Pendulous (PC, 1992-1995) Shareware Version 2.4 Review – A Great Simple Strategy Game

Posted on August 24, 2015 by Brian

This is a new review for a game I’ve liked for a long time.  It’s not usually something to play for hours and hours at once, but is great fora game here and there.  The basic graphics don’t matter, the great gameplay holds up fantastically!

2019 Edit: This review has been slightly edited to finally include mention of the full game, which the original creator released for free after finding this review, and to cover an emulator I learned about recently that makes running 16-bit applications in 64-bit Windows easy.  A few spelling errors were also corrected.  The rest of the review has been left as it is.

Game Info

  • Title: Pendulous, or alternately High Command
  • Released: First version 1.0 released 1992; Final version 2.4 released 1995
  • Platform: PC (Windows 3.1 and above 16-bit application)
  • Developer: Kamyan Software (Ken Carlino)

Introduction

Pendulous is a turn-based strategy game for the PC released in the mid ’90s that was developed by a pretty much unknown team called Kamyan Software. Kamyan Software only made a couple of games, but with how good this one is it’d have been nice to see more from them. The game apparently was originally released as High Command, but changed to Pendulous with the first patch, and that is the name I have always known it as. It was originally a Windows 3.1 game, but works on any modern 32-bit Windows OS as well. I don’t know about 64-bit compatibility, I haven’t tried it. The game is a simple game, with only one unit type, but it is also deep thanks to the supply system. Pendulous is a lot of fun to play, and it’s a game that I keep coming back to again and again to play a game of here and there. Sadly I only have the shareware version, but the final shareware version is quite full-featured, so that’s not so bad. I’d love to have the full version, but sadly I didn’t buy it back then and finding it now seems to be impossible. Too bad. The final shareware version does have nag screens asking you to pay for a game that you now can’t pay for even if you wanted to, but they don’t detract much from the game. I have played two different shareware versions of the game, one earlier and the other newer. I will mostly be talking about the newer one here because it has a lot more features — the first shareware version doesn’t let you save user maps, among other things!  It was so incredible when, in the early 2000s, I found that there was a newer shareware version that adds in that feature, it added years and years of life into the game. Pendulous really is a very good game, and I’ve wanted to review it for a while because it is quite obscure but deserves to be much better-known.  Pendulous is great, play it!

Later Edit: In a comment to this article, the original creator of the game decided to release the final registered version of the game for free on his website, which was pretty amazing news. Thank you very much!  See the link in the comment below for the game.  My pack of levels and AI linked at the bottom of this post is a nice compliment for the full game, or make your own maps yourself.

Start - Random

Early in the game in a Random map. I am playing as Green. Note that this is in the replay viewer so the whole map is visible; while playing the actual game, Random mode has fog of war fully on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Basics

First I will mention the modes, features, and graphical tiles that make up this game, and talk about the graphics and sound as well.

Modes and Features

Pendulous is a turn-based strategy game with some wargame elements, so your goal in each game is to defeat your enemies and conquer the map. The game has a few modes and lots of options within each one. You can play a normal game on a pre-created map, play a three player game on a random map with a neutral AI opponent holding much of the map, create your own map, or edit the AI settings and save a custom AI. Technically the random-map mode is just a normal map called Random, but it’s a very special normal map unlike the ones you make yourself, so it definitely deserves to be listed separately.  There is no campaign, at least in the shareware, only single maps. That’s fine, this kind of game works great with each game self-contained.

Pendulous is a turn-based strategy game for two to four factions per game. There is no diplomacy in this game, only combat — you win by defeating all other factions by conquering all of their cities, or by having the most points when the turn limit is reached… and you get points by holding territory and cities. Cities are really the heart of the game, the supply system works from them. You also eliminate opponents by conquering all of their cities.   Game length varies, but games rarely take too long; games over half an hour long are on the long side.  How long a game takes will depend on the size of the map, the number of turns allowed, and how long it takes someone to win. Games can be short or moderate length, but Pendulous matches won’t go on for hours.  You can save a game in progress, but games are short enough that I usually just play a full game in one sitting. The game has no online play support, but does support up to four player local alternating multiplayer, or one player against up to three computers, depending on how many factions the map supports.  After selecting your map you choose whether a human or computer will control each faction, and then which AI each computer will run.

Overall, considering the modes available, the customization options in the editors are great, I really like them!  The map and AI editors add a huge amount to the game.  Between the built-in map, Random maps, and maps I make myself, I play the maps I made myself the most often, but random maps are a nice change from the usual.  They can be easy or hard depending on layout and starting positions.  I wish that I had the registered version so I could see what other maps the original creator made, but this shareware version is great as it is.

Terrain types

This image is a cutout of the types of ground you can lay down in the map editor, to show all of them together. The top row selects the player, the bottom the four types of terrain.

Tiles and Units

Ground – Normal ground. Armies can be placed here. How difficult enemy-held normal ground is to capture will depend on how many allied and enemy units are touching that space. Pendulous does not have mountains or anything like that, so normal ground represents all earth that doesn’t have armies or cities on it.

Ground with an army on it – This is normal ground, but with a unit placed on it. It will be harder to capture than normal ground without units on it. It’s important to note that you can only place armies on normal ground, not on cities or water. Armies do not have multiple hit points, health bars, or the like — if they lose a battle (or go out of supply for too long) they will be destroyed. Only one army can ever be on one space at any one time, you cannot stack troops.

City – Cities are the most important things in this game. You win a game of Pendulous by capturing all enemy cities; this is the only win condition. You cannot place a unit on a city, so the best way to defend them is to surround them with troops. Once a faction has lost all their cities they are eliminated, so protect them! Supply also radiates out from cities, so watch out. I will explain the supply system below, but essentially you must always control a path from a city to your troops.

Water – Water is an obstacle, you cannot move onto it or take control of it. If water-crossings have been turned on, any player with a city touching the water (make sure to place these in your map if you want water crossings to work) can then attack any other space in the body of water that that city touches. Remember supply, though! An attack at a distant place must take a city on turn one or else it will fail.

And that’s it, those are the only types of terrain in Pendulous.   They really are all that the game needs; the game has plenty of depth in its gameplay strategically, it does not need more complex map options.

Graphics

The game looks like it was originally World War II-themed, but there are six different tilesets available to change the visual look of the game. I prefer the basic Original style, which was the only graphical look available in the earlier shareware version of this game I first played.  Original is the tileset seen in most of the screenshots in this review.  The other types look kind of ugly or are a bit harder to see territory in. Most of the other themes have larger squares than Original, which means you can see less map in the same amount of space, and also don’t fully color in squares with the owner’s color but instead just have a border for the owner’s color with a standard color in the middle, which makes telling what your territory is a bit more difficult.  Also, the “better” graphics in the alternate tilesets look even more dated than the basic one, really — this game is from the mid ’90s and looks it, and those alternate tilesets really make this stand out while Original has a more timelessly simple look. I recommend sticking with the classic tileset, and not using the ships, tanks, or other options. The game looks okay for a low-budget shareware game from its time, but it is definitely the gameplay that makes this game so fun to this day, not the dated and mediocre visuals.

Sound

The only sounds you will hear in this game are a generic ‘Attack’ sound when an army attacks another one, and a generic ‘placed unit’ sound when an army is put down on the map. That is it.  There are different sounds for each graphical tileset, though, appropriate for the theme; that’s a nice touch. Any other audio you’ll have to provide yourself, but that’s fine, I usually just play without music, but it’s easy enough to turn some music on, or a Youtube video, or what have you, while playing Pendulous. I don’t mind the nearly-nonexistent audio, the game is fine as it is. Now, on to the details of how the game plays.

During the game

Mid-game during the game from the first image above. I have eliminated Grey and now are fighting Red on two fronts.

Gameplay

There are three main gameplay elements to explain: Supply, placing and moving armies, and combat. I will explain each now, with some gameplay strategy suggestions in each section as well. After that I will cover other important subjects, including the AI and strategies against it, how you win each game, and customization options the game has.

Supply

The supply system is the core of Pendulous. Supply radiates out of your cities to all spaces that you control, in any of the eight directions from each space. There is no limit to the amount of supply a single city will provide, or degradation over distance or anything like that, you just need all land and armies always connected to at least one city at all times. If enemies cut off some of your land and troops from all of your cities, or capture all of your cities in an area, after that turn ends the cut-off armies and ground turn dark. These troops and spaces now are helpless, and any enemy who attacks them will automatically win every time and take the space. In addition, after the affected player’s next turn, all units on dark spaces will be lost and the tiles will become blank spaces. You can lose whole large blocks of armies this way if things go badly, which can be very difficult or impossible to recover from if you are in a bad situation. I love the supply system in this game, it makes the game a lot more interesting than it would be if you just placed armies around and attacked territory.

Placing and Moving Armies

At the beginning of each turn, each player gets a number of resources and reinforcement armies, with the number of each you get depending on the game settings for armies and resources per turn and city.  Every turn, each player gets to do two things: first place any new armies they have gotten, and then move current armies. Remember, there may only ever be one army on any one space, and you can’t put armies on cities, so they will spread out all over the map in a hurry during games of Pendulous. On the first turn of each game armies may only be placed on your own territory, but after that you can attack both with new and current armies. You have a limited number of moves each turn, in addition to the limited number of armies you get each turn, so you need to carefully consider what you want to do. You can end a turn whenever you want from the menu. Unused moves and troops carry over from one turn to the next, and as I said earlier the maximum amount of troops and armies you can have at any one time depends on the settings chosen by the map creator in the editor.

In addition to placing armies, you can also move armies that you previously placed on the map. If you click on an army of yours, instead of empty ground, you will pick up the army on that space. This will use up one move, though. This army then goes into your army queue, for use in attacks or placing on empty ground you control, so moving an army from one space to another uses up two moves, one to pick it up and the second to put it down.  You often have more resources than armies, but in maps which give you more resources than armies, which is how the built-in maps and some of the maps I’ve made work, this is even more true so you really need to consider how to use your troops — having more resources than troops encourages offense to the point of stripping your defenses bare.  But if you don’t attack, the enemy will… A delicate balance between the two is required.

Combat and Basic Strategy

Combat in Pendulous is simple as expected, but has depth to it. Yes, there is only one unit type, the basic army, and units die in one hit, but because only one army can be on any one space at a time, because you have limited units and moves in your queue each turn, and because of the support and attack-chance systems, you need to carefully consider each attack. Before attacking, a percentage displayed on the screen shows how likely victory is if you attack that space. Once you have clicked on an enemy-controlled space while you still have armies and moves left, an attack begins.  Whether it succeeds or fails depends on a percentage chance, the Success rating seen in the right bar on the screenshots, but multiple factors affect that win-chance percent. First, if you have armies touching the space you are attacking, your chance of winning goes up. If the enemy has units touching that space, the chance goes down. Cities will similarly affect these values, though not as much as armies do I think. This means that lines of troops support each other and make breaking through the line more difficult than it is for scattered groups of troops.  However, as mentioned previously, you often need to use those defensive lines for attacks, so it’s important to carefully consider which troops to leave and which you can remove.  The unit effectiveness rating for each side present will also raise or lower your chance of winning if the sides have been set at anything other than the default 100%, as well. And importantly, each time you attack a space your chance of winning the next time goes up by a couple of percentage points.

So, if you have a lot of armies to burn, you will eventually probably win even in low-percentage attacks, but that is pretty bad strategy. It is almost always better to first set up a better by getting multiple troops on tiles touching the enemy, so as to raise your chances of success.  Chip away  at their formation on any corners of their block of armies, instead of just attacking right into the middle of a line.  Attacking over water is best done away from a city and with a good supply of armies and resources, because you won’t have any bonuses because of adjoining troops so winning that first tile can be tough. And the difficulties don’t end there with over-water attacks — you will need to take a city that turn, or else those troops will turn black after your turn ends because they are not in supply and the land will immediately be retaken by the enemy.

And that’s basically it as far as gameplay systems go.  The game is simple and yet complex, as the best strategy board games are.  It is a fascinating and great strategy game that few people played but many more should.

AI and AI Strategy

I have only ever played this game against the AI, not human opponents. There are three default AIs that come with the game, plus I’ve tried to modify some to make them a bit better. The AI is restricted to the same rules as the player, so if you turn on the fog of war options it WILL affect the AI too, it won’t cheat. That’s fantastic.  In games with fog of war, each AI opponent can only see what their vision should allow, they do not share info or look at the whole map to win.  I do love this, but it has one downside — when Fog of War is on, the AI can be pretty bad at finding cities.  It just haven’t managed to find a setting aggressive enough to do the amount of scouting for cities that you need to do when the map starts covered.  Outside of that, I have made the AI tougher and a bit better, but I’m not good enough at this kind of thing to really maximize AI difficulty, I don’t think.  Maybe some issues cannot be fixed, but others probably could if someone better at getting the most out of those AI-editor options tried, so I’d love to see that.

Each of the three built-in AIs has its own characteristics — the Berzerk AI will attack deep into enemy territory without regard for protecting its own, Explorer will explore the map a lot, and Balance will do a better job of defense than Berzerk, balancing offense and defense. Berzerk might be the toughest of them, because there is no more dangerous situation in this game than when an enemy breaks through your lines, when you have a row of troops on your border but not armies surrounding your cities behind because of the usually-low maximum-armies-allowed limits, and start taking over city after city in what used to be safe territory. You can try this yourself as well, of course, though I generally prefer for a more cautious style that better protects my cities. Games of Pendulous can be over in a handful of turns, or if the map allows it they can take 50 or rarely even a hundred turns of back and forth attacks before finally either someone wins or you hit the turn limit. There’s nothing like the tense feeling when you’ve been backed into a corner and make a breakthrough, conquering a bunch of enemy cities while other factions fight each other elsewhere, though, or when you slowly march up a map conquering all in your way!

Victory!

I won! The whole map is mine. I even found that little island hiding in the corner through some tedious pixel-hunting (remember, fog of war hides such places).

Victory

Games of Pendulous only formally end once the turn limit is reached, they won’t end once one faction has conquered the whole map. Effectively, though, once I’ve conquered it all the game is over, so instead of hitting ‘end turn’ a hundred times if I won 100 turns into a 200-turn game, I’ll just end the match there. I do wish that the game would end automatically after you conquer everything. The issue is, I’d rather have games end by conquest and not by running out of turns, but setting high turn counts means the games will probably never formally end. Ah well, though, this works. When a game does formally end, the winner is the one with the highest score. You get points based on the amount of territory you control, with more points for cities than just empty tiles. At the end of each turn a tally screen shows the current rankings, unless you disable it in the menu, so you know approximately how everyone is doing at the end of each turn.

Replays

Pendulous automatically keeps track of what has happened during each game, and after a game ends or you end it, you can watch a replay of the whole game. You can also save replays when you want. It’s quite fun to, at the end of a match, watch the game unfold through its replay. It’s a great feature to have. I’d recommend turning on the minimap while watching replays, it’s nice to watch it change colors as the game progresses.

AI Editor

The AI editor. You’ve got a lot of settings to change!

Customization

Again, one thing I really like about Pendulous is the customization. In the map editor, you can significantly affect how the game will play for each faction on that map through the options. You can set the number of turns, whether Fog of War (black covering the map until it has been revealed) is on, whether you can see all troops on revealed parts of the map or only on spaces touching your own, how effective each sides’ armies are (that is, you can make a sides’ troops less likely to win battles), you can change the number of armies per city and per turn each different player gets (so one player can get more troops than another for the same amount of territory), whether you can attack across water or not, and more.

It’s fantastic that you can change all these settings, because messing with the number of turns, army strengths, number of armies and resources you get for each city and turn, and such have a huge impact on how each different map plays. I like making uneven maps where one faction has more territory but weaker armies, or one has more resources per turn but another gets more units per city, for example. Mixing things up makes things pretty interesting.

As for the AI editor, in that editor you get a whole bunch of slider bars to mess with, to try to make the AI easier or harder, adjust their aggressive versus defensive instincts, and more. I’ve tried to make a tougher AI since once you’ve gotten good at it the game is a bit easy, but I’d love to see someone better at this try, mine are harder than the defaults but not by enough.

Custom Map

This is a custom map I made. Notice the uneven settings — different army effectiveness ratings, different number of resources, etc. It’s surely not balanced, but I don’t mind, that makes it interesting!

 

Performance

This game runs flawlessly in any 16-bit or 32-bit version of Windows, from Windows 3.1 to 10.  However, as Pendulous is a 16-bit Windows 1.1 game, it will not run natively in 64-bit versions of Windows.  For a long time this problem had me stuck, and I had to either use an older computer or a virtual machine or DOSBox Windows 3.1 install to play this game.  However, in 2019 I finally found the solution.  It’s a little program called OTVDM, or also known as WINEVDM. Wine is the main Windows emulator for Linux.  This program is basically a little Wine-based emulator for 64 bit versions of Windows 10 that ties in to 64-bit Windows’ ability to recognize 16-bit applications, and makes them work through the emulator instead. When properly installed it’s seamless, so you can just run 16-bit applications like normal. Not every program works, but most do, Pendulous included. It’s awesome stuff, and being able to easily play this game again is fantastic.

It can be found here: https://github.com/otya128/winevdm

Conclusion

Overall, I like this game a lot. Pendulous is a simple game — there are only four different terrain types, three if you don’t count armies as terrain. All you do is just place armies, try to take territory, and aim for the victory, there is little variety there. The simplicity makes the game easy to learn, but the great design and the challenge keep me coming back year after year. I’ve played a lot of this game over the years, and made dozens of maps, and I’m sure I will continue to play it in the future. The supply system keeps the game interesting, as battles over cities often get heated; the percent system behind battles ensures that you use strategy when you attack if you want to win without losing lots of your armies that you also will need to protect your territory; and the limits on units and moves each turn force you to use strategic thinking. Playing Pendulous is a constant balance between offense and defense, between pushing forward and using your troops to attack and holding those troops back to protect your cities and territory. It’s a brilliant game, one of the better unheralded strategy games I have played, and I love it. This is one of the best options around for a desktop-based simple strategy game to play perhaps while you are also doing something else so you don’t want to launch some full-screen application. Pendulous is great fun, play it! I give the game an A-.  The 2.4 shareware version easily deserves that score, and now that I have finally played the registered version I can say that the full version does as well.  With no nag screens and a few more scenarios it is better than the shareware, but only by a little; my favorite maps in this game have usually been the ones I make myself, not the pre-made ones in the game.  Regardless, Pendulous is a fantastic game any strategy game fan should play.

Links

– My Pendulous Maps – This is a link to a small 10KB Zip file collection of 16 old maps of mine, two AIs I made, and the three built-in maps Random, Counter, and R_Front, for anyone missing those default maps.  To use, just unzip the files into the Pendulous directory, that’s it.  The game doesn’t use subfolders.  The map Counter doesn’t come with the version linked below, so you’ll need that one at least.  It was only included with the first shareware version I played back in the ’90s. The shareware version downloadable from the links below only comes with R_Front and Random for maps, so do download this pack, and then make better maps of your own.  I hope more people play this game and share some maps too, I’d love to play others’ creations.

http://www.pixarra.com/pendulous.html – Or, as of several months after this article was originally written, download the full game from the creator’s website, since he has released it for free.

https://github.com/otya128/winevdm  – And lastly, again here is the link to the 16-bit Windows emulator for 64-bit versions of Windows 10.  It’s not hard to install and works very well and seamlessly.

http://web.archive.org/web/20060410080858/http://mujweb.atlas.cz/Zabava/Titans/Pendulous.htm – This is a great webpage that reviews the game and gives some nice strategy suggestions. The original page is dead now, but thankfully web.archive.org made a record of it so the page can still be read. Note that the “full game” link there is the shareware version 2.4.

http://www.s2company.com/file_cache2.php?fcat=A** – This page has a short one-paragraph review of the game at the top, and links a download for the version 2.4 shareware version of the game as well.

http://www.mobygames.com/company/kamyan-software – Mobygames has a little bit more information about Kamyan Software. Note that the game is listed as “High Command” in their database. They have very little information about the game itself on the site.

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Nintendo 64 Game Opinion Summaries Addition: 26 new summaries

Posted on August 13, 2015 by Brian

So, after a comment asking for more of these for the N64, I decided to do an update to my N64 list, covering the 26 games I have bought since the last update in late 2013.  There are 26 new game summaries. 25 are games I bought since the last update in late 2013, and one is a game I overlooked somehow before, Off-Road Challenge. 17 of these games are Japanese import titles, and only 9 US releases, so this is an import-heavy list. I have only actually beaten a couple of these games, so this is as much first-impressions as it is reviews, as usual for Game Opinion Summaries — I cover everything I have. I know they’re kind of long for “short-ish” summaries, but there’s quite a bit to say about each game.

As always, I list the number of players the game supports, save type, and any supported accessories after the title, and other platforms the game is available on at the end of the review. Most of these games are N64-exclusive titles, though, so few of them have other platform listings.

