meteos sightings

one of the first DS games i got was meteos. i’d been a fan of puzzle games since the black and white game boy tetris days, so i was looking forward to this one which had gotten great reviews. i know i must be in a clear minority, but i just couldn’t get interested in this game. i even forced myself to spend a fair amount of time playing it, even going so far as to set it aside for months so i could come back to it later in the hopes that it would spark my interest the second time around. but i guess it just wasn’t meant to be, because time didn’t make this heart grow any fonder, and after playing a bit more i just couldn’t take it anymore and i had to kick this game to the curb.

and in a lot of ways it’s too bad b/c the game has a lot going for it. one of the best things about the game is the amount of style and polish there is. the graphics are great, the gameplay is smooth, the sounds fit perfectly, and the modes are varied. and the game itself isn’t bad as far as puzzle games go. but the big problem, at least for me, is that the game is never very interesting mainly b/c the combo system is so dull. this is in stark contrast to other games i’ve written about not too long ago, namely tetris attack (a.k.a. panel de pon) and kirby’s avalanche (a.k.a. puyo puyo). in both those games the combo system is almost constantly surprising (particularly with tetris attack) and the number of possibilities with chains seems endless. i suppose it’s all a matter of taste, but even all the variations in planets, items (most of which are little more than mildly annoying distractions), and unlockables didn’t add much interest. somehow i’m tempted to hold onto it just in case i change my mind later, but i really should just get rid of it b/c at this point i seriously doubt i’ll ever want to play it again. (harsh, i know, but it’s true.)

not much more to say, except that to recover from this disappointment i’ve set my sights on other puzzle games to play, particularly puyo puyo tsu, the second installment of the series available through the VC as an import game, and pac-attack, which i enjoyed playing in the GBA pac-man collection but didn’t delve into too deeply. in the meantime i’ve been teaching my better half how to play kirby’s avalanche. when we go head to head i try to be merciful, though. i try, honest.

some links to meteos fallen to earth (yawn):
- this single page guide is all you need for this relatively simplistic game
- a FAQ at IGN w/ details on planets and a FAQ w/ info on unlockables

mike tyson punched out

i don’t know why i set myself up for self-inflicted pain; i never knew i was such a glutton for punishment. i’ve been playing mike tyson’s punch-out!!, another one of those games that had always intrigued me growing up but which i’d never gotten a chance to play. i started off swimmingly and immediately appreciated the game’s great artwork and the fantastic cast of characters (a colorful international cast that wouldn’t be rivalled until street fighter II came out years later). despite being one of the earlier NES games, the gameplay is surprisingly solid even with its limited controls (restricted to only two types of punches, two types of dodges, and a super move), and surprisingly fun, especially considering the game is essentially just a continuous series of boss battles.

everything was going fairly well until i hit the middle of the last circuit (the third of three), and from then on my experience was a confused haze of far more pain than pleasure. i suspect anyone who’s played the game no doubt knows exactly what i mean. talk about memorization and having to backtrack! luckily there are codes for the last two fights. despite feeling entirely bruised by the experience and more than a bit bitter at some of the ridiculous one-hit KO’s, after replaying some of the earlier stages overall i have to give the game a thumbs up. prob. not on my list of “the best games of all time”, but it’s a surprisingly classic game even 20+ years later. and of course when i feel the need for more pain in the future, there’s always the SNES sequel …

some punchy links:
- reviews at vc-reviews.com and IGN
- best FAQ, at gamefaqs, written only a couple of months ago
- redtom’s punch-out!! page: great fansite with loads of stuff, inc. scans of the instruction manual, some ridiculous achievements (like TKO’ing mr. sandman in the first round) with details on how to do them, and even some guitar TAB’s
- awesome commercial from the 80’s featuring the man himself
- entry at wikipedia
- series info at classicgaming.gamespy.com, along with info on the arm wrestling arcade game made by the same group at nintendo (wikipedia entry on the arm wrestling game here)
- youtube has a lot of great videos, including one of what is apparently the famous soda popinski glitch

guidin’ the ninja in ninja gaiden

to break in the new old NES i just got off of ebay i thought i’d start in on the classic ninja gaiden. i’d been interested in the game even back in the days when the NES reined supreme after seeing it repeatedly in the monthly list of top 10 most-played games in nintendo power, and my interest got an additional boost when i played through the game boy ninja gaiden game a couple of years ago.

the ninja gaiden series is famous for its difficulty, so i was leery of starting the NES version of the game instead of the SNES remake which had passwords. i thought i’d just play through the first few levels to get a taster, but i got sucked into it and ended up spending the afternoon playing all the way to the final stage. the difficulty wasn’t too bad, esp. thanks to the infinite continues, although the game generally requires too much memorization and there are a ton of cheap deaths due to enemies strategically placed right where you’re most likely to jump. everything was more or less fine, though, until the final section (act VI) where if you die at the final boss (at the end of stage 6-3) you have to restart all the way back at the beginning of 6-1, which just ends up being a ridiculous amount you have to replay. i ended up beating the first part of the final boss, but after realizing that there was another boss immediately following i just couldn’t face starting all the way back at the beginning of act 6 yet again and just gave up, which is not something i ever do. but it’s kind of good that i did, because it turns out that there’s a 3rd part to the final boss battle, and that would have really sent me over the edge. it was hard for me to put the game on the shelf for the time being, completist that i am, and i’ve contemplated picking it up again, but i just can’t face having to slog through the whole game again and replay act 6 over and over again just to figure out the last two boss battles. the insane amount of having to replay previous parts of a game is a large part of what’s kept me from getting an NES again in the first place, and although i still think of myself as a retro gamer at heart i think this has made me even more cautious about starting NES games than i was before.

