What I'm Playing (Volume 76): Donkey Kong

Donkey Kong is a game that I actually beat a few months ago on my NES, but was reminded of my completion of the game through its presence on my NES Classic Edition, so I wanted to give it a quick review here.

This is a difficult review for me. I can largely appreciate how unbelievably important a game like Goldeneye 007 is, even while recognizing how far we've come with first person shooters through the lineage of Half-Life and Halo. I can appreciate it because I was there to see what shooters were like before (Wolfenstein 3D), which makes it easy for me to understand the huge leap forward that Bond's N64 adventure was for gaming.

Donkey Kong is far more difficult for me to appreciate because my literal first video game I can remember playing is Super Mario Bros., which built upon the developments of Donkey Kong, but I wasn't even aware Donkey Kong ever existed. As such, it's challenging for me to see the hyper polished, fast paced, brilliantly designed masterpiece that is Super Mario Bros. and also be able to tease out the foundations present in that game that were created, largely from scratch, in Donkey Kong. So all of that is to say that playing Donkey Kong is pretty boring to me in 2018, and was boring to me the first time I ever played it (maybe in the arcade emulation in Donkey Kong 64?). But I'm going to try my best to review this thing from the perspective of someone experiencing it for the first time in 1981, informed by the games that followed after.

It's hard to overstate Donkey Kong's level of influence over approximately 2 decades of console video games in which platforming was king. But aside from that, Donkey Kong's influence spilled over from platforming to video games more generally, changing our conceptions of what was possible in a video game, as well as how video games tell stories.

Prior to Space Invaders, video games were primarily sports titles. Prior to Pac-Man, video games were primarily shooters. Prior to Donkey Kong, video games were primarily shooters or maze games. Each of these genius games were game breakers that changed the conception of what was possible in video games. Each of these were also developed by Japanese companies, a trend that would ensconce Japan as king of the arcade and console market for a very long time, while American companies primarily focused on PC gaming.

Donkey Kong created the jump in video games, which is somewhat bizarre if you think about it. I mean, how often do you actually jump in real life? But jumping has become a core mechanic is almost every video game, to the point that if feels strange to play a video game without it! Go ahead, try to play Skylanders: Giants, and tell me you aren't hammering that X button, jonesing for your little guy to take flight. It just feels weird when it isn't there, but that wasn't always the case.
It's an odd bit of path dependency that jumping diffused from Donkey Kong to Super Mario Bros. to hundreds of platformer imitators to first person shooters and RPGs when jumping is such a strange mechanic to us in real life, but there you are, jumping in Skyrim and Halo.

But the jump gave video games a sort of three dimensional feel to them that was largely lacking in video games before this. You could go left and right, up and down, but you could never go over obstacles before. It's hard to overestimate how much influence this mechanic had on the video games that I consider to be among my absolute favorites, and for this, it deserves a tremendous amount of credit.

The actual mechanics of the jump and Mario's movements more generally in Donkey Kong are far more realistic and far less satisfying than they are in Super Mario Bros., in which you can speed up to influence how far you jump, change directions in mid air, bounce upon your hated enemies, and have a certain inertia to your movement that feels just right. But the building blocks are there, and there's definitely something profoundly satisfying about leaping over a barrel and being awarded points for it, and this level of sophistication in movement was probably all that we in the video game playing public could handle in 1981.

Donkey Kong also popularized the use of having multiple levels, a concept that had been utilized a few times before this, but never with the level of notoriety that accompanied Mario's quest to rescue his beloved, yet quickly forgotten, Pauline (Pauline in Smash Bros. Ultimate?). Mario has to move through conveyer belts, elevators, and steel beams on his quest, and each level has its own distinct feel and strategy to it that would have given the player a very revolutionary feel to it in 1981.

Along with Pac-Man, Donkey Kong popularized the use of cutscenes to develop characters and storylines in a video game, which was particularly lucrative in marketing and developing merchandise and licensing. There's a reason that there wasn't quite the same push to market Space Invaders as there was for Donkey Kong and Pac-Man, each of which had their own television show based on the characters. Unfortunately, I played the NES version of the game, which lacks these more polished touches (how awesome is it that we have consoles and PCs now that can handle just about anything standalone arcade units can do?).

