Like the Mesozoic Era, except the Dinosaurs are better.
A cute block pushing action puzzle game with tiled graphics? Featuring an adorable mole? With personable enemies that want to eat you up? Sign me up, this is my biggest weakness. But there are is shortage of these kinds of games, and unless you stand out from the pack then you will rarely garner attention. Flappy Special has steep competition, but is it worth your time?
Continue reading “Flappy Special – Games About Moles Are Import[ant]”
If you want to pique my interest, then put forward an action puzzler with cute graphics based on a 1×1 tile grid. If you really want to get my salivary glands working overtime, stick it on the Game Boy. Nail ‘n Scale meets these superficial criteria, and has an unintentionally lewd sounding name. So I had to jump on it, but how does it measure up? Action puzzler on the Game Boy isn’t exactly a niche category you know.
Portable games will surprise you again and again with their propensity to bear the most delicious fruit, gems and earnest surprises with stellar frequency. And there have been many times that I’ve been presented with a Game Boy game that I’d never encountered before, hearing little to nothing about it beforehand. My working rule collecting Game Boy is that if I haven’t heard of it, and it’s affordable, then roll the dice. I found Rolan’s Curse 2 at a local retro shop, was blindsided by it, and did just that. Rolled for initiative, and struck. Where does this game fall on the loot table?
Continue reading “Rolan’s Curse 2 – Cursed With Being Too Legit To Quit”
Before Final Fantasy Adventure, before Link’s Awakening there were games like Rolan’s Curse attempting to fufill the niche of top down action RPG on the Game Boy. A tall order. I like to tout the Game Boy as a mihty little system. A portable console seems to give the impression that shortcomings in games are okay, because they’re smaller. But truly gifted Game Boy developments overcome the limitations of the platform, by differentiating or innovating or just being “that good.” Where does Rolan’s Curse stand?
Continue reading “Rolan’s Curse – Cursed With Being Too Cool For School”
I love Metroid II. I love the Metroid series. My first exposure to Metroid was on the NES. My brother’s friend owned it and I would sometimes tag along for the express purpose of playing Metroid. It was big and mysterious, completely captivating. But I didn’t own this game myself, and wouldn’t until years later when I started collecting. In fact, the first Metroid game I owned for myself, played through to the end, and loved every minute of it was Metroid II: Return of Samus.
Continue reading “Metroid II – What Grows In The Darkness Below”
Licensed games. The very concept makes some people immediately turn their noses and lock out any potential for enjoying a game. It’s true that games based on movies or cartoons or other properties are often a cash in lacking the spirit and polish of original or established games. But that’s not always the case. There are many of these titles that are fondly remembered or generally well received. Others still were simply a good game that was reskinned to resemble a property. I’m not really aware of its history, but that’s the feeling I get from Snoopy’s Magic Show. The relationship to Peanuts is superficial, and it’s not really a magic show… But it IS good.
Continue reading “Snoopy’s Magic Show – Of Balls and Beagles”
Sometimes you get a game that just doesn’t feel like everything meshes. Godzilla on the Game Boy is such a game. I can’t help but wonder – was this meant to be a Godzilla game, originally? Apparently this is adapted from an MSX game which appears to match the aesthetic and mechanics. But I can’t help but feel like this is meant to be different, and I think that’s where this game gets a lot of undue negativity.
Continue reading “Godzilla on Game Boy – The Big G Goes Bite-Size”
Is there any more archetypical a set-up than a knight, a wizard, a princess, and a whole mess of foul beasties? It provides an instant hook – the princess has been captured (oh, will wonders never cease?) and you (both brave AND chivalrous) must rescue fair damsel (for kissy time and perhaps more).
Such a set-up is at once galvanizing and polarizing to a potential user base. It’s the kind of setting that – even back then – we had seen so many times that some craved new set-ups. But at the same time, it’s a familiar theme and one that promises any number of ferocious creatures to test your mettle.
Ultimately, the set-up provides a hook for the player, and then he or she uses it as rationale for getting to the end. With games like this, all we really needed was this hook to get started, there was no need for a long-winded tutorial. But when you lay anything bare it needs to be good to continue through it. To see it to the end. The game needs to play well, because in the end that’s what the player truly remembers.
Wizards & Warriors, as a series, succeeds and fails in this regard. It’s just so disparate. Every title is vastly different from the prior. They range from difficult to tedious, from great to… not so great. But it’s a series that I have seen through to the end due to my personal attachment to it. I loved certain entries so I had to complete certain other entries.
Continue reading “Series Overview: Wizards & Warriors”