Video Game Review #290: Super Castlevania IV

Super Castlevania IV

Super Nintendo

Nostalgia Factor:

I had been so excited to play Super Castlevania IV. I'd missed out on it as a kid because I had a Genesis rather than a Super Nintendo. Over the years I’d heard nothing but good things about this game. So many people out there say that this is one of the best Castlevania games out there. Personally I’ve been playing all the Castlevania games in order – and I’ve been loving them all. Before I even had the chance to play this game, I already had it in my mind that I was going to love it.

I am sorry to say that I think my expectations for this were a bit too high. This may be my least favorite Castlevania game out there. Read on for the full details.

 

Story:

There really isn’t a whole lot to say about this game’s story. Every 100 years or so, Dracula resurrects himself and starts fucking shit up. It is the job of the Belmont clan to take him down every time he reappears. Taking control of Simon Belmont, you head out on a journey to Dracula’s castle to destroy him.

Sound familiar? It should. This is almost the exact same story as the first Castlevania game. In fact, in Japan this game was meant as a reimagining of the original Castlevania rather than a sequel. For some reason in the United States it is treated as a direct sequel to Simon’s Quest. This kind of messes up the Castlevania timeline a little bit, but it is what it is. Nobody really plays these games for their storylines, do they?

 

 

Gameplay:

I’ll get the basics out of the way first. If you’ve played Castlevania I or III for the NES, you will know how this works. Controlling Simon Belmont, you must work your way through a series of stages - whipping candles, destroying enemies, and jumping over pits and various game obstacles along the way. At the end of each stage you fight a boss character. Defeat this character and you move on to the next level. When you get to the end of the game you go into battle against Dracula. Defeat him and the game ends. Pretty standard Castlevania stuff.

What Super Castlevania IV does differently is in its controls. Gone are the stiff controls of Castlevanias past. Simon is much more maneuverable this time around. You can change directions mid-jump. You can jump and land on stairs. You can drop from stairs. You can whip up, down, and diagonally. Simon can even use his whip as a grappling hook from time to time in order to get across long chasms. Overall this game is much more smooth than its predecessors. As I played this I couldn’t help but wonder how different past games in the series would be if you replaced “stiff” Simon with the character from this game. It definitely would have made those games a lot more accessible, for sure.

My problem with this game mainly stems from its difficulty. Unlike previous Castlevania games, the issue isn’t that the game is too challenging. In fact, it is the opposite. It’s too easy. I played this just a few weeks after playing through Castlevania III a handful of times. Now that’s a challenging game. This game is like a walk in the park after playing that one. Nothing makes this more obvious than the boss battles. They are just sad and pathetic in this title. They go down SO quickly. I sat there in stunned disbelief my first time playing this. I don’t think I died during any of the boss fights until closer to the end of the game. 

Not only is the game too easy, it also feels like it take a giant step back from Castlevania III. That game had so much substance to it. Optional stages, multiple branching paths, different playable characters, several different sets of endings. Super Castlevania IV does away with all of that. You only play as Simon, there are no branching paths, and you only get one ending when you beat the game. There’s absolutely no reason the series should have regressed like this. You’re telling me they couldn’t do better than an NES game with brand-new (at the time) SNES technology at their fingertips? Please.

Sequels are supposed to up the ante and build off the success of their predecessors – not take a step back. That’s mainly my issue with the game. It is completely outclassed by Castlevania III, and it’s not even close. I’m not saying this is a bad game by any stretch of the imagination, but if it can’t build off the obvious success of its predecessor, it’s like why bother?

 

Graphics:

Admittedly this game looks really good. The level backgrounds are terrific, starting from the game’s very first screen with the giant rock skull in the background. The color scheme is great. Things manage to be bright and colorful without losing any of that Castlevania grimness in the process.

The small details added to each stage are apparent right from the beginning. The plants and the ivy in the first level. The fact that you can enter doors and go into another “plane” in the game environment. There’s a stage where translucent ghosts are moving across the screen in front of you. Some of the later stages include things like rotating game screens, and there’s even a stage where it’s like you’re in a cylinder and the game’s background is constantly spinning. Cool stuff.

Simon himself is bigger and more detailed than he is on the NES. The game’s enemies look really cool. The bosses look terrific. I like how the enemies just kind of explode when you kill them, like they’ve been hit by a grenade or something and not just a whip. It’s super cool. It makes the presentation feel more like Contra rather than a Castlevania game, but it is still cool.

Sound:

Here is where I am going to make some people angry. I hated this game’s soundtrack. I know that people out there are nuts about it, but I just don’t care for it. It sounds like cheesy elevator music, and it completely clashes with everything I know about how a Castlevania game should sound. Give me that classic NES soundtrack any day of the week. There are a few stages later in the game that attempt to recreate some classic Castlevania tunes, but they still don’t sound as good as the originals to me. I won’t say the game’s entire soundtrack sucks. There are a few good tracks here and there, but to me they are few and far between.

Overall:

*sigh*

I really wanted to love this game. And I came into it thinking I would.

Super Castlevania IV does a lot of things right. I like the improved character controls. The graphics and presentation are very good. It’s fun. It’s accessible. It’s a fairly long game. I had a decent time with it. I know it sounds like I’ve been critical of this game, and I have, but I still enjoyed it overall.

I just couldn’t help but feel the whole way through that this game had taken a giant step back from Castlevania III. That game set the bar incredibly high in my mind as far as Castlevania games go. I thought based on all the praise I’d read for this game that it would have easily been better than its predecessor, but it wasn’t.

That’s my dilemma. This is a good game, sure, but if it isn’t going to move the series forward it is kind of like what’s the point? If I want to play a Castlevania game in the future I’m going to come back to Castlevania I or III for the NES. Heck, I’d even come back to Simon’s Quest before this one! Improved graphics and an improved control scheme don’t mean anything to me if the game isn’t as fun as the ones that came before it.

I guess this speaks to the quality of the Castlevania series that even with all this criticism I am still going to give the game a B-. Even at its worst, Castlevania is still good enough to put other titles to shame. And in a way I have to applaud Super Castlevania IV for this. Even though it is easily the worst console Castlevania game I have played, it is still better than so many games out there. Heck, I had a better time with this game than I did “legendary” SNES titles like A Link to the Past, Super Mario Kart, and Final Fantasy VI.

