SMS - Aztec Adventure

Haiku-Review:

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.

SMS - Alien Syndrome

Haiku-Review:

hostages detained
by a scourge of mutant heads;
time to set the bomb

Additional Comments:

Alien Syndrome is a game in which I'm completely unfamiliar with its origins and/or console kin. I've never played the original so as far as Alien Syndrome's port worthiness, I cannot say. Same goes for ports on other systems such as the NES, the Commodore 64, or some of the more archaic gaming computers. However, I'm under the impression, based on what I've read, that the original arcade was a thrilling maze shooter. How much of that excitement carried over to the Master System? Well, also based on what I've read, the game fell victim to the shortcomings of hardware limitation. But you know, that's to be expected with any arcade port. You have to be willing to accept a port as an inferior game, but sometimes there are those rare occasions where a port can manage to stand on its own. Turtles in Time comes to mind. Yea, it's no way near as incredible as the arcade, but as an SNES game, it's simply brilliant. While I can't attest to Alien Syndrome being likewise, I think it's safe to say that in a way, I'm rather fortunate that I have no prior relationship with the game outside of the Master System. In that respect, I can look at the game as an SMS title on its own accord. Otherwise, I wouldn't be surprised to fall in line with the other naysayers out there.

So what of it, then? Alien Syndrome is an...interesting(?) little maze shooter to be sure. I'm not sure if interesting is the right word - maybe quirky? On my first few casual attempts, I found the game entertaining enough to keep my interest, but eventually, the fidgety controls paired with the randomized spawns irked me enough to put the game down and play something else. The controls have a certain lucidity, but I'm not entirely sure if it's the game or the Master System's awkward d-pad. I just couldn't find a comfortable way to  play this game - with thumbstick or not? I haven't had this problem with any other Master System game to date, but here it remained too much of a focal problem. Movement felt sluggish, yet strangely loose as a result, especially in the boss battles. It felt like I was fighting the controls more so than the monsters that inhabited each ship and I often lost lives in easily avoidable situations.

After several hours of fighting a losing battle, I couldn't take it anymore, and sad to admit, I moved on to MEKA. Suddenly, the game felt more fluid using my PS2-style controller. Does this make me a bad gamer? Probably. Do I care? No - especially with Alien Syndrome; mostly because this is one hell of a tough game. The levels aren't all that difficult, but the boss battles are merciless. On my initial attempts, it took me forever just to come to terms with Squime. Sounds hard to believe given that his weakness is more than obvious, but his hitbox seemed very amorphous. The difficulty, and faulty hitboxes, eased up on some of the mid-level bosses, but Mr. Mimi was an atrocious harbinger of death. Even on an emulator, it took me several hours and countless deaths to understand this ugly visage of doom. Once I realized an optimal tactic, I still had that dreaded timer countdown to worry about. Without the timer, Mr. Mimi is completely unforgivable, but with the timer, he's nigh on impossible. It takes far too many hits to kill him, and unfortunately since Urania is nothing more than a boss room, there's absolutely no chance to acquire any weapon upgrades. Yea, you have to kill Mr. Mimi with your weak-ass space pistol. Bullshit!!

Alien Syndrome was one of those games that when I finally beat it - of which I only had 10 seconds or thereabouts left on the timer - I promptly gave it the bird. It's a needlessly brutal game that not only gave me hell on the SMS but on an emulator as well, and to be honest, tools are irrelevant at this point. It reminded me of playing the SNES version of Battletoads on an emulator...with tools! Ok, tools helped me get past Speeder Bikes for once, but Tracktors pushed me into a maelstrom of unforgiving rage. Thing is, Alien Syndrome is not needlessly difficult in terms of an arcade game where lives matter. Heinous difficulty is required to keep children feeding endless amounts of quarters into the machine. One hit kills, limited lives, and creatures with nearly infinitesimal health is the norm. There's a lot more substance and meaning when proving victorious in an arcade game, especially if limited funds are used. Console ports don't quite carry the same prestige. Sure, there's a sense of pride when taking down an incredibly difficult console game, but there's no personal loss other than time to balance out the victory. Consoles don't offer that feeling of quarters well spent, so I have to wonder why ports are adamant about keeping one hit kills, limited lives etc. in tact. Overall, it feels like Alien Syndrome tried to remain true to its arcade origins for all the wrong reasons.

