racketboy.com

(I beat the SNES version, but the SFC version's cover is so much better.)

125. Batman Returns | SNES | 1993 | 7/10



Batman Returns is a SNES beat 'em up, developed and published by Konami in 1993. It is a licensed game based on the 1992 film of the same name. (I chose to play Batman Returns at this point in time, because it takes place during Christmas and has related thematic elements.) Konami was no stranger to making beat 'em ups in the early 90s, and their genre expertise rings true here. Batman Returns controls well, runs smoothly, and provides plenty of tactile combat action. Its graphics match the same tonal feel of the film perfectly, as does the moody OST. The OST sincerely mimics the film's own OST, to the point of sounding more like a CD playing than typical SNES stuff. Cutscenes follow the plot of the film verbatim, making the player feel as if they are reliving the same events. There are digitized stills from the film incorporated into the plot exposition, making for convincing story telling. So from a presentation and tie-in perspective, Batman Returns does a great job. If someone had rented Batman Returns on VHS, and then rented this SNES game in tandem to play afterward, that would have made for a good bit of fun on some December night in 1993. But notice I said "rented" and not "bought".



The thing is, Batman Return's gameplay is a tad too shallow for keepers. For one thing, you can only play single player, no two player love here. Batman Returns takes less than an hour to beat, as well. It's fairly short. But it doesn't feel like an hour. Because while it's true that most beat 'em ups get repetitive over time, Batman Returns does so alarmingly quickly. Batman only has a few different attacks (grab and slams are the best), and barely gets to use any of his elaborate gear. This limited offensive set versus a small roster of constantly repeated baddies gets stale soon enough. Batman Returns does try to break up the monotony with some platforming and driving segments. But those ancillary segments feel half baked and tad sloppy, compared to the main course of beat 'em up action. If Batman Returns had incorporated more variety in its level design, a larger enemy roster to contend with, and a co-op mode, I would have scored the experience higher. Still, the atmosphere and tone really nail the "feel" of the film. That's impressive given the platform. So if you're a fan of the signature film, and enjoy SNES beat 'em ups, by all means strap on some skintight Kevlar and crush a few skulls.

First 50:

51. Gauntlet IV Mega Drive
52. Alex Kidd in Shinobi World Master System
53. Psycho Fox Master System
54. The Ninja Master System
55. R-Type Master System
56. Momotarō Katsugeki PC Engine
57. Overcooked: Special Edition Switch eShop
58. Parasol Stars PC Engine
59. Star Parodier PC Engine
60. Cadash PC Engine
61. Dead or Alive Ultimate Xbox
62. Dead or Alive Ultimate 2 Xbox
63. OutRun 2 Xbox
64. Pop'n Twinbee SNES
65. Wild Guns Reloaded PS4
66. Journey PS4
67. Rez Infinite PS4
68. Caladrius Blaze PS4
69. Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu NES
70. Blue Shadow NES
71. Kickle Cubicle NES
72. Baku Baku Saturn *NEW*
73. Clockwork Knight Saturn *NEW*
74. Bust-a-Move 2 Arcade Edition Saturn *NEW*

Replays!:
1. Bare Knuckle III Mega Drive
2. Die Hard Arcade Saturn
3. The World of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck Mega Drive
4. Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble 3DS VC
5. Trip World 3DS VC


2 to go and I'll finally have review every game I've beaten this year!

Baku Baku



Baku baku is a block matching puzzle game for the Sega Saturn. The plot goes that the princess of the kingdom is a spoilt brat who wants more pets, but the king despairs because she doesn’t look after the ones she’s got very well already. He has the idea to host a competition for the job of royal zookeeper, and this is where you step in, as either a boy or girl character. This is just cosmetic though, and makes no real difference.



In Baku Baku, blocks fall from the sky in pairs. These blocks will either contain animal heads (depending on difficulty there are Rabbits, Dogs, Monkeys, Pandas and Mice) or foods (carrots, bones, bananas, bamboo and cheese) or a combination of the two. You can rotate the falling blocks as they fall. When an animal block is dropped next to a food it eats (e.g. Panda & Bamboo) then it will jump out of the block and chomp that food, as well as any other matching food blocks it is connected to vertically or horizontally, potentially clearing out a large space. If 2 animals drop next to the same food simultaneously, they’ll both eat the food, clearing both animal blocks.



Baku Baku is a head-to-head puzzle game like many that were popular at the time – think Puyo Puyo and you’re on the right track. You’ll be competing to feed all the animals on your screen whilst on the opposite side your opponent will be doing the same. If you clear out a lot of food at once or combo a few matches in one drop, a whole bunch of food and animal blocks will drop on your opponent’s field. The nature of the game means that comboing back is likely, so the game has some decent back and forth. In addition, there is a rare magic block which will delete every one of a particular icon it lands on top of.



