Video Game Review #307: NFL 2K

NFL 2K

Dreamcast

Nostalgia Factor:

307 reviews into this blog, and believe it or not, this is the first team sports game I have reviewed. I’m actually a pretty big football fan, with the peak of my fandom being back in the late 90s and early 2000s. I had several NFL video games back then, including some Madden and GameDay titles. While I liked those games, none of them blew me away like NFL2K for the Dreamcast. The technological leap from PlayStation 1 to Dreamcast was a pretty big one, and it definitely showed in the quality of this title.

The graphics, the presentation, the commentary, the controls – everything seemed leaps and bounds better than any football game I’d played for the PS1. I remember having to show this game off to anyone and everyone who cared. “Whoah, look at this game! Just look at it!” One comment that stuck out to me is when my brother’s girlfriend at the time said she loved how the players butts looked in this game. That kind of took me by surprise and made me laugh. It wasn’t even something I’d considered before.

If I had a log of all the hours I’ve spent playing football video games in my life, NFL2K would easily, easily be number one on that list. I played this game relentlessly. It wouldn’t surprise me if you told me I played a full regular season with each and every team in the league, and I’m not even kidding. I was obsessed with this game.

I kind of got mad at football video games in general and stopped playing them after the 2K series was canceled. To this day, I still consider the first 2K game to be the greatest and most influential and significant NFL game ever created. Over 20 years later, would my opinion still hold true? Let’s find out!

 

Story:

You control football players as they play football. Huzzah!

Gameplay:

When the game begins, there are several modes  for you to  choose from. Practice, tournament, exhibition, fantasy, regular season, etc. Exhibition is great if you’re playing head-to-head with a friend, but I’ve only bothered to concern myself with regular season mode. On my most recent playthrough of this game, I picked the Packers and stormed through the regular season, advancing to the playoffs and winning the Super Bowl in the process. Be warned, the game doesn’t start you out on “normal” difficulty, they start you off on easy (rookie) mode. I was wondering why I was destroying my opponents 60 something to 0 every single game before I decided to go into the game’s settings where I saw it was set to rookie. After turning the difficulty up to its regular (pro) setting, things were much trickier for me from then on out. Passing became a lot tougher, running the ball became very difficult, and I wasn’t sacking the opposing quarterback every other play of the game. Defense was still pretty easy for me. The only points I ever gave up were when the computer aired it out and scored some kind of long, fluky touchdown against me. But things were a lot more balanced and games became a lot more difficult to win. My favorite win of the regular season was against the Seahawks where I fell behind 17-10 with under two minutes left in the game after Joey Galloway scored an 84 yard touchdown on 3rd and forever. With all my struggles on offense, I thought I was toast. But I was able to conduct a quick and efficient two minute drive to tie the game with 3 seconds left. In overtime, I won the toss and marched down the field to set up the winning field goal. I thought FOR SURE I had lost that game on many different occasions.

NFL2K controls and handles like most other football games, although some of the things it brought to the table were new for its time. Let’s talk about defense first. You’ve got a meter to determine the length of your kicks. An arrow to determine the direction. You can switch back and forth between defensive players. Holding down the A button on the controller charges up a meter that makes you faster and makes you hit harder when you’re tackling an opponent. The Y button makes your defender jump and/or make a play for an interception. Before your opponent calls up their offensive play, you can pick which defensive alignment you want to trot out onto the field. Just hitting A without pressing in any direction brings up the “coach’s recommendation” for what you should do on defense. I found that it never really mattered what defense I picked, so I always just went with that. Pre-snap, you can move your defenders around on the field, as long as they don’t cross over the line of scrimmage. Playing as the Packers, I always picked Vonnie Holliday since he was the team’s best defensive lineman at the time. I’d line him up RIGHT next to Gilbert Brown and immediately start bum rushing the center the second the ball was snapped. On rookie difficulty, this resulted in a sack almost 50% of the time. On higher difficulty settings, it didn’t generate too many sacks but it did force the QB into some bad decisions.

After the ball is in the air, hitting the B button moves you to the closest defender. Controlling that defender, you’ve got to break up the pass by jumping after the ball or trying to intercept it. This caused some issues for me from time to time, as I’d end up switching to the wrong player and tackling the receiver before the ball arrived, resulting in a penalty. This happened more times than I care to admit. Overall, though, defense was pretty easy for me to grasp. When your opponent runs the ball, you barely have to do anything because your computer controlled teammates just SWARM the ball handler.

Offense is where the game actually gets tricky. On rookie difficulty, I had no problems moving the ball through the air or on the ground. In fact, I’d say it was too easy. When I switched to pro difficulty, I was in for a rude awakening. Even though I’d only shifted the difficulty level up one notch, it was as if I’d shifted it up by 20. Unless you’re pitching the ball outside, your run plays get stuffed more often than not. My receivers were just getting blanketed on every single play. I was throwing picks left and right. I got sacked a lot. I came very close to getting shut out on multiple occasions. It took me a good six or seven games on pro difficulty before I was able to get a hang of the rhythm passing attack. Gotta throw the ball quick and not hang onto it for more than a second or two! Once I did that, it was game over for the rest of the league and nothing was going to stop me on my way to a Super Bowl victory.

 

Graphics:

Looking at this game in present day, you might not be too impressed with its graphics. But you have to remember that back in 1999 or 2000, no one had seen ANYTHING like this before. Completely blown away doesn’t even begin to describe how I felt about this game. It all starts with the game’s presentation. Each football game starts up with a TV-style introduction. The announcer talks about the two teams, their records, the weather, etc while the camera zooms around the field watching everyone stretch and warm up. The player models are lifelike. You can clearly make out decals on the player helmets, and little touches like armbands and that sort of thing. When you zoom in during replays, the players’ faces even look like their real life counterparts. Compare that to all the other football titles I’d played at the time where each player was a pixelated mess of polygons, and you can see why I was so excited by this game. Oh, and you can’t forget the players’ butts. They looked good too.

The stadiums also look good. There are some solid weather effects. The animations at the time were more fluid and lifelike than anything I’d encountered to that point. NFL2K was an absolute game changer when it came to graphics and presentation in football video games.

 

Sound:

If I had to find any fault with this game’s presentation it would have to be in regards to the sound. The actual sound of the crowd and all the grunts and groans on the football field aren’t bad. I like how little touches are thrown in like the roar of the panther or the blowing of the Viking horn whenever the home team would get a big play. What I didn’t like was the announcer. He sounds like a generic, boring game show host type person. Who is this guy, and has he been in anything else since this game? Couldn’t they have found an actual NFL commentator to call the action? The color commentator isn’t that bad, but I don’t know who the hell he is either. Another generic voice actor? A lot of things they said didn’t make sense either. One comment in particular made me chuckle. Something along the lines of “This is why Brett Favre never shows up in the turnover column. He protects the ball, and his accuracy and decision making are top of the line.” Really. Never shows up in the turnover column, eh?