I'm not complaining about the difficulty because I have an aversion towards freakishly hard games - I don't. I'm complaining because the difficulty is highly mismatched and based on arcade-style mechanics that serve no purpose in its present form. And it's this more than the off-kilter control or even the somewhat stale gameplay that I credit an overall dislike towards this game. However, I can imagine the original arcade game working very well, even if the levels do tend to stagnate as you progress. I hate to chastise a game mostly for difficulty, but this game ended up feeling so lopsided and finished up on such a pinnacle of frustration. In the end, I regret playing the game further than the first or second level. My initial reactions, while not great, were reasonable enough to enjoy the game as a decent, yet quirky maze shooter. Sadly, all of that washed away as I insisted on beating the game. If I had to recommend the game, I'd do so purely as a 1-level demo; nothing more.

Nano-Rant:

There's supposedly a flamethrower upgrade in this game. I never found it. Guess I didn't look hard enough. Damn!

Rating: 2 brain-worms out of 5

SMS - Shinobi

Haiku Review:

secret ninja spells
used to trump the Ring of Five -
meh, I'll use a...gun?

Additional Comments:

Of the two major ninja franchises stamping their authority all over the 8-bit and 16-bit era consoles, I must confess that I've never really played Ninja Gaiden - not sure why, I guess the series just never grabbed me like it did everyone else. However, I am fairly familiar with the Shinobi series. Talking with fellow gamers growing up, I've noticed that the Shinobi games were always swept under the rug in favor of the more popular Ninja Gaiden series. Not sure if it was the limelight surrounding Ninja Gaiden throughout its early years while Shinobi lurked in the shadows; the fairly common NES vs. Sega mentality of the day; or if indeed it was just a better franchise, but it seemed like if it wasn't being snubbed by the general gaming public, than it was just suffering from absolute obscurity - except perhaps in the arcades.  Personally, I can't make a credible argument one way or the other. But with my own personal gaming experience, and honestly, a little Sega over NES bias, I've always felt compelled to play Shinobi before I'd ever give Ninja Gaiden the time of day. Maybe that's a bit harsh, maybe it's just pity, but hey - that's the reality of it.

To be honest, I like the Shinobi series. They're great games. But like I said, I've always been under the impression that gamers hold no respect for the series, and as such, I've always felt a bit embarrassed bringing the game up in topic, especially around those who I know love the "competition." Well, I guess it's about time to crawl out from under the rug and tout the series for what it is, so what better place to start than with the first in the series. Well I suppose the original arcade version would be a better place, but that's another story.

Now, I've read that the Master System port is the most accurate to the original arcade game out of the numerous ports out there. Figuring with ports on systems like the NES (wait a minute, how in the world did a game published by Sega manage to get ported to its direct competitor? Oh, Tengen was involved, I should have only guessed), the Amstrad CPC, the Sinclair ZX81 or the Atari ST, I find that plausible. Whatever the case, the game play is smooth and comfortably manageable, again proving that the Master System had some worthwhile weight to throw around after all. Now, despite my limited experience with Ninja Gaiden, I've always felt that the two games are fundamentally different. I've always found the action to be more akin to something like Bad Dudes or Double Dragon. Although I can't quite place my finger on it, the combined looks and feel are eerily reminiscent sans the egregious stiffness common to most beat 'em ups of the day. Maybe it's just my own lack of knowledge that's curtailing proper suggestive comparisons in this particular niche of games, but where Ninja Gaiden has always come across as a bit more platformish to me, the Shinobi games, at least the early ones, have always carried the epithet of missing link between action-based platformers and free-roam beat 'em ups like Bad Dudes.

There is a rather curious oddity in this game though - the appearance of a pistol as a usable weapon. While I see no problem with enemies procuring such weapons, I find it hard to believe that a ninja master would ever resort to such a weapon. Then again, ninjas used guns in You Only Live Twice, so I guess anything's possible. Nevertheless, I don't recall such a weapon in the latter titles - I'm fairly certain shurikens are the primary, if not only ranged weapon, and based on what I've read, such a weapon did not exist in the original arcade version. So why are they here? I've read that Sega added some weaponry for the SMS port, but a pistol? Come on!