Obviously, the best idea here is to turn it horizontally so that it clears out 2 types of block instead of one. The losing players board gets chomped by the princess’s pet lion.
Baku Baku features 10 stages, and on normal at least the difficulty is fairly moderate – much easier than the Puyo Puyo games of the era for sure. Early levels are a bit of a breeze, but the last few stages of the game are quite challenging, and managing your opponent’s constant attacks can be tricky.



Graphically, I have to be honest, Baku Baku isn’t a looker. The character models are pretty ugly 3D and they animate with very few frames. The game also opens with an FMV sequence, but it barely looks better than Sega CD quality – it’s super blurry and windowed. The game also has that early Saturn look where everything looks a bit like a mid-90s website with poor quality images and whatnot in the menus – something other great games have been guilty of too, such as Guardian Heroes.

Baku Baku is a fun enough game for Saturn. It’s nothing mind-blowing but it’s fun and functional and sometimes that is enough. If you spot it for a reasonable price you could do far worse than picking up and playing Baku Baku.




Clockwork Knight



Clockwork Knight is a sidescrolling platformer for Sega Saturn which is clearly inspired by Toy Story. At night, all then toys of the house wake up and sing and dance and whatever. However, all goes wrong when some evil force kidnaps the beautiful princess toy and brainwashes a bunch of other toys to do his evil bidding. To save the day, our clockwork hero Pepperachau (something like that anyway) decides to blow up all of his former friends in his quest to retrieve the princess.



Clockwork Knight is a fairly simple platformer. Peppy can jump, hit enemies with his key, and ‘crank’ the key by tapping repeatedly to do extra damage or open locks. Double tapping the d-pad also lets him run, and you can pick up some objects and stunned enemies to throw them at each other to defeat them.



Clockwork knight also features some interesting level designs set around the house, with you jumping over kitchen worktops and shelves and the likes. One level is set on a toy train track too, which adds some variety. However, that’s where my praise ends, because I have a lot of issues with this title.



First off, Pep controls pretty poorly. The controls are responsive enough, but the jumps feel inaccurate and hard to judge, maybe due to Pep’s gangly form, and the movement is awkward. The walking speed is too slow for its own good, but the running speed is a bit too fast and makes jumps harder to control. Double tapping the d-pad to run is kinda sucky too, and I did it by accident a few too many times.



The game is also relatively short, with only about 10 levels to play though, one of which is a tedious maze stage, my vote for ‘worst level design in classic games ever’. The time not spent on making the levels possibly went into the graphics, but I really hate the art-style here too. The actual 3D backgrounds of the game look OK for early Saturn 3D, besides some very basic textures, but the pre-rendered character sprites are hideous. Ignoring that pre-rendered sprites have aged badly, they look far worse than similar sprites even on the SNES or Mega Drive. The whole thing seems a bit rushed. Thankfully, the soundtrack is jazzy and fun, besides the godawful intro theme to the game which was terribad.



It sounds like I’m being harsh on the game, and truth is I am, but I don’t think this game lives up to it’s reputation, which isn’t exactly a glowing recommendation to begin with. I could go easier on it for being a launch title, but frankly, there’s so many better platformers out there I’m struggling to see a reason to justify playing Clockwork Knight. Even as one of the cheaper popular Saturn games, it’s price is still way too high for what is a moderately enjoyable platform experience at best. Clockwork Knight is fine, but I don’t think it’s worth it really. I probably won’t be going back to often.





Bust-a-Move 2



Bust-a-Move 2 is an arcade puzzle game and a spin-off of the Bubble Bobble franchise. It’s also often known as Puzzle Bobble, why the name was changed is beyond me.



Bust-a-Move sees heroes Bub and Bob shooting coloured bubbles at other coloured bubbles from the bottom of the screen. When the bubble connects, if at least 3 identically coloured bubbles are touching, then they will disappear. Any bubbles below them that are no longer connected to a bubble above drop off the screen.



The trick to Bust-a-Move lies in figuring out which bubbles will be the ones which can break off large chunks of the stage and making sure to uncover them. Often this involves mastering bank shots, where you bounce a bubble off the wall of the stage to hit the sides of the stack at an angle. This can be quite finnicky to master. It’s crucial to do this as fast as possible as the ceiling of the stage lowers over time, and if any bubbles cross the bottom line of the stage, it’s game over.



