✰ GR Creative Highlight: 167 Super Nintendo Reviews, Index on first page

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kerr9000
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PostRe: 150 SNES Games at the speed I can handle
by kerr9000 » Wed Feb 07, 2018 6:57 pm

SNES Game Review 130: Mystic Quest Legend AKA Final Fantasy Mystic Quest

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So the game I am going to talk about now was released in the Pal region as Mystic Quest Legend, in America as Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, and in Japan as Final Fantasy USA: Mystic Quest. Thinking how big Final Fantasy is as a franchise it seems kind of crazy now that for its release over here it basically had the Final Fantasy name ripped from it but you need to realise that the name didn't carry the kind of weight then that it does now.

Having heard the name Final Fantasy then you'll be thinking that this is a role-playing video game and well you would be right.The game is basically a spin-off to Square's popular Final Fantasy series that they designed and marketed as a simplified role-playing game with entry-level RPG players in mind.The whole basic idea behind the game was to get new people in to the genre, people who might previously have not paid much attention to RPG's previously. This kind of effects a lot of peoples opinions on this game. You can see why it was made, the sales of the last proper final fantasy in America before it really tanked despite it being an excellent game. So this game was made as something to try and court interest in the genre a kind of jumping in point for newbies and I would argue that when used in this way the game is at its best, the problem is when you go from playing an in depth RPG down to playing this, it comes of as incredibly simplistic in relation to almost any other RPG you could think to name.

You see while the game's battle system is basically similar to that of a Final Fantasy game from that sort of period its kind of a little simplified with more action adventure game elements weaved into it. You don't really get a team like in other games instead you have your central character who you level up but you meet people who kind of fight alongside you and then clear off to be replaced by other latter companions. This simplifies things by meaning you only have to concentrate on your one main guy, heck the game itselfs controls your part time companions for you by default. Also when you move around on the overworld its fixed its less like moving around in most RPG games and more like moving Mario from level to level on the map screen in Super Mario Land. There are also no random battles, and no choosing who you need to take with you or making sure people level up evenly as companions kind of just drop in and out and your not responsible for managing there equipment or well anything.

The story by RPG standards is pretty darn basic there are no crazy big plot twists or things that will make you stop and think about whether what your doing is right or wrong or if your really a hero or not. Quiet simply you are a young guy called Benjamin on a quest to save the world. You do this by retrieving stolen crystals that control the world's four elemental powers and hold everything in balance.

One of the issues when a lot of people review this game is they just see it as a sort of Fischer Price Babies First RPG and tar it as nothing more than a cut down bastard of the Final Fantasy franchise and yes in some ways if your heavily into your RPG's what is on offer here can seem pretty darn simple. I would seriously argue though that its not a bad game and that if you look at it as its own thing and judge it based of that and not its various brothers then its a pretty decent game.

Now the game is pretty darn easy and that's a complaint that's been leveled against it a lot, its also short by RPG standards its about 10 hours long but hey when theres things like work to worry about sometimes its nice to have an RPG you can finish without having to dedicate your life to it. I need to say that I really do love the music in this game it just well its in many places just beautiful and has a sort of calming nature to it. The graphics are passable and work well but they are pretty no thrills graphics to be totally honest.

In conclusion well I think the game is a decent if overly simple game, its a hard one to score as it depends what your after and what kind of RPG experience you have.. If this was your first entry into the genre id give it a 7 out of 10 and say go grab it as I think it serves the purpose of easing you into this kind of game very well, If your a pro RPG gamer though then I would have to lower the score to a 6 and say that maybe this game is a little short, repetitive and over simplified to score any better. I do think though that this game gets a lot of unfair negative backlash, maybe some of this is simply because none Japanese gamers have disliked the idea that we were not buying previous RPG's simply because we were too green and in need of having our hands held to truly get there greatness? I paid £10 for my cartridge only pal copy of this game and if you really feel that you need it well I wouldn't pay over £20 for it as I don't think it will hold your attention long enough to warrant the money after all its short and not particularly re-playable in my opinion.

Last edited by kerr9000 on Thu Feb 08, 2018 5:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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PostRe: 150 SNES Games at the speed I can handle
by kerr9000 » Wed Feb 07, 2018 6:58 pm

SNES Review 131: Teenage Mutant Hero/Ninja Turtles 4: Turtles in Time

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The Teenage Mutant Ninja or for us in the UK Hero Turtles was one of those huge things you just couldn't escape when I was younger. I remember one Christmas they were the in thing to have, to the degree that people were fighting over the figures and some stores were even putting limitations on how many you could buy. I remember my mum bless her took my older brother and cued for hours just to get 4 Turtles related Figures for me for Christmas, she couldn't even get the Turtles and ended up importing American Turtle figures which was actually awesome as they ended up being a little different to my friends figures mostly the fact they had more menacing eyes I guess it was because they were Ninja not heroes. The theme tune to the show was burned into all of our young brains and we would frequently scream out phrases like Turtle Power or Cowabunga, heck I remember doing a dance and singing to Turtle power with 4 friends in a school assembly, I had half a barrel on my back as a shell and was Raphael because he was and still is my favourite. So I think you can see how much the Turtles meant to me, I had played the heck out of the original arcade game, I had the Sinclair Spectrum conversion of that on my shelf so when I found out that there was going to be a SNES game well I was super super excited. OK so I think that's given it away my review today is Turtles in Time. Its one of those games that when I started my attempt to review 150 games I didn't think I would ever review, sure I owned it as a kid and played the living heck out of it but I had swore I wouldn't review anything that I couldn't play on real hardware with a real cartridge I own (I have considered getting an Everdrive for my SNES and using this to review things I don't own but so late in the game that feels kind of like cheating). I had seen this online many times but it was commanding such a high price I couldn't justify grabbing it, It wasn't till a local store got a copy and I managed to talk them down from £40 to £30 that I got my hands on it again. So here we go lets see if I like it as much as I used to back in the day.


Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV Turtles in Time also known as Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles: IV Turtles in Time (in Europe) was originally an arcade game produced by Konami and in fact was a sequel to the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) arcade game, and before coming to the SNES and it didn't have a number attached to it. The reason behind the number 4 is because there was a turtles game for the NES which was then followed up by a NES adaption of the Original Turtles arcade machine which went on to be called Teenage Mutant/Ninja Turtles 2 the Arcade game which was followed by another turtles game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project. The Manhattan Project was also a side-scrolling beat-'em-up made by Konami (only released in Japan and America though) The third turtles game features play mechanics similar to the previous game, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game, but it was an original title for the NES not an Arcade port. So for Nintendo gamers at least Turtles in Time was the 4th game, I guess in Europe they could have called it Turtles 3 but maybe they just figured lets not screw around with the title too much or it will only get confusing.

