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Retro Game Crunch
Oct. 7th, 2015 09:33 pmSuper Clew Land — “The game that started it all! Eat, evolve, and explore in this happy-go-lucky exploration-based platformer.” It’s a small Metroidvania game with a splash of EVO: The Search for Eden, as you need to eat helpless critters to evolve various means of locomotion, and then search out all the treasures. Some of the platforming challenges in the latter segment are really difficult, but the part that galls me is that most of them involve both navigating into a spike-lined space, and then also having to navigate back out. While the evolution mechanic is cute, it’s a pain in practice because you’re trying to both distribute proteins and also not die at the same time; and the real meat of the game comes after that mechanic is gone.
End of Line — “A game about learning how to die. Figure out how to thwart autonomous repair bots in this puzzle adventure.” This is clever and made me curious about how many levels there are, because it doesn’t seem to have a menu/world map for them. In each level, you need to figure out how to destroy all the repair bots and then destroy yourself. In a number of them, letting them fix something is part of the solution. Later stages also add powers that you can add to your robot to aid in destroying itself.
GAIAttack! — “Gaia summons four champions to rise up and destroy the pillaging Sky Pirates. A beat ‘em up platformer for up to four players.” Exactly what it says on the tin: Punch all the enemies and snag coins as you climb upwards, then punch out the boss, too.
Paradox Lost — “Abby survives her plane going down and comes across a gun that shoots time travel! A metroidvania spanning three eras.” (Winner for best concept, by the way.) Clearly heavily influenced by the original Metroid from the way Abby handles and the obtuse nature of many puzzles. The auto-map is good, but I actually stumbled on the ending before I managed to unlock most of the game’s secrets--and there doesn’t seem to be a FAQ or mapthrough anywhere. (I got a much more respectable 82% completion, 20/28 hostages and all of the power-ups, in my second go-round.) The fact that Abby cannot shoot downwards was my greatest frustration, though when I figured out that the red gun (freeze) combined with the scan made a freeze-field, it made that slightly more acceptable.
Wub-Wub Wescue — “A pug must brave the jungle and navigate its treacherous rhythms, all to rescue his master. An early 80’s arcade platformer.” Very much a Donkey Kong style game, but with more variety and puzzle elements. It didn’t really win me.
Brains & Hearts — “A two player card game that takes place inside Albert Einstein’s dream. Play against the CPU or a friend.” There isn’t much to this one; the game is basically a Spit variant, and the CPU only seems to have one difficulty setting.
Shūten — “A samurai shoot ‘em up for one or two players. Owari’s village is trampled as ancient gods awaken. He takes up sword to end them.” I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would, especially after I bought upgrades for various weapons. The gameplay is classic shoot-em-up, but I like the ninja theme and the difficulty level is a lot more in my wheelhouse than bullet-hell shooters usually are. (The permanent upgrades are awesome, too.) I think this was my favorite of the lot.
Overall: The collection is worth the money—each game is short and hardly perfect, but they’re varied and there are enough of them to keep things interesting.
End of Line — “A game about learning how to die. Figure out how to thwart autonomous repair bots in this puzzle adventure.” This is clever and made me curious about how many levels there are, because it doesn’t seem to have a menu/world map for them. In each level, you need to figure out how to destroy all the repair bots and then destroy yourself. In a number of them, letting them fix something is part of the solution. Later stages also add powers that you can add to your robot to aid in destroying itself.
GAIAttack! — “Gaia summons four champions to rise up and destroy the pillaging Sky Pirates. A beat ‘em up platformer for up to four players.” Exactly what it says on the tin: Punch all the enemies and snag coins as you climb upwards, then punch out the boss, too.
Paradox Lost — “Abby survives her plane going down and comes across a gun that shoots time travel! A metroidvania spanning three eras.” (Winner for best concept, by the way.) Clearly heavily influenced by the original Metroid from the way Abby handles and the obtuse nature of many puzzles. The auto-map is good, but I actually stumbled on the ending before I managed to unlock most of the game’s secrets--and there doesn’t seem to be a FAQ or mapthrough anywhere. (I got a much more respectable 82% completion, 20/28 hostages and all of the power-ups, in my second go-round.) The fact that Abby cannot shoot downwards was my greatest frustration, though when I figured out that the red gun (freeze) combined with the scan made a freeze-field, it made that slightly more acceptable.
Wub-Wub Wescue — “A pug must brave the jungle and navigate its treacherous rhythms, all to rescue his master. An early 80’s arcade platformer.” Very much a Donkey Kong style game, but with more variety and puzzle elements. It didn’t really win me.
Brains & Hearts — “A two player card game that takes place inside Albert Einstein’s dream. Play against the CPU or a friend.” There isn’t much to this one; the game is basically a Spit variant, and the CPU only seems to have one difficulty setting.
Shūten — “A samurai shoot ‘em up for one or two players. Owari’s village is trampled as ancient gods awaken. He takes up sword to end them.” I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would, especially after I bought upgrades for various weapons. The gameplay is classic shoot-em-up, but I like the ninja theme and the difficulty level is a lot more in my wheelhouse than bullet-hell shooters usually are. (The permanent upgrades are awesome, too.) I think this was my favorite of the lot.
Overall: The collection is worth the money—each game is short and hardly perfect, but they’re varied and there are enough of them to keep things interesting.
