Video Game Review #283: Ninja Gaiden

Ninja Gaiden

Arcade

Nostalgia Factor:

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

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

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

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

Story:

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

Gameplay: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Graphics:

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

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

Sound:

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

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

 

Overall:

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

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

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

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

Final Score:

D

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

 Ninja Gaiden

Ninja Gaiden 2

Double Dragon

TMNT III: The Manhattan Project

Rastan

Video Game Review #282: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Nintendo Entertainment System

Nostalgia Factor:

I could go on and on about how big the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were when I was a kid, but I already did that in my review of the TMNT arcade game. I mentioned the NES game in that review, bringing up how disappointing this game was to a large number of the TMNT fan base. I, for one, didn’t really mind the game. I must have been easily entertained as a kid because a lot of games that get dumped on nowadays I enjoyed back then.

The music was good, the graphics were on point. You could play as all four turtles, with the unique ability to switch them out at any time. You drove the turtle van. You fought Shredder. The game’s story sequences seemed pretty loyal to the source material. Yes, the game was tough and a little bizarre with some of its enemy character choices, but I liked it.

How does it hold up today? Let’s find out.

 

Story:

This game starts out exactly as you’d think it would: April O’Neill has been kidnapped by the Foot Clan and the Turtles have to rescue her. Wild!

What is surprising, however, is that you save her after the game’s first level. While you are off rescuing April, Shredder has planted underwater bombs to blow up the nearby dam. Why? I don’t know. Because he is Shredder and he’s evil. The Turtles head to the dam (and through a certain infamous swimming segment) to once again save the day. Upon returning to their sewer home, the Turtles find their lair trashed. Splinter has been taken by Shredder and it is up to you to rescue him. After rescuing Splinter, the Turtles head to the turtle blimp and take it to the Foot Clan’s base. The Turtles soon find  the Technodrome underground beneath the Foot Clan base, and after fighting their way inside they defeat Shredder, allowing Master Splinter to turn back into a human. I remember this being so cool as a kid. I wanted nothing more in my heart of hearts than for Splinter to turn back into a human on the cartoon, something that he was never able to permanently accomplish. To have that as the reward for beating this game was so awesome to me.

Before the game ends, we get one last pizza joke from April O’Neill because of course we do. Nearly each episode of the cartoon ends with a pizza joke so why would the game be any different?

 

Gameplay:

This is where the game receives most of its criticism, and not unfairly so. The control scheme is somewhat herky-jerky. The turtles are wild and out of control when you are jumping. Precision jumping from platform to platform is extremely difficult and leads to a lot of untimely falls. Be prepared to get stuck playing the same parts over and over again simply because you can’t nail what should on paper be an easy video game jump.

Enemies pop up out of nowhere and hit you. Enemies respawn after you have killed them and hit you. You’re constantly under fire from every direction almost all game long. This game has a reputation for being difficult, and after five minutes of playing this game you’ll see why. It’s not too horribly unfair once you get the hang of the controls, however.

As mentioned before, you can pause the game and switch back and forth between turtles at pretty much any time you want. This comes in handy if you are low on health using a certain turtle. You can switch over to a different turtle that has full health and play with them for a while. If you find a pizza slice or health upgrade, switch back to the turtle with low health and collect the item. My personal favorite character in this game is Donatello. I’d suggest playing as him most of the time since his weapon is the longest and by far deals the most damage of any of the turtles. I only ever used Raphael and Michelangelo when I absolutely HAD to, or if I needed to use a character that I didn’t mind taking a lot of damage.

Along the way you’ll collect projectile power-ups like ninja stars or scrolls that allow you to shoot a powerful wave magic attack. I always make it my goal when I play to collect as many of these as I can and save them for the final stretch of the Technodrome level. It is incredibly difficult and you need every tiny advantage you can get.

TMNT was a little bit ahead of its time due to the non-linear nature of its level design. Most stages start out from an overhead perspective. You control your turtle on the game map. You can enter buildings, go into sewers, fight foot soldiers, or blast away barricades using your turtle van – once you find it. The basic goal is to find the right path to make it to the end of the stage. There are many different paths you can go, some of them leading to the same place and others leading to dead ends. While I think this is pretty cool, I remember it being a source of frustration for my brother and my friends back in the 80s and 90s because they would get lost, not knowing where to go to make it through the level. I can see where that frustration is coming from. As a kid I had all the proper routes memorized but playing it as an adult I had absolutely no idea where I was supposed to be going. I figured it out eventually though, but not without some trial and error based headaches.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the swimming section attached to the dam stage. I was the only kid I knew who could make it through that part of the game. No one else I knew ever made it through that part. To this day, this stage’s difficulty is the stuff of legend when you go on the internet. To be honest – I still didn’t have much trouble making it through on my most recent playthrough. It takes a few attempts to figure out the optimal path to take, but all in all it didn’t pose a major challenge to me. I think the difficulty of this section of the game is highly overrated, particularly when held up against that final stretch of enemies inside the Technodrome before the big Shredder showdown. Most people never made it that far in the game, however, so I guess that’s understandable.

 

Graphics:

Maybe this game doesn’t look like much by today’s standards, but I certainly wasn’t complaining back in the day. It looks good for an NES game, if you can look past some of the slowdown and flickering enemies. All the turtles are recognizable, as are their enemies. The in-game cutscenes are nice, in particular the scene where the turtles get a threatening message from Shredder on their television set. I always thought that was so awesome when I was a kid. On the whole, this game hasn’t held up particularly well in the graphic department compared to some other old classics like Casltevania, Ninja Gaiden, or Contra. But that’s okay.