The NES port of Donkey Kong seems fairly faithful to me, minus stripping out some of the arcade polish, as well as one of the levels. I'll need to go back and play the arcade version in Donkey Kong 64 to get the whole experience again, as it's been a few years since I played it. But Donkey Kong is a true landmark in video game history, even if its been largely surpassed by its children, including the sequel Donkey Kong Jr.. I'll give it a 9.5/10.

Up next on What I'm Playing is my maiden voyage through a fiendishly difficult NES game, teased below.

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 75): Kirby's Adventure

I've gone on a pretty epic NES bender the last week or so, and knocked off four games in the process, so here's the first review from those four. I've been playing them all on my NES Classic for various reasons, but I actually didn't own a cartridge copy of Kirby's Adventure, so it seemed a logical place to start.

Kirby's Adventure is a very late NES title, released a full two years after the release of the Super Nintendo! Usually these games are fairly rare and collectible, but as an official Nintendo release featuring a well loved property riding high from his success on the Game Boy, Kirby's Adventure is actually pretty reasonably priced, although I've only come across one in the wild, and coincidentally after I'd just bought the NES Classic in part to add Kirby's Adventure to my collection. Oops.

Kirby's Adventure takes Kirby's basic skills (flying, sucking bad guys up and shooting them back out) from Kirby's Dreamland and modernizes him to become the Kirby we know and love today. His signature and frankly horrifying ability to swallow enemies and take their skills for his own debuts in this game, and the pink puffy vampire has never looked back. Kirby has a frankly staggering number of different powers in the game, and each of them is lovingly and cutely animated so that he'll steal your heart with every sword slash and body slam he does. He also has a sliding kick, although, frankly, I rarely used it.

Kirby's Adventure takes place across eight worlds with somewhere around 45 levels (just a guestimation). The basic platforming elements of Kirby's Dreamland are all here, but the expanded power of the NES allows for Kirby's world to be larger, brighter, and more delightful than ever before. Kirby's in color, now, as is his world. The sprites are still delightfully drawn, but definitely take advantage of the NES' power. As a late game entrant to the NES library, this game looks far closer, graphically speaking, to the late generation triumphs of the later Mega Man games and Little Samson, with the developers at HAL Laboratory having figured out the tricks of developing for the system on their earlier titles. The game is truly striking and has a bunch of really cool effects thrown in that would have really dropped jaws back in 1993, at least compared to other NES games.

The game features a bit of slowdown, which is common among games of this era and level of detail. It's nowhere close to the mess that is the middle Mega Man games, but it's definitely noticeable and irritating at times.

The controls are generally pretty good, but they'll kill you occasionally due to the quirky choice (again), to make up make you fly. This means that if you brush across up on the d-pad while jumping, Kirby will immediately float up into the air and start flying, which can definitely be irritating. 

The levels are big and detailed and fun to navigate. Each one is chock full of different secrets that can only be unlocked if you've brought the right stolen power into the room with you. This gives the game quite a bit of replay value, as you may find that you're trying to work the system in order to bring the right powers and get that completion percentage higher and higher (note: this is the first game I can remember that has a completion percentage to it-but there is probably another one before it). The bosses are detailed and fun to fight, and none are so frustrating that you'll want to give up.

The game has some cute little cut scenes between the level that show off the story of the game without any words, which is positively delightful. The story is definitely pretty shallow, but there's a pretty good twist at the end that will make you smile and feel even more in love with Kirby and his world than ever before.

The music to this game is insanely catchy, in keeping with every other entrant in the series. The sound is also very good.

This game can best be compared to Mega Man 2. It took an excellent idea from the first game in its series and polished it up, introducing new ideas that would eventually become hallmarks of a truly hallowed institution of gaming. Kirby's Adventure is a thorough delight to play, and I think just about everyone will enjoy it. I'll give it a 9.5/10. 

Up next on What I'm Playing is another NES title that I actually beat months ago and forgot to review. I can't pretend that this is a great teaser, but that's fine.

-TRO

NES Classic Review

I did it! I played the long game and finally got an NES Classic Edition for retail price, about a year and a half too late. I'd grabbed a few of the games on cartridges in the interim due to some lucky local craigslist deals, so the little console wasn't quite as much of a value to me as it would have been when I'd originally wanted it. But it's still an adorable little machine, and chopped off several games from my list, so I'm generally very pleased. Here's a quick review on the hardware and software included, and I'll be reviewing my first completed game on the next What I'm Playing!

