SFC - VIP and Wall Mix 1: ASCII Art Edition

Haiku-Review:

oh, smiling Boon,
why do these cats hate you so?
translation I need

Additional Comments:

Well, now I feel guilty giving 2ch's SMW hack collaboration origin a haiku, but neglected to pen one for SMWC's initial foray into collab hacks. I probably wouldn't feel so gutted (I'm not) if I hadn't written such a blatantly nonchalant review, especially when a majority of my thoughts were posted elsewhere. Seems I really snubbed that game and rather undeservedly at that - well, I don't know if undeservedly is the choicest word since there are quite a few problems. Then again, the wisest way to describe that game: an experiment, much like the first VIP and Wall Mix. Aha! Cleverly utilized segue.

Like any hack, no matter the foundation and/or purpose, it's guaranteed that the game is going to play incredibly unpolished. Hey, it's a hack, what do you expect? We're not talking about professional grade games made by professional, nine-to-five game makers. Ok, maybe there are a few rare selections that can sneak their way over to the grown-up table, but Mix 1 is certainly not one of them. If anything, Mix 1 is about the furthest thing from a well-rounded, professional-aspiring 2D romp. Ok, all the YouTube spew out there is far worse, but that goes without saying. Lest we forget, Mix 1 was developed in the early days of SMW hacking when tools were few and those tools that did exist were extremely limited in functionality. And I think that is often overlooked when people are quick to eschew the early SMW hacks. Unfortunately, the vast majority of gamers are so reliant on bells and whistles, namely graphics, that they will quickly sneer at anything that appears to have backpedaled. What mystifies me is the amount of people who dip their toe into ROM hacking and express the same attitudes. I'll never understand this, but then I suppose I'm putting too much faith in the intelligence of the gaming masses. The point is, for someone to rail Mix 1 purely on aesthetics is absurd. Sure, the VIP contributors could have spent a little more time buffing out the details - Trap! Riddle? Joke Material! immediately comes to mind - but as long as the functionality is there and there's no guesswork involved, I'm not going to complain. I'll admit that I don't like looking at blocky, cutoff ugliness myself, but I think there's also a time and place to place blame on beauty over architecture. Mix 1, and really all the Mix's, it's obvious that the hacks place importance on level design and not razzle-dazzle. Otherwise, fire away, and I'd jump aboard the bandwagon myself and harp on the ugliness that is VIP and Wall.

What should be criticized is level design, difficulty and the wanton abuse of tricks, glitches and any other aggravating programming anomalies that are taken advantage of. But even here I feel some leniency can be allowed. The question is how much, though you may be asking why I'm even willing to look the other way when it comes to the grief of advanced flight control, for instance. Well, honestly, it's a hack. I know that's a cop-out, but the reality is that we're dealing with an entirely different beast here. It again showcases that we're dealing with hobbyists and not paid developers. And while I can only speak for my own personal interests, my belief is that a majority of these hobbyists are doing it purely for their own gratifications. They're not out to make a buck; nor do they have any real ambition of attaining quality or perfection outside of their own acquired taste. Collaborations likely being the one exception to the rule, but even here, quality is more or less standardized to the ambitions of the collab leaders and not the paying public. Of course, a vast number of published games out on the market, ranging from the beginnings of the industry to today could likely render the argument moot, but that's another story.

Much to the dismay of many, the VIP's thrive on difficulty and questionably unfair tactics. But unlike many hacks, or even games that do the same, the VIP's manage to exude fun no matter how diabolical the levels become - primary examples being (^O^) Smooooth, Boon's Mechanism Mansion, or MissingNo. All three of these levels aggravated the hell out of me, yet I still thoroughly enjoyed them. (^O^) Smooooth's secret exit's reliance on uncanny flight maneuverability is way over the top, but at the same time, it's not exactly brutal, say to the point of Kaizo's madness, or perhaps something more dear to most gamer's out there: Battletoad's Turbo Tunnel, or for those who ever made it that far: Rat Race. For me, it almost comes across as a training ground for advanced tips and tricks - which does have it's use later on in the game or series.

However, there is a dramatic drawback to glitch/trick reliance. Obviously, the average gamer is not going to know how to perform any of Mario's demanding Cirque du Soleil-like talents. Never mind advanced aptitudes, the average gamer complains about the increased emphasis on Mario's little used spin jump in most hacks. Figuring there was only one place in the original Super Mario World (that I can quickly think of off the top of my head) where the spin jump was mandatory - Star World 1 - why would anyone willingly use it? On the surface, it was a weaker jump. Point is, that is a major issue with this game. If you don't know the ins and outs of SMW trickery, you're going to be fully stumped by the time you reach the end of the first world; possibly sooner if you're looking to score the secret exits. And what fun is that? No fun. While I can't say I sympathize with the less than adept, I can fully understand the grief the game causes and the chastising that results. I'm sure I would completely hate the game if I fell into the same category of gamers. Graces to Super Kaizo World for planting the seed to enhance my Mario abilities I suppose and/or curses to the game for the exact same. Not sure what I feel more, especially since I now look at Super Mario World or any of its plagiarized derivatives in a different light.

Basically, the overall fairness and difficulty of the game is idiotic and it's about as beautiful as an open blood wound, but the levels are experimental, clever, and strangely a joy to play. I know most people would avidly disagree with my opinion on architecture and fun, but I'm certain there's a ripe handful of gamers out there who wouldn't. And while it's not the best in the VIP series, I somehow keep returning to the one that started it all. I don't know how many times I've completed this game, but I do know that I still get as much enjoyment out of it now as I did the first time I played it. Somehow, I just can't say the same for the subsequent VIP's - though it could simply be a case of nostalgia. Meh...

Nano-Rant:

There's one room in Boon's Mechanism Mansion where I still have no idea what the intended solution is. Every time I've been thrown into the room, I've always had to manipulate the P-Balloon and ON/OFF triggers differently than intended and perform either a shell jump or P-Switch jump. If anything, it's given me more confidence in real-time shell jumping techniques. Huzzah!!

Rating: 3.5 apples out of 5

NES - Astyanax

Haiku-Review:

with bad dialogue
a studly teen conquers death;
loves a butterfly

Additional Comments:

A somewhat recent acquisition, it sort of fell into my hands on a whim as well as a recommendation based purely on personal interest; not necessarily quality of gameplay. I really had no idea what Astyanax was on about other than being told it was a fantasy-based platformer. And if it wasn't for that smidgen of information, I'd still be under the belief that it was just another generic, deep space STG (realize that I was completely unfamiliar with any sort of artwork at the time) and likely forego the chance to give it the old college try. After all, macrocosmic shooters bear the weirdest names of all so it seemed a perfectly sound hypothesis.

After popping the game in for some quick testing, my initial reaction found the game more than satisfactory. Despite a clunky Castlevania-esque gameplay motif, the larger-than-life sprites gave the game a unique edge - not necessarily for the better, but enough to plant a seed of intrigue. However, when I finally got around to sitting down with this game and started pushing for overall victory, the intrigue melted away and was replaced with the dim reality that is Astyanax.

This is one of those games where I believe the ideas worked on paper and then somehow...what? What happened? There's something about the game that feels sloppy, but I can't exactly pinpoint it. Maybe it's the atrocious dialogue, maybe it's the unimaginative feel, or maybe it's the shoddy hitbox dimensions. I'd say it's my old nemesis, knockback, but that's a whole other can of worms that I'll get to shortly. Besides, it doesn't really compound the issue at hand. Actually, the amorphous hitbox is a pretty diabolical problem, but I think it's all the cutscenes that are so offputting. First off, the story is contrived and drags on ad nauseum. Secondly, the game is run amok with pedestrian names. At first, I figured the game was playing off the banality of The Princess Bride à la Rosebud is to Astyanax as Buttercup is to _______, until I realized the total lack of creative naming across the board. Blackhorn? Thorndog? Sheesh, this stuff is making Brooks' look like a fantasy naming genius. At least some of the place names make up for it with the likes of Remlia, Telugamn, or even Marshy - which despite its obvious "add Y" cop out, it does have a nice little ring to it. Already, the game feels cheapened. But then there's the gut wrenching dialogue.

Before I berate the script, I suppose I should look at it realistically. The median age of Nintendo's customers during the 80s/90s was likely 10. Space is always at a premium on cartridges of old, so any way to condense anything and everything into as little space as possible is always a priority. And last but not least, the likelihood that any gaming company would actually use an author of even meager status to pen a tale, especially something that's 100 lines long, if you're lucky, was nil to none. I picture Joe Schmo from accounting as the author of choice. And that's how it is in most games, but Astyanax reeks of puerile fan fiction at its worst. It really hit rock bottom when Astyanax confronts Thorndog, with the following dialogue spurred by Cutie's inquiry to the princess's whereabouts:

Thorndog: "Ha ha ha..... You are a noisy fly. She will be a slave to Blackhorn soon."
Astyanax: "Wrong ugly! First I'll destroy you, then I'll rescue her."
Thorndog: "Tough talk, insect! Can you back it up?"

There's a lot of eye-rolling material out there in the early days of cutscenes - hell, even today. But having to read something this awful is an insult to writers everywhere. This is the type of stuff that I just have to walk away from, and for a while, I did. I suppose we can only count our lucky stars that voice-over wasn't a viable option at the time. I feel I should chastise the plot as well (thbbt), but I can't point all my fingers at something that can be considered wholly optional to the core gameplay (in a way).