If you had an NES as a kid, but somehow missed out on the Super Nintendo like I did, I wonder if you’d have the same opinion as me. This game doesn’t come close to touching the original trilogy but hey – it makes a valiant effort. It’s fun, it’s playable, and I can see why people like it so much. I just can't say I thought it was great.

Final Score:

B-

 

If you liked this review, check out some of my other game reviews:

Castlevania

Castlevania II: Simon's Quest

Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

Castlevania: The Adventure

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night* 

*Special guest review- RIP Jeff :( 

Video Game Review #289: Resident Evil Code: Veronica X

Resident Evil - Code: Veronica X

PlayStation 2

Nostalgia Factor:

The original Resident Evil Code: Veronica came out for the Sega Dreamcast back in the year 2000. I remember being so hyped for this game. I loved the first three Resident Evils - although by the time Nemesis came around the series had started to get a little stale. But hey the Dreamcast was a new console and I was super stoked to see what direction they’d take the franchise.

I actually didn’t really like the game that much upon my first time playing it. It seemed less focused than the first few RE games. I was getting lost all the time. I was always running out of health and ammo. What you needed to do and where you needed to go was really tough for me to figure out with this game. I was constantly getting stuck. I didn’t like the setting. And I didn’t think it was scary, which had been a big part of the appeal of the series for me. I ended up renting the game twice. The first time I barely scratched the surface of the game, and the second time I made it to where you take control of Chris.

It really blew my mind being able to play as Chris, because the game up to that point had been really long. I assumed it had been about to end. And then I found out that I wasn’t even close to beating the game, more like about halfway through it. I wouldn’t rent the game again, but I’d end up buying it later on down the road for the Dreamcast where I was finally able to complete it once and for all. Still though, I didn’t like the game much and I would end up trading it in and buying a different game.

A few years later (sometime between the year 2006 and 2009), I’d end up purchasing Resident Evil Code: Veronica X for the PlayStation 2. I played through the game and beat it for the second time, but yet again I didn’t have a great time with it and I ended up trading this copy of the game in as well.

Finally here were are in the year 2021. I once again got the hankering to play this game so I could review it for my blog – but the problem was that I had traded in both copies of the game that I had owned. Lucky for me this game would go on sale on the PlayStation Store, where I was able to download it for a cheap price. Owning the digital copy of the game, I knew it was mine forever and there would be no trading it in if I didn’t like it again.

Would the third time be the charm, or am I just destined to not like Code: Veronica? Let’s find out.

Story:

In this game you take control of Claire Redfield, last seen with Leon at the end of Resident Evil 2. Claire finds herself imprisoned on Rockfort Island after breaking into an Umbrella facility looking for her lost brother Chris. This is where the game begins. Claire is released from her cell when her jailer is injured after a zombie outbreak on the island. Claire heads out to explore, looking for a way off the island and back home to safety. On her journey she encounters and befriends Steve, a reckless kid who had also been imprisoned by Umbrella.

Long story short, the two work together in order to hijack a plane and get off the island. Unfortunately the plane is reprogrammed by the evil Alfred Ashford, who has been placed in control of the island. The plane crashes in an Umbrella facility in Antarctica.

Meanwhile, Chris Redfield arrives at Rockfort Island in response to an SOS picked up from Claire. He is led to Antarctica where he rescues Claire, who has been captured by Alfred’s virus infected twin Alexia. Steve is also infected and turns into a monster. Claire and Chris defeat Alexia with the help of monster Steve and escape. Albert Wesker, believed to be dead in the first Resident Evil, arrives and collects a sample of the virus from monster Steve, presumably to use it for his own nefarious purposes.

It’s certainly one of the more interesting Resident Evil stories, especially when you factor in the weird twincest background info you get on Alfred and Alexia. The whole time I was playing this game, however, I was able to pinpoint something in my mind: this is where Resident Evil jumped the shark. The giant, cheesy action sequences. The over the top plot twists. This is where Resident Evil started to stop being Resident Evil and instead began to turn into the more recent abominations like 5 and 6. I mean, the series had always had those cheesy over the top elements, but if you look at the earlier games in the series like one through three, those games were more self-contained and set in a more “realistic” and scary game world. It isn’t quite ridiculous just yet. The tone of the series from this point on starts to turn into more Metal Gear than Resident Evil. And I think for that I’ll always hold a little bit of a grudge against Code: Veronica in my heart – justified or not.

 

Gameplay:

This is one of the last “traditional” Resident Evil games ever released. The tank controls, the item boxes, the slow opening doors – that kind of thing. I much prefer this type of Resident Evil game to the more action oriented titles released in the last ten years or so. I just wish the game was more fun to play.

I’m going to try not to knock Code: Veronica too much because on the whole I did like the game. It’s just missing that certain charm that REs one through three bring to the table. Maybe it is the setting. Maybe it’s the characters (Sorry Steve, but you suck). Maybe it is just the overall game design. It’s hard to put into words but it is missing that something that made the series to this point so special.

I know one thing I didn’t like was how often the zombies would respawn. For example, the area when you first go outside at the beginning of the game has a courtyard full of zombies. It’s too tight to run by them without getting bitten, so I always kill them when I play. But you need to revisit that first area of the game a few times as you play, and every single damn time those zombies are back. I remember a few points in the game where I’d kill zombies, leave the room, come back, and the zombies would have already respawned. This game is much more challenging than the other early games in the RE series, so this is a major problem. Ammo and health items are already scarce enough as it is. But when you’re having to kill the same enemies you’ve defeated multiple times already, it really starts to take a toll on your supplies. It makes the game not as much fun to explore either. I like to be thorough when I play these old RE games. I like to revisit old areas and comb for things I missed. I’m not going to do that if I return to an area and it’s filled with zombies I’ve already killed. Sorry not sorry.

As much as I wanted to like it, the setting of the game is just strange and the layout of Rockfort Island makes little connective sense to me. The settings in other RE games tend to flow more cohesively, whereas Code: Veronica’s is a hodgepodge of weird parts – some that fit together and some that don’t. As much as I am complaining about this game, like I said I did like it overall. Just not as much as the other games in the series.

