gold and silver pokémon puzzle challenge

yet another series of games i’ve been slowly working my way through is the panel de pon, aka tetris attack, aka puzzle league games. next up for me was pokémon puzzle challenge for the game boy color. as with most puzzle games the core gameplay of the puzzle league games doesn’t change at all from game to game, and the main differences are the trappings. in this case the game is based on pokemon gold and silver, as opposed to the pokemon anime skin of the N64 version released around the same time and which i played a couple of years ago.

like that game in pokémon puzzle challenge you select which pokemon you want to play as, but the choice is purely aesthetic and has no bearing on the actual gameplay. in this game you can unlock a few others as you progress, mostly via accomplishing hidden objectives (such as making a 8- or 10-piece combo) in the game’s “challenge” mode. this is the game’s version of a story mode, and in it you battle to become the pokemon gold and silver champion. in the easy mode you battle up to the eighth gym leader, and in the normal mode you battle the elite four as well. in normal mode you get unlimited continues, but in the hard mode, similar to the first game boy version of tetris attack, the number of continues available is limited by the number of pokemon you’ve collected. unlocking all the pokemon can be challenging, but otherwise this mode is easier than in other games because instead of having to beat your opponent by overwhelming him/her with an avalanche of garbage blocks (i.e. from creating large chains), here the opponent has a hit point meter that you just have to whittle down. so you just have to wait until you get a large set of garbage blocks and then return them over and over again, which is easy to do. there are two harder settings (super hard and intense) which may make the game more challenging, though.

aside from these differences the game suffers slightly overall for the same reason that the game boy tetris attack did. i discussed this issue in my post on that game, but basically the problem was that in both games the board is 9 pieces high and 6 across, whereas in the “standard” console versions the board is 12×6. the shorter board makes it harder to create chains, although i’m sure puzzle league masters would have less of a problem with the difference.

the game also features the usual puzzle game modes, such as marathon, time attack, puzzle, and multi-player. overall i feel like my puzzle league skills have plateaued somewhat, so i was happy to play through the game’s main modes and put it aside until i get around to tackling the next entry. i suppose that would be the dual pack with dr. mario for game boy advance, which has a conspicuous lack of either yoshi or pokemon trappings but does squeeze in the full 12 x 6 board, a first for the handheld versions.

gold and silver pokémon puzzle challenge links:
– info on how to unlock all the pokemon
– collection of cheats at gamefaqs
– entry at wikipedia

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aged the legend of zelda: oracle of ages

i’m getting near to the end of finishing all the games in the zelda series. of the three i had remaining i decided to tackle oracle of ages for game boy color. i’d played its companion, oracle of seasons, a few years ago and had enjoyed that game, but since i knew the games were going to be very similar i’d held off on it, and for better or worse the game does feel very much like seasons. both were heavily based on link’s awakening, so already the game felt overly familiar, just in terms of the presentation.

in terms of the gameplay there really weren’t many surprises, aside from one wholly unique item, a unique race, and the occasional minor variation on previously seen items. as with seasons it was fun to see the animal helpers again and some 2-d versions of characters from ocarina and majora’s mask. although the general reputation seems to be that seasons emphasizes action more than ages, which emphasizes puzzles, the amount and level of the puzzles in ages didn’t seem much different than usual. the game’s central past/present game mechanic felt tired by now, so it suffered in comparison with the slightly more-unique ability to change the seasons in seasons, even though seasons is probably less unique overall due to its many references to the original NES zelda. as with seasons the rings felt fairly pointless, and the pair’s linking system didn’t really grab me either, although a playthrough in the other direction might make me appreciate that more. i didn’t end up bothering with the password feature at all which put me at a distinct disadvantage for the linked endgame since i hadn’t gotten any of the linked-game powerups, including the best sword in the games. this ended up making the final battles harder and more frustrating than they should’ve been, but i suppose i can’t really fault the games for that too much.

all in all this was a typically solid zelda game, but coming near the end of my zelda experiences it really didn’t feel like it adds much new to the series as a whole. hopefully by the time i finish the last two games there will be some new zelda games to tackle, and although i haven’t made much progress on replaying the other series that i’ve finished, it’ll definitely be interesting to see what i think about this game the second time through.

