Shining in the Darkness (Sega Mega Drive II Mini) (1 000 post)

 

Guess the magician is evil?

So what shall be the first game to play off the Mini II? What's this? A game made by the people behind the Golden Sun-series? And it's an RPG? Sign me up! This is Shining in the Darkness, the first game in the Shining-series, that would turn into a tactical strategy fantasy game. But at its start it was a dungeon crawler rpg.

Game starts with you, the son of Mordred, the greatest knight of the realm (which I named ERIK since it had a 5 character limit and my real name has 6 characters in it, that and I didn't learn that his official name is Hiro until way later) being summoned to the king since Mordred and Princess Jessa have disappeared and is believed to being held in the nearby Labyrinth of the Ancients. You set out alone and delve through the first level of the Labyrinth until you defeat the first boss and finds the Royal Tiara belonging to the Princess. As you take it to the king he tasks you to find a party and rescue his daughter. You find your friends Pyra Myst and Milo Brax in the nearby town and together you set out to find the Princess. Pyra being a wizard herself and Milo being a cleric we have a power-trio dnd party.

Turns out she has been kidnapped by the magician Dark Sol so you have to traverse the trail of the Ancients, consisting the caves of Strength, Courage, Truth and Wisdom to climb to the higher levels of the Labyrinth. I played the game first on the Wii Virtual Console when I lived with my parents and I thought I got pretty far, I had my hand-drawn maps of the four caves and the first two floors of the Labyrinth, turns out there was 3 more levels. So I got to complete my maps after like 8-9 years. Yeah, I found my old maps so that made the early stage fairly easy, as soon as I was able to figure out what I meant. 

Graph paper, an adventurers best tool for exploration.

You finds out that Dark Sol is actually the wizard Melvyn that have acted as a consul for the king and even told you about the trail of the ancient. On the 4th floor you find Princess Jessa trapped in a cell and the key protected by a brainwashed Mordred that you have to kill. You break out the Princess and returns to the king and then prepares for the final battle against Dark Sol. You have decked out your knight with the light arms, Milo with mythril equipment and Pyra with everything left. Without grinding I got up all characters between 56-51 levels and that was easy enough. Dark Sol's motivations wasn't that clear, at first it sounded like he only wanted the power of darkness that was sealed in the Labyrinth, but as I faced him he talked about finally finding someone that could challenge him. He got vaporised anyway after his second form was defeated. You return, becomes a first knight and lord of a castle, Milo joins you while Pyra becomes the apprentice of the wizard Xern, the former master of Melvyn... is that really a good thing? He already created one dark lord and Pyra does have some evil tendencies since in her first appearance she puts slow on a person that bumped into her that we then had to save from the Labyrinth when he got caught there.

It was a fun game. Music catchy and the graphics was really nice. I could clearly see where Camelot got some of the graphical ideas that they used later on in Golden Sun (menus and such). There is a nod to Golden Axe with the Weapon Merchant being the dwarf from those games as well. Problems? The menu systems would need an overhaul since it's a lot back and forth to find what you want in the shops and that there is no easy way to see if equipment is better or worse when you look at them is a rather irritating nuisance. But it's at least worth trying. Lastly an interesting thing I noticed on the statistics of the characters, the mage characters Pyra and Milo has so much higher ground stats for defence meaning they actually take less damage until the end game when the main character gets the light arms. I get why, you got a lot more amor for the fighter, but it feels weird in a dnd way that the mage at least is bulkier (since I currently have a cleric dwarf in the campaign I get they can take some damage).

This also seems to be the 1 000 post I've ever done! Only took me 15 years to reach, and it all began with me travelling to the US to study international relations... didn't get much use for that in my career, but at least the internship allowed me to get the job at the public agency. Here's for another 1 000 posts!

Sega Mega Drive Mini II

 

Now it looks almost right!

It arrived, the second mini console from Sega made by M2, the first one I wrote about back in 2020 just before the global pandemic hit all supply chains stopping productions on most things. Now it's 2022 (as of writing) and it looks that the world economy is about to tank after post-pandemic cuts in the welfare states, housing crashing, inflation rising and the Ukraine-Russian war still continues. So why wouldn't I get the console that looks like the one I owned as a kid and let nostalgia surround me and just hide from the world outside? I also spent some time waiting for confirmation of any European pre-order and when it was released I put in the pre-order for it on the British Amazon and got it without problem during my autumn holiday week. Thought I would have some problems with the Brexit deal, but I think I lucked out since then the British government imploded sending the £ falling meaning I might have got it a bit cheaper since the order was in £. Thanks Liz Truss! (Topical Political Humour, the brand of a political scientist)

More serious, what was in the box? The console, some cables and only one controller, but it was a 6-button one, so If I ever want to play Street Fighter I have a perfect controller. The best button is the mode-button which that takes you to the system menu so that you can save your game, restart or get back to the main menu and choose another game. The games then? It has 60 games total, 12 being Sega CD games and 7 being unreleased games (I think, it says presenting on the back but Space Harrier II is on both mini consoles and I don't know why). Not that many games that haven't shown up before in compilations or virtual consoles, especially the CD-games. The only games I got before are Phantasy Star II, Shining Force II, Shining in the Darkness, Sonic CD, Golden Axe II, Alien Soldier and I think I got Ristar on a Sega compilation. They even got ToeJam and Earl 2, famous from the Clan of the Grey Wolf-review!