 

Graphics:

If you liked the graphical style of Resident Evils 1 through 3, you’ll like it in this game too. Originally designed for the Dreamcast – and later ported to the PS2 – this game is clearly a step ahead of its predecessors. The characters look really smooth and don’t have those signature jagged edges. The environments are nice, as while this game still has set camera angles, it is mainly rendered in full 3D. The zombies and all the other enemies and boss characters look better than ever. I wish we’d gotten more “classic” Resident Evil games after this, with the graphics and animation getting better in each one. Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn’t Zero the next game before Resident Evil ditched its old formula moved on to its behind-the-back style of play?

Sound:

The music, the sound effects, all that stuff sounds pretty good here. If you’ve played any of the old RE games, nothing you hear should surprise you. Mainly I want to talk about the voice acting. And when I say voice acting I mean Steve’s voice acting. It’s bad. It’s just so bad. He sounds like a whiny little kid from a Saturday morning cartoon, like he should be playing Tails in a Sonic animated series somewhere. It’s so goofy and just so out of place. I could not take him seriously as I played because of that voice. We’re supposed to care for him, and his dead zombie dad, and the feelings that he has for Claire? We’re supposed to care when he *spoiler alert* dies at the end of the game? I don’t think so.

Overall:

It seems like all I’ve been doing is bashing this game. I do like it, I swear. I mean, it’s a classic Resident Evil game. I love the tank controls, the inventory system, the way you solve puzzles. At its heart, Code: Veronica fits right in with all the older games in the series. It even goes above and beyond and does some new things with the hardware it was made for. It looks great, it sounds great (aside from Steve, cough cough). It’s long. The ole switcheroo where you play as Chris is pulled off perfectly. This game does a lot of things right.

That said, I stand by my earlier comments. There is just “something” missing here. Resident Evils 1 and 2 are fantastic games. The setting, the puzzles, the tense combat, and the scary atmosphere really help create some of the most immersive video game environments seen to this date. Code: Veronica tries to duplicate some of those moments, but it falls flat. It is just so hard for me to explain and put in words where this game went wrong. I think it’s a flow thing. This game is so disjointed, as I said. The environments clash a bit and don’t always go well together. Some of the puzzles can be a bit obscure to figure out. And there is a lot of backtracking. Normally I don’t care about that kind of thing, but when enemies respawn and you have to fight them all over again multiple times, that is when the backtracking starts to become a problem. Plus this is where the game starts to take Resident Evil into the “ridiculous” territory that it seemed to be stuck in for years and years in the 2000s. It’s hard to forgive this game for taking the first few steps down the dark path Resident Evil has taken.

Would I recommend this game to anyone who hasn’t played it yet? It depends. If you are a fan of the series and you love one through three, you should definitely play this. If you have never played Resident Evil before, I’d say skip this game and go back and play one and two immediately. Like now. I can’t say the same for this game, and not just because the story wouldn’t make sense if you played this one first. It’s just… not as good as the games that came before it. I can’t put it on that same pedestal I put RE 1 and 2 on. I just can’t. I’d say it is on par with RE3. The length of Code: Veronica gives it a slight edge in my books – although I do feel as if I underrated Nemesis by giving it a C when I reviewed it. If I could go back and change the score to the same one this game got, I would. But for the integrity of this blog, I shall refrain from doing so.

Final Score:

C+

If you liked this review, check out some of my other game reviews:

Resident Evil: Director's Cut

Resident Evil 2

Resident Evil 3: Nemesis

Resident Evil: Remake

Resident Evil Zero

Video Game Review #288: Streets of Rage

Streets of Rage

Sega Genesis

Nostalgia Factor:

Despite being a proud Sega Genesis owner growing up, I never played the Streets of Rage series. I don’t know why. Maybe by then I’d already had my fill of beat ‘em ups with Double Dragon and the TMNT games. Whatever the reason, I finally got around to playing this game here in the year 2021 – 30 years since the game’s initial 1991 release date.

 

Story:

This game doesn’t offer much in the way of story. You play as one of three ex-cops who have decided to take down an evil crime syndicate headed by the fearsome Mr. X. You fight through a whole bunch of levels until you get to his hideout, and then you fight him and defeat him.

One interesting thing is that Mr. X asks you if you’d like to join him before the game’s final battle. If you say yes, it takes you back and you have to redo the previous handful of levels. I think when you get to the end of the game, the ending is different this time. I can tell you though I was not dedicated enough to play through the game a second time and do this. Sorry.

Gameplay:

An easy comparison is to say that this game is a beat ‘em up in the mold of Final Fight. This is true, in a way, but this game is also significantly different from Final Fight. The fundamentals are the same – work your way through each stage, beating up your enemies, destroying things in the environment, and collecting items and weapons you can use against your enemies.

The main difference in my opinion is that this game has a more strategic element to it. You’ve got limited lives and continues. You can’t save the game. You have to beat it all in one playthrough. This results in a game where you have to be much more cautious to avoid damage and defeat your enemies with as much health intact as humanly possible. I found the boss fights to be much more of a chess match as well. You have to watch your enemies closely and get their patterns down or they will make quick work of you.

In Final Fight, you can mainly just smash and fight your way through any enemy by just spamming the attack button. There doesn’t seem to be much of a strategic element to it. You take a lot of damage, and when you die you just pump in a quarter and pick up immediately where you left off. You can do this a limitless amount of times. To me this makes Streets of Rage seem more “high stakes” because you really have to be cautious to avoid getting killed too many times and having to start the game over from the beginning. And this is a fairly difficult game. Be warned!

But all in all I found the combat and the gameplay to be pretty rewarding. I give the nod to Final Fight as being the more fun game, but Streets of Rage eventually won me over. Like I said, though, I am absolutely not dedicated enough to play through the game and try to see the other ending. This game is tough as it is!

Graphics:

For such an old game, it looks really good. I love the game environments. My favorite stages have got to be the beach front, the ship, and the elevator. They just have this classic 90s Genesis look to them that is hard to be put into words. The characters look good too, especially some of the bosses. They are easy to miss, but if you look closely some of them just have the funniest facial expressions. The bosses in the screenshot below remind me of Mike Boogie from Big Brother!

