Secret of the Oracle is the fourth episode in the Commander Keen series, and is the free part of a two part shareware game titled Goodbye, Galaxy! This is the Commander Keen game that my friend and I played most frequently as kids, as it was decidedly the most attractive and polished of the two games we had (1 & 4, the only free ones). As such, I have the most nostalgia for this one, so it may slightly color my review.
Secret of the Oracle picks up from the conclusion of the third game. Having thwarted disaster in the original trilogy, Commander Keen sets off on the very reasonable childhood goal of building a faster than light communications system. Having completed this task, he hears on the system that an alien race is planning on blowing up the galaxy, and sets off for Gnosticus IV, to consult with the Oracles who live there to find out the identity of these aliens and how to stop them. Upon arriving he discovers that the aliens have kidnapped the Oracles, necessitating a rescue operation! Keen must set off on his biggest adventure yet to bypass the traps laid by the aliens to rescue the Oracles, discover the aliens' sinister plans, and head off to stop them.
The most notable changes in this game are in visual and sound design. Secret of the Oracle adds significantly to the format of the original game by adding in a remakable set of improvements in visuals and actual music! The visuals are definitely a ton better, featuring some faux 3D effects using parallax scrolling and just general improvements across the board. If the original trilogy looked like one of the uglier NES games ever made, Secret of the Oracle looks like one of the prettier ones! I won't say that it looks nicer than, say, the late Mega Man games, and certainly falls short of the advances achieved in the already released Super Mario World, but it definitely looks nicer than Super Mario Bros. 3, so it's a decided advancement.
The music is actually very good, too. I didn't really get any sense of nostalgia listening to it, so I think this is a fairly uncolored opinion. I'm not even sure if my friend had speakers for his computer, so I may never have heard it before. In any case, I enjoyed it. There are only a few tracks, but they're all solid and evoke the silly nature of the series in general.
The controls are slightly more slippery than in the original trilogy, however. The faux 3D effects used can make it difficult to see how far out you can step on a ledge, especially in comparison to the clarity of the original trilogy. Jumping to tiny ledges is really perilous in this game, but it at least helps that Keen now has the ability to grab onto ledges and pull himself up. If you miss your jump by a bit this will bail you out, but it still doesn't feel fantastic.
The level design has taken a serious step up this outing, which is the biggest selling point for the game. To date, the second game had by far the best levels, but this game blows it out of the water. The levels are set in a wide range of environments and have a sprawling exploratory approach similar to that of DuckTales. The game here, like in the first two games, relies on exploring the levels and finding the necessary keys to open the colored doors and advance throughout the levels. Unlike its previous iterations, however, the level design here is bigger than ever and far more thoughtful. You can't really go very far in the wrong direction, which limits the degree to which you'll have to wander around looking for the right objectives. The game will naturally funnel you in the right direction, but never in a way that feels linear or restrictive. You're limited only by your progress and exploration, but the game keeps a good balance by making sure that there are only so many places that you can go.
This is certainly the best Commander Keen game to date, and represents a remarkable jump forward for the series. In contrast to the first Commander Keen game, this doesn't feel like a halfway measure to hook you and get you to play the later, and non-free, games in the series. It's a true full platformer in its own right. It takes the game from a Super Mario Bros. clone into a game that begins to have its own identity, along with all of the bells and whistles that one would expect from a console platformer. Its execution and presentation would put this one among the better NES platformers, but not among the best. It loses a bit here on innovation, since it is building tremendously on the huge accomplishment that was the original trilogy, but it's a great polish job on what was a nice technical accomplishment, and feels like a game that can stand on its own legs apart from the technical advancements present in the game. I'll give it an 8.8/10.
Next up will be the 5th and final (for me) chapter in the Commander Keen saga, which I've already completed (so I'll probably be back tomorrow). Stay tuned!
-TRO
No comments:
Post a Comment