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chuckroWario Ware Inc. (GBA on 9X-S) – I think the later games may have gotten too complicated for my taste—my ability to figure out when to do in two seconds and then do it in the remaining three works best when I’m worried about one button and a cross-pad. The later games actually seemed to have kept most of the microgames introduced here, too. (And despite it being over a decade since I played WarioWare Twisted, I still tried to tilt my system for the “Tilt!” game, rather than using the directional buttons.)
Final Fight (Arcade on 9X-S) – The quarter-munchers are so goddamn cheap, and I don’t mean that in the monetary sense. It probably cost a virtual $5 to get through the six stages of this solo, especially since several bosses have unavoidable attacks, and if you get caught surrounded by enemies, your only options are the spinning attack (that costs health) or to get beaten out of your entire health bar. It’s also interesting what aspects (the elevator scene, several types of enemies, most of the traps, etc.) are almost identical to the ones used in other arcade beat-em-ups. If someone reskinned this with ninja turtles and told me it was a lost third TMNT arcade game, I’d totally believe it.
Sonic Advance (GBA on 9X-S) – I was never much of a Sonic fan, and I could never really distinguish the Sonic games from each other—this one feels like any other, to me. I always found it interesting that Mario games (and most platformers, really) expect you to thoroughly explore levels and find everything. Sonic games expect you to pick a path and blaze through it. If you’re skilled, you’ll pick the best path and get the most rings, but there’s no circumstance where you don’t miss most of what’s in a level. That’s always been weird to me.
I took a quick look at Eightbound (SNES), a romhack of Earthbound with a lot of Final Fantasy elements added. I was concerned right off the bat that they play up the increased difficulty and note that the anti-cheats protection has been kept in place. I was further concerned when the opening sequence is basically just Earthbound with an FF8 skin on the characters...and also monsters aren’t visible outside of battle, thereby eliminating one of the big draws of Earthbound’s battle system. The monster sprites are from FF1; and the new details mention four crystals and fiends. I mean, I’ll give the hacker credit for putting new sprites and dialogue in place (and I’m going to guess there are new boss battles), but at the end of the day, this is just playing Earthbound on hard mode.
I replayed enough Super Ghouls ‘N Ghosts (both the SNES and GBA versions) to remember exactly how much that game HATES the player. There’s wonky jump physics, weird hitboxes and a very limited number of hits you can take, just to begin with. You get randomly-chosen weapons each with a limited attack range (and sometimes treasures are replaced by a wizard who curses you!). In the very first stage, you have a tight time limit, mobile scenery, randomly-spawning enemies, no checkpoints and an instant-kill sequence in the second half. Even with a cheat code that keeps your armor when you take hits (note: a single hit removes ALL of your armor, even if you’ve picked up multiple power-ups to upgrade it), I couldn’t get through the first stage. They don’t make ‘em like this any more (hell, I think Eyri’s Action, a deliberate troll of a game, seemed easier and more fair!) and that’s a good thing.
At ARR’s urging, I played a bunch of the original Punch-Out for the NES, making it all the way to King Hippo barely remembering any of the controls. (I’m guessing a combination of muscle memory, knowledge of timing tropes, and that the first few battles are training wheels.) It kinda makes me want to go back and revisit other “concept” NES and Game Boy games that weren’t just standard platformers or rpgs. Nintendo always shined when they got creative.
Untitled Goose Game (Switch) - Jethrien actually played this, I mostly watched and suggested solutions to various tasks. Apparently the controls and the physics are a little wonky. But it’s a life sim puzzle game where, in each chapter, you need to make a bunch of people’s lives slightly less pleasant by messing with them. And watching it is enough of an experience, I don’t really feel the need to hold the controller myself.
Mario 35 (Switch) is a cute and clever idea—basically jumping on the success of Tetris 99, it lets you play the original NES Super Mario Brothers but the enemies you kill get sent to other players, and collecting power-ups and finishing stages increases your overall total time. You can also collect coins to level up, unlock later stages, and gain free power-ups. In practice, it seems like getting a fire flower and killing everything that gets sent to you is the real key to victory. It was fun to try; I don’t think I’ll play a lot of it.