Sound:

I’ve heard lots of things about how people love Streets of Rage music, but I wasn’t jumping out of my seat over it. I mean, it’s fine. A few of the level tunes had me humming along. But it’s been a few days since I’ve played this game and I can already tell you I don’t remember a single musical track from this game.

The sound effects are good. Beat ‘em ups absolutely have to have satisfying punch/kick noises – and Streets of Rage delivers in that category.

 

Overall:

I had a good time with this game. It seems like it is very well put together. Good graphics, good presentation, fun characters and level design. I like the strategic element to the game and that you have to really memorize patterns and fighting techniques not only with the game’s main enemies but the bosses as well. I like how the game handles weapon management (although the knife guys start to get annoying after a while). Like I said, I had a good time as I played Streets of Rage. But I wouldn’t go any farther than that. I most definitely did not have a GREAT time with the game. It seemed to be lacking that certain “fun” element that is hard to put into words. Technically the game is put together well and does everything right. And it is entertaining to play. But to me it’s just missing that extra spark that would make it special.

I’d say this is a good game, but not a great one. I plan to play through all three Streets of Rage games, and this game did absolutely nothing to discourage me from continuing. I’ve heard Streets of Rage 2 is the best game in the series, and possibly one of the best beat ‘em ups of all time. I can’t wait to play it! Had to start with the first one, though. And I can easily say that I am glad I played it.

 

Final Score:

B-

If you liked this review, check out some of my other game reviews:

Double Dragon

Final Fight

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Ninja Gaiden

TMNT III: The Manhattan Project

Video Game Review #287: Batman: The Animated Series

Batman: The Animated Series

Game Boy

Nostalgia Factor:

Batman: The Animated series is perhaps my favorite 90s cartoon of all time. I watched it religiously as a kid, and to this day I still think it is fantastic. That said, I never owned a Game Boy growing up and I never had any idea that this game even existed. I just happened upon it by chance here in the year 2021 – 28 years after the game’s initial 1993 release date. I didn’t expect much from this title, but seeing how big a fan I am of the source material I couldn’t help but give it a chance. It turned out to be a pleasant surprise! Read on for my full thoughts.

Story:

This game plays out in a similar fashion to the show. You’ve got several levels, each one “themed” after one of the villains (a Joker stage, a Mr Freeze Stage, etc). At the end of each level you fight said villain as a boss character. There are short storyboard sequences before and after each stage that help flesh out the different scenarios. Honestly there is nothing too horribly memorable to see here as far as the story goes. Mr. Freeze wants to freeze the city. The Joker wants to cause chaos, etc. Mainly I just love how loyal to the source material the game is.

 

Gameplay: 

As soon as I started playing this it brought to mind NES classics like Ninja Gaiden and Castlevania. I’m not saying it is as good as those games (it’s not), but it does have some familiar elements to it – mainly in the controls. The jumping and platforming sections are crisp and on the money. You can wall jump. You use a grappling hook to get to hard-to-reach locations. As far as combat goes, mainly you have to get in close to your enemies and hit them with a melee attack, but you can discover batarang projectiles to make your life easier as you progress through each stage. The game is super easy to just pick up and play in a large part because of its familiarity.

That said, it may be easy to pick up and play but it is still pretty difficult to master. That’s also where the NES comparisons come in. This game is tough! You get a small handful of lives and a limited number of continues in which to beat this game. Run out of continues and you go back to the beginning of the game. No save or password options here, unfortunately.

You’ll be able to trial and error your way through this game, slowly getting better with each subsequent attempt. The only thing that really tripped me up were the boss fights. Some of them can be quite brutal.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that you do take control of Robin two different times throughout this game. Robin handles differently with his ability to scale walls and hang from the ceiling. His stages seem to be more about nailing difficult jumps and navigating stage obstacles as opposed to the combat oriented Batman levels. I had fun with these levels, though, and was able to appreciate that the makers of the game tried to mix things up a little bit to keep everything fresh.

 

Graphics:

This is possibly the best looking Game Boy game I have played. I’ve only played three of them, so that may not seem like a very good complement. But I have a feeling that this is probably the best the Game Boy can get. The cutscenes, the stages, the character designs – I was completely shocked the whole way through this with just how well they captured the feel of the show. It’s tough to do in black and white, but they completely pulled it off. 

My only complaint is that there were a few stages where Batman’s dark character design blended in with the background and made him a bit difficult to see. Otherwise I'd say this game exceeded my modest expectations.

Sound:

They pulled off the sound of the show very well too. I absolutely loved how they turned the cartoon’s soundtrack into 8-bit style musical tunes. The recreation of the cartoon’s opening sequence really got me pumped to play this game. Again – super impressive considering this is a 28 year old Game Boy title.

Overall:

I had such a fun time with this game, and I was not expecting it at all. I had never heard a single word said about this game – good or bad. Usually that means the game is completely dull or forgettable. Luckily that was not the case in this instance. It is the perfect mix of NES style 2D platforming, a good challenge, a great theme, and just good ole fun game mechanics and level design. If you’re a fan of the show or this genre of game in general you will probably like this game. I’d definitely recommend it!

 

Final Score:

B+

If you liked this review, check out some of my other game reviews:

Castlevania: The Adventure

Operation C

Batman Forever

Batman Returns

Ninja Gaiden

Video Game Review #286: Final Fight

Final Fight

Arcade

Nostalgia Factor:

I have such great nostalgic memories of Final Fight. When I was a kid my family lived near a pizzeria that had this game in the back. As soon as we’d arrive I’d always run back there and sink all my quarters into this game. I made it pretty deep into the game – the level where you have to avoid the flames coming out of the ground - but I could never get over that hump. I always ran out of quarters.

I haven’t played this game (or even any iteration of Final Fight) in the 30 years since then, but I still remember my time with it fondly.

When I started emulating a few months ago, it was an absolute no-brainer that I’d end up returning to Final Fight and finishing it off once and for all. How would this game hold up over all this time? Let’s find out!

Story:

This is a beat ‘em up, so ultimately its story is not too important. But Final Fight tries!

