frustrating yumi’s odd odyssey

yumi’s odd odyssey caught my eye for several reasons. i’m a big fan of platformers, and the game got a rave review from nintendolife. it seemed like the game had a lot going for it, including novel mechanics, a quirky and wacky japanese design, and an old-school level of difficulty, and it’s also the first entry to make it to the US from a series that’s been going since 1994 in japan. the game was originally released as a 3DS cartridge in japan, but is available on the the 3DS’s eshop as a downloadable title.

the game’s mechanics completely revolve around the title character and her trusty fishing line. at first the gameplay was pretty fun, and you can use your fishing line’s hook as a grappling hook to help you over gaps you can’t otherwise jump across (rather like the original bionic commando) or climb down to get to a lower ledge. there were some in-game instructions that were a bit unclear, but basically getting to the first ending (which involves about 10 levels one boss fight) is pretty doable since you have unlimited lives and no time limit. there are also alternate characters you can select, one who adds a checkpoint you can return to once and the other who (i think) provides checkpoints and a slow-mo mode that can be triggered at any time and lasts for a couple of seconds.

so far so good, but unfortunately it was all straight downhill after that. the game promises some 50 levels, and the lower screen is a simple map that clearly shows which levels have multiple exits. getting to the second exits of the two courses that had them available in order to continue to the next stages was one of the most frustrating gaming experiences i’ve had in a very long time. i don’t mind some old-school levels of challenge, but the leap from the first ending to unlocking the next couple of stages felt like getting pushed off of a cliff — over and over and over again.

the problem is that there’s no in-game help or progression of stages to teach or guide you to the advanced moves, which enable you to use your fishing line (often requiring you to master tightening and slackening the line at the right times) in order to propel yourself in ways that don’t initially seem possible, like climbing up a sheer vertical surface or around and up a 90 degree corner, or using the fishing line like a rubber band to propel yourself across huge distances. after hours of repeated attempts i was finally able to complete those two stages, but the entire experience was frustrating and i didn’t feel like i’d really mastered the mechanics; i just felt bruised afterwards.

getting to the alternate exits wasn’t just about figuring out how to execute certain actions. if you leave yumi hanging from her fishing line for just a second she completely loses all momentum, which really screws you over and leaves you dangling like, well, a fish out of water. i couldn’t figure out how to regain momentum, and i found it impossible to keep moving in order to keep my momentum going either, even with the slow-mo-for-a-couple-of-seconds feature. often i felt i was only able to get through a section by luck, willpower, and a huge number of retries. the spike in difficulty left me with the distinct feeling that the game assumes you’ve already played through and mastered previous entries in the series. and if the point is that the game wants you to figure out the advanced moves yourself, then the designers are completely sadistic, because the amount of trial and error needed to progress is pretty insane. the game tracks your fastest time and lets you save your replays, and prominently displays your number of attempts, as if that signifies some sort of badge of honor and proof of the difficulty of the game and your tenacity.

with that said, once i got past those astoundingly difficult parts i was able to make some progress before hitting another wall, so it may be that part of the problem is the difficulty is really uneven. as it is i ended up seeing less than a third of all the game’s levels. :p the game’s presentation is pretty barebones and uses blocky 3D models that look like they’re from the playstation/N64 era, and the glasses-free 3D effects are pretty nonexistent. there’s also zero plot, just some a handful of character descriptions. the graphics in general are cutesy, as is the music (forming a stark contrast to the unforgiving nature of the game). the game’s art style is pretty quirky, and includes giant fishmen. nintendolife describes it pretty well:

Levels are made up of what feel like found objects from a stray katamari that recently terrorized a rural Japanese riverbank, with larger-than-life school supplies, picture frames, vegetables, clothespins, sake bottles and pay phones scattered on and among the floating platforms. It’s also never quite clear if these objects are giant or if Yumi’s just very, very small, creating an Alice in Wonderland effect that fits the game’s dreamlike aesthetic perfectly.

i was a bit torn about how to rate this game. when i did feel in control the game was pretty fun, but those moments became rarer and rarer as i progressed. i felt that if i poured enough time into it i would gain more mastery over the mechanics, but the amount of time needed to do so seemed way more than i had interest in sacrificing, given the minor rewards. the wikipedia entry on the series has an extended (and somewhat poetic) defense of the games’ high difficulty:

