✰ GR Creative Highlight: 163 Super Nintendo Reviews, Index on first page

Beauty and the Beast SNES Review

Toy Story SNES Review

Cybornator SNES Review

Super Ghouls and Ghosts SNES Review

My Review of Musya AKA Musha: Legend of the Brave Spearman Jinrai

A Video in which I show and talk about an American News Report about the Super Nintendo being so expensive and parents being angry about it

MegaMan X Review

The latest SNES Review a collaboration between me and DarkRula Power Rangers Zeo battle racing

I am currently reworking my Shadowrun review into a script for recording and will in fact put up a new improved review in written format when I am done. I do also want to do some brand new reviews as I have purchased a few more SNES games, its kind of funny I must have wrote about 155 SNES Reviews now and I have done 118 YouTube Reviews, its a bit weird to step back and look at it all and just go wow this has been a massive part of my life...

Oh and I will put up the written version of the Power Ranger Zeo video at some point as well.

ShadowRun Review




Sometimes when you look back on certain video games they remind you of more than the game sometimes they will remind you of a time, a place or a person. A lot of the games I have reviewed and talked about have connections like this. Combatribes which I have previously reviewed for example reminds me of a local Pizza parlour in my home town. The main reason for this is because they had it in there for a long time, it was pushed in the corner and you’d stick a few twenty pence pieces in it and see how far you could get while you were waiting for your pizza to be made, most of the time this would be after having seen something in the local cinema. The cinema is gone now as is the arcade machine but the pizza parlour is still going strong but every time I pass it I look in that lonely corner and sigh wishing there was still an arcade machine there.

The game I am going to talk about today though doesn’t remind me of a time or a place it reminds me of a person, a friend. This particular friend had a love of RPG style games that seemed to have no limit, he was the first one to get and play all of the final fantasy games, secret of mana, etcetera. Most people would quickly see what he had gotten and after listening to him excitedly go on and on about it or after him turning up at their house with it singing its praises well let’s just say they would be buying it as soon as possible. One game though he just couldn’t seem to get anyone interested in was Shadowrun, I have to admit on first glance even I couldn’t see what it was that attracted him to it. After sitting and watching him restart the game in front of me though it wasn’t long before I was asking for a go.

Before this I had heard a little bit about the original Shadowrun the pen and paper role playing game upon which this SNES game was based but when it came to that kind of thing the people I knew where generally into citadel miniatures Warhammer 4000. I still have never played the original roleplaying game of Shadow run so I won’t be comparing this game but knowing Shadowrun was based on this sort of thing at the time did give me a rough idea of what to expect from it.

Shadowrun is probably best described as a cyberpunk-fantasy action role-playing game for the SNES, adapted from the tabletop role-playing game Shadowrun. The game was developed by the Australian company Beam Software who for had already by this point been massively influential developers responsible for such massive home micro hits as The Hobbit, a 1982 text adventure which sold more than a million copies and The Way of the Exploding Fist a very important title which helped to define the genre of one-on-one fighting games. In 1992 they released the original title Nightshade, a dark superhero comedy game. The game was meant to be the first part in a series, but no sequels were ever made; however, it served as the basis for Shadowrun. Beam Software doesn't properly exist any more it was kind of swallowed up by bigger studio after bigger studio until what was left of it was sold to Krome Studios in 2006.

It was released in 1993 by Data East who existed between 1976 to 2003, and released 150 video game titles Most of Data East's video game library was acquired in February 2004 by G-Mode, a Japanese mobile game content provider. However, some former Data East games are owned by Paon Corporation, Kadokawa Games, Arc System Works, D4 Enterprise and Tactron Corporation.

Apparently the development of Shadowrun for the SNES was a turbulent one which includes its development being halted midway through before being resumed in late 1992 under a tight deadline. The game was a critical success, winning a number of industry awards, but unfortunately it was a commercial failure . Later though it has become something of a cult classic with it being seen now as being ahead of its time with it often being credited for having pioneered the use of a film noir style in video games.

