This topic is now closed
Gamefaqs Link
Last Topic's Ratings:
Altered Space - BABA - 25% (4)
Ayakashi no Shiro - AGABA - 50% {5}
Bases Loaded - GBAB - 38% {4}
Q-Bert (GB) - BGAA - 50% {4}
Super Bikkuriman - AAB - 33% (3)
Trax - AAAGG - 70% (5)
Well, this was quite a topic, with 3 games getting the squiggle bracket and 5 of the 6 games getting at least one B vote. Only Trax escaped, and was the only game in the high range for this topic. Yikes. I feel like this may not be an uncommon scenario, because there's so many unknown games on GB that it's very hard to predict how any topic will fare ahead of time.
Games for this topic:
Adventure Island
Bionic Battler
Dig Dug
Racing Damashii
Sanrio Carnival
World Bowling
Every time I see it in the list, I always think Bionic Battler is Barcode Battler, and I keep wondering how we'll cover it without the peripheral. Of course, it actually has nothing to do with barcodes whatsoever, even though there is actually a device called the Barcode Boy which is used for a couple games (which may well be impossible to cover, but we'll deal with that when the time comes).
Adventure Island - G
ReplyDeleteBionic Battler - A
Dig Dug - B
Racing Damashii - B
Sanrio Carnival - A
World Bowling - B
Adventure Island 2 on GB is an almost exact port of NES Adventure Island 2. I specifically did a back-to-back comparison against the NES version and the level layouts are totally intact, which is really impressive as this game has a lot of levels. In case you're not familiar with the original game, it's a huge upgrade from Adventure Island 1, besides much better graphics and control it also introduces new powerups in the form of the dinosaur friends, who have various abilities sort of similar to Mario's powerups. An interesting mechanic is that you can store these powerups for later use. At the start of each stage, you can choose to put away any active powerups so you can find new ones on the next level, which obviously makes the following level harder but slowly builds up a huge bank of powerups for the game's challenging later levels. There's also a lot of hidden secrets in the form of hidden eggs that can be revealed by hitting them with your attacks, generally leading to bonus levels or even warps. The biggest change compared to the NES game is that half the levels are cut, but not quite in the way you'd expect. See, in the NES version, each world consists of around 10 stages but you only play about half of them. The first and last stages on each world are preset, but the stages in the middle are chosen effectively randomly (it's based on the choose an egg bonus game), so you don't see all the stages on each playthrough. For the Gameboy game, this mechanic is totally axed, and you simply play the same stages in the same order every time. This means the game is actually exactly the same length as the NES game, it just has slightly less replay value, which I think is actually a totally fine compromise to fit the game onto Gameboy. The slowdown on Gameboy is also worse. The NES version actually has a very small amount of it too, but it's much more common on GB, albeit not the point of being especially problematic. The soundtrack is also slightly degraded, it's the same, the instrumentation is just changed and it doesn't sound as good. Still, it's like 90% the same game as on NES and for a GB game that came out really early that's quite impressive. I think Adventure Island 2 is probably a top 20 NES game so having this on GB in the first couple years is actually pretty amazing. The graphics, amount of content and polish here absolutely destroys pretty much all other early GB platformers.
Bionic Battler is essentially an extremely simple first-person shooter. The basic gist of the game is that it takes place in a first-person maze and you have to eliminate the other robots. You have two attacks, a melee punch and a rocket that has to be charged, but can hit from a few cells away. You also have a radar which shows when another robot is close and a map of the stage at the bottom. As movement is quite sluggish and the AI isn't very smart camping is by far the optimal strategy, keep your rocket charged at all times and find yourself a corner to camp in, and if anyone enters your line of sight just blast them, then retreat in the other direction, charge your missile again, then repeat the process. You do get some allied robots and they're basically useless except for getting in your way, but you can easily solo the entire enemy faction without too many troubles because they're not really smart enough to hunt you down and corner you. There's not really too much else to say about the game than that. It's very basic and pretty repetitive and only really squeaks by with A because there's not much else like it on GB.
DeleteDig Dug is a really basic arcade game that I've never been too fond of an a major issue with the Gameboy version renders this version much worse than most. The basics of the game are really simple, you need to kill all the enemies (of which there are only two types) by shooting them with your harpoon and then inflating them until they pop. You can dig through the dirt to create paths, but as you dig through the ground at about the same speed you move normally and the enemies can pass through the terrain anyway this aspect of the game hardly matters except for dropping rocks (which rarely hit) and shooting the harpoon. The only nuance in the game is that because popping an enemy takes time, if there are multiple enemies on you you either want to lose one or deliberately inflate one a bit, then turn the other way to let go and pop the other one. That's pretty much the entire game and you can see everything it has to offer in 10 minutes. The GB version is a fairly accurate conversion except in terms of speed. When there are 5 enemies onscreen, the game slows down to half its normal speed, and with 6 (which first happens at level 10) the speed is quartered, making the main game almost unplayable.