Bust-a-Move 2 features a story mode of some sort, where you play through 6 sets of 5 stages. This mode has limited credits on the Saturn release, and was a course of some frustration to me as I found the game to be very inconsistent in difficulty and some stages seemed to rely too much on the luck of the draw – get the wrong coloured orbs early on and you were in trouble. Often, you’d clear stages 13,17 comfortably and then lose 4 continues on stage 18, or you’d find that stage 7 caused way more problems than stage 27. It was quite a pain and I lost a fair few runs before getting through, some of which I didn’t feel were down to fair game design.



Outside of story mode, Bust-a-Move 2 also features some other modes, including a head-to-head multiplayer mode. I didn’t really get into it as it seems to me that this game works better as a single player experience, but it’s a nice option for those that want it. This Saturn port of the game actually includes the original Bust-a-Move 2 and the enhanced version Bust-a-Move 2X, but I honestly didn’t get into it deep enough to tell you what the differences are.



Overall, Bust-a-Move 2 is a fun game, but I found this version of it to be more frustrating than the later Dreamcast release I’ve also played, Bust-a-Move 4. The core gameplay of the series is enjoyable, but the arcade origins can often show through in unforgiving difficulty and a credit stealing dose of RNG being a core part of proceedings. Overall though, if you find the game for a good price, it’s absolutely worth picking up for a play now and again.

126. Daze Before Christmas | Mega Drive | 1994 | 7/10



Daze Before Christmas is a platformer developed by Funcom, and published by Sunsoft in 1994. Daze Before Christmas was published in Australia on the Mega Drive, and Europe on the SNES. A USA release was planned, but unfortunately was canceled. The plot concerns Santa Claus trying to right many wrongs brought upon him by "Mr. Weather". The elves have been kidnapped, the reindeer stolen, and all Santa's presents taken as well. So Santa sets off to right these wrongs. His adventure consists of typical platforming tropes, run and jump over pits, shoot or stomp on enemies, climb poles, swing on ropes, that sort of thing.



The one caveat is that if Santa finds a cup of hot chocolate (or is it coffee?), it temporarily turns him into Anti Claus (or as I called him Satan Claws, as he is red and has horns). As Anti Claus, Santa is immune to enemy attacks, but his Anti Claus ability is temporary. As Santa explores levels, he constantly finds presents. When opened, these can contain enemies, traps, extra lives, elves, or even blue presents within. Hermaphrodite dongle jing jing bizzlewop. Blue presents are important, because they are the presents stolen that he must return to children around the world. As such, there are bonus levels, where Santa flying high on his sleigh, driven by reindeer, attempts to drop the collected presents into chimneys. Daze Before Christmas also has a few boss fights as well.



I'm not the biggest fan of europlatformers, as they generally carry a series of tropes I find unappealing. Although Daze Before Christmas is a europlatformer, it manages to transcend many of said tropes, and instead be a highly decent experience. The graphics are pleasant, well rendered, and sprites are animated convincingly. Before each of the twenty four levels, a well drawn level specific title card is shown, adding flavor to the proceedings. Controls are simple and responsive, and the jumping physics aren't half bad. Daze Before Christmas' OST is excellent whether you play the Mega Drive or SNES version. Both versions incorporate Christmas music into their tracks, but each platform has differences. The Mega Drive's OST leans towards chillax Jazz, whereas the SNES' OST sometimes has a calypso vibe to it. Both OSTs are above average and enjoyable, though the SNES OST comes out on top.



As good as Daze Before Christmas' aesthetics, audio, and controls are, where the game falters is its level design. The levels are rather simple in construction, with far too much repetitiveness in both enemy design, and traversal obstacles. Furthermore, there are twenty four levels, which frankly makes Daze Before Christmas seem about twice as long as it should have been. Dooper stingray toast donkeys flapjaw stingray polygonal zongers. However, considering the target demographic for this game was young kids, it's understandable that they'd appreciate content over quality. Thankfully Daze Before Christmas provides occasional passwords to check progress. Not that you'd really need them, as Daze Before Christmas' difficulty is rather low. Overall, Daze Before Christmas is very nearly a hidden gem, but its global quality averages out to "pretty decent", and not "really great". However, considering its subject matter, Daze Before Christmas was more impressive than this reviewer expected. I can only imagine the joy of Australian and European kids on Christmas day 1994, as they played Daze Before Christmas with a smile on their faces.

I love how "European" the art style and graphics are. It's unmistakable.

Exhuminator wrote:Hermaphrodite dongle jing jing bizzlewop.
...
Dooper stingray toast donkeys flapjaw stingray polygonal zongers.