Final Fight (Arcade on 9X-S) – The quarter-munchers are so goddamn cheap, and I don’t mean that in the monetary sense. It probably cost a virtual $5 to get through the six stages of this solo, especially since several bosses have unavoidable attacks, and if you get caught surrounded by enemies, your only options are the spinning attack (that costs health) or to get beaten out of your entire health bar. It’s also interesting what aspects (the elevator scene, several types of enemies, most of the traps, etc.) are almost identical to the ones used in other arcade beat-em-ups. If someone reskinned this with ninja turtles and told me it was a lost third TMNT arcade game, I’d totally believe it.
Sonic Advance (GBA on 9X-S) – I was never much of a Sonic fan, and I could never really distinguish the Sonic games from each other—this one feels like any other, to me. I always found it interesting that Mario games (and most platformers, really) expect you to thoroughly explore levels and find everything. Sonic games expect you to pick a path and blaze through it. If you’re skilled, you’ll pick the best path and get the most rings, but there’s no circumstance where you don’t miss most of what’s in a level. That’s always been weird to me.
I took a quick look at Eightbound (SNES), a romhack of Earthbound with a lot of Final Fantasy elements added. I was concerned right off the bat that they play up the increased difficulty and note that the anti-cheats protection has been kept in place. I was further concerned when the opening sequence is basically just Earthbound with an FF8 skin on the characters...and also monsters aren’t visible outside of battle, thereby eliminating one of the big draws of Earthbound’s battle system. The monster sprites are from FF1; and the new details mention four crystals and fiends. I mean, I’ll give the hacker credit for putting new sprites and dialogue in place (and I’m going to guess there are new boss battles), but at the end of the day, this is just playing Earthbound on hard mode.
I replayed enough Super Ghouls ‘N Ghosts (both the SNES and GBA versions) to remember exactly how much that game HATES the player. There’s wonky jump physics, weird hitboxes and a very limited number of hits you can take, just to begin with. You get randomly-chosen weapons each with a limited attack range (and sometimes treasures are replaced by a wizard who curses you!). In the very first stage, you have a tight time limit, mobile scenery, randomly-spawning enemies, no checkpoints and an instant-kill sequence in the second half. Even with a cheat code that keeps your armor when you take hits (note: a single hit removes ALL of your armor, even if you’ve picked up multiple power-ups to upgrade it), I couldn’t get through the first stage. They don’t make ‘em like this any more (hell, I think Eyri’s Action, a deliberate troll of a game, seemed easier and more fair!) and that’s a good thing.
At ARR’s urging, I played a bunch of the original Punch-Out for the NES, making it all the way to King Hippo barely remembering any of the controls. (I’m guessing a combination of muscle memory, knowledge of timing tropes, and that the first few battles are training wheels.) It kinda makes me want to go back and revisit other “concept” NES and Game Boy games that weren’t just standard platformers or rpgs. Nintendo always shined when they got creative.
Untitled Goose Game (Switch) - Jethrien actually played this, I mostly watched and suggested solutions to various tasks. Apparently the controls and the physics are a little wonky. But it’s a life sim puzzle game where, in each chapter, you need to make a bunch of people’s lives slightly less pleasant by messing with them. And watching it is enough of an experience, I don’t really feel the need to hold the controller myself.
Mario 35 (Switch) is a cute and clever idea—basically jumping on the success of Tetris 99, it lets you play the original NES Super Mario Brothers but the enemies you kill get sent to other players, and collecting power-ups and finishing stages increases your overall total time. You can also collect coins to level up, unlock later stages, and gain free power-ups. In practice, it seems like getting a fire flower and killing everything that gets sent to you is the real key to victory. It was fun to try; I don’t think I’ll play a lot of it.