While the controls are simple and responsive, an uncompromising physics model means that graceful control of the game’s swinging techniques will not come immediately. Out of this, though, comes great scope for advanced techniques through full utilization of the physics. Perfect execution of techniques such as the one- and two-step rocket jump are required both in later fields and for those who intend to improve their field completion times.

what the heck is the “rocket jump”?? i have no idea. while there were moments where i felt like i was navigating with spiderman-like ease, as i mentioned, it feels like even beyond mastering the mechanics the game is way too focused on “try and die” gameplay, which i can’t abide. it’s for that reason that i’ve placed the game amongst my rare, lowest-ranking category of games. it may be that some day i give it another chance, but that’s not likely to be anytime in the near future.

don’t be frustrated by these yumi’s odd odyssey links:
– fansite (in english) for the series
– entry at metacritic
– example of the grace of a master player that i can only dream of reaching
– footage from the original super famicom release

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simian villainy returns in donkey kong 3

i played through donkey kong jr. earlier this year, and i finally filled in a gap in my video game experience by playing through the often-ignored follow-up, donkey kong 3 on NES. those two NES versions, along with the NES version of the first donkey kong game were all based on arcade releases, and they were all released at the same time in north america (june 1986).

although DK jr. has vague similarities to the first donkey kong game, the same can’t be said for this release. as has often been noted, in those early days carbon-copy sequels weren’t churned out with nearly the same alacrity as nowadays, and i came to DK3 with very little previous knowledge outside of seeing a screenshot or two. the first two games are platformers with an emphasis on running and jumping, but i was surprised to find out that DK3 is actually more of a shoot ’em up.

there’s a lot of interesting gameplay packed into the single-screen arcade experience. the setup is that DK has invaded “stanley the bugman”‘s greenhouse, and stanley, armed only with his trusty bug spray, has to get rid of DK and exterminate the bugs in order to save his plants. the player has to juggle several objectives at once: spray DK enough times to make sure he doesn’t descend far enough to attack stanley himself (thus losing a turn) (stanley can use his bug spray to push DK up off the screen and to the next level in every first and second level of a cycle, and get his head stuck in a beehive in every third level); spray individual bugs that fly around, each with unique behaviors; spray worms that crawl along and can’t be defeated but will pause if hit, often impeding progress; and in a mechanic somewhat similar to defender, make sure none of the bugs make off with any of the five plants, which provide bonus points if they’re saved. once per turn there’s also a can of super spray, the game’s equivalent of an uzi, that basically gives you a free pass through the next couple of levels.

in terms of the pace the game is pretty typical old-school arcade style in that there are only three levels and they loop pretty much infinitely. this game does introduce new enemies at various points, providing slightly more of a progression than some of the other games which increase difficulty by just adding more and faster enemies. like other classic nintendo NES games of the time, there’s a harder mode (“game B”) that can be selected from the start screen, and an alternating two-player mode.

as for the game itself, at first i found it completely foreign (nintendo has very rarely explored the the shooter genre), but after a while i enjoyed the game for what it is. the different bug types are easy to identify and are satisfying to defeat, and having to both manage DK and save the plants from the bugs makes the game feel more dynamic. stanley has more ability than the ship in galaga since he can not only run back and forth, but also move up and down a couple of levels vertically. the game has the usual bright and cheery nintendo exterior, and the game overall doesn’t have significant drawbacks. the first two stages are very similar while the third stage is too easy in comparison, and many times you can just jump in and defeat DK quickly. if you don’t manage to do that you end up spending a lot of time on the more challenging (and thus more fun) gameplay of dodging and defeating bugs, which would seem like a downside, but defeating all the bugs in a stage nets you more points overall, so for an arcade game it’s a reasonable design. (apparently in the arcade version starting with level 160 the game starts repeating only the first (and hardest) stage, although it’s not clear if this is intentional or what happens on the NES version.)

all in all i enjoyed it overall, and the game provides a fairly satisfying, if somewhat uneven, amount of challenge and fun. i wouldn’t say it’s become a great favorite, but it’s an interesting curio in nintendo’s catalog and should be more interesting to fans of shooters, classic arcade gameplay, and/or the donkey kong series, but i imagine most others would find this to be too old-school to spend much time with.

