Review: Pushmo

European Title screen

Ok, I need more time for my next review, so I decided to pick up a quick game (and by pick up I mean download).  This week, I will be covering the hit game, Pushmo (known as Pullblox in Europe).  This game was made by Intelligent Systems, who are famous for the Fire Emblem and Paper Mario series and was published by Nintendo.  This game is what I describe as a puzzle-platformer.  I have hear so many good things about this game and just felt I needed to check it out sooner or later.  So let's start.

Visuals                                         

Mallo after finishing 18 levels and saving all the children.

  This game had a very nice feel to it.  Everything was bright and colorful which made it a pleasure to look at.
The main character, Mallo, for the most part looks nice, except for my confusion.  I honestly had no idea what he was!  Even now that I have read that he is a "cat", I still don't see the cat in him.  That doesn't hurt the game at all, it actually helps because it gives you the sense that you are not in an average world.  This imagination for this character was interesting.  The stages also look pretty nice.  My one complaint was that the levels tend to have very similar bland backgrounds.  After a while, I did get pretty bored of them and ignored them completely.  As for the Pushmos, which is the name for the walls you must climb, they looked pretty good.  Many of them were simple shapes while others were detailed drawings of many different things.  This is what I found most impressive.  The game made excellent puzzles out of real shapes of things such as animals, houses, and other miscellaneous items.  The problem was that they all weren't interesting shapes.  Some just looked like colored pixels that made nothing.  These obviously were designed to be levels but weren't very appealing to the eye.  With this game being on the 3DS I can admit that the 3D worked perfectly in this game.  Sometimes I even felt that I could platform better when I has the 3D on.  It gave a true sense of depth instead of just further separating the character and the backdrop as many games have before.

Music                                            

The music in this game was a lot like the art style.  Very calming and child friendly.  At first, I fell in love with the music.  I would constantly hum along with the music as I jumped from platform to platform.  Soon I noticed that there is so little variety.  I would hear the same song for approximately 80 levels.  So what originated as a hum of joy became a hum of annoyance.  This song was so catchy, that even I got annoyed by it, I just couldn't stop humming.  Overall the music is of such high quality, but there definitely low quantity.

Gameplay                                            

Pushmo gameplay

This game is a puzzle platformer (as some of the other games I have reviewed at this point) so I felt very familiar with the mechanics when I started.  Just like Catherine, you must climb the "Pushmo" by pushing blocks and walls forward and back to make a path that leads to the top.  Without being able to push anything sideways, this soon made many of the repeated tricks very noticeable.  I soon knew that whenever I had a chance, I would most likely need to pull platforms all the way to the front.  Speaking of which, the platforms had four layers.  First is the furthest back layer.  These were (as the name suggests) all the way in the back, which makes them inaccessible from the sides and made impossible to stand on.  The rest of the layers are labeled with colors, being red (which meant it was pulled out all the way), yellow (which meant it had 2 "layers" to walk on) and green (which has only one layer out and can be pulled out two more times).  This made the gameplay simple enough.  Along with pushing and pulling, you can (as previously mentioned) grab walls and blocks from the side at certain situations to pull them forward or back a layer or two, depending on how much space you had to walk on.  Along with the colors to assist, the game also has two mechanics that will occasionally help you.  The first (which is mapped to the R button) allows you to see the entire Pushmo from directly in front of you.  This occasionally became helpful to see how far from the goal you are, but with the picture of the Pushmo on the bottom screen, I found myself never using this feature.  The next is actually a very helpful feature.  Much like the undo button in Catherine, this mechanic (which is mapped to the L button) allows you to turn back time for a limited amount to allow you to undo a mistake you might have made.  This, although not as helpful as an undo button, constantly helped me undoing some dire mistakes that would've made me need to start all over.  And incase you use up all of your rewind, you can hit the switch in front of every level that resets the Pushmo completely.  

Speaking of mistakes, this game has plenty of different tricks to make sure you make mistakes.  There are manholes that allow you to get from on block to the next and even switches that move all blocks of a certain color forward or back all the way.  

Pushmo gameplay

The physics for this game are honestly great.  Mallo has a very light gravity which allows you to make jumps safely and he isn't cursed by floatiness so his fall time isn't too bad.  The best part I would say are the tight controls.  At no time did I ever feel like I have lost control of him, which is a very dire feature in any platformer.  The problem I had in this gameplay was the pacing.  The goal is very simple, get to the child which is usually on the highest point with some exceptions.  The game also has no time limit which has you calmly trying to focus on finding the solution.  I found this quite boring to say the least.  With some of the levels being ridiculously easy, I felt it would have been great to include a timer or some other features to give some kind of challenge.  If not a timer why not collectibles?  This could have made it feel a little more encouraging to go back and play some levels and to make it have more replay ability.

An 8-bit Megaman Pushmo and it's QR code

Along with the 250 leveled single player.  There is also Pushmo Studio, a feature that allows you to create your own studio.  As most people who use this feature, you can design Pushmos off of 8-bit sprites as I did or even just make a new design using the grid provided.  This along with the allowance of the manholes and push/pull switches leaves endless of possibilities to be created by the fans of the games.  This feature seems fun, but takes a lot of work to make fully working Pushmos to share with friends via QR codes.

Story                                                   

Mallo being instructed be Papa Blox to continue climbing

Like most platformers, the story is very simple.  You play as Mallo, a sumo wrestling cat (did think those words would ever be put together) who is visiting Pushmo Park.  Soon he learns that many children are being trapped on the climbable playgrounds.  With the help of Papa Blox who teaches you the basics, you must go and save the kids.  After each world, you continually see a child hitting the reset switch and trapping more kids.  Very simple, but it gets the job done.

Overview                              

With my expreiences of Pushmo, I feel it is a very average game.  It isn't the easiest game out there, but isn't even close to being a real challenge.  The mechanics are very well made and the presentation is great.  Unfortunately is is ruined by the extremely slow pacing of the gameplay and the repetitive music.  Honestly, I started the game with high hopes for another puzzle game to help me pass countless hours.  In a way it did succeed but after beating approximately half of the single player levels, I found myself bored and even felt that the game was a little bothersome to play in long play sessions.  I can't rate it negatively for the bad experience I had and I must admit the level design was above average.

