Video Game Review #272: Castlevania: The Adventure

Castlevania: The Adventure

Game Boy

Nostalgia Factor:

I recently started making my way through the Castlevania Anniversary Collection on the PS4. Last up was Simon’s Quest. Before taking the leap to Castlevania III (which I have never played and I am very excited to check out) I figured I’d quickly detour over to the Nintendo Game Boy and check out Castlevania: The Adventure first. I must point out that it bothers me that this is called Castlevania: The Adventure and not The Castlevania Adventure as it appears on the box. But whatever.

I’ve never heard a single thing about this game before, so I came into it completely blind and not knowing what to expect. How would I like it? Let’s find out.

 

Story: 

This game is a prequel to the original Castlevania. You play as Christopher Belmont, an ancestor of Simon. Your quest is to destroy Dracula.

Wow, what deep storytelling! The only point of interest is at the end of the game when a bat (clearly Dracula) escapes from the castle’s rubble and flies away. Obviously, he doesn’t die in this game as he appears later in the series. So is there really any point or relevance to this game’s story? Not particularly, but come on. This is an early Game Boy platformer. Its story is inconsequential.

Gameplay:

This is a very difficult game. I feel that this is one of the first things I have to point out. And this is coming from someone who doesn’t think Castlevania I or II for the NES are particularly challenging. This game is TOUGH!

There are only four stages in the whole game, but they are all very long. You get three lives. If you die and use up those three lives, you have to use a continue and start over at the beginning of the stage again. Let me stress: these stages are LONG. There is nothing more frustrating than making it ten-plus minutes into a stage and then dying and having to start the whole thing over again. Better get used to it, as this is going to happen to you a LOT. This game is a brutal challenge. There are spikes that kill you with one hit. Bouncing projectiles that hit you multiple times. Pits you must jump over that require precise, pixel-perfect accuracy lest you fall to instant death. You’re going to constantly be bombarded by enemy attacks that drain your health. You must nail precision jumps from rope to rope. Each stage has a fairly difficult boss battle at the end of it. It takes a while to get their patterns down. But guess what, you only have three lives - and chances are that you have used some of them up by the time you get to the boss. If you die, you go back to the beginning of the stage.

The most difficult stage for me is the one where the screen scrolls up and you have to avoid the spikes at the bottom of the stage. So much precision jumping is required, along with pattern memorization. It seems to go on forever. Then all of a sudden it starts scrolling left and you have to outrun a giant wall of spikes coming from the right, trying to crush you. If you make a single mistake, just one misstep and you’ll get killed immediately. This took me SO MANY tries. Luckily I was playing on the PS4 Anniversary Collection, which has save states. I was able to beat the game, but it took a lot of trial and error to do so. After beating the game I tried playing through it again without using save states and only made it to end of the third stage. I’m sure if I had kept playing and practicing I would have been able to make it to the end of the game, but do I look like I have time for that?

Last thing I must add is that this is a very basic version of Castlevania. You don’t get knives, axes, or holy water to throw at your enemies. Hearts actually restore your health rather than give you points or money. The biggest change is how your whip operates. You start out with the basic, weak whip and you earn upgrades as you play by whipping candles. The strongest form of the whip is the size of the long whip from the original Castlevania. This whip, however, fires projectiles from the tip of it. This is a cool addition to the game for one reason: if you get hit, your whip’s strength level goes back one. So if I have the fully charged whip and I get hit, I drop back to the regular long whip. Get hit again and I drop to the weak whip. The more you get hit, the weaker you become. This gives you further incentive to not get hit, as the fully charged whip makes most enemies super easy – particularly the bosses. That makes hanging onto them absolutely vital, and also what makes it such a kick in the balls when you get hit and have to watch your whip’s strength drop down a level.

 

Graphics:

There’s not much to look at here. This is a very basic looking black and white Game Boy game. It doesn’t look anywhere near as good as the original Castlevania or any of its NES sequels. It’s very bland looking. It also moves a bit slow and choppy at times. I wouldn’t say that the visuals make this game unplayable, however. It might look extremely primitive to us playing it here in the year 2021, but they get the job done well enough for you to be able to enjoy the game.