check out these villainous simian donkey kong 3 links:
– miiverse community
– nintendolife has reviewed the wii, 3DS, and wii u virtual console releases of the game. the 3DS VC review is the most positive of the three.
– entry at strategywiki.org, which includes a guide and descriptions of all the enemies as well as differences between the arcade and NES versions.
– the entry at mariowiki.com has much the same information but a few more tidbits
– entry on wikipedia

zelda’s awakening in zelda ii: the adventure of link

after working through a significant amount of wrecking crew, i had some NES momentum and was finally able to start and complete a game that’s been hanging over my head for ages, namely zelda ii: the adventure of link (on the original NES no less, meaning no save states!). the game is easily the blackest of the black sheep of the zelda series, and it was partly the fear of old-school NES challenges that kept me from starting in on it. (for a run-down of the game, see check out the review at nintendolife).

overall, though, the game wasn’t too hard to complete, with the main exception being the last temple which required a concerted effort to get through, and multiple attempts to beat (esp. since i was missing a heart container and a couple of the last level-ups). [pro tip! to save at any time, press start on the first controller, and up + A on the second controller. also, fortunately at the final temple getting a game over and continuing simply returns you to the start of that temple rather than the starting point of the game.] the game was one of the many games i remember playing as a kid, although i don’t recall if i ever actually beat it. i certainly recognized some of the areas near the end, but i didn’t remember anything about the final temple which makes me think i hadn’t beaten it. perhaps my muscle memory from childhood remembered more than my brain did, because i got through the game pretty efficiently without any guides, although it was pretty much just a stroke of luck that i stumbled across one of the essential items that i had wandered by several times before, the absence of which would have led to a lot of aimless wandering, wondering where to go next.

as for the game itself, i enjoyed it and it’s definitely a polished experience, although it pales in comparison to most of the rest of the series. miyamoto himself has expressed some regret about the game, and although the game is definitely not a “bad” game, it does feel a little limited in its scope. the focus on platforming (and some cheap deaths that result) feels a bit out of place, and the battle scenes and temples tend to feel very same-y, not to mention its inclusion of a range of bizarre characters that, rather like super mario bros. 2, have yet to see a return. i have a vague recollection that the battle of olympus, which appeared on the NES about a year later and which i also had played as a kid, borrowed much of the same mechanics but improved upon them, so i’ll have to dig that one out at some point.

all in all, a nice change of pace from the norm, and it would be fascinating to see nintendo revisit this unique take on the zelda series. regardless of the quality of the game itself, though, i’m just uber-psyched that i’ve now finally officially completed every zelda game, and in almost all cases on the original hardware. whoo! i should be putting together my ranking of the series before too long, so stay tuned. i’m also looking forward to replaying various entries, mostly via their remakes, including the 3DS remake of ocarina which i’ve already dipped into.

awaken these zelda ii: the adventure of link links:
– page at nintendo.com
– entry at zeldawiki.org
– interesting comparison of the original japanese text vs. the english translation
– maps at vgmaps.com
– some player stats from wii’s now-defunct nintendo channel
– someone made a FPS adaptation (of the first part at least) in unity. here’s a video of someone playing through it.
– scans of the original manual
– youtube video of the entire soundtrack
– since i’ve finished all the official zelda games, i thought now would be a good time to take a look at the atrocities that are the trio of obscure CD-i games. here’s a let’s play video of wand of gamelon and here’s one for zelda’s adventure. fortunately the completionist in me feels no need to pick any of them up.

wrecking crew demolished

wrecking crew, one of the earliest NES titles, was one of those games that i had vague memories of seeing at a friend’s place growing up but that i didn’t really remember anything about. more recently the game was one of the 3DS ambassador games, not to mention the wii and wii u virtual consoles, and was also one of the games included in NES remix, so there have been plenty of opportunities to revisit it.