OK so lets leave the games history and development there and move on to the story which goes a little like this. It is 2050 you play a guy called Jake Armitage, an information courier who is shot supposedly dead and taken to the morgue. You wake up on the slab with a sore head and no idea of who you are. Your basic mission throughout the game is to try and work out who you are and what happened to you. You’re in a world with guns which are basically based on sort of current technology, but then there are orcs and trolls, and no not the dumb kind who walk around naked holding spears and axes grunting, no these guys wear leather jackets have shotguns, pistols, uzi’s, are hacking computers and hire themselves out as thugs, protectors, hackers, killers etcetera. I won’t spoil any more of it than this but this gives you a basic idea of the world this game is set in and your place within it.

Ok so to get a few things out of the way this is not a graphically impressive game for a start the sprites are small, sometimes rather lacking in detail but there is often quite a lot of enemies moving around on screen shooting all over the place so you can kind of see why.

The levels of animation on the sprites are also at times rather limited and there are issues of repetition with sprites and the portraits used for faces when you are speaking with people being reused again and again. I can see why some people would be put off by this but it would be a shame if people were to judge it based on appearances and not try and get in to it. This does make the game a bit of a hard sell if your showing it someone, it is not really a game which you can get a proper feel of just by looking at it, this is one of the reasons its taken me so long to get around to recording a review of it. I have deliberately made sure to only record stuff from near the beginning of the game because I think one of the greatest strengths this game has is its story and how it progresses, its twists and turns and I didn't want to spoil this for anyone who decides they'd like to try this.

The music is decent and easy enough to listen to, but it’s not that impressive when compared to some of the beautiful RPG soundtracks that found their way on to the SNES but it fits and it doesn’t annoy so it works. Its functional and enjoyable enough but it never set the world on fire.

As for how the game plays well it almost feels like you should be playing it with a mouse, its part RPG but then there is also at times a sort of point and click element to it. You highlight doors or cupboards and select options like ‘’look’’ ‘’open’’ etcetera. You also do the same sort of thing when interacting with individuals picking what you want to say. The talking with people part is handled quiet interestingly there are various topics of conversation that you can use these form a database which can be made larger through picking up new terms from the people you talk to. So, to explain this, imagine that you talking with a person and they mention a club ‘’the purple banana’’ then the name of this club if it is highlighted will go into your topics database, and you will able to ask anybody that you meet about the club by selecting ‘’the purple banana’’ from your list of topics (this club is not really in the game but it helps me make my point without spoiling anything). This actually makes you feel you have a lot more freedom than in some games when it comes to talking to other characters, there is a lot of un-needed answers added in just to make the world feel real and I appreciate the effort that’s gone in to this.

So the graphics are not amazing nor is the sound, the story is interesting if clichéd at points but the world they have built up around the game feels big and real, if you can get past how basic it looks on the surface and get your head in the game, get your heart in to the story then you have an incredible game here. I feel very comfortable giving this game a very hearty recommendation and scoring it 9 out of 10. It only loses out on perfection due to its lack of graphical and audio polish and a bit of repetition but none of its issues can hold it back once you have found yourself deep in its clutches. It is also quite a long game so provides a good ratio of bang for your buck. An English cart typically seems to end up going for around the £35 to £40 price point which is a lot, I haven’t even seen a boxed one in I don’t know how long, but if you can play American games you can with some searching cut that price down to around £25 and this is a rare case when I would say its worth it (Also to my knowledge there has never been a digital virtual console version of this on any system). As a side note if you don’t want to invest so highly in this game either because it’s a fair bit of cash or your worried that it won’t be your thing there are some semi new PC shadowrun games available on steam which are very much in the style of this game. Shadowrun Returns from 2013 and Shadowrun Hong Kong from 2015 are both around the region of about £10 each last time I looked but I have seen them go down to as low as about £4 during steam or humble bundle store sales so if it sounds interesting keep your eyes open. Having played and finished the SNES Shadowrun and been left feeling like I wanted more I purchased these new PC Shadowrun games and really enjoyed them so would recommend these games to fans of the SNES originaL. I would also argue that there a lot easier to get into for modern gamers.