as for the game itself, i was surprised at how much the mechanics rip off of the original castlevania, something that wasn’t immediately obvious from the game boy game i’d played. even the enemies almost all have analogues to castlevania, although the powerups in gaiden are slightly improved. i found the wall jumping ability to be underused and the graphics seemed hit or miss, particularly with the backgrounds, although the enemy designs in general are pretty good (despite being ripped off of castlevania). the music is quite good, which i’d been looking forward to from enjoying the music from the game boy game. the much-touted cinematic cutscenes are definitely impressive for the time, although the story is pretty flimsy. all in all, much as i wanted to like the game i just have to chalk this one up as yet another game that was noteworthy for the time but just hasn’t aged gracefully. but i’m still up for playing the sequel (and beating the original once my blood pressure has gone down some).

ninja links:
- the ninja gaiden website at classicgaming.gamespy.com has some nice screenshot comparisons between the NES and SNES versions
- text of the instruction manual
- a walkthrough at IGN
- entry at wikipedia.org
- history of the ninja gaiden series at eurogamer.net
- youtube videos of the intro, the ending, and some gameplay.

zelda’s past linked

finished another SNES game, the much-lauded the legend of zelda: a link to the past. for me the game was a classic case of something that was astounding for its time and incredibly influential on the series, but that pales in comparison to what followed when looking back on it now. like donkey kong country link to the past really helped define the series (although in a lesser way, since the groundwork in the orig. zelda game was so strong); classic items like the hookshot and bottles, locations such as kakariko village, game mechanics like travelling between two worlds, and a lot of the now-classic music all make their first appearance here. the game itself is still a lot of fun to play, esp. as every zelda game ends up with a few unique items, and although the level designs don’t reach the heights that they did in other games in the series they’re still enjoyable. the dungeons make particularly good use of a pseudo-3D perspective, in which a single floor of a dungeon will have an upper and a lower level that you have to navigate. it was also interesting to me that the game includes a net and a shovel, both of which clearly foreshadow the animal crossing games that followed much later. there isn’t much of a story, though, and the game is notably stingy on the hearts, but all in all although i don’t rank this as one of my “favorite games of all time” it’s still a great game and a definite classic. of course one question remains: why is link’s hair pink??

light and dark links:
- walkthrough at the official site
- entry at strategywiki.org
- maps with locations of the items at IGN

donkey kong countrified

playing brawl has caused me to add several games to my ever-increasing list of games to play, one of which was the classic SNES platformer donkey kong country, thanks to my newfound interest in that great ape acrobat diddy kong. the general consensus on the game nowadays seems to be that when it was released DKC wowed gamers with its amazing graphics, but that its lauded gameplay seems overrated in retrospect. i felt this way about the original sonic game, and like sonic (and a lot of other games) the original DKC also seems to be overlooked nowadays in favor if its sequel.

so, first off, being my first donkey kong game i was pretty amazed at how much this iteration defined the character of donkey kong and his supporting cast (including has arch-nemesis king k. rool) that has endured. previously donkey kong had had only a supporting role at best, and rareware did an admirable job taking the original character as a starting point and really fleshing out his universe.

as for the game itself, i found the game has aged remarkably well. the graphics are still impressive and the controls feel good. the sprites are large but work well, and the enemies, music and sound, and levels are well designed (although there are some rather cheap areas that are maddeningly annoying). the buddy system, in which you switch between donkey and diddy kong on the fly, is a bit under-utilized but still worthwhile, as are the animal buddies you get to use. the use of barrels to blast the characters through the levels also reminded me of sonic and helps give the game a similar sense of speed. the main spin jump attacks of the protagonists also reminded me of sonic, but all the similarities don’t feel too derivative and the main game doesn’t overstay its welcome.

however, the requirements to get 100% completion, by finding all the hidden rooms, definitely feel like extra padding and are oftentimes quite tedious, esp. when taking into account the fact that there’s no system to track your progress in-game or even tell you which levels you haven’t fully conquered yet. as it was i think i finished the game less than 60% complete, and after tracking down some pretty obscure secret rooms i had little motivation to hunt for the rest of them. still, all in all this is a classic in video game history and certainly a better-than-average platformer in general. so i guess i have yet another series that i’ll be working my way through. there are worse problems to have i suppose.

d&d links:
- lucas m. thompson’s review of the virtual console rerelease
- entry at wikipedia
- manual at replacementdocs.com
- youtube video of the 100% ending
- this FAQ at IGN tells you the # of hidden rooms in each level so you can find them yourself.