A Personal Video Game Retrospective (1986-2015) 1996

1996

Welcome back to another week of remembering the past. You will see the highs and lows of the video game market this year. Between the hail mary at Sega and Nintendo’s smug attitude it wasn’t that to see Sony gain a foothold in the market. This was where console exclusive games eventually made me buy every device in a generation. Even to this day I am willing to buy every console. I’m sure the rate at which I obtain games is quite absurd compared to most. Even if it isn’t the norm it did let me experience a lot of why I continue to like video games. They allow me to see worlds that I could only imagine and go on adventures to faraway planets. Interacting with all of these experiences made me want to seek out more. For good or bad seeing the full picture was certainly a wild ride.

Sega Saturn

Oh Sega you did all the wrong things with the release of the Saturn. Between the high price point and the fact it launched randomly after a press event it was doomed to fail. I kept up with video game news at this point so I had no interest in the Saturn when it first launched. Making this the only console I bought years later after it wasn’t sold in stores anymore. Why did I pick it up? Well it does have a selection of games I missed out on. With the power of Action Replay I am able to play import games.To bad I haven’t really got around to collecting very many games yet.

Nintendo 64

At least for home consoles it became obvious that cartridges were starting to fade away. Which didn’t stop Nintendo from releasing one last console using cartridges. Although that part was in the past the controler included a analog stick. To bad it only had one instead of two. But without it we wouldn’t have been able to control Mario in 3D without it feeling odd. Looking over the entire library it wasn’t the best collection of games but it did modernize some gameplay systems.

After seeing the finished product I think it was wise of ESPN to not put their name on this sequel. Not that these aren’t well put together racing games but it just takes so much time to actually win any of these races. The artificial top speed that every other racer can go to is absurd. So just like the first game it requires you to never get knocked over and keep your top speed up. My best this time was 8th place. I noticed they decreased the amount of racers from 16 to 10. Since this one has some 3D models I assumed they needed to tone it down to keep the frame rate up.

The first of my Working Designs translated RPGs. They brought a certain charm to how they translated a game that I wanted to see more of. Albert Odyssey has nothing to do with Albert at all and going by a few lines of text near the beginning his journey was many years in the past. Instead this is about Pike who has a few unfortunate events happen to people close to him. After his adoptive sister gets turned into stone he sets off on a journey to find a cure with his talking sword Cyrus. The game is a standard turn based RPG. It plays like every other one but I did notice that it was possible to block all damage. So a enemy will attack but they don’t do any HP damage and the same could be said about attacking them as well. An odd choice that could favor the player or make battles annoying.

VR Tank battle is just something we could imagine in 1996 but now we are on the cusp of actually being able to do the real deal. Assault Rigs uses simple polygons to create a well realized virtual environment. Which has the main goal of blowing everything up with a tank. At the start it gives the player the ability to choose one of 3 tanks which are classified as being light/average/heavy. Other than that each level has different weapons that will augment how the cannon shoots. Like giving it a bounce shot or a lock on missile. For a game that is about collecting gems to finish a level I remember putting a putting a lot of time into trying to beat this game. It does a solid job of creating a neat looking virtual world that I liked coming back to.

I don’t even know why I bought this. Must be because it was a dollar. I can enjoy a fishing mini game within one but a game that is just about fishing doesn’t do much for me. Especially when I can’t figure out how to catch a fish. I can get them hooked but reeling them in is somehow not possible no matter which button I hit. I’m sure I could look up the controls but I don’t need to see more of this game. After all it only has one type of fish to catch.

So I didn’t really need to add to my collection of fighting games that use MK tech to make them look photorealistic. Especially since most of the imitation games like this one were pretty bad. But it came with the Saturn I bought so I didn’t have much of a choice. At this point this tech just makes any game using it feel dated. Figures it would also be a game that only used two buttons on the Saturn. The fighting is simple and the costumes the actors wore when making this are hilariously bad. So at least I can laugh at how bad it is.

Dragon’s Lair was a neat looking game in arcades and BD 13 follows in its shadow. Although it was apparently only released on consoles. Yup this is pretty much just QTE the video game. No real cursors or flashes to help you know when to do anything though. So it becomes a case of trial and error till I found the right combo to succeed in every scene. Not the best way to make a enjoyable game. At least the cartoon animation looks good.

