Posts Tagged ‘nes’
Review: Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest (NES)
Console: Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
Released: 1988
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Famicom? Yes (as Dorakyura Tsu: Noroi no Fuin – English Translation: Dracula 2: The Seal of the Curse )
Instruction Manual: Not necessary – Link
Difficulty: Moderate
Played it as a child? Yes
Value: $4.80 (used) $195.00 (new) (pricecharting.com)
Price: $15-$20 (used) $400.00-$1,000 (new) on eBay
Digital Release? Yes – Virtual Console (NES version) – $5.00
What are you supposed to do?
Control Simon Belmont through an open world and collect the five scattered body parts of Dracula and a magical cross. Once all of these items have been discovered, Simon returns to Dracula’s castle and assembles the parts to fight and kill Dracula, who has put a curse on Belmont. Depending on how fast you can complete the game, you will be given one of three endings.
Review
In Konami’s follow-up to Castlevania, the developer attempts to refine the game mechanics and make the sequel quite different from the original, as many NES games at the time were doing, with RPG elements. Simon Belmont can level up, purchase upgrades and weapons from townspeople, and freely explore an open world. The gameplay of fighting enemies remains mostly the same, however with the new open world format there is little direction as to where to go but blocked paths and out of reach ledges due to not having the right item streamlines it into a somewhat linear experience. In addition, day and night cycles keep the player on their toes as night time removes the safety of villages and doubles the strength of enemies. At face value the concept of this game was great, but there are some big issues that prevented us from enjoying it then and now.
Review: Castlevania (NES)
Console: Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
Released: 1987
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Famicom? Yes (as Akumajo Dorakyura)
Instruction Manual: Not necessary – Link
Difficulty: Hard
Played it as a child? Yes
Value: $12.87 (used) $55,000.00 (new) (pricecharting.com)
Price (eBay): $15-$20 (used) $1125.00 (new) NOTE: This copy is revision A and thus has a lower value.
Digital Release? Yes – Virtual Console (NES version) – $5.00
What Are You Supposed To Do?
This is a linear action platformer. Many attribute the Castlevania series as an RPG or action RPG, whereas aside from the second title in the series, it has never really been. With no real inventory to maintain and no story elements to speak of, this original title is all about jumping and killing enemies.
Review
Castlevania released early in the NES life cycle and for that time seemed to be the culmination of everything you would want in a video game. Hitting store shelves early summer of 1987, most NES gamers had either just gotten or were hoping to get the console in the near future and word was getting around that this was one of the pivotal titles to play. You control a hero, Simon Belmont, who has vowed to hunt Dracula in his own castle. In the game you encounter all types of horror staples such as bats, zombies, and Medusa heads all while tackling large scale boss battles with famous monsters like Frankenstein, the Mummy, and even Death himself (aka: the Grim Reaper). As a young boy, this sounded like the most amazing game in the world and I was even happier to find out it delivered on all fronts. Castlevania is a difficult and wild ride through a haunted castle of horrors that holds up even today, albeit at the cost of your sanity with the Dracula battle.
Feature: Castlevania Retrospective
Few titles that started life on the NES still exist today. Of those titles there are even fewer that weren’t developed by Nintendo. Konami is one of the few companies that has a list of titles like this, although many of them suffer from very few updates and recent iterations such as the Metal Gear (Solid) series and Gradius. Castlevania does not have this problem. In fact, it still seems to withstand the test of time and despite trying to reinvent itself so many times, celebrates at least mild success with each new iteration. As a gamer who got his first console, an NES, in 1988, I have literally grown up alongside the series and played most titles it has to offer. If you don’t know Castlevania or have never played a single game, this will hopefully explain why you need to.
Head to Head: Double Dragon
In many cases, games with the same name – and even the same game ported to various consoles – can be drastically different. This was especially true in the 8-bit era where plenty of popular arcade games were deemed too limited for a boxed release on consoles like the NES. Head to Head takes two particular games and explains the drastic difference between the two that often keep fans of each camp drastically divided. Aside from ports, you can also expect several other types of comparisons such as localization.
Double Dragon Arcade
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In 1987 Technos released a spiritual successor to its popular brawler Renegade (Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun) known as Double Dragon. It told the story of two brothers, Billy Lee and Jimmy Lee (Hammer and Spike in US arcades), who are fighting the mean streets of the Black Warriors turf to get back Billy’s girlfriend. It released first to arcades and eventually saw a port over to the NES, which drastically changed the game. Chances are if you are an American that played the game in your past, then you remember the NES version. Now that arcade ports of many games we loved on the NES are releasing on services like Xbox Live and Playstation Network, it’s important to know the drastic differences between the two because they are different games. Love ’em or hate ’em, here’s the Head to Head on Double Dragon.
Friday at the Movies: The Wizard
Video games and movies, you would think the two would go hand-in-hand, but unfortunately given that the film medium is a passive experience and the gaming medium is an active experience, the hybrid of the two usually goes horribly (and laughably) wrong. This segment will be our weekly realm to appreciate the more “classic” medium of film (thanks to the large number of hits my Prometheus review received). Of course, whenever possible I will review a “video game” movie.
This movie poster is exactly like the gaming magazines fo the time, busy as hell.