 

Sound:

“Good” is the word of the day when it comes to this game’s sound. I liked the music, even if it was original music and not pulled from the TV show. That was a little disappointing when I was a kid, but I got over it. The sound effects are good as well. There’s not really much to remark upon here. Like I said: it’s a good sounding game. Not spectacular, but good.

 

Overall:

I feel as if the nostalgia factor I have with this game is going to save it from getting a lower score than it actually should. If I was sitting down to play this game for the first time today, I am not sure I would like it. If you stripped the TMNT theme away and made this game with generic, original characters, I almost certainly would not have liked it.

The controls are wonky, the difficulty curve is steep, and it is easy to get lost playing through some of this game’s levels. But you know what? I still had a good time with it. This game has so many flaws, and I mean SO MANY flaws. But I still find it to be pretty fun. It almost has to be the nostalgia factor in play here. There’s no good reason for me to like this game, yet I do. That said, I am not sure I can recommend this game to anyone else. I know it is not the best game in the world (I wouldn’t say tit is HORRIBLE though). But it is not for everyone. Certainly younger fans who don’t care at all about the Ninja Turtles probably won’t derive any entertainment from this title.

And that’s okay. I like this game, but that doesn’t mean I don't recognize its flaws. You know what is funny? This game is getting the same score as A Link to the Past, which I just reviewed. That’s certainly a popular gaming opinion, right? Right? 

Final Score:

C+

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

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (arcade)

TMNT III: The Manhattan Project

Ninja Gaiden

Ninja Gaiden 2

Blaster Master

Video Game Review #281: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

Super Nintendo

Nostalgia Factor:

If anyone actually read this blog, I’d probably catch a lot of flak for this review. People like to rant and rave about The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and say things like it is the greatest video game of all time, best Zelda game, best Super Nintendo game, etc. I don’t think it’s the best anything. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love the Zelda series. I’ve given Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, and Wind Waker perfect or near-perfect review scores on this blog. I haven’t reviewed the OG Legend of Zelda or Twilight Princess yet, but I can guarantee you those games will get positive reviews as well. But A Link to the Past? Ehhhh……

I didn’t grow up with this game, so maybe that has something to do with it. I first played A Link to the Past somewhere between the year 2007 and the year 2009. This is what I call the “dark hours” of my life. I was depressed, lonely, I hated my job, and I had literally zero self-esteem. When I got home from work I’d get blackout drunk nearly every day of the week and pass out with almost no memories of what I had done the day before. I vaguely, VAGUELY remember playing through this game for the first time somewhere in those years. I don’t remember much about the game itself, other than that I was constantly getting stuck and having to look up online what I was supposed to do next. I always thought this was because I was a dumb drunk who didn’t know what the hell was going on, but it turns out that yeah the game is intentionally vague with what you’re supposed to do and where you’re supposed to go next.

I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself. I’ll save my issues with this game for the review itself. Dare to venture forward and hear my unpopular opinions on this game? Let’s go! 

Story:

I don’t think the storylines are particularly good in any Legend of Zelda game – and that includes all the other titles I’ve given positive reviews to. Despite being an action RPG series, I’ve always gotten the impression that the stories of these games have played second fiddle to the exploration and combat aspect of the series. This shouldn’t be too controversial of a statement. Compare the story and dialogue of literally any Zelda game to something like Final Fantasy VI or Chrono Trigger and you’ll see what I mean. A Link to the Past is no exception to this.

The basic story boils down to this: An evil wizard has kidnapped Princess Zelda. Link rescues her. Link finds out that this evil wizard is trying to restore Ganondorf, who has been locked away in the parallel “Dark World”, to power. Link goes on a quest to retrieve three items, which allow him to access the Master Sword. Link defeats the evil wizard, but is sent to the Dark World in the process. In the Dark World, Link must rescue the seven sages from imprisonment. Once he does, he is able to destroy Ganondorf and the evil wizard once and for all. The end.

 

Gameplay:

This is where I have the most mixed feelings. I’ll start with the good. This can be a fun game to play. The controls are responsive, the battle system is improved from the original Legend of Zelda, there are lots of fun items to use, the dungeons are vast and creative, the bosses are great, there are secrets to be found everywhere. I like the whole switching back and forth between the Dark World mechanic. On the surface this is a really fun Zelda game.

To me, it just has too many problems that drag it down. The most glaring one is this: where am I supposed to go? What am I supposed to do next? I’m going to the location marked on the map and nothing is there. What the heck?

There’s just too much of that in the game. You’d think that since the game has a clearly labeled map with a blinking icon of your destination that this wouldn’t be a problem, but it is. Oh it is. You’ll see a marker on your map indicating you need to head to it and enter its dungeon. You do that, but then find out in the middle of the dungeon that you need an item you don’t have in order to complete the dungeon. Where is the item located? I dunno. Somewhere. Yeah, that’s a lot of help. The game map is so big it is like looking for a needle in a haystack trying to figure out where to find it. The game could have done a LOT better mapping these kind of things out for you. I think I ran into this problem once or twice in Ocarina of Time. In this game, I was having to look up help on the internet every few minutes or so.

It’s like this game was designed with the intent of selling strategy guides in order to be able to beat it. I bet those things were hot sellers back in the early 1990s. I just can’t even imagine being able to beat this game without some kind of outside help. It’s just so incredibly vague what you’re supposed to do or where you are supposed to go next. I’m sure if you beat the game with a guide once or twice you’d be able to do it from memory on subsequent playthroughs, but F that. The majority of the game just felt horribly cheap to me.

I feel like I’m being really harsh, but it’s the truth. And it seriously impacted my time with the game in a very negative manner.