The packaging is very appealing, and the console comes with a delightful little pack-in featuring R.O.B. and Nintendo's "Now you're playing with power" slogan. It's a nice little throwback, and I'm definitely going to hang it up somewhere.

The console's physical appearance nearly made me squeal. It's so adorable I just can't handle it! It comes with functioning power and reset buttons, and looks identical to the original toaster version of the NES (far superior to the top loader). It would have been a nice touch to make the hinge function, but we can't have everything, and keeping it simple certainly kept manufacturing costs lower, allowing the superb price point.

Speaking of price point, this thing is a phenomenal value for people who don't have existing NES collections, and merely a pretty good value even for existing collectors like myself. It comes with at least 15 core, must own NES games (more on this later), and 5 additional very good games, with 10 filler games you may play once. For collectors, simply having officially licensed copies of a game like Super Mario Bros. 3 or Ninja Gaiden that feature the ability to save is invaluable. Clearing out all 8 worlds of SMB 3 without the ability to save is really very difficult, but having these emulated versions actually improves the quality of an already superb game, as owners of SMB 3 on the Game Boy Advance or purchasers of the various virtual console versions of the game know. This makes it so that you don't always have to rush through the game by warping to World 8 as fast as possible, and lets you explore a bit more at your leisure. You can also plug these into an HD TV with less lag than you'd get from plugging an NES into one (although there's always a slight bit of lag with emulation). On net, I'd recommend the console as a value for just about anyone who loves NES games, but for the casual person looking to have a weekend full of nostalgia for the price of taking your family to the movies, this is an unbelievable value.

The console comes with all the cords and accessories you will need to get it up and running in a few minutes, doesn't take any technical know how at all, and is extremely user friendly. The controller feels identical to the original NES, and is excellent in quality. The controller cord is, as other reviewers have noted, extremely short. Picture what you think of as a very short controller cord and then cut it in half, and you'll get the idea. This didn't have to be a huge weakness, as you'll need to keep the console close to you to hit the reset button frequently, as this is the way to access save states, as well as the easiest way to quickly switch games. The HDMI cord is, however, not very long either, making it my recommendation to either get a longer HDMI cord or buy one of the extension cords for your controller. Apparently Amazon has two packs of extension cords for $10, so even if you cough up the extra money, it's still a very good deal.

The UI is very intuitive, and also very similar to the SNES Classic Edition, which is also excellent. The home screen has a catchy song to go with it, but the SNES Classic's song is better. It comes with a standard amount of options, including putting your games in standard mode, pixel perfect mode, or CRT mode.

All of this pretty packaging does nothing without some quality games, so let's go through them one by one, rating them on a 1-10 scale. These numbers aren't necessarily an evaluation of the game, but simply how important it was for Nintendo to include the game on the console. I'll judge these based on quality of the game, whether or not it's an iconic NES title, how difficult it would have been to get the license, and whether or not there was a more appropriate title to fill one of the 30 slots. It's nice that they got 30 titles on here, compared to the 21 for the SNES Classic, so I'll give them credit even if the list isn't quite as well curated as the SNES Classic.

Balloon Fight-9/10-Nintendo property, very fun game, representative of the earliest Nintendo era

Bubble Bobble-9/10-Iconic NES game, nice license get from Taito, and very fun


Castlevania-10/10-Fantastic game, extremely iconic NES game, an absolute must have

Castlevania II: Simon's Quest-4/10-Give me Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse! This one makes little sense to me.


Donkey Kong-9/10-This is a very good game, a very good arcade port, and an iconic Nintendo property that didn't need licensing. No brainer.

Donkey Kong Jr.-9/10-This is actually better than Donkey Kong and fills one of the 30 slots with a Nintendo license. Pretty easy choice, despite not being as well known.


Double Dragon II: The Revenge-9/10-The best iteration of one of the more iconic NES series. Probably need have to have one of the Double Dragon's here, and this is the best choice, even if there are better beat em ups on the console.

Dr. Mario-10/10-This is a little console with a lot of platformers so the genre diversity is nice. Plus this is a fantastic puzzler and a Nintendo license, so it has to be included.

Excitebike-9/10-A limited game but an iconic Nintendo license, I put this on the same tier as Balloon Fight.

Final Fantasy-7/10-I know this is the first of one of my top three game series of all time (Mario, Pokemon, Final Fantasy, btw), but if I'm being honest, It think that one of the four Dragon Warrior games is a better fit here. Dragon Warrior was far more common in America due to the Nintendo Power giveaway, and each of the 4 games released in the U.S. was better than Final Fantasy, despite the Final Fantasy series lapping Dragon Quest/Warrior in popularity here today. But they probably made the right choice just in terms of marketing this thing.