Getting down to the mechanics, the hitbox is misleading - not overly, but enough to aggravate. This is most noticeable in Marshy (which is my least favorite level by the way), where Astyanax's "ethereal aura" appears to extend beyond his physical means in a forward facing direction. No matter how much distance I tried to keep, those spear-wielding muck monsters could always land a hit even when it was blatantly obvious that there was air between the spearhead and our intrepid hero. And thanks to knockback and thin ledges, well it's no wonder Marshy made my shitlist. Additionally, I lacked confidence in Astyanax's jumping. I often felt shortchanged, but not sure if was down to jump pressure or bad luck. This often resulted in near misses on my end, but guaranteed contact by others. Inazumi also played far more difficult than it really was because of this, but I think I can also attribute that to some faulty object clipping. Nevertheless, this appears to be a common theme: faulty and/or sloppy programming that ended up hurting what could have easily been a fun little romp through fantasy land. What really aggravates me though is that all, or nearly all of the game's difficulty was directly attributed to these programming infractions. Surprisingly, the game's pretty easy once you realize that patience is the key - again, very Castlevania-esque. Actually, the game reminds me a lot of Legendary Axe. But neither of those titles relied on shoddy gameplay as a means of difficulty.

However, something that both this game and Castlevania fell back on as a means of difficulty: knockback. I fucking hate knockback. In certain games, knockback works, for instance the Golden Axe series. But here, knockback is nothing but a brutal bitch where it's conveniently coupled with nasty little groupings of short ledges and edge-hugging enemies. Under normal circumstances, this is a highly antagonizing, yet totally fair setup with systematic difficulty. Add knockback to the equation and it's nothing but bad level design, especially when you're dealing with a slipshod hitbox. Yes, the difficulty isn't that much harder as long as you traverse with total composure and utilize pixel-perfect landings, but difficulty shouldn't stem from a rather adverse aftereffect either. The argument can be made for or against the effect based on the initial hit - if you're hit, you're hit - but it's the total lack of control versus severity of punishment. And it's most frustrating when being tormented by a hail of fiery pollen from the various insidious flora that inhabit the lands. No matter how carefully you position yourself, the pollen will always knock you in the opposite direction from the one expected.

Overall, the game turned out to be a disappointment. It had its moments, but the ease and predictability as I pushed further into the game only added to my pain. Realizing the trend of magic weakness possessed by every boss negated any sense of accomplishment. As a result, I never felt like the game climaxed, even with Thorndog's seal of evil forcing sacrifice and/or the final confrontation with Blackhorn. The game played as a mediocre pill from beginning to end and that's exactly what it was. And it's a shame too, because as I said, my initial reaction proved a worthy purchase.

Even the music was a letdown. More appropriately, the music was monotonous and grating. Well, maybe not all of it - Prologue has a nice mysterious ring to it, and Remlia has a distinctively bouncy feel to it. But most of the remaining soundtrack urged me to mute the TV.

Nano-Rant:

I played through this entire game without knowing that Astyanax had additional spells at his disposal. Heck, I don't even know what the other spells do.

Rating: 2.5 noisy flies out of 5

PS1 - Jet Moto

Haiku-Review:

cinematic lean
skews televised horizon;
causes many spills

Additional Comments:

Yet another arcade-style racer that I picked up in my inaugural days of Playstation excitement; I was sold on Jet Moto's over the top fantasy tracks that reminded me so much of the material previously presented in F-Zero. Of course, F-Zero's flatland, planetary themed tracks beheld a stark difference from Jet Moto's "down to earth" beach courses or its romps through some cypress-laden swamp; all of them replete with altitude. Nevertheless, I wasn't facing the famed Maggotts/Becketts complex of Silverstone, the magnificient Eau Rouge or Pouhon of Spa-Francorchamps or even the Carousel at Infineon. Instead, I bravely traded wits with a mighty waterfall, a broken glacier, and a myriad of head-on collisions. Huzzah!

Honestly, there's something to be said about fantasy tracks. 99.9% of the time, they're complete garbage. There's a reason why track design is left to true geniuses of the craft and not some arbitrary game designer who willy-nilly slaps a string of corners together and calls it a day. Yes, I know there's far more work that goes into fantasy track design, but often, that's just how they come across. There's a certain lack of rhythm or finesse. However, game designers have really stepped up their game in recent years when it comes to fictitious layouts. But then you have these games that heartily embrace a true arcade nature where the developers are given absolute freedom to create these outrageous courses in which complete and total peril reigns. The idea is to forego safety and conventional physics and let the player enjoy the ride of his life. This is where your F-Zero's and Jet Moto's fit in; even up through the Wipeout or Burnout series. F-Zero perfected it in its initial release - not so confident about the others myself - but for Jet Moto...we'll call it above average, or at the very least, acceptable.

At first, the tracks are tame, yet littered with enough precarious obstacles to keep the adrenaline going. As the game progresses, the insanity thickens until eventually fear and awe accompany the nightmare that is Nightmare. Sitting on the brink of doom, this track is...bullshit! And that is the kindest, most elegant way to express my appreciation of this track. But more on that later. While the game institutes a progressive track ladder, the standard of difficulty is rather erratic. There's certainly nothing to complain about in the Amateur ranks, until you apathetically meander through the unimaginative Hammerhead. Actually, I really shouldn't complain about that since Hammerhead guarantees victory every time, whether you're just getting your feet wet in the Amateur ranks or proving your genuine champion material in Master. But still, it really belongs in the Amateur ranks swapped with Suicide Swamp. The Intermediate rank becomes all the more curious as you further examine the remaining layouts. Cliffdiver, for example, is one hell of a punch to the gut with its entangling switchbacks. What's more, no matter how well you master the tricky combination of grappling with a counter-leaned tight radius turn, the computer driven bikes drive the section like they're on rails. It's little programming...we'll call them anomalies...like this that really drag a track down. Honestly, the switchbacks aren't that difficult once you get the feel for them, but knowing that time lost is inevitable, you really have to be on your A-game the remainder of the course, which isn't exactly easy either unless you've got a handle on the shoulder leans. Ice Crusher suffers from the rail "anomaly" in the final climb up to the start/finish line, but the remainder of the track is wide and lethargic enough that it doesn't necessarily impede a decent lap. Cliffdiver is, simply put, a tough track; more so than the black diamond Snow Blind and/or Willpower that follow in the Professional ranks.

That's not to say Willpower is a cakewalk - far from it. Willpower deserves the black diamond rating, but not because of an unfair advantage by the computer. This track suffers from an expected flaw of fantasy course design: a ludicrously asinine layout. This problem is even more apparent in Nightmare, and to a lesser degree, both in Snow Blind and Cliffdiver. These tracks represent exactly why game designers should not be track architects. They feel like the designers threw a bunch of corner ideas in a hat and drew lots or just blindly scribbled a configuration on a discarded napkin. They're total chaos. Additionally, it feels like the tracks were designed without accounting for individual bike physics, namely lift. This is most glaringly obvious in Snow Blind where the track consistently crests within low clearance tunnels. The coup de grâce though has got to be the constant checkpoint placement upon every single summit, as if it was specifically outlined in the developer's notes. I don't know how many times I clotheslined those stupid structures thanks to an ill-timed turbo - or hell, even without a turbo.

When it comes to Pandora's Box, Nightmare is by far the worst. While I was able to tame the rest of the tracks; which Willpower was fairly straightforward once I learned the ideal locations for turbo utilization, I was never able to grasp the madness that is Nightmare. Polonius be damned, there is no method to this madness at all. Between Nightmare's layout and the constant battering from the other racers, I raced Master knowing that this race was nothing but a throwaway. And for me, that's the biggest misstep in the game. I really wished that the game had reordered the events within each difficulty mode and/or randomized it. Of course, you can do this on your own accord with the Custom tab, but Custom is an unofficial stab at the championship. I'd rather race the championship as a consistent driver and not as someone who has to push for enough of a lead so that I can totter around the final few events knowing that victory's in the bag. Oh well. Master's a bitch of a difficulty as it is, so who am I to complain how I secure the final blow to the competition.

What's funny is that when I played this game in my younger days, and I played the hell out of it too, I never made it past Intermediate. I ended up becoming so frustrated with the difficulty of the game, especially Ice Crusher, which looking back rather surprises me since that track is considerably easier than some of the other Intermediate ranked tracks. However, the game was still a blast to play so I'd spend hours racing custom seasons. Here it is years later, and I destroyed this game in less than a week. In fact, I think it took me just three nights to progress up through the various modes. I was rather surprised how easy I found the game this time around, easily sweeping victories on all but Joyride in Professional mode and taking at least four wins in Master. Strangely, Joyride turned out to be one of the hardest tracks for me to master, never once taking a victory outside of the Intermediate ranks, but I think I can attribute that to my light bike preference - stupid waves.

As far as music, hmm...I'm not so sure there's anything worth touching on. The music is certainly attuned to the provided environments, but after a while the surf and twangy, southern-fried Appalachia becomes a bit grating. Perhaps it's the track, but even the power of Cliffdiver claws at your ears with razor sharp talons eventually. And as far as the snow-based tunes, despite their initial intensity, they just sort of seep into the background; reminds me of the way NSMB Wii's music tragically disappears into mediocrity. Take Snow Blind, for example. It's not bad, but not great either and after a while, a bit passé - sort of has a next gen Sonic/Crush 40 ring to it as well. Bleagh...

Nano-Rant:

Let it be known that I will always pick handling and light weight over power and speed in any racing game, after all time is best gained or lost in the corners. Let it also be known that I abhor racing light weights in the midst of over-aggressive fatties. I don't mind arcade-racers that promote contact driving, but Jet Moto resorts to bumpin' & bangin' far too often. If it wasn't for the amount of time I spent off the track, I probably could have learned to appreciate both Willpower and Nightmare a whole lot more.

Rating: 3.5 Mountain Dews out of 5

GEN - Jeopardy!

