SNESdrunk reviews

[dunpeal2064]

Ah, Kid Chameleon. I really love that terrible game.

[Gunstar Green]

Ah, Kid Chameleon. I really love that terrible game.

There's something so kitschy and 90's about it that makes it so oddly lovable.

[ExedExes]

Also notable is that it was developed by Sega Technical Institute, who would eventually work on Sonic 2, Sonic 3, Comix Zone, and The Ooze.

RunSaber is another SNES gem too.

[Ziggy]

Tuesday, July 22, 2014 - Run Saber

The game looks fun. Honestly, the fact that I might be able to playthrough it in under an hour increases the chances that I'll give it a try. Like most people, I have too many games in my backlog. Getting a new game to play that isn't very long is always welcomed.

[ninjainspandex]

I'll play this on my SD2SNES, it seems a bit short to pay $40 for. I do wish I had bought it a few years back when it was dirt cheap, there are alot of things I wish a bought a few years ago...

[Ziggy]

I usually stay far away from licensed games like that so no, never played it. I will now though, thanks

Also, I have a theory of why it might stay a hidden gem. Or at least, stay at a lower price point. Usually, when it comes to SNES games lately, once the cat is out of the bag the price shoots up. Hook has a few things going on though, and that might help keep the SNES version in the shadows.

Firstly, there's multiple games called "Hook". The ones on the NES and GameBoy are completely different games (from each other as well as the other Hooks). They're also not great games. The one of the NES straight up sucks, from my limited play time with it. I had a friend that, when I offered to show him Hook on the SNES, wasn't interested because he hated the NES game. I had to explain to him that it's two totally different games. So maybe some people think the same way?

I think the bigger deal though is the Sega CD port of it. It has CD audio, and actual tracks from the movie, for every level. It has FMV in between stages at whatnot, which are actually ripped straight from the movie. It has real voice acting. So, why would you get the SNES or Genesis version of the game? The Sega CD version is clearly the better version. Absolutely wrong. While that sounds good on paper, it's executed poorly (to put it lightly).

Yes, it is cool that it has the movie soundtrack with CD quality. But the truth is, the game was made for the SNES. They took out the music for all the stages and inserted the tracks from the movie soundtrack. But it doesn't seem like they put a lot of time into it. The songs don't really fit the stages well (they weren't written for them after all) and there's some really quiet and boring parts in some tracks. Also, the loops are pretty poor from what I remember. You can clearly hear the end of the track, then it just start up again. The music in the SNES version is what's suppose to be there. The SNES version does have some songs from the movie, albeit the SNES sound chip and not a CD, but sound great . The original music in the game is actually quite good. If you play through it, I'm sure a track or two will get stuck in your head.

The FMV scenes we can all really do without. I'm sure they just wanted to beef up the Sega CD version and say, "LOOK AT WHAT WE CAN DO WITH A CD!" They're a few seconds long each, and just awful quality.

The voice acting is just flat out terrible. I can't even put into words. The game was perfectly fine without voice overs. But if you're gonna put it in there, for God sakes, hire some decent actors. If I told you that they didn't have a budget and could only afford to hire one actor, or one of the tech dudes did all the voices, and then you heard them, you'd believe me. Tink definitely sounds like a man doing a female voice. And the acting is just baaaaaaaaad. It's good for a laugh though.

These days, a lot of people will compare ports of a game and pick the one they think is best. The Sega CD version sounds great, so maybe some people go straight to that. If you never played any version of the game, you wouldn't realize that the music doesn't really fit the stages.

As for the Genesis version... Well, the game was made on the SNES then ported to the Genesis. I guess they either didn't spend the time to properly optimize the game for the Genesis hardware, or couldn't, or whatever, but it's just an inferior version of the game. The colors and sound are just noticeably lower quality. But it seems like this happened more often than not when a game was ported to the Genesis from the SNES or vice versa.

[Gunstar Green]

If anything is going to keep Hook's price down it's the license.

People will look at something like Skyblazer and go, "Wow that's cool and original and a SNES exclusive," and they get interested in it.

They look at something like Hook and go, "That game is... based on Hook."

For the dedicated collectors and genre fans that doesn't matter a lot, but it doesn't translate into the kind of demand needed to drive up the value (though a quick eBay check shows that some people are certainly trying).

Also like Skyblazer it's a very nice looking game that's good, but not great, and coupled with the license more people will choose to pass on Hook than they will on its brother.

It's also kind of common so it's not like it's hard to get your hands on a copy. It's not too unlikely to see it in the wild mixed in with a handful of sports games and other licensed games.

[ZeroAX]

namely Gunstar Heroes and Kid Chameleon.

ahem

[SNESdrunk]

Tuesday, July 29, 2014 - Kirby's Dream Course

[Ziggy]

Wow. I have to admit, like you, I had NO idea what that game was about.

I might check it out on a flash cart, but it doesn't seem like something that would hold my interests.

Interesting quote about the game from Wikipedia: "In the beginning, the game was not going to be a Kirby title. Rather, it was intended to be a miniature golf game entitled Special Tee Shot, which eventually released in Japan only on the Satellaview add-on. It was only midway through development that the developers retooled it with elements from the Kirby series. The development team comprised a mix of staff from HAL Laboratory and Nintendo EAD. The game was featured on some Super Nintendo packaging featuring a Special Tee Shot logo."