Galaga-8/10-If I was making a list of the best NES games, Galaga wouldn't be on it. But this is brilliant marketing to include a few smash arcade hits here, and it's a pretty good port, so I have no quibbles with this.

Ghosts 'n Goblins-8/10-This is an iconic NES game, but it's not very good. It's a one of the most overrated arcade games ever, and the port is poor.

Gradius-7/10-The port is pretty poor here, and there are better shooters on the console, including another Konami license that would have been better in Life Force. But it's a pretty iconic NES game, so I'll pass it.

Ice Climber-6/10-This game sucks, and it's only a mid-tier Nintendo license. This box needed no extra platformers, and this one is terrible.

Kid Icarus-7/10-This is a little better than Ice Climber, but similar in terms of its level of license. You probably include it, though.

Kirby's Adventure-10/10-Fantastic game, top tier early Nintendo license, no brainer.

Mario Bros.-6/10-I really don't like this game! Donkey Kong is much better.

Mega Man 2-10/10-This is an iconic NES license and a fantastic game as well. You can quibble about which of 2 or 3 is better, but you really can't argue that 2 is more iconic, and very deserving of a place here.

Metroid-10/10-Absolutely iconic and a fantastic game. Must include

Ninja Gaiden-10/10-One of the 3 truly iconic and excellent NES 3rd party series (along with Castlevania and Mega Man), and while Ninja Gaiden II is better by a hair, you really can't complain about this gem

Pac-Man-9/10-It's the most iconic arcade game ever, and has a pretty good NES port. I wouldn't have done this, similar to Galaga, but after thinking about it it makes all the sense in the world.

Punch-Out!!-9/10-Don't get me wrong. This is as iconic as it gets, and it's a fantastic game. But the slight emulation lag makes beating higher level bosses very difficult, so the product is a bit less shiny than an original cart. You still have to include it, though.

StarTropics-8/10-It's a nice little game and adds a longer adventure game to the mix, plus it's a Nintendo property. Pretty good choice.

Super C-6/10-You skipped the absolutely iconic Contra for it's inferior sequel? WHY???

Super Mario Bros.-10/10-Duh
Super Mario Bros. 2-10/10-Duh
Super Mario Bros. 3-10/10-Duh

Tecmo Bowl-8/10-I understand you can't get Tecmo Super Bowl because of the NFL license. But gosh does this hurt.

The Legend of Zelda-10/10-The only series that you absolutely can't miss on beside Super Mario Bros.

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link-9/10-Iconic series, inferior game to the original.

Here are a few ideas for swapping games that I'd propose:

Yoshi's Cookie for Ice Climber-This is a fun puzzler and adds a little diversity
DuckTales for Ghosts 'n Goblins-This is the superior Capcom game they should have gone for, despite not being as iconic.
Mega Man 3/Castlevania III for Castlevania II: Simon's Quest-Either choice is great!
Contra for Super C-Easiest swap on the whole console
Tetris for...something-You have to have Tetris! Come on! I'm fine with cutting Gradius, but that leaves us with 0 side scrolling shooters, which seems like a mistake. I'd also be fine with cutting Kid Icarus or Mario Bros., but that cuts into Nintendo's profits. 31 games?

All in all, I'd highly recommend the NES Classic Edition. I prefer the SNES Classic, but that may be due to my preference for the SNES over the NES in general. It's not perfect, but it's a pretty good slice of Nintendo's offerings from the NES' run, and will definitely give you your bang for your buck, particularly if you don't have an existing NES collection. Enjoy!

What I'm Playing (Volume 74): Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story is the third game in the Mario & Luigi series of handheld RPGs starring Mario and Luigi. The game is a continuation of basic themes and approaches of the previous two games, but has the interesting twist of featuring Bowser as a playable character for the second time in a Mario RPG (the first being the incredible Super Mario RPG).