Haiku-Review:

wagers of knowledge,
posing questions to answers -
really, a haiku?

Additional Comments:

Seriously though, is there any reason to write anything about this game? Jeopardy is Jeopardy is Jeopardy is Jeopardy, no matter the format or trivial differences found therein, except for Super Jeopardy. Ok, I'll concede that it's Jeopardy, but come on GameTek, since when does Jeopardy have four players? Granted, I'm unfamiliar with the show's pre-Trebek era, circa '64-75 and/or '78-'79, but that's neither here nor there. Besides, why toy with an already proven format? And this goes for any version of Jeopardy.

Now, I was chatting with a couple friends over the prospect of "finishing" Jeopardy and doing a write-up. The whole idea is asinine, but already knowing my eclectic list of games, I felt it only just to push my way into gaming's left field, especially after something as epic as Ocarina of Time. (Hmm, perhaps I should in turn follow this up with Hatris on the NES.) On top of that, can one really "finish" Jeopardy? I suppose a winning round is all you need. Then again, what of the 100% completion status? It feels like the Burger Time scenario all over again, or my far from fruitful Crystal Castles venture - damn you, 2600 and your many modes! With countless clues and categories, I could likely spend the equivalency of a real Jeopardy season until I've physically witnessed and answered, er...questioned every clue. Therefore it was time to come up with a compromise once again, much like the unbeatable titles of the points-based era. The most logical solution was to utilize the pre-2003 champions' ruling in which the champion would be retired after five consecutive victories. Not only does this tie in directly with the televised version of the game show, but it places a fair enough limiter to keep the game enjoyable long enough without becoming instantly stale by consistently repeating categories. Ha! Guess the joke's on me. I still had the pleasure of answering the same damn five clues within the Admirals category in six out of my seven games. Yes, I get it, the answers are: Christopher Columbus, John Paul Jones, Richard Byrd, George Dewey, and Hyman Rickover. I now have five more menial tidbits of information about historic admirals drilled deeper into my memory than I've ever cared to acknowledge. Now please, for the love of god, give me some different categories! Other culprits of repetition included the 1930's, Hunting, and Rocks & Minerals. (Insert gun-to-head emoticon here.) And the only reason I had to play seven games as opposed to a quick five, you may ask? Simply put, I wagered a large amount of money on a Daily Double during my second game and foolishly believed that a clover and a shamrock are one in the same. Son of a bitch! Wait a minute, they are the same!!!!

Interestingly, and most definitely sad to admit, I read various Jeopardy reviews posted around the net - namely for those titles that appeared on the various 8 and 16-bit systems. I did so out of curiosity's sake more than anything. After all, as I already wondered, what does one write about? A lot of them complained about the most incredibly mundane details, which I'll be the first to admit that I do that myself, but decrying the staleness of the white-on-blue clue screens or the limited avatar selection is a bit silly given what were dealing with here as a game. Pissing and moaning over the quality of a given answer though, that's another matter entirely. Again, a clover and a shamrock are the same fucking thing!!!

Honestly, there's nothing that takes away from the premise of the game. As long as it has two rounds of six categories with five clues each with increasing wager amounts as well as a single-shot final round and you're having to provide answers in question form to clues provided, then you're playing Jeopardy. SNL's Celebrity Jeopardy is still Jeopardy. Sixth grade science class Jeopardy is still Jeopardy. It's all Jeopardy. The integrity of the game may be somewhat lost in translation along the way, but it's still the same game at its core, much like the copious amounts of Monopoly's that flood the touristy gift shops of the world.

Ah! But there is a "mundane" detail that I wish to rail. Why, oh why, does the computer insist on attempting every clue - and not just one, but both computer controlled players. This needlessly drags a game out for far too long. Add to that, they don't bother ringing in until the timer hits zero. Talk about head-pounding aggravation, here it is in all its torturous glory. It doesn't only lead to a prolonged game; it also leads to a fairly well assured situation of a two-participant Final Jeopardy. Six out of my seven games, one of the computer players ended up in the negative early on and only made things worse as the game progressed as they felt the need to answer everything they possibly could whether they knew the answer or not. I suppose I shouldn't complain - easier victory for me - but it really takes away from the whole idea of gambling away your knowledge on 50's TV, Famous Baseball Quotes, or 17th Century British Naval Officers. Ok, maybe I made those last two up, but still.

Final Jeopardy:

It's the number of occurrences that Jeopardy's namesake appears within its post entire.

Rating: 2.5 shamrocks out of 5

N64 - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Haiku-Review:

time-traveling Link,
seven years, a conundrum
Hyrule falls again?

Additional Comments:

Behold! Here stands one of the most acclaimed, if not the most acclaimed game of all time. And for those naysayers out there, just check out any number of top-ten games lists as documented by various gaming magazines, webzines, blogs, what-have-you from over the years. To make the task even easier, I found a nice little page that has accumulated a wealth of gaming lists, and well, no surprise here. Ocarina of Time has found its way into well over half of them; even accomplishing a bounty of top honors. Need I say more about its obvious preeminence? And it's not just Nintendo/LoZ zealots, it's the general gaming populace. Makes me wonder if I should cut this post short, slap on a 5 out of 5 and bask in the knowledge that for once I made a non-controversial post, for everyone's an Ocarina fanboy (or girl) and to say otherwise is heretical of the utmost degree. Post complete, ego boosted, everybody pleased....

Or maybe I'll choose to make a post that falls in line with the rest of my choleric banter whilst cowering behind the anonymity of internet authorship. After all, let's face it, despite the game's brilliance, it has smugly lumped itself on a heaping of undeserved ego for far too long. Maybe I'm just a lone outsider that doesn't fully understand the quality and scope of the game, or maybe I've felt a wee twinkle of the Triforce of Courage myself to stand tall and not be bought in by the copious OoT fandom that runs rampant, and is very nearly turbocharged thanks to our friend the internet. Meh, words will only tell.

I'm not trying to antagonize the Zelda faithful, or hell, even the casual Zelda gamer, but I am a bit puzzled over how this game has managed to rank so favorably by so many people. This alone makes me believe that I'm just overlooking something glaringly obvious, or it's time to face the truth: I'm a disagreeable twit in the world of video games. But really, I'm just making it sound worse than it is. Ocarina of Time is not a bad game. It's not even a mediocre game, or dare I say, good game. No. Ocarina is flat out fantastic. However, despite it being a total game changer, it's not a 10 out of 10 game. Yes, the presentation is immaculate, the gameplay is spot on, the world along with its numerous multi-level dungeons is a joy to explore, the story is engrossing (regardless of the inevitable befuddling invoked by any time-travelling tale), and the innovation, not just in the Zelda franchise, but in gaming in general, is beyond respect, but - and I really hate to insert such a nasty little conjunction; not just because of the general consensus regarding the game, but also out of my own admiration of the game - there is something amiss.

How can a game so perfect feel so imperfect? For me, knowing my storied past with the N64, the controller is the obvious scapegoat. Ah yes, that clunky, obtuse, plastic gargantuan that forces your fingers akimbo in the most ridiculous button rumba no matter the title. But I've got two reasons why the Nintendo 64 controller has been blessed with impunity. For once, Nintendo completely nullified the Lord of the Dance fingering tactics allowing easy control throughout - reason enough to applaud the game as it tamed the unwieldy beast. Additionally, my first playthough was done using the Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition on the GameCube which uses an exponentially better controller, but more importantly, I vividly recall the same mild uneasiness flooding my receptors as I plodded through the game. It was this general sense of while I loved the game, I never quite loved the game - if that makes any sense. There's a certain something that just sort of rubbed me the wrong way. It was never enough to blemish the game into any sort of unfavorable obscurity, but enough to make me question its merit and knock it off its smug little perch. But what troubles me is that I can't really explain what it is.  Sounds argumentative for the sake of being argumentative - so that I can flick the white glove and snidely remark, "Pshaw your Ocarina of Time" - but it isn't.

I'm really pounding my head against the wall on this one and the reason is that every time I'm certain I've stumbled upon the crux of the problem, it's not really the problem. For instance, the intuitiveness of the game, it's completely bonkers. Looking at any other Zelda game, everything makes sense. Sure, some of the puzzle solutions may really ruffle your feathers, but when you find the solution you feel like the biggest dolt in the world because the answer was so blatantly obvious given the tools provided. Ocarina, on the other hand, doesn't quite adhere to this logic. In my pursuit to 100% it, I had to turn to GameFAQ's to hunt down the remaining few heart pieces and handful of Skulltula's that I missed. This was when the game really began to frazzle me. What ever would make me think to play the Song of Storms to open up a hole in the ground? There's no logic behind this and no insight that the Song of Storms is more or less equivalent to an ordinary shovel. Maybe if I learned the song from a ditch digger, that'd at least be something. And it's not just that. It's little irrational nuances throughout the game that shoulder enough of an annoyance to keep the game from perfection. I'd be happy to admit ignorance on my part if that were the case, but only if such were the case across the entirety of the Zelda series, stretching from Legend of Zelda all the way to Twilight Princess (I haven't played Skyward Sword yet, so...), but I've never had this problem in any other Zelda game, even Majora's Mask and well...I'll leave that for another time. Granted, my above example is unessential if you're just out to beat the game, so complaints seem arbitrary at best, but for me, it was just piling on to that mysterious strain of imperfection.