Not putting out broken games is something we still have issues with today. Bubsy 3D is a prime example of a very broken game. Starting off in the first level it becomes evident that Bubsy controls stiffly. Every movement feels like the player is controlling a robot. The visuals don’t help either with them looking bad even for a PS1 game. It is obvious they were going for a cartoony art style but it just doesn’t have any nice looking areas with the main element of each level looking like a checkerboard pattern. I’m staring at the idle animations while writing this up and they look like they spent more time on them than the gameplay. I’m assuming this could be summed up as a project staffed with people that didn’t know how to make a 3D game yet.

So the box art promises 3D graphics like Donkey Kong but thanks to all the bright colors it kinda just looks like standard animation. If that is what they were going for then great job. To bad the cramped nature of most of the levels makes it really tough to dodge any attacks. Along with the fact that the first level is all about running away from Daffy. Then the 2nd level picks up that with a bull and then a few lions. Running away from stuff in games is fine but every level is a bit to much. It even has mandatory collectibles which puts it automatically in my bad game pile.

Cruis'n USA is a lot easier to control on a analog stick than in arcades. I remember having a lot more trouble keeping the car on the road with the wheel. Which is odd since that should be reversed. This is the first game that tried to recreate a road throughout the United States. But other than getting the routes right they just tried to create a fun course to race through instead of a realistic interpretation. Car handling is good with every car being able to make every turn without worrying about hitting the wall. Finally this game has a heavy dose of rubber banding with the 2nd place car being right behind you the entire way. Only if it is a similar car otherwise I had a easy time beating any other type of vehicle.

My only experience with the Darius series before picking this one up later was G Darius. I was surprised to find out the capture system wasn’t in these earlier games. Which isn’t totally true since it is still possible to capture big enemy ships. It’s just that being able to capture smaller ships added a lot of options in my opinion. Making Darius Gaiden more of a standard side scrolling shooter with giant robot fish bosses. Yeah the giant fish thing was an inspired choice by the developers. Overall this is a super tough game so it’s a good thing I have a action replay. Who doesn’t like being invincible? Also I’ve always liked how this series has multiple paths giving me a reason to come back

I did play the first DKC but only at my friends house. So I didn’t get into this series till this one. At this point the graphical trick had no real hold on me. Thus it came down to the gameplay. Which is just another variation of the ever present platformer. It didn’t quite click then and now even less so. Sure the controls are fine and jumping through the levels can be a delight. I just wish I had that impression whenever I play a DK game.

Fighting Vipers is a 3D fighting game similar to Tekken. At least that is how it appears to look after a quick glance through arcade mode. Although I wasn’t able to pull off any fancy combos the CPU knew how to smack me around. Still sticking to the basics can achieve victory with the power of the block button. Knowing that almost every special was unsafe also attributed to my victory as well. Flashy ring out finishers seem to be the extra spice that gives this game some flair. Between smashing through iron bars or getting flung off into the sunset on the final stage they do add some excitement to the conclusion of each battle. Damageable armor is also used to encourage defensive play since if the player gets hit enough they will take more damage in the next round.

Izzy’s goal in life is to be apart of the 1996 olympic games. To bad some evil olympian spirits decide to block him from going to the games by stealing the Olympic rings. Thus it is up to Izzy to save the day by getting the rings back. This is another mascot platformer with one new gimmick like the rest. Izzy can turn into different olympic events to make his way through a area. Fencing is one of the early transformations you’ll find. Oddly this game doesn’t have any big boss battles. Getting to the end of the third act alive is all Izzy has to achieve to obtain a ring.

A case of a sequel with a lot of improvements but with very little change in the gameplay. With Aloha finished it is up to a giant size villain named Captain Kabuki to once again rip Little Mu apart. Now Robbit must help his own enemy and save his home planet. Like I mentioned it still plays like the last one with Robbit double jumping everywhere and shooting lasers. The improvements come in the form of higher quality music. Along with some better designed stages to go through. I didn’t mention it in the first game but both have a second quest that beefs up the difficulty a bit. Still it is a rather easy game but I don’t mind thanks to how much fun I had playing it.

The one size fits all Kirby game. Did you want a remake of Kirby’s Dream Land? How about a game where he has to collect treasures? How about one with an actual story about Kirby’s rival Meta Knight? What you want a Kirby to pilot a ship like he is in a sidescrolling shooter? Well you're in luck this has all of that and more. This was also when Hal added in dash attacks to Kirby’s skill set. Being able to use his different powers in a new way made pretty much every power useful. Plus the new ones they added like Ninja are just cool. Thus making a game that will forever be a delightful romp through everything that makes Kirby cute and cool.