The series owes an obviously huge debt to its SNES godfather referenced in the previous sentence. The series has an essentially lighthearted tone, is developed by an outside company (Squaresoft for the original, and AlphaDream for the Mario and Luigi series), and features timing based combat in which you can time button presses to either increase outgoing damage, or reduce or avoid incoming damage. The Mario and Luigi series distinguishes itself in a few ways from its progenitor, however. First, the series is handheld, a big plus! Second, the graphical style of the game is far more similar to classic Mario platformers than the 3D attempts made on the SNES and in the Paper Mario series. Third, the Mario and Luigi series has a bigger focus on Metroidvania-esque exploration mechanics, in which the Bros. are constantly discovering new powers to help further explore their world, as well as opening up former areas to new discovery.

I'd played the original Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga and Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time, and had greatly enjoyed both. I'm frankly out of interesting handheld platformers in the backlog, so I decided to dive into yet another handheld RPG for the next handheld entrant here.

The basic premise of the game is that the lovable Fawful, supervillain and bean shop proprietor, tricks Bowser into swallowing an item that makes him inhale Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, and the entire Mushroom Kingdom court, and then takes over the Mushroom Kingdom for himself! Bowser is left without many of his powers, which the Bros. must restore to him from inside of their reptilian nemesis, allowing him to assault Fawful and retake his position as rightful dark overlord of the Mushroom Kingdom.

The game is excellent graphically, featuring lovingly animated sprite work and plenty of beautiful surroundings. It really made me wish that the Fire Emblem game on the DS had the same approach, as the sprites really appear lifelike and delightful, and have aged tremendously. There's honestly not a single thing I'd change about the game's graphics.

The game's core combat mechanics are again fun, but seem a bit imbalanced this time around due to a new element, particularly when battling as our beloved Bros. First, the badge system enables you to build meter by timing your attacks well, but the healing benefits from the badges are so extreme as to make every battle extremely simple. You can easily heal over half of your health by activating your badge after the meter is full, and don't even need to forgo an attack to do so. Building the meter is extremely easy as well, making each and every battle very low risk, particularly with how simple it is to avoid most of the attacks in the game with proper jumps. It also feels like the battles are simpler than usual in the series, which is intentionally a more casual RPG. I only died one time during the game, and this was during the quirky new Giga-Bowser battles (a bit more on this later). The regular Bowser battles were the big highlight of the game to me, as they seemed significantly more challenging, and appropriately so. Bowser is much slower and it's harder for him to avoid damage, which makes each fight feel more impactful. He also needs to burn a turn to use items to heal if he takes too much damage, which makes your choices more difficult. Do you take the turn to try to finish off your enemy, or heal and risk exposing you to another attack?

The Giga-Bowser battles were fun in the beginning, but I frankly dreaded them by the end. At certain points in the game, Bowser turns into his massive form for battles against other huge enemies. For this, you need to turn your DS vertical, and combat is conducted by the stylus and by (sigh) blowing into the microphone. This makes you look like an absolute lunatic, and for a style of gaming that's intended to be conducted at least partially in public, this is really frustrating.

The game's highest point comes in its maintenance of the series' trademark humor, and it really helps that Fawful makes a return in a big way in the series. Fawful is the absolute best part of the first game, and the second one drags a bit due to his absence from the game (he has a bit part, but he's not in the game as consistently, which hurts my soul). His broken English and declarations of possession ("I have fury!" and "I have chortles!" are prominent examples) play extremely well alongside the heroic Bros., as does Luigi's frequent acts of cowardice in the face of danger. Speaking of the Bros. and comedy, God bless Charles Martinet. His vocal performance as both Mario and Luigi, speaking in their fake Italian accents, is the heart and soul of the series, and is absolutely hilarious.

The music is again excellent, composed by the delightful Yoko Shimomura (best known for her iconic score for Street Fighter II, but has also done all of the Mario & Luigi games, as well as all of the Kingdom Hearts games, among other excellent soundtracks). It feels like a soundtrack that belongs in the Mushroom Kingdom, and is simple, catchy, and appropriate to the varied locales and situations in which Mario and Luigi find themselves.

The length of the game was a breath of fresh air, clocking in at just over 20 hours (for me). I can't stand it when developers expect you to log 60 hours into an RPG just to finish the main scenario, particularly as I've gotten older and have less free time to play games. This one feels like it's just long enough, although I think the basic pacing and structure of the game could use some improvement.