 

Graphics:

Now we’re getting to what the game does well. This is a really good looking game. I love the cartoonish character models. The colors are fantastic. I love how the world of this game looks. I love how atmospheric some segments of the game are, particularly when it is raining or there is something spooky and mysterious going on. A Link to the Past is light years above and beyond anything accomplished in the original Legend of Zelda games. The graphical and technological leap taken is just incredible.

Sound:

The game sounds incredible too. All the little sound effects are just spot on. Many of them have become iconic over the years and can be found in Zelda games to this date. The music is epic. That classic Zelda theme is at its near-best in this game. There are a few Mario World-esque tunes to be found here as well. The music ranges anywhere from sweeping and epic when it needs to be and quiet and subdued during tense moments. This is one of those games I’d advise playing with headphones on. The graphics and the music combine for a truly atmospheric experience. I’m convinced this is why this game is so popular. Not because of the gameplay or the fun factor but for just how groundbreaking its presentation was for its time. Considering this came out in the year 1992, everything about its presentation is just extraordinary.

 

Overall:

I can’t deny that this game does a lot right. I just talked about the presentation. I’ve already mentioned the controls, the weapon selection, the items, the hidden treasure, the bosses, all that fun stuff. I can see why people love this game.

Unfortunately, I don’t love it. I don’t hate it either, though. Don’t get me wrong. Maybe it is just because this game is so built-up by its fans I felt like I expected more. I thought that this was going to be the greatest, most fun game I have ever played. And it’s not. It just has too many frustrating problems dragging it down. If I didn’t have to stop to look at an online guide every ten minutes, I might have liked this more. It’s not fun getting constantly lost or constantly stuck, not knowing what to do next. It’s not fun advancing through a huge dungeon only to find that you don’t have the key item you need to complete it. It’s not fun when the game gives you absolutely no hints or clues as to how to proceed. This left me constantly second guessing myself every time I’d encounter a difficult puzzle. Do I have the item I need to make it through this? Do I need to go back? Let’s look it up online.

Give me the original Legend of Zelda over this game. Give me Beyond Oasis. Give me freaking Golden Axe Warrior for crying out loud.

I don’t hate this game, I just feel it could have been a LOT better. I ended up only having a middling time with it. I am not saying it sucks, but at the same time I’m not jumping out of my seat over it either. Will I ever play this game again? Unless I’m playing through it with my son, probably not. I can see why people like it, but to me it joins Skyward Sword as one of the weaker Zelda titles out there.

 

Final Score:

C+

Check out my other Zelda reviews:

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Video Game Review #280: Michael Jackson's Moonwalker

Michael Jackson's Moonwalker

Arcade

Nostalgia Factor:

I grew up playing Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker for the Sega Genesis. I always knew that there was an arcade version of Moonwalker out there; I even popped a few quarters into it back in the 1990s. But this was a  game I only encountered a small handful of times in my life, and none of those times did I ever have enough money on me to make any significant progress in the game. When I first discovered emulation I knew that Moonwalker was going to be a game that I was going to check out sooner rather than later.

Well, sooner has come.

Story:

You are Michael Jackson and you save kids. There’s more to the story if you watch the movie Moonwalker, but aside from the very basics this game doesn’t waste much time on its story.

 

Gameplay:

This is a very easy game to pick up and play. Controlling Michael Jackson, you beat up bad guys not using your fists, but with blue bursts of magic that shoot  from your hands. If you hold down the attack button you unleash a more powerful magic attack that can hit multiple enemies at the same time. Michael has a special screen-clearing attack where all his enemies bust out into a dance number and then proceed to die. You get one of these per life, but sometimes when you rescue a child you’ll be given an extra attack, or maybe a health item.

Unlike similar titles such as TMNT or Final Fight, Moonwalker doesn’t take place from a side-scrolling perspective. Instead, it is more of an overhead, isometric perspective. You generally start at the bottom of the screen and work your way up, the screen scrolling as you move. This is going to be one of my shortest reviews ever, because there isn’t really much to write about Moonwalker’s gameplay. All you do is kill enemies, and then before you know it the game is over. This is a super short title, clocking in at around 20 to 30 minutes long. It’s pretty easy too. Usually when I emulate I keep track of how many “quarters” I’ve plugged into the machine, but for some reason I didn’t do that here. No way I spent more than three dollars on this game.

Okay, I was about to move on to the next segment but I guess I found something that should be mentioned. Every level or two you’ll be given the chance to morph into a robot Michael Jackson. This robot kills enemies with lasers and rockets shot out of his hands. You are still vulnerable to attacks, though, and if you die you lose the robot power until you find it again later in the game. This doesn’t really add much to the game, aside from the fact that you’re able to control a robot Michael Jackson. That’s pretty cool.

Graphics:

The game looks good, particularly for its age. I wouldn’t say it looks amazing or anything, but it accomplishes what it sets out to do. I like the level variety and the enemy types you encounter as you play. Some of the “cutscenes” between levels are pretty freaking hilarious, I must say. I don’t know if the humor is intentional in these or not, but man. Michael’s face! It's just so funny.

Sound:

This is probably the best part about the game. It’s a treat being able to bob your head to this game’s level music, the entirety of which is based off of famous Michael Jackson tunes. All the little Michael sound effects are great.

If you’ve played the Genesis version you should know what to expect in this department, as nothing new is really added for this game. But that doesn’t make it any less fantastic.

Overall:

If Michael Jackson wasn’t the star of this game, it probably would have been lost to time forever. It’s a generic, completely run of the mill beat ‘em up that doesn’t do much that you haven’t seen already. It’s short, it’s easy. It’s completely forgettable.