Table of Contents

64 Trump Collection: Alice to Waku Waku Trump World (J)
Baku Bomberman 2 (J) [Bomberman 64: The Second Attack]
Bomberman 64 (J) [2001]
Custom Robo V2 (J)
Doraemon 2: Nobita to Hikari no Shinden (J)
F1 Pole Position 64
Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko
Goemon Mononoke Sugoroku (J)
Jinsei Game 64 (J)
Jikkyo Powerful Pro Baseball 5 (J)
Let’s Smash (J)
Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness
Mysterious Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer 2 (J)
Nuclear Strike 64
Off-Road Challenge
Puyo Puyo Sun 64 (J)
Rat Attack
Super Mario 64: Rumble Pak Edition (J)
Super Robot Spirits (J)
Super Robot Taisen 64 (J) [aka Super Robot Wars 64]
Superman
Susume! Taisen Puzzle Dama (J)
Uchhannanchan no Honoo no Challenger: Denryuu IraIra Bou (J) [Irritating Stick]
Wave Race 64: Rumble Pak Edition (J)
WinBack: Covert Operations
World Driver Championship

The Summaries


64 Trump Collection: Alice to Waku Waku Trump World (J) [aka Alice’s WakuWaku Trump World 64] – 1 player, saves to cartridge. This is a card game collection with 13 different card games all on one cart. In addition to being able to play any of the games individually, the main mode is a story mode, where you play as Alice from Alice in Wonderland and face off against various characters from the story, one card game at a time. As with those games or Yoshi’s Story, the game has a storybook look to it, with paper-cutout sprite characters in 3d environments. Matches take place in a variety of nice 3d environments, each one one page of the storybook you are playing through made into a full 3d environment. The game has great graphics that remind me a lot of Paper Mario or Dr. Mario 64’s cutscenes, but this game actually released several years before either of those.

Of course, the story and game instructions are all entirely in Japanese, which makes playing the game a little harder for those who can’t read the language. I highly recommend getting a complete copy of the game, because the manual has additional instructions for each game, and mentions English-language names for each cardgame, which is very helpful; ingame it’s all Japanese script. The cardgames in the manual are organized in the order you will play them in the story mode, which is also quite helpful. In order, using the names as listed in the manual first followed by names the games are better-known as in parenthesis, the card games here are Shinkeisuijyaku (aka Concentration), Babanuki (aka Old Maid), Shichinarabe (aka Sevens), Speed, Doubt, Page One (a Japanese card game), Daihugo (aka Daifugo or Daihinmin; another Japanese cardgame), Seven Bridge, Poker (video poker, I think it is), Blackjack, Klondike [classic Solitaire; wrongly spelled as “Chrondike” in the manual), Freecell (“Freesell”, the manual says), and Dobon (an Uno-ish Japanese cardgame).

So, the games are definitely an interesting mix with a good amount of variety, as far as card games go. Quite a few of the games were unfamiliar to me, but I eventually figured out the rules of each one. The ingame text explaining possible winning hand scores and such in Poker and Blackjack is, for some reason, English, unlike most of the rest of the text, so that’s nice. Still, there is a definite language barrier, particularly for the games I wasn’t familiar with. The game does have one other issue, other than the language barrier: 64 Trump Collection is single player only. That’s an understandable problem, because card games rely on each person not being able to see the others’ cards, but it’s still unfortunate, this kind of thing is the most fun played against others. Still, this game was a nice surprise. I got it randomly because it was really cheap, and it ended up being pretty good. The visuals are particularly nice, and the gameplay is good. For a card-game collection 64 Trump Collection is better than most, it’s not just Solitaire, Poker, and/or Blackjack like most card-game videogames are. Recommended, if you find it for a good price.


Baku Bomberman 2 (J) [aka Bomberman 64: The Second Attack] – 4 player simultaneous (in battle mode only), saves to cartridge. Baku Bomberman 2, released in the US as Bomberman 64: The Second Attack, is the sequel to 1997’s Bomberman 64, which in Japan was known as Baku Bomberman. This is an okay game that disappointed me. But first, why get the import version of a US release? Well, as with Mario Party 3, the import was cheap, while US copies are quite expensive. There is a story in this game that I can’t understand, but the gameplay is not too complex, so it’s quite playable in Japanese. Baku Bomberman 2 changes things from its relatively popular predecessor. While Bomberman 64 was more of an attempt at a 3d platform/adventure Bomberman game, with large worlds to explore, missions for gold cards which are the games’ version of Mario 64 stars, a very unique multiplayer mode with 3d arenas and round explosions instead of the usual Bomberman cross-shaped-lines explosion, and more, it was one of a kind. This game, sadly, is not more of the same. Bomberman 64 does have some flaws — it’s too hard near the end, you don’t have a jump button, and teh graphics are mediocre at best, to name a few things — but it is a good game overall, and I really liked the attempt to make a larger 3d adventure game out of Bomberman. Sadly, Hudson never attempted it again. While there are a couple of 2d Bomberman adventure-styled games, in Bomberman Quest (GBC) and Bomberman Tournament (GBA), Bomberman 64 (1997) is the only such game on any console. I really wish they had made more, but maybe Hudson just couldn’t afford it or something. Bomberman 64 was followed up by the 3d platformer Bomberman Hero, which is fun but very different from standard Bomberman.

This game came next, and it’s probably less interesting than either of its predecessors, sadly. It’s much more linear and just doesn’t feel as interesting to play as either Bomberman 64 or Hero. This game mostly just plays as a sequence of rooms. Enter a room, viewed from a side-isometric angle, kill the enemies, figure out the puzzles for how to proceed, and continue. While explosions are still round in single player, the multiplayer sadly ditches them in favor of classic cross-shaped explosions. Along the way you collect a variety of Pokemon-styled creatures that Hudson as putting in Bomberman games at the time; they are also in several GBC/GBA Bomberman games. This game is 3d, but the side view limits things when compared to Bomberman 64, and it’s not a full-on platformer like Hero. It’s an okay game, but my interest in it fades quickly, apart from a few fun moments here and there; I’d much rather play a more interesting game. Sadly, Bomberman games after this one wouldn’t improve things — the last two 3d-world Bomberman games, Generation and Jetters (for GC/PS2), are even worse than this game. Hudson was great in the ’90s, but after two initial interesting efforts couldn’t figure out how to improve on their ideas for 3d Bomberman, and it shows. This game retreats on many things from the first game, but isn’t classic 2d Bomberman either. It feels generic, as you run around, blow things up, and progress. The multiplayer is similarly okay, but disappointing. Returning from Bomberman 64 are the 3d arenas, but they now have cross-shaped explosions instead of round ones, making hitting people a bit harder. I do like that the 3d arenas are back though, the two Bomberman 64 games are the only two games ever in the series with anything like them; Generation/Jetters ditch them entirely for 2d-style multiplayer. Classic Bomberman multiplayer is pretty good, probably better overall from that in Bomberman 64, but I like having the option to try something different. It’s too bad that they abandoned this style in favor of only 2d multiplayer, after this game. Overall though, Bomberman 64: The Second Attack is an average game. It’s decent and can be fun at times, but for the price the US version goes for I can’t recommend it. Maybe do pick up the import if you see a cheap copy of it though (and modify your system to play Japanese games).


Bomberman 64 (J) [2001] – 4 player simultaneous, saves to cartridge. Bomberman 64, the Japanese game, is the fifth and final Bomberman game on the N64, and, releasing in December 2001, the last N64 game released in Japan. Unlike its predecessors on the platform, this game is entirely 2d, and uses no polygons at all, just sprites. This game is a collection of several ‘minigames’, I guess it might be best to say. That is, there are several modes, none of them as full-featured as Bomberman games that focus on that mode are. It’s a cool collection, but I do find the sparse featuresets within each mode disappointing. The visuals are mostly nice, though; it’s solid classic 2d Bomberman and looks good.

The first mode is classic Bomberman, single-player. In this mode, you go through a series of branching levels. Gameplay is classic Bomberman, with a square grid, with posts and then breakable blocks around them that your bombs will destroy. Your goal in each stage is to kill all of the enemies walking around. Many stages do scroll, so they aren’t just one screen. The gameplay is great and is plenty of fun. I like the visuals too; Bomberman games changed their art styles regularly, and this is probably one of the better-looking ones. I like the look a lot more than the SNES games, certainly. The music is good happy stuff, too. The problem here is that it’s over far too soon. There are only maybe seven to ten stages per game, so the playtime is very short; most classic 2d Bomberman games have at lest 25 levels. The game does have replay value because of the branching paths, though; you can see different stages each time for a while. Still, it’s short and easy to finish. When you win, the game gives you your finishing time, and saves the top times in the records section of the menu. Each stage looks different, and the visual variety is nice. Still, I’d have rather seen a longer game, this is really short. It’s not hard to finish a run through the mode in half an hour. At least it’s quite fun and nice-looking while it lasts, though!

There is also a classic Bomberman multiplayer mode. You’ve got a variety of stages to play on, but all are similar traditional grids; there are no weird stages like those in Bomberman 64 (US) in this game. Of course it’s also four players max, as opposed to the five in the Turbografx games or eight in Saturn Bomberman. Still, it’s a great classic Bomberman multiplayer mode.

Next is a stripped-down version of Panic Bomber. Panic Bomber is the Bomberman puzzle game, and it’s basically a Tetris knockoff. As in Tetris blocks drop down a well-shaped field, and you have to place them. Making it different are the bomb blocks, which can only be destroyed by lit bombs. This gives the game an element of Puzzle Fighter’s crash gems to it. This isn’t nearly as great as that game, though. Panic Bomber is a decent puzzle game, but it’s not one of my favorites; it’s a bit too hard to destroy the bombs, sometimes. Another issue is that this version is very simplistic visually, and has no modes. All you can do is single matches against either an AI opponent or other humans. It does have support for up to four player splitscreen, but the Turbo CD and SNES (both Japan-only releases; why Nintendo brought over the Virtual Boy version in 1995 for a US release but not also the SNES one I have no idea) have five player splitscreen, so that’s nothing new, and those games have actual single-player story modes which this does not have. There are no choices for backgrounds either in this version, just one very plain one. SO yeah, Panic Bomber here is okay, but not as good as I was hoping.

Last but probably not least, there is a Bomberman Land-styled minigame collection. Bomberman Land was a series of minigame Bomberman titles that lasted from the late ’90s to late ’00s, starting on the PS1. None of the early titles in the series released outside of Japan, but we did get some of the later ones on the DS, Wii, and PSP. In this version, you play as Bomberman and wander around an amusement park. Each ‘ride’ is a minigame. There are maybe ten or fifteen of them here, far fewer than there would be in a dedicated Bomberman Land game, but it is the only Bomberman Land-style game on the N64, so there is that. The main issue here is that some games do have a bit of a language barrier because the instructions are in Japanese, but fortunately none of them are too complex, and I figured them out. Wandering around the little park is also fun, though it’d be better if I knew what the people are saying of course (language barrier…). This is the only mode with much of any Japanese text, but it does have a good amount of it. Still, I like having this. It’s a fun little minigame collection. The full Bomberman Land games are better, but they don’t come with as many other modes as this game; they’re usually just that and usually also classic Bomberman multiplayer and that’s it.

Overall, Bomberman 64 (2001, Japan) is a good game, but I was hoping for more. This game has a reputation for being ‘the 2d N64 Bomberman game’, and it is that, but it’s also a collection of games, none of which are as full-featured as similar games on other platforms. It is nice that it compiles all of them together, and on a platform that doesn’t have other versions of any of the games present here, though. The visuals are also nice, or at least they are everywhere other than the somewhat plain-looking Panic Bomber, and the music is good. It’s worth getting for series fans or if you find it affordably.


Custom Robo V2 (J) – 4 player, but only 2 player simultaneous (2 v 2 with only 1 active at any one time) in multiplayer mode, saves to cartridge. This game is the second in a great series of 3d robot fighting game action-RPGs. The series kind of feels like a much better version of Virtual-On, with RPG elements. It’s set in a future world where people solve many conflicts with matches fought in little arenas by tiny robots they control. I covered the first game previously, but now also have the sequel. Custom Robo V2 is the second Custom Robo game, and the last one on the N64. As with the first game, it did not see a Western release because Nintendo of America was stupid and didn’t think that these great games would sell. We DEFINITELY should have seen at least one of them! We did eventually get the GC and DS games, but the first three should have had US releases as well, to help fill in some of those N64 software droughts. Gameplay-wise, Custom Robo V2 is very, very similar to the first game. Gameplay is just as great as before, and again running around in the arenas fighting feels fantastic. The graphics have been slightly improved, but the framerate is just as high, which is very important for a game like this. It’s absolutely key to the greatness of Custom Robo that even the N64 games run fast and smooth! The new arenas aren’t too different fro the old ones, though. Each game has new arenas to fight in, but all are fairly similar in being small-ish squares with various walls and such in them. The combat system is, as always, centered around three weapon types, a gun type you shoot, a bomb type you launch at an angle, and a slower rocket or mine type. You can also do damage with your running charge move. The game controls great, and there are a lot of different weapons to try out. Of course the names are all in Japanese, but it’s fun enough to try the various ones regardless of language.

However, apart from the new story, which you won’t understand anyway unless you speak Japanese, four player 2v2 tag-team multiplayer mode, and additional robot parts and arenas to fight in, it’s basically the same thing as the first game. The controls are the same (good, but the same), the types of weapons are the same, and the story is similar though new. The limitations on the 4 player mode are particularly disappointing. One of the most fun things in Custom Robo for Gamecube are the four-player matches, and I’d have loved to see them on the N64 as well! Maybe the hardware just can’t handle it, but still it’d have been great to see, four robots going around at the same time makes things more exciting than just two. Otherwise, this feels almost like an expansion pak, it really is more of the same. In the story mode, as with all five Custom Robo games, you play as a generic anime guy, they never let you play as a different kind of character. This is a different guy from the one in the first game, so it is a new story. As with the first game, your boy hero starts out just learning about Custom Robo, but eventually will go on to do greater things with his tiny little fighting robot. You are the hero after all! As far as a language barrier here goes, Custom Robo games are sort of RPGs so I don’t understand the story, but the games have simple and linear structures, so regardless of language you can’t get lost or confused for too long, you’ll figure out where to go quickly. Again the game starts out in school, as with the first game; in this series, the GC title is the only one to break away from the school-centric story concept so common to anime. Overall, Custom Robo V2 is a great game, but it’s so similar to the first game that I don’t know if having both of them is really necessary. Definitely get at lest one, though! And both, if you love this kind of game.


Doraemon 2: Nobita to Hikari no Shinden (J) – 1 player, saves to cartridge. This game is a sequel to the first N64 Doraemon game. Of course, as in all Doraemon games, you play as Doraemon the robot cat, the popular childrens’ manga and anime character. Doraemon 2 is a more ambitious game than the first one, which I covered previously, but for the non-Japanese speaker it probably isn’t a better game. While the first N64 Doraemon game is a fairly basic 3d platformer with some adventure elements in the overworld, this time the game is a 3d platform/adventure game. The game has a sizable world to explore, better graphics than the first game, people to talk to and (overlong) cutscenes, and plenty of puzzles of both the inventory and jumping varieties. The camera is pulled overhead so the view distance is limited, but you can go to first person by hitting R, though you can’t move in first-person mode. When you go to first person you see that there is no fog, you can see to the horizon. That’s nice, but the environments are average at best for the N64, and probably aren’t even that. The game looks okay, nothing more. Doraemon 2 has good controls and multiple playable characters, as you will sometimes play as the children instead of Doraemon. One important thing to know about Doraemon 2 is that it isn’t an action game; you do explore a world, but there are no enemies wandering around it. The few enemies I’ve seen are ones you “fight” with inventory puzzles, not action combat. In the game you mostly wander around, find items and try to figure out where to use them, talk to people, and jump around. You often need specific items to progress. The game does have a day-night cycle, and you gradually lose health at night because the children are scared, so you’ll need to find your way to a savepoint and rest when night comes. That’s a nice, touch, is one of the few ways I’ve found so far to actually run out of health in this game. A combat element, like most other Doraemon games have, might have been good, but it does work as an adventure/platform game. Maybe there’s something later? As far as I am though there isn’t any combat command, you don’t shoot by hitting a button or something. So maybe not.

Because of the more ambitious design Doraemon 2 is probably a better game than its predecessor, but it also has a much higher language barrier; figuring out what to do in this game is tough right from the beginning! The far too long cutscenes are even more boring when you can’t read the text, either. Some bits are voiced, but there are a lot of text boxes. The game uses no kanji though, appropriate for the young audience the game is for. But for non-Japanese speakers, there is very little on the internet to help you figure out how to play the game — there are a couple of videos of the beginning of the game, but that’s all I found, and it’s not helpful for long. This is a problem in a puzzle-heavy game like this one, figuring out what to do is frustrating. I haven’t gotten all this far in this game, it’s hard to keep playing when I have no idea what to do. One tricky bit early on involved having to find some items, one of which was hidden on a buildings’ roof, somewhere I didn’t think to look. People who can read Japanese will get more out of this game for sure, but I was a bit disappointed that it wasn’t more of a 3d platformer. There is platforming in this game, but exploring the world gets boring when I’m just walking around in circles because I don’t know what my objective is. Just trying to interact with everything and using every item everywhere gets old after a while. And while the game looks decent, and they improved things over the fairly basic-looking first N64 Doraemon game, this isn’t a great-looking game for sure; the N64 can do much better than you see here. Still, Doraemon 2 is at average overall, anyway. I probably wouldn’t recommend it to people unless they really like the series or can read Japanese, though. There is also a third game, which is supposed to be somewhat similar in design to this one.


F1 Pole Position 64 – 1 player, saves to controller pak (70 pages required). F1 Pole Position 64 is a poorly-regarded racing game developed by Human Entertainment and improved for Western release by Ubisoft. This is a simple and arcadey F1 game, without the depth, complexity, challenge, or quality of an F1 World Grand Prix or Monaco Grand Prix. It is also the one and only racing game on the Nintendo 64 that does not have a multiplayer mode. On any other console single-player-only racing games are quite common, but not this one, so its absence here really stands out. Still, the game is better than I was expecting for something that seems to score between 4 and 6 out of 10. This definitely isn’t a good game, but there is some amusement to be found here if you like simple and straightforward racing games instead of sims. F1 Pole Position 64 has been improved over the original Japanese version, Human Grand Prix. According to IGN’s review, Ubisoft added the official F1 license, all 16 tracks from the F1 season in ’97, 22 real F1 drivers to race as with their real car designs, and all the branding and advertising from the real thing. They also improved the draw distance, apparently. However, the graphics are still bland and mediocre, and there is still some popup. This game has a fairly low polygon count, with very simple environments that lack detail. The textures, particularly of the omnipresent ad banners, are fairly good, though, they look quite clear. They’re all for real companies, and presumably came along with the F1 license. 16 cars are in each race, and the game can put at least most of them on screen at once, which is good. The framerate is also solid and doesn’t drop, though with graphics this simple I’d hope it would be. Audio, however, is poor — the music is weak, and car engine noise annoying and whiney.

Gameplay-wise, F1 Pole Position 64 is easy to learn. Just turn at the corners and brake when near a sharper turn, that’s about it. The game defaults to Easy AI difficulty, no car damage, and automatic transmission, so simplicity is the goal. You can turn up those settings if you want. There are also car settings to modify, so there is a bit of sim here. It’s nothing too complex, but the settings affect how your car handles, so they do matter. You can also pit in during races, to replace tires and fill up on gas. The game doesn’t have much in the way of good physics, things just bounce off eachother in a basic fashion. I found this game much easier than most other 3d F1 games; I finished 5th in my first race, and in races after that, except for one race where I managed to take too much damage with damage turned on (there isn’t a good indicator I could see that I was in danger, annoyingly), I finished well in every race, on Easy, without needing any great skill. It’s fun to be able to just play the game and do okay, and I’m sure turning up the difficulty would make the game harder, though people who want that probably should just play F1 World Grand Prix. The problem is though, this is still an F1 game, so races in the season mode are 10 laps long, and you need to do qualifying before that if you want to start anywhere other than last. That’s all a bit boring. There is no music ingame either, as usual in F1 games, and the bland gameplay isn’t exciting. It’s not too hard, but it’s not too fun either, doesn’t look great, controls only okay and not beyond that, and sounds kind of bad. Combine that with the absence of multiplayer, and F1 Pole Position 64 isn’t very good. All you can do here is play a season, single race, or time-trial, all as one of the 22 real drivers, there is no custom racer option, on the games’ 16 real-world tracks. The problem with this game is that those wanting a good F1 sim won’t play this because it’s a simpler, arcadey game, while those who want arcade-style racing games will play more fun games like F-Zero X, Excitebike 64, Rush, or what have you. This is in a boring middle ground along with stuff like Automobili Lamborghini, but maybe worse than that game. If you want a fun, arcadey open-world racing game on the N64, I recommend getting Indy Racing 2000; it’s good. Probably skip this game unless it sounds like fun to you. Still, it IS not quite as bad as I thought it would be, so there is that.


Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko – 1 player, saves to controller pak (1 block per file). Gex 3 is the third and last console Gex game, one of the many platformer series with a Sonic-style “cool” animal mascot. Gex’s character may be Sonic-inspired, though, but the gameplay is different. The basic concept of Gex is that he’s a TV-watching-obsessed gecko. So, each world in each Gex game is inspired by some type of TV show. The first game is a quality 2d platformer, but the sequels are 3d platformers. I covered Gex 2 in my PS1 Game Opinion Summaries list, but to recap, both games have very similar designs. The games have Mario 64-style hubs, with themed worlds branching out from there. Each world is themed after a type of movie or TV show, of course. This time, the first world is a snow level. Fortunately, the game is okay. Gex 3 is a nice improvement over Gex 2, which I didn’t like very much. It is a similar game, but the graphics, gameplay, level designs, and objectives are all better. Gex 3 is only a bit above average, but Gex 2 doesn’t reach average quality, so the improvement is welcome. The first level in this game is a lot more fun to play and explore than any level I saw in Gex 2. You’ve got a bunch of stuff to find, missions to attempt, and more, as in most 3d platformers of the era. Unfortunately, the controls hold the game back a bit. Even though you use the analog stick, you don’t really have true analog control here — instead, you can only move in eight or so directions. Apparently they did not fix the movement to account for having an analog stick on the N64, which is a problem in a genre all about moving around in 3d. Still, Gex 3 for N64 is a much better port than Gex 64, the N64 port of Enter the Gecko, was, by all accounts; I haven’t played Gex 64, but it’s supposed to be not very good, with a short draw distance, poor graphics, and more. The draw distance in this game is a lot better, and the graphics are improved all around. Graphically this game is no match for the better N64 3d platformers, but at least it looks decent, and even nice at times. The gameplay is about on that level as well. Overall Gex 3 isn’t great, but it is a decent, slightly above-average game. After Gex 2 I was expecting worse. Also on PS1; this is a port of the PS1 original.


Goemon Mononoke Sugoroku (J) – 4 player alternating, saves to cartridge, Transfer Pak compatible (links to the GBC version of the game). Ganbare Goemon: Mononoke Sugoroku is a Goemon-themed board game with RPG elements which Konami released only in Japan in late 1999. There is also a Game Boy Color version of the game, though I haven’t played it. I love the Goemon series, so I decided to finally get the last of the three N64 games, even if it is just a boardgame. The game has fantastic boxart with clay-style art of the characters and some of the monsters in the game. It’s really nice. After playing the game though, it’s not too hard to see why we didn’t get this game; the game is decent, but it’s just a boardgame, not a more full console experience. Digital boardgames like this often seemed to be more popular in Japan than the West. Fortunately, even though the game is entirely in Japanese, it’s fairly easy to understand with a little bit of practice. The “Mononoke” in the title refers to monsters, and this game is all about fighting monsters, here seen in the form of the cards in a boardgame-RPG. There are still a few things I don’t get, but most of the gameplay makes sense. First you choose a board, which there are only a couple of, and a character. All four of the standard Goemon characters are playable, and some others are unlockable. This game introduced a new costume for Yae; she now has a short kimono, instead of pants. I think I like the original costume more, but this is fine. The other three characters, Goemon, Ebisumaru, and Sasuke, look the same as ever. All characters are 2d sprites in this game, not polygon models like the previous two N64 Goemon games. They’re fairly well done, and the game is well-polished visually for what is here, but the budget here clearly is a lot lower than its predecessors. The music is still fantastic as usual in the series, though. I love the Goemon series’ classic-Japanese-style music. Still, I really wish Konami had made a third full-scale N64 Goemon game, instead of the not-great overly-serious 3d action-adventure game on the PS2 in 2000 and then those two mediocre PS1 2.5d platformers they tossed out in 2001… too bad. This is a good game, but some more variety and choice would have been nice. Each board has a circular path on it, so there are no branches, choices about where you go, or anything — you just travel around in a circle endlessly until someone wins. That’s a bit disappointing, some more interesting board maps would have been great.

Your goal in each game is to defeat your opponent or opponents. As in an RPG, each character has a health meter, and you lose health when you lose battles. To protect yourself, you can summon monsters and place them on spaces. Monsters take the form of cards, so when you land on a space you can only play the monster cards you actually have. There are also other kinds of cards, for direct attacks, healing, and such. You can equip cards on monsters, or use them on yourself. Cards with the sword icon can be equipped before a fight for a stat boost, while other cards can be used during a fight. Each turn you’ll get some new cards. Battles are simple, you or a monster you summon fight against the opponent and/or their monster. Each monster has an attack, defense, and health rating, and the attacker goes first. Damage is attack minus defense, and the defender attacks back if they survived. The battle system is super simplistic, but at least it’s not just Rock-Paper-Scissors such as Dokapon Kingdom for Wii, I don’t like that game much because of how random the battle system is. If a monster is killed extra damage is applied to that monsters’ player character, so you want to avoid losing monsters if you can. You want to avoid landing on enemy monster spaces, while hoping that the opponent(s) land on your monsters. Of course, a lot of this is random since die-rolls determine movement. I like the monster card art, some of it’s pretty nice. In addition to card boosts, you can also move monsters around from one space to spaces nearby. You can even move them onto enemy monster spaces and attack them, which can be helpful. The more skill-based RPG side to the game makes this game different from something like Monopoly where once you’ve built hotels and such on a space they’re stuck there forever; in this game you can move your “buildings” (monsters) around. Some spaces also have special functions such as healing you or your monsters, and you get money for each time you make a circuit around the board. For the most part though it’s not too complex of a game, centering around choosing good places for your monsters to be, powering them up, and hoping that luck is on your side. Overall it’s a good game, but winning requires a lot of luck; I do prefer more skill-based games. More boards, and more complex board layouts, would also have been very nice. Still, Goemon Mononoke Sugoroku is a fun thing to have and play once in a while, and is well worth it for series or digital boardgame-RPG fans. That box looks great, too. Also available on Game Boy Color; I’m not sure how similar that version is.


Jikkyo Powerful Pro Baseball 5 (J) – 2 player simultaneous, saves to cartridge. Powerful Pro Baseball, or Pawapuro, was for a long time one of Konami’s more popular franchises in Japan. This series of super-deformed baseball games were well known for having challenging and deep gameplay beneath their cute graphical exterior, and this one is no exception. I haven’t played this game as much as maybe I should for this, but it’s not my favorite kind of baseball game. The game is an interesting hybrid of classic and modern baseball game design. On the one hand the game has a top-down, somewhat zoomed-in field view like that of most 3rd or 4th-gen baseball games, but on the other hand it has a fairly modern pitching/batting cursor interface. This is the second of five N64 Pawapuro games; only two games in the series have a US release, both MLB-themed games on the PS2/Wii. The game has all 12 teams and stadiums, and all the real players, from the Japan League circa 1998. There are a lot of features, modes, and options, and it’s all in Japanese so for the non-speaker just figuring out how to do anything beyond a basic single match is a bit overwhelming. There are single matches (1p vs. cpu, 1p vs. 2p, or cpu vs. cpu), an options menu just for single matches; a character-raising mode where you train up a young player, adventure game-style (I haven’t played this much because of the language barrier, but it’s a series staple and is interesting); season mode; the ability to save a game in progress; and more. I’m not sure what all of the main menu options do, they’re all in Japanese and there is no English-language help out there for these games. The game has okay to good graphics, each field does look different and the players are big-headed and cute. Arenas are 3d, with sprite-based characters. The sound design is even better. There is a quite excitable announcer, and lots of crowd noise and chanting too. I like the sound design here, it adds to the game.

The gameplay is tough as well — you’ll lose, badly, for a while until you figure out how to play decently. That is common in baseball games, though, because pitching and batting are very hard things to do, the hardest things people commonly do in sports. Pitching and batting just use A and the stick/pad. Presuming that you turn on analog control, which is recommended (seriously, why is d-pad only even an option?), for batting you move a batting cursor around with the stick. The pitcher has no indicator, but instead the ball goes where you are pointing the stick. For some reason, maybe it’s an option I don’t know about or maybe it’s to be realistic, but left and right are reversed, so to throw to the right side of the plate you have to hold the stick left. Admittedly when pitching you do throw from the left to go right, and vice versa, but still, it’s weird and not great. I do like the idea of holding the stick in the place you want the ball to go and then just hitting a button to pitch, though, it works well. My problem with pitching so far is that if there are any alternate pitches I can’t figure out how to throw them, so it’s always just one pitch type, which is annoying — how do I throw offspeed, curveballs, sliders, etc., instead of just straight pitches? Once the ball has been thrown, an indicator appears showing approximately where it’s headed, and the batter has a split second to move the cursor there and swing. As with pitching, there’s just one button, no choice of normal or harder swing as some baseball games have. Getting your timing right is hard, as it should be. Overall the pitching/batting interface is alright, but could use some more features, unless I’m missing something under the big language barrier.

For fielding, though, I don’t like it as much. I’ve never liked this style of top-down field view, and this game is no exception. I much prefer actually being able to see the field, so that I don’t have to guess where to move my fielder. They do have an indicator pointing towards who you are controlling off screen, but it’s not nearly as good as actually seeing the player. I know I say this every time about baseball games, but give me the Hardball series’ perspective every time, over this stuff! And with 3d graphics, I know you could do something better than this basic overhead view. I’m sure some people would like the game because of this, but I feel the opposite, it makes the game harder and less fun. Honestly, I don’t think I’ll be playing this game enough to get good; the overhead perspective isn’t great, and unless I’m missing something I really miss having alternate pitch types, compared to other baseball games. Batting works well, pitching is okay, the graphics are okay and sound is good, and there are a lot of modes and options, but I’d rather play something with more pitching options and better fielding. English-language menus would be a plus too, of course, for a game loaded with menus like this one is. For me, Pawapuro 5 is okay but not great.


Jinsei Game 64 (J) [The Game of Life 64] – 4 player alternating, saves to cartridge. Made by Takara, Jinsei Game 64 is one of two Japanese Nintendo 64 versions of the boardgame The Game of Life. For some reason, The Game of Life is a very, very popular boardgame in Japan. I’m not sure why; I do remember playing the game as a kid, but never thought it was THAT great, and haven’t played the board game in quite some time. I don’t think we own it anymore. I got this N64 version despite that because, well, I am trying to eventually get all non-sports N64 games, so I had to get it sometime. Honestly though, this might not have been worth getting; even though they do add some features to try to make this more than just a digital boardgame, it’s boring and not much fun. In addition to the board game there are also eight minigames here, but they’re mostly kind of bad. There is also a significant language barrier that is a real issue due to the choices you have to make during the game. The game would be a bit better if I could read the text, but at times it’s tough to play in Japanese, if you care about what choices you make during the game.

There are a good number of modes available in Jinsei Game 64. You can play a normal game, play a game on a variety of different alternate boards, modify the order of things on a custom board, create a custom character to play the game with with a good number of options for hair, clothes, and such, and play the minigames outside of the main game. You can play with any mix of up to four human or AI characters, and the AI is reasobly challenging. By default, in the main mode you play a minigame each time characters land on the same space. All eight are for four players. You play them fairly often in the game, though, they aren’t very good, and there are only eight of them, so this isn’t as great an option as it sounds. While on the board the graphics are 3d, and each different board looks nicely different. The graphics aren’t great, but at least they put some effort in to the game. The minigames are just basic 2d stuff, though, and don’t look as good. Some require skill, but too many are just pure luck; really, if you’re going to add minigames to your digital boardgame, don’t make them just pure chance! There are also anime-esque 2d scenes for the life decisions, choices where you try to romance someone of the opposite sex, build your career, and such. I like the art style, it’s stylized and kind of cute-looking.

In the main game, minigames aside, as in the boardgame on each turn you move via a spinner. Once you land on a space a menu opens and you have five options, all in Japanese. The top is to move, others are for various stats and such. Depending on where you land, you may play a minigame, make some of those life choice, or just end your turn. Your choices will change your character’s stats, which affect how successful you will be, so as I said the language barrier is a real problem. The other main problem here is that I find The Game of Life kind of boring in any form; Jinsei Game 64 is okay, but I haven’t finished a game of this yet not only because of the language barrier, but also because the game gets tedious fast. The mostly-bad minigames are also a disappointment. It might be better in multiplayer, but… just play the boardgame, or some better game. I do like the boxart, though, it’s nice and represents the games’ art style well.


Let’s Smash (J) [also released in Europe as Centre Court Tennis, but I have the Japanese version because of how hard it is to play European N64 games on a US system] – 4 player simultaneous, saves to controller pak (7 pages per character file). Let’s Smash is a tennis game from Hudson. This is an okay but flawed game thanks to difficult controls. Let’s Smash has a lot of features and okay to good graphics, but the timing for hitting the ball is quite tight. Otherwise the controls are fine, and you have the usual options — regular hit or lob, on separate buttons — but that ball timing is a problem. It took a while before I managed to win a match because of how hard it is to get used to hitting back the ball. It’s particularly bad when you use the default single-screen view and are on the upper half of the screen. The very tight timing reminds me of Namco’s World Court Tennis for the Turbografx. Indeed, it would be very much like that interesting but frustrating nearly-impossible-once-you-leave-the-bottom-half-of-the-screen game if not for one major addition, different camera angles (on the C buttons). The game got a lot more playable once I figured out how to switch to the third-person-behind-the-character camera, which gives you a close-in view behind your character sort of like that in Mario Tennis for the Virtual Boy. It’s much, much easier to hit the ball from there than the default classic-style overhead camera. Of course, though, if you want to play the game in multiplayer you’ll have to get used to that camera… or just play Mario’s Tennis for the N64, that might be the better option. That game doesn’t have this issue, hitting the ball is easy in that game. If you do play it multiplayer, be prepared for it to take more than a few matches before everyone manages to figure out the correct timing for hitting the ball. The AI is quite tough as well, and can be hard to defeat. Visually Let’s Smash looks okay, but, like most Hudson N64 games, it doesn’t look great. Hudson never managed to master N64 graphics like Nintendo, Rare, Acclaim, or such did. This game shows improvement over early Hudson N64 games like Bomberman 64, but still looks only average. The characters look fine and the arenas decent, and the framerate is thankfully good, but nothing looks great for the system, the N64 can do better, an does in games like Mario’s Tennis.

For options, Let’s Smash has quite a few. First, you can play Tournaments. There are four options here, based on the four major championships in pro tennis, the British, French, American, and Australian Opens. This game doesn’t have any official licenses, so don’t expect any real players, but there are 16 players to choose from, half male and half female, and the ball bounces differently on clay, hard, or grass courts. There is a different arena for each open, and you try to go through a single-elimination tournament to make it to the top. You can choose in the options how many games each match should last. Next, you can do a single match on any court. Next, you can create your own tennis pro, a very cool option. You can choose gender and clothing, and unlike many games (but like in the PSP Hot Shots Tennis game) it isn’t gender-restricted, so you can have male characters wear ‘female’ tennis outfits. Nice option. You can also choose the hairstyle and color, face, skin color, clothing, and stats (made difficult by the language barrier, all stat names are in Japanese; I just guessed and chose middle settings. I sure wish it was easier to play European N64 games on US systems!). You start with only one set of tennis clothes that you choose, but character creation mode isn’t just about creating characters you can play as in tournaments, though you can do that. No, you can also train in some minigames, or play matches against AI opponents. The minigames aren’t as elaborate as those in Sega’s great Virtua Tennis, but they are challenging and can be fun. There is one where you try to target specific points on the ground, one where you try to bounce the ball off some targets as many times as you can, and two more. Each has different difficulty levels.

The main draw for this mode, though, is playing as your custom characters against AI opponents. In these single matches, you can play on a variety of real or fantasy courts in matches where you get a clothing piece from the winner if you win, or lose one if you lose. So yeah, it’s like gambling, except that you can just turn off the game if you’re losing and don’t need to lose anything, if you have remembered to save recently of course. It’s nice to see your clothing options grow as you win matches, though actually winning is, of course, difficult. The courses, outside of the four stadiums for the major opens, include a grassy field, a lava pit, an ice level (with penguins who get in your way as obstacles, and you can hit them to the other side of the court with your racket to make them bother the other person), an urban court, a somewhat wild west-themed desert, and more. I find the ones with obstacles the most interesting; there’s nothing like that in the main tournaments! There is also a different announcer for each arena, or, for some reason, no announcer in the ice arena. Overall, Let’s Smash is a decent to good game. It gave me a very poor first impression thanks to the games’ overly-difficult controls, but after some practice I started liking the game more. Still, compared to Virtua Tennis on Dreamcast or Mario Tennis for N64, this game isn’t nearly as good thanks to the difficult controls and only average graphics. Hot Shots Tennis for PSP also probably does the custom character thing better, as it has a full ‘RPG-styled’ mode. This game has character-building, but it’s not a full RPG as you don’t explore a world, talk to people, and the like, you just choose options from menus and play matches. Still, despite its flaws, Let’s Smash was definitely worth getting. It’s okay.


Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness – 4 player simultaneous (in battle mode), saves to controller pak (8 blocks). Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness is one of Namco’s only games for the N64. This game and Namco Museum are the only games Namco itself made for the N64; Ridge Racer 64 was a first-party Nintendo title, by NST. 5th-gen Namco were, sadly, huge Sony supporters, but at least we on the N64 did get this quality title. After the success of Pac-Man World for the Playstation, Namco decided to make a Ms. Pac-Man game. This isn’t a full 3d platformer like that game is, though; instead, it’s more of a classic-styled, overhead-view action/puzzle title. This game is a polygonal 3d game, but almost feels “2.5” in that you mostly just move around on a flat grid. You can travel between upper and lower areas and the like, but it all plays from a pulled-back viewpoint. This gives it a much more traditional feel than the side-view isometric 3d platforming of Pac-Man world, though it’s also a lot more approachable than the frustrating isometric platforming that game is loaded with. Between the two, I probably do have more fun with this one, but both are worth a try. I wish the N^4 had gotten a version of Pac-Man World as well, too bad.

The story here is forgettable; you, as Ms. Pac-Man, have to travel through time, thanks to a machine made by Professor Pac, to rescue the princess or something stupid like that. The time-travel mechanic allows each level to have a different theme, so you go through ancient Egypt first and progress from there. Your goal is always to just reach the end of the stage, but enemies, puzzles, and many dots to collect lie along the way. Levels are linear mazes, so you progress through a level, instead of just running around one big maze as in the original Pac-Man games. Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness is definitely on the easy side, but it’s fun despite that. The puzzle elements add something to the game, as you do sometimes have to figure out how to get to some dots, by pushing blocks, using jump-cannon things which toss you to another point in the level, and more. Enemies are also a threat, unless you kill them with a Power Pellet. Figuring out how to progress usually isn’t too hard, but the game does get more challenging as you go along, and the adventure is plenty of fun. You can also unlock harder time-trial versions of the levels after you beat them, and can play the original Ms. Pac-Man arcade game as well. There are also three multiplayer modes, though I haven’t played them yet. This is a fun little game; I wish it was harder, but otherwise it’s good classic gaming fun. This is a multiplatform game also available on PS1 and Dreamcast. The three versions look very similar, with the expected graphical differences — the DC version looks the best, N64 in the middle, and PS1 the worst. I also have the DC version and it probably is a bit better than this one, but the N64 version is more than good enough to be worth getting.


Mysterious Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer 2 (J) – 1 player, saves to cartridge. Shiren the Wanderer 2 is one of Chunsoft’s many roguelikes that they have released over the past 20-plus years. I’m not a big fan of the genre, but got this one anyway because it’s interesting and is on the N64. I’m having issues with this game (how do you save???), but that’s probably just me; anyone who can read Japanese certainly won’t have a problem. Once the first Shiren for SNES was a success Chunsoft obviously knew they’d hit on a popular formula, and the company continues to make fairly similar games to this day. As with most of their earlier roguelikes, Shiren 2 is a Japan-only release. The game has good graphics, good gameplay, and lots to do. It’s a great title, and I’m really not sure why it isn’t better-known outside of Japan. There are very few mentions of this game and isn’t even one single FAQ out there in English for this game, which is a real shame! One is badly needed. Just some basic thing explaining how the menus work would be fantastic, and something for item names would be even better, either in FAQ or translation-patch form. But if you stick with the game despite the language barrier, it’s great classic Chunsoft Mysterious Dungeon roguelike fun. As usual you play as Shiren, the mysterious wanderer of the title. He is an adventurer in a fantasy version of traditional Japan, and is trying to help out a town beset by monsters.

As always in Mysterious Dungeon games, Shiren 2 plays from an overhead perspective, and when in dungeons the game is turn-based and you move on a grid. The game has sprite-based characters in 3d environments, and the look works well.

