Beat another clump of games for the SMS, all from Sega.
First up was
The Lucky Dime Caper featuring Donald Duck which sounds like mid-noughties crunk album but is really an occasionally good, mostly middling but never great platform adventure. I wanted to like this one as I have always preferred Donald over Mickey but there's some stuff that holds it back. One obvious flaw is the power up system which is never really explained. You start with a hammer to swat enemies away with but one hit removes your ability to use it. If you take another hit you die. That's fine, aside from some occasionally dodgy hitboxes, but the game fails to feed this information back to the player.
The HUD is very minimal with the only indicator on the screen being a mostly superfluous time meter. No life counter, nothing to show which weapon you have equipped (or don't), no health bar. You collect star shaped power-ups but even then they seem to do nothing until five are collected and a brief window of invincibility is activated. Apparently what you want though is to stay at four cards as this powers up Donald's hammer/frisbee as collecting the fifth gives the invincibility but resets the counter.
It's not a bad game though by any means just an unnecessarily flawed one. A bit more care and attention to the gameplay to match the stellar graphics and music and it would be a genuine classic.
Next up was
Land of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse. This was much better. I liked Castle of Illusion on the SMS a lot (it is also sufficiently different from the MD version to be worth owning both) but it's a pretty easy and quite short affair. Land of Illusion, while not really a tough game does beef up the challenge and adds some meat to the bones. There's some light adventuring here and there with Mickey often unable to progress until he backtracks to a previous level to find an alternate path. You pick up a few handy items along the way, even if only two of them (shrinking potion and climbing rope) have any use inside levels but they're needed to get to the end of the game.
Like I say there is backtracking of a sort and the potion and rope open up more potential but don't go expecting this to be some sort of Mickeyvania; the game is still pretty linear and level based despite the connective tissue of a world map.
Overall though I did really enjoy this one. It's just some clean, fun platforming goodness.
Finally rounding out my SMS voyage was
Asterix and it is the best of the bunch. Essentially two games in one it kind of reminds me of Sega's own World of Illusion on the Mega Drive in that you can choose between both the titular Asterix and his buddy Obelix and tackle the levels as you see fit. I don't think there are different paths for the two unlike WOI but you can swap characters between levels here. So if you're stuck at a part with the more nimble but weaker Asterix you can come back in and try and brute force it with Obelix. At least you can if you lose all your lives anyway. It's not a perfect system but it does give you some flexibility which is always a good thing.
Asterix and Obelix play completely differently as well which is cool. As mentioned Asterix is kind of your standard platform character and has a basic punch to defend himself. Obelix however is a big lumbering guy, slower than Asterix and less useful on any forced scrolling sections due to his sheer size but he is able to destroy silver blocks without the need of any power ups meaning he's good for slower more methodical collection based play. He also wrecks bosses.
The game is pretty chunky outside of Obelix's frame, with 7 locations across the Roman Empire, from Gaul to Illyria to Eygpt, each split into 3 levels with a final climatic showdown at the Coloseo itself. This game is more overtly what I'd call an adventure platformer, that is, quite a few levels require you to obtain keys or items to progress and this will mean backtracking in a level. It's not a chore though and Asterix is very well paced. There are again some niggles with hitboxes, probably owning to the gorgeously drawn but pretty massive character sprites both for enemies and player characters but it's not as annoying as in Lucky Dime Caper. This game can also be a real challenge later on with some pretty precise platforming needed.
Great stuff though. You can see Sega really squeezing the most out of the Master System with these games. They might not be the deepest or longest set of games on the console but Asterix and LOI are two of the most fun. And the Master System is still the king of blues and greens. So much pop!
I also popped in and to my surprise finally beat
Super Star Wars. God damn this game. It's relentless with enemies flying at you from all over the place and little time to stop and think. In fact if you do try and stop for a breather, SSW will just throw and additional 40,000 wamp rats at your face to get you moving again. Madness. The actual platforming is the wrong side of stiff and the unrelenting barrage of enemies is exacerbated by levels that go on and on, it's too easy to get locked in hit-stun and there are even a few unforgivably irritating leaps of faith moments, the lightsabre really is no match for a good blaster and bosses take the approach of covering the screen with as much unavoidable bullshit as they can as opposed to being a challenge. And still I actually think it's a pretty good time all round. The Star Wars branding definitely helps alleviate things but I'd say overall, while it can be annoying while actually in the game, you do feel a real sense of accomplishment and satisfaction after you beat that level or boss. The mode7 bits add some nice variation as well. Recommended but only for the patient.
Still got one more game I'd like to beat then I think that'll do for this month. Good choice for the first new TR and has been a good way to tackle my backlog.
