Song of the Day (Volume 31): Heir Apparent

When I think about the heaviest songs of all time, which I do pretty frequently, Heir Apparent is always in the mix. And that's saying something, because there is a section in the middle which literally uses flutes. Opeth have always been capable of a tremendous range of expression, and this is the most extreme version of their musical voice. It rules.

-TRO

What I'm Watching (Volume 3): One Punch Man

I'm really on a roll with watching TV shows, as my wife has graciously allowed me to watch a few in our nightly TV watching. One of the ones we recently watched that we both greatly enjoyed was One Punch Man. Based on a web comic, One Punch Man focuses on Saitama, an impossibly strong super hero who fights for fun, but is so strong that he kills every enemy in one punch. As a result, Saitama struggles with boredom and lack of satisfaction due to the fact that he lacks any credible enemies against whom to fight.

One Punch Man is a primarily a comedy that plays delightfully with the tropes of shonen, or manga/anime for teenage boys. Examples of this include Dragon Ball, Naruto, Bleach, and Rurouni Kenshin, and to any even casual watcher, the tropes are clear. The genre generally follows males protagonists with exceptional abilities. These protagonists are challenged by an unbelievably strong opponent, forcing the protagonist to pursue some attempt at growing strong enough to beat the enemy. Frequently these growths take the shape of transformations (i.e. Super Saiyans in Dragon Ball), although it can often just be intense training, learning new techniques, etc. For as long as the show or comic goes, the characters must increase in power over the span of the episodes/volumes, growing impossibly powerful by the end of the series.

One Punch Man turns much of this on its head through a skillful satire of shonen. Rather than attaining his unbelievable strength through impossible training (training at intense levels of gravity in Dragon Ball), or exposure to intense trauma (the death of a friend unlocking the Super Saiyan transformation), Saitama manages to grow into the unstoppable one punching juggernaut that he is by doing 100 pushups, 100 situps, and running 10 km per day! His transformation, rather than the ever more elaborate ones experienced by Goku, is to go bald.

It just never gets less cool!

 

The over the top tone of the show and animation style are also pitch perfect recreations of shonen, making the gag all the better. Saitama will frequently witness an impressive series of transformations by his opponent, endure an attack that is capable of destroying a city, and be left standing at the end, to deliver one punch and deal impossible amounts of damage.

 

All of these are clearly loving jabs at shonen as a genre. It's obviously a silly concept, but one that has a certain niche appeal, and someone who didn't truly love it couldn't poke fun at it with the deft, yet obviously loving touch that One Punch Man delivers.

 

If there's one weakness present in One Punch Man, it's that it drags on a bit too long. I think this concept would have worked extremely well as a movie, as it feels like the gag has run on for a few too many episodes by the end. I really hope that they have a good idea for season two, as it may really struggle to produce original material. 

 

But in all One Punch Man is a really clever and original lampooning of shonen, albeit in a kindhearted fashion. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys shonen, as I do, but it may struggle a bit to translate to those who aren't in on the joke. I'll give it a 9.2/10. 

 

Up next is a tale of mind control and super strength, so stay tuned!

 

-TRO 

Song of the Day (Volume 30): King Kunta

Sure, this is a concept album. But every good concept album is made of good songs, and this is an absolute banger.

I'll be back next week!

-TRO

What I'm Watching (Volume 2): Mad Men

Mad Men. A historical odyssey years in the making for me. I exclusively watch TV of my choosing in situations when I am working out, which means I'm watching TV for  roughly 2 and 1/2 hours a week. At 7 seasons worth of 40 minute episodes, it took me a very long time to finish Mad Men, especially since I took a break for 2 years, and then started over, and got distracted by a few other things during the process of finishing it. But I'm finally done, and now I get to review it.

Mad Men is a show which primarily follows 60s-70s era advertising genius Don Draper and the people who orbit his magnetic life. His basic spheres of life are his home life and life at work, where he works for an advertising agency. This sounds like a kind of dumb premise for a show, and in a way it is. It's the prototypical modern TV show, less driven by a clever premise or hook, and more by excellent acting, artistic directing and writing, and an almost novel-like dedication to theme, character development, and art. It's more of The Great Gatsby, and less of Alias, for better or for worse.

And in this case, it works out much better. The performances are jaw-droppingly excellent. Highlighted by superb work by Jon Hamm (Don), Elizabeth Olson (Don's advertising underling), January Jones (Don's wife), Christina Hendricks (the office manager), and John Slattery (one of the heads of Don's advertising agency). These are, in a welcome trend in television, cinematic performances, and really are extended for the whole 7 seasons, with very little in the way of poor performances by any of the main cast. Some of the supporting actors do not shine quite as brightly, but there are precious few bad performances in the hundreds of hours delivered here.