Visually Shiren 2 looks pretty good. The art style is somewhat rounded and cute, and I like the look of the sprites. The polygonal environments look good to great as well, this game has good art design. This is a good-looking N64 game. The music is similarly good and fits the traditional Japanese theme quite well. Combat works just like most any other Mysterious Dungeon game. When you move or attack so do the enemies, but they can’t move otherwise. You can move one space at a time with the d-pad, or use fast movement with the analog stick or by holding B or Z. The fast movement is very useful. On each floor of the dungeons in the game your goal is to find the exit while collecting as much stuff as you can (while dealing with your tight inventory limit, you can only hold about 20 items), but the enemies will make that difficult to say the least; it may be easier than its SNES predecessor, but this is a hard game, probably harder than the third game, for Wii, is; Shiren 2 doesn’t have any more forgiving modes. While you stay alive it can be fun enough, but then you die an lose all your equipped items and level, as is common in this genre; you only keep things if you beat the dungeon and put them in storage. Ouch! Honestly I’ve never liked this kind of harsh design, I prefer having a game where you don’t have to continually redo things you have done before just because you died farther in to the game. Yes, I’ve mostly skipped over the wave of roguelikes the game industry has made in recent years. Add on top of that that probably because of the language barrier I still can’t figure out how to actually save a game, and yeah, this game is a bit hard to play. Another key game design element makes that worse — your main task in this game is to build a castle so that the locals in the town you’re in can protect themselves from the hordes of monsters. That’s cool, it’s nice to have a task beyond just killing stuff and gaining levels, but you need to collect certain items for the castle, and better items will hold up better against monster attacks that apparently happen later in the game. This whole system is obviously somewhat impenetrable if you don’t know the language. So, overall, Shiren the Wanderer 2 is a good-looking game which is fun to play, but the language barrier is significant and a real issue.

To be clear, If I could actually save my progress in this game, I’d say that it’s a pretty good game for its genre. It definitely seems fun, and isn’t as hard as the first game for SNES. So please someone, tell me what I’m doing wrong… the only menu options that quit seem to either (for one option) quit without saving, or (for the other) restart the game from the beginning. I don’t see anyone to talk to to save, either. So yeah, what’s going on here? I want to be able to play this game, and “play it all in one sitting” is not a good answer.


Nuclear Strike 64 – 1 player, saves to controller pak, Expansion Pak supported (for higher resolution graphics). Nuclear Strike 64 is the N64 version of the fifth and sort-of-final Strike game from EA. While the previous game, Soviet Strike, didn’t release on Nintendo platforms, this one returned the series to Nintendo. There’s sort of a sixth, but only if you count Future Cop LAPD as a Strike game — it started out as one, but changed to an original title during development. I’d call it a new game, so this is the last game in EA’s topdown-style flight combat sim series which was quite popular particularly on the Genesis and SNES. I have never have been a fan of this series, but I got Soviet Strike, the 4th game, for Saturn a few years ago and was surprised to find it kind of fun for a while, the series’ usual too-high difficulty level aside. So, I thought that maybe I’d like this one too… but I don’t know. It’s still a Strike game, and as with all the Strike games, it’s too slow and boring to be a good action flight game, but too action-oriented to be a good sim. But also, on the N64, the live-action-video cutscenes of the original PC/PS1 game are gone. Without the super-cheesy live-action-video FMV the game loses something. Gameplay-wise, the main changes in Nuclear Strike compared to its predecessor are that you now have a variety of tanks and a hovercraft you will control at times during the game, the graphics are better, and there’s an improved on-screen compass/map telling you where you need to head. That arrow is helpful, it does indeed reduce time spent on the map as the back of the box claims, but the full-screen map is still essential. And visually, the N64 version certainly looks better than the PS1 version thanks to 3d that doesn’t fall apart whenever anything moves. The textures are a bit blurry as usual, but the game looks nice. Still, that cheesy FMV is good stuff. As for the gameplay, the core gameplay is the same as usual for this series. It’s still very hard and kind of boring. This game plays a lot like the previous one, but maybe with a closer-in camera. The game still plays on a flat plane, so you cannot move up or down, only around at a set level over the ground. You can shoot bullets and missiles and lower a winch to pick things up. You are not only fighting the many enemies in this game, though. Fuel and ammo are both very limited, and unless you are careful, use your weapons well, and know where the pickups are, you won’t finish the mission. There are a nice variety of objectives along the way, but they usually boil down to destroying or protecting things. You also need to be on the lookout for fuel and ammo to pick up, of course. It’s okay, but I get frustrated when I lose far into a mission; saving is limited, and I lose interest before getting good enough to beat a mission. Each game generally has only four or so missions, or maps, each made up of a series of objectives scattered around the level. Four is more than enough in games as hard as the Strike games are, and Nuclear Strike is no exception. Even though I did kind of like Soviet Strike, I still have not yet ever beaten a full mission in a Strike game, I believe; I did get most of the way through Future Cop LAPD, but that plays quite differently. Overall Nuclear Strike 64 is a good game that just isn’t really for me. Also on PC and PS1; the best version is surely the PC version, but between PS1 and N64, you have to choose between better graphics and probably also controls (N64) or cheesy FMV (PS1).


Off-Road Challenge (actually already had but forgot to cover) – 2 player simultaneous, saves to controller pak. Off-Road Challenge is a point-to-point racing game from Midway. The game is an arcade port of a Midway arcade game, developed by Avalanche Studios. They didn’t do a very good job, sadly. The game runs in the Cruis’n USA engine and visually looks sort of like that series. This game is a part of the Off-Road franchise, the third (or fourth if you include the Track Pack as a game) game in a series that began with the all-time classic early ’90s arcade game “Ironman” Ivan Stewart’s Super Off-Road. I absolutely love the original Super Off-Road and always have, but this game, sadly, isn’t nearly as good; of the six point-to-point Midway racers on the N64, this one is the one I have played least. Off-Road Challenge is pretty much just a mediocre spinoff of Cruis’n, with off-road pickup trucks instead of cars, desert-only environments, only six tracks, 3d truck graphics, ugly graphics with a sometimes-poor framerate, and a far higher difficulty level. Returning from previous Off-Road games are turbo boosts and boost powerups to refill your boost. These powerups are small and a lot harder to pick up than they were in the original Super Off-Road, and yet you really need them to be competitive. The skiddy controls don’t help here, either. I don’t think I’ve ever actually finished first in a race in this game; it’s frustratingly hard right from the start, and then gets harder.

Indeed, one major issue with this game, along with the visuals and sound, is that it is way too hard! The handling is average skiddy stuff, you slide around a lot. So, memorization is key, to learn when to turn on the courses to avoid the many obstacles littering each course and to try to stay on the road. The tracks are curvy and difficult, and I do like the bumpy, obstacle-filled track designs, but I don’t like how hard getting the powerups is or the super-difficult AI. Still, moments like dodging a rock knocked over by a falling UFO or learning the correct route to avoid pitfalls in the track are kind of nice. However, perhaps because of the 3d vehicles, there are only eight racers in each race, only four trucks to choose from, and only six tracks in the game. That’s a lot less of all three of things than you’ll find in any Cruis’n game, and the tracks are no longer than Cruis’n tracks, so there isn’t much variety here. Between races, as usual in the series there’s also an upgrade system where you can upgrade your truck between races with your winnings. The championship mode saves your truck upgrades, so in order to compete later on you really need to have done well earlier in the game, so don’t settle for 4th in that first circuit even though finishing harder is hard. YOu need to finish in 3rd in each race in the second circuit, and do even better than that later on, so mastering the tracks is essential. I haven’t done it, sadly. The dune buggy is fastest, so it might be the best of the four vehicles available, but between the AI, the controls, and the rest, the game doesn’t feel fairly designed. The AI usually just beats me, even when I do better time-wise… argh. I wouldn’t be surprised if the AI cheats.

Visually, the graphics are below average, with some VERY large super-blurry textures, a sometimes-iffy framerate, and distance fade-in. Midway can, and did, do so much better than this! I know the tracks are full of bumps and hills, but still, this game looks worse than the first SF Rush game on N64, but actually released after it. The music is forgettable rock, and fails to loop after finishing the first time, so many races will end in silence. Not good. There are a lot of much, much better, and better-looking, N64 racing games than this. There’s not much here to make me want to spend the hours it would take to actually finish this very difficult game. There are few modes, too. You can do a single race, a circuit where you go through all the tracks, and that’s it. You won’t find modified versions of the tracks here, unlike Cruis’n World or Exotica, and all other Midway N64 point-to-point racers have many more tracks than this game. Overall, Off-Road Challenge is disappointing. This is a downgraded port of an average arcade game, and even I can’t entirely defend it, and I find the Cruis’n series fun. The game has no new ideas, some design issues, looks ugly and sounds bad, and I get tired of always losing. Instead of playing this game more and beating it, I’d rather play a better game. Off-Road Challenge is below average. Really, stick to the original classic Super Off-Road. Or for a similar 3d game, the best polygonal ‘Off-Road”-style racing game from Midway doesn’t actually doesn’t have the franchise name on it — it’s 4-Wheel Challenge for the Dreamcast. That’s a great game, a bit like this one but better. That game is also very tough, but that’s the kind of hard that keeps me coming back! I wish this game was like that too, but it isn’t. Arcade port (but N64-exclusive at home).


Puyo Puyo Sun 64 (J) – 2 player simultaneous, saves to cartridge. This game is a puzzle game in the popular and long-running Puyo Puyo series, then made by Compile — this game is from before Compile shut down and Sega bought the rights to the franchise. Puyo Puyo is a match-four block-dropping puzzle game. The “blocks” here are called Puyos, and they’re cute little bloblike things. They drop in pairs only; for those familiar with Sega’s Puyo games, Compile’s always have the puyos drop only in pairs. The larger shapes first appear in Sega’s first Puyo game, Puyo Puyo Fever from 2004. When you match four of the same color they are destroyed. Because you have to match four instead of the usual three, Puyo Puyo is a bit slower-paced and more strategic than some other games of this type. It’s not as complex as Puzzle Fighter/Baku Baku though, because you just need to match four, instead of use separate objects to destroy the blocks. I like Puzzle Fighter more than Puyo Puyo, because I like the added element of the crash gems versus just match-three or match-four play, but Puyo Puyo is a classic series and the games are usually quite fun. Puyo Puyo is also a very hard game — victory centers around setting up good combos, but setting up long combos while puyos drop at a breakneck pace, as they eventually will, is very hard! Puyo Puyo games are always tough, and this one is no exception. It’s a good, challenging game, and getting good at Puyo Puyo will take practice. You need to learn how to form at least basic combos to succeed. I’m not great at it, but can at least get through story mode. Visually, as usual in this genre, the game is entirely 2d.

In the arcade story mode you play as Arle as usual, the series heroine, on her latest quest in Compile’s silly anime-styled fantasy world of the Puyo Puyo puzzle series and Madou Monogatari RPG series, both of which star Arle. The art design is cutely amusing as usual, the monsters never look too threatening. Of course though, all troubles are solved by puzzle games, not actual battles, though Arle is a magician and her attack sounds when you set off good combos are various spells of hers from the RPGs. The music here is good, but nto as good as the CD versions of the game thanks to having to downgrade it for a cart. For modes and options, the game has a few, but not as many as I’d like. There is the vs. story mode, an endless mode, single-match play for vs. cpu or vs. human games, and that’s about it. There are also difficulty settings and such in the options. Puyo Puyo Sun 64 is a pretty straight port of the third Puyo Puyo game, Puyo Puyo Sun, to the N64. I also have the earlier Saturn release of this game, and there are no significant differences between the two releases, unfortunately, other than the downgraded music. Some other puzzle games added features to their N64 versions, but not this one. Overall, Puyo Puyo Sun is a fun classic puzzler. It looks decent, is a lot of fun to play, and will last quite a while with the series’ usual high difficulty level. However, there is no reason to get this version of the game over the PS1 or Saturn versions, since it’s the same exact thing but with worse music. The games’ sequel, Puyo Puyo~n Party (Puyo Puyo 4, N64 version) is probably better, as it at least has a four-player splitscreen mode, something this game sadly does not have. However, that game does also have a better Dreamcast port (which I have), while here, music aside, the N64 version of Puyo Puyo 3 is as good as any. Arcade port also available on PS1, Saturn, and Game Boy Color.


Rat Attack – 4 player simultaneous, saves to controller pak (1 block), Expansion Pak supported (for higher resolution graphics). Rat Attack is a very simple and basic game, reminiscent of a classic arcade game. It’s decent and can be fun. It’s nothing really special, but I don’t know that it deserves review scores as low as it mostly got. This game isn’t really bad, just very simple. The game is polygonal 3d. Each level in Rat Attack is a single screen, viewed from an overhead perspective. You play as a cat, or up to four cats at once in the co-op multiplayer mode, and have to capture all of the evil rats on each stage which are trying to destroy everything in sight. There are six cats to choose from, with two more unlockable if you do well. The game is a somewhat frantic and fast-paced game where you run around hitting rats, trapping them, and bringing them to the dropoff point. You can jump with B, attack to stun rats with Z, and open a trap by holding A and moving to open the rectangle. ‘Traps’ aren’t some object that drops; you automatically catch any rat which is inside the trap when you let go of A. Obviously it’s easiest to capture stunned rats. Caught rats must then be brought to that dropoff point cat-symbol circle. If a rat touches you before you get there, you drop any rats you are carrying, which will happen. The controls are good, but your cat can be small on the screen, so sometimes I lost track of where I was in all the chaos. Level designs are nicely varied, and include multi-leveled arenas, stage hazards such as moving lawnmowers, warp circles that teleport you between points in the stage, and more. While the graphics are simple, I do like the varied level designs. You need to capture a set number of rats in each level before they destroy everything destructible in the stage, and while trying to avoid dying because you only get three lives per level and each level is made up of quite a few stages, and you cannot save between stages, only after levels. With the limited lives, fast enemies, and often crowded screen, this game gets hard quickly and will last a decent while. Oh, and you get points for everything you do, if you want to play for score. The multiplayer mode is a versus mode, not co-op through story mode, sadly, but it’s still pretty fun, as you compete to catch as many rats as possible (and whack on the other cats, of course). Rat Attack is a simple but challenging and entertaining classic arcade-style game that I, at least, think is fun. It’s average stuff, but entertaining. Also on Playstation. The PS1 version actually does also support four players in multiplayer mode, interestingly.


Super Mario 64: Rumble Pak Edition (J) – 1 player, saves to cartridge. This is one of two early N64 games that Nintendo re-released with rumble pak support added, along with Wave Race 64. Mario 64 is, of course, one of the greatest videogames ever made. The very definition of an all-time classic, Mario 64 redefined platform gaming and improved the genre in gameplay, controls, and graphics. It released before the rumble pak, though, so eventually Nintendo decided to release a version with rumble… and then only released it in Japan, annoyingly. I got this because it seemed interesting, but while Mario 64 with rumble is of course still a great, great classic, and the game is perhaps a bit better with rumble, it doesn’t add a huge amount to the game. Mario 64 rumble edition is great fun, and the rumble is nice, but it’s hardly essential. The other issue with this game is that it’s in Japanese, so all of the star descriptions are in Japanese. So, unless you know the game really well or use a guide while playing, remembering what to do for each star is difficult. Is it worth that hassle anyway to replay one of the greatest games ever, again, just with controller rumble this time? Maybe, but I haven’t gotten too far into this. Still, it’s absolutely worth picking up if you’re buying import N64 games, no question. It IS Mario 64 with an exclusive extra feature, after all. The original version is also available on Wii Virtual Console and has a Nintendo DS remake, but I don’t know if any other version has rumble, as far as I know they don’t.


Super Robot Spirits (J) – 2 player simultaneous, saves to cartridge. Super Robot Spirits is a very mediocre 3d fighting game from Banpresto. Similar to the Super Robot Taisen strategy game series, Super Robot Spirits uses mechas (giant robots) from a variety of different franchises and mixes them all together, here in a fighting game instead of the usual strategy gameplay. After playing this game, though, it’s not hard to see why that is a long-running series while this is a one-off title, it’s not that good. Super Robot Spirits is not terrible, but it definitely isn’t good either. The game has eight regular characters to choose from plus a couple of unlockable bosses. All eight starting characters are male; the only female one is unlockable, and I didn’t have the patience to play a game this bland long enough to unlock them. As in most 3d fighters that generation, the d-pad moves and jumps, while buttons move you into or out of the screen. The face buttons attack; you only have a couple of buttons, because this game isn’t too complex. Each character does have a bunch of moves, though, and they are not listed in the game, so having the manual is recommended — all moves are listed in the manual. There is also a FAQ on GameFAQs though, for those who don’t have the manual. I wasn’t hoping for too much from this game, because it’s a licensed game and Banpresto made very few N64 games, but even so it was worse than I was hoping. SRS is a slow and ugly game. It has one interesting feature, that the robots can fly, but it doesn’t add much to the game. The gameplay, graphics, framerate, game speed, controls, nothing about this game is very good. There isn’t much of a story either, in any language. The robots are from famous giant-robot shows, but for me that doesn’t matter much, I don’t care too much about giant-robot animes; I played this for the game, not the licenses. Unfortunately, if there is a reason to pplay this game, the gameplay isn’t it.

The problem is, while SRS does not totally fail as a game, it is badly dated and there isn’t much of any reason to play it now. I think that a lot of 5th-generation 3d fighting games have aged badly, and this game is no exception. Most 5th-gen 3d fighters play slowly, with dated controls, iffy framerates and/or slow gameplay holding them back badly when compared to the smooth, polished gameplay of 3d fighters from the Dreamcast on. Super Robot Spirits is a slow game with lumbering mech characters. Matches take a long time, and many moves seem to do little damage. The graphics are kind of ugly, and stages don’t look like much, backgrounds are incredibly bland. SRS’s combination of poor, dull-looking graphics and slow gameplay combine to show that the developers of SRS clearly didn’t know how to program well for the N64. You don’t have full 3d movement in this game either — you can only move forwards, backwards, jump, and fly (with buttons), there aren’t buttons to move into or out of the screen. The game plays on a flat 2d plane, the 3d is just window-dressing. That’s okay, but the subpar gameplay isn’t. Don’t expect any kind of nice combo system here either, it doesn’t have complexities like that. This is just a basic, simple 5th-gen 3d fighter, that’s all. There are the usual modes — ‘story’, versus, training, survival, options, a small roster of characters, and nothing much to make me want to play the game again after finishing it once. Overall, Super Robot Spirits is a very generic and uninteresting below-average 3d fighting game. Sure, it’s very much a product of its time, but there are at least some 5th-gen 3d fighting games which are good, including a few on N64. While far from the worst, this game is no Criticom or War Gods-level debacle, SRS isn’t among them. It is interesting that the only Super Robot-franchise 1-on-1 fighting game I know of is an N64 exclusive, I just wish it was a better game.


Super Robot Taisen 64 (J) [Super Robot Wars 64] – 1 player, saves to cartridge. Super Robot Wars 64 is a 2d turn-based strategy game, and is a part of the long-running Super Robot Wars series of turn-based tactical strategy games about giant robots fighting eachother. For the basic concept think Fire Emblem but with robots, not as extreme a challenge, and not quite as great gameplay. The series started back in 1991 and has seen releases as recently as 2013, so it’s an ongoing series. Only three games have released outside of Japan, though, all titles with only original characters because the licensing issues are apparently a nightmare for the rest of the games; getting the rights to use the many different series represented here would cost more than it’s worth, unfortunately. So, as with most SRW games, this one released only in Japan. SRW64 is a common kind of game on other platforms, but on the N64, because Fire Emblem 64 was never released, this game is the only turn-based strategy game of this style on the system. The game plays well, with good graphics and sound. The 2d graphics look great, the game has a nice anime style. Licensed characters look like they should from the shows they come from, and original characters have a consistent anime style. There are also nice 2d battle animations whenever robots attack eachother. The game shows, for any doubters, that the N64 can do this kind of 2d look great, when developers wanted to. This game has four different playable characters, each of which take a somewhat different path through the game, so you’d need to play it four times to see every mission. That’s cool. The four characters are two male and two female characters, so you’ve got some good variety there genderwise. Each character also has a rival who they will see regularly through the game. You can rename your character and rival at the start if you wish. As with all SRW games, the game has an extensive story, with text-heavy cutscenes between every mission. Even in the English-language games, the amount of story gets a bit tedious since it’s not anything special; it’s just generic giant-robot-anime-inspired stuff. I doubt this game is any different, though of course it is all in Japanese so I can’t be certain.