Mike Haggar is a former wrestler who has become mayor of Metro City. Under his regime, crime is at an all-time low. Needless to say, the criminals are not happy about this. The top criminal organization in the city, the Mad Gear Gang, kidnaps Haggar’s daughter Jessica in retaliation. Haggar sets off on a journey through the city with two sidekicks in tow – Jessica’s boyfriend Cody and Cody’s frenemy Guy. The threesome tears through Metro City, beating the shit out of every bad guy in sight. At the end of the game (spoiler alert) they make it to the Mad Gear headquarters and rescue Jessica.

The end.

Gameplay:

This is one of the first beat ‘em ups I can ever remember playing, and it set the standard in my mind for every beat ‘em up to come afterwards.

You should know how this type of game works, but I’ll explain it if you don’t. Each level starts with you in control of whichever of the three characters you’ve selected. It is your goal to make it through each stage while punching, jump kicking, and throwing your enemies into oblivion. You walk on a 3D plane, meaning you can go up and down in addition to left and right. Occasionally you’ll find things like telephone booths and barrels that you can break to get special items. These items include health upgrades, shiny collectibles that add to your point total, and weapons you can use to bash your enemies, such as a pipe or a sword.

I’ve played many games like this over the years, and I can easily say that none of them are as good as the original Final Fight. Many of these games I’ve even played recently. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Not as good. Streets of Rage? Not as good. Ninja Gaiden? Get the fuck out of here.

Even though this game is so simple, there’s just something undeniable about how well it has held up over the years. The fighting is satisfying, the breakable objects are fun to smash, the setting is super cool, the playable characters are fun and each have their own unique fighting styles, and the game never seems too ridiculously difficult. A lot of these old beat ‘em ups are designed to make you die as much as humanly possible so you keep feeding quarters into the machine. Final Fight doesn’t fall into that trap. I can make it pretty far into the game (around the stage with the wrestling ring) before even having to use a continue. Even later on in the game when you ARE facing swarms of enemies that are difficult to kill, you still don’t ever feel like you don’t have a chance.

Final Fight just has that “it” factor that makes it special. It doesn’t try to do too much, but it doesn’t do too little either. It’s the perfect balance of literally everything you could ever want in a beat ‘em up. Throw in the option to play this game with a buddy in its two player co-op mode and you’ve got yourself a real winner. I have never encountered a single person who says they don’t like Final Fight, and to me this fact says a lot about the quality of the game.

 

Graphics:

Part of me can’t believe that this game is 32 years old. It looks so good! Bright, cartoony characters. A world bursting with personality. Small little details in the background that make you smile when you notice them. It just looks fantastic. The graphics have aged just as well as the gameplay.

 

Sound:

An aspect of successful beat ‘em up games that often goes overlooked is its sound quality. Final Fight definitely does not disappoint in this area. The level music, while not the most memorable in the world, is catchy and really gets you in the mood to beat the living crap out of a bunch of criminals. The smashing sound when you punch or throw your enemies across the screen is just so perfect and satisfying. Capcom really knocked this game’s graphics, sound, and fun factor completely out of the park.

 

Overall:

I’ve been ranting and raving about this game so much that you are probably expecting it to get an A+. So will it? Well… no.

What is it? What’s wrong with this game? What could I possibly have to nitpick about Final Fight?

Nothing really. The game is fun, it looks good, it sounds good. It even takes a stab at giving you a coherent story, which most games of this genre tend to just completely blow off. To me, it is just too short to give a perfect score. It’s simple. It’s repetitive. Can I really with a good conscience say that this game is on the same level as something like Ocarina of Time of Super Mario 3? No, because it’s not. So it has to get an A. Not necessarily because there is anything wrong with this game, or it isn’t an absolute blast to play. It’s just not *quite* there at a level that I would consider super elite. Of all the games to get an A for this blog, however, it is the absolute closest of all of them to getting an A+. It’s that good.

Play Final Fight. If you haven’t played this game, or even if you have – Final Fight should satisfy the destructive appetite of any gamer out there.

 

Final Score:

A

If you liked this review, check out some of my other game reviews:

Double Dragon (arcade)

Ninja Gaiden (arcade)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (arcade)

TMNT III: The Manhattan Project

Double Dragon (NES)

Video Game Review #285: Rampage World Tour

Rampage World Tour

Nintendo 64

Nostalgia Factor:

I have a lot of fun memories of going to the skating rink with my family when I was a kid. I wasn’t too fond on the actual skating aspect when we’d go out; I was more interested in the arcade games. Our local skating rink had Rampage and this is the game I would sink most of my quarters into. It was such a fun and perfect game for a young kid like me, and it was always a real treat when my family members would play alongside me.

I never played any of the Rampage home ports, and seeing as how the series kind of fizzled out I never gave it much thought going forward - until 1998, the year Rampage World Tour came out for the Nintendo 64. When I went to Blockbuster Video and saw this game sitting on the shelf for rental, I knew I had to check it out. I had loved the original Rampage so much as a kid, and I was beyond thrilled that it had been revived for the “next generation” of gaming.

I rented it, beat it, and I’d say I enjoyed my time with it. I realized it was quite shallow and repetitive, however, and after returning the game to Blockbuster it dropped out of my mind pretty much immediately.

I’d get the opportunity to play the game again in the year 2021, a whopping twenty three years after its initial release. How would it hold up after all this time? Ehh…… it’s best if you just read the review to get the full scope of things.

Story:

You have a choice of three playable characters: George the gorilla, Lizzie the lizard, and Ralph the wolf. Each of these characters are massive, their genes mutated by laboratory testing. As you play, your goal is to travel from city to city, destroying all of the “Scumlabs” facilities around the world in a murderous quest for revenge.

 

Gameplay:

This title’s gameplay is very simplistic. Aside from the joystick you really only use two buttons – one for jumping and one for smashing. The game is comprised of over 100 short levels. Your goal in each of these levels is to destroy every building in sight. Do so and you move on to the next level. And the next. And the next. 

You start in the USA. Most of the Scumlabs facilities you have to destroy are located around the world. To help you make it through the game faster it is advised that you look for world flags when knocking windows out of buildings. Eating that flag will take you to its respective country when the next level begins. You play through a few stages in that foreign country, the last one being a city with the Scumlabs building in it. Destroy the lab and you return to the US where you have to look for the next world flag (and by extension the next Scumlabs facility).

