Princess Peach: Showtime! (Switch)

 

All the worlds a stage!

Newest Princess Peach game and a short game at that. My niece got it as well when she turned 8 and seemed to like it. At that time I still hadn't picked up my copy which I did the day after. Got to play it a week after when I finished up the Dragon Quest Monster game.

So the story is that Peach wanted to go to the theater, but after arriving a body-less "sorceress" named Madam Grape and the Sour bunch seals of the the theater with Peach and a lot of locals called Sparklas (I think). So she has to go through each play to get 10 different costumes that allows her to master different vocations like some bakery chef, a kung fu master, swordsman (or woman in this case), ninja, detective, superhero like Iron Man, a cowgirl, master thief, figure skater and a mermaid... maybe not a vocation, but still?

There's three stages per costume, first you begin with Peach and something like half-way through you get the costume and learns the rope. The second stage you are dressed from the start and the third stage is rescuing the one that the costume was based on. There's 5 floors and a basement and 5 bosses to beat. In every stage there is Sparkle gems to collect and a costume for Peach and her friend for the adventure, Stella. After beating the game you can find hide and seek ninjas in every stage and refight the bosses and try getting sparkle gems from the bosses by clearing some conditions, like take no damage, use minimal of resources and such. Each floor also has a rehearsal stage that allows you to do certain costume segments to get a high score, like Swordsman and Kung Fu Master beating up enemies without taking damage, the master thief gliding and collect jewels during an obstacle course and the superhero rescuing civilians from aliens. 

I did most things and it took something like 24 hours. Only thing left is getting the sparkle gems from the bosses. Two cleared in full, one with one condition left and two where I got to get everything. The gems is then used to buy decorating stuff in the theater. Only one thing left. Final boss is interesting since you "get" a new costume called Radiant Peach which turns the battle into a shoot'em'up. I also get that the joke is that Peach is radiant like a star since she's the star of the game (and in universe the plays). 

You would have a queen, not dark but beautiful and terrible as the dawn! Tempestuous as the sea, and stronger than the foundations of the earth! All shall love her and despair!

Now, I found it rather enjoyable the time I played it. There where some issues like that the nature of the stages dragged a bit if you replayed them a lot to get everything. You can't skip in-game cutscenes so it drags a bit, the movie like scenes you can skip and you can watch them whenever you like. Wished you could jump around the stages a bit easier. The game also took a long time loading the stages for some reason. And the final nitpick is that the dress costumes you can buy and get. Most of them look the damn same, in that they are white and pink for the most of it. They have different designs, but more colors wouldn't be bad. Really, the most interesting dresses are the bosses since then you get a different color. And the detective costume since it alone is brown to suit the Sherlock Holmes look. 

I heard some people compare it to Balan Wonderworld that have the same costume idea, but I guess it's much less costumes here and it only affects the stages they are in. In Balan I got the impression you choose which costumes to use and that differentiated the game play. Of course I haven't played Balan and with the reviews I will probably never do it. I thought going in that this game would be get the costumes and choose what to use and such. 

Overall, fun game. Feels like it could be in the Paper Mario Universe with the stage feeling and such. Will I play it again? Maybe not, I'm not that interested in playing the bosses until I master the game and there is no reward what I could see for doing it. I wonder if they use this to test certain ideas for games. The super hero one gave me vibes of Wonderful 101 and I would have liked more Kung Fu Master, Master Thief and Detective. I can skip Mermaid and Skater.

The last thing I saw before playing this was that the director is actually the same director who made Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon for the Nintendo 64 and you know I like that game. The ninja stages made me think of that and still wait for the Mystical Ninja collection Konami has to be working on.

Galaga (NES Classic Mini) & Galalga '88 (PC Engine Mini)

 

Man the stations, incoming aliens!

Played a bit of Galaga mostly because I really don't feel like starting up a 100 hours JRPG and Diddy Kong Racing DS has some infuriating moments, but I at least got it to work. So I spent 2-3 days of my vacation to check how many games I have and also to find how many copies there is and how many I've finished. Probably shouldn't have done that since it gave me some horrendous back pains so I hardly could get out of bed the next day and was forced to do stretching excercises for a couple of days after that. 

But now I know that I have two versions of this game, this one on the NES Classic Mini and the other on PC Engine. Played the NES one first and made it to stage 8 after a couple of tries, but no further than that. I don't expect more than that either really. Basic colours  and not a lot of them. Galaga '88 on the other hand, a real step up in graphics with more colours and a background beyond the blackness of space. Even your spaceship has more than just black and white. On the other hand it makes it harder since a planet or space-station happens to make the spacecraft you pilot blend in the background together with the enemies bullets. So maybe it wasn't that strange that I only reached level 5 on that... or just that I'm bad at it. 