Leon must become the next spirit master but a great evil awakens to stop him. Legend Of Oasis is actually a prequel to Beyond Oasis. They are both top down action games of the Zelda variety and they even have a set of dungeons to go through. Leon gets his power from the different spirits he can summon and they allow him to solve different puzzles with their powers. Other than the music this feels like a game that could have been on the Genesis. It doesn’t seem to use the extra power to make it feel unique.

The reason I even have a action replay is that it allows me to play imported games on my American Saturn. I haven’t really made use of that fact too much. Starting a fox girl named random Japanese letters since I don’t know how to read them. After training with her wise rat master a raccoon on a giant humming bird appears and sends a dragon after her friends. Gameplay is similar to the previous game in this list. A fairly straightforward game that anyone can figure out with a bit of effort. It doesn’t matter that I don’t know why I’m climbing a tower and facing a giant evil cup but it is amusing.

This is where the Kart era truly started. After this so many companies will be making karting games it’ll be a bit to much. MK 64 still uses sprites on top of 3D backgrounds that give it a unique look. I never got good at slide boosting in most Mario Karts till the latest one. MK 64 is especially tough since it takes a while before you even get a mini boost. Thus this was also where snaking first appears. Which is where a player goes back and forth to get as many mini boosts on a straightaway as possible. I ended up playing through the flower cup on 100cc. The entire way I had to battle the CPU for 1st which was still fun. Especially since I managed to win every time. Must be thanks to the fact that none of my opponents decided to send a blue shell at me.

Similar to the last Marvel game on the SNES this is a beat em up. But it is no longer X-Men only and now includes other heroes like Iron Man. I guess the Avengers name didn’t mean much yet. I believe they reused animations if not just a lower poly version of the player characters from the fighting games from this time. This is most noticeable in some of Doctor Doom’s attacks and Wolverines special attacks. Other than being a standard beat em up it is possible to do simple special moves similar to a Hadoken from Street Fighter to pull off a unique attack. Heavy use of reused sprites is all over this game with multiple evil clones of the heroes and possibly 3 enemy types that get reused a lot.

X2 will always been known as the X game with the really tough intro level in my mind. I only played it at a friends house so I never got too far in. As for X3 the biggest introduction was Zero as a playable character. Also known as the character you switch two if you're having a hard time beating a level. To prevent abuse once Zero loses all his life you can’t call on him again. I’m sure this was in X2 but giving Mega Man X the ability to dash without a power up is a big improvement over the first game. Dashing is the best way to dodge boss attacks after all. One other thing games seem to have taught me over time is to never trust a utopia made by a genius. The story in this game is that Dr Doppler creates a utopia and then proceeds to use it as a way to spread the Maverick virus once again.

The most broken Mortal Kombat game ever. Plus I own the N64 version which just isn’t a good console to play fighting games on. The layout of the controller doesn’t make it easy to play a fighting game. The additional characters they added aren’t very interesting either. But it is always fun to see how broken Shao Kahn is with the secret morph code. Even if my game couldn’t handle it and froze a little bit after I tried to use him.

I didn’t even know Pilotwings was on the SNES before playing this one. Which is good since the N64 makes this a better game overall. Even if the graphics look rather muddy by today's standards. Pilotwings 64 has 3 different types of vehicle courses to go through. The better a player is at completing each task equals a better medal. The ever hated hangluidger is the toughest to control the landing which lead to me failing a lot. The rocket pack is where all the fun stuff awaits since it allows full control. Even the gyrocopter was fun too thanks to the fact it could shoot missiles.

The age of Anime starts here with this lightgun game with animated scenes between levels.I don’t actually own the Konami lightgun so I had to play this on a pad. Going by other lightgun games on a pad this one seems more than fair to the player. You don’t need split second reaction time to succeed at blowing up a bunch of evil robots. Oh did I forget to mention this game is about being a future cop with a giant mech who must take down endless numbers of enemies? The plot isn’t amazing since it is just about going from one crisis to the next trying to stop the lastest plan of an terrorist group who is lead by a generic evil dude.

What if your were playing Mario Kart and it only had limited use of the red shell? Then you would be playing Power Rangers Zeo Battle Racers. It is set up the same way as Super Mario Kart with one half of the screen dedicated to the map. The race courses seem fine at first but it becomes evident that the developer didn’t set up the courses that well. Especially when I noticed that one of them was just a big star that lead to me running into a wall whenever I hit a speed boost. At this point my love of Power Rangers was starting to wane but we will still see one more game before I gave up on watching them.

