Bionic Commando (NES)

 

G.I. JOE, G.I. Joe is here!

Been home at the parents again and dusted off Bionic Commando for the NES released by Capcom. We actually got an American version (together with 3 more games) that had to use a converter. Which incidentally coincided when all dust and spit that we kids blew into the cartridges began affecting our original NES so my parents blamed the problems on the converter, until I cleaned it up for the first time 20 years after we got it. Of course I just put it in the Retron 5 I brought with me, and guess what? There's a bunch of cheats here so I can finally get to the end of the game. 

The story is that the evil empire is conquering the world and Super Joe, the best soldier in the rebel army have disappeared. So a bionic commando is sent in, captain Rad Spencer... dressed in green compared to the blue, red and yellow from the cover. Plus that he is a red-head compared to the blonde. So first priority is battling the evil empire to find Super Joe who tells you that the empire is about to finish their weapon, the Albatross, and to do that they are gonna resurrect Master-D, the leader of the extremist group the Badds that lived several decades ago, and the empire sees as a precursor to them. So Spencer  and Joe teams up to stop the empire for good. 

Kinda interesting story telling, since after the rescue of Joe (which is described as a super soldier) you can wiretap certain communications and the empire soldier are in disarray shouting that Super Joe is coming and being cut off as the commander tries to get a report. Awesome. Anyway, you find the leader of the empire, Generalissimo Killt, that is just about to leave on the Albatross without awakening Master-D since he wasn't needed... which Master-D doesn't like so he electrocutes Killt and take control himself... and it's non-other than Hitler himself. 

I mean look at him!

So you destroy the Albatross and runs after Master-D who tries to escape in an helicopter so you have to swing and jump with your bionic arm and fire a bazooka right in the windows of the chopper, blowing up Master-D, which is awesome if I didn't fail so many times and used the save state. And then you have to escape before the base is blown up in the self-destruct. But just as Spencer is about to leave he realises that Joe haven't escaped so he run back and escapes hanging from a helicopter with Joe as the base is blowing up behind them.

Kinda fun game actually, but it gets really hard and confusing. For example you gotta find different communicators and need to use different ones at different stages to get the wiretaps and communications so that you can follow along... and you start each stage by selecting which one to use, meaning when you have 4 different to choose from, there can be rather annoying when you don't know where to use which, why not just let them stack? Also, the platforming gets ridicules halfway through when you need to grapple up while being harassed by flying soldiers that push you down constantly. That's when I pretty much gave up the save scumming method and just put on invincibility so I hadn't to deal with that headache. There is a remake for the PS3, which I got, but haven't gotten past the first area off since the bosses are harder. Here you can just sneak up behind and fire at the computer core or whatever where you gotta actually fight the boss.

Donald in Maui Mallard (Sega Mega Drive)

Might Solve a Mystery!

Or Rewrite History!

Ducktales! Whoo Hoo!

Look, a game not reviewed by 16-bit gems, and reason is kinda obvious, since this isn't a gem. It's brutal, the controls are atrocious, but the graphics are really nice. Only good thing about this I got a reason to try the Retron 5:s cheat mode. Invincibility, moon jump, infinite ammo and unlimited ninja time goes a long way. Although, I got at least to level 4 before doing that. 

Story is that Donald Duck is Maui Mallard, a Magnum P.I. knock-off that is investigating a disappearance of an idol on a pacific island. He got to search through an old mansion, do some ninja training, infiltrate a pygmy village and gaining their trust in a volcano, search for a body in the ocean for a sunken ship, travel to the spirit world for a soul and then defeat a witch doctor to win the game. The story is kinda fun, would like to see an animated Donald Duck movie based on this. Graphics are amazing and its sounds very good, it even sound as Donald when Maui take damage. But as stated the game is brutal. You are constantly bombarded by pygmy's, insects and other monsters. There's instant death traps everywhere and good luck playing it legit, power to you. And I remember this game as a kid, it was a Donald Duck game and I would have loved to play it... and then promptly be disappointed since I would probably never have gotten past stage 1, and if I did, the second stage would have ended me. 