In actuality, the game selection isn't that grand and I was a bit happier with the first console. There are some omissions that I would have liked, for example the Lunar games, but I understand that it didn't get added for the western release since the owner of the english localisation wanted a bit more payment for the english translation and you got them on the japanese version. As stated in my post on the PC Engine mini console, I would have liked the Sega CD version of Snatcher so that I actually could play it in english. Neat with some of the CD games that I only seen on youtube reviews, like Night Trap and Sewershark... but they look awful. Night Trap I get is re-released not that long ago that makes it look good and probably a better purchase than the original Sega version.

Still, I gotta say I like this song.

Is there anything else that the console does? There is some games that have gotten updates. For example Phantasy Star II that got an easy mode where EXP and gold is given out in higher amounts, diminishing the grind, which makes that probably the best version to play since I've heard that is one of the problems with the original version (that I now own 4 versions of, Wii Virtual Console, PS3 compilation, Switch compilation and now this mini console).

Is there something else? I don't like that the manuals are locked on the web, should have been accessed from the menu so I could read it directly on the console (especially when certain games need it to understand what the hell I'm doing), but didn't happen on the first console either. As mentioned above, I already got the Space Harrier II (and on the Switch compilation as well) and it's a bit of a cop-out with with Ecco CD since they gave me Ecco on the last mini console as well, but that is 2 out of 60 games so I can overlook that. And I assume the CD version have better music. I would say to me I will probably play most games on here before any other version (at least Wii and PS3 due to simpler save functionality and ease off start and quit the console, which goes for all mini consoles, only my Switch would be easier).

SolSeraph (Switch)

 

Sword and shield of gold!

The Mighty Stand Alone!

A spiritual successor to ActRaiser, which I finished the remake of not that long ago and boy, do I appreciate ActRaiser so much more after playing this. I wasn't glad at the end, it was frustrating. So basically the game tells the story of Helios, the son of man and god that is one of the last old gods that came with Father Sky and Mother Earth that drove away chaos and created mankind, but after they left the new gods appeared and scattered humanity across the continents leaving Helios to protect mankind.

In ActRaiser fashion you do this by going through an action scene where Helios in an angel form defeat monsters and in the end fight a boss. After that you enter the world stage where you help the humans through building farms, houses and defence towers to fight off the waves of enemies that the new gods sends to you. You open their lairs and there is new action scenes and in the final lair you defeat the area boss. Rinse and repeat for stages, that eerily follows the same progress like ActRaiser. You have the plains, followed by a desert, followed an island, then a mountain range and finally a snow area.

I don't know if this game cross mingled with the remake since I feel that certain aspects, like the tower defence and characters speaking made it over to the remake. Of course there is some problems that they missed that made ActRaiser better. First off, the story. A god that slept for unknown time after a stalemate with the devil that then wakes up and has to protect its people are a more intriguing start. What is Helios excuse in this game for not interfering earlier? Another thing that the world was more connected in ActRaiser, you had to progress a bit in each zone to get for example music from the desert to use in BloodPool to calm the citizens and you connected the starting area with DeadPool through creating roads and so on. And also, even if its fun to have more control over buildings and such, it's a dissonance in the story since you hardly impact the people with miracles, you just build and the reason you build is that you have to create the defence, and your limit is actually how much wood there is in any given stage. So quickly I learned that you cut down the wood as fast as possible, then build defence towers (and I mostly just got the basic arrow towers since it did its job). No SimCity or Civilization here. Which causes another problem in storytelling. In the original ActRaiser, the larger the population, the more worshipper and the greater power you had. Here? Upgrade through the action scenes. Why do I care about the people again?

But all that is small nitpicks that don't affect the overall enjoyment of the game, no, the thing that makes me mad is the combat in the action scenes. I hate the enemies. You have arrows flying everywhere from traps and enemies out of reach that you have to avoid. Don't get me started on the final stages where you have exploding enemies that blows up in your face or the kamikaze bats that been there since the first action scene (gives me Dragon Quest II flashbacks). Bosses are a bit boring since it's basically swipe at them with your sword and block with your shield with one exception, the damn Queen of Ice, a giant owl which you have to fight over a pit of spikes with moving plattforms. And you have to fight her twice, thank god there was a save before and I could chose to fight her first in the damn boss rush mode. Her lair was the most annoying of them all since there was no save so after every defeat you had to go through that stage of endurance again and again, was so close to quiting the game then. But I didn't and finished the whole game.