And finally, I must speak about Ninjitsu, or Ninja Magic as it's called here. First off, I have to admit that this is the first time I've ever played the original title in the Shinobi series - up until now, I've only ever been familiar with the Genesis titles. Secondly, I hate playing games without the aid of an owners manual. That's not to say that I use them, generally I don't, but it's nice to have for convenience's sake - which has always made me wonder, why does it feel so demeaning to a gamer to admit using game manuals? It's like a man refusing to ask for directions - strange. Anyways, with the advent of GameFAQ's, which is a godsend to gaming by the way, game manuals hold little merit nowadays, but there are still times I wish I had one since with GameFAQs you're at the mercy of other gamers uploading personal interpretations of gaming manuals. Of course, there are sites out there that contain scans of original manuals, but I'm too lazy to bother with that. Seriously, if GameFAQs can't answer my question, then it's probably not worth knowing. And then came along Shinobi and its mysterious Ninja Magic feature that I know is there, but I don't have a clue how to use. That's right, I did this game without using Ninja Magic, and not as a personal self-imposed feat, but because I had no clue how to use it. I still don't. I began to think that it didn't even exist, but I've read stuff that states otherwise and even watched a small portion of an LP in which I'm pretty certain I spied some mysterious Ninja Magic shenanigans. I could be wrong though. I could be wrong.

Rating: 3 Black Turtles out of 5

SMS - Alex Kidd in Miracle World

Haiku Review:

Radaxian Hero -
contest Janken's great players
and chop off their heads?

Additional Comments:

Before I talk about Miracle World, I suppose I should emphasize an initial guideline I personally hoped to abide by when I first started Beat All Games. Although I planned on picking games rather haphazardly - to a degree - I still planned on playing through individual series in sequential order. And, albeit, I've managed to do so for the most part, it can also be argued that I haven't. Obviously, with the Alex Kidd series I totally botched it since I started with the fourth title in the series. As far as other games - let's take the Mario series for example - this can be greatly argued, especially since I've already played SMRPG but have only played SMB as a predecessor - which I did after the fact - without even having played Mario Bros. or even Donkey Kong for that matter if you really want to get technical. Well, I'm looking at it from a series standpoint, not a franchise standpoint. SMB and SMRPG are not even remotely related when it comes down to the nitty-gritty - one's a side-scrolling platformer and one's an overhead RPG. To add, I've been itching to play Super Mario 64, but once again it can be questioned where it fits into the series. In my opinion, it doesn't, instead being the first game in a new series of Mario games: the first person platformers. But really, the main reason I haven't brought myself to play the game is because I really hate that game, but that's besides the point. Anyways, I've gotten way off topic and I probably should have made a separate post regarding my above thoughts. Oh well....

The point is, I went from a 16-bit Alex Kidd game to an 8-bit. Because of this, I developed a false sense of displeasure from this game, frustrated over the lack of abilities that I was originally presented with when I was first introduced to this series. Having played these two titles in the order that I have, Miracle World comes across as the unfortunate byproduct of shoving a game that was developed on a superior system into a crippling set of parameters of an inferior system - think Arcade to NES ports or NES to GameBoy ports, and  you get the picture. It's not to say they're bad, but it can be tough to enjoy such titles for what they are. Of course, this isn't the reality of Miracle World, so it sucks that that's how it came across. If I had played the games in their correct sequential order, I probably would have viewed Miracle World as a clever little platformer utilizing some very interesting features on which Enchanted Castle was later built, re-visualizing these elements into their eventual 16-bit glory. And I probably would have had a lot more respect for Enchanted Castle as well when I first played it. But so it goes.

But all of that is nothing more than an occluded illusion of a bad game. Honestly, Miracle World is not a bad game. It really is quite innovative for its time especially with the use of the Sukopako Motorcycle and Peticopter. It amazed me that nearly everything present in Enchanted Castle was present here. However, there is one important element that Miracle World did right that for some unknown reason Enchanted Castle chose to ignore: cutscene text explaining what was going on. Now, I can be rather wishy-washy when it comes to storyline in platformers, but there are times when it serves its purpose and times when it's completely unnecessary, but typically, a single window of text between stages or through the use of an NPC that is basic and straight to the point works and is all you need. Miracle World did not go overboard with text, so the game never felt bogged down (although the text windows themselves run awfully slow), yet there was just enough to explain what the game was on about. The Janken battle text however, let's just say that after the first battle, it was needless.

