are you friend or foe?
chance my wealth will jog your mind?
ah! a friend i see
Additional Comments:
Not long before a Sega Master System found its way into my collection, I briefly toyed with Aztec Adventure in emulated form whilst trying to familiarize myself with some of the console's little known library - well, little known to me at least. At the time, other than Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic 2, I was pretty clueless as to what the system offered. I found the game interesting, to say the least, but really it was nothing more than just another bizarre title among many. Still, for the sake of Beat All Games, I put in the old college try and...failed, miserably at that. This is one challenging game, even when running it on an emulator and having tools at your disposal. Ironically, I've found games on the Master System to be far harder than games on the NES despite the common term thrown around regarding old 8-bit difficulty as "NES difficulty" or "Nintendo difficult." Bullshit! While I'll consent to the existence of NES difficulty, mostly in the form of elliptical and/or sine wave projectile patterns, Sega was the real bully on the block, turning happy-go-lucky kids into unbalanced lunatics lost in the grips of masochistic insanity. Of course, the Master System's stupid joystick slash d-pad hybrid had something to do with it as well. Between Alien Syndrome and Aztec Adventure, I have endlessly gone back and forth trying to figure out if the controller's easier to use with or without the thumbstick. I hate that stupid, plastic protrusion, yet the d-pad feels so useless, so flippant, so...dammit! Guess I'll screw the thumbstick back on.
So yea, since acquiring a Master System, I have also acquired Aztec Adventure. Actually, when a friend of mine had bought the system for me, I gave him some extra money and told him to surprise me as far as games go. Surprise! Aztec Adventure! But seriously, since acquiring the game and playing it on a real system, I've really come to love the game. It's such a quirky mess of difficulty and weirdness. Plus, I've come to understand the game so much more compared to my half-assed emulated attempt. For instance, while I'm certainly not over-exaggerating the difficulty within the game, I was finding the game agonizing for all the wrong reasons. After playing levels over and over, I came to realize the importance of items. That's one of the downfalls of emulated play. Tools are the Devil's playthings when it comes to gaming and causes lapses of basic gaming theory such as "items are important." Duh...ya think? And what do you know, after embracing the item system, the levels became so much easier. It's like there was a purpose to them all along. Or maybe I'm just being an idiot. Yea, that one - I'm just being an idiot.
Another realization I faced was having to play the game's annoyances to your advantage such as enemy respawn. I'm not too certain when "grinding" or "farming" became the agonizing norm, although many early RPG's shoveled hours of grinding down our throats, but somehow I feel these terms were nothing more than work-a-day references to the toils of certain blue-collared laborers. The idea of farming spears and money bags seems so foreign in such an early game. But alas, it's there. I'm certain this was yet another reason why Aztec Adventure got the better of me in my early attempts. Never mind using spears, you mean I need to keep a full quiver...er, bag...er.... What the heck do you keep multiple sets of spears in anyway? Who carries around eight spears? That's got to be both daunting and awkward.
In addition to grinding out kills for spears, or other necessary weaponry, by taking advantage of boarder proximity respawns, the need for hauling several large bags of money through the dense forests and burning deserts fast becomes apparent as well. Multi-scrolling a screen to consistently respawn a group of kanego - timid little frogs whom I can only suspect are poisonous based on their coloring - often proves itself a top priority upon every level start. It's always worth having a billfold full of cash available so you can bribe some of the locals. What a weird concept when you think about it. But at the same time, a very cool and innovative feature of its time, especially since you can take on two local warriors who will battle to the death to ensure your safe passage through their monster infested homelands. Although, given their initial demeanor towards my intrusion, and their general composure around the indigenous fauna, I sort of understand the need to bribe them. After all, I seem to be the real enemy to these people; not those cute little frogs. And well, those magical Nazca Lines don't seem to be interfering with the lives of anyone other than myself. So much death and destruction - and all just for my own personal greed. So it goes. Otherwise, there'd be no game. Right? Right!? But I digress.
Despite my general lack of enthusiasm towards computer controlled teammates, the concept is very cool and interesting here. Perhaps it's because it plays more of a centralized role but at the same time the game isn't dependent on the feature, or maybe because they're so easily expendable - oh Papi, how easily you concede death - that I can get behind this particular mechanic with gusto, unlike any other game ever that uses the same idea. Sure, the AI is incredibly lacking - in fact, they may be the most harebrained imbeciles I've ever come across. They are so clueless to their surroundings. Instead of relying on collision detection and general pathing, they seem to respond solely to d-pad control and therefore can easily get stuck or left behind. In a way, regarding them as computer controlled pals seems technically incorrect. The player has far more control over them than any fair share of coding would hope to dare. But no matter how stupid or worthless they may be, I can appreciate and enjoy the mechanic because it isn't being forced from the word go. In fact, you can do the whole game without the help of anyone if you so desire, and with the proper items and strategies in place is more than easy to do. They're just an added benefit - consider them bonus attacks in your favor.
There's really nothing else to speak of regarding Aztec Adventure. It's a bouncy, chipper little game with abominable difficulty that can easily be tamed once the right strats are put into play. A couple of the bosses, namely the Bat and Rock Lion, gave me a headache throughout my various attempts. While spears could easily make mincemeat of the Bat, patience proved to be a virtue. However, the Rock Lion took me ages to figure out. Eventually, I grasped his pattern, but even then it was a brutal affair. Not even the Bird Spirit of Nazca came close to matching the ire raised by the Rock Lion, although the boss rush style gauntlet of the final level embittered me enough to care less when the game was finally beaten.
The music didn't exactly impress me when I first attempted the game, but on my run for Beat All Games the soundtrack slowly grew on me. Now, I find the soundtrack playful and endearing - I love it!. At times, it makes the game feel far more lighthearted than expected, but like most early 8-bit games, it just feels right. Tunes like The Forest and The Swamp add an overly whimsical quality to an already silly game and helps embrace a wonderfully enjoyable, yet difficult, adventure.
Rating: 3 floating menorahs out of 5*
*I'm well aware Ranbaike's not a menorah, but that's all I could ever think of every time he appeared. So, sue me.
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