Mallo

I rate this game 7.5 Mallos out of 10

Review: Catherine

Cover art of the PS3 version
with Catherine 

I really felt like playing a puzzle game again and I found the perfect one!  It is now time for a review on a "not so old" game.  This time I'm covering Catherine which was developed by Atlus Persona Team (yep, most commonly know as the creators of the Persona and Shin Megami Tensei series) and published by Atlus and by Deep Silver in the European version.  This game is very difficult for me to categorize in genre.  Its a bit of a puzzle-platformer with "psychological horror adventure" features as stated by many.

Cover art of the 360 version
with Katherine

To be honest, I had never played any of the Persona games nor the Shin Megami Tensei games, I just bought this game out of pure curiosity.  As I was going through all the available titles at my local game store, this cover art stood out to me (I was looking through the PS3 section).  If its not obvious by the cover art, this is a very adult oriented game, but the cover art just stood out to me from all the first person shooters and hack-and-slash games.  And even stranger to me was the fact that the 360 version had a completely different girl on it!  I was so confused as I saw a man in his underwear and other people that turned out to be sheep!  I was just so curious so I bought a copy and went straight to my PS3 and was amazed at what I found.

Visuals                                         

I gotta say, this game looks very nice.  the game has two different art styles in which it constantly changes between.  It has the two dimensional and three dimensional anime style.  Let's start with the 2D first.

A 2D anime styled cutscene

The 2D style usually only shows up during cutscenes and it looks great.  It seems like a very high quality of anime.  Each character is drawn with so much detail and no two characters have any similar features (as I've seen by many animes lately).  Honestly, if Atlus decided to start doing animes instead of games, they could really do well because it is so visually pleasing.  It's like Atlus knew that it looked great because this game is very cutscene heavy, and thanks to how great it looks, it didn't bother me in the slightest.

One of the 3D cutscenes.

Now for the 3D anime style.  It looks pretty good.  They combined this style in both cutscenes and gameplay so it uses the character models instead of some kind of computer generated models.  And this it's a little more difficult to jusge.  In the gameplay, due to the camera angle and distance from the character, it looks very nice...but when the camera gets closer in the cutscenes, these are very lack luster.  I'm not saying they are bad, because they do look great, but it is very easy to notice a lot of "nitpicky" details.  For instance, some movements that the characters do, such as hitting keys on their cell phones, just looks so unorganic, but then again, just nitpicking.  The rest of it looks great and still keeps the nice anime look in its transition to 3D

Music                                            

Oh what can I say about this music, besides "I loved it"!  Its so difficult to describe because there is just so much of it.  The best song in my opinion is the music of the title screen.  OH I LOVED THIS SONG!  It has an upbeat jazzy sound to it.  But this isn't the only style.  While going through the different levels, the music with completely change the feel of the game.  There are some levels where the music simply sounds like a demented circus jingle, then others that combine hard rock with calming symphonies.  Its just so difficult to explain all the different emotions these songs can invoke.

Some of the song's provided by Atlus on the Jukebox in The Stray Sheep.

If you think that's all, you are mistaken.  In one of the game's hubs, which is designed after a bar, there is a jukebox that contains more music for you to unlock.  If you do the correct events, you can unlock a whopping 50 tracks.  And these aren't just Catherine tracks, a lot of these come from the Persona and Shin Megami Tensei games.  This can provide a nice little surprise for anyone who follows along these games.  And honestly, these songs are very catchy.  So catchy that I spent almost an entire day just flipping through these songs.  Honestly, many games get music right, but Catherine just blows them out of the water when it comes to amount and variety.  

Gameplay                                            

Catherine gameplay

Alright this is where the game gets weirder.  As previously mentioned, this game is a puzzle game, but not the average puzzle game.  The game is divided into two sections, being the daytime and the nightmares.  The nightmare is where the main gameplay is.  The game is based around pushing and pulling cubes to climb up a tower.  Each time you push/pull cubes, they will connect on the edges, allowing for some structures that normally would fall to stand strong.  Using this, you would learn different techniques to get across different types of of blocks.  These technique can actually be learned from many of the NPCs who you can meet in the checkpoint stages in between levels.  As I previously mentioned, there are also different types of cube.  There is the average cube that has no effect, there is one that is heavier that results in needing more time to push or pull it, one that comes with a spike trap inbedded in it, one made of slippery ice, one that will detonate and destroy blocks around it, a trampoline cube, one that will randomly move around and knock you off if you hang on the front of it, and finally one that can turn into any of the others if you step on it.  This alone can provide dozens of different ways to climb, but Atlus went one step forward to help the player by adding power ups which can be found or purchased from an NPC for coins found throughout the levels.
These power ups can be mystic pillows to provide you with an extra retry, bibles that rain lightning to kill any enemies that are also trying to climb the tower, placeable blocks that allow you to spawn an unmoveable or moveable block in front of you to help you solve puzzles, and even different energy drinks that allow you to jump higher to pass obstacles.

One of Vincent's nightmares.  Yeah, this game is pretty weird.

And after a few levels, you get to play a boss stage to help Vincent pass his "Nightmare".  How do they make boss battles in a puzzle game you say?  Well they provide the same type of puzzle but have the boss climbing behind you to make you climb faster.  If you get too far behind, the boss and easily destroy you.  But some of these bosses can provide quite a scare so prepare for the worst.  So generally there aren't too many different elements to the puzzles allowing the gameplay to revolve more around the structure of some of the puzzles.  Some are as simple as climbing a flat wall while others are as complicated a spiraling tower of blocks.
After every checkpoint stage, the game also gives you a question to test your morality.  This, although short, provides a nice little moment to stop and think about what you would truly do.  What also helps you think about yourself other than the game is that it doesn't affect Vincent in the game, instead afterwards it provides you will a pie chart to show you what other, of either gender or different ages, chose on their first answer.  Its pointless but provides and nice stat if you find them interesting which I do.  Other than that, there there also trophies given after each level to gauge how well you did on each level.  This is measured by your score, which depends on how many steps you climbed in a certain amount of time and whether or not you collected the Enigma coins along the way to the top.  Then the trophies received are either bronze, silver or gold.