An actual, competent group of announcers would have made this game a touch more enjoyable.

 

Overall:

It’s really hard for me to review a 20 year old football game, especially considering that most NFL games these days probably are ten times better and more lifelike than this one. I’m sure that everything this game does has since been perfected by the Madden franchise, so I am going to have to lean on nostalgia a little bit here. Hope you don’t mind.

I think it’s important to put yourself in the shoes of someone like me back in the year 2000. To go from blocky, pixelated, primitive looking football games to an absolute masterpiece like this is like eating at McDonalds one day and going to a five star restaurant the next. I can’t overstate just how incredible this game was to me when it first came out. To top it off, it’s a fun game too. I can lose myself playing it for hours and hours on end. Each game you play and each team you face off against is an experience of its own. You just never know what’s going to happen when you play this game (unless you’re playing on rookie). I could play this game all day long if I had the time, which is impressive considering you’re just doing the same thing over and over again.

The graphics, the controls, the presentation, pretty much everything comes together to create a near-perfect video game experience. Plus, it was a real treat to come back to a game this old and see players like Brett Favre, Dan Marino, Randy Moss, Terrell Davis, Junior Seau, Steve Young, Emmitt Smith, Troy Aikman, Jerome Bettis, and Barry Sanders in the prime of their careers. I could go on and on. It made me want to play with every team just to get the experience of seeing them and playing as them under my belt.

If you enjoyed this game growing up, I’d suggest finding a way to get your hands on it to play it again. It was such an incredible walk down memory lane. If you’ve never played this game before, I don’t know if playing this will have any impact on you as I’m sure this game seems quite primitive compared to the other NFL titles that have come out in the last 20 years.

However you shake it, this game will always be a winner in my books. Always has been, and always will continue to be.

NFL2K, baby. Boom!

Final Score:

A

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Video Game Review #306: Pandemonium!

Pandemonium!

PlayStation

Nostalgia Factor:

I first heard about Pandemonium! back in the June 1996 edition of GamePro magazine. I read the preview for the game and thought wow, this looks pretty cool. For whatever reason, however, I never got the opportunity to actually play the game. Still, I remembered the name Pandemonium! for years and years afterwards and I swore to myself I’d play it someday if I ever got the chance. Fast forward to the year 2013. I was browsing through the PS1 classics library on the PlayStation Store when I noticed that Pandemonium! was on sale for just a couple dollars. Remembering how I was interested in the game over 15 years ago, I purchased Pandemonium! and quickly sat down to give it a try.

I wasn’t impressed. In fact, my opinion of the game was so low I didn’t even bother to finish it, which is rare for a completionist like me. Once I start a game, I usually don’t pick up anything else until I’ve finished it. A couple years later I sat down and tried to give Pandemonium! another go. The same thing happened. I only played a handful of levels before turning the game off unimpressed. A few years later the same thing happened again. That’s three attempts to get into Pandemonium! and three failures.

Well, here in the year 2021 I finally put my foot down and told myself that I’m going to play and finish Pandemonium! dang it, whether I liked it or not. The fourth time was the charm, in a way. I finished the game, but that doesn’t mean I liked it. Read on for my full thoughts.

Story:

This game’s story is just flat out strange. Nikki and Fargus, two good-for-nothing practical jokers, are hanging out one night when they decide to start playing around with some magical spells. One of their spells conjures a gigantic monster, which falls from the sky and crushes a nearby town. Nikki and Fargus set out on a quest to recover a wishing spell that they can use to wish the town back to good health. Thus begins your journey through 18 stages of platform-y goodness. Or should I say, badness?

Gameplay:

The game gives you the choice of which character you’d like to play as before each level. For the most part, these characters control the same. You run, you jump, you collect things, and you pick up spells that allow you to fire projectiles at your enemies. There are some very distinct differences, however. Fargus is able to use a special spin attack, similar to what you’d see in a Crash Bandicoot game. It even sounds exactly the same! When controlling Nikki, you are allowed to double jump – something Fargus can not do. There’s definitely a bit of a trade off here. You have to find the character that best fits the way you play the game, and try to stick with it. At first I thought I couldn’t survive without Fargus and his spin attack, but I quickly realized that Nikki’s double jump opened things up and made the game so much easier. After maybe the third or fourth level of the game I never picked Fargus again.

Gameplay itself is just very generic and uninspired. This is a by-the-numbers 2D sidecroller, although the game’s window dressing tries to make you think this is a 3D title. It’s not. Oh, your determined game path may take some twists and turns along the way, the camera will zoom in and out to try and trick you, but don’t let it fool you. This is a 2D title all the way.

Each of the 18 stages has a designated beginning and end point. The very basic gist of each stage is to make it to the end of the stage, which allows you to move on to the next one. How you get to the end of each stage is part of the “fun” of the game. There are many different branching paths to take. Some may lead to items and power ups before merging you back onto the main path, but others are completely different altogether. Ambitious gamers or people with too much time on their hands may find some enjoyment in checking out these branching paths and exploring each stage to its fullest. You know what, back in 1996 this might not have been a bad idea. You’ve got a PlayStation. You’ve only got three or four games for the system. Why not get your money’s worth out of Pandemonium!? But here in the year 2021 when I have literally thousands of other games to play at my fingertips, I am not going to waste too much time on this game, especially considering I didn’t like it very much.

I’ve mentioned a few times now how I didn’t really enjoy my time with the game. Why, you may ask? Simple. It’s just not fun. Look at classic 16-bit platformers like Vectorman or Super Mario World. You can pick those games up and immediately have a good time with them, regardless of your age or what era of gaming you come from. They are timeless games that are accessible because they are unique and fun. When you start playing Pandemonium!, you don’t get any of those unique or fun vibes. The controls are stiff. The jumping is awkward. Even though the levels are bright and colorful and seemingly full of life, the stage design seems uninspired. You are constantly getting cheap-shotted by enemies who come out of nowhere on the edge of the screen. There are lots of “running” sections where your character moves too fast for the screen, not allowing you enough time to avoid the enemies on your path or jump over any obstacles that may appear.

The game just doesn’t seem fair. You’re going to find yourself dying, and you’re going to find yourself dying A LOT. I’ve said this many times on this blog, but it holds so true I am going to say it again: I don’t mind when a game is challenging. In fact, I encourage it. But I only encourage it as long as the game itself is being fair in its difficulty level. I want the reason I died to be because I am the one who messed up, not because something unavoidable and cheap happened in the game that caused me to die. And therein lies my main problem with Pandemonium! The game is cheap.