*SCREAMS IN TERROR*

Never gonna play this game again. Graphics is alright, but the music is lacking in comparison to ActRaiser, which is kinda funny since the main theme was composed by the original composer of Actraisers music. The game is to frustrating, but it was cheap since it was on sale and I think I pretty much used some gold points for it. Could have saved it for a better game, but they can't all be winners.

Skies of Arcadia Legends (GCN)

 

A pirate I was meant to be!
Trim the sails and roam the sea!

As of writing it's the beginning of the summer vacation of 2022, a heat wave have just appeared and what better way to start is too cool down with high adventure in the skies as you battle the Valuan Empire as noble air pirates? One of my favourite games that I hadn't played for over 10 years if I'm correct. Plus the big summer game for 2022, Xenoblade 3, comes out the week after I'm back to work. Story is that a lone girl sailing through the sky at night is attacked by the Valuan armada, but is rescued by the air pirates Vyse and Aika, taking her back to Pirate Isle, Vyse's fathers Dyne's base of operation. The next day Vyse and Aika travels to nearby Shrine Island to get a moon stone that fell from the sky (which they uses to make weapons and power their ships and machines). While they are away the Armada returns and take all men prisoner and the girl Fina. Returning Vyse and Aika take up pursuit but their ship is destroyed by an unnatural big archwhale Rahknam. They are rescued by Captain Drachma that hunts Rakhnam to avenge his son Little Jack that's also the name of his ship. He takes them to Valua as he puts in a harpoon cannon and with the help of a valuan boy Marco they break out the air pirates from the Colosseum through the sewers and then get Fina from  the rail transport to the Grand Fortress. They all escape and Fina tells them that she is a silvite from the lost silver civilisation that are looking for the moon crystals scattered across the lands that controls the Gigas, ancient weapons that wrecked havoc on the old world and summoned the rains of destruction that destroyed all civilisations besides the silver one (this world have 6 moons). Valua is after them as well with Grand Admiral Galcian as the biggest threat.

That was the intro. You continue by traveling to the temple of Pyrynn where the red moon crystals is hidden with the help of a dancer, that turns out is the valuan admiral Belleza that summons the red gigas, Reculmen, that the Little Jack hardly can scrape. You solve it by defeating Bellezas ship instead since she has the crystal. After taking her engine you travel to the lands below the green moon, Ixa'taka, modelled after the native American civilisations like Inca and Maya and such. You rescue Ixa'takans from the Valuans that colonised them and used the slaves to mine for moon stones. You rescue the high priest that tells you the legends of the ancient capital that like Machu Pichu exists on the mountain tops. But the Ixa'takans had already found the crystal and uses it to summon Grendal the green gigas to push the valuans out of Ixa'taka. Of course admiral De Loco uses the same tactics as you and incapacitates the ship holding the crystal making the gigas run amok. After defeating them Vyse travels north back to Valua, but are intercepted by Rakhnam that Drachma must fight, but the Armada is hunting him as well after destroying several of their ships. This time by admiral Ramirez. During the battle they harpoon Rakhnam, but Little Jack takes heavy damage so they have to escape, but Drachma pushes the life boats out to go down with his ship. Meanwhile Ramirez starts firing on the life boats so that Fina and Aika is seperated from Vyze. The girls end up in Nasrad (the capital of Nasr, the main enemy of Valua and an ottoman expy) with the help of the air pirate Clara where they work as waitresses to get money for a ship and finding a map to the Island of Daccat, a famous air pirate. Vyse meanwhile is stranded on an deserted island where he also finds a part of the map and after some time is rescued bu the air pirate Gilder that helps him to Nasrad and onward to Daccat Island that after the trails of Daccat the parties are united with a single gold coin. Returning to Nasrad the Armada attacks and topples the kingdom of Nasr and captures our friends and take them back to Valua and the Grand Fortress. Gilder gets them out and after causing chaos and mayhem they try to escape and is helped by prince Enrique, the son of Empress Teodora, that can't stand the atrocities the Empire causes for its goal of world domination. He helps them to the newly built flagship Delphinus that they take and escape, blasting through the fortress with the moon stone cannon, the weapon built to rival the gigas.