i finally sat down and gave the game a spin, and overall i was pleasantly surprised. in terms of mechanics and presentation the wrap-around stages slightly recall the original mario bros., and mario (and luigi’s) squeaky shoes and hammer recall the original donkey kong, but the game is wholly unique in that it’s one of nintendo’s earliest forays into the puzzle genre. it does so with character, and the game features a construction site setting and two types of enemies: one, a cross between a wrench and a dragon, and the other, an eggplant with safety glasses, along with fireballs that appear at regular intervals (also taken from the original mario bros.). in addition, the game features a unique mechanic where a “foe”, named spike the foreman (generally considered to be a predecessor to wario, the anti-hero), runs around and tries to trip you up, often literally. the game is also unique in that it features a stage select which allows you to start from any of the 100 stages, a quick reset via the select button (although doing so causes you to lose your current score), and a level editor. in the original edition you could save your creations, but the US didn’t see that feature reinstated until its rerelease on virtual console.

in terms of my experience, in general i enjoyed the game. like a lot of great puzzle games, wrecking crew makes the most of its limited number of elements, providing surprisingly sophisticated challenges out of relatively simple mechanics. limiting the types of elements in the board (basically destructible and indestructible walls and ladders, plus bombs) and the number of enemies makes it easier to internalize their use and behavior, and the game does a pretty good job of mixing up the types of stages: some are clearly more about working out the right order of actions, whereas others are more pac-man or burgertime-like and require finesse in avoiding the enemies while trying to navigate around the board to accomplish your objective.

although i enjoyed my time with the game, after getting through half of the 100 stages i felt like i’d seen everything there was to see. it’s fun to work out just the right strategy to trap enemies, and watching videos online it’s been interesting to see how different people come up with different approaches. the “theme and fun” (as nintendo power would put it) is pretty good, and the game definitely gets kudos for being one of the first of its kind. the bonus level is a matter of luck and feels superfluous, and the ease with which you get stuck and have to reset and thus lose your high score feels a bit cheap and pointless by modern standards. the game includes some replayability in the form of hidden “M A R I O” letters, revealed by destroying blocks in a specific, oftentimes completely nonintuitive order, on some stages, but doing so only provides 1-ups and provides only a minor diversion. similarly, uncovering special bonus items by destroying bombs in some stages is also fairly random (apparently the exact item uncovered is a function of the number of times you’ve swung your hammer), and so although getting a golden hammer (of smash bros. fame) is fun, it’s such a rare and random occurrence that it seems like an after thought rather than a worthwhile feature. all in all a decent successor to the original mario bros. and a game worth playing.

demolish these wrecking crew links:
– nintendolife gave the 3DS and wii u virtual console versions a 7 out of 10 and 8 out of 10 respectively, so it’s interesting to compare the two reviewers’ opinions
– miiverse community
– the entry at strategywiki.org includes details on how to get a golden hammer
– nice series of let’s play videos for the game
– entry at wikipedia.org
– apparently there was a japan-only sequel??

steamworld dig dug

last year i played a ton of games downloaded from the 3DS’s eshop, not even counting virtual console titles, and this year i’m already on track to follow a similar path. there’s a great variety of unique offerings, and after hearing rave reviews i picked up steamworld dig. the game has been pretty much universally described as dig dug meets metroid, and, being fans of both, it was an easy sell.

the description doesn’t describe how fantastically polished the game is. every aspect of the presentation gleams and makes every movement enjoyable, even if the rest of the game were a bore. which it’s not. the game does take on the core dig dug mechanics, but being the main mode of movement it also has had to incorporate game mechanics to ensure you that you aren’t ever stuck and can’t climb back up, along with hugely beneficial power-ups that make navigation and loot collecting easier.

the game itself feels a little constrained by its scope (basically three areas and only one boss) since it feels like the world is so lively and the mechanics are so solid that an even more-epic game is just aching to get out. but even with its relatively short gameplay (roughly 5-6 hours if you don’t rush) this is a wholly enjoyable game. the real highlight of the game, though, beyond the dig dug-like (and at times drill dozer-like) gameplay and the metroid-like exploration and power-ups, is the 8 mini-caves. these are rooms you enter off of the main areas and house essential power-ups, and each is self-contained but easily provide the game’s most interesting and satisfying moments. these caves include unique setups, such as routes that require specific timing or levers that have to be found and activated, and provide a great break from what gets to be routine digging and exploring. i would’ve preferred more of this type of gameplay and a bit less of the routine digging, but that’s a small nit-pick in what is otherwise an almost uniformly enjoyable experience.