And not only is the game cheap, it’s boring, lazy, and uninspired in its gameplay. It does nothing I haven’t seen dozens of times before, and done better in almost every instance. The only thing Pandemonium! has going for it is its graphics, which admittedly were probably phenomenal for the year they came out. Let’s move on to that topic, I suppose.

Graphics:

Pandemonium! may not look like much by today’s standards, but an old school gamer like me can certainly appreciate the envelope it pushed back in 1996. Everything is rendered in full 3D. The characters, the enemies, the stages. Everywhere you look, things are bright and colorful. The visual effects are very nice. The camera zooms in and out as you walk down winding paths. A lot of the artwork that make up the stage backgrounds are just flat out gorgeous. Putting myself in the shoes of someone playing a game like this for the first time 25 years ago, I’m certain I would have been blown away by Pandemonium! I’m not blown away today by any stretch of the imagination, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a large appreciation for what this game set out to do. If you can ignore the jagged edges and the pixelization, this is actually a very charming looking game.

Thus ends all the nice things I have to say about it.

Sound:

I should just scrap the sound category on my reviews, because it seems like 90% of the time this category is completely useless. If a game’s musical score or sound effects don’t jump out at me, I don’t remember them. I’ve lost count of how many reviews I’ve written where I’ve inserted the generic comment “I don’t remember this game’s music at all, so it must not have been that bad or it would have stood out and I would have remembered it.” That’s what happened with Pandemonium! I don’t remember a single one of this game’s musical tracks. In fact, the only thing I remember about this game’s sound is how Fargus’s spin attack sounds just like Crash Bandicoot’s. That’s it.

I guess this game’s music and sound effects must not have been that bad, or they probably would have stood out and I would have remembered.

:)

 

Overall:

It’s no secret I didn’t like this game, so I won’t drag this out too much longer. I want to make something clear, though. This game isn’t a complete failure.

There are things to like about Pandemonium! The two different characters, the unique game world, the bright and shiny graphics, the multiple branching paths, all the collectibles to pick up. Just because I wasn’t too fond of this game doesn’t mean that Pandemonium! doesn’t have fans out there. And I can’t even say I blame them for liking this game. It does some things right. I really WANTED to like Pandemonium! but too many things about it just didn’t click properly with me.

After finishing up with this game, I can see why I kept giving up on it every other time I tried to play it. It just doesn’t have that “it” factor for me. Like I said before, I found the gameplay to be completely lazy, uninspired, and at times unfair. I think it’s safe to say I will never be returning to Pandemonium! again. Its sequel, however, I am oddly curious to check out. While I’m in no rush to play it immediately, don’t be surprised if you see a review for that game pop up sometime in the future.

 

Final Score:

D

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

Puppeteer

Balan Wonderworld

Nights Into Dreams

Bug!

Gex: Enter the Gecko

Video Game Review #305: X-Men 2: Clone Wars

X-Men 2: Clone Wars

Sega Genesis

Nostalgia Factor: 

I once rented this game as a kid, and I can remember being absolutely obsessed with it for an entire weekend. I didn’t eat. I barely slept. That weekend I lived and breathed X-Men 2. I had a good reason for playing it for so long, too. The game is freaking hard! The first couple levels aren’t necessarily that bad (although I did die a few times getting a hang of things), but the later levels. My god. I must have spent hours and hours trying to get through them. Back then we didn’t have save states or anything like that. We had to beat the entire game in one sitting. So if I made it all the way to the end and had to turn the system off, I’d have to start from the beginning the next time I played it. And given how brutal this game is, that just wasn’t an option for me. So I played. And played. And played. And played. All freaking night long, for two nights in a row. But eventually I was successful in my mission. I was able to beat the game.

I remember renting this game as soon as it came out, which would have been in 1995. I haven’t come back to play this game since then. How would it hold up, 26 years later? Quite well, actually. Keep reading for the full details.

Story:

The X-Men go into battle against the Phalanx, an odd part mechanical/part alien species that’s looking to eradicate humanity. Things are looking so grim that Magneto is forced to join up with the X-Men after his hideout is attacked. The game takes you all over the X-Men universe, from a Sentinel manufacturing facility, to Asteroid M, to the Savage Lands, and even to Apocalypse’s hideout. After fighting off numerous Phalanx attacks, the X-Men take the fight to the Phalanx’s ship, where they are forced to battle clones of themselves – hence the name of the game: Clone Wars. Sorry to disappoint anyone expecting a Star Wars tie in.

Destroy the Phalanx clones, and you complete the game. Yay! Unfortunately things aren’t rosy for very long as Magneto departs and continues his war against humanity. It’s too bad we never got an X-Men 3 for the Genesis. I would have loved to see the book closed on this little story arc created for us in these two games.

Gameplay:

Right off the bat, you know this game is different. Why, you may ask? Because there’s no title screen. As soon as you power this game on, you’re immediately dropped into the action with a random X-Men character. There are three buttons you use (aside from the D-pad, of course). You can jump, you can use your melee attack, or you can use your mutant powers. Unlike the last X-Men for the Genesis, there is no limit to how many times you can use your mutant powers, which is awesome. Instead, the game actually encourages you to use your mutant powers. If you hold down the button, you can charge your mutant attack up and unleash a more powerful attack. Your attack also automatically becomes more powerful when your health bar is completely full (or one bar away from being full). But the game doesn’t start you out with a full health bar. At the beginning of each stage, you’re missing two bars and you have to look around for these little Mister DNA looking things that give you a bar of health.

For example, let’s say you’re playing as Gambit. The level begins. You’re missing two health bars. You use the mutant attack button to throw a supercharged card at your enemies. Okay, great. But if you hold down that button, your card attack becomes more powerful, AND you throw two cards, making it much easier to hit whatever it is you’re aiming at. If you grab some health items and fill up your health bar, your default card attack becomes the two-card, super powerful attack. When you hold down the button and charge up your powers once again, you launch three cards that are even powerful than they were before. Cool stuff. This works pretty much the same, in some variation, for every X-Men character you can play as.

Speaking of X-Men characters, you have quite the variety to pick from this time around. After the first stage ends, you finally get your title screen. But that’s not what is important here. What’s important is that you get to change your character! There are six of them to choose from: Wolverine, Cyclops, Beast, Gambit, Nightcrawler, and Psylocke. Later on in the game, Magneto joins your party, giving you a seventh character to select from. If you’re playing this for the first time, I’d suggest checking out each of the X-Men at least once and seeing which one fits your style the most. I tended to click with Gambit and Cyclops the most, as they have some effective long range attacks. Others, like Psylocke, are almost completely useless. I still don’t even know what her mutant attack is supposed to do! Characters like Beast and Nightcrawler can climb walls, which is helpful for skipping long, difficult parts of certain stages. This  ability also helps you collect items like health power ups that you wouldn’t be able to reach with other X-Men characters.