But here’s the thing: Michael Jackson IS the star of the game, and that counts for something. This game has so much personality to it. The graphics, the characters, the music. Michael makes this whole thing work. I didn’t even mention that it is three player co-op as well. Each character can control their own Michael Jackson, each one in a different colored suit (I’ve always had a special place in my heart for the red one). I don’t care who you are – a video game where the players can control three different Michael Jacksons at the same time is ALWAYS going to be something that is worth checking out. No, this game isn’t a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination. It's fine. But if you are a 90’s kid and a fan of the beat ‘em up genre, this game is one that absolutely has to be played if only for the experience of it.

Final Score:

C+

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

Michael Jackson's Moonwalker (Genesis)

Aliens

Double Dragon

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

TMNT III: The Manhattan Project

Video Game Review #279: Contra: Hard Corps

Contra: Hard Corps

Sega Genesis

Nostalgia Factor:

If you’re a loyal reader of this blog you’ll know I’ve been working my way through the Contra Anniversary Collection and reviewing each game in the series. I’ve now played and reviewed every game on this collection, with the exception of Contra: Hard Corps for the Sega Genesis. Well, that changes today. It’s been an epic collection of games so far and I am so glad I’ve gotten the chance to play all the titles in the series I missed as a kid. Where would Hard Corps stack up against the rest? Turns out I saved one of the best for last! Read on for my full review.

Story:

This game takes place after Contra III: The Alien Wars. It revolves around an evil supervillain who has broken into a top secret research base in an attempt to steal a powerful alien cell that is a remnant from the Alien Wars. It’s up to you to put an end to the shenanigans.

I’m not going to pretend that this game’s story is important, but I do like that they did something different with this game. Every couple of levels you are given a choice as to how you would like to proceed. The choices you make affect how the game plays out, and the end result is a whopping FIVE different endings that you can unlock. This adds an unbelievable amount of replay value to an already fun game.

Gameplay:

It’s fast paced, there’s bullets and enemies coming at you constantly, and you’re going to find yourself dying quite often. Ah, must be a Contra game. If you played Alien Wars you should have a basic idea of what to expect here. Hard Corps does several things quite differently, however, and that’s what I will highlight in this review. I already mentioned the branching paths and the five different endings, but in addition to this you have a selection of four different characters to pick from.

As you play, you gather four different types of weapons that you can toggle between at any time as you play. Some examples include the spread gun, a homing attack, and a powerful shrapnel attack. Each of the four different characters have four different weapons, so in all there are 16 different weapon power-ups in this game. If you get hit and die with one of these upgrades selected, you lose it. So you have to be really careful as you play. If you can see that you’re going to get killed, switch to a weapon you barely use so that when you die you lose that instead of something more powerful. Your fifth weapon slot is allotted for bombs that you can collect. One of these destroys everything on the screen or does heavy damage to the boss characters. I suggest saving them for the bosses.

Gone are the gimmicky overhead or behind-the-back stages from Contras past. The closest this game comes to one of these stages is a Mode 7-esque stage where your character is running towards the screen and the boss character is chasing him in the background. This is a pretty easy stage though, probably one of the easiest in the game.

Before we go any further I am going to admit something to you: I didn’t like this game at first. The first time I played through this I thought it was a cheap, frustrating game that was vastly inferior to the Super Nintendo’s Alien Wars. I thought it was way too hard as well. My first playthrough of this game came using save states, and I remember that even with these save states I still found the game to be incredibly difficult to the point where I didn’t derive any entertainment from it.

In order to get 100% of the Contra Collection’s PSN trophies, I had to play through this game five different times and unlock all of the endings. Despite not really liking the game, I plugged away at unlocking these trophies, and as I slowly worked through this game one time after another, after another – something happened. I started to like this game. And I mean, REALLY like this game. Each playthrough I found myself getting better and better at the game. I started to master it in a way that I originally didn’t think would ever be possible. I still used save states, but I didn’t find things nearly as difficult as I did before. I unlocked all five endings and earned 100% of the game’s trophies. That’s usually when I stop playing. But I didn’t stop here. I kept going, and going, and going. I was bound and determined to beat this game without using save states.

To this day, I still haven’t been able to do this. Yeah, I know I know. Get good. But every time I play, I learn a little bit more and every time I play I get a little bit farther. One of these days I know I can do it. And to me that says a lot about this game because with other similarly difficult games in the past (like Super Empire Strikes Back, which I just reviewed) I only beat them once with save states and then never came back. There’s just something different, something magnetic about this game that keeps me coming back again and again.

Graphics:

Maybe this game doesn’t look quite as good as Alien Wars but it still looks really good. At first I thought it looked kind of plain and generic but the more I played and the deeper I got into the game, the more it began to impress me. This game just has so much personality that oozes through in its visuals. I love the over the top nature of the game’s action too with all the nonstop explosions and fast moving enemies. The game just does not let up. There’s some cool atmospheric effects to be found here too, most notably in the virtual zone and in the laboratory. The bosses are giant and brought to life wonderfully as well. I’m a fan.

 

Sound:

This game sounds amazing too. Maybe the game’s musical score isn’t as iconic as, say, the original Contra, but it is still pretty darn good. It is everything you’d ever want in a Sega Genesis Contra game. My favorite track in this game has to be the boss theme. As far as sound effects go, the sound of gunfire, explosions, and all the things happening on the screen match up with the graphics perfectly. No complaints from me.

Overall:

I never would have thought this when I first started playing the game, but this may be my favorite Contra title. Seriously. I don’t know if anything can top the original NES game for me, but Hard Corps comes the closest by far. This is a very challenging game, and it does take a lot of patience to play. So I can see how it might not be for everyone. But if you sit down and really give this game a chance you are going to find that it is a very rewarding experience. Any fans of the series who haven’t played this title need to get on it ASAP.