From here you make the deserted island your base as you travel through the Dark Rift to get to Yafutoma, the Japan/China substitute where you rescue the kingdom from Valua as well as a greedy adviser. You pick up Princess Moagi that's fallen in love with Enrique and after stopping back at Cresent Island (your home base) you travel to the Ice Continent and find Glacia below the ice where you encounter Drachma again that survived the battle with Ramirez (who we also is told is another Silvite that went rouge in search of the crystals), but ended up stranded in Glacia with Rahknam that turns out to be the purple gigas in his final dying moments. They watch him die, takes his crystal and heads back, travels below the continent of Valua to enter the Maw of Tartas where the Yellow Gigas is sealed and after fighting him they ponder how to get Fina back to the Great Silver Shrine that apparently lies between the Silver Moon and Arcadia. Gilder tells them about a rumour that the Armada is building a special base and ship that apparently can go below the deep sky. Infiltrating the base they make of with the schematics of the ship, but are cornered by Galcian. To their aid comes admiral Gregorio, the oldest admiral and pretty much Enrique's foster father that tells them about Galcian's plan to use the crystals in order to usurp power for himself as he has taken complete control of the armada. Pushing them out of the way he faces Galcian alone to give them enough time to escape. Back at base they fix up the Delphinus and sets out again and sink below the clouds to find the ship Fina came in that was shot down by the Valuans in the beginning. At the depths they fight De Loco for the third and final time as his ship explodes after enough damage. Exiting Deep Sky Enrique leaves the party to travel to Valua and warn the Empress. Vyse returns to base where the Armada attacks and Ramirez reveals that the mission the elder sent them on wasn't to stop Valua getting the crystals so that they wouldn't be used, but so the Silvites could use them to once again cause the rains of destruction with their own Gigas, Zelos. 

Fire in the sky, all my castles are burning!

And to top it all of, all Silvites have a piece of the Silver Crystal inside them so Ramirez starts extracting Finas, almost killing her if it wasn't for Gilder firing his cannons from the Claudia to distract Ramirez. The armada gets away with the other crystals and the base is completely in ruins. Vyse and the gang flies off with Fina's ship to the Great Silver Shrine where you gotta run around in a maze until you find the chamber of the elders where they confirm what Ramirez said. They intend to destroy the world once again and reset it since they are on the brink of once again creating gigas or unleashing them, but Ramirez and Galcian shows up, killing elder Prime, the one that acted as a father for Fina and takes his crystal and leaves. Returning the base is back in order and you gotta stop Galcian before he removes the seal on Zelos. Back to the Armada base and fight of Admiral Vigoro and then take an elevator down below Deep Sky. 

He's wearing a goddamn codpiece! Vigoro needs to update his wardrobe.

You of course are too late to stop them and they raise the continent of Soltis and unleashes the rain of destruction on Valua, destroying the capital and killing admiral Alfonso (an uptight brat noble that you faced of against a couple of times and renegade Galcian in order to become Grand Admiral himself) and the Empress. Enrique was able to escape with the help of Belleza that was sent to Value to prolong their response to the Armada going rouge... and killing her of since Galcian noticed she wasn't that comfortable to kill all the innocent. All reunite on Crescent Island together with fleets of Air Prates that you encountered during your travels, theres the black pirate Baltor and Gordo you fought of, Centime the tinker you rescued in Ixa'taka, Clara, Gilder's ship Claudia, the Tenkou (air pirates from Yafutoma lead by the rouge prince of Yafutoma) and your father Dyne's new ship. With the pirate fleet you set off to face Galcian as he tries to bend the world to his knees. You corner him and fight him at his new ship the Hydra, a flying fortress. As you got him on the run he enters the command centre and flies away, but who turns up if not Belleza in her ship that crashes right into it taking it down and exploding with her. Ramirez loses it and intends to wash the world away with the rains of destruction, but as the signal fires away the Great Silver Shrine comes crashing down, stopping the rains and destroying the energy shield around Soltis. You board the continent through Shrine Island from the beginning. You defeat Ramirez, he merges with Zelos and you defeat him with the Delphinus and then he crashes on your ship and you fight him for a third time The fight over you head back, Enrique marries Moagi and starts rebuilding Valua, Vyse, Aika and Fina gets a new ship and continue to travel the sky. The end. 

No new game + with this costume?

I love this game, it has everything. Ship battles, giant monsters, lost continents, space travel, the fricking Moonstone cannon. There's tragedy, romance and always an optimistic hero and the great soundtrack pushing every scene above and beyond. The whole world is inspired from earth's history around 1400 - 1700  with the conquering of the world by Spaniards, Englishmen and the Portuguese. Which probably also explains why there is no African expy since the scramble for Africa was in the 19th century, which with the caricature vibe that wouldn't have gone over that well, but still. I've played it several times since it came out for the GameCube back in 2003. Didn't know what I did back then so this was the first time I used magic in different ways, changed around the accessories to get the benefits from that (back in the day it was just defence and power that mattered) making some of the harder bosses a little bit to easy. I mean, last air battle against Zelos is a magic caster that you can silence. I never used that before. There's also side-quests like the bounty hunters, moonfish and chams to feed cupil, Fina's weapon. The moonfish rewards you with items and backstory for Ramirez. You can gather crew members for your ship and customise the base. And finding discoveries around the world which you can sell for gold that gives you tidbits about the world. It's amazing.