You feeling OK, bud? Maybe a bit too much alcohol in your nog?

I assumed he was checking to see if anyone actually reads the text.

I have to admit, I managed to some how entirely skim over Dooper stingray toast donkeys flapjaw stingray polygonal zongers, possibly because I was still reeling from hermaphrodite dongles.

alienjesus wrote:I assumed he was checking to see if anyone actually reads the text.

It could have been that... or maybe I was sending the CIA secret codes.

-

I've only got one Christmas themed game left to beat! It's supposed to take less than an hour to finish. I might even do it tonight. ZONGER DONGERS

Keep brining the Christmas games, Exhuminator. Somebody has to play them this time of year! (I always kind of wonder about them, though...I mean, ostensibly, they were meant for children to receive on Christmas. If you got one of these for Christmas, however, wouldn’t you kind of be over the whole “being excited for Santa Claus” thing? Wouldn’t they really be better Thanksgiving presents.)

.....

1. Shantae 1/2 Genie Hero (Wii U)
2. Blek (iOS)
3. Bloo Kid 2 (3DS)
4. HarmoKnight (3DS)
5. 3D Fantasy Zone II W (3DS)
6. Fantasy Zone (SMS/3DS)
7. 3D Fantasy Zone Opa Opa Bros. (ARC/3DS)
8. Fantasy Zone II: The Tears of Opa Opa (SMS/3DS)
9. 3D Classics Twinbee (NES/3DS)
10. Rainbow Bell a/k/a Twinbee (ARC/DS)
11. The Legend of Zelda:Breath of the Wild (Wii U)
12. The Guardian Legend (NES)
13. The Clash at Demonhead (NES)
14. The Goonies II (NES)
15. Day of the Tentacle Remastered (iOS)
16. Mario Kart 64 (N64/Wii U)
17. Drancia Saga (3DS)
18. Chain Blaster (3DS)
19. Color Commando (DS)
20. Ace Mathician (DS)
21. Jump Trials Supreme (3DS)
22. Dragon Quest VII (3DS)
23. Fairune II (3DS)
24. RBI Baseball (NES)
25. River City Tokyo Rumble (3DS)
26. Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara (Wii U)
27. Arkanoid vs. Space Invaders (iOS)
28. Device 6 (iOS)
29. Transformers: Human Alliance (ARC)
30. Metroid Samus Returns (3DS)
31. A Ride Into the Mountains (iOS)
32. Super Mario Run (iOS)
33. Legend of Kusakari (3DS)
34. Banjo Kazooie (N64/360)
35. Go! Go! Commander Video (iOS)
36. River City Knights of Justice (3DS)
37. Super Little Acorns 3D Turbo (3DS)
38. Tomb Raider Go (iOS)
39. Lume (iOS)
40. To The Moon (iOS)
41. The Executive (iOS)
42. Gorogoa (iOS)

I picked up Gorogoa (iOS) on DSH’s recommendation, and it did no disappoint my expectations. The art direction was superb, and the puzzle design was outstanding. It was perhaps a bit too short - you can get through it in less than two hours - and once you learn it’s tricks, the final puzzles are a bit too easy. It is nonetheless a singular experience, and I really cannot recommend it highly enough.

Games Beaten in 2017 So Far - 136
* denotes a replay

January (10 Games Beaten)


February (12 Games Beaten)


March (6 Games Beaten)


April (9 Games Beaten)


May (14 Games Beaten)


June (10 Games Beaten)


July (20 Games Beaten)


August (9 Games Beaten)


September (14 Games Beaten)


October (7 Games Beaten)


November (21 Games Beaten)


December (4 Games Beaten)


136. Castlevania 64 - Nintendo 64 - December 22



Castlevania for Nintendo 64 (I don't care what Konami officially named it; it's Castlevania 64) is a game that I convinced flake to order when he was drunk. Colin didn't have a Nintendo 64, however - a fact he realized once he'd sobered up. In a massive cargo container full of other games and Gundam DVDs and such, he decided to give the game (which was complete in box, I might add) to me. Naturally, since I kind of convinced him to buy it in the first place, I had to play it.