OK so the games story is that Shredder and Krang have stolen the Statue of Liberty, and just to make sure the Turtles are really interested they have also taken there friend April O'Neal hostage, they have done this to basically bait the Turtles so they can draw them out and try to kill them. So your probably wondering where the in time bit of the title comes from? Well that's because (Spoiler follows) when you catch up with him Shredder sends you through a time warp. This is part of what I think really makes this game ace, the time periods which the turtles end up in are really different, there creative and I think they really help to keep things interesting. Yeah its not the biggest most spectacular plot in the world but its one which fits in well with the characters and makes you feel like your in the world of the show. This is really helped by the fact that the graphics in this game are bright and that everyone looks just like they do in the cartoon. You get to pick which Turtle you are so you can take the game on as your favourite or you can take it in turns to complete it as one turtle and then the next, on top of this there are all the villain characters a fan of the show could hope for, not only are Krang and Shredder present you will also see Beebop and Rocksteady, Baxter Stockman, Metalhead, the Rat King, Leatherhead, and Tokka and Rahzar. This made the young me very happy and you know what it also makes me geek out now when I play it, if there is anyone I could add to the game (as a playable character) it would be Casey Jones as I always thought he was great, but in honesty I cant moan about who is featured at all the game has the perfect cast of characters.

I really like the graphics in this game its not just that they are bright, or that things are correct to the cartoon, its just everything about the games graphics, the backgrounds, the attention to details. Not only are the Turtles done perfectly you also have the awesome option to make the characters look more like they did in the comic books, this is something that they really didn't have to put into the game but they did and its just such a neat little touch for the die hard Turtle fans. Like I have mentioned above the game is just so filled with characters but they are all also brilliant to look at, its great to see the Turtle's expressions when they get, hit or shocked, or flattened, or fall down a hole, etc. I don't believe that graphics make a game but by heck do they help make a good game even better.

This game is not just a pretty looker though it also has some darn good toe tapping tunes which really help go with the tempo and feel of the on screen action and yes they do throw the animated 80's cartoon theme song in there as well. Play the game for awhile and you'll soon find yourself humming bits of tunes in your day to day life which I always take as the sign of a good soundtrack, the fact that it stays with you after your done playing. The boss music is great it has that brilliant frantic feeling to it but well its a shame it gets reused so much, I would have liked to see individual end of level bosses actually have there own themes but this is the smallest of nit picks after all you know if I am mentioning things like this its because I don't have any really deep criticisms to make. The sound effects are good as well you have the usually noises you get when your hitting an enemy or they are hitting you, noises that reflect the fact you have picked up a power up, yelps of pain and I love the Cowabunga the turtles shout when you finish a level.

OK so now its on to the most important part of a game the Gameplay, and I am happy to say that I think the game plays amazingly. The controls are simple but this means that anyone can pick it up and get right into the game withing minutes and the Turtles do exactly what you want how you want and when you want. The main thing is that this game is just darn fun, its full of character handles well and really draws you into its world.The levels are pretty much medium in length but this is a good thing they feel reasonably long but they never out stay there welcome. So you start the game up watch a quick but cool intro and pick your Turtle. You then do what you do in most beat em ups walking from left to right beating the heck out of who ever crosses your path, most of the standard grunts in this are the Foot clans Foot Soldiers who you will recognise from the show, different coloured members have different weapons and attack patterns but these are the games go to grunts with a sprinkling of robots mousers and things thrown in. The levels have various traps for you to avoid but generally its a case of getting attacked by wave after wave of enemies, one of the neat things is that you can get your enemies to walk into swinging traps and laser beams. After a bit you'll reach a boss, beat the boss and you'll move on to the next level. in some causes its not just a boss its two bosses who you fight together for example Beebop and Rocksteady, the more you play it the more you will get there patterns down and the quicker you'll be able to beat them. Sure it might not be anything to far removed from most of the scrolling beat em ups from the 16bit generation but its one which Konami clearly did with a lot of love and polish and I think that it stands up as one of the best, in fact I would argue the only way to beat this game would be to turn off your SNES plug in a megadrive and put on some Streets of Rage 2.

Part of me just wants to give this game a 10 out of 10, I think its a lot of fun to play, I think it has great replay value and I can very warmly say that I feel super happy to have it back in my collection. I do admit that I have certain biases one of which being that I love this kind of game, I am a huge mark when it comes to side scrolling walk along beat em ups, I am also a massive Turtle fan, so its almost as if this game is made for me. Put simply I am going to give it a 10 out of 10 with the understanding that I have laid out all of my biases and that if your not into the Turtles or into this kind of game then it wont tick all the same boxes for you, but even so I think it is one of the very finest examples of its genre. Now if you want to buy it well as I said my copy cost me £30, its one of the unfortunate parts of being a retro gamer some of the old classics now cost you an arm and a leg, there are copies of this from all regions going for all sorts of prices online so if you see a copy of this for around the £30 price point then dive on it as your sure to see lots of people trying to get figures like £85 even for a loose cart and with it being a license its not likely to end up on compilations or anything like that any time soon. Of course there are other ways it could be sampled but I think we all know what they are by now. OK I have a desire to go get some Pizza so.....Cowabunga!

Last edited by kerr9000 on Thu Feb 08, 2018 5:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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PostRe: 150 SNES Games at the speed I can handle
by kerr9000 » Wed Feb 07, 2018 6:58 pm

SNES Review 132: Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade's Revenge

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So here I am looking at a cartridge for the SNES, Two things instantly jump out at me, one is the picture showing Spider Man and the X-men the other is the LJN logo. Now LJN always gets a bit of a gooseberry fool kicking from video game reviewers but the truth is it was only published by LJN it was in face made by a company called Software Creations. Software Creations was a video game developer based in Manchester, England they started out in 1987 and they did a fair bit of work based on various licensees but they were also responsible for a few fairly popular original games namely Plok, Solstice and its sequel Equinox. (Plok and Equinox I will most likely return to at a latter date).

So its not like Spider-Man hasn't stared in a whole bunch of games but back when this came out Spider man and the X-men together certainly sounded like a recipe for success. You start the game as Spider-Man and in this first level you have to find and disarm bomb after bomb finding them with help of the onscreen prompts which are basically a visual representation of Spider-Man's spider sense. It needs to be said that these are pretty weird bombs as you have to disarm them in a set order, you might be able to see one right in front of you but if its not flashing you cant do anything to it, and it wont flash until you have collected the one the game wants you to get next. Enemies will attack you and in honesty the jumping feels a lot clumsier than it should all in all this level really feels like a huge chore and seeing as this is the level you will probably find yourself playing the most as you'll need to complete it every time you restart the game you are soon going to learn to hate it. This is a game which I feel really benefits from being played on an emulator with save states and such instead of on the original hardware, I guess this shows that the game really needed a save or password system. You really don't realize how much having to repeatedly play a weak, unfun and frustrating part of a game can sour your experience of the whole thing.

I suppose now I should take a break to look at the games Graphics and Sound. Considering at that time this came out id basically call the graphics passable. Some of the sprites are far to small for my liking, looking at little wolverine he looks like a toy, you can instantly tell who people are and get that comic book thrill don't get me wrong but when I compare it to something like Spider-Man on the Megadrive or the latter Maximum Carnage the graphics here just feel very lacking in general. The music and sound effects are well functional. Some of the stuff on offer is alright you have all the sort of sounds you'd expect but then you also have a lot of annoying rubbish as well the best example that comes to mind is the laughing shouting clown noises in the Wolverine stages there like the video game equivalent of nails on a chalk board. That's all I really have to say here, you need to come to this game for the substance if at all because in my opinion at least the style is seriously lacking.