As far as level progression goes, this game plays out like any other Genesis era 2D side scroller.  Each level is broken up into shorter stages. At the end of the final stage for each level, you square off against a boss character. Pretty standard for the mid-90s. I think what sets this game apart is its difficulty level. Things get hard, fast. Enemy attacks take one bar off of your health gauge, and it doesn’t help that you start each stage with two bars missing from your health gauge. You can find yourself in trouble FAST in this game, because enemies are coming at you from all directions. They move pretty fast too, which can make their attacks very difficult to dodge. Luckily this game is generous with its health items. That’s good, because you are going to need them.

While I generally enjoy a stiff challenge when it comes to these kind of games, I do feel like I have a genuine complaint to make here. The enemies appear very abruptly on the edge of the screen, and often you’ll find them firing a projectile at you or launching into an attack before you even have a chance to react. This becomes a glaring issue in some of the later stages of the game. They are very, very difficult and I found myself constantly dying. I felt like the only thing I could do was creep along at a snail’s pace, firing ahead of me every half second in order to hit any enemies that might be located off-screen. You have to be SO cautious or you’re dead, simple as that. And to me, that’s no fun - having to creep along so slowly. What kind of way to play is that? It sucked all the fun out of some of the later stages for me, which is a shame because I really enjoyed the first three quarters of the game.

Graphics:

This is one good looking Genesis game. It may not be at the top of my list compared to games like Vectorman or Beyond Oasis, but it’s close. The colors are rich and vibrant. The X-Men are all faithful representations of their comic book counterparts. Seriously – this may be my favorite interpretation of the team in any video game iteration of the X-Men I’ve come across. They look so good! Levels are varied and well-designed. The backgrounds can be flat out gorgeous at times. I love the visual effects as well, like the snowfall in the very first stage of the game. I’ve got nothing bad to say about this game’s visual style.

Sound:

I didn’t walk away from this game humming any of its music, nor can I even really remember any of the music when I think back on the game. But that’s okay. I remember liking it, and it having that classic “Genesis” feel to it. It matched what was happening on screen perfectly. The sound effects again didn’t jump out, but they did their part. I guess I’ll give the game’s sound a pass here. If it was bad or anything, surely I would have remembered that.

 

Overall:

If I was only reviewing the first three quarters of this game, it would score in the A range for sure. It does so much right. The cold open. The graphics. The presentation. The big selection of characters to choose from, and the fact that all these characters are so unique and different. The story. Just the overall look and feel of the game is terrific. But then we move on to the end of the game and its steep difficulty curve. And when I say steep, I mean STEEP. Seriously, inching along at a snail’s pace while firing ahead of you is no way to play this game, but you have to do it if you want to stay alive. It’s like the enemies get tougher and the health items suddenly get stingier at the end of the game. And did I even mention the final stage yet?

You start out the stage battling a giant, crawling boss character. The screen scrolls as you run with him. The fight is hard enough as it is, but when you defeat him, that’s not the end of the game. No, no. Not even close. You then have to fight clone versions of all six of the X-Men before you can beat the game. It’s like a boss rush at the end of a Mega Man game. It’s freaking brutal and it takes forever. And if you happen to die? There are no checkpoints in this stage, so if you die you have to start at the beginning of the stage again – against the crawling boss creature. My jaw almost hit the floor the first time that happened to me. SERIOUSLY??? I have to give my 13-year old self props for being able to beat this game back in 1995. No save states, nothing. That was some real dedication on my behalf.

One of the many determining factors for my final review score is if I would recommend the game to anyone else. And honestly, I’m not sure if I can do that with X-Men 2. I think in today’s day and age, 99% of the people who pick this game up probably don’t end up completing it. I think most people don’t even make it through the first level – the Sentinel factory. But can I really worry about what other people think of the game? That doesn’t seem fair. This is MY review, and I liked this game. In fact, if it wasn’t for the final quarter of the game, I might have even ended up saying that I love it. It definitely went out of its way to address the criticisms that people had for the first X-Men game for the Genesis. And it came so close, so close to perfecting that formula.

 

Final Score:

B

Note:

If you look at my review score for the other X-Men game for Genesis, you'll see that it scored higher than this game - even though I said this game improved upon the original. How could that be, you may ask? To me, the original didn't have as many frustrating moments as this game does. The whole final quarter of this game is just no fun to play and it drags the whole game down and makes me think negatively of it. In the original X-Men, there is no section of the game that drags the whole game down. The whole thing flows pretty smoothly, flaws and all. While it is true that Clone Wars improved upon the original in many ways and is probably technically the better game, it carries many negative connotations of it in my head for several different reasons. I just simply enjoy the other one better.

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

X-Men

Batman Returns

Donkey Kong Country

Contra: Hard Corps

Aladdin

Video Game Review #304: Aladdin

Aladdin

Super Nintendo

Nostalgia Factor:

Growing up, I had never played either the Sega Genesis or the Super Nintendo version of Aladdin. That changed about four years ago when I finally was able to play (and review) the game for the Genesis. I liked it, but at the same time I didn’t think it was anything too special. Certainly not deserving of all the hype and praise that’s been heaped upon it over the years.

I’ve always heard that the Super Nintendo version of the game is inferior to the Genesis version. Since I wasn’t too huge of a fan of the Genesis version to begin with, I was in no rush to go out and play the SNES version. Why would I want to play an inferior version of a game I already played and didn’t think was that great?

Well, due to my recently purchased RetroPie, I decided it was finally time to check out the Super Nintendo game. The ability to save the game and stop at any time is a big deal for me, as I don’t have the kind of time needed to devote to playing through an entire game in one sitting anymore. Not since me and my wife had our baby! I hope you read this someday, Channing, and see how you’ve severely cut into my video game playing time. How dare you?!

I’m kidding, I’m kidding. You’re awesome, buddy. Ignore your obnoxious dad.

Where were we? Oh yeah, Aladdin!

Let’s get on to what I liked and didn’t like about the game.

 

Story:

This game follows the basic plot of the movie Aladdin. I’ve read some criticism online that the game strays too far from the source material, but seeing as how I’ve only seen Aladdin once or twice in my life – I didn’t notice. Nor do I give a shit. I just want to play a good, fun, 2D platforming game.

