Final Fantasy Adventure

Platform: Game Boy
Developer: Square
Released: 1991
Genre: Action RPG

The Story
Life is rough for a gladiator. Wake up, slay monsters for the enjoyment and appeasement of the masses, eat, sleep, then do it all over again. Except today is different for one of these benighted souls. His friend dies in his arms, but not before imparting the secret to escaping the castle. Resolved to get the hell out of dodge, the now ex-gladiator manages to break out. Only moments after tasting his first breath of freedom, however, he overhears Dark Lord plotting to take the power of the mana tree and using it to rule the world, then gets pushed down a waterfall for his troubles.

Once he comes to, having survived the fall, our intrepid hero stumbles across a young girl who may just be the key to stopping the evil Dark Lord from accomplishing his sinister goal.

The Game
I remember when I was a kid, I played Final Fantasy Adventure a couple of times. I also remember giving up immediately both times because I couldn't figure out how to kill the first monster. But we'll get to that later. The point is, FFA was one of the earliest instances in which I learned that a game released here in the states had been given a different name than it had elsewhere in the world. In this specific case, FFA was known as Mystic Quest in Europe and originally Seiken Densetsu in Japan. I was later more shocked to learn that it was actually the first game in what eventually became known as the Mana series in the English-speaking world and not actually a Final Fantasy game at all. Now, imagine my further surprise to find during my research for this review that there was even more to the story than that.

As it turns out, FFA actually is a Final Fantasy game. Or at least it was intended to be. The full original name of the game was Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden, meaning it was a side-story to the FF series. This puts it in the realm of games like Final Fantasy Tactics, Dissidia Final Fantasy, and Kingdom Hearts, all of which use some of the setting elements while altering core game mechanics. Where all of the main FF games are still RPGs through and through, the gaiden games shift their focus to stuff like action, adventure, and strategy. In any case, it wasn't until later that Seiken Densetsu became a different series all its own.

The Characters
The hero of the story is an ex-gladiator turned defender of mana and the world. His name is . . . whatever you decide to name him, in the English version. In the original Japanese, he's named Sumo. Y'know, like the big guys who push each other for sport. Unlike other games in and similar to this genre, our hero isn't a silent protagonist, though just barely. He's not much of a talker, but then neither is anyone else in FFA. All that can really be said about his characterization is that he's a pretty decent fellah and he's willing to go through a whole lotta crap in order to save the world.

Early on he meets a young lady - named Fuji like the mountain in the original Japanese or whatever you decide to name her in the English version - who seems to be the key to protecting mana from those who would misuse it. She owns a pendant which also figures into the whole scheme, and both she and it spend most of the game as the macguffin you have to chase around the map since they both are continually getting kidnapped and/or stolen.

Dark Lord is the resident bad guy, presumably because his parents named him "Dark Lord". He's got a second-in-command named Julius who's a magician type and pretty mean and nasty.

And then there's some NPCs now and again. Most of them are your standard walky-around-and-spout-random-information types. A handful push the game along in some fashion or another, such as the Gemma knight (an order dedicated to protecting mana) who charges you with guarding Jo and the pendant. And some actively join you in your quest. All of them, however, are pretty much small change. Generally unimportant to the actual quest, only briefly a part of the narrative overall, and not much worth mentioning. No, seriously. I'm not just saying this to keep from having to type any more in this section. If the game has simply had signposts in the place of most of the folks, no one would have been able to tell the difference.

The Writing
Just as the characterization described above suggests, the writing is so bare bones as to almost be marrow alone. Hell, it's downright abominable in some spots. Dude plays some music, something happens as a result, and the entire explanation is: "Mystic tune?" "Yeah."

It would be easy to blame the localization of the game, and it would probably be a fair cop. It's true that a lot of games at the time had their stories dumbed down by the English translators, and this one almost certainly wasn't an exception. However, that doesn't explain away how skeletal the whole story overall is. It's not just the dialogue. Much of the action is just filler, fluff, stalling for time. A lot of the things you're called upon to do don't actually have anything to do with saving the mana tree or stopping Dark Lord. They're just random obstacles that suddenly pop up to keep you separated from the macguffin of the moment, be it the girl, the pendant, or both.

One of the earliest instances of this is when the hero and heroine spend the night in a tower during their travels and, oops, the girl gets kidnapped by a vampire. Not a vampire sent by Dark Lord or Julius to stop the forces of good from succeeding. Not a vampire interested in harnessing mana for himself. Nope, just a vampire out for some nubile girly flesh. Guess you better go take care of that before you get on to doing whatever else it was you were supposed to be doing. No no, it's cool, saving the world can wait.

I don't mind jumping through hoops to get to the end of the line. I don't even mind when a few of those hoops are sidelines to the main quest. All these hoops are, after all, a necessary part to the RPG process. But when only one out of every five or six missions has anything even remotely to do with beating the big bad guy, I gotta start getting the feeling that the writers didn't really know what to do with their own premise.

The Gameplay
For an easy comparison, FFA basically plays like the old top-down Legend of Zelda games. You view the action from above, moving the hero around on a square-ish battlefield and taking suckahs out left and right and up and down. A charge up meter sits at the bottom of the screen, charging up whenever you're not actively trying to slay things. When it reaches its peak, you can execute a special move with whatever weapon you have equipped, that move usually having to do with throwing the weapon across the screen.

Speaking of weapons, I do rather like the weapon system in place here. You get several different kinds of weapons to choose from, including but not limited to battle axes, whips, and spears. Many of them are not only useful in breaking down baddies into finely sliced, stabbed, or lashed open sections, they also have other abilities helpful in your quest, such as crossing gaps and cutting down trees that stand in the way. It adds a fair amount of depth into what might have otherwise been a simple little hack 'n' slash.

Sadly, the weapons have their downside as well, that being that it's difficult to be sure you've hit your enemy with most of them. If the baddie doesn't have a knockback animation - which is often - you have to depend on a "whack" sound that's sometimes difficult to make out over the "weapon swing" sound and the background music. It can lead to situations where you're wailing away at some evil fungus or goblin or hedgehog but you don't notice for a few seconds that you're not actually hitting the bastard and they end up turning right around and clobbering you right in the face quite handily.

I mentioned before that NPCs are pretty much useless in the game, but truthfully it's worse than that. Their crimes range from petty criminal negligence to outright belligerent harassment.

Let me go on record as saying that I hate hate HATE that whole "walk into someone to talk to them" thing that was so prevalent in Square's early RPGs. It's annoying as hell when you're trying to get by someone, there's only about an inch of space to get by (if that), and they have a twenty minute conversation loaded, cocked, and ready to fire each and every time you try to step around 'em. On the bright side, you can kill them dead.

Or, uh, so I heard.

AI controlled characters sometimes join you, but they're hardly any help at all as their entire schtick is to walk around aimlessly and shoot/magic/stab/nothing randomly all around them with absolutely no regard as to where the bad guys actually are. There are certain things you can get them to do if you use the "ASK" option, like heal you or whatever, but that's really where their helpfulness begins and ends.

But the thing that ended up annoying me the most was the fact that there were locked doors in dungeons for which you needed keys. Not so much that these things existed, as they're a perfectly good staple of video games overall. It was that I had to buy the keys at stores outside the dungeons, straining the seams on my tiny and usually already full-to-bursting inventory bag. It was either that or simply hoping that they would randomly drop from an enemy, which they only very rarely did.

This still wouldn't have been so bad if the locked doors were only to special areas with extra stuff. But as the game progresses more and more of these doors are part of the actual gauntlet that you need to run to get to the end. Furthermore, if you traveled enough rooms away, the doors you had already unlocked before will magically reappear, locked once again and requiring another key from your inventory to pass through! All put together, this smacks of simple douchebaggery on the part of the programmers, and it's the reason I finally gave up on beating the game about halfway through.

That's right, I'm doing a full review on a game I didn't finish. I usually don't like doing that, but I think I still managed to play enough to get a good feel of what FFA's about. The problem is that I got into a section of Dark Lord's castle that was about six or seven rooms from one end to the other, and both of those ends had locked doors on them. And I had run out of keys. And after nearly two hours of grinding through monsters I still hadn't found a key drop. I probably could have kept grinding for several more hours until a key finally fell out of one of the treasure chests, but all the other little annoyances in the game had already discouraged me and this was just the last straw.

The Challenge
Your allies are randomly attacking morons and the enemies are absolutely no different. With very few exceptions (those generally being the ones firing magic attacks), every single baddie just walks slowly around the screen, attacking the air around them in the hopes that they eventually hit something. More often than not, the threat they pose is one of being unpredictable as well as just sheer numbers crowding in your way.

I know it's just a Game Boy game, but surely something a little bit better than this was possible. At least getting either the baddies or the goodies to actively turn toward whatever side of the screen the opposition is on, even if they don't line themselves up exactly.

In any case, this makes the game frustratingly uneven in the challenge arena with everything being up to simply how the random number gods decide to fall that particular battle.

The Sights
If there's one spot I can say FFA does bring the goods, it's in the looks department. The backgrounds are pretty good, and the sprites are pretty much spectacular. While not tremendously expressive, they are very detailed and well designed. I am approve.