OK so back to the game itself, once you get past the opening level you get the choice of who you want to play as next, with each character having there own levels to complete. As Spider-Man you will find yourself in levels based on the New York City rooftops. The first Spider-Man stage features N'astirh and Shocker as bosses, with Rhino and Carnage being the ones in the second stage. Storm's levels find her in underwater mazes with a limited air supply, for people who know the character this is great as basically she suffers from claustrophobia so this is essentially seeing her in her worst nightmare.Wolverine's finds himself being in a sort of fun house world and see him coming up against Apocalypse. One of his levels also sees him being chased by the Juggernaut. Gambit's levels see him being in a cave being chased by a giant spiked ball. Both of Cyclops' levels are set underground on the island of Genosha in the Sentinel mines, if you manage to complete these you will eventually find yourself facing off against Master Mold. To put it simply you get to be a bunch of different characters in a bunch of different environments which is a definite plus point for the game.The thing is if you have just read those names and gotten excited then this will actually help you appreciate the game a little bit more, you see the license is well used with lots of characters appearing and being clearly recognisable and if your a big Marvel fan your love for these characters and there stories might actually pull you through a lot of the frustrating moments that in a unlicensed game might have seen you put the joypad down very quickly.

I guess there is the silver lining that once you have done the first Spider-Man level you get to choose who you are next and therefore what your second and third level will be etcetera. The truth is though that this game is hard, confusing and fiddly. It soon feels like not only will you need a lot of skill to beat the levels you will also need a lot of luck and the patience of a saint.

I purchased this game as I remember having it as a kid, I remember my opinion on it being a rather mixed one back in the day, I did think though that it would be neat to own it again and maybe as an adult I might find it easier to handle or appreciate certain elements of it more than I used to but this has not been the case at all. I think if anything I feel more blah about it now than I ever have and that's why I score it a 4 out of 10. I spent £9 on a boxed American copy and I seriously feel like I got cheated if you want to give this game a try go for a loose cart and even if your the biggest spidey fan in the world don't go over £5 for it, its pretty much worth nothing as anything more than a minor curiosity.

Last edited by kerr9000 on Thu Feb 08, 2018 5:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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PostRe: 150 SNES Games at the speed I can handle
by kerr9000 » Wed Feb 07, 2018 6:58 pm

SNES Review 133: The Adams Family

Well it seemed like the right month to do this so you know what game I am going to be talking about right now The Adams Family. Now I have to admit to being a big fan of The Adams Family I think its mostly because of the fact that there is an underlining message to there show and that is that its OK to be diffrent, its OK to like things other people dont, to think things other people dont and to basically be yourself.

Ok so despite what I said about The Addams Family not being afraid to be diffrent the game I am talking about was a movie license turned into a platformer which felt like it was heavily inspired by the Super Mario games. It was based on the 1991 Adams Family film the game was both developed by and published by Ocean Software in 1992. The game was far from a SNES exclusive it was also released for the Master System, Sega Mega Drive / Genesis, Amiga and Atari ST. Yet as a kid this is something I never realised, my first experiance of playing this game was at a friends house but and I guess this will give the end of the review away a little after enjoying it there I went and grabbed myself a second hand copy.

I know that the moment people hear the dreaded term movie license they will feel this little twinge of panic an instant oh no this is going to suck, and a lot of the time. Well this is a trend that Addam's Family sort of breaks. Ok so you play the role of Gomez Adams. All of your family apart from Lurch and Thing have been kidnapped (The family Butler and a sentient hand for those who arnt in the know about the Adams family). So basically you as Gomez need to explore your mansion and its grounds so that you can find and rescue your family. You also need to help Uncle Fester regain his memory (he has amnesia). Yeah the story is not exactly the most amazing but well its enough to base a game on so I wont complain too much.

The game might be a bit short on story but I have to admit that I really enjoy the graphics, yeah they might not exactly be the best on the system but you can certainly tell who everyone is and I really enjoy the cartoonish look, I think it really suits the game, Gomez looks great and has some really cool little animations, as he taps his feet and looks around if you stop playing and just leave him standing there. When you put the graphics with the music it just makes for something a little bit special and yes the theme song is in there its even on the title screen. The game is great at sucking you in and making you want to play it but then there is a slight problem and the problem lies with the gameplay.

So yeah as said earlier the game is a typical platformer with your usual sort of platform rules, for example if you collect 25 coins you get an extra heart and can you guess what happens if you collect 100 yep thats right you get an extra life.You kill enemies by jumping on their heads. You can also get an upgrade that lets you shoot balls, balls which work just a little bit exactly like Mario's fireballs. Yeah being in some ways like one of the best games ever is not a bad thing but Adams Family lacks something the Mario games have and thats the tight controls and the pixel perfect hit detection. Gomez is quiet slidy and there are a lot of times when you feel certain you timed a jump just right and yet you still see yourself loose a heart. Its a real shame that Ocean didnt tighten up the controls and the hit detection as even with these issues the game is enjoyable but it could have been even better with just a little bit of work.

The game is quiet challanging and can keep you playing for a long time but unfortunately, much of this challenge comes from the above mentioned control issues which means you can get quiet frustrated with it. There are plenty of secrets for you to go looking for and the game is mostly nonlinear you can rescue your family in any order you like with only one exception you need to rescue Morticia last. I guess this review started off very positivly and it might feel like it is ending on a bit of a bummer but the truth is that this is exactly how I found this game when I replayed it in order to write this review. One minute I was smiling at the music and the little Gomez taping his foot and the next minute I was inventing new swear words and turning the air a whole new shade of blue. For a Movie license its a great game but for a platformer in general its much more 6.5 out of 10 territory, its a fun game which could have been a real contender if it had gotten just a little bit more attention, if some of the collision detection and control based flaws had just been ironed out a bit. Dont get me wrong if you can get a cart of it for under £10 and you have already played the likes of Mario and want a little bit more platforming on your Super Nintendo then go for it, its not a bad game at all, its just well it could have been so much more.

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PostRe: 150 SNES Games at the speed I can handle
by kerr9000 » Wed Feb 07, 2018 6:59 pm

SNES Review 134 Vegas Stakes AKA Las Vegas Dream

So I am pretty sure that most people if confronted by a SNES gambling game in an indy games store would most likely turn there nose up at it and simply walk on by, well in all honesty I might have done the same if not for the price tag on the copy I saw, it was £3 for the cart and manual, and as I review SNES games I thought why the heck not.

So Vegas Stakes, which is known as Las Vegas Dream in Japan, was developed by HAL Laboratory yes that Hal the creators of Kirby and it was released in1993 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System with a version coming out a few years later for the Game Boy. The game is one of a small number of Super NES titles which supports the Super NES Mouse, so if you have one of those (I do) and your desperate to give it something to do then this could be the game for you. This game is actually a sequel to a NES game called Vegas Dream which was actually one of the very first Nintendo games to be marketed to adults in the U.S.