it’s a bit hard to identify why this game didn’t quite make my list of all-time greats, because there’s so much i enjoyed about it. backtracking to the surface can get a bit tedious, but that wasn’t a major problem. even though i played through it all in just a few sittings, it just didn’t quite have the elusive “it” factor that made me feel it was a “life-changing” game-playing experience. my bar is pretty high, though, so there’s no question about me whole-heartedly recommending the game, as i’m sure once you play it you too will be left waiting impatiently for the sequel (which apparently is in the works, along with another title set in the same universe).

dig these steamworld dig links:
– official site
– the game is also available on steam
– apparently there was a speedrun contest a while back. if you’re curious about the requirements for all four gold stars, they are: 20000 gold, 150 orbs, zero deaths, less than 2.5 hours
– community on miiverse
– unanimous praise at metacritic
– interview with creators at nintendolife.com
– if you’re curious about their previous steamworld game, here’s a review at nintendolife
– and if you want to go back even further, here’s the official site of their first game, anthill

kirby’s star stacker stacked

i suppose i was in a puzzle mood, because even though i’d recently played a fair amount of puzzle league recently, via planet puzzle league, i spent some time checking out kirby’s star stacker for the original game boy. i suppose you could think of the game as a sort of expansion on the core mechanic of yoshi for NES. in that game you stack pieces vertically and are tasked with putting enemies in between two pieces of an egg in order to clear them. in this game you try to put stars in between two matching pieces, where instead of eggs you have kirby’s three buddies from kirby’s dream land 2. like many such puzzle games this game also has a combo system, where not only do pieces drop and make chained matches, but after the second match stars rain down from the top of the board to fill in blank spaces and keep the chain going. this addition works quite well, and does add a unique twist to the otherwise shallow combo mechanics.

the game itself is otherwise fairly bland. the game is easy since you can make combos with two of the same character pieces with no stars in between them, and so making huge chains is often just a matter of filling up the board and then making one move to start the chain. perhaps it’s not surprising that both this game and pokemon trozei both have a simple combo system since both series skew towards a fairly young demographic.

the game has the usual range of modes, and adding to the mindlessness is that in the regular mode the game actually shows you the first move, which in the early stages often clears the entire board. the regular mode does inject a little personality in that after you clear all the rounds at a certain difficulty level you’ll get to see a little image of the characters in a cute pose, but otherwise even the kirby trappings are pretty minor.

it was nice to check out this bit of kirby and nintendo history, but this game is definitely not a high point in the history of puzzle games. the core mechanics are solid, though, and it may be that a more-worthwhile game is buried in there waiting to come out some day (for example, just adding a fourth animal friend would make the chances of making a combo much less, thus requiring more skill from the player).

stack these kirby’s star stacker links:
– as usual, kirbysrainbowresort.net has everything you’d want to know about the game and then some
– ending images at vgmuseum.com
– entry at wikipedia
– review at nintendolife
– information on its japan-only SNES sequel, at kirby.wikia.com

smooth landing for kirby’s pinball land

it’s been a while since i’ve played a pinball video game, so i decided to tackle kirby’s pinball land for the original game boy. the game was actually the first of many kirby spin-offs, and as with the original game boy title he appears white in the box’s artwork instead of his now-familiar pink.

the game’s setup is highly reminescent of revenge of the ‘gator, also by HAL and for game boy which preceded it by four years. like that game, in kirby’s pinball land each board is made up of three main screens and includes bonus stages. kirby’s pinball land adds boss battles into the mix, as well as three different boards and a final boss battle (against king dedede, naturally). although each screen of each board has very similar objectives (generally, hit an object a certain number of times), it’s fun to play through them all to find out how each piece of the board operates. for example, in one screen hitting the on-screen kirby on the left will make it spit out an object, while hitting the kirby on the right will make it inhale it. and in another screen you have to hit a cloud three times which will cause it to rain on the on-screen kirby, who will then pull out an umbrella; landing the pinball on the umbrella will push it up to the next part of the stage.