Vincent playing Rapunzel

Luckily you can take a break from the puzzles during the daytime sections by visiting the local bar, The Stray Sheep, and helping Vincent relax by having some drinks, talking to his friends, the other customers, or the owner.  By talking to the other customers, you can help or discourage them from dealing with their own problems.  This also ties into a big part of the game, the karma meter.  As you play, you will occasionally see a red and blue meter whenever Vincent makes any big decisions.  This seems useless until the end because this effects which of the eight endings you get.  Yes there are a whopping total of eight different endings.

Rapunzel gameplay.  Look familiar?

As well as talking to everyone, you can also drink plenty of alcohol (which actually helps Vincent travel faster during the nightmare sections, text either Catherine to get sexy pictures or Katherine to discuss your relationship, or play a relaxing arcade game...wait?  This puzzle game looks familiar?  Yup, its the same type of puzzle game inside a puzzle game.  This game (based around the tale of Rapunzel by The Brothers Grimm)  is said to be a method to improve you puzzle solving skills by providing you with 64 block moving levels along with an additional 64 levels for alternate endings to the story.  This, although a tad bit easier than the nightmare stages, can get very difficult in the later levels.

Vincent climbing the Menhir stage in Babel mode.

There is also a more difficult game type known as Babel, which is unlocked if you do well enough in some of the levels.  In Babel, there are four stages known as Altar, Menhir, Obelisk, and Axis Mundi.  Each getting more and more difficult of a simple goal of reaching a certain amount of steps.  The goals being 150, 190, 214, and 282 respectively.  Also, Babel can be attempted with a friend locally (no wireless is provided) which makes some of the goals slightly easier, but no walk in the park.
Along with Babel, there is another multiplayer option known as Colosseum mode, which gets unlocked after beating the story for the first time.  This involves you playing with a friend locally to see who will fall first.  This game is very fun at first, but soon loses its charm due to how the game is structure.  Almost always, the player is has played any bit more than the other will have a bit of an advantage.  Nonetheless, it is a great diversion from the story whenever you have friends over.
Other than that, there really isn't much to the game because instead of variety, Atlus focused mainly on the puzzles and the story.  Speaking of which...

Story                                                   

Vincent trying to calm down Katherine.

Atlus truly did a phenomenal job at this story.  You start off as Vincent Brooks, a 32 year old systems engineer who lives life like a bachelor.  He lives in a small apartment which is always a mess and he visits the local bar, The Stray Sheep, every night to drink with his friends.  After a long night of drinking, he likes to go back to his apartment, and drink even more beer.  Sounds like a winner to most, considering he also has a girlfriend named Katherine, a 32 year old office manager at a clothing company with a pure Type A personality (a type A personality is someone who is known for having temperamental issues and having many goals, being slightly too competitive, impatient, and prefers to have control in most situations...can't say you never learned anything from video games now).  They previously knew each other in high school but only started dating after meeting again at a 10 year reunion where he ironically was giving her dating advice.  Sounds like a nice little story of love between two people until Vincent has other thoughts.  After dating dating for 5 years, Katherine's parent convince her to try and get Vincent to marry her, but Vincent has some commitment issues.  He, like a child, doesn't want anything to change and just wants to continue dating her with fear of what might happen if he does tie the knot.  After a night to discussing Katherine's ambition to his friends at the bar, all his friends go home for the night, leaving Vincent to continue drinking.  That night he meets a 22 year old sexy blonde named Catherine who seems extremely interested in Vincent.  After a long night of enticing him with a vision of a future of freedom with him and a bit too much to drink, Vincent blacks out with no memory of what happened that night, only to wake up with a nude Catherine by his side. 

Vincent's first sight in the morning.

Not remembering anything, he assumes he just cheated on his girlfriends and soon plans of hiding this event from her.  For the next few nights as Vincent tries to decide whether to leave Katherine or just continue cheating with Catherine, he has nightmares every night where he must climb block towers.  With each passing night, he grow more and more tired during the days and makes dumber and dumber decisions.  Soon, during the day, Vincent has more problems to deal with such as hiding the secret about Catherine and her possible other lover, and a possible pregnancy (don't want to spoil this game for anyone).  As well as Vincent, other men are having these dreams, which he meets as he climbs, although they appear as talking sheep to him and he appears as a sheep to them as well.  So each night, Vincent must struggle to survive to make  it to the next day to try and deal with his issues. 

I personally loved this story, and with the eight alternate endings, it is a great way for you to see how you would end up if you fell into Vincent's shoes.

Overview                              

Catherine is such a unique game.  The story isn't circling any above average person, but still manages to tell a great tale of what they endure.  The gameplay is extremely unique, of which I was very impressed on.  My only real problem was its difficulty.  The game comes with 4 difficulties (5 in the Japanese version).  Very easy (which isn't even presented with the other options) and easy are the best choice if you really want to enjoy the story, but the other two difficulties are extremely more difficult than the others.  The difference between then is basicly a score multiplier, number of retries given at the game over screen and whether or not you are given an undo button.  I, which I consider myself generally good at games, has so much difficulty on normal mode.  It was ridiculous and I found it almost impossible to recieve gold trophies for any level on hard mode without resorting to using guides.  As for Rapunzel, it became so difficult, all I could do is use guides at a certain point.  And don't even get me started on Babel.  It is so difficult, after owning the game for 2 years, I have yet to beat the easiest level.  

The game over screen.

And to avoid the chance of a player using a guide, all the Babel stages are randomly chosen from dozens of possible puzzles.  Although ingenious, it is extremely difficult for the average hardcore gamer.  This makes the game only fully enjoyable to a certain extent.  Luckily with the eight endings, you will spend plenty of time trying out different answers to Vincent's problems to unlock ones that you might not get on your first run through.  Another problem is it's lack of wireless play with friends.  I knew some people who wanted to play Colosseum mode with me who are too far to visit, but we couldn't due to the games restrictions.  Other than that, the game presents a great story with some simple yet impressive gameplay.