The basic premise of the game is that the player has gone to Las Vegas with friends in an attempt to gamble with $1000 with the goal being to try to win $10 million. The cool thing is that this game doesn't just go with you picking a gambling game and then boom you've won, blah you have lost no it actually has some pretty darn good presentation, it has an intro featuring characters and a story, it has a certain charm about it which comes from the way in which it is presented. Your friends are seen as text talking characters portraits which have as realistic as a SNES could manage look to them. You see all of them at the start during the intro with them discussing there own money winning dreams, then you book yourself into the hotel, its at this point that you actually get to pick one of them to go into the casino alongside you as a sort of wing man.

There are Five casinos in the game starting with a basic joint called The Hideaway up to a very exclusive establishment which requires that you have $100,000 just to be allowed in. Each one of the casinos has both a minimum and a maximum betting amount, so you have to pick the joint which best reflects the kind of money you have and the sort of amounts your planning on gambling with currently. On the plus side each and everyone of these places has its very own visual design and background music which gives it its very own feel but the bad part is that unfortunately you’ll find the same five games in every single one, which is a real shame it would have been a nice little touch to see extra games become unlocked in higher stake casinos.

So in this review so far I have basically talked about who made the game and the presentation but what about the actual gameplay, what casino games actually make up the bread and butter of this title? Well the 5 games you will be playing are Blackjack, Slots, Roulette, Craps, and Poker. They all work well enough but what you are going to get out of them largely depends on your knowledge of them and your love or hate for them. You do get rule lists and you can ask your current companion for advice which sometimes helps but if your a bit of a casino novice which I am you still might find yourself struggling a bit, I wouldn't recommend this as a game to teach you how to play. This is probably why I spent most of my time with BlackJack, Slots and Roulette because I never have been very good at understanding all the subtleties of Poker.

Something I found really unusual and cool in this game was the fact that strangers approach you and ask for money for various reasons, sometimes giving you what I would describe as a sob story and its up to you to decide if you want to help them or not. Now if you help you might end up profiting from it or you might end up being conned as they run off with your cash never to be seen again, so this is a sort of 6th form of gambling in the game and I personally found it rather cool.

So what do I think of Vegas Stakes overall? Well its hard to judge it when its on the same machine which offers us games like Zelda a Link to the Past and Mario World, the graphics are clean and inviting the game has excellent presentation but just being able to play 5 gambling games doesn't feel quite indepth enough, if I had paid full price for this on release I would have felt rather disappointed but I also couldn't call it a bad game. I think I need to give this game 6 out of 10, there is a lot right here but if you are interested then don't go spending too much you can probably get things like this much cheaper on more modern platforms but I do have to respect to having a lot of respect for this game, it really was so much more than I expected it to be when I purchased it.

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PostRe: 150 SNES Games at the speed I can handle
by kerr9000 » Wed Feb 07, 2018 6:59 pm

SNES Review 135: Animaniacs

Animaniacs known in Japan as Animaniakkusuis a platform video games developed by Konami for the Super Nintendo, based on the hit animated series of the same name, there was a MegaDrive Animaniacs game but it was a totally different game even though both of them were developed and published by Konami a company that was certainly very much in the lime light back in the 16bit games. I never owned this as a kid in fact I have only just recently gotten my hands on it, I have played the MegaDrive one before so I guess in a way that is sort of a template my mind will be comparing this one to as well as well.

Now its important to say that I have a very big soft spot for Animaniacs I used to watch it when I was younger and its just this perfect mix of humor, awesome pop culture references and just a sprinkle of learning. Songs from the show that listed the various countries in the world or American presidents or other such things were done with such a charm and were just so darn catchy that you were entertained enough not to realize that they were daring to educate you a little bit. Then at other times it would literally have me in fits of laughter. I loved everything about the show, it was filled with the most amazing characters so full of life surly this would make them perfect characters for the world of gaming?

Ok so whats the games story? Well Pinky and the Brain steal an important movie script from Warner Bros. Studios, and plan to make the film themselves so that they can become filthy stinking rich and then use this cash to do what they try to do the same thing they do every night try and take over the world. The CEO of Warner Bros. recruits Wakko, Yakko and Dot (the Animaniacs) to retrieve the script pages and stop Pinky and the Brain. Each level contains a number of script pages, you don't have to collect all of them but the ending that you will get if you finish the game depends upon if you got enough of these pages or not. In general it is quiet a good idea for a game story and they use it to decent effect as each level has a different theme be it Sci-Fi or Adventure, and there are plenty of humorous parodies of famous films to be seen if you keep your eyes peeled.

The graphics in this game are quite good. There are nice, bold characters that look very much like their cartoon versions, and a fair amount of characters from the series pop up in the game, throw on top of this that there are some very detailed backgrounds and enemies as well. The sound is also pretty decent. The music is very fitting to the game and the shows theme is used so there is a plus point for fans, the sound effects are best described as average though and also kind of under used.

I have always liked the saying ''gameplay is king'', what it basically means is that the most important part of a game is the gameplay, a game can have a good story, it can have good graphics, it can have an awesome soundtrack but all of that sort of stuff is just nice, the real important thing is gameplay. If a game plays badly then it doesn't matter how pretty it looks or how great it sounds, if it plays bad then the game is bad. The gameplay here well its not awful but it is kind of awkward and frustrating, its one of those games were it is hard in places not because of any challenge but because when your jumping your not quiet sure if you will land where you think you will. So when your in a game which at a time could feel a little unfair youd want a lot of extra lives and such wouldnt you? Well here you get three lives, each of the Warners is basically a life, so to die you have to get Yakko, Wakko and Dot killed then if your lucky you will see a continue screen, and when you continue it will be from the last check point. So the obvious question is how many continues do you get? Well that depends you see the whole time your playing the game there is this like slot machine at the bottom of the screen which when you collect enough coins it starts to spin and you can win continues and stuff, personally I find this the most annoying waste of screen space in a game, it doesn't only take up screen room it draws your attention to it and away from what your supposed to be doing. Also if you had a set number of continues then you'd possibly get a little further into the game each time you play and as you improve but here we are adding some luck to the proceedings so I am not overly keen on it. I could go on to moan that the passwords are long but I think if the game was a solid diamond then no one would realistically give a monkeys about that

OK so I guess its time to say how I feel about the game overall. Well in honesty I think this game is a very very average game, I would give it 5 out of 10. The most surprising thing about this all for me is that the game was made by Konami, and when it comes to the 16 bit era you think Konami on the SNES and you think about a company which was probably one of the companies with one of the best records on the machine. I spent £7 on a loose cart of this game and in all honesty if you really want to try this game I would advise that you don't spend anymore than I did if you want to avoid disappointment. In fact if you own both systems I would advise spending your cash on a copy of the Megadrive Animaniacs instead

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PostRe: 150 SNES Games at the speed I can handle
by kerr9000 » Wed Feb 07, 2018 6:59 pm