I have been saying this in a lot of my review lately, but I can't wait until my son is old enough to start gaming. Me and him are going to play the co-op mode in this game someday and we're going to beat it without save states. Just watch. I'm updating this blog when it happens. Don't think I won't.

 

Final Score:

A

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

Contra

Super C

Contra III: The Alien Wars

Willow

Mega Man

Video Game Review #278: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Arcade

Nostalgia Factor:

It’s hard to describe just how big Ninja Turtle mania was back in the mid to late 1980s. It seemed like the Ninja Turtles just showed up out of nowhere, and then all of a sudden bam just like that I was under their spell. I religiously watched the cartoon. I had all the merchandise – the toys, clothes, comic books, bedsheets, school supplies, etc. I even had a music cassette tape from their “Coming out of Our Shells” rock tour. The Turtles were everywhere. The conversations at school were all dominated by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. We ran around during recess and acted like the Turtles and recited our favorite Turtles quotes. We drew pictures of them. Personally, I lived and breathed Ninja Turtles. They even had a cereal, so I guess you could say I ate them too!

It was only a matter of time before we would be blessed with a TMNT video game. Unfortunately the game we got was the 1989 NES title. Everyone was so hyped for this game, only to be devastated by how odd and challenging it was. I think I am the only person from my circle who was actually able to beat the game. Almost everyone else I knew didn’t like the game. The fans felt like they deserved better.

Later on in the year, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would be released in the arcades in the United States. Back then the internet wasn’t a thing. No one ever knew when arcade units were going to be released. They just kind of “showed up” with little to no fanfare. That’s what happened with this game.

Me and my family were at Chuck E. Cheese. I was wandering through the arcade section, looking for something good to play, when I heard a familiar tune in the distance. Was that… the Ninja Turtles theme song? I went running to track down where the music was coming from. I remember rounding a corner and – there it was, in its full glory: the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game. The graphics looked like the cartoon. The music was authentic. You could play as all four Turtles, and the gameplay looked like it was similar to something like Double Dragon (I wasn’t quite familiar with the term beat ‘em up yet). It was love at first sight.

Over the years I had the chance to play this game many many times at various arcades. Unfortunately, arcades have almost completely vanished since they were big in the 80s and 90s. Normally I frown on emulating, but if I didn’t emulate this game I likely never would have played it again. So that’s what I did. Read on for my full review of this game.

Story:

It’s a beat ‘em up, so don’t expect this game to have much of a story. The Foot Clan has kidnapped April O’Neill, so the Turtles go on a quest to beat the shit out of Krang, Shredder, Rocksteady, Bebop, and all of the evil minions of the Foot Clan to get her back. Their mission takes them from April’s flaming apartment unit to the city streets, the sewer, the Technodrome, and more!

 

Gameplay:

This is a side-scrolling beat ‘em up where the action takes place on a 3D plane. If you’ve played Final Fight, Streets of Rage, or Double Dragon you should know what to expect here. It is very easy to pick up and play. You have two buttons: jump and attack. Attack does what you’d think it would do: it attacks your enemies. Each of the Turtles has their own unique weapon with their own distinct strengths and weaknesses – Leo has the sword, Donny has the bo, Raph has the sais, and Mikey has the nunchakus. The jump button also does what you’d think it would do: it makes your character jump. Use this to jump over obstacles, avoid enemies, or launch into a jump kick attack.

The point of the game is very simple: beat the shit out of everything you see. Most of your regular enemies are going to be Foot Clan soldiers – color coded based on their unique attack modes. You make it through each stage, fighting Foot Clan soldiers and avoiding obstacles (like wrecking balls rolling down stairs or giant street signs falling on to your character). At the end of the stage you’ll square off against a boss character. You’ll recognize some familiar faces as these characters are pulled from the cartoon and the comics. Rocksteady, Bebop, Baxter Stockman, etc. Make it through all the levels in the game and you make it to the final stage, the Technodrome, where you must square off against Krang and then Shredder at the end of the game. Defeat them, and you have won. 

Playing this on an emulator, the game is quite easy. I died a lot, but there were no consequences to my deaths. I’d just pop in a virtual quarter, which costs me nothing in real life, and keep going. I would say I probably raced through this whole game in about 30 minutes –if that. The only parts that ever gave me troubles were the boss fights, most notably the Rocksteady/Bebop dual battle and the fight against the dude made out of rocks. I don’t know his name. These fights are probably the worst part of the game for me, as there seems to be little strategy involved. They turn into what seems like a pure war of attrition and nothing else. Like I said, playing on an emulator this is fine. But when it costs you real quarters in a video game arcade? That can be a real problem. No one wants to spend two dollars pounding away at some lame rock boss that wasn’t even recognizable from the cartoon.

(OK I just looked him up – and yes he is from the cartoon, but was a very minor character. Just wanted to post this for clarity’s sake)

 

Graphics:

This game looks sensational considering it came out in 1989. I can’t believe it’s 32 years old!

The graphics are bright and colorful and do a faithful job capturing the look and feel of the TMNT cartoon. The cutscenes at the beginning of the game really help transport you into that world, and the game never lets up after that.

The characters are instantly recognizable. The stages are nice and detailed. The bosses are amazing. I can’t say anything bad about the way this game looks.