You can destroy buildings in a myriad of ways. You can climb up each building and punch out their windows one by one. You can stand on the top of each building and punch downward. Buildings that are low to the ground you can bounce up and down on like a  trampoline. As you try to destroy these buildings you’ll have to deal with small nuisances like police officers firing bullets at you or helicopters trying to shoot you out of the sky. I always found the most annoying enemy type to be the tanks that knock you down when they hit you with one of their shells. Oftentimes they’ll fire and hit you again just as you are standing up, before you can even move or do anything to defend yourself. And they will do it over and over again. It’s so annoying!

There are items to be found everywhere in this game. Most of them are attained by knocking out windows in buildings. Items like food will fill up a little bit of your health bar. Other items will give you special powers, like super strength. Some items will hurt you, however. I never understood the rhyme or reason of what items help and which ones hurt you. Like, it’s okay to eat this washer and dryer set but eating a shoe or a paint palette will hurt you? Ok Jan.

This game gets repetitive fast. All you are doing is the same thing over and over again. Scale a building and punch its windows out. Eat items and eat people for spare health. Jump on top of a building and level it to the ground. Jump off the building and move on to the next one, which you also destroy. All you are doing is destroying buildings. So on and so forth. It doesn’t help that there is absolutely no incentive to not take damage or lose lives. There are infinite continues here, so there is no consequence to ignoring enemies and getting killed over and over again. A major irritant is that you can’t change characters when you die. I had picked George with the intent of switching to Lizzie and Ralph at some point to give each character a try. Nope. I was stuck with George the entire game. How disappointing.

As I said before there are over 100 levels in this game. By the fifth or sixth level I was already worn out on this title’s repetitive gameplay and I was absolutely dreading the fact that I had to play through so many more levels to finish the game. But I did it. It was painful but I did it. By the end of the game I was trying to finish each stage as quickly as possible. I’d climb to the top of a building, smash downward, and move on to the next building. I didn’t bother knocking out windows or looking for items (unless I needed a world flag). I didn’t bother fighting enemies. I was just trying to get through this as quickly as possible so I could be done with it.

 

 

Graphics:

The game looks pretty good. I know it was criticized when it came out for using 2D sprite graphics and not making the switch to 3D, but I think that it has helped this game to hold up over time. A lot of those old PS1/N64 era games try to do too much with their graphics and make things 3D just for the sake of it, and they end up suffering in the long run. Rampage skillfully avoided that trap.

I like all the bright colors and all the carnage the game is constantly throwing at you. It is like a comic book come to life. Sometimes you just have to stop and check out all of what is happening on the screen at once. I like how so many different cities and countries are represented through the background visuals. Yeah, a lot of cities end up looking “samey” but that was bound to happen in a game with over 100 stages.

I will admit that too many signs and landmarks are repeated in each city. How many “Dan’s Diners” can there possibly be in the world?

 

Sound:

The game’s music is pretty good. It kind of has this sweeping, heroic feel to it even though technically you are playing as the bad guys who eat innocent people and level entire cities to the ground. The sound effects are good. Lots of smashing and shooting sounds to go around. Nothing about this game’s audio really stands out, but I think it accomplishes what it sets out to do.

Overall:

This is not a game suited for playing on a home console. Rampage is fun when you are playing it in short bursts in an arcade. But as a sit down experience? Meh.

It’s just so absurdly repetitive. You’ve seen four or five levels in this game, you’ve seen them all. Forcing yourself to play through over 100 nearly identical stages just to see the end credits start to roll is a daunting experience. Not because it is difficult (it’s not), but because it is just so tedious and mundane. I had already had my fill of Rampage World Tour before even hitting the tenth stage.

I’m sure this game is more fun with multiple players, but even then I am sure it starts to get boring quick. I’m sure my son would love to play this game with me when he is old enough. But can we sit there and play through the whole thing from beginning to end, 100 stages and all? No. Absolutely not.

I can recommend this game because I like the idea of it. But I can only recommend it to people who have kids or people who want to play something mindless and destructive where little skill is required to succeed. For serious gamers though, this game should be avoided. Like I said, I’ll play it in the future if my son wants to play it. But if he doesn’t, I am never picking this game up again.

 

Final Score:

D

For a complete index of all of my game reviews, click 

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Video Game Review #284: Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

Nintendo Entertainment System

Nostalgia Factor:

I have a confession for you: I never played Castlevania III as a kid. I absolutely loved the first game in the series, but its sequel Simon’s Quest left a bad taste in my mouth. If I’d known that Dracula’s Curse had ditched the Simon’s Quest formula and returned to the roots of the original Castlevania, I definitely would have checked it out. But I didn’t.

Fast forward to the year 2021 – a whopping THIRTY ONE years since Castlevania III’s release date. I’ve been playing through the Castlevania Anniversary Collection for the PS4, and after playing through Castlevania I and II for the NES and Castlevania: The Adventure for the Game Boy, it was finally this game’s turn.

Holy cow. I had absolutely NO idea what I was missing. Why did no one ever tell me this game was so good? I immediately fell in love with this game and as it stands, this might be my favorite Castlevania title of all time.

Read on for my full thoughts.

Story:

Despite being the third numbered entry in the series, this is actually a prequel that takes place before any of the other NES games. Simon Belmont’s ancestor Trevor heads out on a quest to defeat Count Dracula, whose evil forces have been wreaking havoc on the land. On his way to Dracula’s castle, Trevor may encounter three additional characters on his journey - Sypha the Sorceress, Grant Danasty the pirate, or Alucard the son of Dracula.

Trevor can recruit one of these characters at a time to join him on his quest. Depending on who you bring with you (or if you bring no one at all), the game’s ending will change accordingly.

That’s really it. There’s nothing too horribly deep about this game’s storyline. All you’re doing is heading out on a quest to destroy Dracula, and you can accept the help of these three strangers if you so choose to do so.

 

Gameplay:

It will only take you a few seconds of playing Dracula’s Curse to realize that its gameplay has returned to the roots of the original Castlevania. The controls are the same, the music and the graphics look the same, the candle-whipping setup is the same. The items are the same. It’s linear. No towns to explore or NPCs to talk to. Right away this excited me. This was the game I had wanted Castlevania II to be as a kid. I’ve warmed up to Simon’s Quest over the years, but when I was younger I absolutely hated that game. I’m guessing your average gamer back then probably did too. All I could think as I played through the first level was how on earth I could have missed out on this as a kid. It was perfect - everything I had ever wanted in a Castlevania title, and more.