aged the legend of zelda: oracle of ages links:
– many of the links in my post about oracle of seasons are relevant
– official site for the game: includes screenshots, movies, and info on the cast of characters
– entry at zeldawiki.org for this game and for the pair, including details on the the linked-game passwords
– official FAQ and walkthrough at zelda.com
– official japanese site for the games with even more official character artwork
– an interesting article on early versions of the games

headache-inducing kirby tilt ‘n’ tumble

of all the nintendo series, the kirby series continues to be my least favorite by a fair margin (though there was a notable exception in the form of kirby: canvas curse which i played and enjoyed early last year). it’s taken me some effort, but i finally finished another entry in the series, kirby tilt ‘n’ tumble, and overall for me it ranks the lowest among the kirby games yet.

the game deserves significant credit for being the first motion-controlled nintendo game, which was achieved by an accelerometer included inside the game cartridge. at the time it must have seemed like magic to move kirby while moving your game boy color, but now that it’s a familiar game mechanic the novelty isn’t enough to redeem the tedious and slow gameplay. it’s a bit hard to pinpoint why the game is so dull. for starters, being forced to regress back to the dimly lit GBC screen was painful (while the game does play on the bright-screened GBA SP, since the cartridge’s orientation is opposite of the GBC’s the controls are reversed, rendering the game pretty much unplayable). that’s not a fault of the GBC itself since for GB and GBC games in general you can find a good enough angle with a steady light source that it’s not too much of an issue. but in this game since you’re constantly moving the screen around, seeing the GBC’s screen becomes much more difficult than usual. adding to this frustration is one of the game’s central mechanics, which is to “pop” kirby up by quickly tilting the GBC up and back down to make him jump. this requires even more-extreme readjusting of your eyes back to where on the screen you were, leading to headaches and motion sickness even under the best of conditions.

on top of these issues i found that there’s just not that much variety in the levels or level design. the boss battles are pretty much all the same, and one of the prominent level elements is a donkey kong country-like rotating container that you have to jump out of at the right moment, and those sections were just as annoying here. the game could probably be most closely compared to super monkey ball, a game that i had actually enjoyed overall. on the surface it seems both games would receive a similar reaction since their core mechanics, tilting the world to make a ball move, are pretty much the same. perhaps that game succeeds because instead of finicky navigation through levels filled with elements that just slow you down, it instead limits its game mechanics so that you can focus on the challenge of speeding through a bite-sized level. the arcade experience of super monkey ball with its high degree of challenge gives the game a “one more try” and quick-shot appeal that balances out the precision required, whereas there’s little sense of progress or reprieve from the snail’s pace of tilt ‘n’ tumble.

the cute factor of the kirby games continues to be its biggest draw, but as this game doesn’t really introduce any new characters or surprises to the universe there’s really nothing to redeem the aggravating gameplay. i’m hopeful that yoshi’s foray into motion-controlled gaming, in yoshi topsy-turvy, fares better, and that the remaining entries in the kirby series are more worthwhile.

tilt ‘n tumble these kirby tilt ‘n’ tumble links:
– entry at wikipedia.org
– entry at kirbysrainbowresort.net, which includes scans of the manual, screenshots, and locations of all the special (red and blue) stars
– game informer included the game at #23 in its “25 best game boy games of all time” list. that page also includes a link to an entertaining commercial for the game.

wario land 3‘s strong landing

the new year often sees me playing through sequels that i hadn’t gotten a chance to play through the previous year, and this year was no exception. i kicked things off with wario land 3 for game boy color. i’d enjoyed playing the first three games in the series (for those following along at home, recall that WL3 is actually the 4th game in the series due to the virtual boy entry in betwen WL1 and WL2), but i had been fairly disappointed in wario land II, so i wasn’t sure if i was going to skip over WL3 or not since i knew it was going to be very similar.

but in turns out that god is in the details, and although on the surface the two games are quite similar, in my opinion WL3 is by far the better game. maybe part of the reason i enjoyed it so much more is that since i already knew there would be a fair amount of backtracking (due to the fact that wario can’t die) that core design decision didn’t bother me nearly as much as before. either that or the backtracking was lessened somewhat in this game.