So beside the constant attacks from enemies, I get the feeling the developers extended the life of the game by making it hard and obtuse. First stage you enter a book case and the area is too dark to see. To the right instant death pits so you gotta go to the left and you can see some goodies up on a ledge, but you can't reach it. And you gotta realise there is a chain that you gotta pull to get the goodies, and pulling the chain creates platforms to cross the instant death pits. And that is stage one. On the second stage you learn about the ninja skills that turn Maui to Cold Shadow. Where you have a time limit to do crucial platforming that only Cold Shadow can do that you refill by collecting tokens, that at least shows up in the boss battles fairly often, but good luck on the stages.

Ho! Ha ha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!

And that's not the worst part of that stage. At one point you get to an area with a sign that says teleport and a red ball insta kills you if you try to continue. I tried to jump, to hide and try to run away. That didn't work so I looked in the manual (since I got both manual and box for this), says nothing about it in the controls section so I watched a youtube video and saw that you could do a speed run thing, and the first comment or description was "hold A and double tap a direction". So I thought that was bullshit that you needed outside knowledge to play the game, but I looked through the manual again and actually found it on page 15... when the controls are on page 10-11. And the description of the stage is on page 14. I still call bullshit on that. And that's the only time you use it... or you can use it in the volcano stage to run over the boiling lava so that's that.

And speaking of the volcano and underwater stages, damn insta kill and the damn tower climb in the spirit world. So I wouldn't recommend it. Too hard for very little satisfaction. But as stated, would love an animated movie in this style.  

Super Adventure Island II (SNES)

Interesting choice to have all the bosses front and centre.

And yet another game that was reviewed by the Clan of the Gray Wolf. A bit simpler this time compared to the RPG:s. Master Higgins together with his wife Tina is on a honeymoon cruise (on a raft) in some tropical islands when a storm struck, separating the lovers and causing both to have amnesia. And then Tina is saved by the king and wants to marry her, but on the wedding day a giant buzzard appears and kidnaps her. And Master Higgins just happens to appear as an adventurer and gets the job to rescue Tina. So he travels through the 6 islands until he can climb the mountain on the last island where he rescues Tina from the buzzard but some alien space scorpion is behind it all so you... is sent back to the starting island where they heal you up and then you gotta climb the mountain... again, to fight it... I think it's called padding in the industry. Save Tina and both fly away on a balloon afterwards as credits roll. 

The game plays like a Metroidvania, Wonder Boy or Zelda II if you like. Begin with your bare fist and then collect weapons and armours, some of the weapons you need to solve puzzles or get past obstacles. Mostly fun, but it tends to pad out things I feel when you need to flip switches on different islands and such, and do it several times.  The maps aren't that useful either, would gladly have seen the passageways to different islands to make travel a bit easier. The worst problem though is to me the controls. Not how the games play, but damn menu controls. Don't know how many times I pushed back and forth to do what I was supposed to do. And why couldn't they map the map to L or R or even some quick change of weapons since I constantly had to go in and change for certain bits. Just annoys me. 

Overall it wasn't a bad game. Short enough so that it doesn't bothers me that much. Could also be that the beginning game was much harder up until I found the casino and rolled the slots with some save scumming to get triple 7:s and buy the best equipment, which made the last couple of bosses maybe a bit too easy. But I don't care really. Great music in some stages like the ice island and the final level. Sad thing is actually that this game was released on the Wii Virtual Console, but I didn't get it since I didn't care that much for these kinda games at the time and when they closed the Virtual Console down I was unemployed and had no cash to go on a shopping spree to pick up maybe good games. Would probably have saved me the 100 € or 100 $ I payed for the physical version.

Terranigma (SNES)

As a drifter I was born to walk alone!