I could explain this game’s layout and controls in great detail, but I have already done that in my review of the original Castlevania. This title’s gameplay is just so similar to the original’s that I feel I would only be repeating myself. Instead I will explain what this game does differently.

The first thing I’ll mention is how this game has branching paths. As soon as you finish the first level you will be presented with your first choice – head to the clock tower or head to the woods. My choice the first time I played this game was to go to the clock tower. Making it through this level and defeating its boss allows you to add Grant Danasty as your companion if you choose to do so. After you make your decision, you have to climb down to the bottom of the clock tower and return to the path heading into the woods. I didn’t know it at the time, but the clock tower itself is a completely optional level. If I wanted to, I could have just taken the woods route and saved myself the trouble of even bothering with the clock tower. But if I had done that, I wouldn’t have been able to add Grant to my party. On subsequent playthroughs I did in fact skip the clock tower, since I’d already beaten the game with Grant as my companion and unlocked that specific ending.

There are other branching path decisions you have to make as you advance deeper into the game. One path takes you to Sypha, the other takes you to Alucard. Even after obtaining these characters the game gives you more paths you can take as you advance towards Dracula’s castle. Each time you play through this game you could potentially take a different path to the end. That gives this title tremendous replay value.

What do these extra characters that you can recruit add to the game? The ability to switch over from Trevor and play as them at any point you’d like. Each of these characters have their own unique strengths and weaknesses. Grant is fast, agile, and can grab and climb on things. Sypha has powerful magic attacks. Alucard has a projectile attack and can also turn himself into a bat to fly through some of the more difficult parts of the game’s stages. I personally prefer playing as Trevor, but the fact that you have four different characters with unique fighting styles to master also gives this game tremendous replay value.

Everyone loves to say how the original Castlevania is SUCH a challenging game, but I’ve never subscribed to that notion. I have never had a particularly difficult time with that game (unless we’re talking about that final battle with Dracula). This game, however, DEFINITELY deserves the reputation of being challenging. You have unlimited continues, but you only get three lives per continue. Use up those three lives and back to the beginning of the stage you go! The stages in this game can be long and extremely brutal, and you’ll find yourself dying left and right. Three lives doesn’t seem like much if you want to beat each stage. It’s not impossible to do, but it does take quite a bit of trial and error. Luckily Dracula’s Curse features a password system so you don’t have to start from the beginning of the game each time you fire it up.

Despite the stiff challenge, this game is still a lot of fun. It’s just so well made. It’s like the original Castlevania on steroids. But it’s not too over the top. It doesn’t take things too far. It captures the classic essence of the original game while still being this giant, sweeping epic all at the same time. I can’t say enough how much this game impressed me.

 

Graphics:

If you’ve played through the original Castlevania, you’ll know what to expect here. It looks very similar in many regards. At the same time, it also looks much better. It seems like this game has a lot more color to it. More well-designed backgrounds. Some cool weather effects. A greater variety of enemies to fight. A lot more small, detailed touches were put into bringing the world of this game to life, and it was a complete success. I didn’t give the world or the setting of the first Castlevania game much thought, but things are just so interesting looking here it is almost like the setting of the game is a major character in and of itself.

Sound:

This game gets a lot of accolades for its soundtrack, but to be honest with you I wasn’t too horribly impressed. I much preferred the music in both Castlevania I and II. Not to say this game’s music is bad. It’s not. It’s just not as good as those other two games. I do like how the music from the first stage of the original Castlevania is used when you first make it to the bottom of Dracula’s castle. That’s a nice little throwback.

The sound effects, pulled straight from the previous two titles in the series, are fantastic. The sound quality of this game is just really good all around.

 

Overall:

In case you can’t tell, I really freaking loved playing this game. The gameplay, the graphics, the music, the sound effects, the branching paths, the difficulty, the multiple characters, the multiple endings - there is just so much content crammed into this game, and it’s all A+ material.

If Simon’s Quest had never been released and this game had come out as the original Castlevania II, no doubt I would have gotten this and played the heck out of it when I was a kid. It’s SO GOOD. I would have played it for months and months too with all the replay value this game has to offer. I’m a little disappointed I didn’t grow up with this game, but at the same time it’s kind of nice “discovering” a 31 year old classic as good as this. I thought I had already played all the best games the NES had to offer but clearly I was wrong.

There are a few flaws to be found here. Some of the bosses can be quite challenging, and the whole “use a continue and go back to the beginning of the stage” thing is quite annoying. Especially when you consider how long these stages are. You are going to be playing through the same segments of the game over and over again.

I also don’t like how your character handles when you’re on a staircase. I know this is a common Castlevania complaint. It didn’t bother me much in the other games, but there are so many staircases in this title that it becomes an unavoidable irritant. You move too slowly, it’s hard to change directions, and your special items only selectively decide when they want to work. There are a few moments in this game where you have to go up multiple staircases while projectiles are being fired at you and enemies keep respawning and flying across the stage in your direction every ten seconds or so. Ugh.

There are a few dud levels as well. One that stands out in my mind is  the one where you have to wait for the dripping acid to dissolve blocks that are in your way. This part of the game takes so freaking long. It may even be the same level, but I hate the part where you have to wait for the falling blocks to stack high enough for you to reach a door. Ugh. So much ugh.

Another minor complaint is that often I found myself mistaking something in the background for actual scenery. I’d try to jump onto what I thought was a ledge or something only to fall to my death. Or I’d have the opposite problem where I’d be walking along and not see a gap in the walkway and innocently fall to my death. I don’t recall having this problem in any of the other Castlevania games.

But that is really all I have for gripes, and none of them are that major. I feel as if when I discuss an A+ game, I have to lay out all its flaws so I don’t seem too biased. Wait, did I just say an A+ game? You bet I did. Dracula’s Curse is just so damn cool. I didn’t think any Castlevania game would ever be able to top the original for me, and this one did it with flying colors. That’s no small feat when you take into account that nostalgia often clouds my judgment when reviewing some of these older games. I didn’t grow up with this game, but I can acknowledge that it is easily, EASILY the best Castlevania title I have played to date. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the series has in store for me.

