Together Retro: Licensed to Thrill (Licensed 2D Platformers)

[ESauced]

Xeogred,

You’re not missing anything with Return of the Joker. It seems promising on the first level but it’s too brutally difficult and poorly designed after. I’ve never bothered playing pst the second level. The first Batman is a far better game.

Also, you beat this when you were 4? Really? I couldn’t even beat the second world of Super Mario when I was 4.

Also, I didn’t see any mention of the secondary weapons in your Darkwing Duck writeup. We’re you aware of them?

[Xeogred]

Xeogred,

You’re not missing anything with Return of the Joker. It seems promising on the first level but it’s too brutally difficult and poorly designed after. I’ve never bothered playing pst the second level. The first Batman is a far better game.

Also, you beat this when you were 4? Really? I couldn’t even beat the second world of Super Mario when I was 4.

Also, I didn’t see any mention of the secondary weapons in your Darkwing Duck writeup. We’re you aware of them?

Believe me, the age thing is bizarre in retrospect. But yeah I was playing games when I was at least 3 years old at the earliest. Back then my grandparents got most of my early birthday parties recorded on VHS and for my 4th birthday, I'm on there teaching other kids how to play SMB1 haha. It's really strange now because I have a 5 year old nephew who was playing some SNES lately during the holidays with my sister and he doesn't seem to grasp much of it at all. By that point at 5 I was already pretty well versed in games. There's not a lot I can actually think of that I beat back then, but Batman is somehow one of them. My grandpa and I would beat TMNT3 together a lot. I could beat SMB1, SMB3, Mega Man 2 and possibly 4 back then, maybe some other stuff. I rented Battletoads a lot for another one I co-oped with gramps sometimes, but we definitely never beat that one.

The one game I had as a kid that I could never conquer though... Blaster Master. I don't remember being able to rent Metroid much, it was probably always out. But my dad's parents did own that one and I maybe rented it once or twice, I always got stuck in Norfair back then haha. Loved the game but it was over my head a bit. Blaster Master was easier to navigate and even as a kid there was a rare time or two I got all the way to level 8, but I don't recall ever beating it until I emulated it years later.

Back to Darkwing Duck, I did forget to mention a bit about the secondary weapons there. The only one I really liked was the big arrow shot, which was cool because you could use them as platforms too. And it seemed to do at least double normal shot damage, so it was very useful against tougher enemies and bosses. The double diagonal electric shot was cool, but I didn't really use it much. At first at the final boss I backtracked a bit to get that and see if I could stay on the ground and hit those two weak points at the top from below, but that didn't really work out. The ground flame weapon was kind of useful at times but probably the one I used the least.

I used the batarang the most in Batman. The gun came in handy for some long range parts and the triple shot thing was good against those orange tank things and some bosses like the weird two robot box things.

[Sarge]

Aw, I still love Return of the Joker. It doesn't feel very "Batman", but it's got some of the best spritework and music on the system. Outstanding stuff.

Sunsoft actually didn't make the next one on NES, that's a Konami joint that's similar to TMNT II: The Arcade Game. I actually kinda like that one, too, but it can be frustrating in some ways.

I'm working my way through a game I've always been told was surprisingly good, but never really put much time into: Phantom 2040. And they're not wrong! It's getting better the further I play. I'll hopefully have more thoughts on it when I finish it up.

[ESauced]

Aw, I still love Return of the Joker. It doesn't feel very "Batman", but it's got some of the best spritework and music on the system. Outstanding stuff.

.

I definitely won’t argue that it looks and sounds fantastic . It’s that critical playing part where it falls short.

And Xeogred: I was playing games when I was 3 too. I just wasn’t beating any of them. Especially not really difficult ones like Batman. I think the first game I beat was Mickey’s ultimate Challenge on NES. Dark Souls that one isn't. Of course I was the youngest brother so I didn’t exactly get first dibs on playing. Maybe if I was the oldest I would have been better.

[Xeogred]

1. Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse (Genesis)
2. Darkwing Duck (NES)
3. Batman* (NES)
4. Journey to Silius (NES)

* = replay


(bit more serious than the hilarious English localization of Blaster Master?)

(The Engineer, huh...)

This one is a stretch, but some might know that this was originally intended to be a Terminator game.