One of the talking sheep in the
check point level

I rate this game 8.5 sheep out of 10

Random Retro Review: Super Metroid

Cover Art

Time for another retro review (I really like playing retro game!).  This time on Super Metroid (just in you didn't see the title) on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in North America on April 18th 1994.  It was developed by Nintendo R&D1, most famous for the Ice Climbers, Kid Icarus, and Wario Land series, and Intelligent Systems, most known for the Fire Emblem and Paper Mario series.  This game is the third installment to the Metroid series.  I recently got a SNES and I was told this game was one of the best on the system.  So I plugged everything in, and knew this would be my next review.  Without hesitation, lets begin.

Visuals                                           

Samus in her Gravity suit

I have to admit, this game looked phenomenal!  The franchise has evolved very nicely since its 8-bit days and I think this is the pinaccle of the pixelated Samus sprites.  Samus has 3 different suits (being the one she begins with, the Varia and the Gravity suit) and each of them are given plenty of color.  This easily makes Samus completely stand out from the background.  I always look for this in games and Super Metroid definitely got it right.  The sprite work is also phenomenal.  The developers took the sprite work from Metroid II and went all out, definitely taking advantage of the SNES's hardware.  I have to admit, for a game that is over a decade old, it definitely looks great and some might even say it looks better than the GBA Metroid games.  As for the environment, that too looks great.  Each area has a different general color, much like the original, except far more detail was put into them.  Next are the enemies.  They too look so much better than previously.  The amount of color and pixels that the SNES was capable of seriously helped the visuals of the enemies.  They look a lot cleaner than the previous enemies and I couldn't get enough of them.

Music                                                            

I honestly don't know what to say about the music besides WOW.  After playing Metroid II, I almost forgot that the series had music.  But Super Metroid definitely delivers a great sound track.  Each area had exclusive music and each was extremely catchy.  Almost all the music were remastered tracks of the original NES game.  My only problem is very nitpicky.  I really didn't like the music in the areas where the power ups were.  It sounds like someone is just is hitting the number keys on an old phone.  Unfortunately for me, it has become a staple in the series, so I will just have to get over it.

Gameplay                                                     

The equipment toggle screen

To try and not repeat anything I might've already mentioned in my Metroid NES review, I will try and focus mainly on the changed from the others.  The biggest change was in the weapon types.  In previous games, you would find a weapon type such as the ice beam, long beam and wave beam.  Each time you picked one up, the previous one would no longer be equipped and you would have to go back and find the beam type all over again (with the exception of the long beam).  In Super Metroid, once the weapon has been obtained, it can be toggled on and off, and even in combination with other weapons.  Finally you have the usefulness of the ice beam and still have the attack pattern of the wave beam.

Next was the inclusion of new items.  These were mainly the reserve tanks and some new power-ups and some skills.  With the reserve tanks, now when Samus's energy depletes, depending on how many reserve tanks you have collected.  With a total of four reserve tanks you can have 400 points of back up energy.  The energy can also be used manually to refill any energy you are lacking.  Unfortunately this feature is exclusive to Super Metroid, which astounds me.  The reserve tanks have saved me dozens of times until I reach my ship or energy refills.  It's a real shame because I personally think it this was such a great idea, because I would occasionally run out of energy and forget about my reserve tanks and it was always a great surprise when I randomly see my energy regenerating when I was expecting to have to start from a save point again.

Samus finding the Speed Booster

Next are some of the upgrades.  First off I will mention the run feature.  I felt this really didn't make too much of a difference for me except being able to make some long jumps.  It just felt so out of place mainly because there were always obstacles in the way to stop me.  I at first hated the run...until I found the speed booster.  Running soon became the best part to me.

Samus using the Shinespark horizontally

The Speed Booster would let Samus run even faster, after running for a certain distance.  And when she speeds up, Samus is allowed to run straight to enemies and some walls that can only be passed using the Speed Booster.  I honestly never had seen this mechanic before, especially in a game this old.  I was just so impressed at the change from the boring Metroid II to this game.  And when I thought I found the end of this power up, I fell into a hole.  There I found out (thanks to a subtle tutorial that teaches you without saying a word) that the Speed Booster can turn into a Shinespark.  This allows Samus to stop running at a moments notice, but still retain the potential energy from her run and then use it to launch herself at the cost of some of her suits energy.  Soon I was just looking for any opportunity to use the Shinespark to find treasures that I could never reach or accidentally found.  At this point, my mind had already been blown!  I could go on about the excellent level design to incorporate the Shinespark, but then this review would be way too long.

Samus finding the Space Jump

Next was the grapple beam.  I found this one pretty cool but in the end, very useless.  There were dozens of rooms I found where there was nothing but death waiting for me at the bottom and I knew I couldn't cross them naturally and there wasn't enough room to start a Shinespark.  Eventually I found the grapple beam, and I found these rooms to be very simple to cross.  There was even a boss battle that could only be beaten using the grapple beam.  This made it feel very useful...until I found the Space Jump.  The Space Jump, introduced in Metroid II, allows Samus to do an infinite amount of spin jumps.  They were a little more difficult to perform than in Metroid II, but easy to learn.  This made the grapple beam useless.  I know this because eventually I found another room designed for the Grapple Beam and I preferred to Space Jump across mainly because it made it much easy and faster to cross.  This essentially ruined the grapple beam. 

Samus using the X-Ray Scope to discover
a wall that can only be destroyed by Power Bombs 

Next was the X-ray scope.  Oh this.  This was SO useful.  With it toggled on, Samus sacrifices her ability to run for the ability to see secrets in her sight.  This easily extended my play time because it encouraged me to re-explore every nook and cranny I had previously explored just to make sure that I didn't miss a missile expansion or one of the new Super Missile expansions or Power Bomb expansions.  Oops, almost overlooked these.  Super missiles are essentially a single missile with the power of 5 regular missile   These came in handy whenever I encountered a boss.  Power bombs are bombs that you can only use in morph ball mode that explode and kills all weak enemies and clear all obstacles on screen (omitting some obstacles that can only be passed by other specific items such as the Speed Booster walls).  These I didn't use too much because it was safer and faster to just attack with my regular attacks.  These later became a pain because there would constantly be obstacles that require a Power Bomb.  But I will give them credit because they definitely found me plenty of expansions.