So what happened to my friend who introduced Shadowrun on the SNES to me? He has moved to America now and no longer plays Video games. I don’t get to talk to him that often as he is busy with his work and family but I will always think back and remember him as that excited guy who couldn’t wait for RPG’s to come out, who would buy some of them in Japanese and just plough his way through them the best he could and I will never be able to play a shadowrun related game without thinking of him and smiling.

OK so thats KERR900O signing off saying keep on gaming.

I am now working on a Review for the game Battle Clash a Nintendo and Intelligent Systems developed Super Scope game.

Battle Clash SNES Review



Battle Clash is a mecha-themed light gun shooting game produced by Nintendo and Intelligent Systems and released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1992. It was followed by a sequel called Metal Combat: Falcon's Revenge which in all honesty I have never played nor have I ever seen it in the flesh. It is interesting to note that the Japanese version of Battle Clash was released a year after the American release and was called Space Bazooka so its a rare case of the Japanese getting a video game later back in the 90's.

OK so lets talk about how Battle Clash came into my life. I remember the day I purchased it probably because it registers as one of my stupidest game buying days, I was on a trip to London and I went in to HMV and there I saw a brand new Super Nintendo game still sealed for 5pounds and this game was Battle Clash, being young and stupid I just grabbed the game and ran to the till and purchased it` immediately, it was only when I got home later that I realised I had purchased a game that you could only play if you owned the Super Nintendo Super Scope something I had never owned and didn't at the time even know anyone who owned. So this is the game that sold the Super Scope to me in so much as I had to go out and buy one just to try the new game I had gotten. Luckily for me I got the scope quiet soon after for very little money at all, I saw it in a weird pawn store that used to be in my home town called Adams audio. Adams Audio was a weird place it had a lot of records which I think was the shops original intended purpose but then it branched out in to all sorts of things VHS cassettes, carpets, toys and occasionally Super Nintendo stuff, usually loose cartridges. Well I got a Super Scope from there on the cheap thanks to my brother who kept asking the guy if he knew if it worked and if it had all the right pieces, in the end the guy essentially admitted he knew nothing about video games and would sell us the scope and all the bits he had for 10quid on the condition it was sold as seen no returns, and thankfully it worked a treat and had everything it needed including the Super Scope 6 cartridge.

OK so lets talk a little bit about the story, granted when you play it your not going to see that much story or really need to know much a lot of it really seems to live more in the manual than the actual game. So In a distant future the Earth is in chaos. The solution to this is to give all power to the person who is strongest and let them rule the world. As far as strongest goes really we are talking about who has the best what the game refers to as Standing Tanks but what a normal person observing the game would probably refer to as mech and who can beat everyone else in a mech on mech battle. The current person in control is a merciless fighter called Anubis who is pretty much a tyrant who killed his way to the top.
A guy called Mike Anderson, whose father was one of the many victims of Anubis, refuses to submit to his rule and instead trains himself in everything Mech related so that he can avenge his father's death and take control. In order to accomplish this, he must first defeat the Battle Chiefs Anubis' subordinates before taking on Anubis himself. OK so its not exactly War and Peace but it fits the game well enough.

I really like the graphics in this game they are done in what I would call an anime style and it really suits the game. The backgrounds are colourful but they are also absolutely full of detail. The mechs themselves look great, they are all also very different from each other and really fit there pilots look, if I was to show you all of the mechs and the pilots separately and ask you to pair them up I am sure you would manage it with very little in the way of mistakes. When a character talks in the game you see there portrait which are full of character, I really cant say much more about this games graphics I think they are as close to perfect as possible, it is easy just from looking at the Mechs to see different points of interest on them, which really helps you work out what parts look like potential weak spots for you to fire at.

OK so on to the sound, well I think this game has a soundtrack which really helps maintain the excitement of the games action and its mixed with very fitting sound effects for the mechs movement and weapons. Its not something that your going to find yourself humming away from the game but its certainly fits well and helps keep the adrenaline flowing.