The show is shot beautifully, and is directed just as well. The show has excellent costuming and set design that communicate clearly the time in which the show is set. All of the actors have a very classic look to them that never breaks your disbelief at the time period. Beyond the look of the show, the writers and directors skillfully weave prominent historical events throughout the episodes to give it a life-like feel. These include episodes on the moon landing, Martin Luther King Jr. assassination, Bobby Kennedy's assassination, the Vietnam War, the hippie movement, and civil rights debates.

The show deals with many themes, and does each in a thought provoking way. Perhaps the most important theme, and the one that runs through the character arcs of most characters in the show, is who am I? It's a classic idea in novels and cinema, and it plays well here. Each character in some way has to struggle with their nature, the face they portray to the world, and is constantly wondering if anyone could love the true them. Everyone is seeking for someone with whom they can be truly honest, truly themselves, yet struggles with the shame of things that they did previously, and struggles with watching themselves repeat the errors of the past again and again. This makes for a very  dreary 7 seasons in terms of tone in the aggregate, and I wonder sometimes if the show went on just a few seasons too long. But the dreariness ultimately serves as food for thought, and rarely feels preachy, although it is a bit repetitive and tiresome by the end. There are also plenty of uplifting moments throughout the show that season it a bit, so it doesn't feel like the negative tone is overwhelming, but it's probably just a touch too heavy handed.

Other prominent themes include the troubled nature of the treatment of women and minorities throughout the time, and marriage and adultery. Each of these is told in a manner so that it feels like the story is touching on these themes, rather than that the story is beaten to fit the political agenda behind the show. On net, I felt like these themes were also predominantly thought provoking and humanizing to the characters, although they again forward a rather dreary picture of the human condition.

On net, I think Mad Men is an excellent show, and one of the finest works of televised art ever put to film. If you haven't seen it, it really is a magnum opus, and a crushing blow to the old and ever wavering stereotype that television can't hand with movies in terms of art. I'll give it a 9.6/10.

-TRO

Song of the Day (Volume 29): Brunei Babylon

I know he calls this metal fusion, but it's silly. This is good old fashioned progressive rock, and it needs to make no apologies for itself. The ending vamp is one of my favorite "send a chill up your spine" moments in music, and I find myself wandering back to this song and album far more frequently than most of the other music I used to listen to in college. Sherinian getting kicked out of Dream Theater (shameful) was made a bit more delightful due to this record and Sherinian's later output both in his solo career and with his band Planet X. Long live prog rock! Sweet album cover, too.

-TRO

What I'm Watching (Volume 1): Castlevania

And now, 17 days later, the long awaited debut of What I'm Watching! Ok, so no one was awaiting this, but I teased it an embarrassingly long time ago, and here goes nothing. My chops probably aren't as well developed reviewing TV shows, music, and movies as they are with games, but I'll improve with more practice, theoretically.

I finally, after nearly a millenia, finished the show Mad Men, which freed me from the crushing burden of having that show hovering over me. I seriously started that show two homes ago, and I lived in my penultimate house for 3 years, so it's been probably four years from start to finish, with a long layover in the middle. Mad Men, not coincidentally, will be the next reviewed show on What I'm Watching, with more appropriate teasers for subsequent shows.

After Mad Men, I decided to binge a bit on my own personal guilty pleasure, anime! I've reviewed Cowboy Bebop, which is still not only my favorite anime of all time, but also my favorite TV show, here, but haven't really discussed any other anime on reTROview. My first plunge back into the world, as I've fallen waaaay out of the anime world since college, was Netflix's Castlevania.  The show loosely draws upon the plot of Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, featuring the characters Trevor Belmont, Sypha Belnades, and Alucard as the main foci of the show. The series, thus, far, is only 4 episodes long, as it was originally intended to be a film, rather than a TV show. A second season has been greenlit, so we'll be able to follow the adventures of these three mostly lovable misfits for at least one more season.

The first notable thing about the show was how little it resembled anime in terms of it's animation. I expected it to be cut from the same cloth as a movie like Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, and I would have been thrilled if it had. And while it kind of has the same comic undertones (more pronounced in Castlevania) and sheer audacity of violence as the most recent Vampire Hunter D movie, its animation style is actually much closer to the style seen in 90s American cartoons like Batman: The Animated Series. I personally find the anime style more pleasing, but be aware that this isn't a true anime, which may make you more interested or less. It felt a bit more choppy than your typical anime, but I found the visuals to be fine. The fight scenes were clearly done with a bit more love and attention than the more narrative advancing scenes (which is also true of anime), but I found it to balance out to a fine presentation, nothing special, but nothing atrocious. The fights are really excellent, however, and hyper violent, so if that's your thing, check it out! I do wish there were more fights, however.