 

Sound:

Just as the graphics do a great job bringing the cartoon world of the Ninja Turtles to life, so does the music. The iconic TMNT theme song plays at the beginning of the game. The level music is terrific. The voice acting is not the best, but all the small sounds you hear as you pummel your enemies are very satisfying to me. Playing this game instantly transports me back to the 1980s, and the music and sound effects are a huge reason for that.

 

Overall:

If I had never played this game before and I was judging it by today’s standards, I’d like to think I’d still have had a good time with this game. It is one of those titles that, despite its age, is infinitely playable. I just think it has aged SO WELL!

You can tell that a lot of heart was put into this game to make it as faithful to the cartoon as humanly possible, and it shows. Even if I wasn’t a TMNT fan I’d still have to sit back and appreciate the love that went into this game. But hey, I am a TMNT fan and I think that this game is an absolute treasure. I think back to the year 1989, when seven year old Danny boy was running through Chuck E Cheese, following the sound of the Ninja Turtles theme song. I think of how my face must have lit up when I first laid eyes on this arcade cabinet. I think of all the good times I’ve had with this game over the years. This title means a lot to me, and I just want to say thank you to Konami for crafting something that had such a giant impact on my childhood.

Is the game perfect? No. Is it chock full of secrets and replay value that will keep you coming back for more? Not really. I played through this game from start to finish two times and I’m probably going to be done with it for a long time - until my son is old enough to appreciate it, and then I can introduce it to him too. I can only hope his eyes light up like mine must have 32 years ago. 

I’ll keep you posted. Really, I will. And I can't wait.

 

Final Score:

A-

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

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Video Game Review #277: Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

Super Nintendo

Nostalgia Factor:

 

I first reviewed Super Star Wars back on January 23rd, 2015 – a whopping six and a half years ago. My initial plan was to play all three Super Star Wars game in rapid succession and pump out some reviews talking about which of these games was the best. Obviously this never happened. Later is better than never, however, and it’s finally time for me to play and review Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. How would this game compare to the original? Quite well, actually. Read on for the sweet sweet details.

Story:

This game follows the basic events of the movie’s story. Obviously there are a lot of liberties taken with the story (do you remember when Han got into a blaster fight with the carbon-freezing generator? How about when Luke gunned down a bunch of security forces on his way into Cloud City? I sure don’t) but I really can’t hold that against the game as the movies don’t offer enough source material to fill an entire video game. Just like with the original Super Star Wars, you just kind of have to accept these wacky scenarios and take them as they come.

Gameplay:

At first glance this plays a lot like the original Super Star Wars. You run, shoot, hack things with your lightsaber, jump over pits, and generally destroy everything in your sight. Even the power-ups are the same. Lightsabers that extend your life bar. Darth Vader helmets that double and triple your points. Thermal detonators that kill everything onscreen. Pretty quickly, though, you begin to notice some major differences.

The first major difference is the addition of a double jump. I didn’t even really think about it that much as I played, but now in retrospect I realize how much of a difference this extra jump makes, especially in some of the more difficult platforming areas. You can’t choose what characters you can pick either, as the game does its best to follow the basic events of the movie. For example, it wouldn’t make sense to have Han training on Dagobah or Chewbacca fighting Darth Vader.

The game also seems a bit faster paced than the original. The original had some levels that seemed like they dragged on forever – like both the interior and exterior of the Jawa sand crawler. This game is comprised of many shorter, quicker levels. There were some that I beat in a matter of two or three minutes, which would have been unheard of in the original game. When you start a new level, you start with full health so that was always a welcome thing for me.

I mention full health because this game is HARD. I’m going to say something that may make you disown me as a serious gamer, and I’m fine with that. But I used save states to beat this game. I used them a lot, too, trying to make my way through each level while taking as minimal amount of damage as I could. If I majorly screwed up and lost too many lives or too much health, I’d reload the state and keep doing it again until I got it right. This may seem like “cheating” and I didn’t beat the game the way it was intended to be beaten, but I really don’t care. If I sat down to play this game and didn’t use save states, I’d probably STILL be playing it two weeks from now. It’s just so damn hard, and unfairly so too. Enemies pop out at random. They literally just drop from the sky in many different levels. They respawn when you kill them. They knock you off ledges. They constantly pester you every second of every stage. The game often feels cheap in its difficulty level, which is why I don’t have any problem with me using the save states. If it is going to play dirty, I’m going to too.

One plus side to this is that I was able to beat the game on its normal difficulty level, which I wasn’t able to do with Super Star Wars (which I had to play on easy). So there’s that.

Outside of the bosses, this game has some… uh… “fun” mode 7 flying levels? I appreciate that they tried to do something to break up the 2D platforming monotony, but some of these levels are flat out bad. They’re clunky, it’s hard to aim, and you are constantly getting cheap shotted left and right. If I had to pick one of these levels that I liked, however, it would have to be the Hoth stage where you pilot a snowspeeder and have to wrap the tow cables around the AT AT’s legs to trip them up. I loved this part in Shadows of the Empire, and I liked it here.

 

Graphics:

This game looks awesome. The bright colors, the giant character sprites. The levels look fantastic. There is so much detail everywhere you look. The world of the Empire Strikes Back is really brought to life in such a fun, colorful, cartoonish kind of way. I can’t say enough how much I love this game’s look. It is terrific.

Sound:

The game sounds amazing too. You can never go wrong with Star Wars music, even when it is pumping through a Super Nintendo cartridge. The lightsaber sounds great. The blaster shots sound great. The hectic nature of this game means there is always something wild happening on screen, and the game manages the chaos perfectly. The sound coupled with the game’s colorful look really brings this game to life. The presentation of this title is wonderful, and probably the best thing about it.