The Sounds
As mentioned in the gameplay section, the "hit" sound effect can often be difficult to detect. One of the reasons for this is that the background music is often loud and almost uniformly terrible. There's the occasional gem that slipped through somehow, but for the most part the music is clanging, piercing, grating, or otherwise just plain horrible. I tried not to pay attention to it as much as possible, and even tried to shut it off so I could listen to some of my own music, but unfortunately I still needed some of the sound cues to play the game properly.

Bleh.

The Bottom Line
I have to say that I wasn't sure I could make it through this review without inevitably drawing comparisons to the sequel Secret of Mana. Thankfully I think I managed quite well and such comparisons can wait until I do the SoM review.

Now, I know that much of what I've said here has been pretty negative, but I do have to say that for the most part all of my complaints are rather small ones. The annoyances were petty more often than not, and on their own I could have easily ignored them and gotten on with the game. It's just that there were so many of them all ganging up on me at once that my patience finally began to wear thin.

I could see, however, why so many folks like FFA, why it has a good-sized fan-base. It's just that I personally couldn't look past the flaws to truly enjoy the gem that I could sense hidden underneath. If you like action, RPGs, or action RPGs, I would definitely recommend you at least give this game a whirl. Who knows? You might be able to enjoy it where I didn't!

Mickey Mousecapade

Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System
Developer: Hudson Soft
Released: 1988
Genre: Platformer

The Story
Mickey and Minnie hear a cry for help from a mysterious source! Ever ready to lend a hand to someone in need, they set off on an adventure to save whoever it is from whatever the heck is going on!

The Game
Though not exactly a remarkable game in and of itself, the background of the game is actually a bit interesting. It was originally titled Micky Mouse: Adventures in Wonderland when it was released in Japan by Hudson Soft. Capcom then brought it over to the English speaking world, changing the name to Mickey Mousecapade (not Mickey MousecapadeS as so many people, including myself, have called it), altering almost every sprite in the game, and changing the story a bit. The full scope of these changes will be described in the appropriate sections below, but suffice it to say . . . they didn't make too much sense.

In any case, MM is also remarkable in that it started an era of Capcom making Disney-themed games. If nothing else, I think we can all thank MM for paving the way for Duck Tales.

The Characters
The main two characters of the game are Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Disney's prominent mascot and his girlfriend. They're sort of emulating their mostly-silent versions here, as Mickey says a total of two different words throughout the entire game, and as far as I can remember Minnie doesn't say anything at all.

These two intrepid mousies are off on an adventure to save . . . ALICE! ALICE ALICE ALICE! Y'know, from Wonderland? There, I spoiled the surprise. But I had to, you see. Firstly, because in the Japanese version, it's not a surprise. Right from the start it's known that you're going to be battling your way through Wonderland (I mean, heck, it's in the title) to save poor little girl Alice who has been caught and imprisoned and whatnot. Secondly, it needs to be mentioned to help along with the talking about the changes that were made to the game thing. And thirdly, I remember just how bitterly disappointed I was that I was saving Alice. It was made out to be this big huge mystery as to who I was trying to save . . . and it was just li'l ol' Alice.

I mean, I guess she deserves to be saved just like anybody else, but Capcom actually set things up to be like some sort of cool mystery, like there was going to be an awesome twist at the end. Like you beat the game and it turns out you were actually saving Mickey and Minnie and you weren't the real Mickey and Minnie but robots from the future made to look like them sent back to the past to save them from their certain death! But no, it's just Alice.

So if you haven't played the game before and you might have been intrigued by the cool mystery, I have just saved you the bother. No need to thank me. Just doin' my job.

Anyway, next we have the bosses. This is where the major changes to the game come in. As mentioned enough to make one gag already, the original version of MM was set in Wonderland. You wouldn't really be able to tell it from the stages unless you thought about it way too hard, but at least the bosses were Wonderland material through and through. The Cheshire Cat, the Dodo, the Caterpillar, and finally her big bad majesty, the Queen of Hearts. Well, there's also Captain Hook of Peter Pan fame. Apparently Neverland takes up some Wonderland real estate. In the Americanized version, however? These become a witch, a crocodile, a snake, and Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty. Oh, and the good Cap'n is replaced by Pegleg Pete in his pirate garb.

You may notice that only two of these replacement bosses really have any direct connection with Disney. Of course, there have been some attempts by people to place the others somewhere in the Disneyverse as well. The most logical and probable of these is the crocodile, thought to be the clock-swallowing croc who's always after Captain Hook's other hand. The reason this seems sound is the fact that said tick-tock croc is actually on the game's American box art. Of course, this brings up the question of why they bothered putting in the croc if they took out Hook? Less probable is that the snake is Kaa from The Jungle Book. I mean, it's possible, but it barely looks anything like him. And the most bewildering of all is the witch. There have been a couple of witches in Disney cartoons, but this one doesn't look anything like any of them past the whole stereotypical witch look.

Then there are the smaller, regular baddies that roam the various levels. And though most of them had absolutely nothing to do with Alice in Wonderland or even Disney in general, many of them were changed as well. Stuff like switching out gophers for cats and one kind of bird for another kind of bird and even simple color swaps like turning pink flowers red. At least if the flowers had been white in the original and they'd been changed to red for the overseas release, that could have been a very clever inside joke on Capcom's part.

I've taken a look around to see if I could find the reasons for these changes, but the overwhelming evidence seems to indicate that nobody knows why Capcom did this. People have theories of course, but then people always have theories. In the end, it just doesn't seem to make any sense. The only reason to have hidden the Wonderland characters was to keep Alice's presence a secret, which in itself didn't make sense.

The Writing
The original story is very straightforward. Alice is kidnapped by the Queen of Hearts. Micky and Minnie try to save her. As mentioned before, Capcom tried to mix this up a little . . . and in this at least they were halfway successful in making an intriguing story. They hid the identity of the person in trouble, adding some mystery to the proceedings. The box art and the ads showed footprints leading them on, and I remember feeling a sense of following those footprints in the game itself. Which was kind of exciting, sort of like I was an adventuring sleuth on the trail.

But, as also mentioned before, the mystery guest is just Alice. So . . . yay? Seems like a waste of a good marketing campaign. And basically that was all they succeeded at in the writing arena: making a good marketing campaign. The game itself is typical of most older platformers in that if you can find any actual narrative structure, then more than likely it was merely accidental, not something the creators had intended.

Even if one took into account that the game was supposed to be proceeding through Wonderland as per the original storyline, the levels simply have little to nothing to do with Wonderland. You could make cases for the house being the mirror house from Through the Looking Glass or the ocean level being the ocean of Alice's tears, or the forest being . . . um. Well, there were a couple of different forests in the movie, I guess. But see, that's the thing, the levels are at best only vaguely connected to anything Disney in general much less Wonderland specifically. They're just sort of generic settings for Mickey and Minnie to jump around in.

Capcom gets an E for Effort regarding the adverts, but they and Hudson both get an F for pretty much everything else.

The Gameplay
Much of the game is set up to be a pretty standard platformer. There are enemies running around trying to attack you. There are items to pick up. There are, ultimately, platforms.

Players take control Mickey as he jumps his way around these platforms, shooting at enemies with stars (energy balls in the original) and generally just being a typical platformer hero. Players also take control of Minnie. Though by "take control" in this instance I mean "hope she kind of does what you want/need her to do at any particular moment".

Those of you who remember my review of Stimpy's Invention (and why shouldn't you, it was just a couple of weeks ago!) will surely remember that I was rather disparaging of the double-character control setup. Mickey Mousecapade is not disabusing me of that disparagement. Minnie does bring a little to the plate after you've procured her star attack, enabling you to utilize her in an inventive way during boss fights (protip: she's invincible against enemy attack and can climb ladders while you stay on a lower level), but otherwise she's a drain. A lead weight. A nuisance.

If she dies, Mickey dies. And when you're jumping over deadly pits like in the ocean level, she can and will fall into said deadly pits if you're not careful to keep her right there with you. If Mickey is at an exit but Minnie isn't, neither of them can leave the room. This lead to at least a few instances (especially during the final stage in the castle) where I'd clear out an entire room and it would still take me an extra half a minute or so trying to get her up all the platforms to the exit.

And then there's the thing where you find secret items and reveal them with your star shooter only to find out that it's a monster that kidnaps Minnie and you have to get her back by finding a secret key and then playing a guessing mini-game to get her back. So that's fun.

Not.

But even if the double character nonsense got taken out, there's still a lot of little annoyances in the game from a single character perspective. I do have to say that it's interesting in a way, at least. Playing a lot of these older games makes me realize just how much we now take for granted in platformer games, even the fancy 3D ones of the modern age. Stuff that simply doesn't exist in this game. Stuff like being able to jump from ladders and being able to jump straight up in the air but then move around to some other position like a floating leaf that tumbles at its own discretion. Here you can only drop from ladders like a stone, usually right into enemy fire, and if you just straight up in the air then you're not going to be doing anything other falling straight back down.

This isn't really bad, per se. It's annoying, but only because I've been pampered by modern gameplay. Otherwise it's merely an interesting thing to note about the evolution of the platformer genre in general.