Me finding the "tutorial aliens" teaching Samus to wall jump

And finally, the biggest of them all.  A skill that I was completely oblivious until I reached a trap.  If you have played this game before, you know what I'm talking about.  The Wall Jump ability.  I was strolling along in Brinstar when I found an energy tank just lying around with nobody defending it.  I walked over to it (expecting nothing) and I FELL INTO AN INVISIBLE HOLE! No it wasn't a glitch, it led me to a save point (knowing I would save before continuing down an unknown corridor).  After saving I go down an enemy filled room and reached a wall that had a hole going upward.  This is where the game introduced another one of those speechless tutorials.  It was a bunch of small aliens jumping from wall to wall until out of my sight, only falling down later to start the tutorial again.  This led me to HOURS AND HOURS in this hole.  I had absolutely no idea how to pull off this maneuver,  I, usually trying to avoid it, HAD to look up online how to pull off a wall jump.  This didn't even help that much either.  I literally was in that same spot for days, trying to go up a wall.  And one day I finally pulled a SINGLE wall jump and fell.  Later after a few more days of practice I finally started pulling off wall jumps like they were nothing.  I don't know whether I hate the developers for this or love them.  They ingeniously planned out what I would do.  And, although the wall jump is one of the most difficult things to pull off in this game (next to the infinite bomb jump)  I felt completely satisfied knowing I made it up this obstacle without the game just giving me the victory (I may have cheated just a little bit but it doesn't matter to me xD).  And luckily I did it because later on, I noticed that I could constantly wall jump and make the rest of the game so much easier.

Other than those and the upgrades from previous games, that's all of em.  I am impressed by the amount of things they could put on an SNES.

Story (some spoilers)                   

Samus donation the baby metroid to a scientist
on the Ceres Space Colony

Luckily, I don't have too much work to do in this section, because the game does it for me.  The game shows a short cutscene explaining the events of the last two games and where Samus is now.  Just in case, I will further explain for you.  After Samus defeated Mother Brain in the original (oh yea, Spoiler Alert xD), she was contracted to eliminate all the metroids from their home planet due to their destructive nature (whoops, more spoilers).  After defeating the queen metroid, Samus finds an egg which hatches upon her arrival.  A baby metroid comes out of the egg and follows Samus out from the planet.  This is where she currently is.  She takes the baby metroid to a space colony to some scientists as a donation to science.  Just as she leaves, she recieves a distress signal from the colony, so she heads right back.. upon arrival she notices that everyone is dead and the baby metroid is missing.  As she continues into the colony, she finds the baby metroid (still in its container).  After a few seconds you learn that Ridley (I thought I killed him in the original [psst...spoiler]) was the cause of the destruction.  After a small tussle with him, he sets off an explosion on the colony on a timer and takes off from the colony with the baby metroid back to planet Zebes to the ruins of the Space Pirates hideout.  Your job is to go back to Zebes and retrieve the baby metroid before something happens to it...or the world.  I found this story so nice that it encouraged me to keep going forward until I have found that baby metroid.  In my opinion, the best part is that they use the baby metroid as inspiration by putting it on the game over screen with the text "Find the baby metroid!" followed by "try again?".  This had me keep going at all hours of the night.  Very smart choice by R&D1 and Intelligent systems.

Overview                                                     

The Rating screen and percentage

Honestly this game was amazing.  Although I have some mixed feelings on some parts of it (mainly the difficulty to pull off some stunts), overall its a phenomenal game.  Although it only has one difficulty, I think it is just right.  Due to its non-linearity, you will occasionally get lost or not know what to do, especially if you do not memorize where the areas that you couldn't previous access were.  And the smart choices don't end there!  After you finally finished the game, it gives you your completion time and rating (how many collectibles you found in a percentage).  This was a much needed addition.  It actually had me go back and try to find more with the x-ray scope instead of writing this review.

This game is the perfect example of a great sequel.  It avoided every mistake that was thrown at it.  Sequels are supposed to expand upon what the originals laid out.  This it did with the graphics, sounds, and weapons.  Not to mention adding more to not make it feel too much like the original, which it did by adding many more bosses and mini-bosses along with new items and the rating system.  I honestly don't know how else to praise this game.

Ridley flying away with the baby metroid

I rate this game 9.5

baby metroids out of 10.0






Notes:  Thank you everyone for all the views.  I do take requests xD plus I am really hoping to take advantage of my new SNES.  If you have a request, feel free to send me an email at gabezune.1@gmail.com.  See you next time

Random Retro Review: Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters

Cover Art

Time for another retro review.  This time I am going over a game that tends to be overlooked, even by the company that published it.  This time it's Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters developed by Nintendo and Tose Software.  It was released on the Game Boy in North America on November 5th 1991 and in Europe on May 21st 1992.  Surprisingly this game wasn't released in Japan until the Virtual Console in 2012.  I always found this odd because of the Japanese company who helped develop it admits to their work, but they refuse to put their name on it.  This lead to almost no popularity to it which lead to the title not being mentioned in the most recent installment, Kid Icarus Uprising.  This game was intended to be the sequel to the NES classic Kid Icarus (obviously).  Honestly, I first played this game on an emulator (I didn't have any other way to play it at the time and I had just discovered the amazing prequel)  and I instantly bought it off the 3ds eShop Virtual Console.  One of the biggest reasons why I bought it (besides the fact that I had so much fun with it) is because I could never seem to find a functioning ROM.  Every ROM froze at the last boss, so this gave me an excuse to splurge a bit on this game, and enjoy the adventure all over again.  Well, let's get started.