 

Overall:

I’m really torn when it comes to this game. It does so many things right. The presentation, the weapons, the nonstop action. This game looks and sounds amazing, and it is fun to play… to a certain extent. I thought this game was pretty tough and challenging even using save states. I can’t possibly imagine playing this game without them. I am sure it can be beaten, but it probably requires much more trial and error practice than I am willing to put in. I see that this game does include a password feature, so that is nice. You don’t have to start from the beginning each time you run out of continues. But still, this game is hard. And not just hard – fucking hard. And in a cheap, random way too. It doesn’t feel fair half the time.

And that’s the main problem I have with this game. I had fun with it, yes – with save states. I can only imagine that without them this game is no fun at all. You constantly die, the bosses are unfair, the level design basically sets you up for failure. I’m kind of at a loss as to how I should grade this. 

I think this would be a really amazing game if it was more fair. All the tools for success are there. It’s just that the challenge level drags it down SO MUCH. It doesn’t matter how good a game looks or sounds if you aren’t having a good time playing it. If you are playing with save states like I did, you’ll have a much better time playing this game. If you aren’t… I really don’t know how you’d like it. I guess I’ll have to aim somewhere for the middle with my final score. For what it’s worth, I do feel this is a better game than Super Star Wars, which I gave a B-. But I just really don’t know if I can go any higher than that.

 

Final Score:

B-

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

Super Star Wars

Demolition Man

Contra III: The Alien Wars

Aladdin

Star Wars: Bounty Hunter

Video Game Review #276: Grandia

Grandia

PlayStation

Nostalgia Factor:

I first became aware of Grandia back in 1997 or 1998. This was supposed to be the Sega Saturn's big answer to the PS1's Final Fantasy VII. I was super excited for it. Unfortunately, despite enjoying success overseas, the title was never ported to the US. I was very disappointed. The reviews for it had been overwhelmingly positive. I'd even read it described as the greatest RPG ever made. And yet I wasn't going to be able to play it. Another failure in a long series of failures for the Saturn console.

Luckily, in 1999 the title was picked up and ported over not to the Saturn but to its original competitor the PS1. I didn't immediately run out and buy this game, but I did get my hands on it about two years later. For whatever reason, I never bothered to really give the game a chance. I fired it up one time in 2002 or 2003 and made it to the part where Justin has to swab the deck, but that is where I stopped. 

I'd end up coming back to the game in the year 2021. 22 years after the game's initial release, and 18 years after that one time I played a few hours of it. It's kind of funny how it took me so long to finally play this game, despite being so excited for its potential Saturn release WAY back in the day. I don't know why it took me so long. It was just... never the right time to play it. This is a perfect example of the way I choose to play my games - precisely however and whenever I want.

Would Grandia be worth the long wait? Read on to hear my thoughts.

Story:

Grandia’s story is actually pretty simple. You play as Justin, a young self-proclaimed “adventurer” living in the ocean side city of Parm. Justin sets out on a quest to discover the mystery behind the Spirit Stone, a strange gem left to him by his late father. His travels take him to an excavation site where he sees a vision of a woman named Liete, who tells him that he must travel across the ocean to discover the lost city of Alent – where he will find his answers. Justin is joined on his journey by a local friend named Sue, and along the way they encounter many different eclectic personalities that join the party and flit in and out of it.

Justin and his companions travel past “The End of the World”, a mysterious wall that separates the New World from the old. There it is discovered that an ancient creature named Gaia has been awakened by the Garlyle military. Their leader, General Baal, is looking for the Spirit Stone which will help him control Gaia and take over the world… or something. Justin trades the Spirit Stone for his friend’s life, and is forced to regroup and bring together all of the people he had encountered during his adventures to strike back at Baal and destroy Gaia and the Spirit Stone once and for all.

This is an extremely truncated and short version of the game’s events. This is a 50-plus hour game. Not mentioned are all the side quests you are going to get pulled into. I’ll give you a few examples. Along the way, one of your companions (Feena) is kidnapped and you have to rescue her before she can be forced into a marriage she does not want. You battle a ghost ship while crossing the ocean. You save a town from acid rain. You run multiple fetch quests almost every time you enter a new village before the people of the village will actually help you. There are many, many more side quests that I can’t think of at the moment. If I had to compare the pace of this game to any other game, it would be that of Final Fantasy IX. It just felt very similar at times to me, particularly with how linear the game is and how you are pulled into a new adventure each time you reach a new location. The actual main plot often felt secondary at times in favor of the small adventures you encounter along the way.

 

Gameplay:

This game takes place from your typical RPG overhead view. You run around, you explore towns, you buy and sell items, you talk to people. There is no overworld that you use to traverse from location to location. When you leave an area, a game map is brought up and you simply pick your next destination, hit X, and you are taken directly there.

Battles are not random. You can see enemies on the game map and either run directly at them, which often results in you gaining initiative during the battle, or you can try to avoid them. Be careful though - enemies will chase after you and if they touch you from behind, you are pulled into battle and the enemies will have initiative, making the fight that much more difficult. Combat takes place in a semi real time manner. There is a bar on the bottom of the screen that indicates attack order. If you strike an enemy, it freezes their progress on the bar for a second or two while everyone else continues to advance along the bar. You can use this strategically to stun your enemies and try to sneak in as many attacks as you can before it is their turn.

Character and enemy placement is also a big thing. If your characters are bunched together, it makes it easier for enemies to hit everyone in your party with a single magic attack. If you space everyone out, the enemy has a much more difficult time doing that. This works in reverse, too. If your enemies are all bunched together, you have a much better chance of doing damage to all of them with a single magic attack than you would if they were spaced out. Utilizing this strategy plays a big part in battles throughout this game. 