The Challenge
Y'know, I remember that when I was a kid, I thought Mickey Mousecapade was tough as hell. Ridiculously hard in the grand tradition of many Nintendo games of the age. I was surprised, then, upon picking it up for first time in at least two decades and busting out the first three levels with only a few minor irritations. They were, sadly, irritations of the type where things aren't really challenging in a fair and balanced way but in a "oh FUCK YOU, GAME" way. Still, easily surmountable.

Then I got to the pirate ship stage where the game suddenly became a cheap-shot whorebitch. Fuck you, MM, for setting up four rooms in which hits cannot possibly be reasonably avoided and progress is done more through luck and determination than through skill and gradually learning the curve. Fuck you so very much.

At the very least it had the decency to actually limit it to just those four rooms. The castle level after is back to a more sprawling architecture and is still rather difficult to navigate, but at least it isn't the complete middle finger to the players that the pirate ship manages to distill and compress so well.

I'll give the game a middle of the road assessment on challenge, but only as an average of the two extremes.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that I can't really state with any authority of the final boss. I managed to get an invincibility fairy right toward the end of the game and touched Maleficent just before it wore off. I didn't really expect it to work but thought, "Eh, what the hell." It did work, meaning I beat her in a possibly record breaking two seconds. Go me!

The Sights
Honestly, I was fully prepared to just about completely bypass this section with a simple "meh", but upon reflection I find I can't. Much of this reflection has a great deal to do with checking out the various sprite differences between the Hudson and Capcom versions of the game. The thing is, compared to the vast majority of early NES games, MM has it going on. The stages are pretty vibrant, the sprites are actually pretty well constructed in both versions, and it almost looks like it was made at a later stage in the system's life than it actually was. The forest stage is probably the best of the settings, which is kind of surprising given it's pretty much the same thing over and over again only in different seasons.

The Sounds
Not stellar, but still pretty catchy. Seemed like a nice preview of the much better music that would later be heard in Duck Tales.

The Bottom Line
Eh, I have a tough time categorizing this one, really. If you've got nothing else to do some lazy afternoon, bust this game out and give it a whirl. It can be a fun little romp when it's not causing minor blood pressure spikes. But more than it's worth as a game, it should probably be played through at least once for the appreciation of the place in video game history it occupies. Much of what Capcom became through the late 80's and early-to-mid 90's was because they handled publishing this game.

Fun: College Humor Mario

My game controller is on the blink at the moment and there's not much going on in old school gaming news that I'm aware of, so y'all get some more entertaining videos. Hooray!

Fun stuff website College Humor has been doing a series of Mario-related videos as of late, all of them more or less hilarious. The above is just a sample . . . check out Bowser's Minions, Sonic and Mario's Awkward Reunion, Mario and Princess Sex Tape, Luigi Finally Snaps, and The Problem with Warp Whistles for the full Mario awesomeness.

Fun: Three Princesses, No Waiting

Nothing says "old school gaming" like the princesses from the Super Mario franchise, right? Peach and Daisy have been around for, like, ever, and though I wasn't exactly fond of Rosalina at first since she's relatively new and I am both afraid of new things and angry that new things even exist, I have to admit that she's grown on me. And by that, I mean that I am willing to overlook her horning in on the other princesses' action because she is quite attractive for a video game character.

Anyway, the point of me babbling on about P, D, and R is to point y'all's attention to some quality entertainment starring these three fine ladies!

The Three Little Princesses by Yves "The Bourgyman" Bourgelas is a fun little romp revolving around Rosalina's attempts to survive the insane attentions of Peach and Daisy, who have basically kidnapped her so they can have a sleepover. It's filled with slapstick, situational comedy, and hilarious cartoony visuals that are fun for the whole family! And it's all finished up, so you can read it from beginning to end right away, which I hear is pretty nice. If you like your humor light, frothy, and filled with people being comicly oblivious to the feelings of others, then T3LP is the comic for you!

The Three Not-So-Princesses by The Artrix (who's real name escapes me at the moment and I'm too lazy to bother looking it up) was inspired by T3LP, but Artrix is taking his offering in a far more depressing and disturbing yet no less entertaining direction. No longer princesses, Peach, Daisy, and Rosalina now share a flat in the dystopian city of Rothingham, working for their livings and generally having a rotten, miserable time of it. Other characters from the games - such as Wario, as seen in the page above - have popped up in this alternate universe, and there have been hints of more to come as the comic goes along. If you like your humor dark, sarcastic, and guaranteed to crush the souls of everyone involved, then T3NSP is the comic for you!

Me? I like 'em both. That probably says something about me.

Something like, "That Jim guy sure has good taste in comics".

News: Nintendo Becomes Remake King

I bet you were hoping for a screenshot from the Goldeneye remake, weren't you? Weren't you?! Well, since that's what everyone's buzzing about and because I'm an ornery old cuss that happens to like the Lufia series better than Goldeneye (that's right!), you get a picture of a whiny elf girl talking in Japanese instead. Or one of them there foreign languages, anyway.

I tend to automatically tune out all the E3 shenanigans that come my way, mostly because it's pretty depressing hearing everyone salivate over all the new, shiny toys that I won't get to play with until several years after they get released. I just can't get excited about stuff that's so far out of my reach that it takes the light emanating from that stuff at least a thousand years to reach my position in the video gaming universe.

But IGN and Nintendo are starting to school me rather harshly that if there was any year an old school gamer like me should be paying attention to that big old expo, it's most definitely this year. The Starfox 64 remake that I talked about yesterday really should have tipped me off on what was happening, but I'm kind of slow on the uptake. Along with developing all new installments in several of their oldest and most vaunted series, Nintendo is also working on a nice little stable of remakes, updates, and ports of old games as well.

Besides the aforementioned Starfox, there's the aforementioned Goldeneye do over for the Wii that's on everyone's minds right now since it sold roughly 10 billion copies and everyone on Earth and every other inhabited planet in the entire universe would gladly bend themselves over and allow the N64 James Bond classic to lavish their orifices with whatever it has that passes for an enormous penis. For those of you who couldn't penetrate that horrifically tortured metaphor, it means that people really really liked the original game and are apparently very excited about its upcoming remake.

And why shouldn't they be? Even though I wasn't as completely wowed by it as everyone else, even I could see that it was a pretty well constructed and definitely fun and entertaining game. Further, they're replacing ol' Pierce Brosnan with newest and coolest Bond actor Daniel Craig, updating all the graphics to insanely gorgeous levels, and adding new gameplay mechanics that will, amongst other things, emphasize stealth even more than the original did. There doesn't seem to be much reason not to be excited. I mean, look at this:

Seriously. That's just pretty. (via IGN)

But now that I've pandered to the masses, I'd like to get all of my fellow old school RPG players to please turn their attention to the front of the class, because Nintendo is working on a remake of Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals to be called Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals and to be released on the DS. Now, there are going to be changes, of course, as there are with virtually every remake ever remade (the battle system, for example, is going to be action RPG rather than turn-based RPG style), but apparently the characters, storyline, and the like are going to be kept intact. Which is cool, because the Lufia series has always run some pretty good storylines with pretty good writing and characterization.

And I gotta say, it sure looks like they aren't going to be skimming on the graphics for this one.

Hopefully this is just the start of a revitalization of the entire series, which I figure is most likely the case since they're starting with the first game chronologically instead of just doing Lufia & the Fortress of Doom right off the bat. While Lufia may not hold quite the same obsessive shrine-like spot in my shriveled black heart that Final Fantasy occupies, I still hold it in very high regard and wouldn't mind seeing more extra pretty versions of it gracing the television and/or DS screens of the world. (via IGN)

Man, I'm starting this whole "hard-hitting old school gaming reporter" bit off right on IGN's teat, aren't I? I might need to think about looking into some other gaming news sites unless I start getting some of those sweet IGN bucks coming my way.

News: I Guess I Should Be Thankful!

Nintendo is apparently working on developing a port/remake of Starfox 64 for the upcoming 3DS. So, one of the best games made for the N64 being given a complete upgrade of its graphics, being made in digital 3D, and playable on a handheld system? The only way it could possibly be more awesome is if it also made all your favorite dishes, downloaded legal currency into your bank account for every bad guy you shoot down, and performed oral sex on you while you played it. (via IGN)

Super Castlevania IV

Platform:  Super NES
Developer:  Konami
Released:  1991
Genre:  Platformer

The Game
Dracula has once again risen to plague the land.  Simon, a member of the Belmont clan and sworn to face and defeat the evil vampire, must take up the legendary whip Vampire Killer and meet his destiny in Dracula's castle.

Super Castlevania IV used to occupy a somewhat strange area in the Castlevania series.  It was built to be a remake of the original Castlevania and was considered so over in Japan.  When it was ported over to America, however, Konami's American branch presented it as a sequel to the previous games in the series.  It continued in this dual role for some time, but now it is universally considered to be a remake only.  Which is a good thing, really, because otherwise it would have made an already confusing timeline even more convoluted than necessary.

It still carries the moniker "Super Castlevania IV" here in the English speaking countries despite this clarification.

The Characters
Simon Belmont is our hero, purportedly one of the greatest if not the greatest member of his clan.  If nothing else, he seems to be the most highly revered.  But like most silent action game protagonists, he's got very little in the way of characterization.  About all we know about the guy is that he's plenty determined to plant the tip of his whip right in between Dracula's beady little eyes.