Visuals                                           

Pit jumping to reach a collection of small hearts
as he is chased by a cyclops skull

I'm just going to be completely honest with you (as I always am).  This game wasn't that good looking.  The NES sprites from its predecessor were so much better,  This was one of those games that the developers didn't sacrifice the colors for a better sprite.  Pit looks just as bland if not worse from his previous title and looks oddly blurry.  And without the color, his clothes doesn't stand out from his skin.  These weren't the worst sprites I've ever seen, but they definitely didn't do the character any justice.  As for the environment, I can only say the same thing.  A lot of the floors, walls and ceilings looked very bland, and most of them simply look copy pasted, luckily they were designed nicely so that isn't as apparent as in some other games.  Unfortunately they could've have looked better.  As for the enemies, I was very torn on the decision of talking good or bad about them.  Some enemies, like the Cyclops Skulls, Wormser, and all bosses generally looked pretty good.  Unfortunately almost every other enemy looks awful.  Some iconic enemies even looked awful.  The Komayto, who looked identical to Metroids in the first entry, looked like leaves!  And the Eggplant wizards, although looked similar, had it's body out of proportion.  It was a shame to see how most of the enemies.  The only real reason I was torn were the bosses.  Three of the four bosses actually looked pretty scary!  I admit I'd probably wet myself if I had come face to face with them.  The last boss is so nicely detailed that my own grandmother was about to look for holy water after seeing the beast.  And with them being the end of each level, it truly fit the scary scenarios that Pit is placed in.  

Pit fighting Orcos, the cause of many
of my nightmares

Music                                                            

The music in this game is unique to say the least.  I'm not going to bash on it because it fulfills what it is intended on doing.  It truly makes you feel as though you are ascending to gain the Three Sacred Treasures.  The problem for me is it's simplicity.  The original had music composed with many layers which almost gave it a symphonic sound.  This along with the catchiness made it an instant classic.  In Of Myths and Monsters, the music sounds as though it only has one or two layers.  But it's most redeeming features is that it is still catchy.  While playing through this game, I constantly caught myself humming the fortress tune or the music of any world I was in.  

Gameplay                                                     

Pit using his Fire Arrows against the boss,
Fire Serpent (fire vs. fire = video game logic)

I'm sure you are wondering why I mentioned that I really liked this game even though I haven't praised much in it.  This is mainly because as a Game Boy, the visuals and music always made room for the gameplay and this is where it truly shines.  As in the previous game, you control Pit, an angel armed with nothing but a bow and the wings on his back.  First thing to mention is that the wings FINALLY have a purpose.  Unlike the last game, if you continually press the jump button, Pit will descend slower due to his tiny wings slowing his fall.  This instantly made me enjoy the game.  Next are Pit's weapons.  Pit is equiped with a boy that shoots arrows and very short distance, either to his sides or up.  Unfortunately I was hoping for a diagonal shot, but luckily it wasn't really needed.  Pit, just like in the last game, can venture through the levels and find special rooms which will occasionally have a "harsh training" in which if Pit survives he is granted one of three special weapons.  These are fire arrows, very self explanatory, long bow, which lets Pit shoot across the screen, and protective crystals, which circle Pit and will harm enemies who get too close.  All this also comes from the original which shows how powerful the handheld system was.  

A defeated Pit in a bat chamber

Besides the rooms where Pit finds weapons, there are also rooms containing shops, black markets (shops where your stolen goods and other more valuable and expensive things may appear), treasure chambers (rooms where you play a guessing game to see how many things you can get before finding the God of Poverty), hot springs (which heal Pit), hospitals (which cure you of the eggplant curse), Sacred Chambers (where Zeus will occasionally reward you  u with power upgrades), information centers, or bat chambers (to earn some hearts).  Yeah its pretty impressive on how much they managed to fit into those tiny cartridges.  

Back to the gameplay, just like in the previous game, you start off with no hearts (which are the currency in this franchise), one bar of health, the weakest arrows, and no special weapons.  This actually made the first few levels in the original, extremely difficult for casual gamers.  Luckily, Pit can increase each of these.  Health is increased by reaching a certain score on certain levels.  This can become tiresome due to the need to farm on respawning enemies.  Arrow strength is increased in an unknown way, but is assumed to increase by defeating enemies, collecting hearts, and not being hit or missing shots at the enemies.

General layout of the Underworld, Overworld,
and Skyworld respectively

This game follows the formula set by its predecessor.  You start in the underworld, and climb upwards until you reach the first fortress.  The best improvement in the game sits here.  The hardest part of the original was tricky platforming.  This was because the camera only followed you upwards, and once you go below it, you lose a life.  In Of Myths and Monsters, the camera follows you up and down which removes that nasty hazard and gives the levels more of an open feeling.  This is also due to the screen not having left or right borders due to the camera following Pit.  Back on track, after defeating the first guardian at the fortress (which are mazes in which Pit must navigate through many rooms to find the currect path to the guardian), you move on to the franchise's iconic sidescrolling levels.  This, called the overworld, is a lot more like other platformers, except for the rising and falling enemies and obstacles.  After the overworld you reach the next fortress.  Next is the skyworld which leads to the final fortress.  After defeating all three fortresses, like the previous title, Pit can equip all three Sacred Treasures, which allow Pit to shoot the strongest Light Arrows, fly with the Wings of Pegasus, and take more hits with the Silver Armor.  But unlike its predecessor, this game doesn't turn into a sidescrolling shoot 'em up.  This game has for levels in which you must use his new power of flight to platform across dangerous obstacles, defeat new enemies, and reach the final boss.  Truly great innovation and gameplay.

Story                   

This game doesn't have much in-game story besides a small paragraph that very briefly explains what is happening.  The full story is, like for most games of the time, in the instruction manual.  The story is quite long but let me try to do it more justice than the small paragraph.  

Palutena artwork

Its starts with Palutena, goddess and founder of Angel Land.  As she ruled, the world was at peace, where man and god lived happily among each other.  It was truly a great and peaceful place that Palutena was very proud of.  But one night she had a horrible nightmare.  She called her fortune teller to tell her what her nightmare meant.  The fortune teller, in great pain, started to speak of an attack that will come upon Angel Land.  She states it will be attacked by demons named the Orcos.  Just as she says it, the fortune teller loses her voice (presumably due to the name of the demons).