So then, what killed me on the straight and narrow if we're to shove all the optionals aside? I think it has to be item use. Looking back on my Link to the Past post, I talked about how that game nailed the item versus environment usage. It felt like the developers built the overworld with every single item in mind and did so without needlessly abusing certain items or using certain items just because they can. In Ocarina, it felt like these two entities; both very important to a Zelda game, were built with a blind eye towards the other. They never wholly interconnect with each other properly, and when items were put to use, it felt tacked on. Of course, this wasn't a prevalent problem, but when the two didn't quite gel, it felt ridiculously cheap. Again, I can refer back to the Song of Storms. Let it be a singular key. Were not going to feel duped because that one song only serves a single purpose. Same can be said with the dungeons. Why am I having to play the Song of Time or Zelda's Lullaby for puzzles that are not only blatantly obvious to solve, but serve no real purpose other than to add an extra 30 seconds to the dungeon so we can hear one of these two songs for the nth goddamn time? At least the other items don't conjure a needless cutscene. Once or twice is fine. There are, in fact, a couple spots where the Song of Time is wisely used to solve a puzzle, but elsewhere - you've got to be kidding me.

Taking a step back though and looking at it all realistically, I can see why most of these nuances exist. It was the first 3D Zelda game which meant two things. One, it was a testing ground for what can be done in this fantastic new dimension of gameplay. Fortunately, Nintendo pretty much nailed it on their first try and the hiccups that did occur were corrected as the series progressed. And two, it's only expected that Nintendo was going to pull out all the stops. Essentially, they had nothing to lose, and given the track record of Super Mario 64, it was obvious that free-roaming 3D landscapes and models were more than enough to win everyone over. Basically, if we were met with another topdown Zelda with any of the aforementioned blunders, the series would have likely stumbled. But being that it was 3D, there was more than enough inherent confidence that anything wrong could easily go overlooked. No harm, no foul really. And given what the video game industry was going through at the time, the game is not only revolutionary, but a respected trendsetter in what the newly emergent 3D world of gaming should strive for. At the time, yes, I can fully understand why it was a top rated game - a 10 out of 10 if you will. But I also think the wee nasties were swept under the rug at the time thanks to the idea of the right place at the right time.

Even now, it still is a top rated game in my eyes. Not as great as everyone claims, but great nonetheless. In the Zelda franchise itself, it's my third favorite, and honestly, it's by a mere fraction that Ocarina deserves the third step of the podium. If Twilight Princess wasn't more or less an Ocarina reskin (haters can hate, but that's really how I see it), it'd probably edge it out. Plus the motion control bullshit sort of hinders it as well. Thanks a fucking lot, Nintendo Wii!!! But nevertheless, Ocarina is still a great Zelda game, and is always the go-to game that I recommend if no one's ever played a 3D Zelda before.

So there it is. Yes, I harangued it a bit, but was it really so bad? And think about this: I did so without once vilifying the Water Temple. Ah ha! But seriously, I wish I could pitch it as a perfect game, but  I guess the bumps just hit me harder than, well most anyone else. C'est la vie.

But let's end on a pleasant note. No matter the title, one thing the Zelda series does and does well is carry a soundtrack that not only exemplifies mood, but locale as well. Add to that the timelessness and Zelda games are worth the music alone. From the moment we're graced with the beautiful strums and warm clippity-clop of Title, it's all over. I know some may complain about the absence of the original title tune, but Ocarina's opening tune is magic. And then you have some incredible locale pieces such as the expressive Hyrule Field (always loved that mysterious low warble thrown in there), the ominous vacuum of Inside the Deku Tree, the exotic mystique of Potion Shop, or the country-sad twang of Lon Lon Ranch. I could go on and on with so many others too. But for me, it's always been about Gerudo Valley. That song is fucking tits!

Nano-Rant:

Dammit, I can't even end on a good note. Ok, despite my appreciation of the story, I've always been bothered by this Sheik character. To hell with spoilers (oh wait...spoilers alert), but it's always bugged me that Zelda can so casually perform feats that Link needs either tools or to work up a rigorous sweat to accomplish. If she's so damn limber, knowledgeable (seriously, she's knows everything about anything whereas Link knows jack squat), and able, then why doesn't she put in her fair share of effort? Oh, she used her stun beam to hold Ganon after Link did all the dirty work. What, did she forget she had that ability when the battle started? Thanks a lot...stupid, clueless bitch! And thanks for planting the seed in my head to claim the Master Sword so that I can lose my youth as I wait in stasis for seven years in limbo! But I digress.

P.S. There's so much more I want to talk about: more of my personal history with the game (namely why I never finished it on my first playthrough), the Boss Battles (namely Ganon's), Poe Hunting and other ludicrous side adventures, and of course everyone's favorite OoT debacle, the Water Temple. But alas, I'm afraid I've overstayed my welcome far more than I should have already with this game.

P.P.S. The ship in the Shadow Temple is pure win!!! Rack that up as ending on a good note.

Rating: 4.5 cute little Bombchu Bowling clerks out of 5

NES - Crystalis

Haiku-Review:

blend element swords;
it's the ultimate virus -
kill the cpu

Additional Comments:

Crystalis is one of those games that I long had a feeling would be unmatched in its gameplay and presentation. I can't exactly pinpoint why I always thought this, but I just had this eerie premonition floating in the back of my mind. Perhaps it was just the name, or perhaps it was in the stones, the wind, or any other device of auspicious divination. I'd blame it on that sweet box art, but honestly, I think this is the first time I've ever laid eyes on it (which is a bit sad, really). But I've always known about the game, and I've always had an itch to play it. Alas, personal ownership and hands-on experience would elude me for far too long. I just recently picked up a copy and was more than eager to pop the puppy in as soon as possible. The only thing holding me up was making sure I had completely run the course with Dark Alliance, and as soon as I could call that game, there was no question Crystalis would be next to face judgment on the chopping block of games beaten.

Right from the start, I knew I was in for something special. Between the combination of the intro story, though it left some lingering question marks over my head, and the opening scene of our hero miraculously smashing through solid rock after being locked in stasis for an undetermined amount of time, I was hooked. And while I always knew the game somehow dipped its big toe in the gambit of RPG-dom, I never quite knew how deep. But ah-ha! A solid action adventure game with RPG elements - I'm so in. Given my report with such titles as StarTropics or the top-down Legend of Zelda's, notably Link to the Past, how could I go wrong? The game immediately stirred up odd abstractions of Illusion of Gaia, or thereabouts, but obviously trapped within the limitations of the NES.

There were a few quirks that I had to grow accustomed to, namely the sword charging, despite its vaguely theoretical similarities to the M-Buster charge ability found in the latter Mega Man games. I quickly adapted to consistently building and holding a charge after every attack, however, unlike the Mega Man games, you had to be standing perfectly still to build a charge. Under casual game conditions, there's no cause for alarm - take a quick three second break and you're good. Boss battles occasionally threw in an unwanted monkey wrench however. Forcing the issue under fire was never exactly easy, but then we're also dealing with a boss battle so it should be expected to push some additional strategy into the mix. Unfortunately, most of the bosses fared on the easy side of the spectrum, especially DYNA, which was a colossal letdown. I was especially frustrated with DYNA's lackluster battle after the intense foray through the Finest Four. And hey, even Draygon put up a fair fight. But sheesh, I came out unscathed on my initial confrontation with the computerized menace. Perhaps Crystalis is just that powerful.

Nevertheless, it wasn't just the game's charge-whilst-loitering that set it apart from say the M-Buster or perhaps Link's ability to fling illusionary swords at full health. Crystalis' weapon system, while not revolutionary by any means, is definitely unique. First of all, there are four swords to be found during the course of play; each representative of a specific element: wind, fire, water, and thunder. Somehow thunder muscled its way into the picture; leaving the commonly regarded element of earth high and dry. Not going to complain though as the Sword of Thunder is one sweet demon cleaver. Add to that the additional acreage with each power tier and you've got gold. Oh! Did I mention the power tiers? So yea, each blade has three tiers of power as well; the third tier producing devastating effects within its element similar to some of Golden Axe's more impressive magic. It'll consume some much coveted magic points, but the trade-off is completely worth it in certain critical situations.

There is a subtle chink in the swords' elemental oeuvre however: palette-swapped enemies. Ok, let me explain. So not every enemy can be defeated by every sword. In fact, most of them are only susceptible to at most two while remaining wholly invincible to the others. I've got no issue with that. Honestly, I applaud it as it forces sword strategy as you explore the various dungeons. Rarely is there a single sword that can annihilate every creature within a given dungeon. While it may sound tedious on the surface, it really isn't. But, as you progress through the game, the presence of palette-swapped enemies - a common method used in games to expand the enemy roster while retaining minimal graphical space which was at an obvious premium in the old cartridge days of gaming - can cause some confusion...or maybe it was just me. Hmm, that sounds a lot more plausible: the breadth of my own ignorant assumptions. I suspected colors were not only representative of power but also of weakness. I can't even count the times that I'd see monsters of a certain palette and think to myself, "Ooh, gotta use the Sword of Fire in this dungeon. What do you mean it doesn't work!?" Even by the end of the game you'd think I'd realize that the various palettes don't mean jack squat. But again, it's nothing to complain about and doesn't exactly hinder the game.

Moving on, something I really wanted to hit up was the magic system. Well, not so much the magic system as it's nothing special - typical Refresh, Teleport, whatever. What jumped out at me though was the spell, Change. The moment I got Change and used it for the first time, I felt like I just got kicked in the gut. What awesomeness is this? Unfortunately, this is the same point where I started overlooking certain quest items such as the Kirisa Plant because I didn't use the spell to its full potential. It was one of those awkward devices that really enhanced the gameplay yet opened up the world far too much in an unexpected direction. Taking on the form of the Draygonian guard, Stom or even Akahana were all obvious, but somehow the girl just simply eluded me. Don't know why and I have to admit I felt downright stupid when I realized what her role was.