Street Fighter Alpha may have felt slow but this game moves at a glacial pace. I know this game is full of robots but come on. Visually a sequel is usually supposed to look better but I’m looking at a screen shot of the first game and it looks better than what I’m seeing on my PS1. Gameplay wise it feels like a run of the mill fighting game. Building up the super meter by using specials seems like an odd choice. If you mix up your attacks it’ll never get filled by the time the match is over. Another odd thing I noticed was that the difficulty slider goes from 00 to 23. The AI also really likes to jump kick a lot.

Best use of classical music in a game about war goes to Return Fire. The developers must have been on a budget since even the FMV that plays when you win or lose is old archival footage. At least using the different vehicles to blow up enemy bases is still a delight. The tank and the rocket launcher APC seem to the the vehicles of choice for any tower cleaning operation. Since the tank can straf past towers without getting hit it is really useful The APC makes up being slow by murdering everything. On the lower end of the totem pole the Helicopter is useless. Leaving only the Jeep which is the fastest and only way to capture flags. This is a much better 2 player versus game than slowly mowing down turrets in the single player.

The ups and downs of sometimes enjoying this game. Robo Pit lets the player build their own robot with different attributes and then send it against another. With the overall goal of climbing through the 100 other robots to the top. This is pretty much a fighter with very basic combos. At best you can do a 3 hit combo with the fist weapon. Beating other enemies gives you access to new arms to use. Some are better than others like the boomerang which can do a ton of damage. It is also possible to make them more effective depending on how much you decide to use a certain weapon. Balance wise this isn’t even close to being a fair fight with infintes possible if you put a enemy in a corner. Really strange that it isn’t possible to knock an opponent out of the ring since jumping out is possible.

Action RPG’s were all the rage during this time going by my Saturn games. Shining Force follows the journey of Mars a rookie knight who grows into a hero. The running system is the one new mechanic compared to the rest. The faster the player makes Mars run the deadlier his attacks. I’m going to assume it has some kind of magic system later on too. The early CG and the style of the game make it look dated.

The UI this time is way to crowded. Along with it running at a bad framerate made this an experience I didn’t feel like playing. That was true back then and now. The 3D models add nothing to this experience. At least I can still throw a giant robot onto my floundering city to blow it all up. Keeping it simple is what makes a game like this playable on a console. Along with it not running like garbage.

The aging Strike series needed to add something new to its gameplay loop to keep it relevant. EA decided to try putting hilariously bad FMV in between blowing up stuff with a helicopter. As for using 3D along with 2D art assets adds very little to what is still obviously the same game as before. At least in the first mission the ground texture they decided to use makes it really annoying to see enemy placements. Which is bad because they can damage the helicopter really fast. At least the 2nd mission didn’t seem as bad thanks to the fact most of it was over water.

Weird instead of staring at a black screen telling me that the cart was dirty it booted up to the secret level select menu for a few seconds.. Looking at what Sega was doing at the end of the Genesis I’m surprised they decided to make the Saturn 2D focused. Well they may have been following the trend but they didn't quite get there. Sonic 3D Blast is Sonic in 3D made by Travelers Tales. This game has full 3D movement along with the artstyle. Rescuing flickys is the new main goal of Sonic who must find them all before putting them in a big ring that allows him to continue. In this one case I don’t mind mainditory collectibles since they aren’t very hard to find. At least early on it seems like this game can’t have bottomless pits thanks to the perspective which is fine with me. Too many times have I fallen into a pit by accident in most Sonic games.

This is an all out assault of Star Wars games this year. Starting with Dark Forces which pits its hero Kyle Katarn against the empire's new Dark Trooper project. He hasn’t heard the call of the force yet and instead prefers to shoot everything. As a FPS this game proceeds at a much faster pace than what we are used to today. Kyle dashes his way through each level collecting the ever vital keycard that’ll unlock the next area. He has the usual set of weapons similar to Doom. It even has a BFG in the form of a concussion rifle. As a side note I do think being able to look around is something new to FPS even if the PS1 gamepad makes this fact pointless.

