tuneful sonic CD

i played through the next entry in the sonic series, sonic the hedgehog CD orig. released for the sega CD (although i played it via the sonic gems collection on gamecube; apparently a PC version was also released way back when and nowadays you can also get a downloadable version that runs on more-modern versions of windows).

anyway, although i’d enjoyed sonic 2 a few years ago, this iteration was just too same-y compared to the previous two games. the locales are all pretty much the same as are the general aesthetics (although defeated enemies turn into flowers instead of cute litttle critters), and although the past/present/bad future/good future mechanic was interesting the game doesn’t really provide much incentive to try to get the best ending. the bonus stage was too hard, and aside from the soundtrack, which was noticeably better than most games, there wasn’t much that was memorable about the game. the main exceptions would be the traditional animation of the intro and epilogue, and the introduction of sonic series staple, amy rose (called “princess sally” in the original US release), and baddie metal sonic (although it was preceded by mecha sonic in sonic 2). the game also has a race sequence with sonic vs. metal sonic, although that was memorable more because of how frustrating it was than being a cool experience.

apparently the game was created in parallel to sonic 2, which perhaps explains their similarities. i’m hoping that sonic 3 (which was originally released just two-and-a-half months after sonic CD) will be a step forward, but at least i’m making some progress on getting caught up on the series.

tuneful sonic CD links:
– easter egg of what happens if sonic is left idle for three minutes
– entry at sonic.wikia.com, which includes sprites of the enemies and a run-down of all the bosses
– entry at wikipedia
– entry at howlongtobeat.com

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treasurin’ gunstar heroes

my sega experience continues to slowly grow. i finally beat a game on the original sega genesis, gunstar heroes, the first game created by treasure. treasure was apparently created by people who had left konami, and according to this article at hardcoregaming101.net gunstar heroes was developed by several people who had worked on contra iii, a game i had enjoyed but not loved.

although gunstar heroes may have taken contra as its starting point, its variety, unique weapon system (in which you combine two of four types of weapons to make a new one), and cartoony but cool personality make it feel distinctly fresh. in terms of comparing it to the contra series, hardcore gaming puts it well when it says:

In Contra, your heroes are killed after a single hit, demanding exact precision to dodge enemy fire or overpower quick moving bosses. Gunstar Heroes is much more forgiving, and doesn’t require nearly the same amount of reflexive intensity. While one could argue that it makes their games simpler, on the flip side, their relaxed approach actually make them a lot more fun, where you can concentrate more on the joys that come with dealing expansive amounts of damage without worrying too much about memorizing enemy patterns.

in what has become a treasure trademark the game is full of boss battles, and the screen is pretty much constantly chock-full of bullets and explosions, all at a blissfully smooth frame rate. the game features unlimited continues to further emphasize enjoyment as opposed to frustration, and in fact i played through the normal mode all in one sitting. there’s a lot of variety and a sense of always moving forward, although there’s one section (the dice palace) where the game slows to a crawl because you’re working your way around a board game-type board and, depending on how unlucky you are, you’ll probably end up having to play through the same mini-bosses many times. there’s also a shooter section at the end that feels unnecessary and frankly fairly dull.

overall, though, this is probably the best game i’ve played this year, although it doesn’t quite crack my greatest games of all time list. there’s a sense of sheer joy and fun that comes across, and the game points out the many things the contra series lacks that i never realized i missed, like a sense of humor and a cast of colorful antagonists (actually they’re literally “colorful” in this game, as they’re called by colors such as black and pink). i’m looking forward to trying out the game’s pseudo-remake on GBA, and at some point i’ll have to replay the original and experiment more with the different weapon combos instead of just sticking with the double chaser (and then maybe i’ll be up for tackling the hard modes). my experience with treasure games continues to deepen my appreciation for that studio, and i’m looking forward to continuing to delve deeper into their body of work.

treasure these gunstar heroes links:
– entry at wikipedia.org
– review at nintendolife.com
– weapons combinations FAQ

sonic + tails = sonic 2

i finally got myself motivated to play through the much-lauded sonic the hedgehog 2 for the first time. i’d enjoyed playing through the first game, and for this iteration i found myself reacting in similar ways to the core game mechanics: losing all your rings every time you get hit is still annoying; trying to get all the chaos emeralds is quite tedious; and the feeling of speed seems to be constantly stymied by backtracking to explore alternate paths and slower sections of regular platforming. the most annoying thing by far though is the final level which is incredibly cheap due to the fact you have to fight two bosses without getting hit once.

with those criticisms out of the way there was a lot i did enjoy. although many of the locales from the original reappear here there are quite a few new elements and some new and memorable game mechanics such as the seesaws in the hilltop zone. the pinball stages were as fun as ever, and it was great that sonic acquired a sidekick, miles “tails” prower (even though he doesn’t add anything to the gameplay), and a new “spin dash” ability. the 3-D bonus stages are impressive, although they require too much memorization, and the levels in general are large, even though i wasn’t that motivated to explore them fully. as with the first game, the music and visuals are uniformly great.

although i don’t think i’m going to become a sonic super fan anytime soon, i’m getting to be a fan of the sonic series. so far i’ve played through an enjoyable duo of solid platformers, and i won’t be surprised if i end up playing through sonic 3 before too long.