the biggest addition to the gameplay is that each level has four treasures to find. the first time through a level you’ll only be able to find one of the treasures, but as the game progresses the layout of the levels evolve and wario finds power upgrades so that completely new and distinct areas become accessible. the power upgrades aren’t anything too surprising for long-time fans of the series, but the ways the levels change makes returning to them multiple times thoroughly worthwhile instead of a chore (somewhat like what i believe happens in the wiiware game fluidity, although i’ve only played the preview of that game so far). instead of relying completely on artificial metroid-like hindrances like doors of a certain color (although there are a fair number of those kinds of obstacles), levels gain new features due to between-level events like water draining or beanstalks growing or snakes appearing. after a certain point the game becomes non-linear to a certain extent since you can choose to return to a previous stage that has changed or explore a new one, and you can beat the game with about half of the treasures. the game has several built-in mechanics to remind you where you can go next to find an accessible treasure you haven’t gotten yet, and after all four treasures in a level become accessible you can then try to find all 8 music coins, which definitely adds to the game’s depth and longevity.

although i enjoyed my time with wario land 3, when it came to ranking it i hesitated. there are definitely some things that were annoying about the game, such as the aforementioned backtracking, the golf mini-game that you have to play too many times in order to progress, and the occasional clunky boss battle. since wario’s transformations are dependent on enemies affecting him, it also gets to be annoying that the majority of the transformations require you to wait for them to wear off. but these complaints end up being significantly outweighed by what the game does right: it has so many of the things i’ve found to be key factors in really successful platformers, including colorful and varied locales, fun characters and powerups, tight controls, a smooth progression, and new elements introduced at virtually every turn but all in keeping with the game’s universe. wario’s looney-tunes-esque transformations are as enjoyable as the last game, and he continues to be an endearing anti-hero. in the end, after my somewhat curmudgeonly take on my past year of gaming i had to give this game the credit it deserves and give it a spot on my “greatest games of all time” list. a hearty cheer for wario land 3, and i’m looking forward to continuing on with this great series.

heh heh heh … wario’s treasure trove of wario land 3 links:
– loads of great info, screenshots, sprites, and official artwork at mariowiki.com
– entry at wikipedia
– ending at vgmuseum.com
– FAQ at gamefaqs
– overview of the wario land series at pressthebuttons.com

top 10 game boy and game boy color games … so far

as my third entry in my continuing series of top 10 “so far” lists (top 10 gamecube games was the most recent one), here’s my list of top 10 game boy (and game boy color) games. i find the relatively primitive aspects of the game boy to be tremendously appealing (with the exception of its god-awful screen), and it continues to amaze me how much darn good clean fun the developers managed to pack into that tiny machine. top 10 lists for the game boy are rather hard to find, particularly ones that don’t include game boy color games, so for now i’m lumping GB and GBC games together although in the future i’ll probably separate them. nintendo power’s 20th anniversary list provides a good point of comparison, so without further ado here it is (with, as before, the links to my corresponding blog entries):

TOP GAME BOY AND GAME BOY COLOR GAMES
(SO FAR …)
#	my list	NP’s list
1	tetris	tetris DX
2	pokemon yellow	the legend of zelda: link’s awakening
3	the legend of zelda: link’s awakening	pokemon red/blue
4	toki tori	the legend of zelda: oracle of seasons
5	the legend of zelda: oracle of seasons	the legend of zelda: oracle of ages
6	super mario land 2: 6 golden coins	pokemon gold/silver
7	kirby’s dream land	super mario land 2: 6 golden coins
8	mario’s picross	donkey kong
9	balloon kid	wario land 3
10	wario land: super mario land 3	kirby’s dream land 2

glad to see that NP recognizes how timeless tetris is (although they chose its GBC update tetris DX over the classic original). a fair number of the rest of our lists overlap as well, and in several other cases NP picked sequels over the originals that i prefered (e.g. kirby’s dream land vs kirby’s dream land 2). i’ve played through the majority of the games on NP’s list and at least parts of the remainder and i don’t see them as likely to invade my list, except for possibly oracle of ages. but there are plenty of other classic game boy titles that i haven’t gotten to yet, and plenty of room for newcomers in my list of favorites. onward! to further game boy (and game boy color) glory!