 

Sound:

I like the way this game sounds. It definitely has that classic Castlevania feel to its sound effects. The music, however, is terrific. All of the game’s tracks are originals, but you can clearly see where they are inspired by the first two NES Castlevania games. One of them sounds a lot of like my favorite Simon’s Quest theme, and I will admit that hearing it brought a big smile to my face. I never would have expected a Game Boy game to deliver such quality music, so color me super surprised.

 

Overall:

I had a pretty good time playing Castlevania: The Adventure. It’s challenging but fun at the same time. It keeps you coming back for more. You should definitely play this using save states. While I appreciate classic titles that offer a stiff challenge, this game can get downright brutal at times. You have to be perfect when you play this game, or you die. Unless you want to sit down with this game for 30 plus hours, becoming a master of it, I’d suggest just using save states. You’ll have this game beaten in one playing session.

I was able to master two of the game’s first four stages without save states. Didn’t die once on either of them. But the third stage with the screen scrolling is where the difficulty starts to become super ridiculous. And if you die and use up your lives, you have to go back to the beginning of the stage. Given how long these stages are, I can see this becoming a real problem for people.

Looking at reviews of this game online, it is often slammed as one of, if not THE worst Castlevania games out there. That kind of surprises me. I liked this game. If this is the worst the series has to offer, I must be in for a real treat when I get to the rest of them. I’ve heard nothing but good things about Castlevania III and IV. And Rondo of Blood. And Aria of Sorrow. And Bloodlines. And Symphony of the Night. And all the litany of handheld titles I haven't played yet. I wish you could see me greedily rubbing my hands with glee right now.

 

Overall:

B-

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

Castlevania

Castlevania II: Simon's Quest

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

Operation C

Kid Icarus

Video Game Review #271: Bonk's Adventure

Bonk's Adventure

TurboGrafx-16

Nostalgia Factor:

I grew up with three stepbrothers. They didn’t actually live in my family’s house, as their dad had full custody of them. Instead, they would visit and stay with my family every other weekend.

It was a random weekend in the early 90s. When my stepbrothers came over for their bi-weekly visit, they brought over a gift their father had given to them for Christmas: a new video game system called the TurboGrafx-16. I had never heard of the TurboGrafx-16 before, so my interest was immediately piqued. What was this mystery system? Why had I never heard of it before? What kind of games did it have? 

My stepbrothers didn’t have a huge variety of games to play, but they had a few. There were a couple Leisure Suit Larry titles. They had a slow moving top-down RPG whose name escapes me at the moment. And they had Bonk’s Adventure, which had come packaged with the system. THIS was the game I was most interested in.

Seeing as how my stepbrothers were mean to me, I never had much of a chance to toy around with the TurboGrafx-16. I remember one of them even telling me, when they left the house to go run an errand, that I had BETTER not touch their system while they were gone. So what did I do? I touched it. I played Bonk’s Adventure from beginning to end that afternoon, finishing it in one sitting.

When the dust settled, I remember thinking WOW that was a really great game. Unfortunately, this happened about 30 years ago and I have not been able to revisit Bonk since. Thanks to the power of emulation, I decided that Bonk’s Adventures would be one of the first titles I would revisit. Was it really a good game, or had I just been blown away by TurboGrafx fever when I was a kid?

Let’s find out.

 

Story:

Playing as a big-headed caveman named Bonk, you embark on a journey to defeat King Drool, an evil large dinosaur, and rescue a kidnapped princess. Sound familiar?

Honestly, there isn’t much to say about this game’s story.

 

Gameplay:

This is a very easy game to pick up and play. It’s a traditional left-to-right 2D platformer. You have a few different attacks, all involving your massive chrome dome. You can “bonk” your enemies with a lethal head butt attack, you can jump underneath them and smack them with your head on the way up, or you can flip upside down in mid-air and come crashing down on your enemies with your head.

You pick up power ups along the way. You have your standard health and point-accruing items, but there are a few special items as well. One of them makes you temporarily invincible, destroying every enemy you come into contact with. The other lets you freeze your enemies for a second if you bonk the ground with a diving head attack.