One thing I liked about the combat system is that your special moves and spells level up the more you use them. So for example if you cast fire all the time, eventually fire will level up into a more powerful attack. If you never cast fire, you’ll be stuck with the same measly weak fire spell the entire game. This lends a little extra strategy to battles. I was often using multiple techniques in battle since I wanted the most leveled-up skills and spells I could get.

If this all sounds fun and dandy to you – it is. This is a very well-designed and intricate battle system. But let me get to the problems I had with it, most notably the load times and the grinding. The load times often last a good ten seconds after each battle before you return to the game map. This may not seem too excessive at first, but keep in mind that you have to grind A LOT if you want to have a chance at beating this game. Some of the bosses in this game can be absolutely brutal. You have to sit through hundreds and hundreds of battles throughout this game if you want to level up strong enough to win. Those ten seconds really start to add up. There is also a long delay when you open up your inventory on the game map. It made me not want to use healing items or check my character’s equipment since it takes so long for the menu to open up each time. 

Another issue I had was with the enemy placement on the map. Grandia kind of gives you the illusion that these enemy fights aren’t randomly generated like, say, Final Fantasy IX. While it is true, yes, there aren’t random encounters, enemy placement on the map often forces you into fighting them whether you want to or not. There’s so many tight corridors filled with enemies you just can’t sneak by. And if you do try to run by them, they’ll just hit you from behind and force you into a more challenging battle. As a result I ended up fighting almost every single enemy I came across, which somewhat defeated the purpose of no random encounters.

There also seems to be an imbalance in the game’s difficulty level, especially later in the game. I would absolutely slaughter every enemy on the map before they even had a chance to attack me, but then when I’d encounter a boss I’d get wiped out in just a small handful of turns. WTF? My only solution was to grind and grind some more – against weak enemies who offered no resistance or challenge to me whatsoever. The grinding would go on for hours and hours. It just KILLS any momentum this game may have had in its second half. It took me months and months to finish this game, it became such a slogfest. What were the developers THINKING???

That’s my AVGN moment of this review. Anyway, this game had such a great concept, fun characters, a good battle system, etc. It feels like such a waste that the grinding and the load times pretty much canceled that all out.

 

Graphics:

This game has that classic JRPG pixel art look to it that I just love. The world is bright and colorful. This is definitely a good looking game. If I had to compare the look of this game to anything it would be to Xenogears, with its 2D pixel characters inhabiting a rotating 3D world. In many ways this game looks better than Xenogears if only due to the detail and interactivity found in the game’s interiors. For example, if you touch some dishes on a table they will clatter, or if you touch a tea kettle steam will shoot out of it. It’s small touches like that which really bring this game to life. There are also some big, cinematic moments to be found in this game, like when you reach the top of the wall. This game’s presentation is definitely not one of its problems.

 

Sound:

I’ve made the Xenogears comparison with the graphics, so I guess I’ll do it with the sound too. A lot of the villages have fun, Gaelic-inspired music themes that are very reminiscent of something you’d hear in Xenogears. Overall this game’s soundtrack is much inferior to Xenogears, but I couldn’t help but notice a lot of similarities. One of my favorite tunes in the game is the jingle that plays when you win a battle, and I am really mad that they changed it about halfway through the game. The voice acting though…. yikes. It’s best if I don’t even mention it any further. It is bad. Good thing it isn’t utilized very often.

 

Overall:

If it feels like I’ve been pretty harsh on Grandia, I have. This is a game with a lot of flaws and pacing issues. It does a lot right, however, with its fun battle system and its unique way of leveling up your characters. It looks good, it sounds good. I was interested in its story, even though it meandered a bit too much for my tastes.

I just feel as if there are too many negatives to be found here- and these negatives are so strong that they begin to overtake the positives. The loading times, the grinding, the fetch quests, the unavoidable enemies, all the meandering and going off track that the plot does. I haven’t even mentioned the confusing nature of the dungeons and how everything looks the same. I shit you not, if you added up all the times I got lost trying to leave a dungeon or combat area it must have added up to about 5 or 6 hours. There is no map to reference. Your compass is useless. Way too much time is wasted unnecessarily in this game. 

I also hated how characters would randomly leave the party. I’d spend hours and hours leveling people up only to have them leave and never come back. Such an obnoxious waste of time. That seems to be the theme here. From the long loading times, the endless battling and leveling up, the getting lost, the fetch quests, the backtracking – everything this game does seems like it is designed to waste your time. It’s not fun. It’s not cute. It’s fucking tedious.

There’s a reason it took me so many months to beat this game: I didn’t want to play it. Firing up the game was a chore each and every time. Grandia began to feel more like work than play – and that doesn’t fly with your homie over here.

It’s such a shame too, because buried under all my complaints is a game that at its core is worth playing. For the first time in the history of this blog, I feel bad giving a game a poor score. I have heard that there is a remaster of this game that came out sometime in the last few years. I really, really hope that the remaster fixes this game’s flaws. Even adding a simple speed-up option (like in the FF VIII remaster) would do wonders for this game. Truly: I really wanted to like Grandia. I really did. For that 16 year old kid in me who was so crushed when the Saturn version wasn't ported stateside. I just… ugh. Since you can’t see me I want you to know I am shaking my head right now.

No, this is not a horrible or unplayable game. Like I said there is a lot of good to be found here. But will I play it again? Absolutely not. And that’s pretty telling right there. I have heard this game's sequel is better, however. I am still very willing to check it out someday. This game hasn't completely killed my interest in the series.

Final Score:

D+

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

Chrono Trigger

Final Fantasy VI

Final Fantasy IX

Xenogears

Final Fantasy VIII