Games beaten 2020:
1. Ys: The Oath in Felghana PSN
Vita2. Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age
Switch3. Super Mario Party
Switch4. Moss
PSVR5. Paper Mario: Colour Splash
Wii U6. The Firemen
SNES7. Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon
SFC8. Kuukiyomi: Consider It!
Switch eShop9. Valkyria Chronicles
Switch eShop10. Illusion of Time
SNES11. Trials of Mana
Switch12. Undertale
Vita13. Rastan
SMS14. Rainbow Islands
SMS 15. River City Girls
Switch16. Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Switch17. Streets of Rage 4
Switch eShop18. Dragon Warrior IV
NES19. Super Tennis SNES *NEW*
20. Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse Switch eShop *NEW*
21. Pilotwings Switch eShop *NEW*
22. Castlevania: The Adventure Switch eShop *NEW* Super Tennis
Super Tennis was the first game I played for this year’s Summer Games Challenge. Super Tennis is a one of the first games released for Super Nintendo in Europe, and was also one of the first games I owned for the system as a kid. My console was a 2nd hand one that my mum bought from a work colleague for me in the mid-late 90s, probably after the PS1 was already a thing, so it was probably someone clearing out old hardware for the newest machine. Anyway, my system came with a selection of games, most of which didn’t really gel with a 7 year old me who already enjoyed games like Sonic 2, Streets of Rage and Bomberman on my Mega Drive. I had Street Fighter 2 (this was OK), Prince of Persia and Flashback (I didn’t understand these ones and didn’t like them), Pit Fighter (even 7 year old me knew this was crap), Starwing (this one I liked) and Super Tennis.

Of the games, Super Tennis sat thoroughly in the OK camp. I’d play it fairly rarely, as I had enough games I enjoyed more to not need to play this much – but my cousins liked it, and I liked playing games with my cousins, so it got some time in the SNES. Anyway, fast forward almost 25 years, and Super Tennis remains one of the handful of games I owned before I really started getting into retro game collecting which I hadn’t beaten (alongside Wing Commander III on 3DO and Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life for Gamecube). So this summer I made a vow to beat it.

Super Tennis is a simple game on the surface – you can play tennis in singles or doubles play, or take on circuit mode – 8 back to back tournaments where you can earn points and attempt to be the best ranked player at the end. There are 30 or so playable characters, split evenly between male and female, each with different stats – although without the manual you’ll struggle to know what those are. Tennis play is simple, with each of the 4 face buttons doing a different shot. A is a slow shot, B is quick, Y is a high lob that can be used to force people back from the net (but often sets them up for a powerful counterplay) and X is a topspin shot which can be used to hit wider angles. A and B are context sensitive, with different strength near or far from the net, whilst X and Y stay the same wherever. L and R add clockwise and counterclockwise spin to the ball respectively, depending on which half of the court you’re on.The controls offer quite a variety of options for each play, and there are some other actions that can be done too, such as slam shots when the ball is just overhead, or dives for the ball if it’s just out of range.

Early progress in circuit mode wasn’t very successful, with the computer responding too well to every hit – some characters are very hard to beat. After a while I started to figure out shots which the AI struggled to handle though – highly curved serves which they couldn’t reach granted me lots of points from service aces, and using topspin (X) as my primary button during rallies proved harder for the computer to respond to than A or B. Eventually the game veered the other way and became a bit too easy overall, besides Kim, who was an absolute demon who all my usual tricks failed to work against due to her speed.