Oh, The Wizard, how I love you so despite what anyone tells me. Sure, it’s nothing more than a big commercial for Super Mario Bros. 3 and a blatant ripoff of Rain Man, but that doesn’t change the fact that I love this movie to death. Before the Internet, we gamers would soak up any and all forms of information on video games and due to the lack of content available to us (magazines cost money, you had to be registered for newsletters, and we couldn’t linger in the gaming area of Sears forever). I had a subscription to Nintendo Power and I knew that SMB3 would eventually grace our shores, but Japan got the game a whopping year and a half before us! As soon as they revealed that the game was going to be featured in the movie, it was an instant must see for my friends and I. It’s pretty hilarious too, because in the movie the big reveal is that the finals for the Nintendo World Championship would feature this game and everyone goes crazy given that it’s a never before played game. As an audience, we all knew the game would be in there and shredded through the first 90 minutes of exposition to get to that point. When Jimmy played those legendary first few levels of SMB3, though, the entire pathetic journey was well worth it. For fans of the film, how the hell does Haley know everything about this “unseen” game as Jimmy plays along, including what the flute does?
Xevious (Namco)
Xevious is one of those games that doesn’t get the credibility it deserves despite being so easy to find on almost every console. I think it’s because it does a lot of things other shmups do, even though in many cases it did them first, and therefore gamers are drawn to the more popular titles. Back in 1982 when Namco released it into arcades – it would be released into US arcades by Atari and have the strongest port on the NES, if you believe that – the textures were amazing for the time. This game also had both air and ground weapon that had their own button so it was up to you to use the right armaments. Even today many vertical shmups don’t discriminate between ground or air when you blow things up, so it added a complexity to the game. It was also one of the first games to introduce in-level bosses with central “cores” you had to destroy. What still turns me and probably many other gamers off is that if you die you restart the level unless you’ve completed 70 percent of the area, at which point you will move on to the next level.
Gradius Series (Konami)
Responsible for plenty of attributes to the shmup genre, notably the space aesthetic, but the most significant thing I remember about the title “Gradius” is how often people mispronounced it. Okay people, I’ve confirmed this with Konami, the pronunciation is “grah-dee-us”, not “gray-dee-us”, “grah/grey-die-oos” or any other awkward pronunciation. It’s pronounced simply how it is spelled.
The Gradius series has withstood the test of time with the first technical iteration in 1981 and the most recent actual game released in 2008 (Gradius ReBirth on Wii). In that time the series has graced almost every console and portable that has come out, although recent iterations have been predominantly collections. Not only that, the series is responsible for a few offshoots including my favorite shmup of all time, Salamander (Life Force in US), and the Parodius series. Despite critics rightfully complaining that each new title in the series seems to harken back to the original, I feel it is the series staples that keep dedicated fans and strong sales. I grew up knowing this series on the NES, although I am told that in Japan and Europe it has a more significant presence on the MSX. Like all shmups, it does bury its roots in the early days of the arcade and to me is still on that short list of video games you must play before you die. Nowadays the list of titles is quite long, but after recently playing the series over last week, I still find the original title (not necessarily first in the series) to be the most significant.
Review: Abobo’s Big Adventure (PC/Mac/Flash)
There have been a lot of games, especially in the indie scene, that harken back to the days of 8-bit and 16-bit systems. Some do an incredible job of capturing that retro feel, developer Way Forward should be commended for work on titles like Contra 4, and other efforts like Capcom’s Dark Void Zero attempt to take modern game design and give it that retro flair. Those are major companies, though, the small team indie developers are much more miss than hit, so you go into a title like Abobo’s Big Adventure with the overused term “cautiously optimistic”. Fortunately the teams of I-Mockery (design/sound/story), Pestoforce (programming) and Pox Box (art/animation) have created exactly what was advertised: the ultimate tribute to the NES.
Review: Adventure Island (NES)
Console: Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
Released: 1988
Developer: Hudson Soft
Publisher: Hudson Soft
Famicom? Yes (as Takahashi Meijin no Bouken Shima)
Instruction Manual: Not necessary – Link
Difficulty: Easy
Played it as a child? Yes
Value: $4.75 (used) $100.00 (new) (pricecharting.com)
Price (eBay): $8-$15 (used) $600 (new)
Digital Release? Yes – Virtual Console (NES version) – $5.00
What Are You Supposed To Do?
Much in the same vein of Super Mario Bros., your goal is to navigate caveman Master Higgins through various levels and avoid enemies along the way. You can collect weapons that are used to kill enemies, lots of platforming sections, and a boss battle completes the third or fourth level of each “world”.
Review
I know I’m going to get some criticism saying that Adventure Island is easy, but it very much is. Even as a child it didn’t take long to see the ending and the lass boss had a very simplified pattern that I could quickly learn. That doesn’t prevent this title from being one of the best games and series to grace the NES and anyone who hasn’t played Hudson’s classic platformer should make this a must play. After having its name proudly on most top 100 and even a few top 10 lists for the NES, not to mention the millions in sales it achieved when it came out, this game is what you look for in an NES title.
Review: 1942 (NES)
What Are You Supposed To Do?
As far as shooters go, this is as simple as it gets. You need to navigate your plane and shoot down all other planes. You are given 3 lives and can collect power-ups for your guns as well as assistant planes. In a pinch, the A button can be pressed to make you temporarily invulnerable. You have 32 missions, each one the goal is to go from beginning to end without dying.
Review
Gaming History 101 