SNES Review 136: Warlock


So when I was young I liked a bit of horror much as I do now. I can remember really enjoying a film called Warlock which came out in 1989 but I am sure it was a few years latter when I originally saw it. The films story concerned an evil 17th century warlock who flees to the 20th century pursued by a witch-hunter. If you haven't seen it then think Terminator but with an evil Wizard instead of a killer robot and your not a million miles away. There was all kinds of creepy things in it like the Warlock befriending a boy to then kill him and use his fat to make a flying potion which just stuck with me for a long time. So why the heck am I talking about a 1989 horror film in a SNES review? Well basically because there was a Warlock game, but was it based on this film or just a game with the same name you might be asking. Well despite being called Warlock its sort of closer to being a Video Game adaption of the films sequel Warlock Armageddon, it doesn't follow the exact same story as that movie though it merely focuses on elements of the sequel, such as druids and runestones to tell its own story. Warlock is a side-scrolling action video game which was released in 1995 a full two years after Warlock Armageddon was released, it was made by Realtime Associates with the Snes version being published by LJN and the megadrive one being published by Acclaim Entertainment. I know sometimes I start comparing SNES and MegaDrive games but in this case I have yet to play the MegaDrive version so wont be doing that.

I know the mention of LJN probably already has people cringing but in fairness they only published it, and I think everyone probably knows a lot about them but maybe not as much about Realtime Associates. Realtime Associates is an American video game developer founded in 1986 by David Warhol and a group of ex-Mattel Electronics employees originally to create games for the Intellivision system. They published over 90 games for various systems, including but no limited to the PlayStation 2, Xbox, Nintendo GameCube, Sega Saturn, PlayStation, Nintendo 64, Super NES, Genesis, Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, and Game Gear. They are probably best known either for being the developers of the NES version of Maniac Mansion or for being responsible for the Playstation and Saturn Versions of Crusader No Remorse. They did make original titles but I think there mostly known for porting things to various different platforms.

I so wanted to like this game the film was such a major hit for me but yet when I tried this game all I was left with was a whole pile of issues with it, for a start it is not terribly clear what you are supposed to be doing. There is also the fact that the story in the game is a right jumble by the time this came out you had two Warlock films to pick and choose story elements from and yet here it looks like they picked tiny bits from the second one and didn't even bother to sow them together with anything of much worth. You have to find the 6 runestones before the warlock, a lot of this is told mostly with scrolling words at the start and a little animation of druids.

Well I am always saying that the Game play is the most important thing so hey lets get down to talking about it. Well it is pretty darn hard to control your character, the worst thing for me is that when you attack, you stop moving, which totally slows down the pace of the game. You want to be running about throwing magic bolts all over the place but instead the game is totally full of this kind of boring stop and start mechanic. Add on to this that when enemies appear on screen well with the ones who rush towards you, you basically need to nail them straight away to stand a chance so if your making a real effort to progress you find yourself inching forwards slowly bit by bit. Add on to this the fact that the jumping feels tricky and that with harder enemies that don't instantly die well your just not manoeuvrable enough to get out of there way so it becomes a war of patrician hammer them as much as you can while getting hammered hoping that they die first. With the enemies who throw energy bolts at you if you get used to it you can time it right to jump them so in these cases things actually work a little better. If I was going to try to describe this to someone from this well I guess I would kind of go for a description of Castlevania the gooseberry fool edition.

I will do a quick run down of what else the game has to offer. The graphics are all right, that's about as complementary as I can get, they are not bad but there not that good either. There are different enemy sprites and backgrounds so things are not too repetitive in the graphics side which is something nice for me to say I guess. I also need to point out that the games title Warlock on the title screen being on fire looks excellent, as does the digitized style face you see of the guy who played the Warlock in the films. As for the sound well it is all right, but the music really does get very boring after awhile, there is too much repetition.

Overall I think this game is really not worth your time unless your an absolute SNES obsessive. It cost me about £7 if my memory is correct and this is too much for it. I strongly recommend that you ignore the game and instead look at investing in a copy of the original Warlock film especially if you like horror films and enjoyed the original Terminator because it has a similar sort of vibe to it. If I need to give this game a score out of 10 I would give it a 4, there are much worse games out there but then there are a heck of a lot better as well, id call this average leaning to bad.

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PostRe: 150 SNES games at the speed I can handle
by OrangeRKN » Wed Feb 07, 2018 10:56 pm

I'm really glad this project has found a new home over here, I'm looking forward to reading more of your reviews kerr!

Maybe you could get an index up in the first post that links to each review post, for easy reference?

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PostRe: 150 SNES games at the speed I can handle
by kerr9000 » Wed Feb 07, 2018 11:03 pm

Yeah thats definitely something I am going to work on. I have also managed to locate rough drafts of about the first 8 reviews and I am re-polishing them up and adding a little to some of them. I am also about half way through doing a review of Toy Story which should be the next review

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PostRe: 150 SNES games at the speed I can handle
by Cheeky Devlin » Wed Feb 07, 2018 11:08 pm

Wow. That's a lot of reviews. Looking forward to working through them.

Might be worth speaking to Errkal about putting them on GRview.

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PostRe: 150 SNES games at the speed I can handle
by kerr9000 » Wed Feb 07, 2018 11:23 pm

Review 1 is here it is http://grview.grcade.co.uk/reviews/my-p ... st-review/

As for review 2 to about 51 they were on an even older forum the original ONM and my old blog. I need to track down all my drafts of them clean them up and then they will probably end up on grview. So that I save here for the totally new ones.

I cant wait for new people to read these and comment on them :)

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PostRe: 150 SNES games at the speed I can handle
by Cheeky Devlin » Wed Feb 07, 2018 11:38 pm

Nice. Good stuff man.

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PostRe: 150 SNES games at the speed I can handle
by Hypes » Thu Feb 08, 2018 7:59 am

Good reviews, enjoyed reading some of them. Like OR said, it would be nice to have an index, and it would be good to have the game name at the start of every review, especially when the picture is missing. Hope you find the first 70 odd!

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PostRe: 150 SNES games at the speed I can handle
by Drumstick » Thu Feb 08, 2018 10:28 am

Great stuff. I particularly enjoyed the Buster Busts Loose review. It is tremendous fun but ultimately too short.

Index pls though.

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PostRe: 150 SNES games at the speed I can handle
by kerr9000 » Thu Feb 08, 2018 2:06 pm

SNES Game Review 51:Metal Marines AKA Militia

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Metal Marines is a real-time strategy video game developed by Namco for both the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and MS DOS 3.1 PCs. It came to the virtual console on the wii but as I already had the cart I didn’t really pay much attention to which regions it came out in. I do know the Snes version came out in the UK as Metal Marines and in Japan as Militia.