Star Fox: Zero

Even Nintendo are jumping on the reboot-train

Finally, the first brand new Star Fox since Star Fox DS back in 2006. And we are back to space battles (with some occasional other vehicle battles on land and space, as of this moment I haven't seen if they brought back the Blue Mariner for some underwater action). Besides the Arwing and Landmaster two new vehicles have been built. The Gyrowing for stealth missions and an alternate mode for the Arwing, the Walker. Fine and dandy, but what everyone talks about is the controls. Since the Wii U has two screens Nintendo decided to force it upon us to use it. So for precision shooting it's recommended to look at the gamepad and to get an overlook over the battle watch the TV. You can possible just do it with the gamepad, but I notice the TV is preferable to watch most of the time due to the overview. Which causes this game to be one of the several Wii U games I probably won't play as much due to not having a TV to use alone since their is more people in the household for the moment. The next thing is that the gyro in the gamepad controls the lasers. A bit like Splatoon and once you get a hang of it it works rather fine. It at least takes away the problem of you needing to be a target for enemy fire to get in a hit or two. 

For a game called Star Fox there doesn't seem to exist a fox vechicle

The story then... it's just the same story as Star Fox (Starwing) and Star Fox 64 (Lylat Wars), but with teleportation devices. Apparently what Andross was working on was teleportation devices that he began using for... no, he didn't want to share them so General Pepper had him locked up on Venom... no, James McCloud put him on another dimension with the teleportation devices where he somehow built an army and then dragged the whole planet Venom with him to launch the attack on Corneria. It's a reboot basically and the story wasn't much to write home about anyway. I can't say it stuck much with me afterwards either since nothing is really new. Star Fox: Assault was better in my opinion with Pigma's transformation, Peppy and Peppers sacrifices, even Star Wolfs sacrifices and the enemy was interesting and a bit scary... for a borg ripoff. It missed something and really, how much of a surprise was it that Venom disappeared when we have the teleportation holes all over the game? 

Looks like someone been watching the Terminator-series

The graphics looks nice and the music is fine, still prefer the soundtrack from the original game and apparently you could get access to it by either stepping up your game and 100 % percent it with collecting medals and highscores and with it unlock the original look of the Arwing as an alternate mode together with the music... or just use any Star Fox amiboo. I'm mighty tempted since I clearly can't bother spending the 40-100 hours I would need to actually train myself to get good at this game. Eh, it's not a bad game and you get used to the controls, it's just... I suck at these games.

Legend of Dark Witch

White witch, white witch, poisoning you! White witch, white witch coming for you!

As usual for Christmas time you get a lot of games that are rather cheap and easy to play... so that you can churn them out on the blog due to not really have time playing bigger games during the holidays. I've noticed I really find the short games from Circle fulfilling small doses of bigger games. This one is no exception. Looking at it you are Zizou Olympia, a goddess sent to the world to find the Syega Chrystals that have been stolen so you set out to find the culprit. It's really a Mega Man clone at it's core where you fight across 6 stages at the beginning, then a seventh and just before the real boss you have a boss rush, in a similar transporter room as in those games. You even get the signature weapon of the boss you defeat. What sets it appart is the more RPG element of collecting bats from defeated enemies as currency and using it to buy upgrades. More life, better attack and so on. So it's more like a platform shoot 'em up with rig elements. Not the hardest, but then I played on the easiest setting just so I could finish it fast. 

Steel Empire

Or Empire of Steel as it was known in Europe

Finally after more than a year we in Europe could get our hand on this remaster of a classic shooter, Steel Empire. I got the original for the Sega Mega Drive and I guess it was the cover that grabbed me since I don't know why I would have bought it otherwise. I might have been into aviation at the time. That was a good buy I say. The visuals was amazing portraying this steam punk adventure and the amazing gadgets like trains, windmills and such. A pity the colour schemes have been changed for some of the enemies. I guess it was to adjust to a more "HD"-look as well the 3D which work nice and at least have some purpose in showing what you can pass through or not.Also the background visuals on some stages are amazing, especially the sky mission. Lastly the music is as good as I remember, but I think they toned it down from the original. Although they can't quite emulate the Mega Drives special sound so it might be cleaner, but misses the grit that pushed the original up and beyond.