An' I've Made Up My Mind, I Ain't Wasting No More Time!

Yet another of the 16-bit Gems games that I could get a hold off. This one I had to get from a german seller through Amazon and then use the emulation capabilities of the Retron 5 and get a german to english translation patch. And still it went for something like € 80, and it was just the cartridge. Wish I could go back in time and hit my stupid self in the head for choosing the Mega Drive (on the other hand, don't think I would have picked up this game anyway). So this is Terranigma, released at the final days of the SNES before the N64 and interesting enough wasn't released in the US. Which probably explains why there is only german versions to get since the english copies have been picked up by the Americans.

So it begins in the village of Crysta as Ark is awakened by Elle, his childhood friend. He walks around and opens the door the elder told the village to never open. Inside lies Pandora's Box containing... Yomi... a creature I guess? Then the whole village turns to crystal beside Ark and the elder. The elder tells him to climb the 5 towers around the village in order to awaken the world above since, shocker, we are in the underworld. Climb the towers, rescue the villagers and as you awakened the surface world the elder tasks you to resurrect all life. And the first thing I do is run over to Elle, who has locked her inside her workshop since she cries over the thought of Ark leaving... nice sending me away game. So you jump through a hole in the ground and ends up in the Amazon, on our earth. No plants so you enter the dead tree Ra to destroy the parasite within the tree so that the flowers can grow again. You also can speak to the plants and they guide you to Colorado North America where monster birds have taken over the skies. Fight them off and you released the birds from their captivity. And they in their turn fly you to the African Savannah where you gotta fight off a storm god, resurrect all living beast and then rescue a lion cub. The last task is climbing Himalaya and defeat some shapeshifter in order to awaken humanity from its slumber as the animals builds a bridge over the Indus river. 

The battle leaves you sleeping for three years (no worry, the animal bridge still stands) in Lhasa where the Dalia Lama watches over you. So you set out making sure that towns and villages expand and progress as within the span of the game they go from medieval technology to 20th century. Most important is probably Loire, a french town where the princess looks like Elle and is named that as well. The king of Loire is looking for a fiancé for the princess and if one can make her speak again one can marry her. Turns out that the king actually stole Elle from the Scandinavian town of Stockton (a play on Stockholm I assume) after slaughtering the other villagers. As Ark helps the princess regain her ability to speak, and the memories of the destruction of Stocktorn, the princess in the night kills the king and escapes with her loyal knight to the Americas. Now, the thing with Stockton is that it's also a replica of Crysta, the village Ark grew up in. How can that be?

In the Americas you rescue an airplane inventor so that you can travel to Moscow where an evil cult worshipping the mad scientist Berluga lives. Apparently a Nobel Peace Price winner for his work in immortality....??? Why didn't he get the Nobel Price in medicine or chemistry? Why Peace? Still, turns out that he created a virus called Asmodeus that works more like a chemical weapon... I assume. He put himself in cryo and Ark awakens him, which causes city of Neotokio to be attacked by Berluga, killing all living humans there. Once again Ark is saved by the Dalai Lama and sets you on course of finding five starstones and take them to the end of the world which is Antarctica. The ritual forces Ark to be reborn (?) and taken care of by Elle who have returned to Stockton (time is really lenient here), but he is kidnapped by the underwolrd Elle together with Yomi who was sent by the elder to kill Ark, but Elle can't do it since she loves Ark and sacrifices herself. Returning to the world Ark joins with the friends he made during the adventure on an attack on Berlugas tower in Siberia where they assault his flying ship and crashes it, after Berluga ends skewered by a propeller. And so Ark descends back into the underworld to fight against the elder who is none other than Dark Gaia, satan himself. Defeating the big crystal butterfly allows Ark to see his village one last time, before going to sleep and the whole underworld disappearing. 