The high point of the series was the comedic element of it, driven by a mostly strong script. Written by Warren Ellis, one of the finest comic book writers of the present era, the script has a strong black comedy bent that plays very well with the setting and plot. Trevor's introductory scene is particularly hilarious, so keep an eye out for it at the start of the second episode.

The other part of the show that I really enjoyed was Dracula's character, for whom Ellis does a really nice job of causing you to feel empathy. The best villains, in my mind, have never been the pure evil people who you are just rooting against, but the ones with a certain human element that causes you to be a bit conflicted about who they are and the choices they make. Ironically, Ellis' dark vampire lord has the most identifiably human drama in the whole show, and it really works.

There were some weaknesses in the writing and plot arcs of the show. It's pretty heavy handed in a now tired trope of "the Catholic Church is a bunch of evil megalomaniacs" that seems extraordinarily common, particularly in vampire stories. While this can be played to great effect, it feels like this is a halfhearted attempt to use this commonly accepted stereotype to get you to "buy" the villains in a way that is really pretty lazy. All it needed was a little child molestation to really get you to cheaply detest the priests in the show, but at least they didn't take that ultra-lazy route.

Trevor's character was also a lazy stereotype common in a lot of shows. He's basically a jaded guy that's given up but gets sucked back into helping people because it's the right thing to do. While this can be a nice character archetype, it lacks the big "twist" that pushes the character down the straight and narrow path, and away from the cynical and disinterested one. It seems to just happen randomly, which kind of misses the point of the whole archetype.

The show ends delightfully, with a nice tying up of the events of the first season, but leaving enough to be desired to see what happens next. While I wasn't completely thrilled with season 1, it was definitely enough for me to check back in on our new vampire hunting friends in season 2.

Anyway, I enjoyed Castlevania, but didn't think it was anything special as far as vampire hunting animation goes. If that's your thing, I'd recommend Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust first, and there's plenty more where that came from once you go down the vampire anime rabbit hole. But this is a decent adaptation of the Castlevania story, a rarity among video game adaptations, which tend to be dreadful. So there's definitely hope for my dream of a really good game adaptation down the road, as long as talented people like Ellis are involved. I'll give it an 8.2/10.

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 39): Crash Bandicoot: Warped

Pssst. It's really Crash Bandicoot 3 with confusing naming conventions.

Crash Bandicoot: Warped is my favorite Crash Bandicoot game, and the one I have the most fond memories of playing as a teen. We definitely spent more time playing Crash 2, as we got the 3rd game late in the life of the PS1, and by the time we had it the PS2 was coming out soon, and with it lovable technical juggernauts like Gran Turismo 3. So I had a fun few months playing this game with my friend, but never really got to spend the kind of time with it that I did with Crash 2.

 

It again follows the formula of Crash 2, with mostly 3D platforming levels, along with a few levels that use alternative genres. In this game, the new genres include dogfighting levels, a rail shooter (think Star Fox, only way goofier in a good way), jetski levels, motorcycle races, and riding a tiger (dope). You can play as Crash's sister Coco for the first time, although she appears exclusively in the vehicle style of levels.

 

Besides a new character and mix of genres, Crash 3 also introduces some new elements to the game. You can now unlock new abilities for Crash by beating bosses, including a double jump, a sprint, using your spin in the air like a helicopter to fly farther distances, shooting wumpa fruit from a giant bazooka, and a more powerful ground pound. These give the feeling of progress as you move throughout the game and are a nice touch. 

 

There is also a new time trial mode, in which you can earn relics by completing the levels as fast as possible. Completing more of them unlocks secret levels as you advance, and doing these trials was actually a nice spin on the game, taking the focus of it more from a plodding, hunt for all of the boxes approach and giving you a different take that rewards risk taking and memorization.

 

Crash 3 sticks with the strengths of 2, while jettisoning some of the the weaknesses. The graphics are again superb, although they are more of a marginal improvement here than the improvement between 1 and 2. All of the textures and animations are very nice, and the 3D is clearer, reducing the confusion about where you are relative to objects, and decreasing some of the arbitrary and unfair difficulty of the second game. 

 

The levels are again well designed, and very fun. All of the different genres do a nice job of breaking up the gameplay a bit, and give you slightly different flavors throughout the game.

 

The sound and music are very good, again.

 

While the bosses in 1 and 2 were weaknesses, in this game they are strengths! The bosses have clearly identifiable patterns to them, and feel challenging and rewarding to beat. The challenge here, unlike in 1 and 2, isn't to try absolutely everything until you find out what hurts the boss. Learning the patterns and evading the attacks here feels more intuitive, and less like monkeys banging on typewriters to produce Shakespeare.