Overall, the game did not disappoint in the slightest. I expected a stellar game and it totally delivered. Sure, I berated a few things, but other than the battle against DYNA, it's all just nit-picky ballyhoo. And honestly, the battle of DYNA can slip past undeterred, hot on the heels of an epic gaming masterpiece - so scratch from the record books any and all slanderous downplay of this incredible game. From the gameplay to the graphics to the music - everything just came together so beautifully. And speaking of music, I can't possibly finish without pointing out a few gems such as Wild Fields, On the Mountain, Raging Sea, or Floating Tower.

Nano-Rant:

It took me so long to figure out how to jump with the Rabbit Boots. I roamed throughout Mt. Sabre endlessly before I realized you have to unequip a spell. Dammit!!

Rating: 5 robotic deities out of 5

PS2 - Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance

Haiku-Review:

Traitress of Swords? yes -
for your swordplay depresses;
a footnote speaks truth

Additional Comments:

I only just recently acquired this game, though I owned the sequel for a number of years now. In fact, the sequel was the first Dungeons & Dragons' franchised game I bought, though I must admit a bit reluctantly. I don't know, there was something about the idea of D&D being translated into a video game format that just didn't sit well with me. It gave off this stink of pomp and failing miserably, but I just had to give in and finally try something that bore TSR's logo - oh wait, Wizards of the Coast had already owned the name by this point. Hmm... well, fuck them! Still, it was D&D. I went into the game with a bad attitude, but at least tried to secure a sliver of hope that I didn't just throw $30 or $40 down the toilet (or however much it was at the time). Holy cow!! I was incredibly surprised. I didn't really know what to expect, and having long been a fan of the Gauntlet series, I was pleased to see an honest to goodness hack n' slash before my eyes. But despite my joy and long hours of play, I always felt like I was missing out on something. Whether it was the obvious amiss within the plot, or just the fact that I started with the sequel, I had always wanted to go back and play the original title. It only took me about ten years.

Like so many other titles that I haphazardly stumbled into mid-series, Dark Alliance gave me that sour tinge of regret that I didn't begin with the original. It's hard to take that step backwards, albeit only a baby step in this circumstance, but still. the Dark Alliance games could sort of be compared to the Mega Man series in that the sequel(s), while improving very minor game mechanics, accepted that the original formula worked and decided to adhere to it uncompromisingly. So for that, my guilt of precluding the first with the second wasn't near as bad as it was with say the Alex Kidd series, or how I suspect I'll feel should I finally ever get around to playing Paper Mario or Super Smash Bros.

First and foremost, what I really love about the Dark Alliance games is seeing the Monstrous Manual come to life before my eyes, especially here in the first game where we are met with a [spoiler] beholder [/spoiler] and lair of displacer beasts. Ok, the maneuverability of the displacer beast isn't exactly how I always envisioned it as per the description given in the Manual, but it's still great to see that creature in its new-found interactive goodness. And since we're on the topic of D&D compatibility, despite my having only the loosest knowledge of 3rd edition rules, I can fully appreciate and get a sense of the game's interpretation of said rules. Basically, it feels like while taking apparent liberties with the ruleset, it's still D&D at its core, and I applaud that. Of course games like Baldur's Gate for the PC or Dungeons & Dragons Online may hold an even firmer foot within the traditionalist rules of the game, but I think that the console Baldur's Gate games accomplished an equally favorable rendition. At least we're not dealing with the horrible, twisted abomination that Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse puked out - 2nd edition rules my ass.

Aside from all the charming and wonderful D&D-ness of it all, the game just looks beautiful. The environments are stunning to behold. Maybe they don't hold a candle to the environments of something like Final Fantasy X, but there's still something enchanting about them. It could just be the idea that Toril's taking shape, morphing from a 2D drawing in a book to an interactive 3D dungeon crawl, even if it's limited to three unique locales. But beyond that, each stage is well designed, fitting, and never distracts. Certain stages could probably have gone back under the knife for further refinement, namely Adderspine Road East and The Rotting Bog. I don't know if it was the open, field-like design or the apparent stranglehold of enemy types, but both of these areas felt like end-of-project acquisitions quickly shoved in to help bolster overall game time. That's not to say they're bad, but in comparison to the rest of the game, I found them tedious, especially after four consecutive playthroughs.

As far as the AI, well it's a hack n' slash so admittedly I don't expect much. It does what it does, which is pretty much exactly what I expect. However there is one major gripe that I just cannot overlook. Everyone's inability to make precise turns with the exception of the umber hulk, the one creature you would suspect can't make a sharp radius turn, or that giant muck dwelling armadillo thing (I'm referring to the giant bulette of course) - I can take all that in stride. Or how about how every hurling enemy can predict your position with impressive accuracy no matter how erratic your movement - hey, I'm cool with that too, though a bit annoyed, but whatever. But come on! Are you fucking kidding me!? Eldrith is a pathetic joke! For the most part, the bosses are a bit of a pushover in this game, if you've got the patience, but Eldrith is comparable to a sewer rat. On my first playthrough, which was on Easy, I reached Eldrith with weary trepidation, mostly because the Halls of Remembrance spooked the hell out of me the first time I traversed them. There's just something about throwing a complete vacuum at a player without notice that can really trip them up. Anyway, I reach Eldrith and POW, killed by her incredibly deadly Inescapable Sword of Fury Over 9000. Talk about zero reaction time - sheesh. Changed my course of attack and...what? I killed Eldrith within 10 seconds. I can't even begin to explain how stunned I was. My jaw hung in awe throughout the end cutscene and staff roll, desperately hoping that there may actually be something else to it all. What's worse is that this scenario rang true on both Normal and Hard as well - 10-20 seconds into the final battle and Eldrith was kneeling on the ground pleading her case and asking forgiveness. What the hell, man? But then I faced off with Eldrith in Extreme mode. Holy shit! Snowblind does not have a grasp on difficulty scaling at all. It took me a good 20 to 30 deaths and upwards of 25 minutes to take her down; most of that time spent dancing around the proverbial maypole. Wander away from that maypole, even by just mere inches, and forget it. There's nothing stopping a 1000+ hp attack.

What's weird though is that Eldrith's battle was really the only time I felt like I could see a visible difference in difficulty. Ok, that's not entirely true. The Sunset Mountains, namely Wind's Walk, proved an ever increasing test every time I upped the difficulty level, but by the time I got to the Marsh of Chelimber and the Onyx Tower, it might as well have all been set on Easy. In fact, going through the Onyx Tower on Extreme was easier than when I went through it on Easy. Huh? On Extreme, I plowed through all five floors as if I was facing off with a bunch of sun-baked wicker men. And I can't even blame it on the store's charitable bounty since I only ever bought Recall potions

Yea, something that has annoyed me time and time again with newer generation RPG's and the like is the unreasonable blessings of charity. Handing out incredibly powerful weapons like Halloween candy can sap all the fun out of a game in an instant. Add stores that have the ability to sell weaponry that can outbid free weaponry in power right from the get go for prices that are easily attainable within a short period of time and neglect to properly scale enemy creatures as one levels and it becomes laughable. This is all a bit extreme to say the least, but it's still clearly visible here. Yes, the enemies are scaled in difficulty, but in my opinion, not enough. At least not enough to force me to buy upgraded weaponry. If my dinky little Keen Short Sword +3 can still easily take stuff out within three hits, what's the point? Like many games, I neglected to shop at the store for upgrades (a sort of self-imposed limiter that I set myself on my last attempt at Morrowind, hoping it would help pique my interest by at least slowing the rate of power accumulation - um, nope) to help instill a sense of difficulty that I felt was lacking. In the end, I'm still frantically racing around, as if I was on a cocaine high, with a hefty Flaming Burst Adamantine Long Sword of Wounding +5 laying waste to a mighty swathe of evildoers. Why is this, or others like it, so easy to obtain? Makes me wonder why any sort of monetary device is used. The above sword and over one million in gold amassed, I could probably conquer the better part of the Western Heartlands. Fuck the Harpers, I'm striking out on my own accord.

Despite any and all grievances - grievances such as a cliché D&D-esque plot (come on, it's D&D - if it's not cliché then there's a problem), here-we-go-round-the-mulberry-bush battle tactics, or the Harpers' Clearing House Sweepstakes Winner effect, it's still an absolute blast to play. And even with the problems, I still think it's fundamentally a good game at its core. Really, the biggest downer is Eldrith, and that one's tough to overlook. But everything else - pfft.... Forget about it. Even after four consecutive playthoughs, it held its own, and I was even tempted to perform a fifth just so I could give Drizzt a go, but alas, there was no real merit in doing so which brings me to...

Nano-Rant:

...games that decide to leave all the unlockables until the very end. Why? Why do games do this? This is a cheap, asinine way to extend a game's shelf life. If a game is inherently fun with obvious replay value, people are going to replay it - quite possibly endlessly. For me, SMB3 is a perfect example. I don't know how many times I've played that game through to the end, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's in the hundreds. Companies should not trick players into a game's possible replay value by offering unlockables at the very end of the game. Now I can understand having to complete the game to unlock Gauntlet mode and then having to complete Gauntlet Mode to unlock whatever that unlocks - Extreme mode if I remember correctly? But why can't I use Drizzt? Why dangle him in front of us like a carrot with Gauntlet mode if we can't acquire him until we've beaten Extreme? It's fucking retarded!! And given how Extreme mode works, I'm not going to jump right into it until I see which character might best suit the arduous journey ahead. By the time all is said and done, I've played the game four times. I've covered all my bases, and frankly the light's burnt out. And now Drizzt is nothing more than a waste of programming. Eh, wasn't that big of a loss anyway since you can't swap out his weaponry. Lame.

