler's head exploding in Bionic Commando): Mark has a dream where his friends and then himself rot and decay, complete with every gory little detail being depicted on screen. Yeah, great game for kids, Monster Party. 

This don't look so bad. Minus the weird legs popping up out of the ground. 

Monster Party is basically another NES platformer with a few little differences. You normally play as Mark, his main weapon being a bat. This doesn't just do damage: it can also bounce back projectiles, which is necessary to kill some bosses. Enemies you kill are of a bizarre variety: guys who are on fire, fish heads on legs, walking pants, tongues licking out of the wall, dogs with human faces, witches, and all sorts of other weird crap. Enemies often drop powerups like hearts and pills, and a neat trick for the cheap is that 1. Enemies respawn and 2. If it dropped an item before, it'll always drop it. So if you are tricky you can farm enemies for hearts when necessary by just letting them respawn and kill them again. Protip.

OH SWEET BABY MOSES I TAKE IT ALL BACK. 

Grabbing a pill will temporarily turn you into Bert, who can fly as well as shoot...slivers of magic? I don't know. You lose the ability to bounce stuff back, but Bert does so much damage (and, again, can fly) he's necessary for many of the bosses. After a while you'll swap back to crappy ol' Mark, who can take something like eighty trillion hits to kill enemies in the later levels.

The platforming itself is pretty standard with an "action" emphasis, and by "action" I mean "there's a lot of enemies and not a lot of tricky jumps." However, where this game really gets interesting is its bosses. 

Bosses. You know. Shrimp. 

Each level has a handfull of bosses hidden behind doors. It's your goal to kill them all in one go, thus earning a key to proceed to the next level. Most are standard movie monster fare: a man eating plant, a giant spider, Medusa, zombies, etc. A few are...weird, like the shrimp you see above you. Actually most are weird. They all say something before they fight you that's usually hilarious and stupid, and then the battle is on.

It's highly recommended you take on this multitude of bosses as Bert, if only because it takes about a trillion years to kill things with Mark. While it's true he can bounce a boss' projectiles back (which, honestly, is the only way to kill a lot of bosses), it is extremely tedious and very obnoxious. I honestly don't think you can beat Medusa without Bert, and there are bosses I know you can't beat as Mark.

And some rooms have...nothing in them. Awesome use of my time. 

That, in a nutshell, is Monster Party. Traveling through a level until you find a door, seeing if there's a boss in there, killing it, and moving on to the next. There's nine stages total, but seeing as the game is quite difficult it will take a good deal of time to beat it. While having a wide array of bosses is nice, they don't really mix up the formula too often. Either they run back and forth and you have to hit them and not get hit, they shoot projectiles you bounce back, or a combination of both. It's not particularly enthralling, and if you play as Bert with a turbo controller you can take most of them out pretty quickly.

Where Monster Party really sells me, though, is it's impeccable style. It isn't a particularly fantastic game gameplay-wise, but the game is just so freakishly bizarre I can't help but love it. Blood is everywhere (I'd go so far as to argue this is the bloodiest NES game ever, at least the bloodiest I've ever played), from enemies to backgrounds to...everywhere, and mixed with the sillyness of the monster bosses you get this uncomfortable dissonance. You feel a bit uneasy playing Monster Party, because you don't know which one it is: is this a scary Monster game, or a silly Party game? I DON'T KNOW.

Oh, it's a punk rock concert. Clearly a party. 

I love the graphics in this game, not only because of their style but also they just look really good. The enemy designs are silly and clever, the animations for Mark are fantastic (try ducking and then moving with him...he crawls across the ground like a worm) and all the bosses are memorable.

The music is also top notch, but particular standouts are the title and continue screen music. I have never heard a continue screen that is this upbeat, and freaking look at it. It's coated in blood!

They put this...

With this song. Seriously...WHAT?!

Regardless, it's awesome. That's all I have to say.

And...super creepy. And yet also not. Geez, Monster Party is really getting in my head. 

Despite knowing this game is flawed (again, it's too hard and the bosses aren't really that fun to fight), I freaking love Monster Party. It's far from being good, but it's so good at just doing it's own little weird thing I absolutely must recommend it. Yeah, it can be a trudge trying to get through it, but it's worth it for the absurd, bizarre journey it takes you on.

A must for a collector, and if you don't own an NES at least check it out in an emulator. Four out of five stars. 

But you don't have to take my word for it. JonTron (who is way more charismatic that me) documents his experiences pretty nicely. 

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.