Anyway, I’m glad to say I finished up Circuit mode, having played 4 of the 8 tournaments (if you play 2 in a row you get tired and move slower, so it’s harder if you play them all), and placing first (ahead of Kim, screw you Kim!). It was during the ending credits, which show characters stats, that I realised I had chosen one of the worst characters!
Super Tennis is entirely OK. It’s nothing super special, and it’s not a must play, but it does have a lot of charm and it feels like some real effort was put in here. Music is sparse (only sound effects during tennis gameplay) but what’s there is super catchy (take a listen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw5Ujk6Kz68&list=PL-vD6rIjXrcKf-OgnNOT9v2M2VcMLMjCu&index=2&t=0s), and the graphics are colourful and pleasant, especially for an early title for the system. If you can tolerate old sports games, I think this is worth a go.
Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse
Castlevania III was the second game I beat for my Summer Challenge, and I (mostly) played the Japanese version of the game. If you aren’t aware, not only were there various difficulty changes in the US version that make the game harder and less well balanced, but, more importantly, you also get inferior versions of the music as the Famicom cartridge game with a special soundchip that boosted the quality of the audio beyond what a standard NES game was capable of.

I’ve played a few of the Classic castlevania titles – I’ve worked through Rondo of Blood, Castlevania 1, Castlevania IV, Bloodlines and Rebirth over the years, and I’ve generally enjoyed them all. I knew going in that Castlevania III is well though of, but I was interested to see how it compares.

First of all, it feels like a much better balanced game than 1. I enjoyed my time there, but it definitely through a few too many cheap moments at you too early on, before you had a chance to settle in to the game properly. 3 is much friendlier in this regard (at least, in the Japanese version) – and I personally though was perhaps a little too much on the easy side. I actually ended up playing 3 of the levels from the US version because I loaded up the wrong regional version of the rom by accident when continuing after stopping for the night, and I can’t say I noticed much difference there either – despite me playing through some of the later stages this way.

Despite this though. Castlevania 3 has a lot of fun setpieces. I enjoyed getting to choose my route through the game, and it was interesting to be able to get another character to play as. I chose to go with Grant as my buddy, and his wall climbing was handy in a few locations. Overall though, I mostly stuck with Trevor, whose whip was far more useful than Grant’s daggers – even if he throws them in the Japanese version instead of stabbing with them. This is actually how I figured out my error with loading the wrong language version though – it took 3 levels before I actually decided to attack as Grant and noticed my mistake!

I’m not sure what else to say about Castlevania III to be honest. It’s a good game, and it’s more Castlevania. I enjoyed my time playing through it, and I’d happily play through again to try some alternate routes and one of the other partner characters. It’s not my top choice in the series (Rondo > Super > Bloodlines > Rebirth > III > 1) but I’ve enjoyed all the classic castlevanias I’ve played, so it’s still a solid recommendation from me.
Pilotwings
Aaaaand continuing the trend, here we have the third game I played for the Summer Challenge this year, and like Super Tennis, it’s another very early SNES title. Pilotwings is an arcadey flight sim game, where you’re tasked with completing various missions in a variety of aircraft to earn points. Each stage requires a minimum points threshold to be met in the vehicles on offer in order to earn your license and move onto the next stage.

There are 5 types of aircraft/aerial challenge in Pilotwings. The first is the standard biplane, whose challenges generally involve taking off and flying through a set of rings around the course, before landing successfully. Landings make up a large proportion of the scoring, and here they’re scored on your speed, accuracy (which I think measures whether you bounced and if you were level when you landed?) and angle (were you parallel with the airstrip, or angled awkwardly). Speed and rings make up the rest of the score generally.

Second is skydiving, which normally involves falling through a series of rings during your descent, before opening your parachute and landing in a target area. The target area normally comprises several portions worth different points, so landing in a high point area is the majority of the score here. Mastering landings is essential.

Third is the rocketbelt, which was my favourite. This is essentially a jetpack that allows you to fly freely around an area. Tasks generally involved flying to specific points and accurately hitting marks in any order, before returning to the landing area and making a landing. Landings are scored on impact (don’t fall too fast!) and the score associated with the area.

4th is the hang glider, which generally starts with you in the air. You can’t ascend manually with this craft, so you use air currents to gain height when needed. Tasks here feel like a blend between the plane and parachute, as you must fly through rings or ascend to a certain height before successfully landing on the target. We’ll cover the 5th vehicle shortly.