There is not much to say about the structure of the game. You make your way through each level, killing enemies, jumping over obstacles, and collecting items. There are some swimming sections, but those work pretty much exactly as you would expect them to. Every few stages you face off against a boss character whose weakness is highlighted by a glowing spot on their body.

The thing that makes Bonk different is its unique gameplay. I never knew there were so many ways to kill enemies with your head until I played this game. The setting is also cool. The bosses are creative and fun. On the surface, there isn’t much that this game does differently from your traditional 2D platformer. But it works.

Graphics:

I wouldn’t say this game looks as good as most Sega Genesis or Super Nintendo games out there, but it definitely looks better than your average NES title. Bonk is a charming character with some fun animations. There are a series of creative enemies and boss characters to fight. The scenery in this game looks really good. I like all the different color and lighting effects when underwater or In fiery areas. The whole prehistoric/caveman theme works really well. Bonk’s Adventure won’t blow you away with its visuals, but its graphics certainly do an admirable job and accomplish what they set out to do.

 

Sound:

The music of the game isn’t great. It’s not terrible or anything, but it is just very “meh.” Nothing memorable, nothing that’ll get stuck in your head. The sound effects are better with some of the dinks and doinks and smashing sounds you hear as you play. But honestly there isn’t much to hear here. Hear here? Does that make sense? I’m rolling with it.

 

Overall:

This is a fun game. Is it outstanding? Is it an unforgettable classic? Absolutely not. I had a fun time playing it when I was a kid. I had a good time playing it as an adult. But there’s nothing about the game that makes it stand out to me. I’ve played over 800 video games in my life. If you want to impress me, you’ve got to do something new and exciting. The whole “head attack” thing is original, I guess. But five minutes into the game it becomes second nature and it is just like you are playing any other generic platformer from the 90s. I don’t mean to do this game a disservice. It is better than your standard generic platformer… but not by much.

I definitely encourage anyone to play Bonk’s Adventure, if only to witness a small piece of video gaming history. You’ll play the game, you’ll probably like it. Will you come out of it thinking “wow this is amazing!?” Probably not. But will you enjoy it? I would like to think so. If you do decide to skip it, honestly you won't be missing much.

 

Final Score:

C+

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

Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros. 2

Rastan

Kid Icarus

Alex Kidd in Miracle World

Video Game Review #270: Willow

Willow

Arcade

Nostalgia Factor:

Despite being a big fan of the movie Willow, I never knew that this game even existed. Which is a surprise, because in the 80s and 90s, I was a kid who spent a LOT of time hanging around at video game arcades. After accidentally stumbling upon some screenshots of the game online, my interest was immediately piqued. One look at Willow was all I needed to convince myself to give it a try.

Read on to see what I have to say about this game.

Story:

This game follows the plot of the movie relatively well. Not gonna lie, it has been a LONG time since I’ve seen Willow – at least 10 or 15 years. So while I am sure that certain liberties have been taken with the movie’s story, I didn’t notice them as I played.

I’m not going to sit here and recap the whole plot of the movie for you, but long story short – a baby that has been marked for death arrives at Willow’s village, and he sets out on a quest to protect the baby and take down the evil forces trying to kill it. How’s that for Cliff’s Notes?

 

Gameplay:

If I had to compare the gameplay of Willow to any game I have played in recent memory, it would be Ghosts ‘n Goblins. It’s a side-scroller. You start on the left side of the screen and make your way to the right. You throw projectiles (similar to the knife in Ghosts ‘n Goblins). The controls are similar. The platforming challenges are similar. The bosses are similar. The difficulty is similar. I think Willow is actually a better and much more polished game than Ghosts ‘n Goblins, however.

The thing that stood out to me the most upon first playing it was the level design. The stages are very creative, the enemies are well-placed. As I played through each stage I got the impression that I was really playing through this fantastic, mystical adventure. Despite the game’s difficulty, I really wanted to keep playing just to see what was around the corner for me.

Speaking of the game’s difficulty, you better prepare yourself for a stiff challenge. This is an arcade game, so it is designed to be more difficult than anything you’d play on a home console. Got to keep plugging those quarters in! You have a life bar, but if you aren’t careful, it will drain real quick. Each quarter gives you exactly one life. If you die, you are forced back to the nearest checkpoint. And trust me: you are going to die. A lot.