A quick one I've been meaning to hit up for awhile now. Journey to Silius was a discovery probably a decade back or so thanks to the internet and looking into all things Sunsoft and their music. Easily some of Naoki Kodaka's best composition work next to Blaster Master and Batman, the music in Silius is incredible. And everything else is in top form courtesy of Sunsoft's excellence on the NES. Journey to Silius is basically a mix of Contra meets Mega Man. There are five stages and each sub boss directly before the main boss will drop a new weapon power up, that you can change to by going into a Blaster Master styled inventory screen. Your advanced guns all use up ammo, but ammo drops from enemies are very frequent. What's not frequent? Health drops, through my whole run I only saw health drops from enemies... twice. And the second time I grabbed one I laughed at how it restored like half a hit point. Checkpoints are fair though. A game over will throw you back to the beginning of the level, but there are unlimited continues from what I saw, unlike the case with Blaster Master.

Difficulty isn't bad at all and a lot of the bosses were pretty easy if you're good with jumping in Mega Man and know how to time 2-3 shots in one line of fire. The final boss in this was easy to break, just like the one in Blaster Master. I used the grenade launcher and shot at its face, while the boss kneeled down trying to punch me and never moved again... so I just easily kept jumping and shot him in the face a bunch. The platforming is a little wonky though and especially noticeable in the final level stage 5, which is an auto scrolling level with lots of platforming, falling blocks and platforms. Sometimes you magically make a jump that you visually should not have, but you kind of just clip up to the top of the ledge. The falling was really weird at times. I enjoyed this level but no denying it was a little finicky.

Overall a very simple run and gun platformer with amazing graphics and music. I had fun with this but the game does leave a little to be desired, it seems like a brief short effort and is pretty bare bones. But then again Batman is as well for the most part. It just seems like with a few extra levels or something else this game could be a lot more and bigger in scope. Maybe losing the Terminator license made development a little troublesome and they had to scramble a bit. Who knows. I still highly recommend it for run and gun genre fans. Very easy to knock out within an hour.

[Exhuminator]

Journey to Silius has such a wicked OST, that bass! I think it's not too hard, though there are some tricky bits.

I've been having a good time reading everyone's posts. I'm so happy to see TR thriving again. As for me, I didn't get to do any gaming this weekend at all (real life obligations). But I do have more licensed platformers in the queue. I'd like to beat at least 7 for this TR, and I've beaten 3 so far. I think some of my picks may prove surprising yet.

[dsheinem]

how much shooting/punching/running has to be involved before a platformer would better be considered a beat-em-up, hack-n-slash, or run-n-gun game?

[alienjesus]

how much shooting/punching/running has to be involved before a platformer would better be considered a beat-em-up, hack-n-slash, or run-n-gun game?

I think this is pretty debateable to be honest.

For me, if falling down a pit is a significant and common hazard, it's a platformer. That's why I count Mega Man as a platformer but Metal Slug as a Run n' Gun - in Mega Man, falling to your death is a common, if not the most common way to die. In Metal Slug, the enemies are the main threat.

Something like Contra is pretty debateable as there is a decent amount of platforming deaths, but I'd say it's so much less than the enemy threat that I'd consider that a run n' gun too.


All of this genre distinction is fairly subjective though. I don't mind people bending the rules a little bit if it gets them joining in - after all, I often didn't play the listed entry in the old Together Retro threads all the time, instead choosing something similar in the same series.

[Ack]

We do have the action platformer hybrid subgenre too, and some of these games would definitely count towards that.

[Exhuminator]

how much shooting/punching/running has to be involved before a platformer would better be considered a beat-em-up, hack-n-slash, or run-n-gun game?

On the subject of beat 'em ups: If it's a side-scrolling game without Z-axis traversal, and you can jump, and must use said jumping ability to overcome bottomless pits, instant death spikes, or aerially navigate platforms to proceed, we're in platformer territory. If a game of this sort also includes fighting, than that functionally becomes ancillary to the core platformer base. Using this concept, Double Dragon II is not a platformer, despite being able to jump over pits, spikes and such, because it does have Z-axis traversal. However, Bad Dudes could be considered a platformer, because despite being a beat 'em up, it doesn't have Z-axis traversal, but does include pits and spikes to land on if one doesn't jump successfully. IMO the Z-axis traversal is what iterates a beat 'em up as a beat 'em up, versus a platformer/beat 'em up hybrid. That's just the way I see it, but the whole concept is absolutely subjective.