Song of the Day (Volume 18): Aja

Too many long reviews lately, and I'm beat. R.I.P. Walter Becker. Aja.

What I'm Playing (Volume 20): Mega Man 2

The North American cover art for Mega Man 2 is slightly better than for Mega Man, but this Japanese art is still way better.

Mega Man 2. Simply saying the words will get essentially every retro gamer short of breath. One of the finest NES games of all time, the second game in the Mega Man franchise is held up by most as the best in the series. So how did I like it?

The game builds on the brilliance of the first game by adding in a few new features and polishing up some old ones. Mega Man can now get E-tanks, items that he can hold on to and activate when low on health to survive tough boss battles. The game also has 8 robot masters rather than 6, resulting in a longer and more enjoyable experience. To compensate for the longer length, the game has a password system which enables you to pick up where you left off, the most important innovation of any in the series.

As far as polish, the game is simply gorgeous in every way. The sprite work is again excellent, but the backgrounds for each stage are far better than in Mega Man. The game features plenty of bigger sprites, and the tech is mostly capable of handling it. The music for the game is my favorite soundtrack on the NES, bar none. Each stage has a catchy and enjoyable tune, and there are probably five truly exemplary songs on the game. The robot masters are well designed, and several are among the pantheon of the most beloved in series history, including my favorite Air Man, Wood Man, and Metal Man.

Despite the hype, however, Mega Man 2 is not perfect. The game is far too easy for a Mega Man game. Extra lives drop early and often, and the game gives you tons of health and energy drops to make rushing through the game too simple. While the robot masters are tough with the basic arm cannon, once you have their weapon weaknesses, each is a snoozefest. Some bosses can be killed with as few as one hit (charged fire weapon against woodman) from their weakness, and the low degree of invulnerability each boss gets after being hit makes it easy to spam these weapons and rack up quick kills. What's more, the concluding bosses are just as easy. No longer are there challenging humps to get over like the Yellow Devil. Even the end bosses are extremely simple, taking little more than a few attempts to beat. While the difficulty would perhaps be acceptable with limited continues, the unlimited continues in Mega Man 2 make it so that there is little challenge in beating the game.

What's worse, the challenge that does exist in the game is completely arbitrary and based entirely on you knowing what's coming, rather than giving the player any chance. One classic example comes in the section in which you must drop down a stage, avoiding laser beams that will kill you in one hit. If the obstacles aren't navigated nearly perfectly, you'll get killed immediately, and there's no chance to assess the lay of the land and develop a plan. If you never died once on these lasers, I'd be stunned. This is bad level design that does nothing to reward good reflexes or skills, and requires pure rote memorization and replication. But these moments are relatively few, and could be more easily forgiven if they were accompanied by true challenge, which they rarely are.

The game is also plagued by slowdown at times, a function of the increased detail of the stages and enemies, I'm sure. While it's annoying, I find it worth the investment, but wish they'd been able to make it this beautiful without sacrificing the play quality.

So Mega Man 2 is a wonderful creation, but not the perfect creature than many Mega Man fans pretend. It has its warts, but it's really a fun experience that every video game fan should enjoy. I'll give it a 9.5.

My next What I'm Playing probably won't come tomorrow. I just reached Wily Castle in Mega Man 3, so I doubt I'll be able to clear out the entire castle tonight. But I think it safe to say that Monday should bring a review of Mega Man 3 and the definitive resolution of the 2 vs. 3 debate.

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 19): Mega Man

Rockman??? I just can't do the North American Box Art. Sorry.

Known as Rockman in Japan, Mega Man is one of my all time favorite series of platformers. When I started this blog, I started out the gaming portion by talking about Mega Man, and noted that one of my biggest regrets is using save states to beat Mega Man 1-6. While I still used save states to beat them this time around (I'm working through 1-6 at the moment, spoilers), I did nothing using save states that couldn't have been done with regular hardware. If I had really wanted to leave my NES on for days, I could have, but instead I just used save states when I wanted to turn it off, but would have liked to keep my progress, rather than stopping at difficult moments and repeating them over and over again until I won, like last time (for shame). This is particularly important in Mega Man, as the game tragically lacks a password system to save your progress, making save states really important unless you really want to leave your NES on for days.