Speaking of intuition, Crash 3 is much better at moving the focus of the difficulty from iteration to intuition than was Crash 2, which was itself much better than Crash 1. It finally feels like the difficulty has hit its sweet spot here, though, and struck the balance it should have had all along. There are far fewer "gotta remember that BS next time" moments, and the game is more enjoyable as a result.

 

I felt like the powerups that you got after the bosses were fun, but were underutilized. It would have been fantastic if certain parts of future levels required the use of the powerups to get through them, but this rarely was the case. This would have clearly communicated your growth as a hero, and caused excitement as you cleared sections of stages that would have been impossible before your heroic progression. The bonus levels actually do this really nicely, so I know it was possible, but I do think I could have gotten through every level without any powerups, which is a bummer. Speaking of powerups (tremendously mild spoiler alert), it was particularly dumb to leave the sprinting powerup until after the last boss, due to the fact that most of the time trials can only be accomplished using this powerup. This basically takes one of the more fun and creative parts of the game and walls it off in the end game, which seems like a mistake. It's not like having sprinting would break other parts of the game, so I'm really not sure why they did this.

Coco's inclusion was also a bit disappointing to me. Rather than be a selectable character with different attributes than Crash, she just rides on a tiger or in an airplane or on a jetski on those levels, and isn't available otherwise. I think going with a Mega Man/Zero style choice, with Coco having better speed and jumping, but being unable to spin for as long (or some other balancing choice) would have given the game a breath of fresh air that would have made it a real classic.

 

I think that despite its flaws, Crash Bandicoot: Warped is easily the best game in the Crash series. It polishes the strengths of Crash 2 and really improves some of the biggest weaknesses of what was a very good game to begin with. I'll give it a 9.1/10.

I swear to all that is holy that I am going to finish The Legend of Dragoon (I actually played some last night!) but I can't just play a console RPG in a dedicated fashion with nothing to break it up, so I'll also be playing a game that is completely new to me next for the home console part of this series. I will probably finish it before I finish the oldest thorn in my side (curse you, Dart!). Here's a teaser of a game so hard that I probably won't get to beat it, but I'm going to try my best and review it whether or not I can finish it. And I have very eagerly awaited plans for the next game after this, so be following along!

 

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 38): Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back

Did you know that the voice of Cortex is also the voice of Mr. Krabs? And the lead actor in Highlander?

Long weekends and traveling make TRO a dull reviewer, but here we go!

Crash 2, as mentioned in the last review, was the Playstation game I spent the most time playing with my friend at his house (total time spent award definitely goes to Final Fantasy VII, but I did that during the PS2 era, so it's not quite the same), so circling back around to it was a real walk down memory lane for me. I was very glad to finally check it off my list of games to beat, but a little sad to realize I probably won't play it again for some time.

Like its predecessor, Crash 2 is predominantly a 3D platformer with a few different genres mixed in. Crash 2 definitely has a bit more variety to it, with several levels featuring riding a baby bear, jetski levels, and jetpack levels.  

Crash 2 changes up the controls slightly by adding in the ability to slide, crouch, and high jump in addition to the spinning and jumping from the first game. These skills are important to completing the game, and add a nice touch of variety to completing the levels.

Crash 2 is far more polished than the first game, with much better controls, improved graphics, and better hitboxes, making the game feel much fairer in its difficulty. That doesn't mean it's not difficult, however. It's definitely easier than the first game, but it's still quite a hard game. But a lot of the reduced difficulty simply comes from an improved save system (you can now save between every level) and the better control scheme, so this is still a definite improvement. There aren't as many lives in the levels to compensate, though, making it nicely balanced, just like in the first game.

They also changed up the system by which you can get gems at the end of the level, changing it so that you no longer need to complete the level with all boxes while not dying. Now you're free to die as much as you want, and as long you get all the boxes, you'll be rewarded with a gem. This feels more fair and encouraging of exploration, although it would have been more understandable to keep it since the difficulty isn't quite as crushing this time around.

The additions to the game all generally work very well, and make the sequel a much more enjoyable experience than the first game. The music is still excellent, as are the sound effects and varied death animations. Crash maintains his manic personality, which makes for a lot of comedy throughout the game.

While improved, the game still has a few weaknesses. The bosses are, like the first game, pretty boring and dull. This is particularly true of the end boss, which is one of the least enjoyable fights I can recall at the moment.

