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Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap was the entire reason I bought this bundle, because $3.50 seemed like a fair price for this, given what I’d heard about it. On one hand, the hitboxes are wonky, the platforming is slippery, and the secrets are obtuse. On the other hand, it’s delightfully fun. You transform into a series of monsters that have different abilities and gain different stat bonuses from the various equipment you pick up. There’s an easily-accessible retro graphics mode that matches the original version of the game. Also, you have the option to play as Wonder Girl, which actually changes the title screen if you select it! Important tip: Returning to the title screen saves your progress and re-starts you at the Village, which means it’s a great way to warp back from dangerous areas.
Atari Vault – You’d think I’d have more nostalgia for Atari than I do, given that the 2600 was the first system I ever owned. I think the problem is that my favorite games were licensed titles that never show up in any of the collections (Superman, Ghostbusters, Pac-Man, Mario Bros., California Games, Rampage), and this collection also lacks a bunch of the particularly strong games like Frogger, Space Invaders, Joust and Galaxian. The various Atari Flashback devices (I own one of them, also—I think it’s the Flashback 6) have the same problem, in that they’re missing most of the catalogue that I actually care about. I think I’ve had more fun with the Sega collections (despite never owning a Sega console), because they actually contain the games people want to play!
The Surge – The various reviews describe it as “sci-fi Dark Souls” and praise the “tight, visceral melee combat”. It’s a 3D action sci-fi game; I can safely assume this isn’t going to be my thing.
Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter - A 3D exploration / puzzle adventure game. I’ve played enough of this style that I can guess this will involve a lot of repetitive poking around; and dialogue that thinks it’s more clever than it is; and too many hours of gameplay for a weak payoff. Yeah, that’s judgmental, but I’ve sat on this for six months and I am just not interested.
Overall: I bought this for Wonder Boy, and that was absolutely worth the not-even-four bucks. The rest was worth culling.
Atari Vault – You’d think I’d have more nostalgia for Atari than I do, given that the 2600 was the first system I ever owned. I think the problem is that my favorite games were licensed titles that never show up in any of the collections (Superman, Ghostbusters, Pac-Man, Mario Bros., California Games, Rampage), and this collection also lacks a bunch of the particularly strong games like Frogger, Space Invaders, Joust and Galaxian. The various Atari Flashback devices (I own one of them, also—I think it’s the Flashback 6) have the same problem, in that they’re missing most of the catalogue that I actually care about. I think I’ve had more fun with the Sega collections (despite never owning a Sega console), because they actually contain the games people want to play!
The Surge – The various reviews describe it as “sci-fi Dark Souls” and praise the “tight, visceral melee combat”. It’s a 3D action sci-fi game; I can safely assume this isn’t going to be my thing.
Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter - A 3D exploration / puzzle adventure game. I’ve played enough of this style that I can guess this will involve a lot of repetitive poking around; and dialogue that thinks it’s more clever than it is; and too many hours of gameplay for a weak payoff. Yeah, that’s judgmental, but I’ve sat on this for six months and I am just not interested.
Overall: I bought this for Wonder Boy, and that was absolutely worth the not-even-four bucks. The rest was worth culling.