You make your way through six stages, fighting enemies, dodging the insane amount of projectiles thrown your way, collecting gold, and defeating bosses. Occasionally the game switches characters from Willow to Madmartigan (played in the movie by Val Kilmer). Madmartigan is a swordsman who slashes at enemies at close range rather than from afar like Willow. Each character has a charge attack where you hold down the attack button and release it to unleash an extra powerful attack.

What makes Willow unique is that there are RPG elements to be found here, which is pretty rare for an arcade game. You are going to want to kill as many enemies as you can and search each area thoroughly for gold, as gold is needed to upgrade your health and magic at shops located randomly throughout the game. The first time I tried playing through Willow, I made the mistake of not upgrading Willow well enough – particularly his weapon. I made it to a boss about midway through the game that I simply could NOT defeat because my attacks weren’t doing enough damage to it. I had to restart the game as a result.

I fared much better on my second attempt as I made it my mission to pump up the power of Willow and Madmartigan as much as I possible could. The game was still challenging as all hell, but I don’t see any way I could have possibly beaten it without the character upgrades. The character upgrades stick around forever too. So if you die you don’t have to worry about losing your extra powerful new spell attack. You will retain it when you plug in a quarter and continue.

For the most part, each mission is traditional side-scrolling platformer fare. But there are a few levels where the game throws some wrinkles at you. One takes place aboard a boat and another has you in control of Madmartigan as he fights off an onslaught of enemies onboard a moving cart. This stage in particular was SO hard for me. These enemies come at you from all directions with almost no room to maneuver… and if you fall off the cart, you die. I struggled with this part even using save states. I can’t imagine how anyone could make it through without them. The checkpoints are genuinely forgiving, though, so if you die it doesn’t set you back too horribly far.

 

Graphics:

Willow just looks incredible. I mentioned earlier in my review how this game came on to my radar when I accidentally stumbled upon some pics of it online. My initial thought was that this game looked so good that it had to be new, or fan-made. It couldn’t possibly be 32 years old. It looked like a game made in present times designed to look retro despite actually being new.

But no. This game really is 32 years old, and it looks amazing. The bright colors, the vivid characters, the detailed scenery, the incredible bosses and atmospheric visual effects. When I think of games that came out back then I think of things like Rolling Thunder or Shinobi. This game is so colorful and gorgeous that my mind is struggling to comprehend how this game could have possibly come out in that era.

If I had to make one complaint it would be that the characters don’t necessarily look like their big screen counterparts.

 

Sound:

The game sounds really good. The level tunes are catchy and get stuck in my head. The sound effects are perfectly appropriate to what is going on onscreen. They match the music and the tone of the game very well. I have absolutely no complaints here.

Overall:

I had such a fun time playing Willow. I still can’t believe that this game somehow slipped past my attention for over 30 years. How could I not know that this existed? I guess the good news is that now I do!

My only real complaint with the game is its difficulty. How many quarters must it have taken to master this game and complete it? I can’t even imagine. Even using save states, I really struggled at times. I tip my hat to anyone who was able to beat this playing it on the actual arcade cabinet.

All in all, this was such a pleasant surprise. I could tell right away by the game’s graphics, music, and overall presentation that I was going to like it. The very first level proved me right. If you can get past this game’s steep difficulty level, you’ll discover a fun and enjoyable platformer at its heart. With its shops and the ability to buy items and upgrade your character – a surprisingly deep one as well.

I recently played Rastan for the arcade and I can easily say that Willow blows that game away. Find some way to play it if you haven’t already.

 

Final Score:

B

 

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

Ghosts 'n Goblins

Rastan

Shinobi

Contra

Gremlins 2: The New Batch

Video Game Review #269: Conker's Bad Fur Day

Conker's Bad Fur Day

Nintendo 64

Nostalgia Factor:

I first rented Conker’s Bad Fur Day back in 2001, expecting it to be simply another Mario 64 or Banjo-Kazooie type game. I remember being so shocked as I played this game and watched its insane events unfold. The cursing and the profanity. The alcohol abuse. The sexual innuendos. The shocking, random moments of gratuitous violence. And who could forget the giant singing creature made out of poo? This was not your average Nintendo kids title.