I was amazed by this game, describing the story doesn't make it justice. Playing it I felt spiritual. The music and the graphics are fantastic. The resurrection scenes works of art and the philosophical themes behind them moved me. Best parts are the two first chapters, after resurrecting humanity it got a bit boring as the game slowed down with the progression of the towns. Could also be due to right before the humans are awakened the game hits you with an avalanche and you gotta spend the night talking to a mountain goat that just lost her husband and tells you to eat him to survive and then when she is able to break through a wall it just allows you to escape and the goat has to stay behind, slowly dying at her husbands side. Oh way game do you make me feel for a goat I just met? What it misses a bit is the expectation that progress is beyond everything when it comes to civilisation as it's measured by this german economist in every town. Now, it could be argued that since we are sent out by satan that it might be the reason. People expand businesses and all, but some seems to detest the prosperity since they have to fulfil demands beyond their control and just work. Kinda sad life. Then again, as Chicago burns down and you travel the world with letters for funds, who do you go to? All the people you helped, giving me at least the impression that progress allows charity, which I can agree on. If you don't have anything to share, how else would it work?

It took me 20 hours to beat this game, but I used the save state function to test out certain aspects as to avoid getting damaged or as with the end boss, see what works. One aspect I wasn't keen on was the magic system. You craft rings with magical stones you find. Now, I thought that if you used it you lost it, but as to a comment I read you actually got the stones back and can use them for more magical rings. Now the problem with the magic system is that I need to stand in the right place for certain rings and use the ring within the ring box in the inventory, not allowing me to see use it as a quick command (I think, hard to know without a manual). Also, I used rings only for the Bloody Mary boss and thought that since the final fight got nearer I just get as many rings as possible. Guess what? Can't use magic against the final boss... then what's the point of magic? Still, amazing game. The experience itself is worth it. The last thing I want to add, since I just thought of it, was an idea around the name. Since Terranigma seems to be a portmanteau of terra and enigma, meaning the puzzle of the earth, meaning the world pretty much. I can't help but like it, must be the snobbery of the liberal elite I resonate with.

Quackshot starring Donal Duck (Sega Mega Drive)

Race cars, Laser and Aeroplanes!

It's A Duck-Blur!

Got another game to play on the Retron 5 and decided that I probably should focus on games that hardly gonna get a rerelease or remaster, like licensed games and especially Disney-games. Quackshot stars... as mentioned in the title Donald Duck in search for a treasure of king Garuzia, the king of an ancient Duck kingdom. He found the map one day looking through Scrooges library and heads out together with his nephews. Pete has overheard this and sends his gang to stop Donald and steal the treasure for himself. So you got to traverse an Aztec-temple in Mexico, Dracula's Castle in Transylvania, a Viking ship outside the coast of Norway, the south pole, the pyramids in Egypt and a palace in India. You gotta defeat bosses in some of the areas, like Dracula in Transylvania (that the Duck family now been fighting twice, or maybe they differentiate it with "Duckula") and the tiger Shere Khan in India. After getting a viking diary that tells how to find the treasure on the map Pete kidnaps the nephew so Donald have to defeat him at his hideout and then find the last area, a hidden island in the south of the Atlantic. There he fights off some guardian dressed like a conquistador. Donald gets a statue and takes it back to Duckburg and as the nephew carries it toward Daisy that wonders where he been they drop it and a jewelled golden necklace falls out of it. Donald and Daisy fly off in the sunset, the end!

I think I saw this as a kid on TV or something, and Donald looks like Indiana Jones (which was the intent I guess so I would probably have been all over that, but probably not able to finish the game since I found the platforming a bit unforgiving at times, at least you had unlimited continues). The hit boxes are a bit sketchy as I very often took damage where I believed where I shouldn't have taken a hit and the Indian palace maze can go to hell. A bit weird in its progression as well as you gotta go to Mexico, then go back to Duckburg and traverse half of that to get a key to open the zigurat to get inside to find... Goofy? Ok? That lets you go halfway through Transylvania and back to to Duckburg for the final part to find Dracula and open up the rest of the world. I gather it's a bit like Mega Man in allowing you to choose your own path, but yo still need to do everything in a special order. 