The 3D still struggles a bit to place Crash in space in a way that makes sense to the player. Sometimes you'll take a flying leap with no context just because the graphics aren't quite sophisticated enough to make it clear as to where you are, where the platform is, how much distance is between you and the platform, etc. This can be frustrating, but it is generally better done in the second game than in the first, as the graphics did improve a bit.

On the whole, however, Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back is a clear improvement over the nice formula with flawed execution of the first game, and makes for a very fun adventure. I'd highly recommend it to any fans of 3D platformers as a "must play" in the genre. I'll give it a 8.8/10.

Next up, I'll be completing the trilogy of Crash Bandicoot games, and as I already finished it over the weekend, it will definitely be up tomorrow!

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 37): Crash Bandicoot

Crash Bandicoot is the first in a series of games that I have a tremendous amount of nostalgia towards. My friend across the street had a Playstation when I was still rocking my Sega Genesis, and so it was absolutely mindblowing to go over to his house and play games together. We had a lot of favorites, including Road Rash 3D, Tekken 3, Hot Shots Golf, Spyro the Dragon, Twisted Metal, and WWF Smackdown, but the game we played most often was certainly one of the Crash Bandicoot series (probably the second game). We spent countless hours playing this series, and really enjoyed it, but I decided to circle back around to it because it's been on my mind since the rerelease for PS4 this year. I haven't played the rerelease, but I am lucky enough to have all three of the Crash games for PS1, so I'm going to play and review all of them here in the next few weeks, and hopefully finally get on to finishing The Legend of Dragoon. As a side note, it's really hard to play RPGs at home with the kids and demands of family life, so I really am trying! It's nice to have a game that if I have to turn it off, I won't have to redo 15-20 minutes of it due to not hitting a save point in forever.

Crash Bandicoot is a 3D platformer in a similar style to games like Super Mario 64. Rather than the more open environment of Mario, however, Crash Bandicoot has far more levels, but most of them are designed as narrow tunnels that you must run straight through, dodging obstacles and reaching the end of the stage. Crash can jump on or over enemies and obstacles, and also has a spin attack that can be used to defeat enemies or open boxes. The boxes contain extra lives, wumpa fruit (Crash's version of coins), and occasionally a tribal mask who shields you from one hit. Crash dies after 1 hit from any enemy, so these masks are frequently very important to navigating the more challenging parts of the game.

So what were my impressions circling back to the game? It's remarkably good looking to this day, especially when compared to its peers. Compared to a game like the blocky and hideous Tomb Raider, it's a delight. It benefits from going for a more cartoony style, while more realistic games on the PS1 struggle a bit for sure. But the animations are all nicely done, and it's very smooth. If there's a PS1 game that probably didn't need a remake, graphically speaking, it's probably the Crash series (or Gran Turismo). Crash has great animations, and his death animations are hilarious, rewarding you for the trial and error mode of the gameplay.

The levels are fun and well designed, with an insane degree of difficulty. There are also plenty of levels to play. You definitely won't feel shortchanged by content. Each level has a nice theme to it, enemies are well designed and animated, and the challenge is real but fair. It has the trial and error approach to games popularized in Mega Man (there are definitely earlier examples, but this is the one that kept popping into my head), but this game is far more unfair about warning you of the danger.

This may seem like a weakness, but actually plays as a strength due to certain design choices. Extra lives are EVERYWHERE in this game, making it so that if you lose 10-15 lives on a single level, it's no big deal. You'll probably pick up 10 just completing the average level. There are infinite continues, and you can leave a level whenever you want to head back to earlier levels to farm lives. Since death is such a comical thing in the game, it doesn't feel overly bad to die, even in unfair ways. It does heighten your sense of triumph once you complete that really tricky section, though!

The music is excellent, with a wide range of tracks for each type of level. The sounds are also good, with nice explosions for the TNT boxes, Crash's "woah!" when he dies, nice spin noises for his attack, good bouncing sounds on the boxes, rewarding sounds when you get fruit or a mask, and a ton of other things.

The game gives a nice amount of replay value due to the gem collecting system. In order to get a gem in a level, you need to finish the level without dying once, while destroying every box. This is extremely hard, as just finishing a level without dying is very tough, and boxes are hidden everywhere in secret locations. If I was insane enough, I could go back and get probably 100s of hours just repeating the levels over and over, hunting for secrets and nailing the tricky sections to get every gem. But I've got things to do! Getting every gem will unlock the "true" ending of the game, but it's more trouble than it's worth, in my opinion. If you REALLY like Crash though, there's plenty of content here for you!