So how did the game hold up while taking a more adult approach to it? It was fantastic! I recall not enjoying Mega Man as much due to the lack of passwords and some of the polish of the newer Mega Man titles, and that is all still true. But the reality exists that while Mega Man 2 solidifies the Mega Man brand, trimming some poor practices, polishing up some old ones, and introducing a few new ones, the Mega Man formula is about 90% there on Mega Man.

Like in subsequent Mega Man games, you begin with the chance to choose your level from a set. When you make it through that first level, you get to take the end boss' weapon, and use it on subsequent levels. Each boss is weak against one of these special weapons, making it important that you experiment with different weapon types in order to beat these challenging baddies.

Clearing each level is a not so simple task of jumping over enemies and obstacles, and shooting your basic arm cannon and your special weapons to reach the boss, kill him, and take his weapon. Once all six of the bosses have been beaten, you then have the chance to tackle Wily Castle, defeat the sinister Dr. Wily, and save the day.

Mega Man is a remarkable NES accomplishment. The graphics are bright and fun. The sprite work is superb, and imbues the characters with character that jumps out at you with no exposition whatsoever. The storytelling aspects are excellent, with the flexibility present for you to tell your own story, at your own pace, following your own path. The innovations involved in having the choice of level to select, and being able to steal enemies' weapons, are really excellent, and deserve every ounce of credit which they have been given. 

The music, while perhaps not quite to the level of Mega Man 2, is still a gem of the 8 bit era. There are so many memorable tunes on this game that it is, in some ways, a shame that the second game has stolen so much of this game's thunder, although deservedly so.

The controls and gameplay are mostly perfect, as Mega Man performs the way you feel that he should. The level design is excellent, and the bosses at the end are well designed, and feature several classic Mega Man villains, including Guts Man and Cut Man.

While there is slowdown at times, it is much better than the slowdown in Mega Man 2, which itself is much better than the slowdown in Mega Man 3. So on that count, Mega Man suffers, but it's the best of the bunch, in my opinion.

Part of the lack of slowdown, however, comes from the lack of detail in many of the stages. The characters are all well animated, but most of the backgrounds of the stages are fairly nondescript, frequently featuring solid colors.

The game could, indeed, have benefited from a password system. And the game is really hard, and sometimes unfairly so. But most of the really hard sections can be bypassed after an hour or so of tough practice (here's looking at you Yellow Devil), and the unfair sections are usually navigated cleanly after a few iterations, making them more of an irritation than true brokenness.

Mega Man, flaws and all, is one of the best NES games of all time. It doesn't always get the love it deserves, but it's a true gem of 8-bit platforming, and set the stage for some of the best games of all time, including Mega Man 2, Mega Man 3, and Mega Man X. Here's to you, Mega Man.

I'll give Mega Man a 9.2/10.

Next up, as I already spoiled it, is Mega Man 2, followed by some hard hitting reviewing of Mega Man 3! Tune in for the next two articles where I definitively answer the question that everyone has been arguing over for the last thirty years, which classic Mega Man game is better, 2 or 3? Not really. But I'll give my answer in two more posts!

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 18): Castlevania

Seriously some of the coolest box art for an NES game.

I'm really on a roll lately. I spent the long weekend at least partially wrapping up some retro games I'd been working on for a while, so I have TWO new What I'm Playing coming this week. And maybe a third, if I get some time tonight and tomorrow. 

The first game I finished was one I've been working on for a while, although I took a break in the middle. It's Konami's Castlevania, the first in the legendary series of games that took a big U-turn in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Playstation) to adopt more Metroid/Zelda characteristics. But this game on the NES is the originator of the series, so that's where I started, having been inspired by the fantastic time I spent with Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. And the first Castlevania game is quite different, although still enjoyable in it's own way.

You play as Simon Belmont, a member of a long line of vampire killers. Dracula's castle has appeared, as it does every 100 years, and as the current living and quite swole Belmont, and possessed of a tremendous whip, you must siege the castle, cutting your way through hordes of zombies, skeletons, bats, and a wide range of horrifying monsters inspired by classic horror films, books, and tall tales. You start only with your whip and your jumping, and have to find your way through the castle.