Nano-Nano-Rant (Er, Pico-Rant?), but it's not all fist shaking:

Damn you Slithery Swamp! Because of you I had Kip's Wedding Song stuck in my head for a month:

"...yes, I love technology,
but not as much as you, you see.
But I still love technology.
Always and forever."

Eh, the Elf Song Remix is pretty sweet, though.

Rating: 4 Pole-Dancin' Drow Queens out of 5

Le Sigh....

Is it time for another one of those ghastly "here's why I haven't posted" posts? Am I really going to drone on about why my game's beaten has diminished so? Eh...yes, because I can.

Actually, it's been some time since I've completed a game and I've really only one thing to blame: Forza Motorsport 4. I just can't seem to drag myself away from that game (and maybe one day I may even get a chance to talk about why I'm so addicted to it). But I can't put the entirety of the blame on FM4. I have been playing other games as well. Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, of which I should have a post here very shortly, has taken up a lot of my time. But so has a few games that I've had high hopes for and have been wanting to play for some time only to have my hopes dashed in a maddened fury. Oh, if only I could push through some of these games so I can write some indubitably controversial tirades on these highly acclaimed titles, but goddamn do they suck. Besides, do I really want to acquire more evil eye from casual readers. Eh...again, yes.

Additionally, I've spent the last couple of weeks performing a bit of "spring cleaning" with my games and systems. All of my NES material was in dire need of cleaning, and before I jump into the next Legend of Zelda title, I know I need to flush out my N64. So all in all, yes, I've slowed down. And frankly, I don't care. It's not like I have an actual viewership here anyway.

Oh wait...I think we're still waiting on some stuff from our newcomer. What ever happened to that? I know for one, I'm extremely curious to read his thoughts on The Elder Scrolls III for sure - wink, wink, nudge, nudge...

This One Goes to Eleven

Another year come and gone yet only 34 games pounded into submission. That's only two more than last year! And "last year" was only five months long in regards to Beat All Games! Good grief.... I'd hope for more come 2012, but I already tried that last year and you can see the results. Perhaps I should just ring in 2012 as a hopeful year of gaming disasters. Huzzah!!

Well, with another year gone, it's time to reflect on the past 365 days of games beaten and see which of those stayed on my good side. Honestly, despite such a small list, or perhaps a result thereof, I had a tough time coming up with this year's list of solid performances. I found it unfortunate that I couldn't manage to squeeze a few more titles in there that were definitely deserving of top honors. With the amount of fantastic games I played over the past year, what do you expect? Again, this is a list showcasing those titles that really grabbed me and/or I'd go back and play in a heartbeat due to their unbelievable fun factor and replayability. Previously marked ratings really have no bearing here.

11. Sunset Riders
-While it's by no means a great game, it's one of those rare games that's just a hell of a lot of fun to play and has that classic Konami feel to it.

10. StarTropics
-Sure, it could be touted as the lesser known cousin of the original Legend of Zelda, but there's always been something indefinably enjoyable about this game, despite it's various shortcomings in comparison to the former.

9. Final Fantasy
-Merely for the fact that this game made my opinion of RPG's perform a complete 180°, and that's including my sour predisposition towards turn-based battle systems thanks to Final Fantasy IV (or FFII for those who are still stuck in the foolhardy US interpretation of the FF series), this game easily garnishes a win.

8. Disney's Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers
-Yes, it's an incredibly easy and simple game, but it's also a whole lot of fun, and along with DuckTales, Chip n' Dale showcases the topnotch gameplay produced by the marriage of Capcom and Disney during the late '80s/early '90s.

7. ToeJam & Earl
-Anytime a game offers randomized level design is a win in my book, and while I'm not the biggest fan of multiplayer in video gaming, this game nails the concept so perfectly that it always makes me wish I had a compatriot around whenever I fire it up.

6. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
-To me, this game is very much an anomaly in the Zelda franchise, which can be both a good and bad thing, but it's distinct LttP style and somewhat questionable approach to common Zelda devices quickly made it one of my favorites among the various Zelda titles.

5. Mega Man 2
-It's not my all-time favorite Mega Man title - just barely squeaked out by Mega Man 3 - but it's by far the most approachable title in the series, clearly defining the groundwork for the Mega Man franchise.

4. Blazing Lazers
-For someone who's never been the biggest fan of STG's, I've been finding some real gems on the TurboGrafx that have made me rethink the genre as a whole and just like Magical Chase, this game was just pure fun all the way to the end.

3. Do-Re-Mi Fantasy: Milon no DokiDoki Daibouken
-I don't know if it's the clever usage of incredibly simplistic, yet thoroughly enjoyable level design, or the fact that it's so aesthetically unique compared to typical stateside platformers of the day, but this game managed to grab me unlike any other SNES platformer has.

2. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
-The Zelda franchise as a whole is a terrific gift to games, but there's something wholly special about A Link to the Past - perhaps because, in my opinion, it's the most creatively designed of the series, or perhaps it's because it's sort of the "Last of the V8's," if you will, before the 3D revolution took over (disregarding the handheld titles).

1. VVVVVV
-There's not a whole lot I can say other than this is hands down one of the best games I've ever played, well...ever.

NES - Super Mario Bros. 2

Haiku-Review:

gone are the Koopas,
Goombas, more - herewith justice
by vegetables thrown

Additional Comments:

Crazy Nintendo, we want kids to embrace vegetables, not throw them at warty toads. Ah well...

I've always been torn over this game, and I imagine that's how most people feel - or so I'd like to imagine. I know there's a lot of general disgust over this game, but at the same time I know there are people who enjoy its quirky departure from traditionalist Mario. When you think about it, it's a tad humorous to discredit the game over Mario purism since there was really only one Mario Bros. title before this one (discounting Mario Bros. itself), so the idea of a traditional format sort of falls on deaf ears. It's eerily similar to the constant downplay of Zelda II because of how different that game is from the first. So what? You can't lay down the law of tradition after a single title anyway. That's just absurd. (Or can you? After all, it seems I've found myself locked in a tradition of posting Mario titles on Christmas Day.)

Ok, the loss of what we came to embrace in the first game was tough. Everything that was carried over from SMB1 could probably be counted on one hand - maybe two. Let's see: Mario, Luigi, Peach (er, Princess), Toad, and then you've got your Mushroom, Star and a shoddy facsimile of a Koopa shell, (It doesn't ricochet? Bullshit!!). Anything else? Maybe, but nothing I can readily think of off the top of my head. But you know, I think that's where the game made missteps. It's one thing to break "tradition," but to wipe the slate clean? That's where you run into trouble. Heck, even Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. have more in common with each other than this followup to Nintendo's smash hit of '86, and those two games are worlds apart.

Let's disregard the fact that what we're actually dealing with here is a slipshod reskin of a widely unknown Famicon title called Yume Koujou Doki Doki Panic - although once it was leaked that the States got shafted when it came to SMB2, Doki Doki Panic became a household name among gamers. From a purely "Mario" point of view, we're not just presented with a whole new game, but we're stripped of nearly anything and everything that's even remotely Mario related. While the case can easily be argued that it's not that big of a deal, removing any sense of familiarity can skew an opinion quickly. Sure, it has Mario, but am I really playing Mario? I don't know.

To embellish on a few of the nuances that make this game so incredibly different, let's see what we're dealing with. First, we have a whole new roster of enemies. New enemies are nothing to complain about, in fact most anyone will relish new foes to battle, but to completely sack the original lineup is ridiculous. I know that wasn't with purposeful intent on the programmers' part, but again, I'm disregarding that we're actually dealing with a reskin here. The wrath of the Koopas are nothing more than a distant memory. Instead, Mario must contend with strange, masked creatures, really pissed-off sets of floating masks that are way too overprotective of their keys, some cute little porcupines, a bomb-throwing mouse and an egg-spitting...uh...what is Birdo supposed to be anyway? And presiding over them all is a huge toad that has a nasty derision towards vegetables, yet for some reason has decided to build a machine that manufactures vegetables right inside his lair. Not sure what that's all about.

Next up, we are given a choice of four characters to use for each level. Four? But there's only Mario and Luigi? Yea, somehow Peach and Toad joined in on the action too. And so started the abominable idea of Toad as a playable character - all thanks to a game that's not even a Mario game to begin with. Ugh. So not only do we have four characters to choose from, each one of them has their own unique physics - hint, they all suck. Ok, Peach's float ability is pretty cool, but honestly, every time I've played this game, I've only ever used Mario. But there's more. Not only are we given new jump physics, but we have an overall revised moveset which sort of ties in with my next subject of change: powerups.

Gone is the ability to torch our foes with an onslaught of fireballs. Instead, Mario's decided to fight dirty, throwing anything he can get his hands on, which unfortunately seems to be a vast field of leeks and pumpkins. Sigh. Nothing says danger like a handful of vegetables. SMB2's remaining stock of powerups isn't all that more tantalizing. Save our old friend, the invincibility star, there's a timer and a mushroom that serves little to no purpose - yea, it increases health which is important, but the whole small/big thing is lost in translation. Seriously, is there even an advantage to small Mario's 16x16 hitbox? Is it even 16x16, because it sure as hell doesn't seem to be? I just kept getting creamed by Birdo's egg no matter what - ducks for nothing!!!

I could go on and on listing differences, but I think I made my point. For me, there's too much of a departure from the first game. Going back to Zelda II, while the prominent action-based scenes dumped the top-down view - which threw everyone up in arms - the world and denizens of Hyrule followed suit with those of the previous title. Enemies like Octorok, Leever, Stalfos, and Armos still gave Link the runaround as he tried to navigate the fantastical countryside and maze-like dungeons. Heck, even Keese and Gel make reappearances, though under new names: Ache and Bit respectively. Other comparative features include items such as the Candle, Raft or Whistle, or even Link's hunt for additional Heart Containers. The point is, despite the radical change in format, everything was still very familiar between the two titles and like the title or not, Zelda II was still very much a Zelda game. Could I say the same for SMB2? Honestly, no, but with a but.

