January:February:March:April:May:June:July:August:September:75) The Mafat Conspiracy (NES) (5.0) (9/1) (~1.5 hours)76) Snake's Revenge (NES) (8.0) (9/4) (~4 hours)77) Ys: Memories of Celceta (VITA) (7.5) (9/4) (~25 hours?)78) Skate or Die 2: The Search for Double Trouble (NES) (5.0) (9/7) (~2 hours)79) 1943: The Battle for Midway (NES) (7.0) (9/9) (~2.5 hours)80) Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom (ARC/360) (5.0) (9/9) (~1 hour)81) Arkista's Ring (NES) (6.0) (9/9) (~1 hour)82) Bad Dudes (NES) (4.0) (9/9) (~45 minutes)83) G.I. Joe: The Atlantis Factor (NES) (7.0) (9/10) (~2 hours)84) Target: Renegade (NES) (2.0) (9/10) (~1 hour)85) Gyruss (NES) (8.5) (9/11) (~1 hour)86) Renegade (NES) (3.5) (9/12) (~30 minutes)87) Metroid: Samus Returns (3DS) (9.0) (9/18) (11h35m) (16h total time)88) Rambo (NES) (4.5) (9/19) (~3 hours)89) Return of Double Dragon (SFC) (8.0) (9/20) (~1 hour)90) Wizards & Warriors (NES) (6.5) (9/21) (~1.5 hours)91) Wizards & Warriors III - Kuros: Visions of Power (NES) (6.5) (9/23) (~4 hours)92) Wolverine (NES) (3.0) (9/23) (~1 hour)93) The Jetsons: Cogswell's Caper (NES) (6.0) (9/23) (~1 hour)94) Ironsword: Wizards & Warriors II (NES) (6.5) (9/24) (~2 hours)95) The Flintstones: The Rescue of Dino and Hoppy (NES) (6.0) (~1 hour)So, to take a break from all the wizards, warriors, and whatnot, I played through
The Jetsons on NES. It was one of the rare-ish titles from Taito, but not so rare that it was out-of-sight expensive. Well, not so much anymore, it's apparently into the triple digits now.
(I found a copy several years back in the local pawn shop for pretty cheap.)
If I had to describe the game, I'd say it's a
Rescue Rangers clone, but without as much technical know-how involved. The game feels like it moves at half the normal frame rate, and controls aren't always as responsive as one would like. You get power-ups you can use along the way, fueled by "power pills". These are pretty neat, sometimes being very useful. The annoying bit, though, is that every time you use one, it then resets your selection to nothing. This can really get you if you're depending on, say, the magnetic boots in a fight and you forget to swap
every time.
There are times where the game is spiteful as well. It doesn't feel particularly well-balanced, and is a lot tougher than you'd expect from a licensed cartoon game. It's not a terrible game, but it doesn't do much to bring itself above average.
As for our buddy Fabio, well, he stars as Kuros in
Ironsword. It was pretty much what I remembered, actually; a little more ambitious than the first game, but balanced terribly. It has some of the same cheapness involved, but this time the game sees fit to limit your continues. You can use passwords, which I suppose can serve the same as save states. That's probably the best way to slide through; you can either save-scum the mess out of it, or write down passwords for your best runs through the game and on acquisition of major items. The former just shortens that curve a bit.
The presentation is pretty much how I remembered it, too. The game has a lot more nice little touches in the graphics. It clocks in as the most cohesive and compelling entry visually (despite some very strange enemies at times), and the soundtrack is decent enough as well. The first game is better in that regard, though.
Really, it strikes me that after a good bit of deliberation, I think all three
W&W games are about the same level of quality, but for completely different reasons. They're above average jaunts that can be fun for an afternoon, but not something that will ever be mistaken as one of the absolute classics.
EDIT:
Flintstones is just a'ight. Kinda like
The Jetsons. The programming feels a little better here, though. Annoying music most of the time, very repetitive stuff. The ledge-climbing mechanic is neat once you get it down; it reminds me a bit of
Aladdin on SNES. That game is waaaay better than this, though.
Also, compared to its sequel, the game is ridiculously cheap.