 

Gameplay:

Let me start by making one thing clear. As I alluded to before, people have often commented that the Genesis version of Aladdin is better than the Super Nintendo version. I’ve even heard comments saying “it’s almost like they’re completely different games!” Well no shit, Sherlock. They ARE two completely different games. Due to these comments, I always expected that the SNES version was just a crummy, inferior port of the Genesis game. And that couldn’t be more wrong. These games are definitely their own two separate identities.

While some of the backgrounds and character designs look similar to the Genesis version, that’s where the similarities end. The Genesis game seems like it is more geared towards exploration and combat, whereas Aladdin for the SNES focuses more on acrobatics and fun platforming sections. 

You don’t have a scimitar in this game. All you’ve got for weapons are some apples and your legs. Your legs? Yeah, your legs. In order to kill enemies in this game you have to jump on them, ala Mario or Sonic games. The apples you throw only stun your enemies for a moment. Want to kill them, you’ve gotta jump on them.

Fortunately, Aladdin makes this very easy for you to do. The controls are fluid and responsive. Aladdin’s movement seemed to come very naturally to me. I found myself leaping, grabbing onto ledges, swinging from ropes, and bouncing off obstacles with the greatest of ease. My only complaint was that some of the longer jumps seem like they would have benefited from the ability to perform running jumps – which oddly you can’t do here. Aladdin just seems to walk around at his own slow leisure. Aside from that, the game controls like a dream.

But is it any fun to play? Well, yes. Yes it is.

The levels are cleverly designed, the acrobatics and jumping segments are fun as hell, and while the game has occasional difficult segments, I never found them to be too challenging or frustrating. Aladdin seems to have found the perfect balance between difficulty level and fun factor. I couldn’t put this game down because I was having such a good time with it. The levels are pretty short, which makes the game move along at a good pace. The bosses are fun. There are hidden red gems located in each level which give the same replay value. Everything flows really well here.

 

Graphics:

I hate to keep bringing up the Genesis version of Aladdin, but a comparison has to be made. The general consensus has always been that in addition to being the better game, the Genesis version also has the better graphics. I don’t know about that. While the Genesis version may look cleaner and more like the cartoon, I just find something really, really charming about the SNES version of the game. The characters have this pixelated look to them – but that’s not a bad thing. It reminds me of video games made in present times that are attempting to go for a retro feel (Celeste would be an example). It just comes naturally to Aladdin. And it didn’t really hit me until the scene with the magic carpet ride over Agrabah late in the game. It looks SO good. I just remember nodding my head and being like: yeah, this is cool. In addition to the characters, the backgrounds and effects are awesome too. This game has a very atmospheric feel to it, especially in the later stages, that was able to suck me in in a way the Genesis version was not.

Sound:

The game sounds good, sure. All the music you hear is pulled from the movie, but SNES-ified in that old, familiar way. I don’t know. I couldn’t really find myself getting too excited for this game’s musical score. Nothing stands out to me aside from the “Whole New World” moments in this game, which are admittedly pretty cool.

Aside from that, the sound effects are okay. The rest of the game’s music is okay. It does the job, but it could have done it a lot better. I think I may prefer the Genesis version in this category at least.

Overall:

I’m going to offer a perhaps somewhat controversial statement and say that this version of Aladdin is better than the Genesis version. That game seems to be a very basic and by the books platformer, the likes of which you’ve seen dozens and dozens of times for the Sega Genesis and other 16-bit systems. Not saying it is a bad game. It doesn't really do anything wrong and I did like it enough to give it a B- in both my original review and my re-review. But the SNES version is different. It's better than that. There’s just something *magical* about this version of the game that’s hard for me to pinpoint.

Maybe it’s the graphics. Maybe it’s the platforming action. Maybe it’s the boss battles. Whatever it is, I had a really fun time with this game. It feels like a timeless, fluid, classic platformer. When I played the Genesis version, I just felt like I was going through the motions. I could have been playing Cool Spot or something “okay” like that. But this game has its own identity. It has its own charm. I even played through it a second time a few days after I originally completed it. That’s pretty rare for me.

Nobody ever comments on these reviews of mine, but if you’re going to, now would be the time to start! Which version of the game do you like more? Am I crazy for preferring the SNES version? Am I the only one who likes the SNES version? Is my opinion a lot more popular than the major game review outlets would have you believe?

I can’t tell you the answers, but I am going to say that I think this game gets a bad rap. I already had a negative impression of it before I even had the chance to play it, and that’s not fair to this game. It’s a lot of fun. If you can only play one version of Aladdin between now and the day you die, make it the Super Nintendo version. As a diehard Genesis fan, it pains me to say this, but the SNES version of Aladdin is better.

Overall:

B

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

Aladdin

Cool Spot

Donkey Kong Country

The Jungle Book

The Lion King

Video Game Review #303: Captain America and the Avengers

Captain America and the Avengers

Arcade

Nostalgia Factor:

 

Even though I’ve never held this game in quite the same regard I have for other beat ‘em ups like X-Men or the TMNT games, I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Captain America and the Avengers. My first memory of playing this game came from when I was a kid. Our family was on the way home from a trip to the Wisconsin Dells when we stopped at a restaurant for dinner. This restaurant had a couple of arcade units hanging out near the entrance, and this game was one of them. I remember playing this game and making it through the first level on one quarter. This was enough to get me hooked, but unfortunately for me I was pulled away from the game to join the family at the dinner table.

I’d encounter this game a few more times in my life, but I can’t remember if I was ever able to beat it or not. I did try giving the Super Nintendo version of this game a crack about five to ten years ago, but I found things too insanely difficult to even be able to make it past the first level. Talk about a broken home port!

Anyway, after playing so many beat ‘em ups lately, I am curious to see how this game stacks up. Let’s go ahead and find out!

 

Story:

The Red Skull has gathered together a group of the world’s most dangerous supervillains in an attempt to defeat the Avengers and conquer the planet. It is your job to stop them. Battling your way through a handful of stages, you take the fight to the Red Skull’s moon base where you square off against him in an ultimate showdown.

That’s really all these is to this game’s story. Story sequences are shown through comic book-esque still images in between stages, which is kind of cool. But don’t expect a whole lot of depth here.

 

Gameplay:

I’ve been playing SO many beat ‘em ups lately. Final Fight, The Simpsons, TMNT, Turtles in Time, Double Dragon 2, the Ninja Gaiden arcade game, etc. Do I need to explain yet again how they work? No. I don’t think I will.