The game is at its best when you are switching between Mario and Luigi and Bowser, having the big guy manipulate things in his body to solve puzzles and unlock new powers for him. Unfortunately, this occupies a very small part of the game, and is operated in a pretty clumsy fashion. I feel like they could have done more to increase this interplay, but the usual path it takes is that Bowser presses a button to toggle something, and then Mario and Luigi can proceed further. For example, Bowser can swallow a bunch of water to allow Mario and Luigi to reach new places inside of his stomach. There are only a few parts of the game that work like this, and they work pretty well. Having more of them would have made the back and forth mechanic more impactful in the game, but there are really only three extended sections like this (I believe). The vast majority of the game features long stretches of Bowser exploring until he hits his limits, and then you switch to Mario and Luigi for longer stretches. This can get a bit dull, especially with the risk-free nature of the Bros.' combat. Even the puzzles that do exist in the game are extremely simple and easily solved, and should have ramped up more in difficulty as the game progressed.

Ultimately, Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story makes few risks with the already delightful Mario and Luigi formula, and few of the risks that they take hit very well. But the formula is so very good that it only slighty reduces the fun you'll have with the title, despite the first game in the series still reigning supreme as the best (although I haven't yet played the fourth and fifth games in the series, and nor do I own them). This is a solid title, and if you're a fan of the series, there's plenty here for your to enjoy. I'll give it a 8.6/10.

I have no idea what's up next on What I'm Playing, so just stay tuned! I definitely need to find something that's a bit shorter so that I can get close to finishing my needed 4 games for July to stay on target for 50 completions this year. Right now I'm at two, with one ready to bite the dust in the next few days if I get a chance, so I may opt for something quick and simple.

-TRO

2018 Half-Year reTROview reTROspective

These are my favorite things to write because charts/graphs! I love setting goals and tracking and measuring them, so here goes. My goal for the year was to complete 50 games in 2018. I completed 65 in 2017, but I also played through a ton of classic platformers which don't take too much time to finish, and my play for 2018 was to finish up some games that would take a bit longer, so I set a more reasonable goal. In order to finish up this goal, I needed to finish up ~4.2 games per month, and needed to be at 25 by the end of June. This is a little late, so I'm going to include the game I finished in July here for a total of 27 games! So even at the end of June I was ahead of my needed pace by 1 game, which is a nice buffer as July has seen me playing several very long games. Here is the list of games I've completed thus far in 2018:

Beetle Adventure Racing
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Commander Keen: Marooned on Mars
Commander Keen: The Earth Explodes
Commander Keen: Keen Must Die!
Commander Keen: Secret of the Oracle
Commander Keen: The Armageddon Maching
Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D
Dr. Mario
Goldeneye 007The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7
LostMagic
Mass Effect 3
Mega Man and Bass
Mega Man X 4
New Super Mario Bros.
Pokemon Alpha Sapphire
Punch-Out!!
Project X Zone
Star Wars: Rogue Squadron
Super Mario 3D Land
The Final Fantasy Legend
The Legend of Dragoon
Tony Hawk's American Wasteland
Ultimate NES Remix
Vectorman

Home or Handheld?

As you can see, I again completed more home games than handheld, although I definitely spent more time handheld gaming. Fifty hours worth of hell in Project X Zone, as well as a healthy 80 hours worth of Pokemon Alpha Sapphire dragged my completions down here.

Home or Handheld Rating

Home is king here, although that is mostly due to an extremely low rating for the dismal Project X Zone. If you omit that, the rating for handheld games actually goes higher than that of home games. The low sample for handheld also hurts.

Systems Played

 

In a surprise twist, the PC is the king of home gaming platforms! This is entirely due to my run through of the Commander Keen series, so this probably won't last. I have been thinking about a few playthroughs of some vintage PC games, though, so it may hold through the year if I can play one or two more PC games. The 3DS is king of the handhelds, which definitely holds true to my general patterns of handheld gaming. I didn't play a single new SNES game this year (although I did run through Link to the Past and Super Mario World again), which makes me sad, but I've also completed most of the SNES games I need to play, with a few exceptions. Look for one of Secret of Mana, Mega Man Soccer, Bahamut Lagoon, or Super Punch-Out!! in the coming months. Or maybe all 4.

System Ratings

The NES is my favorite system of the year thus far, with two excellent experiences in Punch-Out!! and Dr. Mario. The only other system with a greater than a 9 is the PS3, riding solely on my enjoyable completion of Mass Effect 3. The stinker of the year is the PS2, with a poor showing from Tony Hawk's American Wasteland.  

Genres

 

Another year, another dominant performance for platformers. I've completed 10 to date, more than double the runner up-RPGs. I've definitely spent more time playing RPGs, though.
 