The reason I'm so iffy on SMB2's case is that at the time, and I distinctly remember when this game came out, the game was so wildly different that there was a real inherent risk in purchasing it. Who wants a Mario game that is obviously not a Mario game? I never acquired the game as a kid - I didn't want it. I recall playing it once at a friend's house and clearly disliking it. However, as the years have passed, Nintendo desperately tried to mask their mistake by slowly integrating SMB2 content into later titles. Pokey, Bob-omb, and even Shy Guy eventually found their way into other Mario titles. Birdo's in nearly every non-platforming Mario title, most notably the Mario Kart series. And I really think that helped save the sinking ship that was SMB2. Nintendo found a way to make SMB2 feel at home among the Mario-verse, and I'm glad they did. Yea, I didn't like the game as a kid, but over the years it has grown on me. It still isn't one of the better Mario titles in my opinion, but it has its merits and is a lot of fun to sit down with every now and then. What's more, I'd rather play this SMB2 than the Japanese SMB2 any day of the week. I think the best way to put it is as a Mario game, it's mediocre at best, but as a generic platformer, it's fantastic. It's got everything you need for a great platformer, but nothing you want for a good Mario platformer, even after all the sneaky integration over the years.

There is one thing this game did nail as a Mario game though, despite its roots residing elsewhere. The music was catchy and memorable, just like any good Mario music of yore. The NES Mario trifecta pulled this off without fault. The songs in each of these titles are clearly unmistakable, and just like SMB1 and SMB3, I can likely hum some of SMB2's melodies at the drop of a hat, especially Character Select, Overworld, and perhaps even Underworld if you catch me on a good day.

So, in the end, while Yume Koujou Doki Doki Panic selflessly lent itself as a model for what was at the time a terrible Mario game, there was a lot of good that managed to come out of it as well. Who would have thought that some obscure Famicon title would manage to push and develop the Mario franchise, especially when there was no real intent of continuity behind the title - that it was nothing more than a rush job to capitalize on a lot of game-hungry children who were already head-over-heels over the first SMB title and rake in the dough. Funny, isn't it?

Rating: 3.5 rocket ships out of 5

Flash - Don't Shit Your Pants

Haiku-Review:

a practical slant
on one of life's dilemmas -
pray, don't shit your pants

Additional Comments:

While 99.9% of all Flash games out there just don't deserve the time of day - at least in long-winded, commentary prone to dissect every aspect of the game, there are those rare gems and oddities that make you crook an eyebrow and say to yourself, "Hold on. What's this?" Flash games for the most part are juvenile time-killers that may potentially pack in a whole lot of fun in a neat (well, maybe neat's not the best adjective) little package or even a barrel of laughs if you're lucky. For me, Don't Shit Your Pants has fun, laughs, and the ability to move eyebrows. I remember Sven told me about the game over the phone and I was already laughing just listening to his own take-away. Shortly thereafter, I headed on over to Kongregate and checked it out myself.

Ok, the game is absolute stupidity all the way through to its very core, but it's also fabulous in its presentation and execution. From the incredibly poor Microsoft Paint graphics to the fact that your trying to hammer in commands while the timer counts down to impending doom, you can't help but not laugh and enjoy the experience. It's so easy to hate and love at the same time. Everything about it barks "I'm a shitty game," yet it teeters on that fine line that screams "Play me," despite its obvious crudeness, ugly presentation, and total lack of gameplay, even for a text-based adventure game.

There's a certain something about this game, much like Super Press Space To Win Adventure RPG 2009, that makes it stand out above other banal Flash excursions into gaming. I could say it's the concept of "simplify, simplify," but there's more to it than that. I think it's the fact that it plays on the absurdity of what a simple game is or could be, even in a text-based format which is about as basic as you can get. In a time when game designers continually push to make the most complex, convoluted gaming worlds that they can possibly think up, here we are presented with a simple screenshot of a man, a door, and a very real problem. He's crowning and there's only one solution. Actually, there's ten, but they all pretty much result in the same steamy achievement.

Nano-Win:

Any game where you can lose, er...win before you even start is a-ok in my book.

Rating: 4 pairs of soiled pants out of 5

NES - Final Fantasy

Haiku-Review:

forth Light Warriors!
on an epic, Final quest -
er, "Final"...not so

Additional Comments:

Where do I even begin with Final Fantasy. Hmm, having a mixed relationship over the years of turn-based RPG's, or hell, RPG's in general, it's hard to say. As I've stated ad nauseum, RPG's were never my thing as a kid. For me, it was all about side-scrolling, platforming action; crude road and track arcade-style racers and brain-busting puzzlers. I distinctly recall my first encounter with a turn-based RPG: Final Fantasy IV, or as those of us in the States have always known it: Final Fantasy II. A friend of mine and I had swapped systems for a week - he took on my SNES while I got to bask in the glory of the Genesis. I remember he rented FFIV...er, FFII during that time and he wanted to show the game off to me. While I guess I could say it was mildly intriguing, I was grossly turned off by the battle system. Now, outside of early text-based computer adventure games - the likes of Zork - I was damn near oblivious to RPG's at the time and unfortunately Final Fantasy IV...er, II left a sour taste in my mouth. Unfortunate being a key word here because the game didn't only disparage my view of the "great" Final Fantasy franchise, but of RPG's as a whole and I don't remember picking up any kind of RPG again until the late 90s/early 2000s when I began to mull over a number of recommended SNES titles. Otherwise, it was back to text-based MUDs like Medievia or the then-new MMORPG world of Ultima Online. I also recall watching footage of what I believe was Final Fantasy VIII at a friend's house. I was genuinely curious to see what had become of the franchise since my last encounter so many years before. Bleaggh!!! Final Fantasy, let it be known that you and I just don't get along.

And again, like so many other games, that was then and this is now. Truth be known, during a period in the early 2000s when I started collecting a number of NES cartridges, I picked up a copy of Final Fantasy, more so out of respect for those titles that could be tipped as classics of the 8-bit era. And while I had little to no desire to play the game, I popped it into my NES and lo and behold, I was hooked. After sitting on hot coals for so many years, a fury burning over turned-based fighting, I was loving this game, so much so that I couldn't stop playing - even with the amount of mind-numbing grinding that I had to put in. I remember long nights going on for a few weeks hacking away at nothing but Trolls, Giants and Pedes, desperately trying to achieve a comfortable enough level to once and for all tackle the ills of Gurgu Volcano. Ugh, the pains of point-based RPG's. For as long as VG-based RPG's have existed, I can only assume it's a natural side effect that everyone has just come to accept no matter how many complaints the system registers. Even I, for as much as I've cursed the incredibly ridiculous concept, I've accepted that it is what it is. Besides, there's something gratifying about watching your characters' numbers slowly climb as you whack the same enemies to pieces hour after hour, day after day. Sad when you think about it, isn't it? Meh... And that's how it works - we shrug our shoulders and carry on, hoping that today is the day that we'll finally make it through the necessary dungeon, kill the boss, and retrieve the required treasure, or in this case, restore the Orbs. And if it isn't our day, back to the killing fields to slaughter some mindless spawn so that our level can increase by a solitary point. Wait, why exactly is this game fun again?

I certainly don't want to harp on the grinding process since it's such a go-to target, but it's only natural to whine. What's interesting is that while this was my third playthrough, albeit my first to completion, Gurgu Volcano still threw up its same impenetrable defenses. Every time, I'd always hit a wall when it came to character level versus dungeon level at this point in the game. With the exception of my latest playthrough, I'd have to drone on and on around the waters of Crescent Lake before I could dare the fiery inferno. The only reason I didn't suffer quite the same damnable process this time around is that I decided to take a different approach to the game. Instead of grinding all of my characters (by the way, I've always used a Fighter/Red Mage/White Mage/Black Mage setup - the Thief and Ninja, well they're just pointless to me) to a respectable level, I instead opted to kill off all my mages and plunge through as much of the game as I could using only my lone Fighter. My plan: to boost his level, and thus his Attack and Hit Points, at an exponential rate because let's face it, that guy's an unstoppable fortress of power once he starts utilizing 3x/4x attacks. And seriously, there's practically nothing other than a few rare breeds of monsters that can even manage more than a single point of damage against him. After Earth Cave, I brought my mages back on full time and managed to tackle Gurgu Volcano with so much more ease, though it still put up an arduous battle. I suppose in a way I was still grinding, but it didn't feel like grinding this time around which helped increase the overall fun factor this time through.

But what's even more interesting than Gurgu Volcano consistently giving me the bird is that the game got progressively easier thereafter. What? Well sure, after spending time building up my character(s) and filling my spellbooks and backpack, why wouldn't it? Still, I expected a steadily increasing threat as I advanced further into the game. Sure, there were some real heavy hitters like Ankylo, Gas Dragon or Sentry, but they never felt as life threatening as the first time I faced the perils of Gurgu and it's stupid maze of health-depleting lava floors and armies of Red Gargoyles. Damn, do I ever hate those things - quite possibly more than the inane Coctrice/Perilisk setups. Seriously, I have to face a multitude of these fuckers in a single round of combat; all of which have the capability to destroy any one of my heroes at the drop of a hat, be it turning someone to stone or just rubbing someone out of existence? Talk about a quality setup.