Dracula is Dracula.  You know the drill, surely . . . swanky nobleman type with mysterious powers and an unending streak of evil several miles wide.  He also drinks the blood of the living, leads an army of monstrous minions, and has some prime Gothic real estate.

The Writing
You are Simon.  You gotta kill Dracula.  Doesn't get much simpler than that.  Nor does it get any more complex.  But that's to be expected for this type of game.

The Gameplay
SCIV is notable for upgrading Simon's abilities from the original Castlevania with many of those abilities becoming staples of the series from that point forward.  Instead of just flicking his whip out in one way over and over again, Simon can now attack in almost any direction . . . though whipping downward in any way requires him to be up in the air.  He can also hold the whip out and flick it around lightly (while still able to cause damage) in whatever direction the player presses, one of the innovations that was carried over in several later titles in the series.  He can latch on to fixed points and swing Indy Jones style from platform to platform.  And so on and so forth.

Overall, I was half-impressed and half-disappointed in the gameplay.  Being able to whip in virtually any direction was a most definitely welcome addition, the whip flicking worked well both offensively and defensively, and Simon moves very well.

But!

You can jump onto stairs, you can jump down from them, but you can't jump up from them, causing a bit of frustration.  It doesn't matter how dire the situation is and how helpful it might be for you to jump up to a higher platform from the stairs to get away from congregating enemies, Simon is stubbornly stuck to those steps as if they were all made of glue.  This becomes especially annoying with the stairs that connect right to the edge of a platform.  Several times I found myself trying to jump from that platform to another one, but because I was just a single pixel to far to one side, I would end up flailing helplessly on the jump button while Simon stood there on the top step and looked at me all confused, saying "What?  What?!  I don't know what you're wanting me to do!"

Whenever Simon gets hit, he flies around like the victim of a 10,000 volt current.  I understand that this is supposed to be a hazard and is a common element of both a lot of platformers in general and Castlevania in particular, but in this game, it really does seem like he's been caught in a miniature explosion, throwing him several yards to one side.  The overblown nature of this effect is especially felt in areas where getting hit is both almost entirely unavoidable and invariably results in getting tossed down the nearest pit.  Simon really should have taken his anti-convulsants before going into Dracula's lair.

I was both impressed and disappointed right from the beginning by by dual layered fortress level (1-2).  Though a simple gimmick, I rather liked it and it gave some extra depth (Get it?  Two layers?  Depth?!) to the level, but sadly it was not repeated again in later levels.  I thought it was at one point and was all excited until I realized that there was just stuff hanging down on another, non-playable layer in front of me.  I find it kind of strange that they would not take further advantage of this game mechanic throughout the rest of the game.

Still, overall, it's not too horrible bad.  It all evens out to a pretty standard platform experience.

The Challenge
This game can't seem to make up its mind whether it's trying to be super-easy or super-hard.  The difficulty curve does indeed gradually curve upward overall, but in specific instances it will shoot up and down erratically at breakneck speed.

One of the parts where it seems to be easier than it really should is whenever you die and start the level over.  At the beginning of the game and every time he dies, Simon starts out with a basic leather version of his whip.  It's short and it's not very powerful, but pretty much without fail the very first candle you snuff out will provide you with a whip upgrade.  And then within the next five to ten candles, you get the second and final whip upgrade.  If they're just going to hand out these upgrades like it's Halloween and you're wearing your very best vampire hunter costume, then what's the point of having the upgrades at all?  I think I killed approximately seven monsters in all with anything less than the fully powered up whip.

One of the parts where it seems to be harder than it really should is whenever spikes are involved.  Fuck you, spikes!

End bosses seem to be a mixed bag.  One might be somewhat challenging, the next taken down with a mere flick of your whip in its general direction, and the one after that a nightmare from which you may never wake.

The Graphics
I gotta say, the graphics are pretty nice.  Each area is pretty creepy, the sprites are fairly lively, and there is some good use of the SNES' Mode 7 feature, including one stage that has the background constantly rolling in the background, making it look like you're moving through a massive funhouse tube.  The boss sprites are pretty imaginative and well made . . . I can see why a lot of them were reused in Symphony of the Night.

The Music
I wasn't really paying attention to the music for the most part (oops!), but what I recall of it was pretty good.

The Bottom Line
I'm gonna be up front here . . . the straight platformer Castlevania games aren't my favorite things in the world.  I'm one of those guys who much prefer the Metroidvania style entries that eventually took over the series.  Still, this wasn't half bad.  Good graphics, decent gameplay, and the addition of some of the things that I like about the later Metroidvania games all add up to a pretty good installment.  Points off for being just one of a few remakes of the original Castlevania, but still a pretty good game despite that.  Worth playing.

Shadowrun (SNES)

Platform:  Super Nintendo
Developer:  Beam Software
Released:  1993
Genre:  Action RPG

The Game
Jake Armitage is having a bad day.  But most days in which you die and wake up in the morgue aren't going to be your best, and that's just the situation in which Jake has found himself.  Unable to remember exactly what happened to him, he has to follow a thin trail of clues in order to figure it all out.  As he makes his way around the Seattle Metroplex in the year 2050 he has to dodge all of the people trying to kill him a second time, find help wherever he can get it, learn the path of a shamanic magician, and take down a couple of megacorporations to bring a conclusion to his adventure.  Just another day in the life of a shadowrunner.

Shadowrun is based on the popular pencil and paper RPG system of the same name.  Set in the only somewhat distant future, corporations more or less rule the parts of the world that the remnants of the sovereign nations no longer hold (and some of those chunks as well) and magic has returned to the world.  Shadowrunners are mercenaries willing to do virtually any job for the right price, finding profit by slipping through the cracks of civilization and doing the jobs the corporations aren't willing or able to dirty their own hands with directly.

The Characters
You can hire on other shadowrunners throughout the course of the game, but the only main protagonist is Jake himself, and he only speaks a few times, making any determinations concerning his character fairly difficult.  At the very least he seems prepared to finish the job he's been given and do the right thing when it comes down to it.

The bad guys - primarily taking the form of Drake, a dragon in charge of his own little corporate empire - are usually distant and cranky, but they're undeniably evil because . . . well, I guess they just are, dammit.  It's really a black and grey morality at work here.  The best baddie is undeniably the Jester Spirit, however, with his sadistically amusing dialogue and interesting character arc.

While characterization in this game isn't exactly deep, it's still there.  Virtually every NPC and PC you meet has their own distinct voice, all speaking with different accents, turns of phrase, and attitude.  Some of them - like Norbert, my favorite little maniac dwarf shadowrunner - are actually pretty damn entertaining at times.

The Writing
The story is a mildly complex plot that holds up pretty well, even if specific motivations are rarely called into question.  There are a few good revelations and a couple of decent twists . . . nothing great, but enough to keep a player interested and entertained.  In the end and despite a few oddities here and there, it definitely gives the feel of a typical Shadowrun adventure.

The dialogue is where the writing really shines, however.  As mentioned before, each character has their own particular way of talking, meaning you won't get bored chatting up four or five people with identical speech patterns.  The writing also has a good bit of clever wit about it . . . one of the runners you can hire on is a shaman named Dances With Clams, and he makes ocean references from time to time.

One thumb up.

The Gameplay
The game works on a point and click interface that would have been more at home on a PC than on the SNES.  Examining, manipulating, and picking up things isn't really so bad, but having to hit a button, move the cursor over, and then start spamming the button some more whenever one wants to initiate combat is a little bothersome, especially since no one else - including any runners you may have hired - aren't bound by any such restriction.  You also can't move Jake around while any of the cursors (manipulate, attack, magic) are active, meaning that while your enemies are free to go wherever they want while they're filling Jake with lead, Jake has to stand rooted to one spot while he returns fire.

Also unfortunate is the dialogue window.  While talking to people, you receive certain words and phrases that you can repeat to them for more information or tell to other people to get more info or advance the story in some way.  The unfortunate part is that after a while you collect an exorbitant number of keywords, and unless you already know exactly which ones will and won't get a response, you have to go down through the entire list, one word at a time, until you find just the right one or two that will make things proceed.  And if you forget or miss that one little word somehow, you might go nuts trying to figure out what you did wrong and end up starting the whole process all over again.  I remember that the first time I played this game, I was stuck in the first section for what seemed like hours all because I somehow missed saying "Lone Star" to this one guy tucked off the back office of a building.

Still, it's not too horrible.  The system is, overall, workable.  The karma system is okay.  Basic, not too deep, but it does its job.

The Challenge
I've played and beaten this game several times before, but even knowing exactly where I needed to go and exactly what I needed to do when I got there, it was still fairly challenging for me.  I'd like to take this as a hallmark of a well-balanced game, that it can be challenging (if not as challenging) for veteran players and newbie players alike.  It helps keep one from getting bored with it too easily.

The Graphics
For the most part, the graphics are beautiful, showing off worn-down slums and shiny, glittering office buildings alike with wonderful style.  The overall map of the game is pretty small compared to most SNES games, but it makes up for it by making each section of that map unique, a collection of greatly varied environments from a car-lined junkyard to a Gothic cemetery to high-rise offices to underground computer labs, with almost no cloning of rooms whatsoever.