Along the way, you can find special items that can be used, including a throwing knife, some kind of boomerang, an axe, and the legendary HOLY WATER (more on this later). You can also find hearts that will enable to use these items. You can only hold one special item at a time, which makes the choice of which item to carry technically important, although the holy water is almost always best.

The game has many strong points. It's music is superb, and it looks fantastic for an early NES game. The backgrounds are filled with loving details, and all of the sprites are clear and crisp. 

The enemies come at you fast and furious, and you will die. A lot. The challenge of the game is well balanced so that you feel like you're learning even as you die and need to continue. Speaking of continues, you have infinite of them, and you'll need them! The stages are big and filled with lots of variety, and each stage has a unique identity which makes it a breath of fresh air.

The game tells a tale as old as time, and tells it well. With very little exposition, you get the sense of the story, and are immersed in it well. The game's ending is marvelously campy and lovable, with tributes to the actors who played the monsters featured as bosses, and you have a delightful celebration upon the conclusion of the game.

I am still not sure regarding the controls of the game. On the one hand, the controls feel clunky and unresponsive, far more like an Atari 2600 game than a polished NES title like Ninja Gaiden, Super Mario Bros., or Mega Man. On the other hand, I wonder about how effective those controls are in effectively immersing you in the world of Dracula's castle. Belmont frequently feels ganged up on and crushed by the hordes of monsters, and the clunky controls sell his underdog status. I lean towards not liking them, but they did add a certain value to the game, I suppose.

The single biggest weakness of the game was the balance of the items. The holy water is completely game breaking, if you can hang on to it. Most of the bosses are a cake walk with the holy water, as it puts the boss in stun lock while you beat on it with your whip. For the careful player, the holy water means a breeze through every boss in the game, save for the penultimate one. Getting there, however, is not so easy, if you have to hang on to the holy water without dying. I think the game would have been a bit stronger with a few additions. They could have toned up the power of the other items, or created compelling reasons why each should have to be used. 

They tried this, for example, by making the dagger have a much longer range than the holy water, while the axe can hit enemies above Simon, while the holy water drops down below onto enemies. But the duration with which the holy water burns when it hits the floor makes it so you can sling it around with little accuracy and still get your desired result. The hearts are also very plentiful in the game, and leave you with little incentive to conserve them for harder battles. Each charge of the holy water only takes 1 heart, and hearts are dropping all the time, including big hearts worth 5 hearts. They could have also maintained the balance by making the holy water cost 5 hearts, making it a high risk, high reward item that you'd have to use carefully. But the challenge of the game was such that just having holy water was frankly a relief, in the situation that I managed to carry it all the way to the boss. But I would have liked being able to play around with different item combinations and strategies, while the balance of the game really forced you to rely on one item alone.

But for it's blemishes, Castlevania is a very good early NES game. It blazed a lot of new ground in its visuals and music, and while clunky, the gameplay is immersive and ultimately satisfying. It's storytelling strengths exceed its balance flaws, and is a recommended play for fans of horror games, platforming, 8-bit gaming, and gaming history more generally. I'll give it a 8.6/10.

My next game is one I've been meaning to circle back to for months, and shouldn't be too hard to guess...

*Shakes fist in defiance*

  

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 17): Advance Wars: Dual Strike

I am really cooking lately. This is my third What I'm Playing this week! At this rate, I may end up finishing 50 games by the end of the year, which would be incredible. Anyway, on to Advance Wars: Dual Strike.

High school, for me, was filled with playing a lot of games by Intelligent Systems. My friends and I all loved the two Fire Emblem games for the GBA, and the two Advance Wars games. We frankly preferred Advance Wars, however, due to the hotseat multiplayer that allowed you to play against your friends with only one GBA. We spent many Biology classes passing our little GBA SP back and forth under the desk (sorry Mrs. Fombelle!). So when they came out with a DS iteration of the game, I was very excited.

But I can't remember if I beat it or not, and my cart didn't have any completed save data on it, so I'm assuming I never did. I was feeling getting back into the seat of command of the Orange Star army, so I added it as the next in my handheld queue.

And it was just so great to be back in Cosmo Land. Or is it Macro Land? Nope, it's Omega Land, which is functionally identical to both of the settings of the two previous Advance Wars games. Which is fine by me, as Advance Wars: Dual Strike felt like a remarkably pleasant and nostalgic walk through memory lane.