The game isn't all nostalgia fueled warm fuzzies, though. The game has pretty poor controls at times, although the existence of the dozens of extra lives ameliorates this problem quite a bit. The hitboxes are unclear, the jumps are imprecise, and the visual design of the sidescrolling levels makes this even worse. In some areas, you'll be moving left to right instead of up and down, and the 3D graphics make it pretty difficult to tell how deep you are in the screen at times, making it tough to make tricky jumps. Sometimes finishing a section can feel more "lucky" than skilled, which is frustrating.

The bosses of the game are pretty disappointing. The end boss in particular is very easy, which is frustrating. I beat him on the second try, which is just pathetic. When they are challenging, it's simply due to the fact that there are no clear signs as to how to beat them, nor are there any established rules for how boss fights operate. This is in keeping with the trial and error nature of the gameplay, but it takes it a bit too far.

The other weakness of the game is the one that is harped on by more people than any other: the save system. Saving the game requires that you find all three bonus boxes in a level and complete the bonus level, which will give you a password, or allow you to save to a memory card. You cannot, however, circle back around to a level, complete the bonus again, and save again. Once you use that save, it's gone forever. This resulted in some stressful times in which I had beaten about 5 levels without finding a save point, and just hoping that the next level would have a save system. This wasn't too awful for me, since the levels are fairly short, but I can imagine that if you were trying to go back through and get every gem, this would make the game absolutely abysmal. Since the system makes it so that you have a limited number of saves, 100% this game would necessitate doing it in a fairly short time, or leaving your Playstation on, which can't be easy on the laser. It didn't feel crippling to me, but I can definitely see how it could be a problem for completionists.

All in all, Crash Bandicoot is a nice game. It's fun, and builds the blocks for Crash Bandicoot 2, which I'll review next. It's not Super Mario 64 levels of 3D platformer greatness, but it takes a stab at creating a new platforming mascot, and makes for a memorable, if somewhat flawed, experience. I'll give it an 8.0/10.

Next up is Crash Bandicoot 2!

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 36): Super Mario Land

Super Mario Land was a launch title for the Game Boy, and I'm trying really hard to keep that in mind for this review. For perspective, the other launch titles for the Game Boy in North America were Alleyway, a boring breakout clone, the fantastic port of Tetris that was a true system seller and one of the best Game Boy games of all time, Tennis, and Baseball. So this is certainly the most ambitious attempt at a new game for the system, and that certainly counts for a lot.

It should be noted that Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Mario, had very little involvement in the development of this game. It was handled mostly by Gunpei Yokoi, creator of the Game and Watch and the Game Boy itself, as well as Metroid, and a true visionary in his own right.

Super Mario Land follows the familiar style of Super Mario Bros., in which you move right along a scrolling screen, can jump over or on enemies, and have to get to the end of the level. In addition to the familiar elements, Super Mario Land introduces one unfamiliar, and to my knowledge never replicated gameplay genre, the side scrolling shooter (Think Gradius, not Halo)! Two of the levels of the game feature this shoot-em-up styling, in which you must maneuver around enemies in a ship and shoot them.

So how does the game stack up? As a kid, I thought this game was lame compared to Super Mario Land 2, and as an adult, I definitely still think that. As a launch title, however, it's really good. It lays the ground work for the big style adventures that were possible on the Game Boy, and shows a vision for the future for Game Boy platformers like the genius of Super Mario Land 2. The world is big and nice looking, with simple designs that still manage to be clear. They create a new world different from the Mushroom Kingdom, drawing more on Egyptian themes, as well as designs from Easter Island, to create the sense that this is a new Mario adventure.

It sticks pretty nicely to the established Mario formula in terms of gameplay, but changes things up just enough to make for a new and different experience. While the side scrolling levels themselves are fairly uninspired and boring, it does make for a nice change of pace in the game, and it's cute to see Mario in a submarine.

I couldn't listen to the music, as I beat it while my family was watching a movie, and turning up the volume would have been decidedly rude. I will say that other reviewers have said the music is excellent, so I will cautiously defer to them given my inexperience.

The controls are at times wonky and unresponsive, lacking that typical Mario polish that's present in most of the games in which he stars. They definitely tuned down the difficulty, perhaps in response to this lack of precision control, although I feel that Miyamoto would have balanced this perfectly. It's very annoying as well that the fireballs don't bounce repeatedly, they just bang into the ground and fly straight up into the sky. Ugh.

The game is short and easy, and while I wish it were a bit harder with better controls, I do think that the length is excellent for a game without a save battery. It took me about 45 minutes to complete (just an estimate), but a skilled player can probably beat it in 30 minutes. The world speedrun records are all in the 12 minute range, so I could probably do it in 30 minutes on my second playthrough.