shiny pokemon gold

it’s been years since i’ve played a proper pokemon game, but it certainly hasn’t been for lack of trying. i had started in on a copy of pokemon crystal a while back and got more than a third of the way through, but then the battery died. and then i started on a playthrough of pokemon silver and didn’t get too far before the battery died in that game as well. finally i ended up having to take matters into my own hands and i replaced a dead battery in a copy of pokemon gold [i don’t know when i’m going to get around to posting details about how to change a game boy (or SNES) battery, but there are guides online and if anyone has any questions feel free to email me].

anyway, it was annoying to have to start from scratch and replay so much of the game again, but once i got over that fact i enjoyed the game. this installment introduced several new elements, including 100 new pokemon, the in-game cellphone, the rare appearance of shiny pokemon, the unown (that i wasted time on since it was only after numerous level ups that i realized they don’t learn any moves grrr), and berries and other hold items, not to mention full-color graphics. the new in-game clock is nice in that in adds more realism since certain events only happen on certain days and certain pokemon can only be caught during the day or at night, but as with the animal crossing games the clock gets to be somewhat annoying since during the week i only get to play at night after work and only getting to see the night aspect of the game gets old. i also didn’t find out about how to do breeding until really late in the game, so i didn’t get to explore that feature very much.

the main thing that somewhat bothers me about the games, though, and that bothers me about many RPGs in general, is that the amount of potential depth in the gameplay in building up a great moveset through breeding or using TMs is lost when the game’s level of difficulty just isn’t high enough to require them. against human opponents more-strategic planning would certainly be more necessary, but i beat the main part of the game with little effort and have no interest in maxing out a team of pokemon to level 100. another problem with this game is that despite its new gameplay elements it really just felt like a retread of the story and settings of the first game. the pokemon series is somewhat known for its tiny enhancements through each iteration, even smaller than most other nintendo series, but from what i’ve played so far of gold‘s immediate follow-up, ruby and sapphire seem to have a little more uniqueness, even beyond the improved graphics.

aside from the lack of major innovations, this was an enjoyable if fairly mindless game. the main draws of the series, namely the “gotta catch ’em all” mechanic and the great character designs, continue to be engaging, although i’m not sure how much longer my interest will be sustained. and i still think it’s ingenious that the series makes level grinding enjoyable by giving you a purpose, i.e. to catch rare pokemon. one of these days i’ll have to sit down with one of the games and really try to catch them all. hahaha.

shiny pokemon gold links:
– sprites above from serebii.net’s great RBY/GSC pokedex
– thorough walkthrough at psypokes.com
– bulbapedia has tons of info, including a list of pokémon by catch rate
– interesting chart comparing pokemon sales in japan
– a history of pokemon feature at IGN
– with the release of pokémon heartgold and soulsilver there’s been a lot of looking back at the originals. nintendo put out some video retrospectives via the nintendo channel. not sure how scripted they are, but they’re fairly believable. here’s a link to the first one.
– and here’s a link to the iwata asks feature for pokemon HG and SS

flippin’ over pokemon pinball

i started playing a pokemon game somewhat recently, and that reminded me that i have a bunch of pokemon spin-offs that i haven’t played yet. one of the first spin-offs released was pokémon pinball for game boy color, which came out in japan in 1999, more than 3 years after pokemon red and green and about 6 months before pokemon gold and silver.

i found myself more engaged by this game than the actual pokemon game i was playing (more on that to come in the near future). revisiting the original 151 pokemon was fun in itself, and the character design and “gotta catch ’em all” mechanics are as engaging as ever. what made the biggest difference, though, is that unlike my experience with galactic pinball, pokémon pinball is significantly challenging. so much so that at first i thought there was too much luck involved in getting a high score, but after i got used to the ball physics (the pinball is a pokeball and is larger and consequently a bit clunkier than in a typical pinball game) and the two boards, i was able to rack up the points pretty consistently.

unlike galactic pinball, in pokémon pinball you’ll have to really pay attention to the direction, angle, and speed the ball is moving in. the game has a surprising amount of depth due to not only its more-complex physics, but also due to its distinct modes. there are the paths you have to hit to activate “catch” and “evolve” modes, and especially tricky targets to hit to activate “map move” mode whereby you travel to different locales in order to capture the pokemon that reside there, not to mention the bonus stages.

one of the most interesting aspects about the game is the “ball saver” mechanic, which when active will allow you to continue using any ball you lose without any penalties. when the ball saver is active you can take more risks in trying to hit difficult targets, but the time is limited so you’ll have to choose what you want to focus on, whether it be evolving a rare pokemon you’ve captured or trying to activate one of the other bonuses, such as the pikachu kickbacks.