The Advance Wars games are turn based strategy games, in which you control your army of soldiers, tanks, ships, and aircraft to push back your enemy and seize the day. Gameplay largely revolves around capturing properties, which provide you money each turn and allow you to build bigger and bigger armies with which to crush your opponent. In order to capture these, you must send your infantry out to enter the property and capture it, while building enough vehicles to protect these infantry from attack. The game ends once you've killed every enemy on the map, or once you have captured the enemy's headquarters. Sometimes there are more complex victory conditions in the campaign, but most revolved around one or the other of these two options.

The game's campaign is 27 enjoyable missions long, and follows your path to pushing Black Hole out of a new land. The story is a hackneyed and tired environmental screed in which Black Hole is destroying the environment to power their military force, and I love it. Story, after all, is not why you turn on this game.

The campaign has a decent difficulty curve, although the beginning and end of the game were much better on the curve than the last missions. The last mission was frankly laughably easy, and the third to last even easier. But the beginning is a master class in gradually introducing the player to the wide range of gameplay options available to you, featuring introductions to basic movement and capturing, gradually increasing the power of vehicles available to you, and increasing your capabilities slowly, so as not to confuse the new player. Because there are a TON of options available to you as a commander.

Speaking of options, the flexibility of the game is one of it's main strengths. Customization is the rule of the day, and the game is balanced (enough) to make you able to play with any approach you like. Want to build ranged units and drop artillery and rockets around your opponents ears? Choose Grit as your commanding officer (CO), and enjoy his increased range and power of his ranged units. Want to push down your enemy with pure brute force, eschewing tact? Pick Max and wreck some face! There is a roster of nearly 20 COs, each with their own approach and tactics, and the vast majority being playable to some advantage. Each CO also has Powers and Super Powers, which build up through a meter while you deal and take damage. Once you unleash them, it will give your army a wide range of bonuses. Add to these COs the dizzying array of different units you can build, and each round of the game can take on new life as you attempt to try to beat that mission that's been troubling you in a slightly different way, or just feel like playing with a different strategy.

In addition to the campaign, the game features a huge array number of bonus maps that you can play to level up your COs, master your craft, and just have fun! You can also play against your friends using the hotseat option, or play wirelessly using 2 DSes (spelling?). Unfortunately, there are no online options to speak of, but as an early DS release, I can understand this.

The DS version comes with a number of mostly great new features. One is that the status screen is now displayed at the top, showing you information such as the amount of defense a particular terrain gives you, the amount of money being generated from a property, and plenty of others. Another is new dual screen battles, in which you fight on two fronts. Winning on one front comes with huge advantages, as you will then be able to gang up on the remaining front once you've knocked out your opponent. Speaking of ganging up, the DS version now allows you to battle with 2 COs at once. This allows you to mix and max your strengths and weaknesses, and makes for some fun interplay. You can also use tag powers, which enable you to use one COs' Super Power, take your turn, and then take the other COs Super Power, and move all of your units again! While fun, this is a bit unbalanced, which is one of my main critiques of the game. You can also use the touch screen to command your units, but I never did, so I can't really speak to it.

The game still looks great, has good music, and plays very well. There are tons of unlockables to get with the points you earn in battles, and you earn more points based on how well you do, as well as how challenging the battle is.

The main downside of the game was the competitive balance in the later part of the campaign, as well as the overpowering nature of the tag powers. The tag powers are one of the reasons why the late game is so simple, as it makes completely destroying your opponent before he gets a chance to move a breeze. It also allows you to control for your CO's weakness in a way that wasn't possible before. So, for example, if you are on a map that starts you off with a ton of indirect units, you can choose Grit, abuse those units until they are gone, and then switch to a more balanced CO for the remainder of the fight. No longer do COs really have defined weaknesses, which is not as much fun.

With that being said, Advance Wars: Dual Strike is a superb game with nearly infinite replay value, as long as you have a friend who likes playing! It's a standout on the DS, and a truly must have title for this beloved little handheld.

I'll give it a 9.2/10.

I'm still not sure which handheld game I'll be playing next, so it'll be a true surprise!