rev up for some sonic 2 links:
– entry at wikipedia
– review at vc.nintendolife.com
– great page of info on the game at fansite the green hill zone. includes a lot of screenshots and sprites of the enemies.
– maps at soniccenter.org
– PDF of the manual at replacementdocs.com
– screenshots of the endings at vgmuseum.com
– and just in case you need it, here’s the info on the the level select code

beasts altered

i finally got a dreamcast (just in time for its 10th birthday). continuing the trend, instead of starting off playing one of the classics i ended up playing something totally random, more specifically, one of the sega genesis games that appear on the sega smash pack compilation, the now-classic altered beast.

i’m pretty much a n00b when it comes to sega and its long and colorful history. the genesis version of altered beast was apparently the original pack-in game for the system in most areas outside of japan and is well known, although nowadays it seems to be among the many games that are universally panned (see poor milon’s secret castle as another example, which i recently reviewed). for a sample of modern-day reviews and people’s comments on altered beast, nintendolife.com has reviews of both the the original arcade version as well as the genesis version. both reviewers give the game the same score (3 out of 10), although the latter review seems to contain more nostalgic affection. for a run-down of the game itself, check out this page at i-mockery.com.

having no such nostalgia factor but having a much higher tolerance for old games and their limitations, i actually quite enjoyed this one. the “homoeroticism” is clearly just that peculiar brand of japanese humor that takes the form of extreme camp, which i found amusing, even more so when i contemplate the nations full of confused kids and their baffled parents that must have resulted. i was also entertained by the complete disregard for actual greek mythology (not unlike the classic kid icarus). the graphics are definitely impressive, keeping in mind this was almost exactly two years before super mario world was released for the SNES, and the character, enemy, and boss designs are all pretty well done. the enemies in particular are entertaining, with some classic japanese wackiness thrown in, e.g. the purple jump-kicking unicorns and yellow goats in the final level. i wasn’t bothered by the slowness of the gameplay, and although there’s not much variety in the main attacks they were still varied enough to make them worthwhile. the “altered beasts” and their attacks were the best part, and although i didn’t find the game to be overly repetitive, at five levels the game is definitely quite short; i would’ve definitely enjoyed another level with each of the beast forms. the ending is anticlimactic and the harder difficulties not much different than the normal mode, but the co-op was fun and the soundbites have added some classic quotes to my repertoire (the apparently much-appreciated “wise from your gwave!” as well as the baddie’s sinister “welcome to your doom!”).

i’ve settled on a few simple rubrics to help me rank games, including “would i want to play this again?” and “did i like this enough to check out some of the sequels?” for me the answer to both of those questions for this game is actually yes. and it turns out that there are a coupla sequels, and they’ve been catalogued by the good folk at hardcore gaming 101. sweeeeet. i mean, roooooaaaaarrrrr!!!

altered links:
– cheats at gamefaqs, including how to continue and select a level and difficulty
– screenshots of the ending at vgmuseum.com
– entry at wikipedia
– random page with sprites
– FAQ at gamefaqs (although no one probably really needs it)

exploring the genesis of sonic

another gaming first (this year has just been full of ’em) was beating my first sega genesis game, sonic the hedgehog which i played via the sonic mega collection on the gamecube. as you can guess this was also my first sonic game. like super mario world (which in NA came out just two months later) i’d tried out sonic 1 in the toy stores but o/w had never actually played through it. i have to say that i’d never actually even been that interested in sonic, but i got more interested due to a friend of mine in college who was a sega fanboy and obsessed w/ him, so much so that he dressed up as him for halloween. it’s gotta be a pretty rare sight to see a black guy w/ hair dyed blue and wearing red and white shoes running around, bumping into walls and dropping change. and of course my interest took a big leap when it was announced that sonic would be joining super smash bros. brawl, and so being the completist that i am i figured to begin my closer acquaintance w/ sonic i should start at the very beginning.

my mostly unbiased opinion is that overall sonic 1 isn’t a great game. one of the things that i never understood about why people liked sonic so much is that people always talk about how fast the games are, but in fact there actually aren’t that many opportunities to let loose and really zoom through a stage, especially since a lot of the time if you zoom past something you end up having to backtrack anyway. and without the speeding ball of hedgehog gimmick the game pretty much becomes just another platformer. and even after playing through the game i’m still not into the “get hit once and lose all your rings” setup, which isn’t much of a step above ghosts ‘n goblins’ get hit twice and die MO.

there are several “moments of brilliance” in the original, though, such as the bonus stages and some pinball-esque parts w/ sonic bouncing off of bumpers, and particularly the star light zone which does a better job than most of the rest of the game of making sonic’s speediness work w/ the level design. but in general aside from some great character design and graphics and music there wasn’t a whole lot to keep me interested. being a little disappointed i read up a bit on sonic 2, which generally seems to be regarded as the best in the series and seems to do a fair amount to remedy most of the problems i felt were in the original. i actually spent some time taking a “spin” through sonic 2, and already i can tell that i’m going to like that game a lot more. so w/ that said, hopefully the sonic fanboys won’t hate me too much until i post my assessment of sonic 2 and either see the light or give up on sonic completely.

some sonic links:
– walkthrough at IGN that includes the info on how to get continues
– cheats at IGN
– recent reviews on IGN of the XBLA release and the wii VC release, the latter of which also has a good review at vc-reviews.com
– endings at vgmuseum.com and video of the good ending at youtube
– list of the xbox 360 achievements for the game
– entry at strategywiki.org including a guide to the badniks
– entry at wikipedia