REPO Man wrote:Steamworld Dig for 3DS. Got it on sale and it was a pretty great game (which I also own for PC), but...
WHY IS IT SO FUCKING SHORT?
It wasn't even worth the better part of five dollars I spent on it, much less the $10 it usually goes for.
How fast did you finish? I think it took me around five hours or so. I thought that was more than fair.
Seriously. It took me a little over seven hours to "complete" the game (i.e., mine every rock and obtain every upgrade). Moreover, the mines are randomly generated, and I am certain that I could try to obtain a better "rank" on a subsequent playthrough.
I thought that the game provided plenty of value...and I paid nearly $8 for it!
Funny that more people than me felt the same after reading this. I played quite a bit of Steamworld and haven't finished it yet. Already felt like I got my money's worth!
Let strength be granted, so the world might be mended...so the world might be mended.
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) 42. Final Fantasy Adventure (Game Boy) 43. Gorf (Atari 2600) 44. Richard Scarry's Huckle and Lowly's Busiest Day Ever (Pico) 45. Mickey's Blast Into the Past (Pico) 46. Secret of Mana (SNES) 47. Psycho Soldier (PSP - SNK Arcade Classics 0) 48. Genshi-Tou 1930's (PSP - SNK Arcade Classics 0) 49. Datsugoku: Prisoners of War (PSP - SNK Arcade Classics 0) 50. SAR: Search and Rescue (PSP - SNK Arcade Classics 0)
51. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES) 52. Tic-Tac-Toe / Shooting Gallery / Doodle / Quadra-Doodle (Channel F) 53. Robot War / Torpedo Alley (Channel F) 54. Pinball Challenge (Channel F) 55. Elevator Action (Xbox - Taito Legends) 56. Elevator Action II (PlayStation 2 - Taito Legends 2) 57. Altered Beast (Xbox 360 - Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection) 58. Congo Bongo (Xbox 360 - Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection) 59. International Soccer (Commodore 64) 60. Out of this World! / Helicopter Rescue! (Odyssey²) 61. Alien Invaders - Plus! (Odyssey²) 62. Ice Hockey (Atari 2600) 63. River Raid (Atari 2600) 64. Frankenstein's Monster (Atari 2600) 65. Ys II (Famicom) 66. Ys III: Wanderers from Ys (Turbo CD) 67. Gremlins (Atari 2600) 68. Frogs and Flies (Atari 2600) 69. Ice Climber (NES)
1985...
Ice Climber
Movin' into the 8-bit era! Ice Climber says 1984 on the title screen, but I believe this is simply the date it was developed and copyrighted. The Internet informs me that it was actually released in 1985, both in the US and Japan. It's one of those "black label" NES (not Famicom) launch titles. Just to be pedantic I made sure I played the (original) 5-screw version.
Ice Climber is unacceptable. On paper, this is a game I should eat up with a fork and spoon. It's a pre-Super Mario Bros. platformer with a whopping 32 distinct levels and vertical scrolling; essentially a more "modern" take on the Donkey Kong and Popeye formula. And, to be fair, there are aspects of the game I do enjoy. The graphics and music are nice and conceptually the game is sound. The goal here is to simply reach the top of each stage. Player 1 takes the role of Popo (haha) who is armed with a mallet. Pathways need to be carved into the ice above to advance. All the while, there's a race against the clock as yetis (seals in the Famicom original) will quickly fill in ice that's been removed. In an interesting strategic twist, it's sometimes beneficial to allow them to fill in the gaps you've passed as they remove the potential to fall back down to an earlier part of the stage (or to your doom). There's also a bear that will appear after an allotted amount of time has elapsed; he has the power to forcibly scroll the screen up which generally results in a loss of life. Finally there's the ever-respawning bird who won't hesitate to divebomb Popo at a moment's notice. It makes for some frantic and challenging gameplay.