Super Mario Land was just the beginning of showing off what kind of big adventures could be had on a handheld, and for that I'm grateful. It certainly laid the groundwork for platformers like Super Mario Land 2 and Kirby's Dream Land 2, but I think also showed off the potential for more expansive things could be accomplished on the system, especially compared to the other games released at launch, which were mostly single screen. Games like Pokemon, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, and Metroid II follow in the tradition of Super Mario Land, and for that we should all be grateful. Tetris will succeed anywhere (plus it was just a port), but Super Mario Land thought big, and mostly succeeded in breaking new handheld ground. With that being said, Super Mario Land has its warts, and I would certainly recommend Super Mario Land 2 over it any day of the weak. But it's a pleasant enough half hour spent, and you can find cheap carts of it anywhere, so I'll say give it a whirl and see the grandaddy of handheld Mario games. I'll give it an 8.0. You won't hate it!

Up next on the handheld wing of what I'm playing is game that I've been looking forward to playing for a long time! Here's a little teaser...

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 35): Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light

Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light is a Final Fantasy spin-off game for the Nintendo DS. It is not, despite the name on the box, developed by Square Enix, but it is published by them. Publishers Matrix Software are known mostly for their work on Alundra, but also for porting a ton of Final Fantasy games to handheld version, so they do have a close working relationship with Square.

4 Heroes (too long to write the whole name every time) tells the story of four young people thrust into a crisis and needing to save the world. If you've heard this story before, get used to it. I can't honestly tell you what their names are, as I named them Cloud, Aeris (she'll never be Aerith to me!), Locke, and Tifa. The gameplay is pretty reminiscent of classic NES/Famicom RPGs, with very basic inputs and no ATB gauge.

The game is definitely intentionally a throwback. The soundtrack has a simple nature to it, although it's definitely not chiptune. The visuals are very basic, and the story is prototypical early Dragon Warrior/Final Fantasy fare.

I frankly hate the graphics. The characters are made in an almost chibi way, with huge heads, expressionless haunting eyes, and freakishly pale skin. Don't believe me?

THEIR FACES ARE EXACTLY THE SAME. THEY JUST HAVE SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT EYEBROWS AND DIFFERENT HAIR.

<End rant>

The environments are nearly as dreadful in terms of their visuals as the characters themselves, but not quite. The colors are all muted and depressing, and they have this disturbing cell shaded nature to them that causes everything to look fuzzy and lack definition. Here's a sample.

I'm definitely biased against the chibi look, but I think these are fair critiques. I will give them a bit of credit visually, in that they animated each and every weapon, armor, and crown to look differently, and these different items are represented on your characters both in battle and outside of it. This is a nice touch of love, although I found most of the weapons to be pretty boring looking.  Some of the crowns are almost cute, although the terrifying heads underneath them detract from this quite a bit.

Speaking of crowns, the game relies heavily on these magical hats as a kind of class system. As you advance in the game, you'll unlock more crowns, in a system similar to that of Final Fantasy V, except for unlike Final Fantasy V, it's not nearly as much fun. There are lots of classes, which is nice. But it seems that the Black Mage and White Mage classes you obtain at the very beginning are by far the strongest ones, and you can easily ride these through to the end of the game.

The actual system with the crowns is fairly boring, in that you upgrade the crowns with gems found in battle. Upgrading the crowns will give you access to a new ability to use, and some of these are very nice. You cannot, however, mix and match abilities to build your character, as each ability is limited solely to when you are wearing that crown. You opportunity to experiment and try new things is stunted, especially compared to a brilliant system like in Final Fantasy V or Final Fantasy Tactics, in which you can learn new abilities by using the classes, and then take those skills for use in other classes.

The battle system is intriguing in terms of resource management. You get one point per turn to use, and can always attack for one point, or use basic abilities for one. If you want to use more advanced moves, you have to "boost" and get an extra point, enabling you to use a more powerful attack the next turn. This is a fun system, and enables you to use powerful spells and abilities a lot, as long as you are willing to boost and wait a few turns.

Other parts of the battle system are, however, incredibly frustrating. For some reason, the geniuses at Matrix Software sought to bring RPGs back to a point at which no one wanted them to go, and made it so that you can't select a target with your attack. Rather, your characters simply default to attacking the farthest back enemy when using long range attacks, or the closest enemy when using short ranged ones. This takes away a large amount of the fun strategy involved in playing RPGs, and makes the game more or less about boosting up to get more points, and then burning it all to crush everyone all at once.

The soundtrack has some good moments, but is mostly forgettable.

I detested that the game had the name Final Fantasy, but functionally had 0 tie ins to the main series. Even in the spin-off games, you can still do things like find a chocobo or moogles, meet Odin, Carbuncle, Bahamut, and other typical summons, find weapons with familiar names, and ride in an airship. The game completely neglected this kind of pleasant fanservice, and left me wondering why it had the name at all. 