Playing through it though, the world is kinda small, There's only 7 towns to visit and Nasr and Valua have two towns each... doesn't feel like empires. Also, the game is long overdue a remaster or a remake, especially as this goes up it have been 20 years since the Legend version was released. The Legend version is the best way to play with the added content of the bounty hunts and more discoveries and lowered encounter rate. It is said it took a hit in the audio department, but since I never played the Dreamcast version I can't say if that's true. I also discovered I still have my own written lists of moonfish, chests and discoveries I got from the internet back in the early 2000's when I tried getting 100 %. Fun times, could have used it for the treasure chests since I missed a couple apparently and had to run through a couple of dungeons again to get the last missing moonfish.

Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 (Switch)

 

Falling to the Edge of the World!

A couple of years back I got Puyo Puyo Tetris after getting a recommendation from the local game store (that now doesn't exist any more, sadly) and had a bit of fun. And then a sequel was released back in 2020 and I finished it back in 2021... and then released this now in 2022. And I've come to the conclusion... again, that I really suck at puyo puyo.  And there is an adventure mode here as well.

And it's basically the same premise as the last game. Ringu is walking around when they when suddenly Tee appears and then it's trying to figure out what happened, find the responsible and stop him and her. I think I paid attention to the first two levels, then I just skimmed over the dialogue. Pretty much the same characters from the first game and same motivations. 

The multiplayer and such can probably be rather fun with more people and the normal tetris mode is always a fun distraction... but since I can't get the hang of puyo puyo there is a limited replay value... or even to actually finish adventure mode without skipping most levels. I mean, when I hardly get one line of tetris and my opponent send so much crap that I loose instantly. And I though the difficulty auto would adjust to my level, not put it into hypermode.... or am I just that bad?

Ecco The Dolphin 3D (3DS)

Seven Star Had Ursa Major!

Tables Turning, Turning

And Rain Maker!

Was at my parents home during easter, the other christian holiday since this will show up around Christmas, and decided to play through one of the four different Ecco the Dolphin games I have bought through the years and it landed on the 3DS, since that was what I had with me to my parents. Part of the 3D Classic Collection where they took classic games and spruced them up in 3D for the 3DS. At release seen as one of the more impressive graphical titles, great music and atmosphere but seen as one of the harder games. Mostly because the developers set out to ensure that kids didn't finish it in a weekend. 

It's about Ecco the Dolphin who one day tries to impress the others in his pod so he makes a high jump out of the ocean and as soon he leaves a tornado hits the water sucking all life out of the ocean, including his pod. So Ecco has to set out rescueing his family. First he has to find the Big Blue, a blue whale that have traveled to the North Pole awaiting death it seems. Traversing shark infested waters and deadly ice blocks that crush you over and over you finally finds him, but he only knows that the tornado appears every 500 years and sucks the oceans clean, but he directs you to the Asterite, the oldest living creature. Turns out it's some kind of DNA-Helix that lives in the waters who directs you to Atlantis where there is a Time Machine so that Ecco can travel 44 million years into the past and help the Asterite to power up so that he can power up Ecco. Turns out that the tornado is caused by the alien race the Vortex from the planet Vortex in the Pegasus constellation (which they note lies very close to the dolphin constellation... why that matter beyond that it's a game about a Dolphin I don't get). Anyway, the Vortex have no food so every 500 years they suck the oceans of Earth to feed on it.

With this knowledge Ecco travels back right before the tornado appears and jumps with it, ending up on the alien space ship where he fights off the Alien Queen and rescues his pod and returns to Earth. I gotta say, even how bonkers the story is with aliens, time travel and Atlantis... I kinda liked it! Following the story it gets weirder and weirder and I love it. 

Now was it as hard? Well, since I used the 3DS version I set up the Super Dolphin Mode which means infinite health and air. Yeah, since Ecco is a mammal he needs air to breath so a challenge of the game is to traverse underwater mazes before the air runs out or you get killed by the hostile creatures, like crabs and sharks. So no anxiety over that, still got crushed by the ice blocks or the walls of the alien ship. I would probably never have finished it the normal way, which probably explains why I have bought it four times, for Wii Virtual Console, the Sega Mega Drive Collection for PS3 and the Switch collection. Graphics are nice and the music is really good, I really like the Mega Drive sound of it. I got the sequel for the Mega Drive compilation on the PS3 so might try that one day. 

Tetris (Sega Mega Driva Mini)

You can just hear the music

So feeling a bit tired of all the action, rpgs and platformers I decided to take a closer look at the Tetris game for the Sega Mega Drive Mini. Apparently not released officially until this release so that interesting. Seems to be a port of an arcade version. I of course have played tetris before. Both on original Game Boy at my cousins place, on computer and of course Puyo Puyo Tetris. Really, not much to say, it's Tetris, but there is some problems I feel with this version. First, there feels to a bit of lag with the controls, making it not as responsive, which can be rather crucial when the speed kicks in. Number 2, it isn't the Tetirs music but some other song playing... and really you can't have that... or if it is it sound so different that I can't hear it. 