As with the cutscenes, the gameplay is very reminiscent of Fire Emblem. Once you get into a mission, you see the map, with your robots and your enemies placed around it on a square grid. You’ve got to kill the enemies, and sometimes also do other tasks such as reach a certain point. You can also sometimes talk to enemies by moving a certain character next to them to talk to them and maybe persuade them to leave or join your side. Fortunately there’s a pretty good guide on Game FAQs that covers the mission objectives for almost all missions in the game, all but one or two characters’ exclusive missions are there. Definitely read it as you play if you don’t know Japanese. The gameplay and controls are fairly straightforward for anyone who has played games like this before; all menu options are in Japanese, but it’s mostly not too hard to figure out. You can move, attack with a variety of weapons, look at each robot’s stats, and such, and once attacked can choose to counter-attack or defend. The game starts out quite easy, so there is time to learn the controls. It’ll get harder as you progress, for sure, and the game is long — there are a total of 123 missions, though again each character will not play all of them so you only see all of those missions if you play the game four times. It looks like even a single playthrough would take a good while. SRW games aren’t the hardest tactical strategy games, though, so between the long length, constant cutscenes to click through, and often only moderately challenging (if that) missions, I have gotten bored of these games sometimes. Still, the game does get tougher eventually, and it’s all very well made. The game looks and sounds good, is easy to play despite the language barrier (particularly with that guide, for helping out with recruiting optional characters especially!), and is pretty fun. I love that they made an N64 game like this, it’s good and well worth playing. It’s just too bad that Fire Emblem 64 was eventually cancelled and turned into a GBA game instead; Intelligent Systems struggled with the transition to 3d. SRW64 is not a replacement for that game, but it is a good, fun, nice-looking tactical strategy game with a lot of content and solid gameplay.


Superman – 1 player, saves to controller pak (1 block per file). One of the N64’s most infamous titles, last year I finally made myself buy Superman for the N64 (No, the correct tile is not “Superman 64”.). I haven’t gotten far in the game, but my opinion on this game is a bit different from most I’ve seen — I don’t really mind the flying-through-rings parts, it’s the other half of the game I can’t stand! Superman starts off with a bad story explaining how Superman has gone to a virtual world full of kryptonite fog, explaining why you aren’t invincible. While there is a large city in this game, you can’t usually just wander around it; instead, the game is linear. Infamously, you start out having to fly through rings. After I got used to the controls, I started to kind of enjoy this. It’s not great, but I like racing games, and the challenge of figuring out the route is entertaining. Superman’s flying controls are okay, it didn’t take long to figure them out. Unfortunately, this isn’t only a racing game, it’s also a terrible action-adventure game. During the flying segments, you have to do some quick challenges. The first one is that you have a very tight time limit to do things such as pick up cars before they hit people; you WILL fail at this multiple times before you figure out what to do. Then it’s back to the flying. That was mostly fun.

After that is when the game got really bad: the first full action-adventure level. Here, you have to wander around a facility, do some vaguely-defined tasks, figure out where to go, and struggle to not turn the system off mid-level because of how bad the level, mission/objective, and combat design are. Combat in Superman is absolutely no fun! You can punch and use your abilities such as heat-vision and such, but combat is extremely clunky and doesn’t work well. Also, I hate wandering around in a level not knowing what I should be doing or where to go, but that’s a huge problem in this game; the objectives are stated but not clearly, and you often have time limits making things much more challenging than they should be. Time limits are not okay in any kind of open-world game, I really dislike them in something like this. But this game is all about tight time limits, every level has one and they’re horrible. I lost patience in the game somewhere in the second or third level, so I haven’t gotten anywhere near th end of the game. Still, I think I saw how the game plays fairly well. Superman for N64 is not good, but how bad it is is hugely overstated — the flight controls aren’t nearly as bad as people say, and the flying-through-rings gameplay is kind of fun, for me at least! It’s too bad that nothing else here is good. Superman is a disappointment. This is far from the worst game ever, but I find everything in the game that isn’t flying through rings quite frustrating and annoying to play. There is also a cancelled PS1 version of the game, but I don’t think it is publicly available; I’ve only heard about it, nothing more. The PS1 version and a similarly unavailable N64 beta rom are both supposed to be better than the N64 game as it was shipped. Apparently the licensor of the Superman name required a lot of changes to be made to the game shortly before launch. There’s a video out there of N64 beta-version gameplay, the flying-through-rings half of the game is gone, and you can actually freely fly around the city from the start. The basic gameplay looks just as bad as it is in the final game, though, so I don’t think that I, at least, would like that version much, if any, more than the released one. The majority of people who hate flying through rings probably would, though.


Susume! Taisen Puzzle Dama (J) – 2 player simultaneous, saves to controller pak (5 pages). Susume! Taisen Puzzle Dama is the N64 version of this long-running match-three block-dropping puzzle game series of Konami’s. No Puzzledama game ever released outside of Japan except for maybe one cellphone game in the ’00s, but in Japan there were many releases over the years. I have a few, including this one on N64 and the Tokimeki Memorial Puzzledama version on Saturn. The game is basically like Puyo Puyo, but faster-paced thanks to only having to match three similar things to destroy them instead of four. Otherwise though, it’s pretty much Puyo Puyo mixed with a bit of Puzzle Fighter. This N64 version includes three games in one, including two variants of the main game, Puzzle Dama and Tokkaedama, and a top-down bowling game. Yes, really; I’m not sure why it’s bowling. The visuals in the two puzzle games are good enough for the genre. The game has anime-styled art design and is entirely 2d. As in Puzzle Fighter, chibi versions of the characters fight in the center of the screen during matches. The music is great, as expected from Konami — it’s catchy stuff! In Puzzledama mode, the main arcade mode is a versus mode where you play against a series of opponents. You choose one of a crazy cast of characters, drop spheres, and try to set up chains so that the dropping spheres fall into places where at least three are touching, so that you can get big combos. The more balls you destroy at once, the more garbage blocks you will send at your opponent. Garbage blocks turn into regular balls once a match has been made in an adjoining space. Combos are essential, because the game gets VERY fast and challenging later one. This is a hard game, and beating all the opponents will requires skill and luck once the blocks move at their fastest speed. I really like Puzzledama, it’s simple but lots of fun. Design-wise, this game is anime-styled. The weird cast in this version is amusing; each character is unique and odd, from the infant aliens to the idol guy to the beauty-loving schoolgirl. I do dislike how almost all of the female characters are younger while most of the male characters are adults, though; definitely some Japanese stereotypes going on there. The game has few options within each mode, just difficulty settings really for your AI opponent, though there is a 2-player versus mode. As in Puzzle Fighter, there is no endless puzzle mode, only vs. cpu or vs. human play. The game has difficulty settings and a few other options, but it’s tough on any of them. Puzzledama is a great, addictive game that’s fun for hours.

Tokkaedama mode looks similar, but has some key rule changes. Again it is a puzzle game about matching spheres, but this time you move a cursor around the screen, and the blocks rise up from below. With the cursor you can pick up the item in a space and then switch it with the object in the next space you select and then hit the button on. So, it’s more versatile than Puzzle League/Tetris Attack; instead of just swapping pairs next to eachother, you can swap anything on the screen. This may sound easy, but it’s not; as in Puzzledama, it gets hard fast. Opponents will absolutely swamp you in garbage blocks! It’s often tough to keep up, though I do think Puzzledama mode is harder. Tokkaedama mode is fun, and it is nice to be doing something different, but I do like Puzzledama more, and mostly play that mode. Oh, Tokkaedama has the same (lack of) modes and options as Puzzledama. The last mode is the random bowling game. This is multiplayer only, so either you play against another human or just alone, and is quite basic visually — there is no 3d bowling alley here, just a basic top-down 2d lane as you’d see in a SNES game or something. It’s not too bad for basic topdown 2d bowling stuff, but it’s too simple to actually hold my interest for more than a game or two, single player or multi. I don’t know why they included this here, but it’s forgettable. Fortunately, thogh, the greatness of Puzzledama mode more than makes up for everything else, and while Tokkaedama mode isn’t as good, it’s still good, and it is great that both are included in one — some earlier versions of this game sell the two separately, as is the case for the Tokimeki Memorial games on PS1 and Saturn. Overall I really like Susume! Taisen Puzzle Dama, it’s fast, frenetic, and really fun for anyone who likes this genre at all. The game is faster paced than Puyo Puyo, and simpler than Puzzle Fighter, so it may not be as strategic as those games, but it’s plenty fun and challenging despite that. I recommended it for sure. Arcade conversion collection also on Playstation; other Puzzledama games are available on many other consoles, including Saturn, mobile phones, and more.


Uchhannanchan no Honoo no Challenger: Denryuu IraIra Bou (J) [Irritating Stick] – 2 player simultaneous, saves to cartridge. IraIra Bou, or Irritating Stick as the US PS1 version of this game was called, is a Hudson game, and a slightly improved converstion of the arcade game of the same name. This game is fun… if you like extreme frustration. Irritating Stick is a maze game. Inspired by those carnival games where you have to move a stick through an electrified maze without touching the sides (and if you do you get a little shock!), you have to move a circle that represents the tubular electric stick through a series of mazes, without touching the walls. The later game KuruKuru Kururin is sort of like this, except that series innovated by having you control a spinning rotor, instead of just a dot. I love Kuru Kuru Kuruin, so I got this hoping for something somewhat similar, and I was not disappointed. Frustrated, but not disappointed. There are only six different maze-like levels in this version of the game, unfortunately, presumably the same as the mazes from the arcade game it is based on. The later Playstation 1 followup has a lot more, apparently, and a US release as well, but as an N64 fan I had to get this version. Even with only six somewhat short levels though, Irritating Stick is a very, very hard game that will take quite some time to master! Getting through the harder mazes is a serious challenge, you will need near-perfect precision. The game saves your best times for each level to the cart. While you play a Japanese guy yells at you as you fail. I don’t usually like game commentators who insult me, but it’s not as bad when I don’t understand the language… and in THIS kind of game, it’s appropriate. For options, there is just single player, two player versus, a high-scores table, and options. In either mode, you choose one of the six levels, then a stick type — basically difficulty, as they vary in size and movement sensitivity to make the game easier or harder — and then it’s off to the maze. The fourth stick, on the right of the selection screen, is ‘easy mode’ — you get three hits before you die instead of the usual one, but high scores won’t be saved and this game is all about playing for score, so it’s just for practice. The two player mode is the same as one player, but splitscreen.

Visually, Irritating Stick has a simple but nice-looking style. The game uses 3d graphics, but levels play on a 2d plane. Each of the levels starts with a flying overview of the maze, and then you’re off. Levels are made up of metallic-looking lines that form the rails you must stay in, on simple, mostly-black backgrounds. Each level has a numerous obstacles to find your way past. Some are static maze elements to work your way through, while others involve moving pistons, coils, or more. Levels do have checkpoints, but it’s still very hard because of the precision required. You have to not only memorize what to do to get past each obstacle, but perfectly execute your movements. A good N64 analog stick is highly recommended for this game! Broken ones won’t get you far. You can move faster by holding A or Z, though watch out because while moving fast it is easy to hit walls. If you do hit a wall, the controller rumbles (in an emulation of the electric shock of the original carnival games), presuming you’re using a rumble pack as you should be, and you’re sent back to the start or the last checkpoint. One nice feature is that the game will display a ghost of your best run while you make attempts at the level you’re currently playing, to try to help you play better. You can’t save this, though, and playing a different level will erase it. Still, it’s great for finding better routes. Overall, Irritating Stick is, as the name suggests, irritating. This home console version may not literally shock you with electricity, but it sure will shock you with its incredibly hard and frustrating gameplay! But that’s what I wanted, something like Kuru Kuru Kururin but simpler, and that’s exactly what this is. Really the only flaw with the game is that htere are only six levels in this version, while the later Playstation version has more, and the very cool feature of a random maze generator too. I’ve never played the PS1 version, but would like to get it. I really wish the N64 had the random maze option, but sadly it doesn’t. The US PS1 version apparently cuts out the Japanese commentator and replaces him with an English-speaking one not nearly as irritating, but for this game that’s probably bad, so maybe get the import. So, I like this game and definitely recommend it if you like this kind of game as I do… but the added features in the PS1 version do make that maybe the better purchase. The Japanese N64 version has better boxart than either region’s PS1 release, though! Arcade port, also available on Playstation (where it released a bit later and has more features).


Wave Race 64: Rumble Pak Edition (J) – 2 player simultaneous, saves to cartridge, saves to controller pak (lots of pages, for save backup). Wave Race 64 is one of the N64’s first titles from 1996. This is a re-release of the game with rumble pak support added. Otherwise, it’s identical to the original Japanese version of the game… but it’s awesome anyway, and is the best version of this great classic for sure! Wave Race 64 + Rumble is a great combination. This version of Wave Race 64 released later on, probably only in Japan, and I don’t know why Nintendo didn’t push this in the US. It may just be a re-release, but the addition of rumble support really does improve the game! Wave Race 64 without rumble is an all-time classic, one of the many exceptional racing games on the N64 and probably the best water racing game ever made. The one flaw of Wave Race 64 is that it’s a short game with only seven tracks, you’ll beat it in a few hours. That’s really the one thing holding this game back. This version of the game doesn’t fix that problem, but the addition of rumble does add to the experience of of bouncing on the waves. There probably is no better choice of a pre-rumble N64 game Nintendo could have added rumble to than Wave Race 64, the rumble as you bounce on the waves feels great. Do know that this is the Japanese version though, so the menus are all in Japanese. I found it helpful to play my US copy of the regular game beforehand, to remember what is what in the menus. Otherwise though, this is a great, great game. Wave Race 64 has some of the best wave physics ever, incredibly great track designs, good graphics particularly for the water (parts above-water have aged, admittedly), great controls, and more. Apart from the limited amount of content, there’s nothing much else negative to say about this awesome classic. If you get one of the two rumble-added re-releases, make it this one. The original non-rumble version is also available on Wii Virtual Console, but I don’t know if this one is, perhaps not.


WinBack: Covert Operations – 4 player simultaneous, saves to controller pak (9 pages). Made by Koei’s Omega Force team now mostly known for Dynasty Warriors games and such, WinBack: Covert Operations is a third-person cover-based shooter. The game was somewhat popular, and for the time was a pretty original concept. In 1999, a cover-based third-person-shooter on consoles was a new-ish idea! Now, of course, the concept is ANYTHING but new, and I’m sure modern shooter fans will take issue with the controls here. Even so, this is a decent to good game. I don’t like third-person-shooters that much, and had never played this game before last year, but when I finally did play it, though I didn’t expect to, I liked it. For modes, there is training, story, and versus. I haven’t played the multiplayer, but it’s probably okay but not as fun as something like Perfect Dark. The game has a fairly stereotypical spy-action-movie story, decent graphics, okay controls, some variety, and plenty of challenge. You play as Jean-Luc, a special agent out to save the world from an evil organization trying to take over the world with a hijacked space weapons satellite. Hmm, never heard that plot before. There are plenty of cutscenes along the way that tell the story. The gameplay is more original for the time than the story, though. In each level you explore the stage, kill the enemies, and solve some basic puzzles that generally involve shooting things or hitting switches to make things happen — to destroy security lasers, start moving platforms, and so on. The level designs are good, and I like that the game does require some thought and isn’t just a brainless shooter. You will have to look around for items and things to interact with.

The controls definitely take some getting used to. A attaches to cover when you are not in cover; Z ducks; C-left and C-right move the camera left and right; the analog stick moves Jean-Luc; B reloads; and holding R pops out of cover, brings up your gun, and aims at the enemy in the middle of the screen. While holding down R, pressing A will now fire your current weapon. C-up switches weapons, and C-down shows who you are currently targeting. When near an item or door a green box appears around it, and A will interact with it. You can change some of the control settings, but those are the defaults and they work, with practice. If you hold down R while not in cover, you will bring up your gun, so that you can shoot at things such as those laser-trap switches. Fortunately the main pistol has a laser sight and infinite ammo, making aiming easy. Alternate weapons such as the shotgun or machine gun do have limited ammo, and you can only hold a couple of clips at a time so you have to use them judiciously. You also have some special weapons such as dynamite, which you oftne have to use in specific places for missions. Of course, since this is a cover-based game, large blocks such as cargo boxes and waist-high walls abound, providing you with plenty of places to hide behind while you reload or choose which enemy to shoot at (by moving the camera, generally). The game has auto-targeting for your current target, so hitting them is easy. This game isn’t easy, though! I, at least, find it pretty hard; the enemies do a good amount of damage, and you can only save at the end of each of the somewhat long levels, there are no checkpoints during them. Still, it’s fun enough to keep me coming back and trying again. Everything in each level happens the same way each time, so memorization is key; you won’t get through levels on the first try, you need to learn the stages. Visually, the game looks okay, but isn’t one of the better-looking N64 games — areas are very boxy and closed-in, and there is fog in places in larger areas. Environment detail is also only decent, not great, and textures are similar. Still, the game looks okay. Overall Winback has definitely aged, but it’s probably worth a look. The game is fun, and it’s interesting to see a time not long ago when the now super-cliche cover-based third-person-shooter was a new idea. Also available on PS2 (the game was ported to PS2 some time after its original N64 release). I only have the original N64 version. There is also a sequel for PS2 and Xbox; I haven’t played it.


World Driver Championship – 2 player simultaneous, saves to controller pak (11 blocks per season file). Boss Games’ World Driver Championship is a fairly highly-regarded N64 racing game for several reasons. First, the game has some of the best technical graphics on the system; and second, it is the N64’s closest thing to the super-popular Sony series Gran Turismo. So, it’s a part-sim and part-arcade console racing game, with a decently realistic driving model but not hardcore sim features. The problem is, I have never liked this kind of semi-sim racing game; I much prefer my racing games to be more arcadey than this. I love racing games which are futuristic, kart, weapon-based, and such. So yes, WDC has a very impressively high polygon count, a good framerate, detailed car models, great textures on both the cars and tracks, about ten courses to race on, lots of championships to challenge, cars to unlock which all look similar to real cars, and more, but it just doesn’t interest me very much. Sure, the game looks very nice, the cars particularly, and plays smoothly and well, but this is one of those racing games where you have to take the turns well or you will very easily spin out, and a spinout probably means you will lose and have to redo the circuit. You cannot save after each race, you see, in championship mode, but only between circuits, and even IF you get a retry they are very limited. I wasn’t expecting to find this game very fun when I bought it, and I don’t. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was able to do okay after some practice at the first few championships; I did finish in the top three, there. With practice I’m sure I could continue through the game, but I just don’t find this kind of game very fun! Real-life driving isn’t much fun at all, so I don’t know why a game which tries to be somewhat realistic should be a draw. It must be for some people, though, because Gran Turismo 1 and 2 are the two best selling games on the PS1 for some reason. I don’t have either one. If I REALLY wanted to play a racing sim, anyway, it’d be an actual sim, with things like car damage and serious handling modeling that you won’t find on console games like these, but only on PC games (and with a wheel, another thing I rarely use). I do wish this game had optional car damage, that would have been nice.

But anyway, I should discuss what I can about WDC. This game has only a few modes. There is single race, championship, a training mode where you just run around one track with no other options, the options menu, and that’s it. Some more modes would have been nice, though the championship mode will take some time to beat for sure, and there are multiple tiers of cars to get. The car library of only maybe a few dozen vehicles is also small compared to a Gran Turismo game, and the cars aren’t real licensed vehicles, but made-up ones that look similar to real cars. You can change some settings in the menu here, but they may not ‘stick’ once you get into a race, sometimes I had to change them again there. Once changed in-race (or in the championship menu) it does remember them, though. You can play either fullscreen (4:3) or a very, VERY letterboxed widescreen window. It’s really too bad that Boss didn’t support the Expansion Pak for a larger window in high-res mode, they really should have. This game released in ’99, well after the Expansion Pak was first made available. Top Gear Overdrive is a good example which shows how with the expansion pak you can increase the size of the high-res window in a racing game while not impacting performance much at all. Of course, Excitebike 64 is a counter-example, with a letterboxed high-res mode that has a lower resolution than low-res. The super-letterboxed high-res mode here runs fast though, so I’m sure Boss could have done a bigger window with the added RAM. Anyway, the graphics. They are indeed great, technically. Boss Games convinced Nintnedo to let them use custom microcode for this game, which means that it doesn’t have the same look as most N64 games do, it looks different. The polygon count is noticeably higher, but some other effects are off so the game has a bit more shimmering and such than most N64 games, I think. Also, while environments have good detail and great textures, the actual artistic design of the tracks is bland. The goal was clearly to be realistic, but realism to this degree just isn’t as interesting looking as something more fantastic, I think. The cars probably look better than the environments, though it all looks good. But with slippery controls that lead to frequent spinouts, a championship system which punishes you a lot for one mistake, and a semi-realistic design, overall I don’t like this game much more than I expected to. It is playable, and I can do okay at it with practice, but I just don’t find this kind of game interesting enough to keep playing. Just like real life driving, this kind of halfway-simmish driving game is not fun.

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A couple of updates to posted lists

Posted on July 31, 2015 by Brian

I updated a few lists posted in the past, so here are the updates.

Update #1

First, an update to the Futuristic Racing Games: The Complete List list.   This list is, of course, always a work in progress.