Pit's new design for
Of Myths and Monsters

Palutena calls forward Pit. the captain of the Icarus Army who were sworn to protect Palutena and Angel Land.  Palutena sits Pit down, a liberty that isn't given out commonly by the goddess.  After thanking him for showing up, Palutena informs him of the fortune teller and her dream.  She soon tells him that he will have to defeat the demons, but alas he isn't powerful enough to defeat them.





Palutena, knowing this, devised a plan to send Pit in search of Angel Lands Three Sacred Treasure, knowing that the journey to find them will give him the power to use them.  With this information, she sends Pit off alone hoping not to scare anyone else of the fear of the future attack from the unknown demons.

The Three Sacred Treasures in Of Myths and Monsters

I personally found this story, although simple, very good.  Unlike most other instruction manual stories, this one goes into great details on small events and uses dialogue so nicely that it was a pleasure to read.

Overview                                                     

I personally loved this game.  The visuals and music in this game were a mess, but the gameplay easily made up for this, and the story was just the icing on the cake.  Personally I am disappointed that not many people have heard of this game because I feel it did a phenomenal job as a Game Boy sequel.  Although the game isn't very long, it has just the right amount of difficulty and variety to have a lot of replay value.  I suggest this game for any fans of the series and for any gamers who are looking for a great Game Boy game.

Eggplant Wizard artwork from
Of Myths and Monsters

I rate this game 8.0 
Eggplant Wizards out of 10

  

 











Notes: First I'd like to thank you all for the view, you are all fantastic.  Now that it is summer time, I have more liberty and hope to have a lot more reviews dished out.  Hopefully I can make the jump to video reviews soon and hope to continue getting this much support.  Thank you all and hope you like the reviews

Random Retro Review: Donkey Kong (Game Boy)

Donkey Kong GB cover art

Time for another retro review, and I've got a good one for you all this time.  This time I chose a game that I had never previously played before the Retro Reviews, and I was shocked with this game.  This game was the puzzle-platformer Donkey Kong for the Game Boy developed by Nintendo EAD.  Nintendo EAD is one of the most popular developers, being known for developing the Mario, Legend of Zelda, Animal Crossing,
F-Zero, Star Fox, and Pikmin series.  This instantly made me have a very high expectation.
I honestly hadn't even heard of this game, except for it's previous title of the same name on arcade machines.  I saw it in the Nintendo eShop Virtual Console, and thought "Why not?".

Visuals                                           

The Classic black and white title screen

Visually, this game is pretty good for a Game Boy game.  The screen is a little zoomed out, so you don't get the best sprite of Mario but for the most part, it still looks great.  The game took a bit more of a cartoony look, in comparison to its predecessor.  This can easily be seen by the animations Mario does when he sprints into doors, while he looks for Pauline.  Also Mario looked less like a NES sprite and more like a chubby plumber.  The best part of the visuals, in my opinion, would have to be Donkey Kong himself.  This is mainly due to his enormous size giving him a higher quality sprite.  This let you see his stylized appearance even better.  Donkey Kong no longer looks all pixelated and honestly looks phenomenal in my opinion.  The environments didn't look too bad.  Sure I could be a little nit picky about some of the water and lava sprites, but with the limitations of the Game Boy, it was very acceptable.  What I do feel is necessary to mention is the attention to detail for each areas theme.  Just like the current Mario games, each world was given a type.  There were the basic City, Desert, Jungle, Sky, and Mountain based levels.  The backgrounds were subtly changed to give you a nice sense of ambiance.  Unfortunately they do tend to go unnoticed but if you look at the background intentionally, you can see the detail put into this game. What I find is worth mentioning are the sky levels.  Due to graphical limitations, games couldn't really have a good sprite for wind, but I feel Donkey Kong accomplished this nicely.  In windy levels, there would be nice sprites of clouds occasionally flying past you, making you feel as thought you were literally trying to see the game through the clouds.

Music                                                            

The music was a big step up from its predecessor.  If you have ever played or even seen gameplay from the classic arcade machine, you will know that there is the intro music and the music from when you have the hammer.  The only other sounds you hear are chimes when Jumpman jumped over barrels or a very annoying noise that was supposed to be Jumpman's steps.  Donkey Kong GB decided to keep the most iconic sounds such as the intro, barrel, and hammer music.  This was a great choice because these sounds can easily bring nostalgia to some older players or just sound like classic 8-bit sounds to newer players.  The developers also decided to finally throw in some background music to replace the walking noises which in my opinion was genius   I have actually just stopped playing the original Donkey Kong mainly because the constant sound bits would get so annoying that I would even get a headache.  Luckily that's all gone by some nice tunes.  Unfortunately the music wasn't very memorable, but the inclusion was still nice.

Gameplay                                                     

A city based stage after Mario has left through the door to
follow Donkey Kong and Pauline

This is where the game truly shines.  Just like the original Donkey Kong, you control Mario (previously named Jumpman) and you have to jump across platforms to reach Pauline, a girl who I assume was his girlfriend/fiance/wife but is never really explained.  The big difference though is how you get to her.  With the Game Boy's capabilities, they made this game into a puzzle platformer.  And I bet you are wondering how a game is a puzzle game and platformer at once.  In Donkey Kong GB, a majority of the levels consist of a few basic traits.  Most have the door where Donkey Kong has run with Pauline and a key to open the door.  This makes the gameplay very simple.  The game continually makes the game more and more difficult by throwing in more puzzle features such as certain boxes which allow you to spawn either a spring, a box, a horizontal platform, or a ladder.  Then they kept the hammer power-up from the previous game, but gave it a few more abilities, such as being able to smash particular boxes (and my favorite part is the ability to throw the hammer upwards allowing you to jump and again and possible catch it on a higher floor).  Finally is another huge feature, being Mario's ability to pick up the key and enemies (very similar to Doki Doki Panic or the much more popular Super Mario Bros. 2).  And all that is just the tip of the iceberg, with the game having plenty of environmental interactions and hazards such as using wires to launch yourself, dying from sinking blocks, or even fall damage from falling from very high places.  With all these new abilities, the developers took full advantage and made dozens and dozens of different and unique puzzling levels.