You can play two players though. Overall, it got me so hooked I started up Puyo Puyo Tetris and just played the Tetris mode again. And the fun thing is that I never knew it had an end, but it looks like after 150 lines the game ends and you sum up your high score. Currently I've got a high score of above 230 000 points and I know that some people probably have a lot higher, but for me it's kinda impressive. Overall, play Puyo Puyo Tetris for a better experience, it even have the right song. Of course, it's not bad for what it is, but it's easier to put in the Switch.

Sega Mega Drive Mini

Sega Does What Nintendon't

Here is the real deal, the Sega Mega Drive Mini (Genesis for the Americans). 42 games, 2 controllers, lucky for Nintendo this came a couple of years after their consoles so that they won't have to be ashamed about their product. So this was probably the mini console that made me get the others out of nostalgia and really wanting to get my hands on some of the games that haven't been released in any other way. The Mega Drive was the very first console I personally owned and I got it from my parents by learning to ride a bike... which I pretty much stopped doing after getting the console to play games... they didn't think that through all the way I feel. All in all I got five games for it, Sonic 2, Dynamite Headdy, Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse, Mickey Mania and Empire of Steel (Steel Empire in America). Sonic 2, Dynamite Headdy and Castle of Illusion is on this console with Castle of Illusion being the one game that haven't been released in its original format before except as a bonus for the 3D remake of the game for the Playstation 3 (which I missed). 

Most games I already owned either as part of the Sega Mega Drive Collection for the Playstation 3 or downloaded for the Wii Virtual Console. Only ones I see that haven't been released before are the Disney games, the Mega Man Collection (which contain a new mode so it isn't completely reselling me Mega Man 1-3 yet again without anything extra, and for those wondering I've gotten those games 6 times now). There are also 2 unreleased games so Sega went double on the SNES Mini. The games are Darius, a shooter and Tetris. Castlevania: Bloodlines would have been special if the Switch didn't get in on the Castlevania Anniversary Collection. 

Overall a great package, I even enjoy the specially composed menu theme that just ooze the Mega Drive. I guess some complained that the controllers weren't the 6-button ones, especially if you where gonna play a lot of Street Fighter II (which I probably won't). The one thing that also makes it stand out is that you can access the menu from within the games by holding down the start-button for a couple of seconds... genius! Some of the complaints I would personally express is that it's a model 1 Mega Drive. I got the Mk II so it's not hitting all the nostalgia components it could have. That also includes the fact that the controller isn't completely black as my controllers. Of course, last I tried the original console at my parents one of the controllers wasn't working... so this is probably the best alternative. Really, out of the three the Mega Drive is the one I have played the most so far, but it could also be due to not having that many experiences with all the games, I mean, how many times could one play the Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past anyway?

So I've bought this game... 6 times as well, but played oh so many times more.

Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse

The mouse is in the house

I had a Sega Mega Drive as a kid, which my parents got for me when I learned to bike and pretty much never touched a bike after that. I ended up with five games to that console during the years and one was Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse. Only beat it at easy where you only had to go  through 3 worlds and the evil witch gets away with the crystals, but Minnie is saved. My sister and I actually got to the end in normal and fought the end boss, but neither of us could get the winning blow. And then they remade it for modern consoles in 2013 and I had to get it. And I played it... and stopped after getting stuck at the second to last world. The damn licorice dragon irritated me due to the bad 3d controls I never finished it. Until now that is.

So the story is that Mickey and Minnie is walking in a forest when the evil witch Mizrabel kidnaps Minnie to take her youth. Mickey follows her to the Castle of Illusion and search the castle for the seven rainbow crystals to create the rainbow bridge and fight of Mizrabel. Differences from the original is that they made it in 3d and I can see the resemblance of the worlds and such, but they put in situation where you have to platform in a 3d environment which used to be 2d. For example the rolling apple in the first world. Or the boss fights which are all pretty much redesigned. And here is where I really dislike the platforming. The licorice dragon you have to jump from cake to cake in a 3d spectrum. With controls that aren't that precise to my liking. Or I might just suck. But I would have prefered the original game... which you could get as a download if you pre-ordered the game, but not afterwards. Big mistake from my side.

I mean, even the cover looks scarier

The game also added voice acting with the official voices of Mickey and Minnie and it enhances the game a bit. The problem is that the end battle with Mizrabel is scripted. And you can't skip the starting scene so the voice got to grate on me for far to long. And then it's a collectathon with hidden items and gems. Never gonna 100 %  because I'm finished with this game.