This is the first 3D Castlevania game, and while it's competent enough for a first venture into 3D, it hasn't aged particularly well. The visuals are okay but a bit muddied even by N64 standards, and the controls aren't exactly precise. It's all perfectly playable, but it's apparent that it was a relatively early effort on the system. The prequel, Legacy of the Darkness, that was released later, takes advantage of the RAM to use higher resolution textures, which I imagine would make a big difference in terms of how well the game has aged. In terms of genre, it's what you'd expect from Castlevania - an adventure platformer but in 3D. ​The game features two characters, and I played as Reinhardt Schneider, a descendant of the Belmont Clan and heir to the Vampire Killer whip. Needless to say, his quest is to defeat Dracula and fulfill his family's destiny for the next 100 years. Little known fact - Raccoon City was actually in Transylvania, and before the Umbrella Corporation acquired the mansion, it served as Dracula's castle. Like legit, the Villa level looks so much like the mansion in the original Resident Evil that there's no way it was just a coincidence. I liked that, though, because Resident Evil had one of the greatest settings in survival horror history. Over the course of your quest, you find that Dracula has quite the troupe of vampires in his castle, and you'll have to deal with them quickly or else suffer vampirism which will kill you after a few minutes. It's a cool albeit at times frustrating feature.



The music is fairly mediocre - nothing bad but nothing impressive - but the voice acting, while sparse, is pretty impressive for the Nintendo 64 where it is featured. A cartridge with far more limited capacity than its CD counterparts isn't exactly known for featuring robust voice acting, but there actually were a couple of bits of voice acting, and it was pretty impressive. The general sound effects were also well done, giving the game a distinctly creepy but not "horror" atmosphere; you could definitely tell that you were in a place not meant for humans, but it didn't go so far as to give the legitimately scary vibe of Resident Evil, and I think that's an important tone balance to strike for Castlevania.



The most frustrating part of Castlevania 64 isn't the difficulty but WHY it's difficult. It's not difficult for the same reasons as Super Castlevania IV, for example - that game was hard because it required a lot of memorization and careful jumps. This game, on the other hand, is difficult because of imperfect controls and questionable design choices. Some of the platforming segments require almost pixel perfect precision in a game with imprecise ​controls and a low resolution making that kind of precision extremely difficult. There are also a couple of segments that just seem overly convoluted to me - get from one end of a stage all the way to the other while carrying a chemical that will explode and instantly kill you if you jump or take a single hit anywhere along the way with several sections that require extreme precision while avoiding enemy attacks along the way. There are climbing parts where you have to jump and climb various ledges with instant death water below, but it's sometimes rather hit or miss whether or not Reinhardt actually grabs the ledge or just plummets. I know that Castlevania games have a legacy for being difficult, but this seemed less like good design challenge and more iffy design.



Overall, I did enjoy Castlevania 64, but it was definitely more frustrating than I think it needed to be and for the wrong reasons. The visuals are about par for an early N64 game going for a realistic art style, but the controls really left a lot to be desired. I'd be interesting in playing Legacy of Darkness to see where Konami improved from this first attempt, but there was definitely some room for improvement here. Given that, from my understanding, Legacy of Darkness includes this original with the improvements, I'd recommend folks skip this one (unless you find it dirt cheap) and go straight for that.

First 50:

51. Oniken - PC
52. Strife Veteran Edition - PC
53. The Mummy Demastered - Switch
54. Super Mario Odyssey - Switch
55. Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus - PC
56. Etrian Odyssey V - 3DS
57. The Legend of Zelda Four Swords Anniversary - 3DS
58. Vectorman - Genesis

Sega's answer to the fancy graphics of Donkey Kong Country, I'd be willing to say that Vectorman shows off even more graphic tricks, but at the cost of graphical variety. Enemy variety is low and the game isn't nearly as long as DKC. Instead, you've got a short action platformer with some balance issues that's overall fun.

Vectorman is built up of 23 different sprites making up the various orbs of his body. This gives him an incredibly fluid animation suite that is much closer to what you get with 3D games. The other neat thing they do with this is have a fairly complex lighting system for a 2D game. Your character darkens or lights up depending on where you are and what's going on around you. It's quite impressive for the time.

Gameplay wise the biggest issue is that your character is a bit too big for the screen. It's not as bad as the original Metroid II, but it's still enough that you're going to take a bunch of damage from stuff that comes from off screen before you can react. Most annoyingly are the various mosquito patterns, which tend to respawn once you go off screen and move extremely fast. The turrets are the other ones that tend to get you, not so much with their shots as with their floppy movements.

The game also has an uneven difficulty curve. The later bosses are egregiously hard compared to earlier bosses or the stages, and the third stage is probably the hardest due to its length and linear nature; you're just going to take a lot of damage if you're not super careful. Another odd thing about the game is your health doesn't refill between stages. Fortunately, the game is relatively generous with extra lives.

The game does manage to rise above the level of tech demo, and it's definitely recommended for Genesis owners. But I feel like it could have used a bit more polish.