7/31/2015 – Added Victory Lap (Arcade), an obscure Sega arcade racing game; Spectra 8bit Racing (for Windows Store – for Windows 8/10), PC, Mac, and Linux); PAM: Post Apocalyptic Mayhem (PC Digital Download); Distance (PC, Mac, and Linux) – the game is out, so it has been removed from ‘upcoming’, though an upcoming PS4 port has been added; Race the Sun (iOS, Android, and Wii U ports of this PC game have been added to Upcoming); FAST Racing Neo (Wii U) added to Upcoming; and Hot Wheels World Race (GBA) added — somehow I’d missed listing the GBA version.

I’m sure there are more games to add, but this is a start at updating this list; it’s been almost a year.  There aren’t many futuristic racing games anymore, but there are more to add I am sure.

Update #2

And second, an update has been added to TurboGrafx-16 & PC Engine (HuCard and CD) Save and Save Backup Unit Information & Incomplete Compatible Games List.  I played Brandish again recently, and found an interesting feature that I overlooked before.

MB128 games with a manager that allows you to view what files are saved to the MB128, but not necessarily to copy blocks back and forth from the system
—
J SCD
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Brandish (Hit Run, choose Load, then choose the lower-left option from the six-option grid on the screen that appears [note: this screen only appears when a MB128 is connected.].  It’s in Japanese text, directly below Save.  This screen shows a list of the files saved to the MB128.  They don’t have file sizes because each one is 1 ‘block’, or 2KB.  Each memory backup (from, say, Emerald Dragon) or game save from a MB128-compatible game creates a file that takes up 1 space on the MB128.  Here you can see what’s on the unit, and delete files if you want.)

Posted in Classic Games, Game Boy Advance, Gamecube, Modern Games, PC, Turbo CD, TurboGrafx-16, Updates | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Zero Wing (TCD): My Levels 9 & 10 Strategy

Posted on July 29, 2015 by Brian

This is a little followup article inspired by a comment I received about my recent Zero Wing review for the Turbografx-16 CD, wondering how I got past level 9 in this difficult game.  Here’s what I did.  This probably won’t be helpful for those who are great at shmups, but for the rest of us it may be.

Warning: Spoilers below!

While there are hard parts in this game through the first eight levels, the ninth level is the hardest by a wide margin.  It isn’t impossible, though, even for only average shmup players, as I am certainly not great at this genre, only okay; it’s just difficult and requires practice.

The most important key to beating level 9 is to have a run where you don’t die at all before reaching the final checkpoint, in the corridor that leads to the boss of the level.  If you die before this point, you’ll probably need to get get game over to get another shot because of how the level is designed.  That’s the key, stay alive through the level and get powerups.  You MUST get the laser, and the speed powerup is really good to have too, and the bomb makes the boss easier so that’s key unless you’re really good at this kind of game.

At the beginning of the stage, the first wave of enemies can be tricky if your ship isn’t powered up, so learn where they are.  Here the most important thing is to get the first two powerups.  You MUST kill the two powerup ships early in the level, and CANNOT die here, to be able to continue without a game over and retry.  You need the blue laser BEFORE reaching the first set of moving flamethrower enemies, because the flamethrower enemies are, as far as I can manage, impossible to beat with just the machine gun.  I died every single time I tried to get past one of the sets of flamethrowers without the laser, it just isn’t possible for someone with my level of skill.  This is the main reason I complain about the checkpoints in level 9 being unfair — many checkpoints set you too close to flamethrower sets to be able to get past them, because there often aren’t two powerups between where you start and the flamethrowers.  I spent quite a bit of time just killing myself, so as to get game over and one more try at the level from the beginning, because of the impossible checkpoints.  Fortunately game overs start you back from the beginning of the stage, giving you another try at the full level.  Whoever placed the checkpoints where they are in level 9 must hate the players, or something, because it’s quite cruel to have so many near-impossible checkpoints, starting from right at the beginning of the level.

The key to the flamethrower sections, which there are at least three of, is that you need to start shooting them with the laser pretty much as soon as they appear.  The flamethrowers need to die before they start moving, because they will follow you from behind and almost certainly kill you (unless you have the multiple speed powerups you don’t have unless you are quite good at this game!) if you fail to get them on approach.  As for the rest of the level, just kill or avoid all the enemies.  One wave comes from behind you soon after the second flamethrower section.  These enemies are tricky and require memorization to avoid.  I found that going all the way forward on the screen after that flamethrower section, then up to the top and back along the top of the screen as they fire, was the best approach.  Then I could kill them from behind.  Soon after that is the mid-boss.  It’s fairly easy, fortunately; just dodge the waves of fire by moving slowly across the screen from a central point while shoot at the ship, moving down to kill the little enemies along the ground once in a while.

Soon after the mid-boss comes the final stretch.  Fortunately, you’re past the flamethrower sections, there are no more from here on.  Watch out for the turrets here; only move forward to take them out when they’re not firing.  They got me several times when I wasn’t careful enough. There are two gates before the boss which take a lot of shots.  The final one can be tricky to take down if you have died t the level 9 boss or in the final corridor before reaching it, and only have the basic gun with the helpers from that one powerup in the final stretch.  If you only have the basic gun and not the laser, do NOT try to kill those last two engine things on that central block before the last gate; the peashooter takes a long time to kill the gate, so go around them over the top and start shooting that gate the first moment you can.  When I tried to take it out after killing the two engine things, I always died, the gate would not be destroyed before I ran into the gate as the screen scrolled.  At first I thought getting past that gate was impossible, but then I thought to try to go over the things… and it worked.  Under is a bad idea though, there’s a floor down there that will kill you. :p  Beating the boss with only the basic gun and helpers is possible, but it’ll be a LOT easier if you also have the bomb from one of the powerup ships before that final checkpoint, so do try to beat the boss on the first try, and don’t lose the bomb or let enemies set it off before reaching the boss!

So, the boss at last.  It’s a giant train-tank, and it is really hard to beat.  It takes up the whole right side of the screen, and has two homing-fireball launchers on the bottom, a laser gun in the middle, and a shuttle-launch point at the top. The hardest thing is avoiding the giant ‘shuttle’ ship or ships (I’m not sure if it’s one circling around or not, that might be the idea) it shoots at you throughout the fight — sadly enough, those things killed me the first time they launched, like, at least the first five times I reached the boss.  The shuttles move fast and are hard to dodge if you don’t have several speed powerups, as you cannot unless you haven’t died since previous levels, because level 9 has only one speed powerup in it.  Killing the shuttles is impossible, they have a lot of health.  Finally I watched a gameplay video, but it wasn’t too helpful, that guy had all the speed powerups so he could just avoid the shuttles in a way you can’t do without speed powerups.  I did get an idea for a plan based on the way the shuttle moved, though, and it worked.  The time I beat level 9 is when I finally managed to get to the boss with the bomb.  Having the bomb was very important!  Before that I kept dying while shooting the homing-fireball launchers.  You need to take them out first.  The bomb took them out quickly, and I got the laser easily after that.  Then I was able to get in close, because those shuttle things can’t easily hit you if you stay very close to the boss.  At this point only the shuttle can hurt you.  Shoot forward, hitting the shuttle when it appears. I moved back and in a small downwards circle each time the shuttle appeared, to make sure it wouldn’t hit me, and just kept up the pattern until it died.  It was very satisfying to watch that guy finally go down, after so many hours of effort on level 9!

To conclude, I’ll mention a bit about the final fight in level 10.  The level 10 boss is just as hard as the level 9 boss or harder, but there is no level in “level” 10, just a bossfight, so it shouldn’t be too hard to get past; I beat it in only a couple of tries.  The most important thing is to do your best to NOT shoot the mines, because each one splits into several fast-moving small red bullets when shot.  Some people can dodge that amount of fire, but I can’t, reliably.  Once I figured that out the boss went down quickly, it’s not a long fight.  Of course it helped that, as I described in the review, in the time I beat the game I got hit by a bullet after the enemy boss was defeated and exploited, but the game sent me to the final cutscene anyway instead of back to the beginning of the fight, but I’m sure I’d have won soon even without that; the bossfight that is level 10 is a fun fight, but it’s not nearly as hard as level 9.

So, that’s how I beat Zero Wing’s last two levels.  The level 9 strategy should mostly be useful for the arcade/Genesis game’s eighth level, also.  This is a great game, seriously under-rated for its high-quality and fun gameplay!  Play it.

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Update: Scoring Games, Missing Scores, and Score Listing Added to Contents

Posted on July 26, 2015 by Brian

After posting the new Zero Wing (TCD) review and adding it to the Contents page, I thought that it would be a good idea to add the scores next to the names of games I have reviewed in the Contents page in the link in the top bar.  So, I added scores to the list.  Sites usually do list the score next to the link to a game’s review article, and that page is where I have such a list.  While doing so, I found that a few reviews didn’t have scores, so I went to my game-collection database and used the numbers I’d put there as a basis for a score.

Here are the five game reviews which now have scores:

  • Pod (PC) – A
  • Power Piggs of the Dark Age (SNES) – C+
  • Ninja Crusaders (NES) – B-
  • Tempo Jr. (GG) – C-
  • Rock ‘n Roll Adventure (Wii) – D+

The scores have been added to the review articles.

As for how I score games, I’m probably an easy grader, my “average” score is probably a bit above average.  I’m okay with that though, games are often fun!  My scores use a variety of formats — most are letter grades, but some have a 10-point scale, and some use a percent scale, but whichever format the score is in, the way I grade does not change, so I don’t think there’s any reason to redo all the old reviews into one format.  I generally grade with a school-grade-style system, regardless of what point system I’m using.  I use the grading system I grew up with in school.  So:

  • A+: 98% and up
  • A: 93-97% or 9/10 – An A score is great, for very good games.
  • A-: 90-92%
  • B+: 88-89%
  • B: 83-87% or 8/10 – A B score is good, an above-average game that I probably like.  I probably put a lot of games into the B grade level.
  • B-: 80-82%
  • C+: 78-79%
  • C: 73-77% or 7/10 – a C score is considered average, the level that I expect a decent game should be able to reach.
  • C-: 70-72%
  • D+: 68-69%
  • D: 63-67% or 6/10 – A D score is below average, for bad games that are not entirely irredeemable, and might be entertaining despite their issues.
  • D-: 60-62%
  • F: 0-59% or 0 to 5 out of 10 – An F is for very bad games that fail to achieve the basic level required to be a fun or quality game.

In school, if you got less than a 60 it is considered failing, and I score games the same way.  I don’t use the “5 is average” scale, I prefer this one.  I switched from always using a percent-based score to mostly just giving letter grades in part because it should help alleviate the issue of people reading percent scores different ways — what a C or D is is clear, while the equivalent 75% or 65% score will be read differently by different people.  Also while I do like specificity, the difference, for instance, between a 73% and 77% score isn’t enough to need to list it with the review, really; the review texts hopefully will make those differences clear.

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Review: Zero Wing (Turbo CD) – A Very Good Shmup, even without CATS

Posted on July 26, 2015 by Brian

This is a new review of a game I just beat yesterday.  It’s a great game that doesn’t get enough respect for its high-quality classic shmup gameplay.

Game Data

  • Title: Zero Wing
  • Developer/Publisher: Naxat Soft (licensed from Toaplan, the developer of the original arcade game)
  • Released: 9/18/1992
  • Platform: TurboGrafx-16 CD (PC Engine CD; this is a regular CD-ROM2 game, no Super/Arcade Card needed)

Box cover(Note: See the video and links sections at the bottom for screenshots and footage of the game.)

REVIEW

Zero Wing is an infamous game thanks to how amazingly entertaining the badly translated introduction to the European Sega Genesis (Megadrive) version of the game is. The game isn’t just “All Your Base”, though, it is also a horizontal-scrolling shmup from Toaplan, one of the masters of the genre, the company which Cave would descend from after its collapse in the mid ’90s. I did not buy the European Megadrive version of Zero Wing, though. Instead, a few months ago I got a good deal on the Japanese Turbo CD (PC Engine CD) version, if a bit under $40 is a good deal (it seems to be!). The infamous European MD version costs a bit more. I like shmups, particularly horizontal ones, so I was hoping that the game would be as good as it seemed to be from my playing bits of the Genesis version here and there. It did not disappoint; as a shmup, Zero Wing is somewhat under-rated. It’s actually a good to great game, no question. This is a good version of the game, too. CATS is missing, but it does have two added levels, one a full stage and one a new final bossfight, and a fantastic CD audio soundtrack as well. They are nice additions.

STORY

So, what is Zero Wing? First of course, it’s a cutscene, the intro to that Genesis version of the game. There are three versions of Zero Wing, though, each with a somewhat different story. There’s the original arcade version by Toaplan, released in 1989, where you fight the evil CATS in your Zig fighter; Toaplan’s Genesis (MD) version, released in 1991, of the infamous intro where CATS, now seen in person on screen (unlike the arcade game, as far as I know, where I think it’s just text), threatens and destroys your base just as the Zig launches; and this version, Naxat Soft’s 1992 Turbo CD version of the game. Brace yourselves, CATS fans — CATS is not in this game. Naxat Soft replaced the original story with a new one. The levels are the same (with some additions); you still pilot a Zig fighter, which looks the same as before; but the story and characters are different. There’s a big more story now. It’s a bit like what was done to the Turbo CD version of Hellfire, Hellfire S, except without as disastrously, insultingly bad a story as the Turbo CD version of that game has, but I’ll discuss that another time.

You play as a guy, off to save the day in your Zig fighter. The villain is a bishounen-looking blond guy. I dxon’t know his motivations, I can’t understand much Japanese. His name seems to be Ludavig-sama or something like that, though that’s probably wrong; the name is Luda-something, anyway. In the intro, he talks with some cohorts of his while a woman who is spying for your side listens in. She appears in most of the cutscenes, and is either the hero’s relative or love interest, I’m not sure. Near the end of the game, naturally, because she’s female in a game with a male hero, she gets found out and you have to rescue her. In the end you save her, this game has a happy ending (unlike stupid Hellfire S). You don’t kill the main villain in the end, but he is clearly defeated. After learning the mission, the hero is off in his Zig with a nice classic launch animation. No attack is shown, but as in the other versions of the game your base ship is exploding as the Zig launches from it; maybe this is explained in the script somewhere, though the attack wasn’t shown on screen? That was a bit weird.

In addition to the intro and ending, there are also short scenes between most levels. They are thankfully short, so they won’t interrupt the action for long at all. Shmups should be about the shooting, not the story; I find the cutscenes in Macross 2036 for Turbo CD too long, for example. Overall, the game has a very cliche but okay story. I wish it had CATS from the Genesis version, but this new story is fine. It is unfortunate that they added in a girl to rescue, but at least she has an active role in the story through most of the game, before getting captured late. That’s a little better than just a basic “rescue the kidnapped girl” plot. I would like to see a translation of the game to know the details of what they’re saying; the basics are easy to understand, but I’m sure there are things I’m missing.

GRAPHICS

Graphically this is a fairly nice-looking game. When comparing this version to the Genesis version, each one has some plusses and minuses, but I might prefer this game despite its drawbacks. The more colorful art on the Turbografx looks a bit better than the somewhat drab Genesis visuals. It would have been nice to see Turbo versions of Toaplan’s three Genesis-only shmups that generation, Slap Fight MD, Grind Stormer, and Fire Shark; I think the Turbo or Turbo CD versions of most of their other five shmups, the five that are on both platforms (Hellfire, Zero Wing, Kyuukyoku Tiger/Twin Cobra, Truxton/Tatsujin, Daisenpuu) look better. More CD versions of the games would have been nice too, the three there are all have great CD audio soundtracks! Ah well. Anyway, Zero Wing is a good but not great-looking game. Interestingly, for a 1992 game, this game does not use the Super System Card for additional RAM: instead, it only uses the usual basic 64KB of RAM built in to the Turbo CD. For a regular-CD title, this game looks nice. It’s not the best looking regular-CD title, but does have good visuals and a good amount of graphical variety. The sprite work is good, better than Genesis as I said.

The game does have one graphical downside, though, and that is, as usual for TG16 games, lacking parallax scrolling. As with the Genesis and colors or the SNES and CPU speed, the Turbo has a design problem, no hardware parallax scrolling support. It’s very noticeable when you compare the Genesis and TCD versions of this game, the Genesis version has at least one more scrolling layer at pretty much all times than this one does. All foreground parallax objects from the arcade and Genesis versions, which they have some of, are also entirely gone on the Turbo CD. However, Naxat Soft did put in parallax where they could. They managed a nice scrolling starfield effect that appears on several levels, and there is some use of horizontal-strip parallax as well. Most levels have at least a bit of parallax, which is more than you can say for plenty of shmups on this system. It’s great to see. Still, seeing the ground you can hit and first background layer always scrolling together is unfortunate, I wish Hudson had realized parallax was needed in their system.

MUSIC

As expected from a CD game, Zero Wing for Turbo CD has a great CD-audio soundtrack. The soundtrack is better than the soundtracks of either the arcade or Genesis versions for sure. All three versions have great soundtracks, but the CD quality makes this one a bit better than the other two. I love the sound of early CD system music, it’s a distinctive style you don’t hear anymore. This game is a great example of good early game CD music. Each level has a unique music track, which is good. I don’t know if any of the songs are truly memorable, though, and they might get old if you get stuck on a level for a few hours as I was in one level in this game. I never wanted to mute the audio though, so the music held up well enough. Zero Wing has very good music, and I will definitely be listening to it more in the future.

GAMEPLAY SYSTEM

Finally, we get to the most important thing about any game, the gameplay! Zero Wing is often accused of being a very, or perhaps overly, average shooter, but that’s unfair; it’s a good, above-average game with some unique design elements. It is quite hard, but it’s a doable hard, if you are willing to learn the game. It isn’t the most original game, but it is better than most. In the game, you control the stubby Zig fighter. The controls are good, and ship movement is precise and accurate. When you die, it’s usually because you missed a bullet, not because of the controls. The only issue is your ship’s hitbox (where you can get hit to die), it seems like it might be slightly bigger than the ship, but you do get used to it; just stay away from bullets! Certain ship types drop powerups; all powerups will come from these ships. The first powerup will give you two invincible helper drones above and below your ship, then after that the other powerups will appear in order, as you destroy the powerup ships. The helper drones are a bit smaller than you, though, so expect them to regularly fail to protect you from bullets you’re counting on them to protect you from; I died many times because of this, and when you die in this game you go back to the last checkpoint, or the beginning of the level if it was a game over. Also, they can damage some enemy types by bumping into them, but not others. Generally enemies attached to the ground, such as turrets or such, seem to take damage, but not most flying ships. I really wish they could hurt everyone, it’d be a huge help. The other items are a quite useful speed-up item, and a very powerful single-use bomb that can attach to the front of your ship.

On that note, the most unique thing about Zero Wing is the tractor beam. One button shoots in this game, and the other uses the tractor beam. This beam will grab smaller enemies and hold them in front of your ship as a shield. By hitting the button again, you can throw the enemy at other enemies, to do more damage than basic shots. A bomb works similarly, if you have one — hit the button to toss it at the enemies and watch the explosion unfold. The grapple beam is nice, but not as central to the game as the enemy-takeover mechanics in BlaZeon (Arcade/SNES) or Zaxxon’s Motherbase 2000 (Sega 32X), for example, and you can only have one enemy at a time, unlike the later PC/Wii title Tumiki Fighters (aka Blast Works: Build & Destroy, on Wii). Still, for its time this might have been a new idea, those other games are newer than this one. It is a good idea which works to give you a bit more protection. You’ll need the help!

You have three weapons in this game, with three power levels each. There is a spread shot, a straight laser, and a homing shot. It’s a serviceable arsenal, but feels a bit under-powered without enough powerups. Later levels have enemies and obstacles that are nearly impossible to get past without a certain level of firepower, so particularly in level 9 I found myself almost always having to suicide multiple times to get game over just so I could get another chance at the game, because progress from the checkpoint was completely impossible without powerups the game doesn’t give you. Yeah, it’s cruelly designed. Fortunately, you have infinite continues, which is great! I much prefer games to allow infinite continues and saving, it makes games better.  Zero Wing doesn’t save, but at least you can keep trying until you either win or give up.  There are no difficulty level settings, though, typically for the Turbografx, and unlike the Genesis version. There also are also no additional loops, unlike the arcade and Genesis versions — finish it once and it’s over. Having at least one additional loop would have been nice, but it’s not really needed; this is a plenty hard game as it is.  The Genesis version has three difficulty levels, three loops per difficulty, and varies the continues based on difficulty.  You get infinite continues only on Easy difficulty, 10 continues on Normal, and 15 on Hard.  The odd ‘more continues on higher settings’ setup is similar to that in the Genesis version of Toaplan’s Twin Cobra (Kyuukyoku Tiger).  But anyway, for Zero Wing, overall I wouldn’t say either version (Genesis or TCD) is better in terms of difficulty or continues, they’re just different.  Both versions are a serious challenge, but on TCD you get two more levels, while on Genesis you get multiple loops and difficulty levels, though you also get frustration from limited continues on that version if you play above Easy.