The game is set in the year 2117 and you lead a military force whose main unit of combat is known as Metal Marines which are basically 50ft tall mecha’s think robotron, gundam that kind of thing.This game came in to my life for a very simply reason originally and that was because of the sales which used to happen in Game and its main rival at the time Electronics Boutique which no longer exists in this country at least. The sales never seemed to be like they are now where prices are slashed across the board, no a sale back then was one company seemed to get a whole pile of a particular 40quid recommended retail SNES title from who knows where and start chucking them out at 15 or 20quid brand new sealed. I remember Virgin Megastore doing this with a Tennis game more or less straight after its release I think it was called Smash Tennis and I remember Game doing it with The Hulk and with Metal Marines. When this would happen nearly everyone I knew and spent time with who had a SNES would get the game if it was supposed to be even half way decent, heck sometimes I would buy a copy and sell it to a different store for a profit and then go back and do this again and again till word got around and I was told to go forth and multiple, when this would happen I would simple keep the game.

I always loved games that were on sale like this because regardless of what they were like lots of people would have them so there was always someone at school to compare scores and progress with. The game is something you’d expect to find on the PC but on the SNES it is practically on its own with very little like it. Each of Metal Marines' 20 missions takes place across a pair of islands. One of them being your Island the other being your opponents. You get given bases which you have to hide on your island/map and the idea is to find and destroy your enemies before they do the same to you.

You never get to access the opposing island outside of combat, there is no sending across drones to spy or taking over enemy territory. You and your opponent are limited to building in your own spaces, so the focus is really on getting the mix between attack and defense just right. In some ways it is a sort of more complicated form of Battleships, that should give you a rough idea of what to expect but it does make it sound simpler than it is.

During your turns you’ll build defensive turrets, anti-air missiles, attack missiles, and metal marines, you can also build dummy bases and try to hide your bases by laying trees over them. You always gain cash at a steady rate so there is no mining or real resource management in the command and conquer sense, so really all you do is decide how to spend what you have, how much will be used on defense and how much on offensive units. Energy, which is required to execute an attack also builds over time.

When an attack is initiated, everything under construction stops and whoever's being attacked can't do anything until the assault ends this leads to a sense of urgency that is exciting, you know that you have to think fast and get what you need to do done fast. When you initiate combat, your viewpoint shifts to a top-down map. You can launch missiles or your metal marines. Missiles are always launched first. Because you can't see the enemy’s map to begin with launching missiles is a little hit and miss some of them will land, some of them will get knocked down but you’ll begin to build an image of what they have where and start to think about how to go about picking at their defences and thinking about where they might have put their bases.

The marines can get shot out of the air so really you’re trying to blow up enough of the defences to get these bad boys on the ground. Once there on the ground you get about 60 seconds in control of them to try and blow the crud out of anything and anything within a limited area around them, in hopes of either finding a base or just wreaking the enemies defensive and attack abilities.

As far as your arsenal goes, you're stuck with the same structures and weapons available in the first mission throughout the entire game. There are no tech trees, no research and development, no new and improved units, you just need to work on your old grey matter and get better at using what you have.

Personally I love this game because its something different compared to the kinds of things you usually find on the super Nintendo, if you like command and conquer, Xcom, Civilisation and that kind of game and have a SNES I would highly recommend this game It gets 8 giant robots of death out of 10. You can buy a cart only copy of this game for 10 to 15quid and I feel it is well worth it, I paid about 10 for my current cart only pal copy the annoying thing is I only paid 15 for it new boxed complete and sealed not long after it release (several times), wish I had brought just one more and put it under the bed or something, cant remember when or how I lost my original.

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PostRe: 150 SNES games at the speed I can handle
by kerr9000 » Thu Feb 08, 2018 2:10 pm

SNES Game Review 52: Saturday Night Slam Masters

I have talked a lot about Capcom but well back in the day there was just certain companies you could rely on to always be bring stuff to the home console market and Capcom was one of these companies. I had been intending to talk about this game for a long time, I set the stage up by talking about both Final Fight and Street Fighter 2 because this game is kind of connected/related to both of them but I also wanted to get another wrestling game or two done first for the sake of comparison. I talked about Fire Pro, and I intended to look at some WWE based games first but well I remember this game and got impatient.

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Yes the game I have been playing today is Saturday Night Slam Masters (known in Japan as Muscle Bomber – The Body Explosion) it was a pro wrestling arcade game made by Capcom to run on their CP arcade system (as previously mentioned by me in my final fight review) As well as featuring some interesting connections to other Capcom games it is cool to note that the game features character designs by manga artist Tetsuo Hara (Who is most well-known for his work on the Animated classic Fist of the North Star.) Slam Masters plays like a traditional arcade wrestling game and if you have played things like Wrestle war or 3 count bout then you will be right at home with this. It also feels a little bit street fighter 2'ish so if you’ve never played a wrestling game before but you like your street fighter games and enjoy Capcoms work then this is an excellent place to start. The game uses a three button configuration with on button being used to grab, on to attack, and the third to jump, with the D-pad moving you around the ring so it’s all nice and simple there with no real room for confusion.

Each character has two special attacks and a finisher. When an opponent's life meter is depleted, he must either be pinned for a three-count in classic WWE style or forced to submit. Defeating all of the other wrestler’s results in winning the championship belt, but your game is not over then, no you then have to defend your belt against the whole roster.

There are two game modes: Single Match, where the player fights in a series one-on-one matches against computer controlled opponents and then there is Team Battle Royale, where the player and another partner controlled by either another player or by the computer competes in a series of two-on-two matches. The game can be played by up to four players utilising the Super Nintendo’s multi tap and making it a great game for retro party situations.
This is going to sound a little street fighter 2 like. The game features ten playable wrestlers. Only eight of which are selectable in the Single Match mode. The remaining two: Jumbo and Scorpion, are non-playable bosses they are however selectable in Team Battle mode.

You know how you found it annoying in Street fighter 2 when the names all got messed around and changed from the Japanese originals? Well it’s even worse here. In the English localization, Capcom changed the names of all the characters and even went so far as to modify there backstories.

Here are the fighters with a quick bit about them (and both of their names)

Biff Slamkovich (AKA Aleksey Zalazof)
This guy is the sort of main character. In the Japanese version of the game, Zalazof is a Russian wrestler who trained under Haggar alongside his rival, Gunloc. They have a sort of Ryu and Ken style wrestling relationship. In the English version though this whole relationship/situation is gone but Biff does make a reference to his "Comrade Zangief" when he losses.

Gunloc (AKA Lucky Colt)
In the Japanese version of the game, Colt is another apprentice of Haggars and as I have pointed out already is Zalazof's rival. The English version not only gets rid of this but also goes on to suggest that Gunloc is related to Guile from street fighter 2. He does look like he could be related in all fairness and Street Fighter: The Movie arcade game (what a blooming title) even goes so far as to hammer this home and say that Gunloc is Guile's brother. I was kind of disappointed to learn that this was largely just some codswolup made up for the European Market as I really latched on to the idea of Guile having a kid brother who had decided to be a wrestler as opposed to following in his older brothers footsteps (I have also self-made up the younger older bit as far as I can remember based purely off there appearances age wise as I don’t think it’s ever said if he is younger or older or anything.)