Altered Beast (Arcade)

Couldn't find a box art for the arcade game

Altered Beast, a Mega Drive game I played at a classmates house some times. Got it for the Wii Virtual Console, the 3DS and and Sega Mega Collection for the PS3. And I played the arcade version of that game after unlocking it by playing the first stage with my youngest sister. Pretty much only was able to get to the boss of the second stage and after that the lives and continues was out, but in Arcade mode, guess what? Unlimited continues. And by brute forcing our way through we finished the game in what, 20 minutes? I guess difficulty was the length of this game.

The story is that Neff, some demon god kidnapped Athena so Zeus raises one or two centurions from their graves (with some so bad it is god synthesised speech). So they fight their way through 5 levels, collecting some power-up spheres to alter their form into different beasts, a werewolf, were-dragon, were-bear, were-tiger and a better werewolf. Worst is the were-bear since it doesn't have a long-ranged attack but must get close. Were-tiger is probably the best since you can even attack upwards . After defeating Neff (why couldn't it have been Hades or something like that? And why is roman centurions doing in an ancient greek setting?) it turns out it is some kind of movie production shown by "behind the scenes" footage like the main guy taking of his animal mask or some one with a clapper.

This game is sort of a nostalgic cult classic and I would lie if I didn't want to play it as a kid, but playing it as older, it's pretty much cheap with sluggish gameplay. At least the arcade version moves a bit fluently, but still it's rather hard. 

Puyo Puyo Tetris

Who thought this was the best multiplayer game for the Switch at release?

In the past I've bought games on hunches, like interesting story, cool concept or better get it now cause later it will be impossible especially with the lacking of internet infrastructure at my current whereabouts. Sometimes I've tried demos, that's how I come to pester my parents to let me buy The Curse of Monkey Island. Others had nice graphics, best example Final Fantasy X, that and I recognised the series from reading about it, but that was pretty much graphics and music. And then you have this game. I dowloaded the demo for this game after recommendation from the local game store just to try it and have for the multiplayer family gathering. It was rather fun. And the demo pretty much had everything you needed, except the reconfirm and reset the choices after every single match. So I ordered this game together with Ever Oasis and you know what? This one had a story mode.

Basically it starts with Ringo who is interrupted by her friends Amitee and Arle after teleporting due to popping puyos. Suddenly Tetris pieces fall from the sky, they pop some more Puyos and end up at the starship Tetra where the captain Tee is trying to figure out how they ended up here. They crash on the planet and try to piece what happened together. Apparently the keeper of Dimensions isn't separating the Tetris dimension with the puyo dimension so they fix Tetra and goes to the edge of dimensions where Ex awaits them, the former captain of Tetra and the ex-king of Tetris. After Tee battles him to remind him why his roll matters everything back to normal, the dimensions gets separated and Ringo and Tee separate.

It's a silly premise and over the top, but I enjoy it. The humour is great at poking fun of the silliness of it as Tetris blocks and puyos fall from the sky. The prince of Darkness walks around being in love with Arle and gets really upset when she accuses him for being behind it since it's something he could do. There's even a singing fish traveling through space. Part of me wonders if some older games have these characters since it appears to be a lot of backstory hinted among them. And it isn't as hard, although I should probably not admit this, but you can skip battles after losing a number of turns to get on with it. And as you can guess, yes, I did it a couple of times, especially on puyo and fusion battles. I can't get the thinking of the puyo portion to work for me. I prefer the mode swap since I'm at least competent on Tetris, having played it a lot on both computers and video games. Best is with 4-multiplayer battles in local mode. And if a console should have a Tetris game, this one covers most bases, even single-player mode.

Space Harrier

What did they smoke back in the eighties?

So I got the Sega Ultimate Collection so I have 40 new (and old) games to play with upscaling so they take on the whole screen and save states. Save states that makes it possible for me to finish the damn games. Why haven't they been released on the Wii U virtual console? Why? I got many of them on the Wii virtual console, but who can finish these games without serious memorisation... or just getting good and I ain't got time for that. So save states it is. Sadly I found it used the same day it arrived where I could have saved 200-300 SEK.

Seriously, what is this?

There's no story, you are just some guy holding on to a missile which can fire lasers and you shot monsters and navigates obstacles for 18 stages... and that was pretty much gameplay as well. I played one stage like that in Wonderful 101 and I get it was a homage to this game so now that I played it... boy we didn't expect much from games back then. 18 stages? With just shifting colours and faster speed? And several bosses are the same with just a palette swap and they pretty much use the same AI... if you can call it that? I get it was still the time when high scores was the driving points of games and especially this one which was the arcade version, but come on, no explanation? Not a saving your girlfriend from the last boss or something like that? Well, at least it was an experience and it probably has some other historical value. At least it's Christmas tomorrow. Happy Christmas or whatever you celebrate.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 3D

The first game to my very own first console

So I took the time to play through the second game as well and finished it rather fast, may be due to me finishing it a couple of years ago with my sister and almost finished as a kid... again with my sister. She played as Tails and basically defeated every boss while I sped through the stages since i played the games more, but had a hard time with the Metropolis Robotnik since I couldn't get his pattern down. What we didn't do was finish with all the chaos emeralds in our possession. Funny enough the Super Sonic made the final stage much harder since you speed-up so you miss the fine tuned platforming section... wasn't Sonic about being fast? Then why is it harder if I go fast? Lucky the save state function make it possible to finish it 100 %. Another funny thing is that we finished the game on my Nintendo Wii. 