And on the topic of Janken - ugh! But you know what? Now that I've played this game, the whole paper-rock-scissors thing finally makes sense. Without having prior game knowledge, it felt cheap and tacked on in Enchanted Castle. I mean, it still feels senseless and arbitrary, but at least I understand how this came to replace the boss battles - with bosses like Paper Head, Stone Head, Scissors Head and Janken himself, what do you expect?

I do have two major complaints though: the controls and the physics. First off, I can't stand games that reverse the jump and attack buttons. Granted, the game came out in '86, so the idea of standardized controls is pretty much moot, it's still subject to my ire. I fell victim to death far too often because of the controls. But then again, the lousy control configuration wasn't the only thing that brought on easily avoidable deaths. The physics are just as much to blame. Oh my god, and I thought after going back and replaying Super Mario Bros. after all these years that that game had some pretty shitty physics. The jump in this game is just all over the place. It feels like once I commit to a jump, the best I can do is close my eyes and hope for the best. With the combination of an atrocious jump and a backass controller setup, I found myself replaying the first stage an unprecedented amount of times - watching that stupid monkey-boy's spirit float off into the sky far too often. Now, I'm not the greatest of gamers by far, but I'm not some piss-ant novice either, but I felt that the amount of time I had to put into the first stage alone was completely unwarranted.

And I'm not complaining about loose jumping, I'm complaining about uncontrollable jumping. It's hard to accurately judge just how far Alex will jump. Most platformers, it's fairly easy to ascertain how much distance a jump will grant you. But with Miracle World, I was still struggling with managing jump distances by the last stage. But, you know, maybe it's just me. Perhaps if I sunk more time into this game as opposed to trying to crank out a victory run, I'd learn to fully grasp Alex's moveset, but frankly, with what I've experienced - no thanks.

Physics and controller setup aside, it's still an interestingly creative little platformer. Not the best by today's standards, but for its time, definitely worth noting and ranks up there with the best of its day. And finally, what's Miracle World without the fantastic Underwater theme? That's some pure win right there....

Nano-Win ??:

From what I've read, I'm under the impression that Sega swapped the Jump and Attack buttons at some point later on, possibly when they installed the game into the Master System itself for Rev. 2? Not sure. Anyways, I'm glad they saw the folly of their ways as well (just sucks that I played it with the original configuration).

Rating: 3 Suisui Boats out of 5

SMS - Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Haiku-Review:

where art thou Sonic?
for a phony I'm certain
treads this 8-bit land

Additional Comments:

I'll just come out with it then: this game is a grave disappointment! And what really tears me here is how hard it is for me to say that concerning any early Sonic platformer. After all, like I stated in the review for Sonic the Hedgehog, the Sonic series is my favorite platforming series, but this game makes me ashamed to admit so. Thankfully, the Master System games are little known. But seriously, this game feels cheap and outsourced. All the charm and imaginative use of 8-bit technology is just...absent. Whereas in the first SMS Sonic, where I delighted in venturing through the game, despite its quirky oddities and limitations; here, as soon as I hit Aqua Lake, I was really beginning to loathe the game and felt it had become nothing more than meaningless and toilsome drudgery. From the lazy design, to stiff control and almost total lack of speed, I wondered what the hell I was even playing - some sort of half-assed platformer with graphic swaps is my theory. You're not even battling Dr. Robotnik in this game (well, at least not until the very end), but instead the boss battles consist of bird eggs and a pig that looks like some sort of deformed Wolverine. What the fuck is going on here!?