 

Final Score:

A+

If you liked this review, check out some of my other game reviews:

Castlevania

Castlevania II: Simon's Quest

Castlevania: The Adventure

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

Mega Man 2

Video Game Review #283: Ninja Gaiden

Ninja Gaiden

Arcade

Nostalgia Factor:

I have nothing but love for the NES Ninja Gaiden titles. I’ve been a big fan of them virtually my entire life. That said, I never had much experience with the arcade game growing up. I only encountered it a small handful of times in my life – and similar to Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker – never seemed to have many quarters on me whenever I would encounter it. I was always intrigued by it, though. I liked how it was SO different from the NES games, offering players a side-scrolling Double Dragon-esque beat ‘em up style of play. I thought it was just so fun. One thing that always stood out in my mind was the continue screen, where Ryu is facing certain death by buzzsaw if you don’t plug a quarter in and continue. Good stuff!

As the years passed, arcades eventually went away for good. As a result I basically threw my hands up in the air and said “okay I guess I’ll never get the chance to play that game again!”

But here in the year 2021 emulation is readily abvailable at our fingertips, and easier than ever to pull off. I’d get my chance to come back to this game that I loved so much as a kid and finally be able to sink a significant amount of time into it.

Would I still like this game? Well, let’s just say some things are better left to memories. Read on for my full review.

Story:

While the storyline of Ninja Gaiden was its driving force for the NES, it has almost no consequence whatsoever on this game. You’re a ninja and you’re out to destroy some random bad guy who is trying to make Nostradamus’s apocalyptic visions come true. Fight through all the stages and you kill him at the end of the game. That’s it.

Gameplay: 

The best comparison for this game would be something like Golden Axe or Double Dragon. It’s a beat ‘em up, so basically all you do is work your way from the left side of the screen to the right, beating up enemies as you go. You move on a 3D surface, meaning you can move up and down in addition to left and right. Enemies come at you in waves. Unlike other games where you have your standard attack in addition to special moves or jump kicks, this game is pretty much limited to your standard punching attack. The recipe for success is to line yourself up on a slightly different plane from your enemies and either move towards them and punch them or let them come to you. You also have a throw attack where you jump at your enemy and hit the attack button. This throws them across the screen, doing damage to them in the process. It’s a little touchy to pull off though. There were times I had everything lined up perfectly and the attack didn’t work. There doesn’t seem to be much rhyme or reason to its successs rate.

The environment is filled with destroyable objects. You can either throw or punch your enemy into them to destroy them. You can’t just destroy them with your fists. Many of these destroyable objects contain power ups like health items, point-accruing items, one ups, or a sword that you can hold for a limited time that does extra damage to your enemies.

You aren’t going to find a whole lot of variety here. Most of the stages consist of the same thing over and over again. Punch, throw, beat people up, move to the right side of the screen. I mean, this is normal for beat ‘em ups of this era, but the action isn’t as fun or as well put-together as it is in games like Final Fight or Streets of Rage. It just gets really boring after a while.

I’d say the part where I started to lose touch with the game came about halfway through it. You have to swing across tree branches over a body of water filled with enemies that pop out and attack you. I couldn’t even figure out how to grab the tree branch. I must have died at least 20 times on this part. Luckily I was playing on an emulator with unlimited continues, but can you imagine if I had been playing this on an actual arcade unit using quarters? It would have cost me a fortune!

It gets worse on the game’s last stage. A few of the game’s final bosses kill you with one hit. You only get two lives per “quarter”. If you die, the game takes you back a significant amount of time in the level. So to beat these bosses you basically have to do it on just two hits. Absolutely ridiculous. I hate that the game doesn't let you pick up where you died when you continue. Even with save states I struggled mightily with this part of the game. I can’t possibly imagine doing it in the arcade. It would have been almost impossible to pull off.

I’ll admit there are times this game can be fun, but at the same time I can’t deny that it is repetitive and cruelly unfair at other times.

Graphics:

I suppose for a game that was released in the late 1980s it looks pretty good. I don’t know. As I was playing I just couldn’t find much of anything about this game’s graphical style that impressed me too much. Maybe because I was kind of having a lousy time with the game I wasn’t really willing to give the game’s graphics too much credit. In retrospect I can admit it looks pretty decent though. This game has a nice, vibrant color scheme. The stage backgrounds are full of details like signs and advertisements. Although the enemy characters repeat themselves quite often, the cast as a whole doesn’t look too bad.

The continue screen is one of the most awesome continue screens I’ve seen in a video game. I guess I have nothing to complain about.

Sound:

Just like the graphics, the game’s sound didn’t impress me much at first either. It wasn’t until I got near the end of the game when I noticed something peculiar about the music playing during a boss battle. Is that…? No, it can’t be. Wait, I think it is. Holy shit.

Yup, the song “Iron Man” by Black Sabbath is turned into a video game tune and plays a few times during this game. How cool is that?

 

Overall:

This is a game I desperately wanted to like. I love the NES Ninja Gaiden titles. I love beat ‘em ups. I love the concept of this game. I love my memories of it as a kid. The presentation is good. It’s got solid graphics and music. It just has one fatal flaw:

It’s not very fun to play. There is no way around it. It starts out like it might be okay, but by the time you even get to the second level you realize you’ve already seen everything this game has to offer. It starts to become a chore to play. It’s SO repetitive. Throw in the crappy branch-swinging segments and the absurdly unfair boss fights at the end of the game and you’ve got yourself a supremely frustrating video game experience.

I have nothing against games being difficult, but when they start to venture into unfair territory, that’s when I have a problem.

I do notice that this game is two player co-op. Maybe with a second player this game is more fun to play. It’s extremely possible – but well I only played with one player so I am only going to report on my experience with the game. It’s not fun. I wouldn’t say Ninja Gaiden is horrible or anything, but it is definitely one of the worst games I’ve played since I learned how to emulate. I’d recommend this title only to historians who are interested in seeing what Ninja Gaiden would look like as a side-scrolling beat ‘em up. Everyone else won’t be missing much if they decide to skip over this one.

Final Score:

D

If you liked this review, please check out some of my other game reviews:

 Ninja Gaiden

Ninja Gaiden 2

Double Dragon

TMNT III: The Manhattan Project

Rastan