Dynamite Headdy
Sega Genesis
I find myself in a predicament this particular review. The same predicament I found myself in with my last game review (Smash TV, if you are keeping track). See, I am always eager to recommend to people the classic games that I grew up playing. When other people recommend their classic games to me, as Dynamite Headdy was recommended to me, I always try to keep an open mind and give them a fair shot.
But growing up playing a game is one thing. Going back at the age of 33 and playing "classic" games that I somehow missed is another. I didn't particularly care for Smash TV, and I am not quite sure how I feel about this game either. I found myself torn between liking this game and hating it with a passion. I'll tell you what its about first before I get too into my feelings on the matter.
This is a 2D side scrolling game where you star as a loveable puppet creature named Headdy. Headdy attacks by throwing his head at enemies. He also uses his head as a grappling hook of sorts to latch on to items and launch himself to new heights. Over the course of the game you pick up different heads which each have different powers. Some heads launch projectiles that home in on your enemies. Some heads shrink you. Some give you extra speed. Some give you a shield. The list goes on and on. There are a lot of different heads you can find and play with on your journey.
Don't even ask me what the story of this game is about. There is no text, no subtitles. You watch a cutscene when the game begins, but it doesn't explain anything at all. It is really Japanese, really crazy. It doesn't appear to make a whole lot of sense. I did Google the story line to see what was going on, but it didn't seem to match up at all with what I observed while playing this game. I suppose it doesn't really matter anyway. You don't really play games like this for their story line.
Controls are pretty basic. With the exception of the control pad, you only use 3 buttons. Shoot, jump, and revert back to your normal head. The game controls well for the most part, but I did find myself getting frustrated in parts (more on this later).
We'll start with the things the game does right. I'm not sure exactly when this game came out, but judging by its cover art, it looks like it came out near the end of the system's life span. You can tell that a lot of hard work was put into this game. Visually, it shares a lot of common traits with some of the all time Genesis greats, such as Sonic and Knuckles and Vectorman. In fact, it may even top them. This could very well be the most vibrant and colorful Genesis game I have ever played.
The sound effects and music aren't bad either. I mentioned how this game shared some visual traits with Sonic and Vectorman, and I swear it shares some of the same sound effects as well. There were a few points in the game where I was like "I know that sound effect!" Maybe I was mistaken, but I don't think so. The music for the game is very well done. Some of these songs sound like they would fit right at home in a Sonic game, and that is not a bad thing at all. Well, unless you're talking about Sonic R.
So stylistically, the game is great. Top notch visuals, top notch audio. Fun concept. We're off to a good start.
Now we'll get to what I didn't like about the game.
I absolutely have to start with the game's steep learning curve. I don't know how many games out there I actually died during the training stages, but this was one of them. Definite foreshadowing there. This game requires you to be an expert right from the very beginning. This is for sure a very unique game, so I bet that no one out there was able to pick it up right away and master it from the beginning. I am usually that kind of player, but that did not happen here.
This is one of the most cruel and unforgiving games I have ever played. The game starts you off with three lives. You can earn extra lives as you play the game, but you don't get the chance to snare many. You also don't get any continues. And there is no save option. If you die, you have to start from the beginning. I played this version of the game on the Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection for the PlayStation 3. This disc allows you to manually save your progress on any of its games. I am extremely fortunate to have this version of the game, because if I had been playing the original Genesis version where you had to start from the beginning every time you died, I would have never finished this game.
This game is so hard, I found myself not only saving after every stage, but sometimes in the middle of a stage after making it past a particularly hard part. Heck, sometimes even in the middle of a boss fight!
It took me three nights to beat this game. The first night, I played and didn't save at all. I just wanted to learn the basics and prepare myself so I knew what to expect when I decided to start playing it for real. The second night, I tried to beat the game, but failed miserably. I saved after every level, but soon found myself at a point in the game where I had no lives left and my last save took place with only half a health gauge left. And I still had several levels left. There was no way I could have beaten the game in that sorry state.
The third night I played, I set out to conquer this game once and for all. I micromanaged everything. Saved after every level, saved in the middle of levels. If I died, I would load my last save up and try again. I knew that if I wanted a chance to beat this game, I had to be PERFECT. And even doing it this way, I still almost failed in completing the game. I can't even comprehend beating this game on the Genesis without this save option. I would have torn all my hair out trying.
Being difficult is one thing, being brutal and unfair is another. And this game is definitely brutal and unfair. You all know the type of game I'm talking about. Cheap deaths out of nowhere. Enemies that swarm you from all angles and knock you off platforms or right into spike traps. Bosses that follow predictable patterns but then break that pattern when you are on your last sliver of health, which allows them to kill you and totallty fuck you over right when you are on the brink of victory.
As I mentioned earlier, the game controls well for the most part. But when you are trying to shoot at an angle, sometimes the game fails you. The jumping and especially the grapple mechanism is flawed and "off" at times. Also, your character can only shoot in the direction he's facing. There is a particular boss that chases you and you have to fire at him behind you while still running forward to avoid damage. This is incredibly frustrating because Headdy never seems to do what you want him to do here. The game controls well when you move along slowly. When things get frantic and you have to react quickly and move back and forth in multiple directions at a rapid clip, things aren't so pretty. The game is tough enough as it is, the controls add to it that particular controlling chucking extra bit of frustration.
The game is a decent length for a platforming game. If you play it through in one sitting and manage to not die while completing the game, it can probably be beaten in about two hours. If you play and die and have to start from the beginning multiple times, who knows how long this can take to complete? It took me about five or six hours to beat on my third day play through, and that's not even counting the time I spent playing on the first and second days. I can imagine it must take weeks, maybe even months to beat this game if you are playing on the Genesis console and can't save.
The game does try to do a few things differently, and I have to give it props for that. Aside from the traditional sidescrolling levels, there are bonus levels where you have to knock basketballs through a series of hoops. There are flying levels that remind me of classic old-school shooters. Some of the boss stages are extremely clever and require unique strategies to defeat. And my particular favorite game wrinkle is a stage that has tilting platforms that actually allow you to move your character up and down as well as left and right. Its almost like a 3D platformer for that one level, and I found it pretty cool.
So all in all, I find this to be a game I really wanted to like. Great visuals, great music and sound effects. I enjoyed the variety of the game, all the things it tried to do differently to stand out from the crowd. But the punishing difficulty and the gimmicky controls really brought it down for me. I'm right on the middle of the fence, and I think right on the middle of the fence is where I am going to stay. I can see why some of the people who love the game love it, and I can see why some would hate it. I can't really pick a side, so I am taking the easy way out and giving it the most mediocre grade I can think of. You should know what is coming.
Overall:
C
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