Games Beaten:
First 30:
31. Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
3DS32. Splatoon 2
Switch33. Shantae & The Pirates Curse
3DS eShop34. Devil May Cry
PSN35. Team Kirby Clash Deluxe
3DS eShop36. Blaster Master
Wii U VC37. Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes
GC38. Wario Blast! featuring Bomberman
Game Boy39. Astro Boy: Omega Factor
GBA40. Daiku No Gen-San: Ghost Building Company
Game Boy41. Kirby: Planet Robobot
3DS42. Noobow
Game Boy43. Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3
Game Boy44. Mario Golf
N6445. Akumajo Special: Boku Dracula-Kun
Game Boy46. Rockman World 5
Game Boy47. Hamtaro: Ham-Hams Unite!
GBC48. Sonic Mania Switch eShop *NEW*
49. Marvelous: Mōhitotsu no Takarajima SFC *NEW*
50. Super Mario Odyssey Switch *NEW*
51. Gauntlet IV Mega Drive *NEW* Replays!:
1. Bare Knuckle III
Mega Drive2. Die Hard Arcade
Saturn3. The World of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck
Mega Drive4. Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble
3DS VC 5. Trip World
3DS VCSo, people should expect a LOT of posts from me over the next few weeks. People might know that I'm quite bad for getting behind on posting reviews of games I beat, but last week I was off work and also beat about 20 games, so I have a LOT I need to cover - 27 games in all. This post is 50% modern, but some of you people who complain about the lack of retro titles being listed are going to enjoy some of the stuff I write about I think!
Sonic Mania
At this point, everyone’s written something about this game, and as usual my review is late to the party, but here you go, you get to enjoy me telling you why it’s great too.
I’m a big fan of the classic Sonic the Hedgehog games. My first ever game was Sonic the Hedgehog for the Master System, and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for the Mega Drive was one of my most played games growing up – it was a defining game for me. I liked the first Sonic a lot too, and Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles, whilst making changes I was less fond of, are still solid games. Over the years, 2D Sonic games have generally remained decent – Sonic Advance and Sonic Rush are pretty fun, but they never captured the magic of the classics.
Well, obviously, Sonic Mania does. The physics feel perfect, the level designs veer to the fun Sonic 2 end of the spectrum and don’t tend to punish you too much for going fast, unlike later entries. The graphics are gorgeous and the music is great and the game is awesome. I love Sonic Mania.
I had my issues with the game – not all levels are created equally – I’d have liked to see more new stages, as some of those (Studiopolis and Mirage Saloon) are some of the most exciting in the game, and a few of the stage gimmicks were not to my taste (Titanic Monarch was confusing). Blue sphere gets tedious, especially when it gets played so often, and I don’t like the big ring bonus stage mechanic from Sonic 3 making a return – it encourages slow and tedious exploration at the same time that the level designs encourage the opposite.
But nitpicks aside, Sonic Mania is the best Sonic game since Sonic 2. It might even be the best Sonic game in general, time will tell. Go out and buy it now if you haven’t already.
Marvelous: Mōhitotsu no Takarajima (AKA Marvelous: Another Treasure Island)
Marvelous: Another Treasure Island is a Super Famicom title created on the Link to the Past engine and directed by Eiji Aonuma, the man who would go on to direct later entries in the Zelda series. Other than that footnote in Zelda history, the game seems largely forgotten, which seems unfair – this is a game full of charm, wit and whimsy, and is one which is absolutely worth a play… if you can stomach it’s flaws.
Marvelous tells the story of a class on a camping trip. You play as one group of boys on the trip, the small and sprightly Dion, the tall and clever Jack, and the fat and strong Max. At the start of the game you’re tasked with finding firewood for the camp, and during this introduction you’re taught the mechanics that make up the game. Despite the Zelda influence, Marvelous isn’t an action adventure game in the same game – it’s much more puzzle focused, and combat is incredibly minimal. At any time you can press A to bring up a cursor on screen and use it to look at objects. This generally brings up a zoomed in view of the object, from which you can examine the environment around it, interact with it by using items you’ve previously found, or interact with it as a team using the Teamwork command – this is generally used for moving large objects with all 3 boys, or looking through windows by standing on each others shoulders.
In addition to working as a team, the boys can split up (to look for clues!). Each boy has a variety of items exclusive to them which require them to solve certain puzzles using their unique skills. For example, Dion gets the ability to run, use a hammer or attack by throwing a baseball, whereas Jack can control robots, jump and fish with a rod, and Max can kick or drill holes. Many puzzles require you to alternate between the characters to solve them.
Shortly into the game, your teacher is kidnapped by pirates, and you go on a quest accompanied by a monkey in order to save her by finding all the secret magic pirate orbs. It’s a bit contrived, but it’s a set up to explain why you visit four unique islands with interesting and fun plotlines. In one island you’ll be time travelling with a penguin to find out why the cowboy pirate town has no water, in another you’ll be investigating strange monster plants and matchmaking gorillas, and in another you’ll be shrunk down to ant size and jailed for lying about being giants. It’s all super charming, quirky and fun.
However, the game has some flaws, and they’re mainly down to it’s clunky interface. Interacting wqith objects is slow and finicky, and sometimes you’ll need to stop interacting and reposition yourself to be able to interact properly. Switching characters is tedious because doing so seperates the team too, meaning you have to change character, then recall the other two to keep the party together – this despite the fact that some buttons (start and X) do the same thing as one another and could have been the split up/separate buttons instead. The game is slow paced to progress, which can sometimes be at odds with it’s interesting and bite-sized feeling chapters. One other issue to note is that there’s an extended button mashing section in chapter 3 which I could just not beat. I’m normally pretty good and button mashing but this was too much – I turned on rapid fire on the retron 5 to beat it and I don’t regret it either.