Where the graphics fail is regarding small clickable objects, a common problem with a lot of early point and click adventure games.  One of the first items you're supposed to pick up is a scalpel from the morgue Jake wakes up in.  Unfortunately, the scalpel is only about three pixels long, so it takes a little trial and error to even discover that it's something you're supposed to take unless you already know what you're looking for.

The Music
I love the music in this game.  It's got a kind of "rock noir" sound to it a lot of the time, and I found myself quite often singing along with the catchy background tunes.

The Bottom Line
I'm an avid fan of the Shadowrun setting, having been playing and GMing it off and on since high school.  I can't say I'm horribly impressed with this particular outing . . . I'm not particularly fluent in the first edition version that this game is apparently based on, but I'm still fairly certain that a lot was cut out or changed in the transition.  Prickly little things like a very shallow stats system and having a character use magic and cyberware without any sort of detriment.

Still, I don't hate it, either.  It plays pretty well and is a decent diversion for a slow afternoon.  Let's just call it middle of the road and leave it at that.

Goof Troop

Platform:  Super NES
Developer:  Capcom
Released:  1993
Genre:  Puzzle-based Action Adventure

The Game
While out on a relaxing fishing trip, Pete and PJ get kidnapped by dastardly pirates and carted off to the nearby island of Spoonerville.  Goofy and Max give chase, determined to save their neighbors.  To do so, they have to work their way across the island, solving puzzles and whacking pirates across the noggins with barrels, potted plants, or anything else they can get their grubby mitts on.

Goof Troop the game, for the uninitiated, is based on Goof Troop the cartoon series, which was part of the 90's Disney heyday, back when both their TV shows and animated movies didn't suck major balls.  It was part of the same great lineup of Disney TV toons as Darkwing Duck, The Little Mermaid, and Aladdin, the last two of which (in my own personal opinion) managed to equal or even outshine the movies they spun off from.  How the big D's TV branch went from creating top notch entertainment like this to making crap like Cinderella II: Dreams Come True (originally the pilot for a TV series which got nixed, bumping it to direct-to-DVD) is beyond me.

The Characters
Goofy is . . . well, Goofy.  I think we all know Goofy.

Max, Goofy's son, is thankfully here the younger, fun-loving TV version and not the whiny emo teenager brat from A Goofy Movie.

Pete is Goofy's greedy, sour neighbor and (often backstabbing) sometimes friend.  When it turns out that the pirates kidnapped him because they mistook him for their long lost captain, he milks it for all its worth, ordering the pirates about and generally living it up.

PJ is Pete's kid and Max's best friend . . . and about the only thing he does in this game besides get kidnapped and then later saved is worry briefly what's going to happen to him and his dad if the pirates figure things out.

And finally there's Keelhaul Pete, the real captain and the final boss of the game, who's mighty unhappy with the impostor who's shown up in his absence.

Oh, there's also a bunch of pirates, who are trying to stop Goofy and Max, as well as the peaceful villagers of Spoonerville island, who . . . man, I dunno.  I figured they were there to give hints and clues and advice or whatever, but mostly they just spout needless exposition.

The Writing
Very simple, very basic, but surprisingly true and authentic to the show.  The only dialogue and narration is in short cutscenes at the beginning and end of the game as well as between each stage, but I can see what little there is being used if they'd actually had an episode of Goof Troop about pirates kidnapping Pete and PJ.  The characters are in character the whole way, and that's pretty cool.

The Gameplay
Pretty damn good, I must say!  And not just for a licensed product, but just as a general game!  I'm as shocked as anyone might be!  That's why I keep using these exclamation points!  Wow!

The game is primarily puzzle based, trying to figure out what combination of tools (wooden planks to close up small gaps, bells to make the pirates follow you, grappling hooks to grab things, stun pirates, close up large gaps, etc.) you need to get past an area, or what order you need to kick blocks around into the holes so that doors will open.  There's some minor inventory management puzzles, as you can only carry two items at a time, which are surprisingly not annoying and are relegated mostly toward the end of the game, where they add a little more challenge.

There is action involved, what with the pirates that are coming after you, but oftentimes said action is part of the puzzle as well.  Some doors won't open until you've defeated all the enemies in the room, and the game will force you into coming up with inventive ways of dealing with the pirates instead of just straightforward bashing their skulls in.

All in all, big thumbs up!

The Challenge
There were a few puzzles that had me scratching my head for a few moments, but for the most part everything - both action and puzzles - was easy and quite simple.  This is unsurprising and perfectly understandable, however, as the game was almost certainly created primarily for younger children, for whom it would provide a good deal more challenge.  And even though I zipped through the game with little to no problems, I was having more than enough fun that the low difficulty was entirely forgivable.

The only point where I actually did find myself sitting up and taking notice was the final battle against Keelhaul Pete.  It still wasn't all that hard, but he's a mean old bastard, that's for sure.

The Graphics
The design of the characters and rooms was great, marred only by spotty textures.  Being a game based on a cartoon, I think that it would have benefited much more from having mostly flat colors, similar to the visuals in The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past.  The pseudo-realistic feel that they seemed to be trying for didn't really work out so well.

Still, it wasn't an eyesore or anything.  I probably only noticed because, y'know, I was trying to pay attention to that kind of stuff for the review.

The Music
Catchy, pleasant, and inoffensive.

Y'know . . . Disney music.

The Bottom Line
Wow.

I really didn't expect to like this game, but I do.  I really really do.  Looking it up on Wikipedia after beating Keelhaul Pete revealed that it has a cult following, and I can see why.  It's simple, fun, and potentially addictive.  It doesn't fall into the same trap as most other licensed games, as well, that being to just make a crappy little half-made game and slap an already existing property onto it.  Capcom could definitely have made this game with original characters and no one would have known the difference, but the fact is that both the Goof Troop setting and the mechanics of this game work rather well with each other, making it where two things that are perfectly good separately have been combined to make something great together.

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow

Platform:  Game Boy Advance
Developer:  Konami
Released:  2003
Genre:  Metroidvania (Action Adventure)

The Game
During an eclipse in the year 2035, Soma Cruz and Mina Hark- er, Hakuba get sucked into Dracula's castle.  Finding themselves trapped, Mina stays by the entrance while Soma explores the building, trying to find a way out.  He meets several people tied to the mystery of the castle along the way, begins to display powers he never knew he had, and gets inexorably drawn into a dark destiny that's been waiting for him his whole life.

Aria of Sorrow is the second GBA Castlevania made by the folks who created Symphony of the Night, and it is the third and last Castlevania game made for the GBA overall.  It has a sequel, Dawn of Sorrow, which was made for the DS.

The Characters
Soma Cruz is our protagonist, ladies and gentlemen.  He's your typical white-haired Japanese pretty boy type, but he still manages to be a pretty interesting character for all that.  He's got the powers, the destiny, and the dark secret that even he doesn't know, which all gives him some pretty decent inner and outer conflicts.

Mina Harkne- dangit, did it again, I mean Mina Hakuba is his childhood friend (there seem to be a lot of those in Castlevania) and one of the keepers of the shrine from which the two of them get transported to the castle.  She spends most of her time giving hints (provided by one of the other characters) and healing Soma when he stops by to see her at the castle's entrance.  Basic two-dimensional support character.

Graham Jones is the primary antagonist for most of the game.  He tries to buddy up with Soma at first, but once he realizes that the younger man is absorbing the powers of the castle's monsters, he gets ticked.  Why?  Because he was born on the day that Dracula was last defeated (supposedly forever) back in 1999, and he intends to be the one to absorb all those powers, as well as the very essence of Dracula in the hopes of becoming Dracula himself.  He's kind of a jerk for the rest of the game, but even then he's pretty affable, since he believes his ascension is inevitable and that Soma is a minor speed bump at most on the path to his destiny.

Then there are a few minor characters wandering around . . .

Yoko Belnades is a member of the church who meets up with Soma a few times to encourage him and help keep him focused.  Genya Arikado is a dapper man in a suit who provides Soma with information about the castle, mostly by passing along hints through Mina.  He's also Alucard, Dracula's son.  I'm not really spoiling anything there . . . very early in the game, Yoko (I think it was Yoko, anyway) nearly calls him Alucard before correcting herself.  The shortly named J is an amnesiac wandering around the castle.  The only thing he's certain of is that he has some connection with what's going on, and he's right.

And then . . . there's Hammer.

Hammer is quite possibly one of the worst human beings in existence.  He's an American Army guy that was ordered to go to Mina's shrine, but once he gets trapped in Dracula's castle, he almost immediately abandons his ill-defined mission and decides to start selling crap that he's found to Soma for a profit.  So to start off with, he's a greedy wuss.  And he's also something of a stingy greedy wuss, since everything he sells is swords and spears and the like.  You're an army guy, dude!  Where's your machine gun?!  Your grenades?!  I'll buy 'em all!  Sure, I might need some sort of magic sword when I'm fighting Dracula Jones or whatever, but when I use the single Handgun in the game, it seems to perforate the regular monsters just fine!  Hell, the Zombie Soldiers throw grenades!  What, you couldn't find any extra grenades to sell me?!

And to cap off his being a useless greedy wuss, he's also got rape face.  I'm gonna show you a picture to prove it, but don't look too long or he might steal your soul . . .