Back then, I was never able to beat the game as I got stuck about halfway through it. But boy did it leave an impression on me.

I would revisit the world of Conker in 2006 when I played the Xbox remake of the original classic. This time I was finally able to complete the game, although I never did come back and finish off the N64 version. Well, here in the year 2021, that has changed. How would I feel about this version of the game, after finally beating it 20 years since it was first released? Let’s find out.

 

Story:

Things begins with an angry looking Conker sitting on a throne, crown askew on his head, surrounded by what appear to be his loyal subjects. The game takes us back in time to explain how we got to this point.

In the past, a completely shit-faced Conker stumbles out of a bar. He wanders into a nearby field where a scarecrow helps him sober up and teaches him the rules of the game. A newly sober Conker makes it a priority to get home quick, so he can be with his hot chipmunk girlfriend, Berri.  I don’t know how Conker ended up at this bar, and why he couldn’t find his way home (all the areas we visit in the game seem new to him, but he had to have passed through them to get to the bar) but I guess these questions are never answered. In the end, it doesn’t seem to really matter.

The game’s big bad villain, the Panther King, sends his cronies out to capture and bring back a squirrel when he determines that a squirrel would be the perfect size to replace a missing table leg in his throne room. Conker’s a squirrel, so oh shit this seems to put him directly in the Panther King’s crosshairs. Conker travels through strange and mysterious lands as he heads home, dodging the Panther King’s cronies at every turn.

What makes Conker unique (aside from the adult humor) is the world of the game. Everything feels like it is made of a seemingly random hodgepodge of parts thrown together with no rhyme or reason whatsoever. You start in a corn field outside a bar, and you make your way past a gargoyle guarding a bridge near a waterfall. You end up in a seemingly cheerful area full of flowers and sunshine only to find yourself caught in a bloody skirmish between two groups of bees. You wind up at a farmhouse where you befriend some farming equipment and fight off a killer Terminator-like pile of hay. You lead bees to a giant breasted sunflower (really) to help pollinate it. You explore the land of the dung beetles, where everything is covered in shit. You fight a giant opera singing boss character made out of said shit, and you defeat him by throwing corn kernels at him. Then you head to an underwater area, a tower filled with bats, a cavern filled with cavemen and dinosaurs, a night club populated by rock creatures, and then a graveyard, and then Dracula’s house, and then a war zone pulled straight from Saving Private Ryan. Do you get my point? The connective tissue between these stages is very thin and oddly random. What kind of drugs were the makers of this game on? Is the whole point of this game’s world to be as random as possible and not make any sense? I mean, I like that kind of humor. I dig the non sequitur. It’s how I make people laugh myself. But I have never seen it taken to quite the extreme that it is in this game. 

Long story short, at the end of the game Berri dies, Conker defeats the Panther King (without actually fighting him as a boss character, which I found strange), and Conker becomes the new king. Wow, what an eventful day! A bad fur day, you might say.

 

Gameplay:

While this game certainly has an interesting premise and storyline, it falters a bit in its gameplay. On the surface this may seem like your average 3D platforming collect-athon, but it really isn’t. It’s hard for me to classify what type of game this is exactly. A platformer? A puzzle solver? A shooter? It is all these things at once, but none of them at the same time. I don’t think this game even knows what it is. I think the best way to describe it is a platformer with an asterisk.

Conker’s Bad Fur Day takes place from a behind the back perspective. You jump, you run around, and you whack things with a frying pan (your normal attack). Pretty standard stuff for an N64 game. But unlike most games of this type, you aren’t collecting coins or notes or anything like that. You aren’t searching for jewels or keys. You aren’t looking to unlock any hidden chambers. There isn’t a constant stream of grunt-like enemies to kill or dispatch. Most of the time when you are running around, you aren’t fighting or collecting anything at all.

The main goal of the game is to find money, which is pretty rare and hard to find. Aside from the introductory area of the game, you mainly hang out on the overworld map. There are a couple areas you can go to. A farm, a beehive, the shit-covered land of the dung beetles, a waterfall that leads to certain death. You have to fully explore each area, collect what money you can find, and then move on to the next. Like I mentioned before, you aren’t just fighting enemies and collecting items like you would in a Sonic or Mario game. This game can almost be classified as a puzzler, since you really have to use your head if you want to advance.

