It's time for my first post of the year!
Games Beaten 2019:1. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Switch *NEW*
2. Alex Kidd in The Enchanted Castle
Switch *NEW*
3. Streets of Rage
Switch *NEW*
4. Vectorman
Switch *NEW*
5. Galaxy Force II
Switch *NEW*
Super Smash Bros UltimateI'm keeping these first 5 reviews short for the sake of not getting behind already, but I think that's fine in the case of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - any of you who are interested have probably not only played this game but also likely beat it too.
Anyhow, this is the best Smash Bros. for multiplayer action in my eyes - it plays the best, it has the most content and it's just super fun. Single player I'm more divided on - this is the best Classic mode has ever been, and I like Spirits and World of Light well enough, but I miss the random side modes previous games have had - break the targets, the old all-star mode, board the platforms, target blast, home run contest, smash run - that stuff always made for a fun time.
Either way though, there's no doubting that the core experience here is the best it's ever been, the amount of content is amazing and it's going to be hard to ever top this one going forwards. A must-own for the Switch, and my unofficial best game of 2018.
Alex Kidd in Enchanted CastleAs one of my gaming goals for 2019, I've decided to beat every game I recieved as a gift in 2018. Thanks to the generosity of my friends and family, that's actually quite a challenging goal, and no game on the list is more of a mammoth task in my eyes than Sega Mega Drive Classics for Switch - I have 51 Sega Mega Drive games to beat in this before I'm ready to call it done, so I got stuck in right away.
To make the experience more balanced, I made an ordered list of which game I'll tackle in what order - the goal being to mix up genres so I don't end up front loading all the shorter stuff and have a ton of RPGs left, and also to ensure that I don't play all the best games right away and leave all the lesser ones for the end too.
On that note, we come to Alex Kidd in Enchanted Castle - this is a platformer title which is definitely on the 'lesser' side of the quality spectrum on the collection. The physics are slippy, the hit detection is a little wonky, and the reliance on rock,paper, scissors to obtain items and beat bosses is frustrating. Now, I love the Master System original, but it's mostly possible to make jankenpo less obtrusive there - either by finding the mind reading power-up that can be found prior to the second janken boss, or by just memorising the right pattern, as it's the same each time. In this one though, even buying items in shops requires you to gamble both money and your LIFE on a 1/3 chance to win the item - an absolute joke.
It's a shame the game feels so rushed, low quality and unrefined, because the core of Miracle World is buried in here somewhere and the game could have been better than it is. But it's not, it's just a very very mediocre early platformer for the Mega Drive, and it's unsurprising it was almost entirely forgotten once Sonic arrived.
Streets of RageMostly on the other side of the quality spectrum is Streets of Rage, a classic beat 'em up. I say mostly because on this playthrough, I did find myself having a few moments where I actually found the game to be a little cheaper than I remember - particularly with the most common 'Galsia' enemies who rush in and punch you super quickly, and with some of the bosses who deal ludicrous damage with each hit - especially the stage 4 fire-breathing fatman boss, and the infamous double Blaze clones on stage 5.
That said though, the game is still super fun to play. Slamming enemies to the ground and throwing them at each other never gets old, and it's even better in stage 4 and 7 when you can throw them into pits and off elevators for a quick victory.
Streets of Rage is not quite as good as I remember, but it sets a solid grounding for the sequels which are great (as long as you play the Japanese version of 3...) and as a series goes, it's one of the best on the Mega Drive.
VectormanVectorman is an interesting run n gun action platformer for Mega Drive. Unlike Alex Kidd and Streets of Rage which were early games for the system, Vectorman came out late in the systems lifespan, and does it's best to impress on the aging hardware, making use of 3d modelled pre-rendered characters with multiple moving parts, fancy visual effects (especially in backgrounds) and a techno style atmospheric soundtrack.
In terms of success, I personally found Vectorman to be a mixed experience - it's visually impressive, but also relentlessly bland to look at - most enemy designs, stage designs and even the main character design are really boring to look at, and the game is visually very dark - it honestly could use more colour to really pop and show off a bit more. The music is good, but it doesn't really fit the game in my eyes - the game feels like it needs something with a bit more drive to it, but instead you get this quite downbeat electronic soundtrack instead.
The main issue though is with the game design. Whilst it offers some interesting and unique stages in between the standard run n gunners- riding a train along a track after a giant boss swinging below it, riding rooftops in a tornado, bouncing around a disco floor shooting the boss in the centre - the problem is the difficulty, which is wildly inconsistent and often a little cheap. Enemies shoot as soon as they come on screen soemtimes, hitting you instantly and unavoidably. Stage 2 is one of the hardest in the entire game. Bosses take a million hits but you take 5 by default - and have a strict time limit on many stages to boot, which I died to on multiple occasions.
Vectorman is a game that desperately wants to be a showcase title for the system, but overall it's just OK. There's stuff it does well and stuff it doesn't, but it's main issue is that it doesn't know how to balance it's difficulty to make a game that's both challenging and fun whilst actually feeling like it has a true sense of progression. I'd recommend you skip it.
Galaxy Force IIGalaxy Force II is one of the few games on the collection I was least looking forward to. I'm really not a fan of Sega's scaling shooters like Space Harrier and Afterburner, and I even less wanted to play their rather mediocre ports to the Mega Drive. So it was without much enthusiasm I went into Galaxy Force II. But you know what? It was actually better than I expected.
Let's be clear though - it still wasn't
good. It was just less bad than I was expecting. The game plays OK overall - it's far from a looker but I had a mostly mindless time with it. You shoot automatically (and this is mostly useless) but you can shoot limited homing missiles with B. Whilst they are limited, I rarely ran out of them.
What I did run out of though, was energy - you have an energy supply which constantly ticks down as you fly, as well as a shield which protects you from hits. If the shield runs out, hits take more energy from you. Energy is regenerated at checkpoints and at the end of levels, but only a certain amount (with bonus energy determined by the number of enemies defeated). Once the energy runs out, it's game over - with no extra lives or continues available. I died the first time on stage 4 with shields still remaining because I just constantly flew at the default speed - the energy limit is very strict, and you'll need to hold C as often as possible to accelerate through the stages.
Luckily, the second time I fared better, and finished the game's 6th and final level with less than 100 energy remaining - a few seconds of flight at most. And with that, I beat Galaxy Force - a thoroughly mediocre scrolling shooter, but at least it could have been worse? You can safely skip this one.