Pilotwings is a short game, but I feel it is quite a flawed one. Whilst the mode 7 graphics are cool, they can be an issue to precisely navigate a ‘3d’ space with, which is obviously the name of the game here. That’s not my main issue though. One bigger one is that points requirements, especially later on, are very tight – often requiring an average of 80 points per challenge (which is difficult to get) in order to pass. In addition, you only get one attempt on each challenge per stage, so if you ace the rocketbelt and plane missions, then screw up your landing with the hangglider, prepare to play all 3 again from scratch. Again, and again, and again. The game is lacking in content overall, and I feel they have compensated with high difficulty.

There’s also the issue that, for a game ostensibly about flying, there’s very little to be earned through flying itself. Navigating rings at speed normally only offers a small proportion of points for the stage – whereas the landing typically makes up 70 % of the points for the stage. Acing a perfect freefall in skydiving stages only to miss the 70 point landing area by a few pixels, earning only 30/70 points for landing sucks, especially when it often means replaying all the other levels again. Extra points can be earned via bonus stages – but guess how these are earned? By landing on special landing areas which are even harder to hit. This game isn’t about flying, it’s about making it back to the ground.
Anyway, after qualifying through 4 stages, your flight instructors are kidnapped by an evil organisation all of a certain (it comes out of nowhere, believe me) and you are tasked with piloting an attack helicopter to the enemy base, shooting down sentry turrets along the way, then landing to rescue them. This is a trial by fire because the game has never given you access to a helicopter before, so you have to learn to fly it mid-mission. It’s also pretty tough as the turrets are accurate, and one hit spells death. Complete it, and you unlock expert mode, required for credits – 4 more rounds of even harder challenges and then another assault on the enemy base in the helicopter await.

I persevered with Pilotwings long enough to beat it, but I have to say, I didn’t really enjoy my time with the game. The points are focus on the least fun aspects of playing the game, and the monotony of trying missions over and over until you luck out with the parachute and hangglider targets really sucks. Both sequels to this game are better, and if you’re going to play a game in the series, try one of those (they’re only OK though). Not one I’d recommend sadly.
Castlevania: The AdventureAnd now for a c-c-c-c-combo breaker. Castlevania The Adventure is the first Castlevania game for the Game Boy, and it was NOT one of my summer games for the year. I figured that whilst I was playing through Castlevania III on the switch collection, I might as well spend some time to finish up another game on the collection too. I deliberately chose one of the less well regarded games I still needed to play (I didn’t want to be left with only the bad ones at the end!), and yeah….I’m kind of inclined to agree with popular opinion on this one.

Castlevania The Adventure deviates from the classic Castlevania formula a bit, and it’s not for the better. As before, the whip can be upgraded with special items to make it have more range and power, but now these powerups are lost if you are hit. Losing your power up really sucks, but the game doesn’t care and loves to place incredibly awkward enemies with hard to avoid projectiles in places you can’t really anticipate so that you do. Dodging them often feels impossible, in part due to the usual stiff castlevania physics, and in part because your character feels like he’s walking through water at all times. He is slow. So slow. I know the OG Game Boy had screen blur issues, but I feel this is maybe a bit of an overkill response to the issue.

Another thing thing castlevania game is really keen on is pixel perfect jumps. We’re talking Mega Man style literally stand on 2 pixels of your characters back foot before jumping levels of perfection required, and the game just doesn’t feel set up for it. Best get practicing the jump though, because the game also loves trolly sections where you jump from one 3 pixel wide platform to the next for the length of about 4 screens. Gameplay!

Luckily, the game is blissfully short at only 4 stages long, although be prepared to ‘enjoy’ the stages over and over again whilst you learn them. Bosses are generally fairly easy, besides Drac who gave me a few issues. I wouldn’t say this game is awful by any means, but it is painfully mediocre – and in a series with games of the quality of the ones I discussed earlier in my Castlevania III review, that’s not good enough. You can ignore this one.