Here we have a real special stage!

The thing about this game is that my parents bought me a Sega Mega Drive with two controllers and Sonic 2 when I learned to ride a bike. I guess I rode the bike for maybe 5 years and after that I never rode it again. Still plays video games. I can compare this game to the first one and I can say is this game is much better. In the graphics apartment we have the Special stages that gives the 3D effect something to work with and the music is at the top. Each stage is a marvel from start to end. Best is Metropolis Stage. Love it. Also the addition of a somewhat 2-player mode is rather fun and as I mentioned enabled me and my sister to actually finish it... since Tails is basically immortal. Need to see if I can get a Super Tails mode in collecting each emerald and such. Really, this game is clearly an improvement.

And to think I became an obsessed Nintendo-fan!

Sonic the Hedgehog 3D

Apparently the fastest thing alive

So after many years I finally finish the original Sonic the Hedgehog game... or really not the original, but the remastered 3D version for the 3DS which includes save states and other goodies. I got a version closer to the original on the Wii Virtual Console, but that was a bit of a shock to play for me the first time since everyone said it was so fast and so, but he really wasn't. Growing up I only played the 2nd game, and there you could spin-dash. In this game you need momentum which you loose if you stop or get hurt. God how annoying that is to loose such an important function. Thankfully you can choose if you want it in this remake.

He can't catch the fat scientist, fastest thing alive you said?

Can't say I got the story for this game, Robotnik (that's what I grew up with, I never played a Sonic game where he was called Eggman) has kidnapped some forest critters and put them in his robots to do... whatever Robotnik is after. So Sonic set out to stop them. That's pretty much it. Graphics are nice, but some of the worlds can be rather frustrating to pass through, especially all the water ones when the time limit is put in action and the horrible music is used for suffocating. Funny thing I found out is that it was an extra second after the countdown which really simulates the eternity of waiting for the saving bubble. If it would be nice to show it self. Music was alright, but the only memorable track is the first world, the classic Green Hill Zone. An interesting thing to note that the Chaos emeralds are here, but they don't actually do anything other than some credit-scene changes. And don't get me started on the damn mini-game to get them.

What is this maze-like contraption?

The added 3D effects don't do much as far as I can see. Overall I can't say I like this game, everything the second game did was a clear improvement creating a much more enjoyable gameplay experience. Maybe if I played this one first I might have found it fun, but as is it feels archaic without the additions to make it closer to the second game. Speaking of the second game it was just released as a 3D classic so guess what's the next Sonic game will be... when I ever finish that one.

Phantasy Star

 

Played the classic RPG Phantasy Star for some time now, released in the amazing year of 1987 it was one of the earliest JRPG's to enter the western world. Funny enough it was one of the latest of the big ones, like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. And it shows in the graphic department. Amazing sprites, creatures move and the same for the rolling oceans. That is the good stuff, the bad is more in the story-telling. More or less the end. The beginning is fine and they do tell you what to do in most cases. The only exception being how to get a road-pass so that you can enter the spaceport in order to get a new ally that has a potion that can revive another ally that has been turned into stone. This particular road-pass must be bought in a second-hand shop and the item is referred to as secrets. But does the salesmen want to sell it? No, he wont, he throws you out instead. You must ask him three times which is a bit random. The only way I found out was running out of ideas and do everything again, that's when I noticed he said something else so I visited him again and what do you know, I got the road-pass. The other problem is the end. You defeat the evil dictator and return to the governor that helped you, but instead of praise you fall down a pit and walk trough a dungeon until the end where you meet Dark Falz (or Dark Force if you prefer that). Who is he? I don't know. He doesn't say anything, he just attacks. Afterwards the governor mentions that he was some cosmic horror that threatened to possess him and destroy the solar system. No one else mentions this apparently dark demon. The only hint I could guess pointing toward this is that you were attacked in your dream when you stayed at the governors palace at the beginning of the game.

Aside from that the gameplay mechanics makes the game a bit... boring. You can't decide which enemy to attack which makes it a bit harder when your party leaves one enemy with 1 hp to deal with the others having 100 and still get pummeled by the 1 hp guy. Meaning there is no strategy other than either randomly attack, randomly cast a magic spell or flee (talking to the monster I never succeeded in). Overall an interesting game that at least should be experienced once, if you play it through depends if these games are of your liking and taste. It is a bit dated, but it holds up a bit better than it's rivals of the era... or that might be due to it being more modern than the others.