A city based level.  Can you spot all three collectibles?

The developers also threw in the iconic three items from the original, being the parasol, purse, and hat, apparently belonging to Pauline.  This brings me to another giant leap this game made from its predecessor, the amount of levels.  Unlike the original Donkey Kong arcade, this game comes pack with 9 different worlds, each ranging from 4 levels up to 16 levels (having over 100 levels in total).  In my opinion, although I found the first 7 levels to be generally easy, only taking me a maximum of two try to pass a level, the difficulty takes a quick dive and becomes aggravatingly tough.  Now I bet you are wondering how I am connecting the collectibles to the game's difficulty.  But in fact the tie in quite nicely.  In each level (non-boss levels), if you collect all three items, you will be given an opportunities to gain extra lives.  These extra life opportunities come in the form of  a minigame, usually just being a slot machine or variant of roulette.  Honestly, gathering the three items was so easy in almost every level, I had already maxed out my lives by the time I reached world 8.  This doesn't even count the extra lives given to you after each boss level, in which you are given a life for every 100 seconds you had to spare after being the four levels before the boss battle, even giving a life for the remainder.  Speaking of after boss battles, the developers ingeniously made it so that the game teaches you new mechanics without ever directly telling you, such as in the Metroid and Megaman Series.  This one though is a little more upfront by showing you a cutscene of Mario chasing Donkey Kong, showing Mario pass a particular upcoming obstacle using one of his abilities that the player may or may not have discovered on their own.  I must admit, I thought this was a genius way to teach.

A forest based stage where Mario must pass Donkey Kong
and DK Jr's obstacles to reach Pauline

Now this is where the game becomes brutal.  After world 7, the game's difficulty ramps up exponentially.  I had so much trouble beating these levels and only beat about 2 levels on my first or second try.  Luckily they are not cheap difficulties   The game simply overwhelms you be quickly using many of the different puzzles you have previously learned about, and giving you them all at once.  This was nice because, for the most part, I felt like every time I died, it was my fault, whether because I didn't know the stage as well as I thought I did or because I timed my power-ups/jumps wrong.  And fortunately this is where you can see how considerate the developers were.  I felt confident that I wouldn't get a gamer over screen because I had so many lives!  But surprisingly, the difficulty still managed to take most of my lives, making me finish the game with a measly 17 lives over the previous 99.

Now for how the star of the show plays.  I was actually very impressed.  I felt as though I had full control over Mario's jumps unlike many other's jumps from that time.  This is also where I discovered Mario's new found jumping abilities.  Mario was given to basic jumps since his last entry.  He was given the handstand jump and the backflip jump.  The handstand jump, easily the most impressive, allowed Mario to make a little hop and start standing on his hands (very self-explanatory).  In this state, Mario is actually safe from falling items, due to his legs being able to kick them away.  Whenever you jump while you are in a handstand, Mario will to a somersault jump that will send him impressively high.  This was used perfectly for things just as long jumps and gap clearings.  The next, and my personal favorite, was the backflip jump.  I felt this one was the easiest and fasts to pull off, saving you from being cornered by enemies or skipping small ladders.  Overall, for the Game Boy, this Mario truly felt like a great Mario.

Story                   

This, being a game starring Mario, was kind of doomed in the story department.  Mario games having really been known for their stories, and this was no exception.  The manual doesn't really give you much, only that Donkey Kong has kidnapped a girl named Pauline, and Mario has to be the one to save her.  Yeah that's pretty much it.  They don't mention anything about the previous kidnapping in the original, or why Mario has to be the one to save her.  It's a classic story that wasn't really meant to impress.  To help extend the story section, I will mention somethings that help the story a bit, but aren't much.  When Donkey Kong takes Pauline, Mario must first go through the city.  Then Donkey Kong starts making his way to something.  After a few world's worth of running, you can finally reach the destination.  A giant tower with Donkey Kong's face on it.  Why there's a tower like this, I really don't know but it truly helps set the atmosphere for the final battle to save Pauline.  One notable thing that I really enjoyed was the cameo of Donkey Kong Jr.  If you know, the original Donkey Kong also spawned a sequel known as Donkey Kong Jr.  in which Mario is the kidnapper, and Donkey Kong is the victim,  For, what I assumed was, nostalgia purposes, DK Jr. is back and helps his father by providing plenty of obstacles for Mario.  Not to spoil anything, but due to his annoyingly difficult obstacles, when DK Jr. is defeated, they make you beat him using a similar technique used in his game.  And if you had as much trouble with him as I did, It feels so good when you finally defeat him and you know you can proceed in the game without the fear of seeing him again.  And finally, normally I don't like doing spoilers, but I will make a rare exception due to this game having such a huge impact on future Mario games.  After finally defeating Donkey Kong and saving Pauline, Mario is given certain mushroom from Pauline that makes him grow much bigger.  And right next to this event, you can see some iconic boxes with ? on them and a pipe that goes downward.  Does any of this sound familiar?  Maybe this was hinting on how an Italian American plumber made his way to the Mushroom Kingdom.  I saw this and I lost my mind at the shock of this idea.

The colored screen, thanks to the Super Gameboy on the SNES, as
Mario has finally deafeated DK, with some iconic items in the back.

Overview                                                     

This game was a complete joy to play.  It feels like the learning curve is pretty smooth until certain parts but easily makes up for this by providing you with many, many lives to keep you going.  The puzzles were unique and ingenious as well as the teaching techniques.  Though this game wasn't the best sounding as some other Game Boy games, it excelled at the most important part of the game, the gameplay.  I would recommend this to anyone who like puzzle games.  I would also suggest it to anyone who like Mario games, due to them having very similar mechanics, but I know not all Mario fans will love this installment.

Mario and the now free Pauline 

I rate this game a 9.0 DKs out of 10