THE LEVELS

As in most horizontal shmups, Zero Wing has both enemies and walls to contend with. If you touch anything, you die instantly. Your two helper bits are invulnerable, but you need to be careful or bullets will slip past them. Most areas are fairly open, but you will have to navigate some narrower spaces here and there, and contend with waves of bullets to attempt to avoid as well. Some bullets home in on you, others fly straight. I love horizontal shmups, so I think this game plays great! It’s a bit like Gradius or R-Type but not quite as good and with a more conventional powerup system. Even if it doesn’t match those all-time classics, though, this is still a great, and very well-designed, game. Each level looks and plays quite differently, and has unique enemies to face as well. The variety is a strength of the game. Zero Wing has a great difficulty curve; almost every level is harder than the one before it, which is how things should be but not always are.  The game often challenges during the first eight levels, but it’s a fun challenge through to that point.  The more constrained levels, like level 6, are particularly cool; that stage reminds me of something out of R-Type, but not as hard.

There is a big difficulty cliff in level 9, though — it is significantly more difficult than any other stage in the game, appropriately for the last full level. I made steady progress up to level 9, but that level is HARD and took me hours of frustrating replay to finally get past. It was very satisfying when I finally got through the level, though! It would have been nice had the checkpoint locations not been impossible to progress past more often than not in level 9, as I said earlier, but the level isn’t so long that getting through is impossible; it just requires a lot of practice. This is a hard, hard game, but the infinite continues really help take the sting off of it. I hate having to replay parts of games I’ve beaten repeatedly, and you don’t have to do that here. It’s too bad more Toaplan 4th-gen shmups don’t have this option. Even without the continues this game isn’t as hard as Truxton or Twin Cobra, either. It’s a tough game, with challenging levels to learn and tough bosses, but not one of Toaplan’s hardest games. In those encounters, a lot of classically Toaplan enemy patterns appear. Anyone who has played Truxton will definitely recognize some of the ways enemies attack you, but it’s slightly easier here than there. Each level has a miniboss and a full boss, and they are all huge and threatening. The final level, level 10, is just a bossfight, but it’s a hard one! Fortunately it dies fairly quickly, but it shoots a lot of fast bullets. It’s a good addition to the game, the ending feels more complete with it than on the arcade or Genesis version where it ends with the last boss of what here is level 9 (there 8). The new level is good too. It’s not the games’ best, but it does have weird, creepy graphics and solid design.

For flaws, other than the difficulty for those who dislike hard games, there aren’t many. Most notably, this game has some weird bugs, if that’s what they are, about progression in bossfights. Sometimes, if you die in a bossfight, you will go to the next level, instead of being sent back to where you should be! I read about this happening in the Genesis version in a GameFAQs review, and the same thing happened to me in the Turbo CD version. So, I’m not sure if it’s some bug with the arcade game they intentionally kept or what, but it is real. In one of the later stages (7 or 8), I died after killing 2 of the 3 big enemies that made up the final boss that level… and I was sent to the next level, not back! That was odd. Then in the final stage, level 10, I died moments after killing the final boss, but it counted as a win anyway, something most games would not do. I don’t know if these two issues are bugs or features, but they do happen. I also wish the game saved your scores and a level select. That’s about it for flaws, though. This is a great game, I like it a lot!

OVERALL

In conclusion, Zero Wing for the Turbo CD is a very good shmup. One of only two horizontal shmups from Toaplan, it shows that they could do a great job with this type of shooter. Zero Wing is a nice-looking game with good, interesting art design and a great soundtrack. It’s not the best-looking regular-CD shmup on the Turbo CD, but it definitely is an above-average game visually, and well above average in terms of gameplay. This is a really fun game to play, with highly polished controls and level designs. Sure, it was tough and took some time to beat, but it was a fun experience beginning to end. I definitely recommend Zero Wing to anyone who has an interest in horizontal shmups. This Turbo CD version of the game may be obscure and may not have CATS or hilarious Engrish in it, and it’s not cheap either (though the EU MD version costs at least as much or more), but it’s very well worth searching for, because it’s the longest version of a classic shooter. Zero Wing’s gameplay shouldn’t be nearly as under-rated as it is. Recommended! Score: A-.

VIDEOS

PC Engine CD Longplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x_fsEdK2q0

Genesis Longplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_WaqY7vMgw

Arcade Longplay (loops 1 and 2): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIT3OvfDlyk

LINKS

PCEngine.co.uk Page: http://www.pcengine.co.uk/HTML_Games/Zero_Wing.htm -This page has screenshots and some nice version-comparison images between the three versions.

http://www.thebrothersduomazov.com/2…zero-wing.html – The Brothers Duomazov review. They’re a bit harder on the game than I am. The review has more screenshots.

Posted in Classic Games, Full Reviews, Reviews, Turbo CD | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Opinion List: My Favorite Game For Each Platform I Have (No Late Ports Included) & For Each Platform (True Exclusives Only)

Posted on July 18, 2015 by Brian

Inspired by this NeoGAF thread, I wrote up this list: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=171036686  First I made the list from the thread, and then second a list of only true exclusives, that is games that are only available on that platform and no other.  Making lists of games I like is fun.  Choosing which games to put in these lists was easier for some platforms than others.  In general, I mostly stick to only counting games that I own.

My Favorite Games By Platform-No Late Ports Included
That is, this first list is only including games either first released on the platform or simultaneously launched on this and other platforms, but not later ports of a game from a different system.  Games first released on the listed platform but later on released on other systems do count for this list, though.

Handhelds / Portables

  • Game Boy – The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening
  • Game Gear – Super Columns (it’s a GG exclusive, so it should count.  But otherwise,
  • Crystal Warriors.)
  • Virtual Boy – Virtual Boy Wario Land
  • Game Boy / GB Color (dual mode) – Hexcite (it’s a board game conversion, but hadn’t had a console release before I think… otherwise, Montezuma’s Return.)
  • Game Boy Color (only) – The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages
  • Neo Geo Pocket Color – The Last Blade (it’s a remake, but feels different from the console games.  Otherwise, Metal Slug: 2nd Mission.)
  • Game Boy Advance – Fire Emblem (7)
  • Nintendo DS – Picross 3D
  • PSP – Class of Heroes II (or for US releases, ie not counting previous Japan-only versions, Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time)TV Consoles
  • Atari 2600 – Megamania (also on 5200, but the 2600 version came first)
  • Odyssey 2 – UFO!
  • Atari 7800 – Desert Falcon
  • NES – Super Mario Bros.
  • Sega Master System – Zaxxon 3-D
  • TurboGrafx-16 – Blazing Lazers
  • Genesis – Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles
  • Turbo CD – Castlevania X: Rondo of Blood
  • SNES – Super Mario World
  • Sega CD – Lunar 2: Eternal Blue (the PS1/SAT remake isn’t quite the same… but otherwise, SoulStar.)
  • Sega 32X – Shadow Squadron
  • Sega CD 32X – Fahrenheit
  • Saturn – Panzer Dragoon (the first one)
  • Playstation – Threads of Fate
  • Nintendo 64 – The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
  • Dreamcast – Skies of Arcadia
  • Playstation 2 – Gradius V
  • Gamecube – Eternal Darkness
  • Xbox – Panzer Dragoon Orta
  • Xbox 360 – The King of Fighters XIII
  • Wii – Super Mario Galaxy

 

My Favorite Games By Platform – True Exclusives Only
This second list is more restrictive — it includes my favorite game for each system that has never been re-released on any other platform.  Virtual Console or other downloadable re-releases disqualify games for this list, only games only on this one platform and no other count.

Handhelds / Portables

  • Game Boy – This should be Gradius: The Interstellar Assault, but I probably technically shouldn’t count it because of the Europe-only colorized GB/GBC version in one of the Konami collections, so… Wave Race, maybe?
  • Game Gear – Super Columns (or otherwise, Royal Stone)
  • [Virtual Boy – still Virtual Boy Wario Land]
  • Game Boy / GB Color (dual mode) – Montezuma’s Return (a classic remake, should this count?  It does have new level maps and more features.  Otherwise, probably the B&W version of Conker’s Pocket Tales.)
  • Game Boy Color (only) – WarLocked
  • [Neo Geo Pocket Color – still The Last Blade]
  • Game Boy Advance – Summon Night: Swordcraft Story
  • [Nintendo DS – still Picross 3D]
  • PSP – similar to before, Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time, or if you don’t count it because of the Japanese PS2 release, Class of Heroes.TV Consoles
  • Atari 2600: Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom (yes, it’s based on an arcade game, but it plays differently from any other version — it’s the only one that plays on a 2d plane.)
  • [Odyssey 2 – still UFO!]
  • [Atari 7800 – still Desert Falcon]
  • NES – TMNT III: The Manhattan Project
  • [Sega Master System – still Zaxxon 3-D]
  • TurboGrafx-16 – W-Ring: The Double Rings
  • Genesis – The Adventures of Batman & Robin (second: maybe Eliminate Down)
  • Turbo CD – Alzadick: Summer Carnival ’92
  • SNES – Firepower 2000
  • Sega CD – If we don’t count Lunar 2 because of the remakes, then SoulStar, unless you don’t count that either because of the unfinished Jaguar CD and 32X prototype roms, in which case… Silpheed!
  • Sega 32X – Shadow Squadron
  • Sega CD 32X – N/A (all games are also on Sega CD)
  • Saturn – Panzer Dragoon II: Zwei
  • Playstation – Wipeout 3
  • Nintendo 64 – Wipeout 64 (followed by Goemon’s Great Adventure, for those that don’t want to count Wipeout 64 because most of the tracks are remixes of old ones)
  • Dreamcast – 4 Wheel Thunder
  • Playstation 2 – Final Fantasy XII
  • [Gamecube – still Eternal Darkness]
  • [Xbox – still Panzer Dragoon Orta]
  • Xbox 360 – Hydro Thunder Hurricane
  • [Wii – still Super Mario Galaxy]
Posted in 32X, Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Classic Games, Dreamcast, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Color, Game Gear, Gamecube, Genesis, Lists, Modern Games, NES, Nintendo 64, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, Odyssey 2, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Playstation Portable, Saturn, Sega CD, Sega Master System, SNES, Turbo CD, TurboGrafx-16, Virtual Boy, Xbox, Xbox 360 | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

List: Capcom Fighting Games – A list of all fighting games published by Capcom

Posted on July 10, 2015 by Brian

Returning to the subject of ‘near-useless lists’… here’s another one!  I made this because I was wondering if Capcom had released more fighting games on the Dreamcast than they have since.  Well, that was true through the ’00s, but thanks to their numerous digital re-releases of old games, it isn’t anymore. Capcom did release more 3d fighting games that have 3d movement (that is, not games that play on a flat plane like the Street Fighter IV/V series all do) on the Dreamcast than on all other platforms combined, though, so there is that; after the DC Capcom mostly abandoned 3d fighting games.

In addition, for 2d, 2.5d (SFIV/V style 3d graphics on a 2d plane games) and 3d fighting games combined, counting only original titles and console ports of games originally released (in arcades, generally) within the past five years, though, the Dreamcast still has the edge, I think… it goes to show how Capcom has faded, and how the fighting game genre doesn’t see anywhere near the number of releases now that it once did.  It’s too bad.

The list below really illustrates how Capcom mostly gave up on fighting games after 2001.  After releasing 18 fighting games on the Dreamcast between 1999 and 2001, Capcom only released 10 on the Playstation 2 between 2000 and 2010, four of those games also available on Dreamcast, and several of their later PS2 fighters are licensed anime games developed by outside teams.  Meanwhile, the Xbox, GBA, and GC had only 1 to 3 Capcom fighters each.  And the next generation, on the PS3, 360, PSP, and Wii, aside from the numerous classic re-releases and HD updates, Capcom released only four entirely original fighting games, with four versions of one of those games releasing (SFIV) and two versions of the other three (MvC3, TvC, Fate/) seeing release.  And one of those four series is a licesned anime property, developed by an outside team.  ’90s Capcom is long gone, now, because of Capcom’s weakened position today and because of the high development costs of development today.  But at least all of the games below exist!

 

Capcom Fighting Game Releases

Key:

* = external release (someone else ported and released the game, licensed by Capcom)
– = Digital re-release or HD remake of an old game
() = Collection release, no new titles included
Note: US console names used.  The year listed for console games is the year the game first released in any region.

1989
—
Street Fighter (Arcade)
*Fighting Street (TurboGrafx-CD)

1991
—
Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (Arcade)

1992
—
Street Fighter II (SNES)
Street Fighter II’: Champion Edition (Arcade)
Street Fighter II’: Hyper Fighting (Arcade)

1993
—
Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers (Arcade)
Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting (SNES)
Street Fighter II’: Special Champion Edition (Genesis)
*Street Fighter II’: Champion Edition (TurboGrafx-16)
Street Fighter II’ (Sharp X68000)

1994
—
Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers (SNES)
Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers (Genesis)
Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers (Sharp X68000)
Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers (FM Towns)
Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (CPS Changer)
Street Fighter II’ Turbo (CPS Changer)
Super Street Fighter II Turbo (Arcade)
Super Street Fighter II Turbo (3DO)
DarkStalkers (Arcade)
X-Men: Children of the Atom (Arcade)

1995
—
Night Warriors: DarkStalkers’ Revenge (Arcade) [Darkstalkers 2]
Night Warriors: DarkStalkers’ Revenge (Saturn)
DarkStalkers: The Night Warriors (Playstation)
Cyberbots: Full Metal Madness (Arcade)
Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors’ Dreams (Arcade)
Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors’ Dreams (Playstation)
Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors’ Dreams (Saturn)
Street Fighter: The Movie (Arcade) [different from console version]
Street Fighter: The Movie (Playstation)
Street Fighter: The Movie (Saturn)
Street Fighter II (Game Boy)
Super Street Fighter II (PC)

1996
—
Street Fighter Alpha 2 (SNES)
Street Fighter Alpha 2 (Playstation)
Street Fighter Alpha 2 (Saturn)
Street Fighter Zero 2 Alpha (Arcade) [revision of SFA2]
Street Fighter Zero [Alpha] (CPS Changer)
Star Gladiator: Episode 1 – Final Crusade (Arcade)
Star Gladiator: Episode 1 – Final Crusade (Playstation)
X-Men vs. Street Fighter (Arcade)
Street Fighter EX (Arcade)
Red Earth (Arcade)

1997
—
Street Fighter III: New Generation (Arcade)
Street Fighter EX Plus (Arcade) [revision of SF EX]
Marvel Super Heroes (Saturn)
Marvel Super Heroes (Playstation)
Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire (Arcade)
Street Fighter Collection [1] (Saturn)
Street Fighter Collection [1] (Playstation)
Cyberbots: Fullmetal Madness (Saturn)
Cyberbots: Fullmetal Madness (Playstation)
Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter (Arcade)
X-Men vs. Street Fighter (Saturn)
Pocket Fighter (Arcade)
Vampire Hunter 2 (Arcade) [revision of Vampire Savior]
Vampire Savior 2 (Arcade) [revison of Vampire Savior]
Street Fighter Alpha (PC)
Rival Schools (Arcade)

1998
—
Plasma Sword: Nightmare of Bilstein (Arcade) [Star Gladiator 2]
Vampire Savior (Saturn) [DarkStalkers 3]
Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes (Arcade)
DarkStalkers 3 (Playstation)
Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact – Giant Attack (Arcade)
Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha (Playstation)
Pocket Fighter (Saturn)
Pocket Fighter (Playstation)
Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter (Saturn)
Rival Schools (Playstation)
X-Men vs. Street Fighter (Playstation)
Street Fighter Collection 2 (Playstation)
Capcom Memorial Collection Vol. 5 (Saturn) [Street Fighter Collection 2]
Tech Romancer (Arcade)
Street Fighter EX2 (Arcade)
Street Fighter Zero 2′ (Playstation) [revision of SFA2]
Street Fighter Zero 2′ (Saturn) [revison of SFA2]
Street Fighter Alpha 2 (PC)
Street Fighter Alpha 3 (Arcade)
Gekitou Power Modeler (Game Boy)

1999
—
Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter (Playstation)
Street Fighter Alpha 3 (Saturn)
Street Fighter Alpha 3 (Dreamcast)
Street Fighter Alpha 3 (Playstation)
Shiritsu Justice Gakuen Nekketsu Seisyun Nikki 2 (Playstation) [revision of Rival Schools]
JoJo’s Venture (Arcade)
Street Fighter III: Third Strike (Arcade)
Street Fighter EX2 Plus (Arcade)
Street Fighter EX2 Plus (Playstation)
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure (Arcade)
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure (Playstation)
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure (Dreamcast)
Final Fight Revenge (Arcade)
Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes (Dreamcast)
Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes (Playstation)
Plasma Sword: Nightmare of Bilstein (Dreamcast) [Star Gladiator 2]
Power Stone (Dreamcast)
Street Fighter III: Double Impact (Dreamcast)

2000
—
Final Fight Revenge (Saturn)
Tech Romancer (Dreamcast)
Project Justice (Dreamcast)
Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors’ Dreams (Game Boy Color)
Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (Arcade)
Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (Dreamcast)
Capcom vs. SNK: Millenium Fight 2000 (Arcade)
Capcom vs. SNK: Millenium Fight 2000 (Playstation)
Capcom vs. SNK: Millenium Fight 2000 (Dreamcast)
Super Street Fighter II X For Matching Service (Dreamcast) [SSFII Turbo]
Vampire Collection For Matching Service (Dreamcast) [DarkStalkers Collection]
Street Fighter Alpha (Game Boy Color)
Street Fighter III: Third Strike (Dreamcast)
Power Stone 2 (Arcade)
Power Stone 2 (Dreamcast)
Street Fighter EX3 (Playstation 2)
Capcom vs. SNK: Millenium Fight 2000 Pro (Arcade) [CvS revision]
Project Justice (Dreamcast)

2001
—
Project Justice (Arcade)
Street Fighter Zero 3 Upper (Arcade) [SFA3 Upper]
Capcom vs. SNK Pro (Dreamcast)
Capcom vs. SNK Pro (Playstation)
Spawn: In the Demon’s Hand (Dreamcast)
Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millenium 2001 (Arcade)
Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millenium 2001 (Dreamcast)
Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millenium 2001 (Playstation 2)
Super Street Fighter II Turbo Revival (Game Boy Advance)

2002
—
Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (Playstation 2)
Capcom vs. SNK 2: EO (Gamecube)
Capcom vs. SNK 2: EO (Xbox)
Street Fighter Alpha 3 (Game Boy Advance)

2003
—
Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (Xbox)
Onimusha: Blade Warriors (Playstation 2)
Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition (Arcade)
Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition (Playstation 2)

2004
—
Street Fighter III: Third Strike (PS2)
()Street Fighter Anniversary Collection (PS2) [Hyper SFII + SFIII:TS]
Street Fighter Anniversary Collection (Xbox) [Hyper SFII + SFIII:TS]
(Cancelled: Capcom Fighting Jam (Arcade))
Capcom Fighting Evolution (PS 2)
Capcom Fighting Evolution (Xbox)

2005
—
DarkStalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Tower (PSP)
Shijyou Saikyou no Deshi Kenichi: Gekitou! Ragnarok Hachikengou (PS2)

2006
—
Street Fighter Alpha 3 Double Upper (PSP)
-Street Fighter II: The World Warrior [SNES] (Wii – Virtual Console)
-Street Fighter II’ Hyper Fighting (Xbox 360 Digital Download – XBLA)

2007
—
Fate/Tiger Colisseum (PSP) [externally developed]
-Street Fighter II’ Turbo: Hyper Fighting [SNES] (Wii – Virtual Console)
-Super Street Fighter II [SNES] (Wii – Virtual Console)

2008
—
Sengoku Basara X (Arcade) [externally developed]
Sengoku Basara X (PS2) [externally developed]
Fate/Unlimited Codes (Arcade) [externally developed]
Fate/Unlimited Codes (PS2) [externally developed]
Street Fighter IV (Arcade)
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (Playstation 3)
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (Xbox 360)
Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Cross Generation of Heroes (Arcade)
Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Cross Generation of Heroes  (Wii)
-Street Fighter II: SCE [Genesis] (Wii – Virtual Console)

2009
—
Fate/Unlimited Codes Portable (PSP) [externally developed]
Street Fighter IV (Xbox 360)
Street Fighter IV (Playstation 3)
Street Fighter IV (PC)
-Marvel vs. Capcom 2  (X360) [arcade port]
-Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (PS3) [arcade port]
Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars (Wii)
-Street Fighter II: Champion Edition (Mobile) [rom port]
-Fighting Street [TCD] (Wii – Virtual Console)
-Street Fighter II’: Champion Edition [TG16] (Wii – Virtual Console)
-Street Fighter Alpha 2 [SNES] (Wii – Virtual Console)

2010
—
Street Fighter IV (iOS)
Super Street Fighter IV (X360)
Super Street Fighter IV (PS3)
Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition (Arcade)

2011
—
Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds (PS3)
Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds (X360)
Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition (3DS)
Street Fighter IV Volt (iOS)
Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition (PS3)
Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition (X360)
Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition (PC)
Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (PS3)
Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (X360)
Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (Vita)
-Street Fighter III: Third Strike – Online Edition (Xbox 360 – XBLA)
-Street Fighter III: Third Strike – Online Edition (PS3 – PSN)
-Super Street Fighter II [Genesis] (Wii – Virtual Console)

2012
—
Street Fighter X Tekken (PS3)
Street Fighter X Tekken (X360)
Street Fighter X Tekken (PC)
Street Fighter X Tekken (Vita)
-Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (iOS) [rom port]
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure HD Ver. (PS3) [HD remaster]
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure HD Ver. (X360) [HD remaster]
Street Fighter X Tekken Mobile (iOS)
()Street Fighter 25th Anniversary Collector’s Set (X360) [includes SFxT, SSFIVAE, SSFIITHDR, and SFIIITSOE with extras)
()Street Fighter 25th Anniversary Collector’s Set (PS3) [includes SFxT, SSFIVAE, SSFIITHDR, and SFIIITSOE with extras)

2013
—
-Street Fighter II: The World Warrior [SNES] (Wii U – Virtual Console)
-Street Fighter II’ Turbo: Hyper Fighting [SNES] (Wii U – Virtual Console)
-Super Street Fighter II [SNES] (Wii U – Virtual Console)

2014
—
Ultra Street Fighter IV (PS3)
Ultra Street Fighter IV (X360)
Ultra Street Fighter IV (PC)
Ultra Street Fighter IV (Playstation 4)
-Street Fighter Alpha 2 [SNES] (Wii U – Virtual Console)

2015
—
None?