Not much to it, a fun distraction, but not the longest game. Decent graphics and music, but I don't like the controls that much, Donald feels rather slippery. Play it once, but it's not a game I would play again and again.

Illusion of Time (SNES)

Finally, a PAL-version!

Released as Illusion of Gaia in the US I first heard of it by watching the Clan of the Gray Wolf as it was the first game in the 16-bit Gems-series. So watching that back in 2009 one would hope it would be released on the Virtual Console or something, but that never happened so I had to buy it for the original console now when I can play it. Got box and manual, but decided to not get the version with the map in it, saved me over 400 SEK (something like 40 € or $). 

So you play as Will, a boy that one year earlier travelled with his father to the tower of Babel, but the expedition disappeared but Will made it back somehow. Now he has some psychic powers that allow him to move things and I gather giving him some second sight. One day he finds a door to inter-dimensional pocket where Gaia exist, a spirit that warns Will that a comet is approaching earth and it will cause immense destruction as it does every 800 years. It has caused several civilisations through earths history being destroyed and in the beginning it was created by humans, but backfired on its creator. So now Will is a descendent of the knights of Darkness and with his power of Darkness have to travel the earth and search the ruins for the mystic statues.

Now the fun thing is that the ruins and world is based on real locations, like the Incan empire, Nazca, Angkor Wat, the Pyramids and so on. Something bothered me though, the world map doesn't correspond with our map so somehow Nazca and the Inca are two different continents, you walk from the great wall of China to the city of Euro (with the company Roleks, which I gather is a rewrite of Rolex) and from there you get to Angkor Wat and then you get to the pyramids. But the story actually explain it. The end shows how the world forms the continents we know of. Apparently the light of the comet caused the world to change away from what it was supposed to evolve into so that is part of why Will have to clear this mess.

On this journey Will will travel with Kara, the princess of the kingdom where Will lived, Lance, Erik and Seth, childhood friends of Will, Lilly, a new friend that can turn into a dandelion and hails from a hidden village near the lost Incan Empire. Also Will's cousin Neil that are an inventor and the son of the President of the Roleks company. They travel the world for the ruins and sees how the comet's light have destroyed the past and is doing the same now. The people around Angkor Wat is starving as the food have disappeared and some even turns to demons (I wonder if the food is referencing some kind of real world food shortages in South East Asia, like Cambodia?), the ancient Mu palace was overtaken by vampires, the Roleks company is partaking in a world spanning slave trade originating from the desert town of Dao and Kara's father sends the hunter Jackal after them in order to obtain the powers Will possess for himself. In the floating city we see people partaking in a Russian Roulette game of poisoned drinks where the loser even though he has a child on the way still drinks the poisoned glass and everyone around begs him to stop. Will himself isn't always that good either since a side-quest that span the whole game is finding these 50 red jewels and give them to the jeweller for power ups and a secret area and boss. One of the gems is snitching on an escaped slave to the slavers, and the slave and the ones hiding him disappears. And the Jackal? You burn him to death by activating a trap in the pyramids. The scene is rather gruesome!

FIRE! I take you to burn!

Gameplay wise, you go around towns until you get to go to a ruin where you traverse it solving puzzles and fighting monsters. Clearing all monsters in a room gives you a stat boost in either life, strength or defence. Will fights with a flute and can play musical melodies as well as being more acrobatic with slides and spinning jumps. Will can also change into two different forms helping him. First is the dark knight Freedan that is stronger and can reach switches further away and then Shadow, the one destined to fight the comet in the end and can go through floors. Used in only one dungeon and for the boss rush at the end, making it feel like the game was rushed a bit. They also just gives you the final mystic statue so you can reach the comet, but I wonder if they where supposed to put in Stonehenge as well as a final stage since they show it in the intro.