in case it wasn’t already clear from my geeky analysis, i ended up spending way too much time on this game. and i still have the stiff neck from playing hunched over my GBA to prove it. the pokemon trappings are vibrant, colorful, and really enhance the basic pinball game; the bonus stages are fun; the two stages have plenty of variety and feel quite different from each other; and although i still feel like executing a map move is harder than any other part of the game, in general the game does a great job of including goals beyond just shooting for the high score. oh, and it features a built-in rumble pack! what’s not to love? 😉

i ended up collecting just a little more than half of the pokemon before setting pokémon pinball aside, although i liked the game so much that i considered placing it among my list of “favorites of all time”. even though it didn’t quite make the cut, i’m definitely looking forward to revisiting this one in the future. must … catch … ’em … all … … …

abra! kadabra! alakazam! pokémon pinball links!
– official page on the japanese nintendo site
– entry at wikipedia
– entry at pokemon wiki
– craig harris’s review at IGN in which he mentions that the game is built on the kirby’s pinball land engine, which i haven’t played yet. harris preferred that game, but the reviewer at nintendojo.com preferred this one.
– FAQ at gamefaqs detailing the locations of the various pokemon

wario’s secret castle

finally played through pretty much all the levels in wario land II for game boy (which was also released a bit later as a colorized version for game boy color). i really wanted to like this game more than i did, because i had quite enjoyed the first two wario land games i had played (as recounted here and here). the first sequel, on the virtual boy, was extremely similar to the original wario land game, but this game offers a new twist. here wario, perhaps due to his brute strength, somehow acquires invincibility, and instead of hats his rasputin-like powers come from his ability to transcend death and other ailments. when he gets struck by a hammer, he becomes a spring; when he gets squished by a heavy weight he becomes as thin as paper; and during the course of his adventure he also survives getting burned and frozen and even eating too much cake. the powers aren’t really anything new and they’re generally underused, but the looney-tunes-cartoon-like aesthetic (carried over into the sound effects and music) is entertaining, and in his third solo outing wario is still a fun, greedy-yet-somehow-also-lovable, character.

so what was the problem? unfortunately, the game suffers from one huge design choice that i just couldn’t accept, which follows directly from the fact that wario is invincible. since nothing can hurt him, instead of losing life when wario gets hit by an enemy, most of the time he loses coins. this works out fairly well because each level includes two simple mini-games that cost coins to play and yield the game’s two types of useless collectibles. so the more money you have the easier it is to collect everything in the game. all that is fine and good, but the problem comes when, instead of losing money when you make a mistake, the game punishes you by forcing you into an area where you have to backtrack to where you just were. this particularly happens during boss fights (where in general you can’t get hit once, because otherwise you have to schlep your way back to the boss room), although it happens in other places as well where in other games there would have been a certain amount of “try and die” gameplay. this backtracking happens all too often and makes the game quite annoying and dully repetitive at times. i’m surprised the game seems to have gotten such a good reception given this huge limitation in the game design.

the other main problem is that many of the stages have “secrets”, such as the previously mentioned useless collectibles and also a handful of alternate exits and also just secret stashes of coins. some of the “secrets” are a simple matter of picking the right power to apply to the situation, but some of them are just trying wario’s various powers at every dead end in hopes of uncovering a hidden room. this reminded me far too much of the complaints people had about milon’s secret castle, and many times finding the secrets in this game felt even more arbitrary (and tedious) than in that one.

all in all this was one of the more-disappointing first-party games i’ve played by my beloved nintendo. apparently WL3 is very similar to this one, and i’m sorely tempted to skip it. i played a bit of WL4 and it also feels pretty similar, so i may have to make an exception to my usual OCD habit of playing games sequentially and instead skip forward to other entries in the series. we’ll see.

wario’s secret links:
– good FAQ at gamefaqs.com
– nice history of wario (and waluigi) at kombo.com: part 1 and part 2.
– recent article at gamespite.net
– entry at wikipedia
– endings at vgmuseum.com
– PDF of manual at replacementdocs.com

season of oracles

even though i’d finished playing a zelda game recently (majora’s mask, as recounted here) i’d been itching to play a 2D zelda game for quite some time, so i started in on the next in line, oracle of seasons for the game boy color. i thought i’d just see how the series’ return to 2D would fare, but by the time i’d gotten the powers of all four of the seasons i was hooked.