Before I rant endlessly about this game, I suppose I should point out some, or what little highlights there are. There are some interesting gimmicks presented that are a step up from the first SMS title and seem to be imitating similar gimmicks found in Sonic the Hedgehog for the Genesis such as the spinning, sticky gears/discs. This game also introduces vehicles, however, they're either pointless or infuriating due to their shitty control. Although clever in concept, they should have been left out. I'd much rather have used Sonic's own speed and roll down the hills as opposed to using an uncontrollable mine cart, but that's just me. Of course, since Sonic doesn't even seem to have his trademark speed in this game, the mine cart's probably the better choice in this situation. Well, there you go, I can't even talk up the good points without laying into this game.

So what else - ah, the music. For the life of me, I don't even know what the music sounds like in this game. Ok, Underground Zone had some good music, but the rest of the game lacked the musical pizazz or "oomph" that so many early Sonic games contained. All around, this game was just depressing. Do yourself a favor and be sure to leave this game be. If you want to preserve the magic of what a Sonic platformer should be, or experience a Sonic game for the first time, steer clear of this undeserving presentation. It flat out sucks!

Nano-rant:

Fuck that pipe-maze bullshit in Scrambled Egg Zone! Also, fuck the countless occurrences of blind leaps of faith over spike-laden valleys (looking at you Green Hills Zone)!! This game has some of the worst level design I've ever seen - flat out, fuck this game!!!

Rating: 1.5 rings out of 5

SMS - R-Type

Haiku Review:

So many bullets!
Rage quit once. Here's my tip: don't
die. Not even ONCE.

Additional Comments:

This was kind of a silly game to play, just because I really never wanted to play it until we started Beat All Games. I had heard of the R-type games, and was familiar with the SNES version, but I don't think I ever played Super R-type during the SNES era. But when I played, beat, and reviewed Super R-type for the blog, we got an amazing response from people all over the world! So, I learned one thing after playing the series: apparently the world is concerned with R-type. Though I'm not sure why.

As a curtain shooter, it's exactly what you'd expect. Space ships, bullets, power-ups, bullets, bad guys, bullets, bullets, and bullets. Also, IGN ranked this game as #7 on their Top Ten of hardest games to beat. And, man, it's tough. You pretty much have to stay alive the entire game in order to beat it, because if you die just once, you're thrown back into the fray powerless, without any gun power-ups, that extra gun-ship thingy, and you're slow as balls. That wouldn't be all that bad if the game didn't still throw everything at you at once. Man. I don't know how I beat this game, but I did it. Phew!  Game beaten. Barely.

Nano-rant:

Did I mention don't die?????????

Rating: 3 non-essential laser beams out of 5

SMS - Sonic the Hedgehog

Haiku-Review:

emeralds in the
open and Scrap Brain - a maze?
oh, absent Spin Dash

Additional Comments:

First, let me start by stating that the Sonic series, in my eyes, is the best platforming franchise ever - period! Unfortunately, the series got all mucked up after Sonic CD as it too attempted the 3D revolution. Sigh. And so it goes. Anyways, having grown up on the 16-bit masterpieces, I never actually played any of the 8-bit predecessors - well, mostly because I never even knew about the Master System way back when (don't know how that system managed to slip by me.  Perhaps like every other kid, I was so tied up with the glory of the NES), and when I finally did come to know of the system, well I couldn't get my hands on one. But, like I said, having grown up on the 16-bit version, it's sort of strange to take a step backwards into the past and play this one through.

My haiku reveals all of the oddities that quickly stuck out to me - granted the Spin Dash didn't show up until Sonic 2, but still, it feels so strange to play without that ability. It's like playing the early Mega Man games before the slide technique was implemented (or even Mega Man 9 - what the heck, man!?). I actually had to play through this game twice since the concept of the Chaos Emeralds being placed right out in the open really threw me for a loop. I felt stupid that I just blasted past them all so willy-nilly, but of course, I didn't expect them to be in plain view either.

Nevertheless, the game is fantastic. Yea, it doesn't compare to its 16-bit brother, but that's not the point. The point is that this game really showcases what an 8-bit game is capable of when pushed to the limits, and it's pretty damn impressive.

Oh, and last but not least, we need some music, and much like my statement regarding the franchise as tops in platforming, so too was it in music. The 8-bit/16-bit Sonic games had some of the best soundtracks around. So, here you go, the charming sounds of Bridge Zone.

Rating: 3.5 Chaos Emeralds out of 5