There is absolutely nothing about that expression that doesn't say "YOU GOAN GET RAPED".  And yes, I know that might be profiling or whatever, but after Yoko gets injured and has to sit out the rest of the game unconscious at the main gate where Hammer's set up his shop, he asks Soma about her and says that she's his "type".  Yes, Hammer.  I'm quite sure that the unconscious woman who has a nasty knife wound is definitely your type, you sick fuck.

Sweet Jebus.

The Writing
Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and say the story is good.  Betrayal, dark destinies, good vs. evil, some enemies become friends and some friends become enemies, blah blah blah.  But it all seems to move so fast.  It might be a translation thing, I dunno and I'm quite willing to believe that's all there is to it, but a lot of the characters just seem to jump to certain (correct) conclusions pretty damn quick.  At one point, one of the characters asks Soma if he knows anything about "the predictions".  Exactly that.  Absolutely no clue as to exactly which predictions out of the millions or billions that have been made in the past, or even which of the lesser but still substantial numbers of very famous predictions made.  But Soma automatically divines that they mean the future insights of Nostradamus and is told "Exactly!".

And this sort of thing happens several times throughout the game, to the point where I started to believe that everyone in the castle had somehow gained either telepathic or precognitive powers.  A minor thing, but annoying nonetheless.

The Gameplay
Soma is sloooooooow, ohmigaw he is slow.  Not so slow that it's frustrating or annoying, really, but still slow enough that I noticed it almost constantly.  He doesn't get a proper dash maneuver until almost the very end of the game, so most of the time I was walking every damn where.  Fortunately, there are portals spaced somewhat evenly throughout the castle, allowing quick and easy transport from one area to another.  Also fortunately, his lack of speed doesn't adversely affect the combat for the most part.

I like the weapons system of Aria.  The Vampire Killer whip is cool, don't get me wrong.  But after playing around with nothing but that whip in Harmony of Dissonance, it felt good to get a nice variety of weapons to choose from.  Soma gets to choose from hammers (powerful but slow), spears (swung from underneath), and two kinds of swords (stabbing straight out and swinging down from above), as well as a nice selection of specialty weapons that work in various ways, such as the Whip Sword (acts like a whip, natch) and the Handgun (which shoots things from a distance, also natch).  The spears and hammers annoyed the hell out of me, so I stuck mostly to the swords which, thankfully, were the most plentiful weapon type in the game.

While I liked the weapons and most other aspects of the game's combat, I'm kind of on the fence about the soul system.  Much of Soma's abilities come from absorbing the randomly dropped souls of the monsters he kills.  There are three types, those being Red (one-shot attack abilities, activated like subweapons in other Castlevanias), Blue (sustained abilities, with a mixed bag of results covering attacks, defense, and movement), and Yellow (support abilities).  While I certainly like the depth of the system, allowing you to have a wide variety of power combination, I don't like that circumstances in the game often force you to change these abilities on the fly.  I don't know about anyone else, but I feel that if you end up spending as much or even more time in your menu screen switching out abilities as you do fighting monsters and, y'know, actually playing the game, there might be a small problem with the way the system is set up.

The Challenge
Aria of Sorrow sits right on the good side of frustratingly difficult for me.  There were a few times when I started to get truly annoyed at the cheap shit that kept getting thrown at me (the Disc Armors, green Medusa Heads, and most of the flying enemies were especially nasty about this), but overall I found the game to be decently challenging, especially after the slaughterously easy Harmony of Dissonance.  I found myself having to actually come up with different sets of tactics for each new monster I faced . . . hell, the fact that I had to come up with tactics to take any of the monsters out is in itself pretty cool, and points to good AI programming.  They weren't just buffing up monsters later in the game with more HP and MP, they were actually giving them unique abilities and behaviors that I had to take into account in order to get ahead.

So kudos on that!

The Graphics
It may be just me, but it looks like this game took a step back from Harmony in the graphics department, especially in the lighting effects of the lamps, candelabras, and the like.  There's also a few odd bits here and there that I noticed, such as the wavy fog cutting off oddly at walls.  As a trade-off, the character models - which was one of the few things I faulted Harmony on in the graphics department - have been much improved.  Soma isn't surrounded by a neon blue aura, his walk cycles make it look like he's moving with a goldurn purpose, and everyone actually appears like they belong in a Game Boy Advance game.  I really think-

GAH!  Jeez, okay, that's one graphic I definitely could have done without.

The Music
I decided to actually try and pay attention to the music for this game, and I found it very easy to do here, 'cause I like it!  If I was the type to buy soundtracks to things, I might possibly someday perhaps consider maybe buying the AoS soundtrack.

The Bottom Line
Yah, I complained about a few things, but they were mostly minor.  Overall I feel that this is a good and definitely very solid game.  Played once, would play again.

Metroid Fusion

Platform:  Game Boy Advance
Developer:  Nintendo R&D1
Released:  2002
Genre:  Action Adventure

The Game
Some time after the events in Super Metroid, Samus Aran goes back to SR388 (the home planet of the metroids, which she scoured clean of the little buggers back in Metroid II: Return of Samus) with a group of scientists from the Biologic Space Laboratories (aka BSL).  She encounters and is infected by an organism that becomes known as an X Parasite.  The X attacks not only her but the organic parts of her suit, several sections of which the scientists have to surgically remove and later send off to one of their labs for study.  Just as Samus is about to shuffle off this mortal coil, someone hits on the idea of using some Metroid cells to whip up an antidote, and it works!  Samus can never be infected by X again, but it has irreversibly changed her cellular structure.  After she has mostly recovered, she gets a call from the Galactic Federation, sending her to the BSL space station on which her infected suit parts were being studied.  Seems there's been some sort of mishap, and they need Samus to go check it out . . .

Metroid Fusion is the fourth game in the primary Metroid series (despite the "Prime" in their name, the Metroid Prime series is a side story that happens in between Metroid and Metroid II), and the second to be on a hand-held system.

The Characters
Samus does a lot more gabbing in this game than she does in most Metroid installments, though we still don't get too much info on just what she's like.  We know that she's basically pragmatic, resourceful, determined, and has a problem with authority . . . but that could be said of virtually any action hero.

Fusion introduces a new character into the Metroid universe, an artificial intelligence that Samus eventually nicknames "Adam", after a commanding officer of hers of which she was somewhat fond.  He's an interesting character, and I actually look forward to seeing more of both him and his namesake, the latter of which is slated to appear in the upcoming Other M.

The best character in the game, however, has to be the X Parasites themselves.  They've turned out to be a very interesting new foe for Samus, a worthy successor to the space pirates and metroids of the previous games.  I found the way they work to be very well thought out and executed.  After infecting and absorbing the cells of a host creature, killing it off in the process, the X has the ability to duplicate the form and abilities of that creature.  In their natural form, they appear to be a giant floating mass of plasm.  If this had been another series - say, System/Bio Shock instead of Metroid - I could see how they could have turned into something extremely dark and creepy, which gave them a nice edge.  Not that they aren't kinda creepy anyway.

Speaking of creepy, and representing the best of the best, is SA-X.  SA-X is the X Parasite which infested the organic parts of Samus' original suit, and it has used that and the bits of Samus' DNA that it absorbed to turn itself into the ultra ass kicking machine that Samus was at the end of Super Metroid.  This scary bitch truly is creepy, and dangerous, and every time she comes on the screen, the game lets you know it.  She is also, of course, the final boss (or at least the last one to really count), and extremely good at it.

The Writing
Fusion's story is great.  The struggle against the X is well done, and the sequence of events through the course of the game is well plotted.  Though Metroid isn't really a series that particularly needs a lot of plot, this one makes the absolute best of what it's got.

But while the story is great, the writing is not.  Props on a good idea, but several million points off for terrible execution.  Firstly, I feel that the game would have been better serviced if the intro had been playable.  It would've helped give the player a better connection to Samus' predicament if her infection by the parasite had been part of a playable battle sequence instead of about three seconds in a cut scene.  As it is, the whole intro just kinda feels like "Okay, sooooo, a bunch of stuff happened . . . and now it's game time!"  Why couldn't it have been game time while that bunch of stuff happened?  I mean, we got to play the part where the infant metroid was taken by Ridley at the beginning of Super Metroid, after all.

And second, much of the backstory stuff in Fusion feels extremely tacked on.  I don't mind backstory exposition and I don't mind flashbacks or references to it, but I do mind it when it feels like it's just coming out of nowhere and sounds like it was just made up on the spot and doesn't fit in with anything else.  As much as I would like to know more about Adam and the Adam AI, both elements have just that sort of feel to me.

The Gameplay
The controls are spot on.  Steering Samus around in this game feels smooth and comfortable, very close to the way it was in Super Metroid.  The rooms are nice and spacious, allowing for even better movement and fine control.  It shocks and dismays me that they took this wonderfully constructed engine and turned it into the lurching horror that is the Zero Mission engine.

There are changes both big and small in the way Samus' abilities work from previous installments in the Metroid series.  The changes - such as the Ice Missiles instead of the Ice Beam - took a little getting used to, but it's not so bad or so different overall.  I look forward to seeing how the new suit's powers develop in future games.