But yea, my point remains. Sea Shrine, Mirage Tower and so forth all felt like a cakewalk compared to the first half of the game. Even while trekking through the final dungeon, other than its incredible length and boss gauntlet, with the items and abilities in hand by this point, there's not much to fear. It's more of an annoyance than anything if you have to leave for any reason (low health?), and that's only because of how many floors you have to consistently revisit. And again, I can thank my items and abilities. Granted, heroes should become powerful entities as an RPG pushes on, but the ease that I could handle the worst of the worst made me question the integrity of the end game. With unlimited heals in the form of a Heal Staff and Heal Helmet, you never have to waste potions or spells, and heck, since nearly everything seems to have certain invulnerability to damn near every spell by the end of the game, I never found spell exhaustion to ever prove problematic. My Red Wizard and Black Wizard were melee fighters for the greater part of the game, and that just makes no sense - even my White Wizard when he wasn't busy using the Heal Staff. Couple the above with Exit and an airship that can literally land you on Coneria's Inn's front lawn for the cheapest lodging rates known and the amount of immediate threat is reduced to mere rubble. None of this is meant to be a complaint by any means, and certainly I embrace the notion of raw power flowing through my heroes as they're continually decked out with the strongest of weapons, magic and armor, but it is slightly discouraging that the difficulty of the game began to give way which has yet to seem the case in any of the other Final Fantasy's that I've attempted.

Of course, I could go on whining about this or that, but I think I've already at least hinted at most of my petty issues with the game. But the thing is, outside of grinding, which as I said, is pretty much inevitable in any RPG, especially turn-based RPG's, the game is fantastic. Ok, so the game is blatantly broken with some of its spells or weapons, but so what - this is the game that finally gave me faith in the RPG genre as a whole and revealed the Final Fantasy franchise as what it really is...or perhaps I should say was. Sure, I came about it a bit late in the running, but still, I'm glad I (eventually) bought this game and put forth a solid effort. I've enjoyed this game every time I've popped it in - so much so that this is easily one of my favorite NES games of all time.

And lest we forget the music? Obviously, music has always been a delight in the Final Fantasy franchise, but it's always a joy to hear how some of those songs originated, namely Prelude or Battle. But the tunes that I've always enjoyed would have to be Overworld and Sailing or perhaps even Matoya's Cave for honorable mention. Unfortunately, as great as the music is in this game, it becomes rather grating after hours of gameplay, especially the battle theme (it's funny how refreshing the overworld theme sounds after the victory march). But then, that's the limitations of the hardware we're dealing with - only so much can fit in a cartridge. Continuous gameplay will certainly sour the tunes, but take a break and come back, and classics like Sailing will never grow old.

Nano-Win, er...wait:

Is it just me or is the White Wizard giving the recently deceased the bird after every victory? What a disrespectful asshole!!

Rating: 4.5 Farmers out of 5

PC - Super Mario Bros. X: The Invasion 2

Haiku-Review:

ok, so let's see:
Mario, Luigi, and Peach -
Toad and...who's that? Link!?

Additional Comments:

I had first learned about the SMBX engine some time ago - well before redigit removed all traces from the net - but at the time, I never gave it much thought. After all, it fell into that cesspool that is known simply as "fan games." Bleaghh!! Additionally, coming from a romhacking background, I suffered from this pang of guilt that I should stick with my guns in the so-called haxors-vs-fanboys arena of war. Just more "bleaghh" if you ask me. But then, after some time had passed, I had to ask myself, who cares? A game's a game...s'a game. So I finally decided to download the engine and see what all the hubbub was about. Unfortunately, my decision couldn't have come at a worse time; coinciding with all the mystery and confusion shrouding SMBX's sudden exile from the internet. Dammit!!

But for me, the rash web of lies and intrigue strewn across a vast network of forums, blogs and other bastions of strongly opinionated remarks via posts of unconfirmed rumors, twisted and wrongly regurgitated statements supposedly sourced straight from the developer himself, and more often than not, outright flaming hatred - well, it made me all the more curious in what exactly this engine/game contained. Lucky for me, I managed to sleuth out a copy and gave the game a spin. Of course, the designer in me wanted to check out the editor first. Eh, it's...interesting...but nothing to raise an eyebrow over. Besides, I'm here to talk about the game itself and not the engine's editor, so I'll leave all of that squabble to someone else's unsolicited scrutineering.

Ok, here's the thing. This game surprised me; pleasantly at that! Yes, it has it's problems, namely the physics. They're just awful - rough grit sandpaper awful. They're supposed to resemble SMB3 physics, or so I've read and so it seems, but they're really rough around the edges which I cannot emphasize enough. I never felt confident with a lot, or really, any of my jumps, even by game's end. I was still cringing as Mario leapt into the wild blue yonder, wondering if I had built enough momentum and/or whether or not I'd be able to nail the landing. If only Mario wasn't so damn fat and purposed to be a svelte gymnastics enthusiast I might have some hope. In Super Mario Bros. 3, while the physics could be berated as jerky, I never felt uncomfortable with them - in fact, I rather liked them. I knew what my limits were and I knew what I was capable of performing, even under pressure. Here, I constantly misjudged jumps by mere inches, and no matter how much play time I put in, I just couldn't get a grasp on it. This was also an ancillary factor in why I kept with one character the entire game - Mario.

Speaking of character swaps, despite my lack or will to swap characters, I have to say that I was fairly impressed with the system. I at least tried out every character in a test run to witness the subtle and not-so-subtle differences between each of them. Of course, I've never been a big fan of playing as any other character outside of Mario, especially given that their most popularized physics are based around SMB2 - which I should mention, I rarely if ever swapped characters in that game too. Here, as expected, the extra characters retain most of their SMB2 instruction, although I think Toad plays a tad different. Honestly, I think I only put about five seconds of playtesting into Toad as I will never understand why he's ever been offered up as a playable character in any Mario game outside of the Mario Kart series or any of the Mario Party/sports-themed games. And even in those games I don't like him. And then you have Link. Huh?

Now this is an intriguing concept. Link, à la Zelda II, with the ability to turn into a fairy for a brief time and retain his various sword thrusts. I think it's a radical move to include someone from beyond the Mario universe, however purpose-built levels for Mario-style platforming just don't translate too well with Link's abilities. There's a few sub-levels here and there that seem to have been designed with Link in mind - namely any of the Zelda II level clones, but with such a small amount of tailor made levels, Link is nothing more than a tacked-on gimmick. I got the same feeling with the Metroid-based levels, but unfortunately Samus Aran wasn't a playable character. Unlike most good Mario romhacks that use alternate graphics ripped from a variety of sources such as the Metroid series, the Mega Man series, the Castlevania series etc., those games still build levels keeping in mind that Mario is the protagonist; not Samus, Mega Man or Simon Belmont. But here, it seems these out-of-the-box levels were designed with the original series' hero in mind. It's not necessarily a bad thing if the idea is to stay true to the original game's design; presenting it as a sort of culmination of the various video game worlds colliding together and not purposefully designed around our beloved plumber as if to say all worlds exist solely for one man. But it's a Mario game with Mario physics and should be designed as such...in my opinion. Fortunately though, these levels are few and far between and come as a rather accepted change of pace, so the fact that they aren't exactly built with Mario in mind is of no consequence. The only one I'd likely complain about is the palace section in The Lost Woods.

As far as the levels themselves, I thought there were some well developed ideas in there. However, there were a lot of lulls thrown in there too, especially near the end of the game. I felt like the game hit its peak with The Rawest Forest and then stretched into an uninspired plateau of design from Wet Water Zone on. The end game was a bitter disappointment compared to the first half, especially The King of Koopas. Hate to give away spoilers, but the final level was a total letdown. Sure there were a few interesting levels mixed in there to keep the panache of the preceding worlds, most notably Hardmode Tanks - what a bitch of a level by the way - but all in all, the final two worlds left me with a sour taste in my mouth as I powered my way through just hoping the game would come to a close. Unfortunately, the point at which it did, it's hard to decide if it was appropriate or not - let the game end before it dies a miserable death or try to drag it on for a bit longer praying some inspiration will hit. Meh, in this situation, it probably chose the better route. Maybe it dragged on for too long already.

Nevertheless, I had a lot of fun playing the game - far more than I expected really. Despite it's deplorable control and increasing sensation of mediocrity near the end of the game, I found enough imagination and interest throughout the game to keep me going. There was this certain feeling of "what next?" that I got that I never really experienced with any of the SMW-based romhacks. While I've seen some exemplary things come out of the romhacking world, a lot of it has also been almost...expected? Here, this vague sense of the expected is the unexpected continually pushed the game along. While there wasn't really anything I had never seen before, it still captured this ideal that I truly hadn't seen that before, and the only reason I think I can explain this is because at heart, the SMBX engine is nothing more than a fan made engine, which in my eye is low man on the totem pole in the world of gaming. If anything, this game gave me a new found appreciation for fan games - well, to at least curb my acidic disposition towards them and give them a fair chance before I criticize them with biased remarks.

Rating: 3.5 Billy Guns out of 5

Hello

Hello!
My name is Markus Cone. Recently I’ve been invited to take part in the task of beating all games!! Since the other two members on this site focus primarily on consul games, my primary focus will be computer RPG’s from the 80’s, 90’s, and early 2000’s. This does not mean that I do or will avoid reviewing consul games though. Most of my childhood was spent playing and beating numerous games on the Nintendo and Super-Nintendo gaming systems.
Perhaps I should explain a little about myself. When I’m not gaming I’m playing music. Also I when not gaming I am involved in a role-playing group that plays good ole fashioned Dungeons and Dragons!
Upcoming reviews – Icewind Dale, Morrowind, and Super Castlevania 4,