For example, when you come to the barn area you immediately encounter two big sentient blocks with faces on them. They are afraid of a mouse nearby. Clearly you need to jump on these blocks to advance, but as it is – you can’t. So you have to take care of the mouse they are so afraid of. You have to haul your butt to the other side of the game area, collect a piece of cheese, bring it back to the mouse while navigating an obstacle course of shit that can hurt you, and throw the cheese at the mouse. Do this three times, and it explodes from overeating. The blocks then allow you to jump on them to get on top of the barn. You then have to corral a couple groups of bees and lead them to a giant big-breasted sunflower. Gather enough bees and she allows you to jump on her chest and bounce to a high platform to collect some money. During this whole sequence there is no fighting, no gathering coins or gathering anything collectible off the ground, nothing you would normally do in a game like this. You have to use your head, and the game  doesn’t hold your hand either. This was just the first example that came to my head, but this game is filled with puzzling moments even more cryptic than this. I got stuck many times as I played and often had to turn to the internet for help. The prehistoric night club in particular stumps me every time. No wonder I couldn’t beat this game back in 2001.

As you get deeper into the game, you gain new attacks – not that any of them are any good. For example in the Dracula land you are given guns you can use to kill zombies and other enemies. Aiming, lining up, and firing your gun are all very tough to do, as the controls are slow and overly complicated. Same thing in the Saving Private Ryan area of the game. They finally give you some regular enemies to fight and it turns out fighting them is a giant and frustrating chore.

If there is one thing Conker’s Bad Fur Day does right, it is its boss battles. The boss battles are big and epic in scope, and often require observation and intuitive thinking in order to defeat them. This game felt most like a traditional platformer during its boss fights.

Graphics:

I think this game still looks really good. It has that classic N64 charm to its graphics that is hard to put down in words. Bright colors, detailed landscapes, well-designed characters, but rough around the edges at the same time. Many areas of the game are very atmospheric. Where this game really shines, though, is in its cinematography. The story segments and big action sequences are just so fun to watch. The game shows its age in some parts, but in other parts there are times when I simply can’t believe how ahead of its time this game was.

Sound:

This game has really good music and sound effects too. Each area of the game has its own little catchy tune attached to it, most notably the overworld theme. I couldn’t help but hum it to myself as I played – sometimes even when I was not playing.

Voice acting is great. Conker and the cast of this game have such big, vibrant personalities. The writing is exceptionally funny too, and had me cracking up more times than I could count.

When you think of this game’s sound, though, the first thing that comes to mind for me (and probably will for the rest of my life) is the boss battle against the Great Mighty Poo. Just listen to this guy sing! Freaking brilliant.

 

Overall:

I have so many mixed feelings about this game. I will start with the good. It’s funny, it’s clever, it’s got great music and sound effects. I love the premise of the game and how inappropriate it is. I mean, I just LOVE it. The mere thought of some blue-haired white girl firing this game up in the year 2021, not knowing what to expect, and immediately freaking out over its content and trying to cancel the game is something that brings me great joy. Please tell me this has happened somewhere.

But aside from all that, the actual game itself isn’t always very fun to play. Frustrating camera angles. Nothing to collect, no enemies to fight. All the backtracking and getting stuck all the time. Clumsy controls. Ridiculously poor shooting segments in the Dracula/D-Day areas of the game. The list goes on and on. I wish I could say that this game was an absolute blast to play, but I just can’t lie like that. Sure, there were segments of the game that were a blast (see the Great Mighty Poo), but those segments were few and far between.

Despite all that, I would still suggest this game to anyone willing to play it, if only for how unique it is. This game is both a worldwide fucking treasure and not very fun at the same time. How it manages to pull that feat off, I don’t know. But it does. Now that I’ve satisfied my curiosity and  completed this game, I probably won’t return to it again in my lifetime. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t play it though. If you have never managed to try the oddball curiosity that is Conker’s Bad Fur Day, you should get on it. 

Final Score:

C+

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

Banjo-Kazooie

Super Mario 64

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

Sonic Adventure