The Challenge
Fusion manages to hit that sweet spot that so few games seem to do.  It doesn't take the super-easy route where walking from one end of the map to the other is a cakewalk and I barely even notice that I'm trodding on the gashed and bleeding backs of my enemies.  It doesn't take the super-hard route where I die time after time after time and feel that there is no Earthly way of getting past a certain point.  Instead, I died every once in a while, but in ways that I could see were my own fault, and that if I tried just a few more times, I could eventually get past it.  Winning involved neither luck of the draw nor simple button mashing; it involved learning the skill necessary to advance.  And I like that.

The place where this was most evident to me was the final battle with the SA-X.  I believe I tried beating her at least twenty times, but none of those deaths left me feeling discouraged in the least.  I gradually got further and further with each fight, learning the moves needed to keep one step ahead of the SA-X as I went along.  There wasn't any hoping that she didn't randomly use this particular ability and wipe me out with one shot, there wasn't any relying on a particular glitch or weakness that the game designer hadn't anticipated . . . it was all me, baby.  And that's the way it should be.  No cheap outs for the game's AI or for the player.  No attempts that end within three seconds of the fight because Samus got hit once and THERE ARE NO ROOM FOR MISTAKES, DAMMIT!

I wish more game designers would learn to set the challenge rating of their games like this.

The Graphics
Mostly based on those of Super Metroid, so verrah nice.

I didn't think I would, but I'm digging the design of Samus' new suit.  In the end, it doesn't really look that much different from the original, anyway, except for having a more organic than technological look.

I love the level design of Fusion.  Running around underground in caves and planet-based pirate bases is great and all, but the shift to a space station is a nice change of pace.  I really enjoyed the more logical, structured form of the station compared to the sprawling, organic feel of the previous game maps.  When the computer first opened up the elevators for the six main sections, all lined up in a tidy little row, I though, "Oh, hey . . . this is gonna be neat."

The Music
No complaints here.  Sounded a lot like Super Metroid music to me.

The Bottom Line
I have to admit, when I first started reading about Fusion way back when it originally came out, I was a bit leery.  Samus is in a weird new suit?  She's fighting some kind of Parasite organism that isn't a metroid?  Eeeeeeh, I dunnoooooo . . .

I'm thankful to say that as I progressed through the game, these feelings were quickly abandoned by the wayside.  The whole "new suit" thing wasn't nearly as much of a departure from the original as I had built up in my head, and I won't mind seeing it again in Metroid 5 or whatever.  The X Parasites were also pretty dang snazzy, and I find myself hoping they might pop up again later on.

In the end, I'm gonna place Metroid Fusion as my second favorite in the series, right after Super Metroid.  It's a damn good game in my opinion, and one that I'll most likely end up playing through again at least a few more times.

Metroid: Zero Mission

Platform:  Game Boy Advance
Developer:  Nintendo R&D1
Released:  2004
Genre:  Action Adventure

The Game
Once again players take on the role of galactic badass Samus Aran as she takes on Mother Brain and the space pirates in an attempt to take back the Metroids that the pirates done stoled.

This is a . . . well, I hesitate to use the word remake, since so much has changed from the original Metroid.  It's sort of an update crossed with a reimagining that still uses the same basic framework as the original while changing almost everything else around and adding on a whole bunch of new stuff.  Despite their similarities, in most ways Metroid and Zero Mission are two completely different games.

The Characters
Samus Aran is pretty much the same as she ever was, with the only addition to her character from the original being a couple of pages of monologue setting up the story.  Her design, while updated for the newer technology, is still more or less the same.

Ridley, Kraid, and Mother Brain, while still as lacking in characterization as ever, have meanwhile gotten massive design upgrades to bring them in line with their appearances in Super Metroid.  Mother Brain is now sportin' a wicked looking cycloptic eye, Kraid's gone on a bulk-up program, and Ridley is larger and more monstrous-pterodactyl-like than ever.

The Writing
For the most part, it's basic boilerplate, same as the original.  The Samus monologues don't really add anything other than allowing the player to pass on reading the story section of the instruction booklet.

But for the rest part, there's been a new mission added to the story!  And I hate it.

I understand that with this "remake" they wanted to add in a bunch of new and exciting stuff.  I applaud them for putting an extra section into the game, as it gives the folks who already played the original Metroid that much more reason to bother playing this game.  What I have a problem with is how they did it.  First off, it was placed after the end of the game, making it feel so extremely tacked on that I swear I could see the thumtacks sitting right at the edge of the screen.  What they should have done, in my opinion, is expand their other main addition to the map, the Chozo Ruins, even further.  Put in a few more mini-bosses, maybe even a whole new Ridley/Kraid-like sub-boss or something.  Y'know, integrate the extra mission into the overall game like Super Metroid did with its new sections instead of making the player go "Yay, I won!  I . . . aw, what?!" at the very end.

The Gameplay
On the good side . . . there's a map!  Oh, sweet merciful heavens, there's a map!  And it tells me where my next major goal can be located!

On the bad side . . . jeez, Samus, did you eat bricks for dinner or what?  This isn't the high-flying daredevil gymnast Samus Aran of Super Metroid to be sure.  And that could be understandable as this is earlier in her career, but the thing is, she was nice and agile and loose in the original Metroid.  So I'm gonna have to peg this one on badly designed character movement.  Driving Samus in Zero Mission is like driving a rock in water, and there's really no excuse for that.  Especially since - and this is truly baffling - it used a modified version of the Metroid Fusion engine, and Metroid Fusion's controls were absolutely wonderful.  I guess "modified" in this case is another word for "ruined".

Adding to the frustration is the claustrophobic feel of the corridors.  The original had its tiny spaces, to be sure, but compared to Zero Mission's hallways you might as well have been leaping around a twelve acre bit of flat land without any trees or other obstructions.

The Challenge
On the good side . . . the main game isn't Nintendo Hard anymore!  Save for the problems caused by Samus' wonky movement, playing through the game is challenging without being hair-pullingly annoying.  Fighting Mother Brain was about the only point where I was ready to start throwing things, but that's understandable really since she's the last boss of the game.

Oh, wait, right, the extra mission thing.  That brings us to the bad side . . . it's straight back to Nintendo Hard again!  Samus starts this mission off bereft of her suit and thus virtually all of the abilities that she's painstakingly garnered over the course of the game.  And to make matters worse, this mission turns Metroid into a sneaking game!  I hate sneaking games!  I just don't have the patience for them.  I wanna kill, and I wanna kill now, and simultaneously forcing me to sneak around while also turning my badass character into a wuss with a tiny little stun gun isn't going to do anything but piss me off.

Sure, eventually Samus regains her suit and you get to tear through the pirate ship like a flamethrower through rice paper, but I don't feel it really makes up for the betrayal that this extra mission pulled on me.  Screw you, pirate ship!

The Graphics
Based almost directly on the Super Metroid graphics, so all good there.

The Music
No major complaints.

The Bottom Line
Many of the problems of the original were ameliorated for this version (ooh, "version" . . . I like that better than "remake"), and for that I'm glad.  Unfortunately, it also brought with it a whole new batch of frustrations.  Overall, I'd say Zero Mission is better than the original Metroid, but it's still pretty bad.  Worth a play if you're a heavy Metroid fan, but otherwise I'd say give it a pass and play Metroid Fusion or Super Metroid instead.

Metroid

Platform:  Nintendo Entertainment System
Developer:  Nintendo R&D1
Released:  1986
Genre:  Action Adventure

The Game
Samus Aran, an agent for the Galactic Federation (and who just happens to be a fine lady underneath her futuristic space armor), has been given the task of retrieving life forms known as Metroids, which have been stolen by a bunch of no good, low down, just plain rotten space pirates who plan to use the creatures as biological weapons.

It is, of course, well known at this point that Samus is a woman, but back when this game was first released, it was a well guarded secret.  The original Japanese instruction manual used gender-neutral pronouns, which was sneaky, and the English translations used male pronouns, which is kinda cheating but understandably necessary.  Either way, it rocked a lot of gamers' worlds when they found out that the whoop-ass space pirate-killin' fightin' machine that they had been controlling the whole time wasn't a man, baby.  Whether because or in spite of this, Samus has become not only one of the top ranking heroines in video games, but one of the most popular video game heroes regardless of gender of all time.

The Characters
Not much can be said about this crew, since both protagonist and antagonists are pretty silent.  We've got our resident ass-kicker Samus Aran, who has started receiving a little more personality and backstory as of late.  We've got Ridley and Kraid, the sub-bosses of the game, who basically just sit in their little rooms and wait for their fights with Samus to start.  And we've got Mother Brain who . . . well, signs point to her being a corrupted organic computer or something like that.

The Writing
Um, well, what I wrote up above is pretty much it.  Not big on the writing, most of these early NES games.

The Gameplay
To these old hands and this old brain, the controls for Metroid feel hopelessly outdated.  You can't shoot down, you can't switch from shooting up to sideways while you're jumping or vice versa, you can't shoot any lower than your waistline, and so on and so on.  But compared to games at the time of Metroid's original release, the controls were basically all good.  And even without that modern flexibility, Samus still controls like a dream.  She's very gymnastic, fast, and smooth in her movements, especially once she gets the High Jump power-up.