Mike Haggar
So Yeah Haggar from good old Final Fight. He is probably the reason this game exists to be honest, I would imagine that the whole idea began with oh Haggar from Final Fight was supposed to be a wrestler lets make a game with him wrestling against a whole bunch of spandex wearing dudes, and if that is true its just one more reason to salute the mighty Mayor of Metro City. The Japanese and English versions cant even agree about him though. The Japanese version says that Haggar's appearance in this game takes place before he was elected as the Mayor in Final Fight which would make this a game set in Final Fights past a sort of body slamming prequel if you will. The English version though decides to disagree with this though and refers to Haggar as being the "former Mayor of Metro City". His daughter, Jessica (the one he was rescuing in Final Fight), sometimes enters into the ring to celebrate with him when he wins a match. Age wise as far as I can see they haven’t even thrown us a bone here as both of them look exactly like they do in Final fight. This all really does leave me to wonder if they sit and decide what the story is going to be in each region, so that they can capitalise on their past games that have been popular in different places or if they just throw stuff at someone who has some degree of literacy in both languages and go, here whatever you can’t understand or quite work out just make something up and shove it in there to fill in the blanks.

The Great Oni (AKA Mysterious Budo)
A Japanese wrestler who dresses with a kabuki theme. He is apparently a rival of El Stingray. It has been suggested that he is based on the real life wrestler The Great Muta. Personally he is one of my least favourate and least used wrestlers in the game, I do know that they cant all be from other games or be someones brother though but I just wish there was a little something more to him.

Titanic Tim (AKA Titan the Great)
A huge wrestler who uses his size and strength to great effect, basically he is one of the big heavy enforcer type characters. His backstory is that he was once a tag team partner to Birdie from the Street Fighter series. For all intents and purposes he looks like he basically based on the wonderful André the Giant. Andre was a legend so can’t fault them for wanting to have a wrestler like him and it beats most games going for an imitation Hulk Hogan.

El Stingray (AKA El Stinger)
A Mexican luchador who is all based around pure speed and fancy techniques. People have argued about him being based on darn near every Mexican Wrestler who ever wore a mask and even some Japanese and American ones…. I personally really like masked wrestlers and people who throw themselves around in the air so he is Cool in my books… I suppose if this had come out now days people would say oh look it’s the Ray Mysterio one.

Alexander the Grater (AKA Sheep the Royal)
An Australian wrestler who is for all intents and purposes basically supposed to be the resident nutcase. It is believed generally that he is based on Big Van Vader and I can see that myself

King Rasta Mon (AKA "Missing IQ" Gomes)
A wild jungle-like man who acts like a beast in combat. He is always accompanied by his pet monkey, Freak, who happens to be his "manager". I guess Blanka was popular and they decided to go with the whole wild man idea again but didn’t want to go and spray him green or super mutate him or anything.

Jumbo Flapjack (AKA Kimala the Bouncer)
Sub boss, right hand man of the Scorpion basically he looks and plays just like the famous WWE (WWF at the time) wrestlers the Earthquake. Cant say much more about him, typical fat slow strong wrestler.

The Scorpion (AKA The Astro)
The game's final boss and main antagonist of the series. The appearance of this character was inspired by the legendary "luchador" … He looks like a guy wearing a Motor biking helmet in a wrestling ring but he is a pretty cool character, he is enjoyable to use in the team battle mode. It is said that he is possibly based on Tiger Mask or Black Scorpion. I think he is just a guy who wants to get away with wearing a bikers helmet inside the ring.

I have to admit to loving this game even though hardly anyone I ever talk to seems to know about it, its like Street fighter and final fights long forgotten cousin, it did have an update and a sequel if my memory serves me right but they never made it to the SNES and the series pretty much died out. The Graphics and sound are both very Street fighter/ Final fight based so if you like those you will like what is on display here. I think its arcady enough to attract the attention of people who wouldn't normally go for Wrestling games. I did believe that it as a USA, Japan only release at first as I have had my American cart since I was a kid and none of my friends ever owned it and I never actually saw a UK version on a store shelf. I believed this till about 2 months ago actually when a copy of the game cartridge only surfaced in a local retro store for 20quid. This was enough to not only make me boot this up then but also to go online and look into where it was released. The only UK copy of it I can find online is at 32 quid right now with about a day and a half left to go, that’s boxed but without a manual… There is not exactly a wealth of import copies out there either. I would give this game a nice solid 8 out of 10. It plays well, its interesting, its links to other games are enjoyable, it’s just a shame it seems like it would be such a pain in the butt to get a hold of.

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PostRe: RE: Re: 150 SNES Games at the speed I can handle
by Death's Head » Thu Feb 08, 2018 2:58 pm

kerr9000 wrote:SNES Review 132: Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade's Revenge


So here I am looking at a cartridge for the SNES, Two things instantly jump out at me, one is the picture showing Spider Man and the X-men the other is the LJN logo. Now LJN always gets a bit of a gooseberry fool kicking from video game reviewers but the truth is it was only published by LJN it was in face made by a company called Software Creations. Software Creations was a video game developer based in Manchester, England they started out in 1987 and they did a fair bit of work based on various licensees but they were also responsible for a few fairly popular original games namely Plok, Solstice and its sequel Equinox. (Plok and Equinox I will most likely return to at a latter date).

So its not like Spider-Man hasn't stared in a whole bunch of games but back when this came out Spider man and the X-men together certainly sounded like a recipe for success. You start the game as Spider-Man and in this first level you have to find and disarm bomb after bomb finding them with help of the onscreen prompts which are basically a visual representation of Spider-Man's spider sense. It needs to be said that these are pretty weird bombs as you have to disarm them in a set order, you might be able to see one right in front of you but if its not flashing you cant do anything to it, and it wont flash until you have collected the one the game wants you to get next. Enemies will attack you and in honesty the jumping feels a lot clumsier than it should all in all this level really feels like a huge chore and seeing as this is the level you will probably find yourself playing the most as you'll need to complete it every time you restart the game you are soon going to learn to hate it. This is a game which I feel really benefits from being played on an emulator with save states and such instead of on the original hardware, I guess this shows that the game really needed a save or password system. You really don't realise how much having to repeatedly play a weak, unfun and frustrating part of a game can sour your experience of the whole thing.

I suppose now I should take a break to look at the games Graphics and Sound. Considering at that time this came out id basically call the graphics passable. Some of the sprites are far to small for my liking, looking at little wolverine he looks like a toy, you can instantly tell who people are and get that comic book thrill don't get me wrong but when I compare it to something like Spider-Man on the Megadrive or the latter Maximum Carnage the graphics here just feel very lacking in general. The music and sound effects are well functional. Some of the stuff on offer is alright you have all the sort of sounds you'd expect but then you also have a lot of annoying rubbish as well the best example that comes to mind is the laughing shouting clown noises in the Wolverine stages there like the video game equivalent of nails on a chalk board. That's all I really have to say here, you need to come to this game for the substance if at all because in my opinion at least the style is seriously lacking.