Instead I’ll tell you what this game does differently. You have a choice of four characters – Hawkeye, Iron Man, Captain America, and Vision. Each one handles pretty much the same. You have two buttons: attack and jump. Both buttons do exactly what you’d think they would do. If you jump and then hit the attack button, you perform a jumping attack. Imagine that! If you hit jump and attack at the same time, your character launches a powerful projectile at your enemies, with no associated health drain attached (which is nice). This game does a great job at giving you things to pick up and throw at your enemies. Remember, you are playing as a superhero so you can easily pick up things like phone booths and vending machines.

You battle your way through the game’s stages, fighting a boss character at the end of each stage. Standard beat ‘em up stuff. One thing that I found refreshing is that these boss fights aren’t too much of a grind or a war of attrition. You can whittle their health bars down pretty quick if you know what you are doing! This game also has a couple of side-scrolling “shooting” levels. You control your character as he flies through the air, firing whatever projectile it is in front of you. Maybe it is just because he’s the titular character, but I’ve always preferred Captain America and his shield for these segments of the game.

Aside from that, this is going to be a pretty short recap of this title’s gameplay. It’s a beat ‘em up. It doesn’t really do a whole lot different from its peers. I don’t know what else to say.

 

Graphics:

This game definitely does not look as good as its beat ‘em up contemporaries. The Simpsons and TMNT games completely blow this one out of the water when it  comes to graphics and visual style. Not to say this game looks bad, but it definitely has issues crafting its own living and breathing Marvel world. There are some nice touches, like billboards you see in the background. The game is colorful, I can give it that. But the characters just flat out don’t look great. They’re small, they’re puny looking, and they look flat. A lot of the characters don’t even look like their comic book counterparts. The biggest offender is Juggernaut. Seriously, WTF is this:

 

Sound:

The graphics may not be the best, but at least I can say this game sounds pretty good. The heroic stage music is fantastic. The voice acting, while cheesy, fits the tone of the game perfectly. I just love when the announcer guy says “The Avennngers!!” It makes me smile every time. So does the Red Skull's evil cackling. Good stuff.

 

Overall:

This is a perfectly fun and playable arcade game. What I like about Captain America and the Avengers is that it doesn’t seem like its out to rob you of all your quarters before you even hit the third level of the game. You’re not constantly dying. The enemies don’t feel cheap. It actually feels like you have a chance. And if you do happen to die – hey perfect opportunity to switch your character and give someone else a try.

I’m not going to lie and say that this is some kind of groundbreaking or revolutionary title. Everything you see here, you’ve seen a million times in other games. And you know what? It’s totally okay. I still had a fun time. I’d put it a notch (or two or three) behind a few of my other favorite titles in the genre such as Turtles in Time or The Simpsons, but this is still a good game. Play it if you have the means!

 

Overall:

B

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

Double Dragon

Final Fight

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time

The Simpsons

Re-Review #14: Aladdin

Aladdin

Genesis

For my original review of Aladdin, click

>HERE!<

A little over four years ago I reviewed Aladdin for the Sega Genesis. I hadn’t played the game growing up as a kid, so that was my first time playing it. I had heard so many good things about the game, I expected to be completely blown away by it. That was not the case. I liked the game, sure, but I put it on the same level as other Genesis platformers like Cool Spot, Judge Dredd, and Greendog: The Beached Surfer Dude. That’s not any disrespect to Aladdin. I liked those games. But given all the hype, I had expected Aladdin to be better than what it actually was.

I recently played through the Super Nintendo version of Aladdin, which I had always read was the inferior version of the game. After finishing it and thinking “hey that was pretty good”, I decided to come back to the Genesis version of the game and play it again so I could compare the two. Which one would I end up liking more? Well, you’re just going to have to read my official review of the SNES version of the game, which I should be publishing sometime very shortly. 

As far as this version of the game: this should be a pretty short re-review. My opinion literally did not change one iota since the last time I played this game. I still liked it. I still had a good time. But at the same time I was still very underwhelmed by the game. I’m too lazy to go back and read my own re-reviews, but I am pretty sure this is the first time my opinion of a game has NOT changed even one tiny bit since I started doing them. I’m struggling to even think of what to write here. Every single thing I have to say about the game I already said in my original review.

So go read that?

Easy enough. I’m gonna save you all the time and energy and say that I’m officially done here. I have nothing to add. Aladdin gets the same final score it did the last time. Hope to see you soon for my review of the SNES game!

Overall:

B-

 

A few other games I’ve reviewed twice:

Horizon Zero Dawn (PS4)

Life Is Strange (PS4)

Resident Evil 4 (GC)

Super Star Wars (SNES)

Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (PS4)

Video Game Review #302: Rolling Thunder

Rolling Thunder

Nintendo Entertainment System

Nostalgia Factor:

Rolling Thunder and I go back a loooong way. I remember playing the arcade version at my local bowling alley when I was a little kid. My family also really loved this game, and I specifically remember my grandma watching us kids play, hooting and hollering at the way the character walked and all the funny and sometimes unexpected deaths we had to constantly endure. This is my grandma we’re talking about – someone who couldn’t care less about video games. And she just loved it.

We’d end up getting the NES home console version shortly thereafter. Again, the family fun continued. My mom used to play this game nearly every day while she rode her exercise bike. My mom is also someone who couldn’t care less about video games. Rolling Thunder must have been a hell of a game for its time to get two video game haters interested in it.

I loved this game too, even though I was terrible at it. And for good reason: this game is freaking hard!

I decided now that I have access to emulators and save states, I’d revisit Rolling Thunder and see if I could cross a video game off of my “never been able to beat” bucket list. How did it go? Keep reading!

 

Story:

I don’t know too many specifics of this game’s story, as not much is actually revealed in-game. All I know is that you control a special agent who infiltrates an enemy hideout in order to rescue a kidnapped colleague. Brief story segments between stages show your friend getting tortured and harassed by some bald headed alien looking motherfucker and his clan. What’s their deal?

Gameplay:

It’s been said that Rolling Thunder was the inspiration for future duck and cover shooting games, and it is easy to see why. Controlling your character, your goal is to make it to the end of each of the game’s ten stages, shooting enemies, ducking behind boxes, hiding behind doors, jumping over obstacles, and trying to stay alive – which is easier said than done.

Enemies are constantly coming out of doors, dropping from the ceiling, popping up at the edge of the screen, and just appearing out of thin air. You need to be on your toes as you play or you are going to find yourself dying quite often. Even if you are on your toes, you’re still going to find yourself dying a lot. This is just one of those games.

Enemy types consist of mainly the same type of generic bad guy. Each one wears a different colored outfit that indicates differing attack patterns. Some of them just stand stationary and shoot, others try to hit you with physical attacks, some throw grenades, others run around and duck and shoot at you. Remember the different colored Foot soldiers in the TMNT games and how they all had slightly different attacks? It’s pretty much the same here. You’ll encounter other enemies as you play, too. You’ve got little jumping creatures that are hard to hit, bats, panthers, and leaping stick figures made out of fire.