(cont'd)
(Dig Dug cont'd)
DeleteHowever, the developers were seemingly aware that the main mode was pretty poor, so they also included a "New Dig Dug" mode that plays fairly differently. Here, there are fewer enemies (thus partially alleviating the game's slowdown issues), and instead each level focuses around collecting 3 keys and reaching the door, while dealing with various hazards like hard blocks, rolling balls, and bombs. This mode is clearly better than the main mode, but has its own share of problems. One of the issues is that the enemies are now generally too irrelevant. The enemies in Dig Dug are never a big threat individually, the danger comes from the fact that there can be a lot of them at once, but that's never the case here, as the enemy count will seemingly never exceed 4. This relegates the regular enemies to an occasional annoyance, forcing you to wait for them to get close and blow them up every now and then (they respawn) rather than any kind of serious threat. On a few of the game's levels, a skeletal version of Fygar appears, and this enemy is actually a problem, but in kind of an annoying way. This enemy is identical to Fygar except immune to the harpoon, so you basically just spend all game trying to run from him instead (you can kill him with the traps, but he instantly comes back so you're not rewarded for it). The level design here is also not great, as most levels basically just require you to dig out almost every sand block (they love 1-tile wide tunnels blocked by hard blocks), which remains slow due to the fact the game's poor framerate. There's also some boss fights where you have to inflate a giant bomb, and these are okay, but they're all very similar. While I do think adding additional complexity to the game's levels is the right direction for the game, it's still fairly dull. I feel like there's potential here if they ever made a sequel based on this concept, but it would need a better engine and more varied level design.
Racing Damashii is another basic Rad Racer game with a single, ridiculous flaw. Gameplay-wise, there is a bit of nuance to this game. You can choose from different bikes at the start, and after you finish a race you can upgrade it in different categories, with an additional bonus upgrade if you're first. Controls are a little on the stiff side (which is odd for a game where you race bikes, which are typically portrayed as more agile than cars), but it's manageable. As you race, your tires gradually get worn down and your body takes damage if you hit anything, which is bad as this makes you lose speed, so you can pit if you want but it loses a lot of time. The biggest issue with the game is the way tires work. If you try to take a turn at any level of speed higher than what the game determines acceptable, you simply fly off to the side of the screen and explode. You don't suddenly start to skid and have to fight to regain control like in any other game of this type, no, you simply explode in a cutscene. You can sort of deal with this by just slowing down for the turns, but every now and then it will still happen and it feels absurdly random and stupid every time it does because there's basically no indication that it's coming, you just explode. And of course, besides losing a ton of time this also tanks your body stat, making you slower and making it nearly impossible to win. The rest of the game probably would have been good enough for A if this mechanic was removed, but it's so stupid I can't really recommend it.
Sanrio Carnival is effectively just Hello Kitty flavoured Dr Mario. Mechanically it's almost the exact same, you drop characters in groups of 2 that remain tethered together until you make a match, though matches in this game only require 3 and diagonals are allowed. The basic mode is a very simple stage clear mode where each stage tasks you with completing a different condition, like making enough matches, getting a lot of points, or making enough 2-chains for example. There's also a basic endless mode, and you can play a 2 player versus mode, but IMO the standout mode is actually the last one, which is a no gravity mode. Here, after you clear the pieces, the connected pieces don't fall, they instead remain floating wherever you left them. This actually drastically changes the way you have to play the game because you need to always be thinking about how you're going to get rid of the blocks that get left behind on the higher rows, and you often have to make matches from below to get rid of them. This is actually a very interesting twist on the formula that really makes you think differently from almost every other falling block game, and I kind of which all the modes had this mechanic even if it is a bit mentally taxing. At any rate, it's an all right game overall. The visuals and music are pretty basic and there's not a lot of content, but the gameplay is fine and it does have that one interesting mode to make it feel somewhat unique.
DeleteWorld Bowling sucks. It's a very basic bowling game with two significant problems. It's among the most barebones bowling games possible, you simply position yourself, then have to time an aim and power gauge, which both bounce back and forth at a moderate rate. The goal is to hit a target score over 6 stages, which are otherwise identical. The first problem is a minor one, which is that sometimes the control gauge eats your inputs. It happens often enough to be annoying, even if it doesn't cause any major problems because you can just line it up again on the next pass, but it feels amateurish. The far bigger problem that effectively ruins the game is that the game is entirely RNG. I became suspicious of this almost immediately as I noticed that I could hit strikes easily, but never multiple times in a row, so I started save stating to test the same throw with the same power and position on back to back throws and how many pins you hit is basically just complete luck, the same throw can result in either a strike, an easy spare, or even a split depending on luck. As this makes doubles and turkeys nearly impossible to achieve, this also makes getting a high score in the game nearly impossible and also effectively eliminates any element of skill to the game, not that there really was much to begin with. With the game being so simple and skill having almost no impact over what happens, there's really not much good you can say about it.