the review at nintendolife complained about the boards being cramped since they’re focused on being made up of single screens as opposed to having continuity between them, but i didn’t find this to be a drawback at all. that reviewer strongly favored the breakout-style game kirby’s block ball instead, whereas i have the complete opposite opinion, which is that kirby’s pinball land is fast-paced and fairly enjoyable, whereas kirby’s block ball is slow and tedious. once i’d seen all the different parts of the stages and beaten all the bosses i didn’t bother trying to master the game enough to beat the final boss, but i enjoyed my time with the game. the game controls well and makes good use of the kirby trappings, and it was fun to see all the familiar enemies. not a particularly surprising game, but casual without being completely mindless like the majority of the main kirby series, and so one of the more enjoyable kirby games i’ve played.

smooth landing for these kirby’s pinball land links:
– as usual, kirbysrainbowresort.net provide all the info you might need, including a handful of codes and the text of the instruction book, which has gems such as “It is every Kirby’s dream to play soccer with a squid.”
– entry at kirby.wikia.com
– entry at nintendo.com
– entry at wikipedia

GB dr. mario makes its case

it had been a few years since i’d played dr. mario on NES. the next entry in the series was the version on GB which was released just a couple of months after its older brother. when i’d played the NES version i’d been somewhat bored by how limited the combo system was compared to classics like puzzle league, but this time around i spent more time trying to make more-involved combos, in part because you get a familiar little bonus riff if you clear a certain number of pieces at once.

the combo system has turned out to be much more interesting than i’d originally thought, and i was more struck by the considerations of matching both horizontally and vertically than the first time around, although this rendition of the game itself didn’t grab me enough for me to want to invest a whole lot of time mastering the ins and outs of it. the presentation is perfectly fine for a game boy game, in terms of the graphics and sound, but the number of options is quite minimal, pretty much just your basic solo and vs. modes. i beat level 20 on the medium difficulty, but the higher levels of the high difficulty setting were incredibly cheap. i didn’t mention this in my previous post on the NES version, but as with that game at these levels the viruses are stacked so high that it really feels like it’s just a matter of luck whether or not you’ll be able to get the stack down to a point where you can actually just play the game instead of scrambling blindly. i don’t doubt that there are some dr. mario masters out there who can pwn even this level of difficulty, but for the average player it just feels unfair.

not much more to add. the game is a good portable version of the original NES classic, but with a host of modern alternatives this is a game that can be skipped over except by the most OCD of nintendo fans (like me) or those who have the nostalgia factor to contend with.

GB dr. mario makes its case for these links:
– as with the NES version there are little cut-scenes after levels 5, 10, 15, and 20 on high mode. instead of the viruses sitting in a tree and watching objects fly by, in this case they’re underwater and watching objects swim by. if you’re curious, here’s a video of the first three cut-scenes (the objects are a fish, crab, and flying fish) and a video of the final ending, which has an entertaining surprise twist
– review of 3DS VC release at nintendolife.com
– really trippy commercial from the 80’s
– entry at wikipedia
– apparently there was an operation-like board game

quarth quickie

i was in the mood for something quick and simple, so i spent some time with quarth, also for the original game boy. the game was one of the earliest released for the system, and although i’d heard about it a while back, one of the main reasons i was interested in playing it was because apparently it shares some similarities with the well-received DSiware game art style: pictobits.

quarth is an odd hybrid of a game. on the surface it mostly looks like a vertically scrolling shooter, except instead of enemies your ship is confronted with shapes that you have to “defeat” by shooting bricks at them and creating rectangles. so technically i suppose the game is more of a puzzle game than a shooter. the game is fairly low-key because you can choose which of the six stages you want to start from (plus a mode featuring randomly generated levels) and three levels of difficulty (which determine how fast the screen scrolls). you can also select among a set of ships, which modifies the background music and visuals.

the game itself is pretty ho-hum, however. creating rectangles square by square just isn’t a very compelling mechanic, and there isn’t much difference in playing the first stage at the lowest level of difficulty compared to playing the sixth stage at the highest level. at the higher levels you do have to strategize a bit more on when to use power-ups, which you earn by creating larger rectangles and which provide benefits such as increasing your firing speed or clearing the entire screen, but otherwise there isn’t much sense of progression to the game. all in all a forgettable early game boy title, but it’ll be interesting to see if and how art style: pictobits improves upon it.

quickie quarth links:
– review of 3DS VC release at nintendolife.com
– entry at wikipedia