They even showed the notes for the intro at the intro screen

So what is it about? The Empire of Motorhead, lead by General Saurlon (the l is silent) has conquered its neighbours with their machines fueled with coal and steam and only the republic of Silverhead remains and by equipping their last line of defence, the Reinhardt, with a bipedal plane and zeppelin capable of using the newly discovered weapon Lightning Bomb and attacking the Empire at its core, the Imperial Capital Damned. First you save your ally mining town, then stop the empire from attacking through some abandoned mines. You attack the empire head on at there sky fortress and takes a diversion through the imperial anti-air batteries at the coast. Sadly the ruse is found out and the Reinhardt is destroyed leaving you and your plane/zeppelin as the only hope against the capital. You take the capital, but Saurlon escapes to his mountain fortress which you climbs and enters and find a cannon capable of sending a rocket to the moon. You fly after him and after a long battle his rocket is destroyed.

Reenactment of Saurlons journey

How awesome is that? A freaking space battle on the moon surface with a plane/zeppelin firing lightning bombs. This would be an awesome cartoon series for at least 14 episodes. I finished this game once as kid and on easy, took me a whole lot of lives and maybe even a continue. This time one sitting 2-3 deaths, of course also on easy, but it feels like I'm better at this now. I really like this game and to me well worth the wait. I actually thought we never would see it here and then they drop the price right of the bat compared to the American release. Awesome, although I will have to get better to finish the damn achievement puzzle so I can see the whole picture.

Thunder and Lightning heading your way, Stormbringer coming, time to die!

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.

Metal Slug Comeback

Oh, a month since the latest update? And a new year at that? Golly, that went fast. At the moment my home is a bit of a renovation site since we found a water leak that pumped water below the kitchen floor... for maybe two years. So a good start for the new year isn't? What happy things should we talk about then?

Before Christmas I went on a Virtual Console spree and got games I had heard of, but never seen or played. Let us begin discussing the METAL SLUG-series, especially the first four games and the remake of MS 2. HOLY F***ING GOD!!! What an awesome series! You take control of one out of two or four characters as you mow down rebels threatening the world peace, sometimes even jumping in tanks, planes, helicopters, submarines or other machines to stop the evil General (who I forgotten the name of). The graphics are amazing for sprites and the music makes the blood pump. These games are the 80's and 90's action movies distilled to 1-2 hour gameplay. At certain points you can get turned to a big blob, a zombie or a mummy that can be really annoying, especially as you loose your machine gun or rocket launcher while in that form and if you don't find medicine quick enough you will probably die before the effect wears of, almost forgot, ONE HIT KILLS.

One of the few games I felt that the more I played, the better I got, even going so far surviving the first stages without using a continue or the like... compared to the first time when I used up all credits to reach the first boss and then die. Personally MS 2 (the original) is my favorite and that is due to the slowdowns which everyone else hates and would prefer the remake MS X. Best scene is the final stage when you jump across ice cold water, jump over sandbags with enemy soldiers covering behind them while you fire machine gun and then the twirling bridge appears. The slow downs hit with all enemies, projectiles and rockets on screen, but it feel like a slow motion action scene. It's AWESOME! And the music rocks.

Explosions for everyone and a toast to everyone and a wish that 2014 will be a good year to look back to!

Life Force

A couple of weeks ago I got my hand on my families old NES 8-bit system and a couple of old games. Didn't work since it hasn't been cleaned... ever and we got it in early 1990's. So I began by cleaning the systems and the games and I got them to work, both those who had worked since day one and even some import games that had problems to work and my dad blamed those games for the future trouble. One of those games was Life Force or Salamander. It's a scrolling shooter where you pilot the Vic Viper and if you have a friend (or a working second controller) the Lord British (or Road British as my manual say). Your planet is threatened by the galactic monster Zelos who plans to devour it so you set out in your ship in a suicide mission to enter the monster and destroy it's heart. So this was also the first time I succeeded and won the game. I flied threw the six stages and won losing probably around 100 lives (using the Konami code for 30 extra lives certainly helped).

What makes this game special compared to all other shooters? Well, two-player mode and the awesome music. Lets begin with stage 1:

Pumping you up for a space adventure, traveling through attacking creatures, teeth and appearing walls (making multiple playthroughs a necessity knowing if you should stay in front or at the back of the screen due to the dangerous environment who appears out of nowhere). That is until you hit a wall with some strange outgrowth. The screen stops scrolling and the wall dissipates and something looking like a brain pops out, The music changes and it is boss battle time:

Most awesome boss music at the moment as you dodge the enemy fire and tentacles or whatever trying to hit the core. Made much easier if you are fully upgraded which just for the first boss is one loop around him and then continuous fire on his eye for 5 seconds. BOOM!!! And then onward. The saddest thing about this game is that it is on the Virtual console... in Japan and the US, not Europe. I feel slightly cheated by that fact. Maybe it will show up on the Wii U VC or the 3DS eshop... maybe even the TG-16 with CD quality soundtrack... although that will lose some of the nostalgic feeling.