Video Game Review #286: Final Fight

Final Fight

Arcade

Nostalgia Factor:

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

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

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

Story:

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

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

The end.

Gameplay:

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

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

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

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

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

 

Graphics:

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

 

Sound:

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

 

Overall:

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

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

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

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

 

Final Score:

A

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

Double Dragon (arcade)

Ninja Gaiden (arcade)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (arcade)

TMNT III: The Manhattan Project

Double Dragon (NES)

Video Game Review #285: Rampage World Tour

Rampage World Tour

Nintendo 64

Nostalgia Factor:

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

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

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

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

Story:

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

 

Gameplay:

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

Graphics:

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

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

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

 

Sound:

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

Overall:

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

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

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

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

 

Final Score:

D

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

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

Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

Nintendo Entertainment System

Nostalgia Factor:

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

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

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

Read on for my full thoughts.

Story:

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

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

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

 

Gameplay:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Graphics:

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

Sound:

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

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

 

Overall:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Final Score:

A+

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

Castlevania

Castlevania II: Simon's Quest

Castlevania: The Adventure

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

Mega Man 2

Video Game Review #283: Ninja Gaiden

Ninja Gaiden

Arcade

Nostalgia Factor:

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

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

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

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

Story:

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

Gameplay: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Graphics:

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

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

Sound:

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

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

 

Overall:

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

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

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

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

Final Score:

D

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

 Ninja Gaiden

Ninja Gaiden 2

Double Dragon

TMNT III: The Manhattan Project

Rastan

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:

I am lucky no one really reads this blog, because if they did, 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, it's the 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 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 ended up not having a great time with the game. As time passed and I would think back on my time with the game, I found that I couldn't really remember anything about it. That's how I felt coming into it here in 2021. A the very minimum, it's been 12 years since my last playthrough. Would my opinion change this time? No.

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