2016
—
Scheduled: Street Fighter V (PS4, PC)

Posted in Classic Games, Dreamcast, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Color, Gamecube, Genesis, Lists, Modern Games, Nintendo Wii, PC, PC, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Playstation Portable, Saturn, Sega CD, SNES, TurboGrafx-16, Xbox, Xbox 360 | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Sega Saturn Game Info Box Color Codes & List of if Saturn Shmups Support Saving

Posted on June 30, 2015 by Brian

I made this list back in early 2009, a while after I got a Saturn, because I wanted to know exactly which Saturn shmups save, after learning that Darius Gaiden and In the Hunt don’t.  This version of the list is largely unchanged, but I did improve the first section.  Most shmups on the system do save, but there are a few that do not.  In order to easily figure out which gaems do and which don’t, I looked at those yellow boxes on the back of all Japanese Saturn games which tell you some info about the game.  So, this list will have two parts, first my analysis of what those lines in the yellow box mean, and second a list of all Saturn shmups sorted into ‘do save’ and ‘no saving’.

Sega Saturn Japanese Case Back Label Dot Color Codes

Notes: These colored dots are found in the yellow box on the back of every Japanese Saturn game.  The box tells you information about the game.  Each line in the box starts with a colored dot, and then has some Japanese text after the dot with the details.  They appear in a set order, and the list below is in the order that they appear on the cases.  The first two of these appear on all game cases,  but the rest only appear when they apply.

Blue — Number of Players — All games have this, with a number between 1 and 12, for the number of player supported.

Red — Genre — Yes, each games’ genre is listed in the info box.  All games have this.

Purple — Backup Save (ie the game supports saving) — Games that have saving have this.  Games that don’t save to the system or backup RAM card won’t, so a game with password-only save, for example, would not have this — it only refers to actual save files.

Green — Accessories Supported — this category will list the System Link Cable, 3D Controller (“Multi Controller”, it’s called in Japan, though here these listings are all in Japanese of course), Mission Stick, Arcade Racer, Mouse, Keyboard, Virtua Gun, and such.  There is no listing for the standard controller, since all games support it.  If alternate controllers or accessories are supported, they are listed here. Each accessory gets a separate green-dot listing, so games that support multiple accessories will have several of them.  You’ll need to know Japanese to be able to tell which accessory is supported by just looking here, but it’s usually not too hard to guess — the wheel for a racing game, joystick for a flight or mech game, gun for a lightgun game, and such.

Yellow — ??  I’m not sure what this one means.  Hopefully someone can answer this question, what does the yellow dot line mean?

Black — Black — Multiple Discs? But some with it seem to be one disc games… maybe those are games that also come with a soundtrack disc, a demo disc for another game, and such. It says “CD-ROM something”.

Saving in Saturn Shmups

Notes: Games are Japanese-only releases unless noted with a (JE) or (JUE) to note the other regions.  All games are listed by their Japanese release name; other region titles are in (parenthesis).  Games are in alphabetical order within each list.

Saving
—
Blast Wind: Ultimate Destroyer
Batsugun
Battle Garegga
Capcom Generation 1
Capcom Generation 3
Capcom Generation 4
Bokan to Ippatsu! Doronbo Kanpekihen
Cotton 2
Cotton Boomerang
Darius II (JE)
Detana Twinbee Yahho! Deluxe Pack
DonPachi
DoDonPachi
Dezaemon 2
Galactic Attack (JEU) (Layer Section/GunLock)
Game Tengoku – The Game Paradise
Gokujou Parodius Da! Deluxe Pack (JE) (Parodius)
Gradius Deluxe Pack
Guardian Force
Gunbird
Hyper 3D Taisen Battle Gebockers
Hyper Duel
Keio Flying Squadron 2 (mostly a platformer) (JE) (Keio Yugekitai 2)
Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius: Forever with Me
Kyuukyoku Tiger II Plus
Layer Section II
Macross: Do You Remember Love
Planet Joker
Radiant Silvergun
Sega Ages: Fantasy Zone
Salamander Gold Pack Plus
Sengoku Blade
Sexy Parodius
Shienryu
Shippuu Mahou Daisakusen
Skull Fang
Sol Divide
Sonic Wings Special
Soukyugurentai
Soukyugurentai Otokuyo
Steam Hearts
Terra Cresta 3D
Strikers 1945
Strikers 1945 II
Thunder Force Gold Pack 2
Thunder Force V
Tsuukai!! Slot Shooting
Twinkle Star Sprites (has black symbol)
Wolf Fang: Koukiba 2001 SS

No Saving
—
Cho Aniki: Kyuukyoku Muteki Ginga Saikyou Otoko
Darius Gaiden (JEU)
Gekirindan – Time Travel Shooting
Gun Frontier (has black symbol)
In the Hunt (JEU) (Kaitei Taisensou: In the Hunt)
Konami Antiques MSX Collection Ultra Pack
Prikura Daisakusen (has black symbol)
Thunder Force Gold Pack 1

Posted in Classic Games, Lists, Research, Saturn | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

My Thoughts on E3 2015

Posted on June 21, 2015 by Brian

E3 was this week, and it was pretty awesome to watch!  It’s great that so much stuff from E3 gets streamed now, there was so much to watch.  I’m sure I’ll be finding stuff to watch from E3 for quite some time, you can’t watch it all during the show.  I watched all of the press conferences on Sunday through Tuesday, but during the show mostly watched Nintendo’s Treehouse stream and Giant Bomb’s after-show streams, only occasionally watching other streams during the show such as Twitch’s, IGN’s, or Youtube’s.  I love Nintendo, so it got first priority.

Ratings: The Press Conferences & Games Shown
(and Nintendo World Championships 2015)

First, my thoughts on the press conferences.  They will be organized from best to worst.  I’m judging each conference mostly based on whether they had games I want to play.

Nintendo World Championships 2015 – A. This was a great show! I hope that in the future Nintendo goes back to live press conferences (with more reveals), but this tourney was great fun, I really liked watching it.  The tourney was structured well, they showed off a lot of games, there were even a few new games shown, and Mario Maker looks really great, it has improved a lot over last year.  If they do more events like this in the future, though, it’d be nice to see more places holding qualifying tourneys — this had only eight, which really isn’t many.  Otherwise, great show!

Nintendo – A-. Nintendo showed almost nothing for next year, but their library for this year is great, stronger for 3DS than Wii U but the Wii U has some good-looking games as well — Star Fox and Mario Maker look fantastic, and hopefully Xenoblade Chronicles X as well. Yeah, I also wish that the conference had had a big reveal of some major upcoming Wii U game, but otherwise it was quite good. The hate Nintendo is receiving here is crazy. The 3DS got some great stuff announced — new Zelda! New Mario RPG! And maybe the Metroid game too, MP Hunters was fun.  The Treehouse stream later on made the Metroid game look a lot better than it came off in the initial trailer in this conference, so I am optimistic about the game (more below).  The Mario RPG game is by the Mario & Luigi team, which does make me a bit cautious — those games are okay, but I strongly prefer the Paper Mario games over M&L.  I hope this is better than past M&L games.  And the Zelda game really looks awesome; it’s basically a followup to Four Swords Adventures, which is a very good game.  This year’s Wii U library is pretty good as well, with Star Fox, Mario Maker, and Xenoblade Chronicles X as the headliners.  The Wii U Mario’s Tennis game looks good as well  All three major Wii U games looked fantastic in the press conference, and in the Treehouse afterwards as well.

Sony – B to B+. Yeah, the three big reveals are a big deal, and they showed some other great stuff that’s a ways off too (Horizon could be good), but Sony showed NOTHING for this year. Sony and Nintendo really are opposites here, and while shocking reveals are great, why wait all that time for the games with nothing until then, when Nintendo has good games now AND will surely also have other good games in the future, even if they haven’t announced them yet? And as for those three reveals… FFVII isn’t a game I’ve ever found interesting enough to stick with, but it is cool it’s getting a remake; TLG looks okay but dated; and I found Shenmue 1 quite boring so I doubt I’d like this new one either. So yeah, as cool as it was to see them, for me personally the games aren’t my favorite things.  As for the rest of the show, it was the usual mixture of stuff; Sony conferences are always long and unevenly paced.  This time the first half was loaded with reveals, but the second half had few to none and was less interesting.  Sony finished with Uncharted 4; the driving stage shown looked fun, but I’ve never had much interest in that mostly third-person-shooting-focused series.  The highlight for me at Sony’s show, as far as a game I might want to try, is probably Horizon.  It’s got a female protagonist, an interesting long-after-the-robot-apocalypse setting, people with primitive weapons fighting against robots… it looks pretty cool! Robot dinosaurs are awesome. :)  The Last Guardian also could be better than it seemed here, we’ll see.  And FFVII… well, the trailer was good, even if the original game never has held my interest.  I’ll certainly be following the remake, though I imagine it’ll be a long time before it releases.

Square-Enix – B. Square’s conference was pretty impressive, loaded with pretty good-looking games that look pretty interesting. The main thing holding back this conference was that the biggest titles were already shown yesterday at other conferences — FFVII Remake, World of Final Fantasy (is this an F2P game, or a traditional RPG? I can’t tell.), Tomb Raider, etc.  Still, they showed some games I’m interested in.  I hope Star Ocean 5 is good!  Star Ocean 2 is my favorite PS1 game, so though the series hasn’t come even close to that high since, I still hope each one will be great.  Apparently it’ll be set in between the second and third games, and might say more (or maybe retcon or explain-by-weird-metaphysics) SO3’s crazy plot twist.  That could be interesting, or just dumb, we’ll see.  Kingdom Hearts 3 also could be good, though I’m not a big fan of the series; the games get repetitive, and Sora isn’t the most interesting character.  I really wish this one would have other playable characters, but all they’ve shown is Sora.  The Nier 2 reveal was also interesting for how little it said.  I haven’t played the first one and from what I know about the story I don’t think I want to (it’s incredibly dark and depressing!), but I’m glad a sequel is being made for its fans.  As for their Western games,they talked about the new Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, and Just Cause games.  They all look good enough, though I’m not really looking forward to any of those; I’ve never been a Tomb Raider fan but turning it into a third-person shooter made me like it even less; I don’t care for open-world games; and Deus Ex… who knows, we’ll see.  Still, it was a pretty good show overall, though they could work a bit on their presentation; it was a bit slow and low-budget.

Microsoft– C+. This was one of MS’s better conferences, but still was a bit thin on games. MS definitely has a better 2015 library than Sony, but they didn’t have the big reveals Sony did, and we already know about their major titles for this year. Armature’s Recore and the Rare pirate MMO game look very promising and could be good, but I want to see more of them. Armature was founded by some people from Retro Studios, so I hope this game is good, Metroid Prime is one of the best ever!  MS also showed off their AR headset, Hololens.  I’m not a fan of VR stuff, though I do like my Virtual Boy, but it’s interesting to see at least.  But I don’t think all games will be better in VR, and certainly as long as it’s a big bulky headset I won’t want to be wearing those things for long.  And how will they feel over glasses?  However, I really find it annoying that MS won’t talk much about PC in their conferences. Microsoft, so long as you show that PC isn’t important by not talking about it in your conference, I’ll never believe your “we care now about PC gaming, really!” talk. And trolling PC gamers by, at the PC Gamer conference, announcing that KI and the Gears remaster are getting PC ports but not Halo or Forza is kind of annoying; I’m not really a fan of any of those four franchises, but still, if you’re going to support the PC, release your major titles for it. The PC IS a Microsoft platform after all.  Their excuses for why they barely mention it at their press conferences don’t hold up.

Ubisoft – C. The conference was well presented and as entertaining as ever, but they showed very few games I really want to play. I like Ubisoft’s racing and platformer games the most, but they had almost none of those apart from a new console Trackmania game and maybe the new Anno game. Trackmania will probably be cool, but otherwise the conference was just way too much Tom Clancy stuff I’ll probably never play. They showd like three Tom Clancy games… blah.  There was Assassin’s Creed as always, of course; as a history major I wish I loved that series, but I just can’t get into it, the gameplay is too simple and lacks depth or challenge.  The story is weird as well.  Still, Ubi does always have one of the funniest conferences, and that is worth something.

EA – C-.  Mirror’s Edge 2 and the yarn game were the highlights here, and those look great. The yarn game is a 2.5d platformer and I’m hopeful it’ll be as good as it looks in the video.  Also, I am particularly happy to hear that Mirror’s Edge 2 won’t have guns, that’s a step in the right direction!  The guns were the weakest part about the first game.  The new Mass Effect game could be good too, but they showed little of it.  I still haven’t really played the series, either.  However, apart from those few games, this conference was mostly bland.  EA talked a lot about its sports games of course, and such.  There wasn’t much interesting here, but nothing completely terrible either.  Oh, and as a longtime Star Wars fan maybe I should care about the new Battlefront, but I’ve never played the series before and don’t particularly care for that kind of (Battlefield-style) game, so I don’t really.  The original Battlefield 1942 demo was alright when it first released, but I never was interested enough to play any more of the series after that.

Bethesda – D. Dishonored 2 could be great, but nothing else here was at all interesting. Doom, looks pretty seriously disappointing (where’s Doom’s speed, graphical design, and level styles?  Gone, that’s where, it seems.), and the only Fallout games I care about were made by Black Isle. I don’t like Bethesda much, and this conference was a good example of why.  Their parent company ZeniMax has done some pretty scummy things to developers, but even just looking at their games, as someone who does not enjoy open-world games it’s hard to find much in their library of any interest.

The PC Gaming Show – I can’t rate this PC Gamer conference for sure because I didn’t watch it all.  It’s a good show, but long.  The show is interesting, but low-budget and light on reveals. Still, it’s great that it happened at all. MS showed their usual lack of interest in the PC, so someone had to step up! And they had lots of great and interesting PC games to show, even if they were’t new. So yeah, B-something grade probably.

More thoughts on some games shown on the show floor

No Man’s Sky (PS4/PC) – This was shown at the Sony conference, the PC Gaming Show, and during E3, and it’s a game that has gotten a lot of buzz, but definitely does not look interesting to me; it’s all about incredibly open-ended design.  This looks like a product that is not for people who want to play a game… it is for people who want to experience life, explore, find things, and shoot at them if you want. It’s massive with no real clear gameplay hook unless you LOVE near-purposeless exploration, a 100% procedurally generated world, and such. Is it a game? Yes… but there’s barely any point to it.  I don’t see a hook to actually make me want to play, and their talking about the games’ complex crafting system reinforces that– I hate crafting!  This is not a game for me design-wise, that’s obvious. Also no date was mentioned for release, for those who are interested in the game.

Street Fighter V (PS4/PC) – Based on the first reveals I basically had thought of this as ‘SFIV but with better graphics’, but after watching people play the game, there is a bit more to it than that.  Capcom have mixed up the game system a bit here — parries seem to be back in for example, and movesets are different.  The art is also a bit different.  Still, the game is very much based on Street Fighter IV.  Just like that game it is a 2.5d fighting game, with polygonal graphics but gameplay strictly on a flat plane.  The graphical design is also similar to SFIV, but with better graphics.  SFIV is a good game, but never has grabbed me like KOF XIII.  Still, I’m sure this game will be good.  It’s already very playable, clearly.

The Legend of Zelda: Triforce Heroes (3DS) – Watching some Nintendo Treehouse stuff, the new 3DS Zelda game really looks like great fun. I’ve been thinking that it’s a shame that Nintendo hasn’t made another Four Swords game, because FSA on the GC is a great game, but they’re finally doing it! And it looks really fun, too. They are emphasizing cooperative play more this time, so the three players share a health bar. This definitely makes things more challenging, but making people work together isn’t bad. The graphical look is similar to the previous 3DS Zelda game, but it looks good enough. The different costumes are interesting as well, each one has different abilities. Different costumes will definitely change how you approach some things, and I’m sure there are better costumes for certain stages. Plus it’ll have online play too, which is fantastic (FSA relied on GBA links only, of course, and that connectivity thing… wasn’t exactly an answer for online play, that’s for sure.). It’s looking great.

Metroid Prime: Federation Force (3DS) – After watching some footage on the Treehouse stream, Metroid Prime: Federation Force looks pretty good, basically like Metroid Prime but with cartoonier art and 4-player co-op. The character and mech designs definitely could use some work, and hopefully they improve, but otherwise this game looks quite good. The environments look great, very Metroid Prime-styled. The music sounds like MP stuff as well, and the interface and controls also, which is awesome because Metroid Prime is one of the best games ever. So yeah, they have some things to work on, but the game definitely looks quite promising.   So yeah, another thing where the hate is massively overdone. I’m sure they will eventually make another single player-focused Metroid or Metroid Prime game, but this game looks good too.

Star Fox (Wii U) – I’ve seen some criticism of this game, both visually and in terms of controls, but at least for the graphics, I think the game looks pretty good.  And in terms of the gameplay and story, what they showed here aimed straight for the Star Fox 64 fan, and Star Fox 64 is my favorite rail shooter ever so I like that for sure.  The gyro controls could be good or bad, and I’ll need to play the game before I know if it’s fun to play that way or not, but at least based on graphics, design, story, and levels, I’m really excited to play this game!  It looks good.  That Platinum Games are working on the campaign is good news as well, they do great work.

Mario Maker (Wii U) – Mario Maker is probably the most improved game that also showed at least E3.  Last year the game looked fairly basic, but now this is a polished, full-featured Mario game creator.  From the NWC’15, conference, and Treehouse this game got a lot of focus this E3, and it’s easy to see why.  This game looks simple enough that making levels will be easy; the complex editors in some games don’t make me want to try to learn how to make levels, and that interest drops even more when the physics and design have unfixed issues as well (see Little Big Planet), but this game doesn’t have any of those problems, the footage shown made this obvious.  This game has only tile-based graphics, which limits you, but it also makes design easier.  That’s also how the games actually look, of course.  Both making your own levels and playing other peoples’ stages look like great fun.

On the Harsh Criticism of Nintendo This E3

So, Nintendo’s E3 Direct got a lot of (overly-) harsh criticism online, because it didn’t show much new. I think the critics are going too far, even if they have part of a valid point. The contrast between Nintendo and Sony’s conferences this year really was interesting. Nintendo had a very good conference for 2015 games, but showed almost nothing for next year and had no big reveals. Meanwhile, Sony had a very good conference for 2016-2017 games, but showed almost nothing for this year (apart for some multiplatform third-party titles), and had some big reveals that are a year or years away.

Which is better? I’m not sure, both have their merits. Had Nintendo had even a single hinted major Wii U game reveal, I think it’d be easy to say they won, because for E3, the game releasing later this year should matter more than games that are a year or more away. Of course, the problem is that they didn’t have that, they had only some handheld and minor titles to reveal. And yeah, that’s a problem, but I think the haters here are MASSIVELY overstating how bad the conference was. It was, for the most part, a great conference, with no major bad sections, lots of interesting games shown, and some interesting reveals — the three new 3DS games announced all look good, for sure. Yeah, it was sadly lacking in reveals for the future, but still, it’s an okay conference overall.

After watching, I thought ‘I wish there had been some more new games shown, particularly for Wii U’, but overall I think it was a good conference. And yeah, anyone saying “worst” did not watch 2008 — this one was many, many times better than that thing was.

Last though, I really do hope that the absence of any major reveals was just because Nintendo was too focused on showing only 2015 stuff, and not because they’re giving up on Wii U in favor of NX sooner than they should.

Game of Show

The Legend of Zelda: Triforce Heroes.  Zelda is my favorite series, and this game looks like a lot of fun.

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