it seems a fair amount of the game’s uniqueness is due to the fact it’s paired with the game oracle of ages, so i’m going to withold my final judgement until i play that game. but although i enjoyed playing seasons there wasn’t a whole lot that felt really fresh. the rod of seasons was entertaining but didn’t offer up that much variety; the second world didn’t have a whole lot to make it memorable; and there were a fair number of pseudo-new items, i.e. items that were ostensibly new but had the same effect as items from previous games. there were a handful of unique items that offered up some surprises, though, as well as some animal helpers (a first for the series, i believe, not counting epona), and it was fun to hear some of the tunes (and see some of the characters) from ocarina and majora make appearances here. i also felt nostalgic seeing the game engine, which was clearly based on the classic link’s awakening, and also from seeing the reworkings of elements from the original NES zelda including many of the bosses (and the “pay me for the door repair” man who is back with a vengeance haha).

the useless items to collect in this game are rings which potentially could have been much more interesting as each offers different abilities, but since most of those abilities give only a tiny advantage and you can only equip one at a time the overall benefits are practically nil. also, the game was intended to focus more on action while its companion, oracle of ages, supposedly focuses more on puzzles. i’ll have to see how that ends up panning out, but it did feel that in general in this game the boss fights were a bit more difficult than usual, sometimes pointlessly so. all in all, though, this was a fun game and a classic zelda title, although not likely to end up as one of my favorites of the series. it might be that i prefer my zelda games to have less emphasis on action, so i’m looking forward to playing oracle of ages before too long.

season of links:
– walkthrough and FAQ at zelda.com
– the official site for the game is still up
– nice game site at midnight castle’s zelda site
– the entry at wikipedia includes information on how the two games interact
– review at IGN which recommends playing seasons first
– FAQ that compares the original japanese vs the localized english names
– page at zeldawiki.org, including a gallery of all of the enemies
– guide at IGN

toki tori story

finished toki tori last week. although the game is a completely solid puzzle game in the same tradition as the classic the adventures of lolo, it had the bad timing of coming out so far at the end of the game boy color’s life cycle that it actually came out several months after the game boy advance was released. i’m not the only one glad the game’s gotten a new lease on life in the form of an “enhanced remake” that was released for the wii’s download service early this summer to good reviews.

there’s not a whole lot to say about the original game boy color version of the game that can’t be summed up in the statement that it’s an easy recommendation: if you liked lolo, you’ll love this. like lolo, toki tori is colorful; the design is cartoony but fun and belies the oftentimes quite clever and head-scratching puzzles (don’t be surprised if you find yourself stuck for more than an hour on one of the harder levels); and the progression of difficulty is for the most part spot on. unlike lolo, toki tori includes a whole arsenal of items which all take a bit of mastering and help the game feel fresh. the game feels a bit cramped on the GBC, though, and you end up having to spend a fair amount of time just scrolling around trying to make sense of the big picture, so i look forward to replaying the wii version of the game on a bigger screen. the game’s also quite a good length, and i enjoyed tackling the harder levels, but i was a bit disappointed that there wasn’t a special ending after beating all the hard levels. the game says to visit a special page on the toki tori website, but i guess the page is no longer up; either that or i remembered the URL wrong. in any case, if anyone knows what was on that page please let me know! so, all in all definitely recommended, and a hearty two chicken thumbs up on this one. here’s hoping we get more from two tribes in the near future.

toki tori’s eggy links:
– IGN’s craig harris’s review of the original GBC version and his wiiware review
– someone liked the game enough to make a fansite, with sprites and a fancomic. awesome. haha.
– here’s a complete FAQ (even though i didn’t use it, and neither should you!). but post-win it’s interesting to see some cases where there’s more than one strategy to beating a level.
– this FAQ has some excerpts from the instruction manual
– entry at wikipedia
– entry on the developer, two tribes, at wikipedia

and some links for the wiiware version:
– official website
– cute trailer on youtube along with some other related videos from two tribes
– two tribes interview and review at wiiware-world.com
– a review at nintendojo.com