Games Beaten 2015

[Exhuminator]

Whatever you do Bone, don't waste your money on Return to Dreamland for Wii. Not unless you like expensive deja vu.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Don't ever plan on getting that one unless I happen to find it for really cheap.

[Sarge]

There's nothing wrong with Return, it's just short for the asking price. I liked my deja vu run through the game, personally.

[alienjesus]

Don't ever plan on getting that one unless I happen to find it for really cheap.

Return to Dreamland plays almost identically to Triple Deluxe and you'd love it. I think it's the better game of the two aswell.


I also really loved Squeak Squad on DS, even if it's maybe the easiest Kirby platformer since the original.

[Sarge]

I think my only gripe with Squeak Squad (which I recently beat) is that the treasure rush bits don't feel quite in line with the usual Kirby pacing. It's a bit frantic for my tastes. But it's still a very good game, and I'm glad I finally gave in and got a legit copy.

[Exhuminator]

it's just short for the asking price

$50 for 4 hours of been there-done that was a bit wrong in my opinion. The biggest feature, that being co-op, was wonky and a bit broken. And that was the thing I was most looking forward to! Granted the screen filling super powers were cool at least.

Don't pay more than $15 for it Bone, for real.

[Sarge]

Well, I didn't touch the co-op, so that didn't ding my experience. I don't remember my final time, either.

[Fragems]

Awesome platformer. Basically this game does Sonic better then sega currently does .

"This cake tastes better than shit" - Fragems

Yeah bad phrasing on my part . Freedom Planet is comparative to the quality of Sonic in it's hayday on the Genesis.

[Sarge]

And Freedom Planet is down. I'm gonna copy the text I wrote in a exuberant stupor for my Steam review last night. A lot of this was informed by some of the discussion here, naturally!

*prerecorded message begins in 3...2...1...*

In the interest of full disclosure, I've never really been a huge Sonic fan. They're well put together, fun games, but I've always cottoned to Mega Man and Mario a bit more. So I was intrigued by this game, but wasn't expecting it to get its hooks in.

Boy, was I wrong.

See, it's not really just Sonic, there's elements of all sorts of games in there, from Mega Man X to Gunstar Heroes to Rocket Knight. And it's all fun stuff. I love having a melee attack to use, as opposed to hopping and bopping. I generally used Lilac, and it dawned on me that to some degree, there was some similarity between the feel of her attacks and Zero in Mega Man X4. It's really good stuff.

Graphically, it's a really nice looking game. Lots of creative little flourishes that probably wouldn't have made it on the Genesis, although stuff like Ristar came close. It's more like a long-lost Saturn game, and this would have been exceptionally well received had it debuted on the Saturn.

Having multiple characters certainly improves the replay value, especially since each character has a couple of unique stages. Not to mention they're different enough to change how things feel even in the overlapping stages.

The soundtrack is also very much praiseworthy. Lots of upbeat, rockin' tunes.

The story has been much maligned, but I quite enjoyed it. Is it rocket science? Of course not. It's going for a Saturday morning cartoon vibe, and outside of a few rather dark sequences, it nails it. I found most of the voice acting well done as well.

If the game makes any missteps, it's that it gets pretty brutally hard towards the end. The final boss, in particular, saw me drop around 30 lives before I finally sussed out the pattern. I'm pretty sure I can repeat it at this point, but if you don't like tough, pattern-based bosses, you may find yourself frustrated.

Anyway, if you like Sonic, you might like this game. If you positively ADORE Sonic, you might not like it, as it sprinkles in so many other elements that it becomes far more than a Sonic clone. For me, that makes it fantastic, and well worth playing. Two thumbs up, and definitely looking forward to a sequel!

[BoneSnapDeez]

1. Grandia (PlayStation)
2. Jungle Hunt (Xbox - Taito Legends)
3. Jungle Hunt (Atari 2600)
4. Jungle Hunt (Plug & Play - ColecoVision Flashback)
5. Donkey Kong (Atari 2600)
6. Donkey Kong (Intellivision)
7. Donkey Kong (ColecoVision)
8. Bubble Bobble (NES)
9. Side Arms: Hyper Dyne (PSP - Capcom Classics Collection Remixed)
10. 1941: Counter Attack (PSP - Capcom Classics Collection Remixed)
11. Ys: The Ark of Napishtim (PSP)
12. The Ninja Kids (Xbox - Taito Legends)
13. Neutopia (TurboGrafx-16)
14. Golden Axe Warrior (Xbox 360 - Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection)
15. Phantasy Star Online Ver. 2 (Dreamcast)
16. Growl (PlayStation 2 - Taito Legends 2)
17. Arabian Magic (PlayStation 2 - Taito Legends 2)
18. Dungeon Magic (PlayStation 2 - Taito Legends 2)
19. Gekirindan (PlayStation 2 - Taito Legends 2)
20. Ys II (Saturn - Falcom Classics II)
21. Darius Gaiden (PlayStation 2 - Taito Legends 2)
22. G Darius (PlayStation 2 - Taito Legends 2)
23. Giana Sisters DS (DS)
24. RayStorm (PlayStation 2 - Taito Legends 2)
25. Mr. Do! (ColecoVision)
26. Beauty & the Beast (Intellivision)
27. Boxing (PlayStation 2 - Activision Anthology)
28. Crystalis (NES)
29. Dragon Warrior (NES)
30. Faxanadu (NES)
31. Tombs & Treasure (NES)
32. Kirby's Dream Land (Game Boy)
33. Kirby's Adventure (NES)
34. Kirby Super Star (SNES)
35. Hoshi no Kirby 64 (Nintendo 64)
36. Kirby: Triple Deluxe (3DS)
37. Dig Dug (Wii - Namco Museum Megamix)
38. Phoenix (Xbox - Taito Legends)
39. Phoenix (Atari 2600)
40. Pleiads (Xbox - Tecmo Classic Arcade)
41. Kangaroo (Atari 2600)

Bone vs. The Golden Age.