Overall, it was a fun game. Graphics are nice, music is good, and the gameplay is rather good. It wasn't that hard, but that could be due to having a guide at the end of the manual showing you every red jewel and some strategies for defeating the early bosses. So I wasn't cheating since the game came with it... maybe the save states actually count towards it, but mostly it saves me maybe one day of play. Would I 100 % it again? Maybe not, getting the red jewels only serve to connect the game with its spiritual predecessor Soul Blazer... which I probably wont get since it goes for over 1 000 SEK (ca € 100). It also is very linear so no instant re-playability I would say. Also, I question if it's actually an RPG, yes you have stat increases, but they are predetermined by killing all monsters in every room, so I would define it more as an action adventure. 

Battle for Olympus (NES)

From Zero to Hero in no time flat!

The game for greek mythology nerds. It's based on the story of Orpheus who have to travel to the underworld and rescue the love of his life, Eurydice, since she died and Orpheus armed only with a lyre descends to Hades and moves Hades to tears with the song and allows her to return, but only if he doesn't look back at her during their travel to the surface. It's a tragedy so of course at the very last minute he looks, overcome with doubt and fear, and Eurydice disappears forever. Stricken with grief again he grieves until he's killed by being torn to pieces by some women.

So you play as Orpheus armed with a club and shield setting of to rescue... Helena? Helena of Troy? Alright, a bit of liberty already, both in choice of weapons and name of the wife. Maybe the letter restriction of the NES made Helena a better choice? Anyway, Helena have been killed by a snake that allowed Hades to kidnap her, but Aphrodite sees the couples love for each others and persuades the other gods to help so Orpheus meets with Zeus and from there sets of all around Greece to find all the temples of the gods and get the means to find the entrance to Tartarus and fight Hades. You get the Sandals of Hermes, the Shield of Athena, The divine sword of Hephaestus, Ares Power Bracelet, Apollo's Harp, a harmonica from Poseidon and Artemis Moon crystal.  You need all of these items in order to find the three nymphs and the hearts that allows you to find Tartarus.

You gotta defeat Hades minions like the Lamia, cyclops, the minotaur and a lot of snakes. God I hate the snakes. After getting to Tartarus and defeating Kerberos (I hate that damn dog too, bosses shouldn't be allowed to regain health, especially when they are hard to hit) you traverse the maze and finds Helena turned to stone, the next room being completely dark with only water and a bridge. You use the moon crystal and the moon lights up making Hades cast a shadow in the water so that you know where to hit to fight off Hades. Really cool concept, it also harkens back to mythology again since Hades had a helmet (or cap depending on the translations) that could turn one invisible, so props for that. You beat him by forcing him against the wall and do the Zelda II Shadow Link fight by kneeling and just attacking. Beat him and the hearts of the Nymphs releases Helena from the stone and both arrive outside of Tartarus as the sun rises bringing a new day and a happy ending for Orpheus. So a sword clearly beats playing a song.

Only the penitent man will pass!

We had this game when I was a kid and the furthest we got was defeating Lamia and getting the staff and fire ability (or that was when I was in my 20's so as kid we didn't get that far really). I pretty much got lost at the forest stage. It's hard. Dying sends you back to the entrance of the stage and there are a lot of death pits, enemies that have irregular flying patterns and the damage progression is awful. You take too much damage early on and the Golden apple that halves your damage is way off. But I have nostalgic feelings for it. The music is great, and the graphics looks really good. It was released 1991 in Europe, but the Famicom version was released in 1988 and the whole game was made by only three people. It was inspired heavily by Zelda II which you see in the side-scrolling segment and the final battle with Hades. It feels nice finally finishing it, although I gotta be honest, I used the save state function a lot. Boy, I don't know how much time I would have had to spend on the game to finish it legit. And I even had a Nintendo Magazine walkthrough of the game that at least showed the beginning of the game.