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 16): DuckTales

One of my favorite things about the NES is the huge chunks of new ground that it covered. There was so much experimentation going on during that time, and it was simply a fun time to be a gamer. Sure, that experimentation led to probably a higher percentage of stinkers than your current consoles, but also a lot more shining gems of originality and risk-taking.

I also really love NES/SNES era Capcom, and DuckTales is a great example of risk taking and breaking new ground.

A 2D platformer, DuckTales is based on the hit Disney TV show. You control Scrooge McDuck, and your goal is to beat every level and amass as much treasure as possible, in keeping with Scrooge's character. Along the way, you get help from several of the DuckTales supporting characters, including Huey, Dewey, and Louie, Launchpad, Mrs. Beakley and Gizmoduck. DuckTales is just one of several excellent Capcom NES games based on Disney properties, including Chip 'n Dale's Rescue Rangers, Darkwing Duck, and The Little Mermaid (don't knock it 'til you've tried it).

DuckTales is made by the same development team that worked on the Mega Man series, and at first glance, the similarities are obvious. The game begins with you choosing your level, rather than being thrust into it. The graphical style is similar as is the quality of the sound and music, which is some of the finest on the NES. The Moon theme in particular is among my favorite chiptune songs of all time. The game has a bright color palette that makes it remarkably beautiful and enjoyable.

Yet the mechanics of DuckTales are quite different from a Mega Man game, as is its basic approach to the experience of playing the game. While Mega Man has a gun which he shoots, and can get new weapons along the way to pass increasingly challenging obstacles, Scrooge begins and ends the game armed only with his cane. While you can use the cane like a golf club to harm enemies, you quickly discover that the best way to kill enemies is by bouncing on them with your cane, which enables you to damage enemies far more safely, but also to bounce higher and reach different secrets riddled throughout the levels. The only true upgrade I could find is a health upgrade, although their may be more.

While mastering a Mega Man game is based primarily on navigating left to right, bypassing enemies and completing tricky platforming in a high-stakes and high stress experience, DuckTales is instead a relaxing and enjoyable jaunt through beautiful environments, searching for treasure to become the richest duck on earth. Each level is packed full of secrets, and finding these is the key to increasing the amount of treasure you receive, giving you a benchmark for how you're performing. The levels are huge, and while I spent quite a bit of time exploring, I have to say that there's no way I found everything, or even a majority of the secrets contained with the game. This process of exploration gives the game a great level of replay value as you attempt to more thorough plumb the depths of the superbly crafted levels within.

This isn't necessarily to say that DuckTales is easy, although compared to other comparable NES games of the era, which were notoriously hard in the awkward transition from quarter munching mechanics in the arcades to enduring home experiences, it certainly is. But the game has a nice level of challenge to it that enhances your exploration experience, rather than detracts from it. You can always take the easy path through the levels, but finding the hidden treasures and becoming richer requires that you undertake more challenging platforming, at great personal risk.

The controls are fluid and responsive, and controlling Scrooge as he bounces across the Amazon, a vampire's castle, a snowy mountain, the moon, and a mine is very enjoyable.

The game isn't without its drawbacks, though. There are times in which the bouncing mechanics can seem very buggy due to poor hitboxes. There were times in which I was certain I had landed directly on an enemy, yet ended up getting damaged anyway. Also, if you bounce on the very end of a spike, you simply stop bouncing and sit there, not taking any damage, but not bouncing for some reason.

The end boss was fairly disappointing, mostly due to the fact that rather than having his own level, you are thrust back into an older level that you've already explored. What's more, there isn't even anything new about the level. You simply traverse it to the area where the boss was last time, and then fight the new boss. This was a letdown at the end of an excellent experience.

All in all, however, DuckTales is a classic game from an excellent era for a classic developer, and changes up the formula enough from its progenitors to produce a unique and enduring experience. I'd recommend it to any fan of platforming games. I'll give it a 9.4/10.

My next home console game will be another classic NES game. Can you guess which one?

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 15): EarthBound

If EarthBound is one of the greatest cult hits in gaming history, you can consider me one of the earlier cultists. While I admittedly never owned a cart until very recently, thanks to my incredible wife who bought me the shining star of my collection, I had played EarthBound at my friends' house, and absolutely loved it.