Genre Ratings

 

The genre of the year is Metroidvania, as I've only played the stellar Castlevania: Symphony of the Night so far. I really need to remedy that, as I've grown increasingly fond of the genre recently. 3D platformers, action, FPS, and puzzle games all rank above 9, and all on the strength of one excellent title. The worst genre of the year, by far, is strategy RPGs, literally anchored by Project X Zone, the clear frontrunner for the illustrious reTROview Stinker of the Year award.

Developers

 

Nintendo is the quantity developer of the year thus far with 6 games, followed closely by id Software/Ideas from the Deep due to the Commander Keen games they split among themsleves. Other than that, the other developer with more than one game is Capcom, with 2 Mega Man games. 

Developer Ratings

Technically Konami reigns supreme with a 9.6 rating due to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. But the true developer of the year is unquestionably Nintendo, who managed to maintain a 9.06 rating across 6 titles. Unbelievable. The worst developer is Banpresto/Monolith Soft, thanks to, well, I think you know by now.

Company

 

Nintendo is, as always, the king. Their 15 games I've played thus far outstrips the 12 combined from PC/Sega/Sony. The distribution is far more democratic than last year, however, where I played an astounding 52 Nintendo games with 13 others spread across the remaining platforms. I'll clear that pretty comfortably this year, with an additional Sony game in the works at present.

Company Rating

 

Crown Miyamoto-San with many crowns! The Nintendo developed games really buoy up the Nintendo rating to make them king of quality as well as quantity. The worst company of the year goes to Sony, dragged down by two poor titles in Tony Hawk's American Wasteland and Mega Man X 4. But they'll be pulled back up after my next What I'm Playing is completed.

Decade

 

The 90s again reign supreme in this nostalgia driven gamer's patterns, with 12 games from the 90s. The 80s are in last in quantity, but...

Decade Ratings

 

First in quality! With a 9.1 rating driven by Punch-Out!!, the 80s were again the best after their top showing last year. The worst decade of the year is the 2000s by a mile. 

Game of the (reTROview) Year (so far): Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

 

This seems a bit low rated (9.6) for a game of the year, but it was truly excellent. Technically it tied with Punch-Out!! but I had to make a judgment call and I think I enjoyed Castlevania more by a hair, plus Little Mac's Odyssey is getting it's own award below. Both were excellent, though!

Stinker of the (reTROview) Year (so far): Project X Zone

 

This one was particularly onerous as it was not only dreadful but also extremely long.

Median Game of the (reTROview) Year (so far): The Final Fantasy Legend

 

This was a tie between the classic Squaresoft RPG and New Super Mario Bros. But I just thought the legend more accurately described median.

Newest Game reTROviewed: Ultimate NES Remix (2014)

The newest reviewed game is a compilation of NES themed minigames. How on brand! It technically tied with Pokemon Alpha Sapphire, but this was way more funny.

Oldest Game reTROviewed: Punch-Out!! (1987)

 

This is definitely going to be a game to which I return regularly. So much fun!

The reTROview 2018 Top 10:

10. Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7 (8.8)

9. Ultimate NES Remix (8.9)

8. Mass Effect 3 (9)

7. Pokemon Alpha Sapphire (9)

6. The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (9.1)

5. Super Mario 3D Land (9.3)

4. Dr. Mario (9.4)

3. Goldeneye 007 (9.4)

2. Punch-Out!! (9.6)

1. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (9.6)

The reTROview 2018 Bottom 10: 

10. Vectorman (8.4)

9. Star Wars: Rogue Squadron (8.2)

8. Commander Keen: Keen Must Die! (8.2)

7. The Legend of Dragoon (8)

6. Mega Man and Bass (8)

5. LostMagic (7.5)

4. Commander Keen: The Armageddon Machine (7.5)

3. Mega Man X4 (7.2)

2. Tony Hawk's American Wasteland (7)

1. Project X Zone (5)

I had excellent taste in games this year! Only the bottom 3 of the Bottom 10 are truly "stay away" games. The rest were all perfectly fine if you like the genre, and had plenty of enjoyable content.

27 down and 23 to go! I need to slog through my planned July games quickly, but I do have a few bunnies on the list I can easily tack on if I'm falling behind. So far everything's on schedule to complete my goal by 11:59, December 31st! Check back soon for a What I'm Playing-I have two games which are very nearly completed on the horizon in the next few days.

-TRO