Obviously, Marvelous was a Japan only release, so I played with a translation patch. The patch that’s out there is pretty good, with funny dialogue and clear instructions given. I noticed a few things which didn’t feel very ‘nintendo’ but it’s nothing egregious.
Marvelous is a great little title which is inventive and clever, but it feels like it needs some refinement in it’s controls. With those changes the pace would be brisker and the game would feel less tedious at times. However, space it out a bit and you’ll find a charming and fun game here with a lot to love. It’s more than just a Zelda sidenote. Give it a play.
Super Mario Odyssey:
Super Mario Odyssey. It’s Good.
Oh, OK, I guess I should write a bit more about Mario Odyssey than that, but I’ve not got a lot to add that hasn’t been spoken about by everyone else here who has reviewed it already. They all beat me to the punch despite me beating the game before all of them!
But hey, there’s a starting point – I did beat the game quickly – sure, I received it a day before release, but I was away for the weekend visiting family and it still sunk it’s hooks into me. Any chance I got, I’d sneak in a bit more Mario time. It’s compelling.
And the game works so well for it – Mario Odyssey is the perfect pick-up-and-play experience. You can play for 20 minutes and accomplish plenty, but it definitely supports a lengthy play session for hours on end too. Moons are everywhere, and whilst some may think it cheapens them, in reality it just encourages to explore the world like never before in a Mario game. Everywhere is a point of interest, and everywhere is worth a visit to see what there is to see.
And getting there is such a joy. Mario controls perfectly, the sheer act of getting from A to B is delightful. You can roll down hills then leap to your feet, arms stretch wide. You can bounce up walls and triple jump over the roof tops, before flinging your har out in front of you and diving onto it for more distance. You can stomp an enemy flat with a ground pound and then leap out out of it, high into the air, bringing your halted momentum back into play and advancing onto the next target. And that’s assuming you even travel around as Mario, and not one of the dozens of possessable enemies you can capture who change the way the game is played.
As the music bounces along it’s jazzy way, you’ll be entranced by the levels which all just feel charming. Sure, many of them are the generic Mario fare, a sand level here, an ice level here, etc, but they all feel so magical and so vibrant and so full of life. And then there’s the odd outliers – the realistic city, the gothic tower, that feel so un-mario but somehow just work because the game is about finding new things and hey look, Mario’s found something new.
If you can’t tell, I adore Mario Odyssey. It’s the best Mario game in recent years, and to be honest, probably my favourite Mario game ever. I had a smile on my face every minute I played the game, and I have a smile on my face just writing up my thoughts on it.
Super Mario Odyssey. It’s Good.
Gauntlet IVSo, here’s a blast from the semi-distant past. Some of you may know that Gauntlet was one of this year’s Together Retro titles, from way back in March. Would you believe that’s when I started playing this one? Well, I finally finished it up all these months later.
Gauntlet 4 is a Mega Drive port of the original arcade Gauntlet, at least as far as I can tell. I think it’s called Gauntlet 4 because it’s the first home console version to allow 4 player via a multi-tap or something, because it doesn’t seem to be a sequel. The main arcade mode is here, as cheap as ever. Take control of one of 4 characters and blast your way through a dungeon, battling hordes of enemies whilst your health bar constantly decreases in a completely unfair manner. Frankly, Gauntlet the arcade game is a bit shit. It’s just too hard and too short lived to be fun, especially with limited credits like you’re given here.
So why did I persist at this game long enough to beat it? Because I was playing the other game mode. The new Quest mode works like Gauntlet if Gauntlet were an Action RPG rather than an arcade game, and it’s way better for it. You again pick one of the 4 character classes to explore the infamous castle where the secret to eternal youth is said to lie. To get into the castle you must break the seal in 4 towers by beating the dragons that reside there. Each tower has 10 floors of traditional Gauntlet gameplay, but it’s much more fair.
In Quest mode, enemies do less damage from the start, and upon defeating them they grant experience which you can invest into one of your 7 stats – Direct attack power, defence, magic power, long-range power, long-range shot speed, movement speed and HP. You can also find money to buy better equipment which also raises your stats, as well as being rewarded with stat boost upon defeating each dragon. Artifacts can be found or bought too, with the most key one of these being the Healing ring – which stops the constant health drain that Gauntlet is known for when equipped.
Me and my girlfriend played through the entire game in co-op, and had a good time overall. I played as the fearsome Valkyrie and my girlfriend chose the sage Wizard. By the end of the game our characters were fearsome powerhouses, though the Dragon bosses of each area still proved challenging. We enjoyed our quest uncovering secrets and listening to the games
awesome music, but our pace slowed greatly towards the end as dungeons became overly complicated to trawl through, with maze like layouts that required us to clear out the same floors over and over again. As the tedium increased, it became harder and harder to convince my Wizard colleague to continue on in our quest. It took months, but we finally pushed through and conquered the last dungeon.
Gauntlet 4 in quest mode is an interesting and fun iteration of the game, that’s a big improvement on the classic Gauntlet. Playing through with 2 or more is a fun way to pass some time, but it’s quite a time commitment, and it can get tedious later on. If you can find some tower conquering buddies though, you’ll have a good time with Gauntlet 4.