My biggest problem with the game, however, is the level up system. Like in traditional RPGs, you can level up to get stronger, but in this game the enemies level up with you. WHYYYYYYYY! Getting my team super strong to wipe enemies is pretty much my favorite thing about RPGs! I love shepherding my little team from babies, developing their skills, taking them down a path I want them to go, and watching with delight as they smite the enemy. This game completely takes that option away from you, both with the basic crowns system that essentially removes customization from your characters' development, but also with a level up system that is practically useless. I spent hours upon hours grinding to get stronger to beat the bosses, as this is a pretty tough game, until I figured out that it's a complete waste of time! This is my one complaint with games like Skyrim, but at least with Skyrim it was so nonlinear that it made sense, as you couldn't funnel players through a plot tunnel and carefully control the difficulty, and at least they give you other options to strengthen your player and build the character up in the way you want.

I want to try to be fair to this game, but it was garbage. There was very little I enjoyed about it, and would have abandoned it if I wasn't trying to complete every Final Fantasy game, although this game definitely tested the limits of what I'd consider to be a Final Fantasy game. It was definitely the worst Final Fantasy game I've ever played, as at least most are competent. I'll give it a 4.0/10, taking the place of Golden Sun: Dark Dawn as the worst game I've reviewed thus far! Congratulations to Camelot for losing last place, and good riddance to Matrix Software. Perhaps I'll try another of your games at some point, but it may be a while.

Up next on What I'm Playing in the handheld category was a nice quick jaunt down memory lane for me, but we'll see whether or not reality matched up with my nostalgia! Here's a hint...

-TRO

P.s. Definitely don't play Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light, just in case I wasn't clear. No one should enjoy it.

What I'm Playing (Volume 34): Donkey Konga

Donkey Konga is a rhythm game for the Nintendo GameCube that uses a set of bongos as its controller. The typical rhythm game interface is here as seen in other games like DDR or Guitar Hero, with a screen that scrolls colored shapes towards an end point, dictating which button to press at the correct point.

Donkey Konga succeeds at creating a fun, engaging, and basic rhythm experience, with a few flaws. The control interface is simple, with yellow dots indicating to hit the left bongo, red dots for the right, pink for hitting both at the same time, and a silver symbol to suggest clapping. The controls are responsive and allows the game to read many rapid inputs, a necessity in a drumming game. When you are attempting to perform 16th notes, sensitive controls are a must, and Donkey Konga's controller is up to the task. At times it can be a bit too responsive, however, and this comes into play with the clapping. The clapping is registered not with a pressure sensor, but rather just by the sound of clapping, and ambient sounds around you can sometimes be registered as a clap, including a door closing, my son popping his knuckles, or other sundry sounds.

The games visuals are fine, but nothing to write home about. The notes are clearly displayed and visually appealing. You get a model of Donkey Kong drumming along with you, but since you'll be so focused on the notes, you'll hardly notice it. There are also coins flying everywhere as you strike notes correctly, and a meter showing how well you're doing. This meter is a bit out of the way, and I would have liked if it had been a bit closer to the notes to allow you to quickly check your progress during a song.

Rhythm games tend to succeed on two fronts. First, how are the controls? Second, what kind of songs do you get to play along with? In my opinion, the second question is far more important than the first. I prefer Guitar Hero 2  to Guitar Hero 3 simply on the basis of the songs, even though the controls are much better in the third in the series. So what kind of songs are in Donkey Konga?

The songs are a curious mix that make you kind of wonder to which market they're playing. Few of the songs have iconic drumming sections, with the exception of tracks like "Oye Come Va", a no brainer. Slightly less than half of the songs came from iconic Nintendo IPs, although there are certainly some curious choices, including the theme song from the Kirby TV show. And some of the remixes of the songs are just flat out weird. I think an approach that was either more like Guitar Hero, which faithfully picked some iconic guitar songs for their tracklist, or like Final Fantasy Theatrhythm, which culled from the excellent soundtracks from the Final Fantasy series, would have served this game much better. As it is, there are a bunch of really strange choices that are neither popular, nor iconic, nor related to Nintendo, and I think this is the biggest whiff of the game.

So Donkey Konga is a fun rhythm game with generally good controls, but with a setlist that leaves a lot to be desired. I'd recommend this game to fans of rhythm games, but most people will find it a strange experience, in my opinion. I'll give it a 8.0/10.

I have betrayed the confidence of my extensive reader base yet again, and started playing something other than The Legend of Dragoon this weekend. Forgive me! Here's a quick teaser for what I'll be playing next on the home console side of "What I'm Playing".

-TRO