I always looked up to these two girls, and they had excellent taste in games. When I had an NES, they had a Sega Genesis, and I loved playing Sonic, Sonic 2, and Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine at their house. I later upgraded to the SNES, and they would always play Link to the Past at my house. My friend across the street then got a Genesis, and I mistakenly assumed that the Genesis was the better console, got rid of my SNES, and got a Genesis, which is still my biggest gaming regret.

Later on, after those two girls moved away, we visited them, and I found out that they had a SNES, and informed me that I had been a fool to get rid of my SNES for a Genesis. As proof, they had me play EarthBound for an hour or so.

I was captivated.

I loved naming my characters (I don't remember what I named Ness, Paula, and Jeff the first time, but I do remember naming Poo Goku), picking my favorite food, and my favorite thing (DBZ). I loved the crisp, colorful, retro look of the game. I loved the humor of the game. I loved how the game took place in the real world. I loved that it anachronistically reminded me of Pokemon. It was my first non-Pokemon RPG.

When I came back home, I told all of my friends about it. I told them that it was just like Pokemon, but with real people.

Once I figured out how to use emulators, and had finished Pokemon Gold, EarthBound was one of the first games I played. I never beat it on the emulator until later in life, but I loved starting the game over and experiencing the beginning of the game again, and playing until I got stuck.

I later beat it on an emulator, as the cart was WAY too expensive. I cheated, though, and used save states and other emulation trickery extensively to get the Sword of Kings, restart boss battles, etc. It never felt right.

So I decided to do it the right way, and beat it on my very expensive cart, and finally finished up this weekend.

And my love for the game hasn't waned one bit. The graphics are still delightful and have aged very well. The game has a sharp sense of humor, and delights in turning the standards of RPGs on their heads, exposing their silliness, yet delighting in the core mechanisms underlying the JRPG. I love the diverse and silly set of enemies with whom you can fight, and the absurd situations in which you find yourself. Just when you think the game can't get any weirder, it gets truly poignant and beautiful. And then it swerves back to weirdness.

The music is really excellent, as are all of the sounds in the game. The music strikes a diverse note, drawing from a wide range of musical influences including rock and roll, psychedelic, classical, and jazz. It is at times intentionally bad, including the brilliantly horrible theme inside of the dungeon man, which a sign inside pronounces as "his greatest achievement".

The core combat mechanics are mostly unremarkable, yet solid and fun. The addition of a rolling counter for HP introduces a kind of desperation into your strategy that a purely turn-based RPG shouldn't have, which gives the combat an addicting edge to it as you desperately try to heal that character who has just taken a mortal wound, or finish off the enemy before their life runs out.

The end boss and ending are among my favorite endings of all time. I will spoil nothing of this beloved gem, but it's a must-see type of ending.

As much as I hate to say it, EarthBound isn't perfect. But I think that's the nature of a game which experiments with as many things as does EarthBound. True transformative genius generally has its moments in which it goes off the rails, and I don't think EarthBound had the chance to really develop it's identity, in the way that truly perfect games like Super Mario World were able to improve over time. The inventory system is super annoying. Your spaces in your inventory are shockingly limited, and your equipment itself will take up nearly a quarter of the spots you have. This requires frequent selling of your gear and loot to have space for new items.

As much as I like the graphical rendering of the game, I feel like they could have done more to improve the way it looks, particularly in battle. While the Dragon Quest type of battle perspective is fine, including more animations for ordinary attacks, such as swinging bats and frying pans for Ness and Paula would have been nice. And while the sprites for the enemies are lovingly drawn and beautiful, they are entirely stationary, and have no attack animations to speak of. The UI is also extremely boring, and could have used some improvements like including portraits of the characters, or even their sprites a la FFIV.

Technically speaking, the game has flaws as well. There are times in which you can gets stuck behind NPCs in various parts of the game, with no real way to escape. There is also a large amount of puzzling slowdown for a game which is as graphically basic as this. 

Ordinarily, a game with flaws like this would rate a bit lower. And no, it's no Chrono Trigger, still the shining star of RPG excellence on a system replete with excellent RPGs. But EarthBound is an experience that can't be missed. A game that over twenty years later still has tried things that no game since has really nailed to the degree that EarthBound did. It's an excellent game that everyone needs to try, warts and all.

I'll give EarthBound a 9.8/10.

-TRO