OK so back to the game itself, once you get past the opening level you get the choice of who you want to play as next, with each character having there own levels to complete. As Spider-Man you will find yourself in levels based on the New York City rooftops. The first Spider-Man stage features N'astirh and Shocker as bosses, with Rhino and Carnage being the ones in the second stage. Storm's levels find her in underwater mazes with a limited air supply, for people who know the character this is great as basically she suffers from claustrophobia so this is essentially seeing her in her worst nightmare.Wolverine's finds himself being in a sort of fun house world and see him coming up against Apocalypse. One of his levels also sees him being chased by the Juggernaut. Gambit's levels see him being in a cave being chased by a giant spiked ball. Both of Cyclops' levels are set underground on the island of Genosha in the Sentinel mines, if you manage to complete these you will eventually find yourself facing off against Master Mold. To put it simply you get to be a bunch of different characters in a bunch of different environments which is a definite plus point for the game.The thing is if you have just read those names and gotten excited then this will actually help you appreciate the game a little bit more, you see the license is well used with lots of characters appearing and being clearly recognisable and if your a big Marvel fan your love for these characters and there stories might actually pull you through a lot of the frustrating moments that in a unlicensed game might have seen you put the joypad down very quickly.

I guess there is the silver lining that once you have done the first Spider-Man level you get to choose who you are next and therefore what your second and third level will be etcetera. The truth is though that this game is hard, confusing and fiddly. It soon feels like not only will you need a lot of skill to beat the levels you will also need a lot of luck and the patience of a saint.

I purchased this game as I remember having it as a kid, I remember my opinion on it being a rather mixed one back in the day, I did think though that it would be neat to own it again and maybe as an adult I might find it easier to handle or appreciate certain elements of it more than I used to but this has not been the case at all. I think if anything I feel more blah about it now than I ever have and that's why I score it a 4 out of 10. I spent £9 on a boxed American copy and I seriously feel like I got cheated if you want to give this game a try go for a loose cart and even if your the biggest spidey fan in the world don't go over £5 for it, its pretty much worth nothing as anything more than a minor curiosity.
I had (actually still have) this game and consider it one of the most difficult games of all time. I think I got through the first level a handful of times at most and never got past the 2nd level. It definitely needed a way to be able to skip the levels (or in my case level) you have completed. I did like the funky guitar music on the title screen though.

Yes?
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PostRe: 150 SNES games at the speed I can handle
by kerr9000 » Thu Feb 08, 2018 3:12 pm

I was a huge Spiderman fan so as a Kid I really really wanted to like it. I remember playing it a lot more than it deserved. I could do quiet a few of the levels but not all of the time if that makes sense. I used to basically finish the first spiderman bit and then id try the storm bit and sometimes finish it or sometimes die but if I finished it id try someone else and die.. I think the best I have ever really managed is to have done about 4 levels on it which from what I can gather doesn't even actually equal to being half way through the game, its maybe like 1 3rd done. Also doing the first spiderman bit again became so mind killingly boring.

I think it is one of the hardest games but a lot of it is hard in the wrong way, things being to unclear or jumps not feeling right etcetera. If it was just balls to the wall tough but good it would be a lot better.

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PostRe: 150 SNES games at the speed I can handle
by GuitarHero » Thu Feb 08, 2018 3:47 pm

Great to see your hard work won't be lost to the internet

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PostRe: 150 SNES games at the speed I can handle
by kerr9000 » Thu Feb 08, 2018 5:37 pm

SNES Game Review 137: Toy Story

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OK so its back to a Disney game again. I am going to be reviewing Toy Story on the SNES. So Toy Story is a side-scrolling platform game which was released by Disney Interactive Studios in 1995. The game came out for the Sega Megadrive/Genesis, the Nintendo Game Boy, Microsoft Windows and of course the Super Nintendo Entertainment System which is obviously the one I am going to be talking about.

The game might have been released by Disney Interactive Studios but it was actually made by Traveller's Tales, who are a British video game developer which was founded in 1989. Most people will probably know Travellers Tales for there more recent games in particular there Lego games especially the Lego Starwars games. Travellers Tales still essentially exists it was purchased for an undisclosed amount on the 8th of November 2007 by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.

Toy Story was a pretty important film really when you stop and think about it, after all it was the film which brought about a new age of 3D animation, it was also to a certain extent the start of the end for Disney’s traditionally animated films. This is not the first time I have talked about Pixar in relation to games strangely that would be Unirally/Uniracer but this is the first time I am talking about a game which was at least to some degree trying to bring the official Pixar experience to a home console to decide whether it succeeds or not I guess one would have to define what Pixar as a studio really stands for, what makes its films different to others and does the game live up to this in any way shape or form?

Toy Story follows the basic plot of the movie, yes it doesn't follow it to the letter but if you have seen the film then you will basically know whats going on. Most of the time you control Woody the cowboy who controls pretty much like you would expect for a typical platformer, the direction pad controls what direction your going in and then you can jump around and you can use Woody's lasso. I have to give the game credit for the fact that it is mixes things up a bit. There are the standard platforming stages where the idea is the usual leap over this and that avoid taking too much damage and reach the levels end. Then you get stages which can best be described as sort of scavenger hunts where you have to search for toys or other items. Then there are also chase stages and boss battles so you could say things remain pretty varied which can if handled correctly can help to make games like this remain fun for longer.

The standard platform stages suffer though from being formulaic,yes they tick a lot of the boxes decent controls, graphics which look quiet a lot like the source material but there is no real defining attribute to them that you wouldn't find elsewhere. Woody's platformer stages never introduce anything new to the game but I guess the developers felt that they didnt have to do anything much with them because they went to a lot of trouble to break them up with other different game types. For instant you have one stage which requires you to drive the RC car through a maze of toys that cannot be hit. The problem is that its a complete pain in the behind to control, if you have played something like micro machines on the megadrive or super skid marks or powerdrive then you know that driving with this sort of view point can be done a lot better. Then you get to ride on Rex the dinosaur in a scrolling from left to right chase sequence which sounds thrilling but its not really, this kind of thing has been done so much better in other games. I think a lot of effort went into keeping the game varied so as to try and prevent people from getting bored and I need to make special mention of a 3D Doom/Wolfenstein bit where you move around as Woody in a first person view which I thought was pretty cool and not something I expected to see in a Disney based game. The bad side is that the whole game can be done and dusted by a decent player in under an hour and you feel very little need to come back to it.

Thats the thing about the Film Toy Story its a timeless piece of entertainment in my oppinion it is about fundamental things, it's about jealousy about how to deal with your own sense of insecurity at your place in the world, at how you exist in various social circles and how the introduction of a new person can alter a group dynamic but its also wrapped up in just good honest fun. I don't think this game really stands for anything other than an inevitable law of the 90's if Disney make a film that wracks in the dollar dollar then they will have someone make a game of it. I am not saying that its a bad game I am just saying that its a very forgettable game, something that you will pick up play and then soon forget. This is what makes games like Super Mario World truly special you play them and they grab a hold of you and take up a place in your life

I would give toy story a 6 out of 10, it is a decent enjoyable but ultimately forgettable game, you can get a cart of it for about £10 which if your looking for a decent platformer you could do a lot worse, but you could also do a lot better. Despite receiving mixed reviews back in the day apparently the game did well but an interesting bit of trivia to note is that there was a lot less copies of the SNES version made apparently due to a Super NES chip shortage which prevented them from producing as many copies as they would have liked to.


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