And unfortunately the whole thing is spoiled by some absolutely mutilated sub-Atari controls. For starters, the game is slippery as hell. Yeah, I get it, this is Ice Climber not Gravel Climber. But they overdid things here. Poor Popo gets tossed all over the place. And the slipperiest surface is green - what is this, moss-encrusted ice? Hit detection with the mallet is odd too. Pummeling the yetis is no big deal but connecting with the bird is something of a crapshoot. There's no real animation given to the jump/attack so it's difficult to line up shots correctly. But this is all petty poop compared to the game's real issue: the jumping. The jumping controls are terrible. Popo can either jump straight up or in very stiff arcs to the left and right. Dealing with the platforms is a challenge as it's easy to either fall through or jump through the edges. See, the pixels at the edges of each platform seem to count as dead space, so when trying to jump onto one you must actually aim Popo so that his head travels through the first few pixels. Combine this with the slipperiness, enemy bombardments, and occasional moving cloud platforms and you're left with a mess of a game that's hard for all the wrong reasons.
The saving grace here is the game's extremely generous life and continue system. Upon the loss of a life Popo respawns right where he left off; the level does not start over. Additionally, upon Game Over you are transported back to the title screen where you'll see a level select option below the one and two player selections. You can begin anew at whatever level you left off at - similar to an old Namco arcade game - and additionally you can actually chose any level at any time. So yes, you can theoretically start at level 32 and have the whole thing "beaten" in two minutes. Not that there's any semblance of an ending, you're just shot back to level 1.
I can't really hate on this too much. It's old and quirky and kind of cool from a historical perspective, being a launch title and all. I guess some people liked the game, as it received many ports. Hey look, it's on the GBA and e-Reader. A little excessive, no? Recommended for NES super-fans only. For the rest of us, there are much better black label games, and hell, better platformers released previously on second gen systems.
BoneSnapDeez wrote:Player 1 takes the role of Popo (haha)
MrPopo wrote:You think the jumping in Classicvanias is stiff.
Then you play Ice Climber.
What was it like being the star in that game?
Did you seriously clear all 32 levels? I've about had it around level 6/7 myself there.
It must have been an early '85 release then. Early NES releases were just Famicom cartridges with a special 72 pin converter inside. That's why you'll see games with 1984 (and 1983?) copyrights.
Xeogred wrote:The obvious answer is that it's time for the Dreamcast 2.
Pretty sure the 1984 copyright is due to the fact that it was originally released in January 1985 (in Japan).
Yes I completed all 32 levels. In order. Didn't do it all in one sitting though, I spread it across three play sessions.
The scariest thing is that I actually got kinda "good" at the game as I progressed. I adapted to the crappy controls and just coasted through the last 10 or so stages.
Oh I forgot to mention that the bonus areas are crap. Sometimes I would just dive off a cliff to skip them.
Sarge wrote:How fast did you finish? I think it took me around five hours or so. I thought that was more than fair.
Seriously. It took me a little over seven hours to "complete" the game (i.e., mine every rock and obtain every upgrade). Moreover, the mines are randomly generated, and I am certain that I could try to obtain a better "rank" on a subsequent playthrough.
I thought that the game provided plenty of value...and I paid nearly $8 for it!
Funny that more people than me felt the same after reading this. I played quite a bit of Steamworld and haven't finished it yet. Already felt like I got my money's worth!
I felt as though there could have been more to do in the game, aside from mine shit, trade shit for cash, use cash to buy shit, repeat. There's only one real boss in the game, and to beat him you pickaxe a handful of generators and then repeat on it.
And it took me about 4-7 hours to beat. But I missed out on one of the upgrades and skipped one of the challenge caves.
But with no other difficulty levels, unlockables, and so forth it'd be worth it more if it was a rental.
Also, recently powered through Mighty Gunvolt for 3DS, having beat the game once with each of the three characters. Gonna get the DLC levels when I get paid and beat those.