On to the gameplay, most light gun games seem to fall in to one of three categories, either there sort of mini game collection for example the Super Six cartridge, or there target practice simulations or they are your standard Arcade shooter things like Terminator 2 the Arcade game or House of the Dead, sure some games might cross these divides and give you a little of two of them for example Point Blank on the PS1 was kind of a target practice game but was also a mini game festival. Battle Clash though is something else it seems to totally break the mould. This game is in fact set up more more like a beat-'em-up game like Street Fighter II or Fatal Fury. Each level is a one on one fight against an opposing Mech who you will meet exchange some chat with before fighting ad hopefully defeating them so that you can move on to the next stage and the next enemy mech. The game is not incredibly tough, there is some challenge in working out how to beat each enemy but once you have worked out each ones weak spot and the best method to handle it they soon become a breeze and its not a game which really offers anything which would make you want to go through it again.

Apparently the game was originally going to offer a choice of mechs for you to co-pilot as some different player portraits which were unused have been found in the games code and this would have maybe offered a little replay value particularly if it also came with changes in the level of difficulty and different endings but as it is the games a short fun blast which wont change the world but is enjoyable. I would give the game 7.5 out of 10.

If you wanted to buy this game well I have seen loose pal carts go between the range of 10 to 15pounds with boxed copies varying in price dependent on the condition but typically starting around the 28pound mark and sometimes going up to about 45pounds. The important thing to note though is that you will obviously need a SNES and a Super Scope but you will also need a CRT TV set as the super scope like most old light guns simply does not work on modern screens. If you want a quick blast on the game to see if you like it then a good way to try it is using an emulator on your PC as some of the SNES emulators will allow you to move the scope point on the screen by using your mouse, and when I tried this I found this game really worked well like this.

OK this is Kerr9000 signing off saying keep on gaming.

I remember playing this at my mates around the time it launched. I remember really enjoying it. But i had not parted with £40 or so for the pleasure.

Nice review

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:I remember playing this at my mates around the time it launched. I remember really enjoying it. But i had not parted with £40 or so for the pleasure.

Nice review

Thank you , glad you enjoyed it. No idea what I will review next if I will make a video for an old review I have done or review something I havent touched before. I have purchased a few more SNES games for review purposes. One I got today Is Kawasaki Caribbean challenge which I will do at some point.

I have been trying to post a lot of them that are on YouTube on to my Instergram as well to see if I can attract more views

kerr9000 wrote:Beauty and the Beast SNES Review

I hated what I played of this, have you played the Belle game? It's even shitter.

Pedz wrote:

kerr9000 wrote:Beauty and the Beast SNES Review

I hated what I played of this, have you played the Belle game? It's even shitter.

I remember playing a Belle one I think it was on the megadrive , I could be wrong but it was utter turd

kerr9000 wrote:

Pedz wrote:

kerr9000 wrote:Beauty and the Beast SNES Review

I hated what I played of this, have you played the Belle game? It's even shitter.

I remember playing a Belle one I think it was on the megadrive , I could be wrong but it was utter turd

Yeah, the Belle one and this were both on Mega Drive and they seemed to be like 1 game, that they split in two if hat makes sense?

kerr9000 wrote:Battle Clash SNES Review

I have never seen a light gun game that plays like this, that's cool. Obviously the sub-genre never took off though, so I imagine it isn't great

OrangeRKN wrote:

kerr9000 wrote:Battle Clash SNES Review

I have never seen a light gun game that plays like this, that's cool. Obviously the sub-genre never took off though, so I imagine it isn't great

If it was an Arcade Game I would call it excellent, as a console game though it has an issue in length. I played it as a kid and cant remember if I finished it or not but I do know that I recorded the footage used for this review during my first go in like 17ish years and I got to the second to last opponent without using a continue despite using the mouse as a super scope..... there is no reason to replay it if you finish it, so if your good you'll probably figure out how to beat the game in an hour or two and you might want to mess around with it now and then but its not like you'll get that much out of it at least not as a new 40quid game, so given you needed a scope back in the day and it was a full price game that wouldn't last long made it a bit of a hard sell I think.

Dragons Lair Review... noticed it has been awhile since I managed to get a SNES review video finished so I am quiet happy to put this one up.