And speaking of power-ups, Metroid has a great system for upgrading Samus' various abilities.  There's a nice amount of depth to her powers, with the only unfortunate part being you can't have the Ice Beam and the Wave Beam at the same time, which sucks because it would help so damn much.

The Challenge
And now it's time for me to break down into serious rant mode.

I used to think that the original Metroid was kind of neat and a halfway decent game.  I no longer think this.  It is an unforgiving bastard of a game that almost seems to dare you to play it.  I hate it forever, and the reason is quite simple . . . it's too damn hard.

Now, I should make a couple of things clear before I continue.  The thing is, I'm not afraid of a challenge.  I'm one of those gamer types who likes to beat a game without any outside help.  No cheat codes, no strategy guides, no walkthroughs, no maps, no other person standing over my shoulder and telling me how to beat this section, so on and so forth.  Once I've actually beaten the final boss and am going back to find all the secret stuff, or if I'm play through for a second time or more, then fine.  I'll grab every single one of those things I can get my hands on and soak up every bit of cheating knowledge I can.  I also hate it when games are too easy, and I'll complain heartily about that as well.  I like that nice little spot right in the middle where things are just challenging enough to keep things interesting while not so difficult that I start throwing things in a fit of rage and start truly believing that there is absolutely no way any human being could possibly be expected to win under the circumstances.

That said, I eventually had to break down and seek out a Metroid map.  It's bad enough that the place is huge and completely wide open compared to most NES games, but it also has to have tons of corridors that are exact copies of each other, a million and one secret areas - many of which are actually vital to proceeding through the game - which take hours to find through trial and error, and not even a vague indication of a general direction in which you might should maybe be heading.  While the map I found was helpful in that it also showed where missile tanks, energy tanks, and the various power-ups are, I wouldn't have particularly cared if it hadn't because all I really needed it for was so that I wouldn't get lost for days on end!  Seriously, before I looked it up, I often found myself going in circles over and over again without even realizing it for about half an hour or more.  This does not seem like good level design to me.

Further, Metroid was obviously one of the earliest games that helped create the term Nintendo Hard.  This normally wouldn't be a problem for me because I grew up playing nothing but Nintendo Hard games for many years.  But Metroid is just unforgivingly difficult to the point of ridiculousness.  It's great that they don't give you a certain number of lives or continues so you can just keep going with all the stuff you've already collected and without having to start all over from the very beginning of the game, but transporting you all the way back to the entrance of the section you died in with only 30 Energy, meaning that your only real choices are to either hope you find an energy tank before you face something particularly dangerous or spend the next half-hour to full hour grinding for health bit by tiny bit?  Who's bright idea was that?!  The game's difficulty level is bad enough without having to resort to such cheap tricks to make it even harder!  It only becomes tolerably challenging once you get the Screw Attack, which finally keeps you from getting killed while trying to walk across a room.  A tiny, crawlspace-sized room with a monster flying around in it that only moves to where you can reliably shoot it for a split-second before it's suddenly all up in your grill and your suit explodes and AW DAMMIT BACK AT THE LIFT AGAIN.

And to hell with Mother Brain.  That's all I'm gonna say about that.

Also far too frustrating . . . the password system.  Thank goodness future installments of the Metroid series finally added the save feature, because part of the horrendous difficulty of the game is simply putting in these 200 character monstrosities that the world's leading cryptographers are still trying to figure out decades later.

The Graphics
As stated above, many of the corridors are clones of each other.  They're different from corridors in different sections of the map, but within each individual section, you might end up running back and forth down the same monster-studded hall for ages before you even notice you're not actually getting anywhere.  The visuals look great, don't get me wrong, it's just that they're the same visuals over and over again.

The baddies of the game are all visually interesting, even after seeing their updated designs in other Metroid games, and Samus' suit is, of course, a classic.

The Music
Nice and equal parts science-fictiony, actiony, and 8-bitty.

The Bottom Line
Like I said, I used to like Metroid, but now that I've actually played it all the way through, it has earned my neverending hatred.  I'm glad that it spawned so many other wonderful games, especially since if I ever get a hankerin' for some Metroid action, I can just go play them instead of this infuriating blood pressure cooker.  All of the good points it has got buried underneath the cavalcade of deaths and setbacks I had to endure.

Fuck you, Metroid.

Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance

Platform:  Nintendo Game Boy Advance
Developer:  Konami
Released:  2002
Genre:  Metroidvania (Action Adventure)

The Game
Juste Belmont, grandson of Simon Belmont, is drawn into the fight against Dracula when his friend Maxim returns from a long journey having lost both a huge chunk of his memory and Lydie, his and Juste's childhood friend.  Together, the two men retrace Maxim's steps until they come across a strange castle filled with monstrous beasties.  Over the course of the game, Juste comes to find out that it is Dracula's castle (duh) and that the spirits within now threaten not only Juste and Lydie's life, but Maxim's very soul.

This is the second game created by the people who made the widely acclaimed Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, making it one of the earliest installments of the Castlevania series to help bring about the fan term "Metroidvania".  It also pulls some thematic inspiration from Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, as you go around the castle collecting the same body parts of Dracula that Simon grabs up in that earlier game and they are intimately tied into the mystery behind the bond between Maxim and the castle.

The Characters
Though there is an interesting story to be had, like most Castlevanias, characterization is fairly sparse, the worst instance being Lydie, who doesn't really progress beyond being your typical damsel in distress.  Juste is more or less your standard hero type, his emotional range staying pretty well within the "angry-concerned-jovial" trilogy of action hero acting.  Maxim is the one who comes closest to approaching interesting, since he's the only one to have any real motivations and internal conflict, but he's only seen on a handful of occasions throughout the game.

Still, the lack of real characterization doesn't really detract from the game, as it's more or less just a basic framework upon which to hang the other elements of the game.

The Writing
As with the characterization, the story is a fairly basic tale of rivalry, betrayal, action, heroism, self-sacrifice, and good vs. evil.  Nothing to get too excited about, but it does its job adequately.

The Gameplay
The gameplay is where Harmony of Dissonance truly shines.  Juste moves extremely well, and gains several power ups that improve his maneuverability even more.  Considering the scale of the castle and that you'll be spending a massive amount of your time just moving from one section on one side of the map to another section all the way on the other side, this is a good thing.  Without the dash and slide abilities, I would most likely have given up after the third or fourth time having to walk through any given section.

Though Juste's primary attack (the whip, natch) stays more or less the same throughout the entire game, I like the depth they gave to the subweapon system.  You've got all your standard Castlevania mainstays such as the Dagger, Axe, and Holy Water, but you can also mix and match them with the five spellbooks you can find throughout the castle for varying effects.  The one I ended up using for the most part was the Wind Book + Cross combo, which caused a shield of flying crosses to whirl around Juste in a wide circle, damaging any creature hit by it.

The equipment system is pretty basic, but solid.  Most items are rare, but you rarely ever even use them, so it's not a big deal.

The Challenge
If there's one spot I can point to and definitely say "I'm not happy with this" without any qualifiers, it would have to be that Harmony of Dissonance is too damn easy.  I explored 200% of the castle (there's two castles, by the way, just like in Symphony of the Night), got all three endings, found almost every single findable item in the game, beat every mini-boss . . . and I died a total of two times.  And it wasn't even because the guys I was fighting were particularly difficult.  It was because I'd gotten so used to just flying through every obstacle that I stopped paying attention to my health meter most of the time.  Things jumped to being a little bit tougher in the second castle and I hadn't been prepared for just how much life each hit would take from me.  After these two deaths and after just a few minutes of collecting better gear, I was able to go right back to coasting through the entire rest of the game.  Even the end bosses ended up going down like little bitches.

Yawn.

The Graphics
Stellar.  The castle is beautifully atmospheric, looking just like Dracula's castle should in a Castlevania game.  The monsters, both the classic and the new, have wonderful designs and well-made sprites.

Unfortunately, this cannot be said of the human character sprites.  Juste, Maxim, and Lydie are all very muddy and ill-defined, looking more like they belong in the NES era than the SNES look that the GBA usually achieves.  Further, Juste is inexplicably surrounded by a blue aura that trails behind him as blue afterimages of himself.  Now, I know that Alucard had a similar shadowy effect on him in Symphony of the Night, but in SotN, it looked cool and wasn't very obtrusive.  In HoD, it's this terrible flat neon blue that looks horribly out of place and is, frankly, an eyesore.  An eyesore that follows you around the entire damn game because it's attached to the player character like some sort of super-resilient bioluminescent fungus.

The Music
I typically don't pay attention to game music unless it's particularly bad.  Since I didn't really pay that much attention to it here, I've just gotta assume that it wasn't bad enough to attract my notice.  The only points at which the music did catch my ear was during the file naming screen (a funky beat that I rather enjoyed) and in the save rooms (there didn't seem to be any music, and the sudden lack of audio output caught me off guard and annoyed me every single time).

The Bottom Line
The creators of Harmony of Dissonance, it seems, wanted to try and make lightning strike twice by crafting what would basically be a portable version of Symphony of the Night.  For the most part, I would say that they succeeded.  It's of a smaller scope and naturally limited by the platform that it was created for, but still a very entertaining play and, in my opinion, worth wasting a few hours on.  I just wish that it had been a little more difficult and that the hero wasn't lined with dayglo shoelaces.