Dig Dug

Perhaps you're living underground and have never played Dig Dug. Allow me to explain.

The game stars a little man, also named Dig Dug, carrying an air pump. He digs through a landscape and must eliminate all monsters to advance to the next round. Monsters can be destroyed by inflating them with air until they pop (this disturbed me as a kid) or by crushing them will loosened rocks. The last monster in each stage may also attempt to escape.

There are two distinct enemy types. The Pookas are little orange guys who simply move back and forth. The Fygars are dragons that can emit streams of fire. Enemies are generally restricted to air pockets that have already been dug into the soil, but they may also occasionally turn into "ghosts" and float right through the dirt.

The game may seem straightforward at first, but there are some tactics to be employed here. For instance, it's possible to run through enemies that have been stunned by the first couple of pumps. Dig Dug can also dig very closely to an enemy-occupied air bubble, creating enough space to shoot his pump through but not enough space for the enemies to exit. In later levels the enemies move very quickly. It becomes beneficial to lure several into a conga line and then crush them under a rock simultaneously.

So is it fun? Well, it is initially. The first loop (12 levels) has a great mix of balance and strategy. It gets tedious after that. And later areas are so frantic and tough that it feels like one must "exploit" the game to get through them, rather than simply playing well. Whatever the case, Dig Dug is worth at least a quick 12 stage run-through. It's main "imitator", Mr. Do!, is a much better game overall.

Phoenix

Played this bad boy twice. First an (emulated) arcade version on Taito Legends and then a port.

Phoenix is a fixed shooter much like Space Invaders and Galaxian. What's notable about Phoenix is that it features five distinct levels before looping, as opposed to featuring the "same" level time after time with slight variations in speed and difficulty. This style was imitated successfully by Midway's Gorf one year later.

In the game the player takes command of a spaceship battling malicious birds. Levels 1 and 2 feature small diving birds while levels 3 and 4 are inhabited by giant aggressive phoenices. Stage 5 is home of the mothership - a very early video game boss - plus a bunch of bird cohorts. Two action buttons are used - one for firing and one for the shield, which can only be used periodically. While the shield is up the player's ship becomes immune and certain enemies will perish if they come into contact with it. However, the shielded player is forced to remain stationary and bad timing will result in a quick death as soon as the shield disappears.

I enjoyed the game quite a bit. The controls are smooth, enemies look freakishly awesome, and there's even some classical music thrown into the mix.

Phoenix's only port was on Atari 2600, handled by Atari themselves. It's quite a good conversation. The music is gone and enemy numbers have been scaled back (the final boss no longer has cronies but shoots way more bullets himself), but otherwise its quite faithful to the arcade original. Initially I thought the shield mechanic was removed, but I'm just an idiot (I can see you nodding). It's activated by pulling the joystick down.

Pleiads

Pleiads is the sequel to Phoenix. It looks and plays very similarly. Many graphics appear to be reused, though the backgrounds are much more detailed. This time the mothership level isn't the final one, as the player must then navigate home while avoiding a strong gravitational pull. There's even something of a rudimentary ending cutscene with fireworks! Overall this is a much easier game than Phoenix. Enemies aren't nearly as aggressive, more lives are allocated to the player, and the mothership battle is a piece of cake.

The one person who reads my posts here may be wondering how in the hell Phoenix is found on Taito Legends while its sequel is part of Tecmo Classic Arcade. After doing some research I discovered that both games are actually American in origin, and that Taito and Tecmo respectively acquired publishing rights. I love discovering weird little retro gaming factoids like this.

Kangaroo

No arcade version this time. Sunsoft compilations never made it to the States, and I'm not sure if Kangaroo was included on one anyway.

Atari ported the game to their three earliest systems. I also have the 5200 version but I'd hate to dig that console out of storage just to find out that Kangaroo is barely playable with that joke of a joystick.

Moving on, the 2600 game isn't bad! Gameplay is similar to Donkey Kong. The player takes control of a mother kangaroo trying to reach the top floor of each level, where her joey is being held captive by monkeys.

The monkeys crawl all around the stages too. They throw fruit at Mommy Kang, who can either jump over or duck under the produce. Thankfully she has an offensive ability - she can punch the monkeys! It's pretty hilarious and I have to wonder if this has ever been observed in nature. Unless one is shooting for a high score it's actually easiest to just flee from the monkeys to complete the stages as fast as possible.

The most difficult aspect of the game is the jumps. Controls are a bit stiff and pixel-perfect precision is required for a few of these. There's also fall damage, so any missed jump will result in death. And in classic video game fashion the death animation occurs in midair, not when the kangaroo hits the ground.

All said, this is a fun little game. Not as good as Donkey Kong, but a still a worthy early platformer.