You start out with a basic single fire handgun, but you can find weapon upgrades behind specifically marked doors. The machine gun upgrade fires rapid-fire bullets and is good for taking down hard-to-hit enemies who pop out from behind boxes to try and shoot you. You can enter other marked doors to fill up your ammunition, but honestly you die so much in this game I never once found myself running out of ammo.

Jumping is a big part of this game’s mechanics. Most stages consist of two “levels” – the ground floor and balconies or ledges in the air. You can jump up and down between these two levels, and in fact it is necessary to do so if you want to make it very far in this game. Much of Rolling Thunder is strategically maneuvering between these two levels to avoid or take out enemies.

As you play you’ll encounter stacked crates that you need to jump on to move to the top of certain stages. Other stages have stacked tires you need to navigate through. Other stages have pits or fire-engulfed holes you need to jump over. Fall and you die. Get shot and you die. You can generally withstand two physical attacks before dying, though. Like I said, I was never able to beat this game as a kid and I can easily see why. I could barely beat this game as an adult using save states. It’s freaking hard!

Graphics:

This looks pretty decent for an NES game. I haven’t played the arcade game in years (probably since I was a little kid at the bowling alley), but I’m sure it looks better than this version of the game. The characters look… okay. I’m a little bit torn on the stage graphics because while I can easily say that the levels are well-designed and have some memorable set pieces (the stacked crates, the panther cages, the tires, etc) at the same time they do look a bit outdated and basic.

This game’s visuals definitely haven’t withstood the test of time in the way other NES titles have, and that’s okay. It looks decent and the game is still perfectly playable, and that’s all that really matters to me.

Sound:

This game has some fun and memorable stage tunes. Kind of brings to mind classic spy themes like you might hear in a James Bond type game. The sound effects aren’t anything memorable, but I do love the evil cackling of the game’s main villain. I can hear it right now even as I type this up!

Overall:

As flawed and as crazy challenging as this game is, I still like it. It’s probably harder than Donkey Kong Country, which I just got through complaining about in my last review, but for some reason I don’t hold that against it. It’s almost a part of this game’s identity. Rolling Thunder wouldn’t be Rolling Thunder without its insane difficulty level!

There’s something inherently charming about this game. The second I fired it up, it brought a smile to my face. It’s a bit strange how nostalgia and fond memories can cloud your judgment, because I am absolutely certain that if I had played Rolling Thunder for the first time here in the year 2021, I wouldn’t have liked it very much. Maybe I wouldn’t have hated it, but I probably wouldn’t have had a whole lot of nice things to say about the game.

But you know what they say. To quote the immortal Colby Donaldson: If ifs and buts were candy and nuts we’d all have a merry Christmas. I’m not quite sure how that applies here, but it seems appropriate. I do have nostalgic feelings for Rolling Thunder. I do like this game. I recognize its flaws, yes, but I’m not going to let them detract from the fun time I just had. I’m curious to check out the arcade version of the game and see how it compares. There’s a few sequels for the Sega Genesis as well that I want to check out.

There’s so much Rolling Thunder to play, and that’s a good problem for me to have. Hopefully I have as much fun with the others as I did with this one.

 

Final Score:

B

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

Contra

Shinobi

Rastan

Ninja Gaiden 2

Super C

Video Game Review #301: Donkey Kong Country

Donkey Kong Country

Super Nintendo

Nostalgia Factor:

I’m going to start off with a somewhat controversial statement: I have NEVER been a fan of Donkey Kong Country. I can’t really pinpoint the reason why. Part of it may be a jealousy thing. Loyal readers of this blog should know by now that I grew up with a Sega Genesis rather than a Super Nintendo. When DKC originally hit store shelves, people ranted and raved about this game and how advanced its graphics were - how nothing like this game could EVER be done for the Genesis. It made me mad.

To add insult to injury, a few years later (in 1996) I remember being with my dad at the mall around the Christmas holiday. There was a store with two playable video game displays set up. One of them was a Sega Saturn with Bug Too! on display. The other was a Super Nintendo with Donkey Kong Country 3. All the kids my age were gathered around the Super Nintendo display, while I was the only one paying Bug Too! any attention. I was a proud Saturn owner at the time. It made me angry that my beloved system was already in its death throes only a year and a half after its release, while the Super Nintendo was still getting all kinds of love and attention.

Fucking Donkey Kong Country. You’re the reason Sega failed!!!!

All joking aside, I really was jealous of this game’s success. I didn’t even own a Super Nintendo so I could check out and enjoy this lauded series for myself. That changed later on in my life, I’d say when I was in my mid to late 20s. I got my hands on an SNES at a used game store and started building up a collection of games to play that I’d missed out on as a kid. The original Donkey Kong Country was one of those games. I popped it in, started playing it… and found that I didn’t like it.

It was too hard. I thought the gameplay was bland and uninspired. I just flat out did not have a good time with the game. I remember throwing a tantrum and pulling the game out the system and hurling it across my apartment, where the game knocked a chunk out of the wall. Oops. My girlfriend at the time arrived right at this exact moment when I was raging and was like “uh… should I leave?”

Surprisingly, the game still worked after all the abuse it had suffered. I ended up finishing it and trading it in to buy something else. I washed my hands of Donkey Kong Country and said never again would I play this game or any of its sequels.

Well, obviously that changed. I’d say about 13 or 14 years have passed since the infamous cartridge throwing incident. Would my thoughts on it be any different today? Read on and find out!

 

Story:

If you’re playing this game for its story, you’re playing it for all the wrong reasons. Its story is very, very basic and almost completely inconsequential to the game at hand. But I’ll explain anyway.

The Kremlings, a crocodile-like biped species, invade Donkey Kong Island and steal a shit ton of bananas. Playing as Donkey Kong (in tandem with his nephew Diddy), you fight back against the Kremlings and their henchmen, driving them off the island after defeating their leader King K Rool. The end.

 

Gameplay:

As alluded to before, you play as both Donkey Kong and his nephew Diddy. This game is filled with one-hit deaths, so if you are playing as DK (for example) and you get hit, DK “dies” and you take control of Diddy. If you get hit as Diddy, you die and lose a life. So as long as you have at least one of your two characters alive, you’re good to go. Be aware that falling to your death in a bottomless pit will result in an automatic death, even if you have both Donkey and Diddy available to you. You can switch back and forth between these characters at any time. DK is strong and can kill some enemies that Diddy can’t. Diddy is weaker than DK, but much faster and more agile at the same time. So there’s a bit of a tradeoff here. Strategic players will switch back and forth between the two characters as needed. If you see a large gap in front of you, chances are that Diddy will be able to jump across it more easily. Likewise, if you see a big, hard-hatted enemy coming your way it is advised to switch to DK because if you jump on its head as Diddy, you’ll probably just bounce off him and end up getting yourself killed.

If you happen to lose your partner, don’t fret too much because there are barrels located pretty regularly around each stage that resurrect your partner. There are other barrels you can use to pick up and chuck at your enemies. Some of these barrels can be used to destroy walls which lead to secret areas that contain bananas, letters that spell K-O-N-G (which give you an extra life if you collect them all), 1 ups, or animal tokens. Collect three of the same animal token and you are taken to a bonus level where you ride said animal and collect bananas from a giant room full of bananas. Many regular levels contain these animals as well, such as a rhinoceros and an ostrich you can ride, in addition to a swordfish during the underwater stages.

While the game seems fun on the surface, it didn’t start to bother me until the difficulty level began to spike. That’s when all of its obvious flaws started to rise to the surface. First: the controls. This is not a fluid-controlling game like Mario or Mega Man. The controls are somewhat stiff and restrictive, particularly when you are playing as the less agile Donkey Kong. There are so many jumps that are insanely difficult to pull off successfully, even though on the surface they don’t look that hard. Enemies are positioned in such a way that you often have to jump over them at the same time you are jumping over a tough pit. This resulted in a lot of very frustrating deaths for yours truly. You so much as graze a pixel against your enemy and you are dead.

Attacking is also very iffy. Both characters have a roll attack, but I pretty much abandoned the roll attack because every time I would try to use it, my character would stop rolling a microsecond before hitting the enemy and I would get killed. The only other way to kill people (without the use of a barrel to throw) is to jump on their heads. While this is a tried and true video game concept, the timing comes across as very touchy in this game, and resulted in a handful of “WTF did I do wrong?” type deaths.

What really makes the game difficult, however, is the precise timing required to make your way through some of the game’s more difficult challenges. Everyone knows about the mine cart stages, but the ones I hated were the ones where you are on a moving ledge and the screen auto-scrolls with the ledge. You have to deal with enemies attacking you, often forcing you to temporarily jump off the moving ledge and make your way back onto it. Then there are the barrels that launch you through the stages. They rotate in every direction and you have to hit the launch button at the EXACT right moment or the barrel will shoot you somewhere you don’t want to go – which will likely result in your death. There are levels where you have to bounce off of tires past moving bee enemy obstacles. Touch the bee, you die. Miss a platform and fall, you die. There are stages which are completely dark and you have to activate light switches that temporarily allow you to see. If you don’t make it to the next light switch in time, you’re stuck trying to navigate through a dark screen and more likely than not you’ll find yourself dying.

That’s the theme of this game: death and dying and a lot of it.

While it seems like I’m complaining a lot and that I hated the game (like I did when I was younger), I actually had a somewhat enjoyable time with this game. If you’re patient, you’ll find the game quite rewarding as each stage is chock full of secrets and collectibles for you to locate. The structure of the game allows you to revisit old areas to find things you’ve missed. The game is also quite generous with extra lives, so even if you find yourself dying a lot you’re still going to be afforded lots of opportunities to learn from your mistakes and give it another go. Most importantly, this game allows you to save your progress. This is huge, because most games of this era make you start from the beginning of the game when you lose all of your lives. If that was the case with Donkey Kong Country, I might never have been able to complete this game.

 

Graphics:

Admittedly, this game looks pretty stunning. I didn’t appreciate it as a kid and I didn’t appreciate it as a raging cartridge-chucking dude in my late 20s. But I appreciate it now. Especially since I’ve been playing so many retro games lately. Donkey Kong Country is easily one of the best looking SNES games I’ve played to date, if not THE best looking SNES game. It’s not just the character design or the lush stages that do it for me. It’s the atmospheric effects. The rain, the lightning, the water effects. I was in awe the whole time I played this game. Donkey Kong Country creates such an unbelievable atmosphere for its players that is hard for even the biggest of haters to deny.

 

Sound:

This game sounds like a dream too, right from the introduction all the way to the end of the game. The various stage themes are instantly memorable. The music in between stages is memorable. The sound effects are fantastic as well.

As far as presentation goes, this is one of the most polished SNES games I’ve played. The graphics and music go hand-in-hand to really deliver a memorable and engrossing game environment to its players. Nothing but respect from me!

Overall:

I think after all these years I am finally able to give Donkey Kong Country the objective, unbiased look that it truly deserves. And I have mixed feelings.

The presentation of this game is an absolute A+. But I’ve ranted and raved about this game’s music and graphics enough. The real question is: is this game any fun to play?

Yes and no. I can see and appreciate what they were trying to do here. The ability to control two characters and switch back and forth between them was pretty intuitive for the time this game was released. The level design is fun. There is some nice variety in the stages and in the types of gameplay. I like that you can move along an overworld map and revisit stages you’ve already played. I like that you can save your game. There are tons of secret areas and hidden items galore, which gives this game a lot of replay value. DKC does a lot right. But dang its difficulty level nearly killed the fun for me at several points in this game.

I understand games being tough and offering a stiff challenge for its players. I’ve played things like Castlevania III and Contra: Hard Corps pretty recently, if you look back through my old reviews. And I had nothing but good things to say about both of those games, which are subjectively speaking a lot more difficult than this game. So why did this one bug me so much? I think it is because the game didn’t feel fair. If a game is challenging or if I die because of my own fault, I tend to not care as much. But this game just has SO many unfair deaths. Enemies that pop up at the edge of the screen before you have the chance to react. Areas with insanely difficult jumps where you have to dodge floating enemies as well as nail your landing. Frustrating combat mechanics. Barrel blasting segments that require pixel-perfect accuracy.

I’m trying to not let this tank my opinion of the game, however. This game does do a LOT right. On the whole I would say I had a good time with this game, despite the occasional frustration. And this game is so generous with its extra lives that dying became something that was little more than an inconvenience than anything else. The only time it ever became too horribly annoying is when I had to replay long segments of stages that I’d already played before – but luckily that doesn’t happen too much in this game.

I think I can safely say that I don’t hate Donkey Kong Country anymore. I’m definitely going to check out its sequels at some point in the near future. Am I going to revisit this game at any point in my life, however? Probably not.

 

Final Score:

C+

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

Beethoven: The Ultimate Canine Caper

Super Mario World

Super Mario Bros. 3

Sonic The Hedgehog

Vectorman