Factor 5 got their start with making Star Wars games with this one. To bad this doesn’t really show the right kind of arcade gameplay that they will be known for a year later. Instead it uses FMV to tell another story about a hidden weapon of the Empire. Compared to the first Rebel Assault this one looks a lot better thanks to the 3D models. They make it easier to steer the ship around the FMV backgrounds. Yet the controls feel off like the ship always wants to move downward at all times. Making me run into walls a lot. At least this time I had shields so hitting the side of a mountain isn’t instant death. Other than watching a made for TV Star Wars movie I had to shoot a bunch of stormtroopers and tie fighters. Pretty much just a shooting gallery. Even with all of that this was also a criminally short game clocking in around 2 hours.

Most of my thoughts about this game are already on the site in review form. But I’ll still recap a bit here. First the intro level is the reason why every other Star Wars game tried to recreate Hoth. Graphic wise this looks bad with most textures looking like they were put through a muddy filter. Control wise the auto lock on works but it feels really dated. Still I enjoyed my time revisiting this game even with all the flaws.

Wow after playing SFV Alpha feels so slow. It may be slow but it is still Street Fighter. I’m not sure what they added in this one since it still feels like SF2. Other than possibly adding in new ways to combo they did add a few new characters like Rose. Yet I still stick to what I know which is any shoto character. I played through Sagat’s arcade battle only to once again not get a ending since I lost once. Locking a ending behind never losing a battle was an odd choice in my opinion. Oh this was also the introduction of the newbie auto block choice in fighters around this time. Capcom seemed to know a lot of people didn’t like to block so the best way to keep them interested was to put that toggle in. Doesn’t seem like the best way to turn a bad player into a good one.

Well this is the game that informed every other developer how to make a 3D platformer. Go into unique level collecting something and then repeat that task till the player earns enough to unlock the final level. Each area must look unique and pose new challenges to keep the player interested. Going for 100% is not needed but some kind of reward must be given to anyone that decides to go for it. M64 fails in making that last fact good. A bunch of lives after getting everything isn’t quite a good reward. At least jumping around the different worlds is still a fun time for me. Explains why you’ll be seeing this game one more time on the DS.

Here is where Mario gets his RPG chops thanks to Square. The way Nintendo has been open with their IP’s lately I could see them letting Square Enix finally make a sequel to this game. Not sure if that is a good idea these days but it is possible. In the intro level I always wondered how Mario was going to get Peach down from the chandelier. Luckily it didn’t matter since a giant sword came out of the sky and smashed into Bowser's castle knocking Mario away. Thus starting his quest for the 7 stars.

The great thing about this RPG conversion of Super Mario is that it added in timing based attacks and defence. If you good at timing your attacks correctly you’ll do more damage. Giving it a bit more spice than a normal turn based battle system. This basic flow of the combat continues forward to this day with the many different RPG’s starring Mario. I even enjoy the 3D look this game has compared to every other 3D game on SNES. Most likely thanks to the clay cartoon like visual style it has. No matter when I decide to come back to this game it always holds up.

Three Dirty Dwarves was a very crazy looking game that worked well as a Sega Saturn demo in my local Sears. Now that I finally got to play the game it is rather basic even for a beat em up. Enemies don’t feel threatening at all thanks to being able to wake up any hurt dwarf with a punch. As a side effect of how easy it is the beat em up sections feel boring. But the boss battles still have some charm thanks to how silly they can be. You can fight a imp who can control dogs as they swarm all over him or the boss that got me interested in this game which happens to be a Gym. Yup one of the boss fights is just a building which was rather amusing at the time.

I never played real Tetris before playing this fake version. I wonder if I thought this was how every Tetris game played. But no this would be what we would consider to be a match 3 game. Match 3 icons and clear the board before it hits the top. This was the game that really expanded the amount of modes you would expect to have in a puzzle game. Between Vs,Puzzle and endless this has plenty of ways to mix up how you decide to match colorful blocks together. Once again Yoshi is the star of his very own puzzle game. Guess they didn’t know where else to put him at this point. A lot of time was spent trying to beat Baby Bowser back when I first bought this game used from a Blockbuster.

Going by the intro to this game Vectorman saves earth and then the humans reward him by making him a janitor again. Till a new threat arises and blows up his spaceship. Similar in every way to the last game Vectorman must shoot his way through each scene and get to the goal. Seems like the developer wanted to use his double jump abilities more so most stages seem to be more vertical. At least early on a lack of boss fights is noticeable. A few new transformations break up standard levels with autoscroller levels like his helicopter form. In the end this was a okay game series that never quite clicked for me.

Conclusion

What is a video game? It is just a miserable pile of secrets. Ah yes half way quoting a game I didn’t even play till many years later. This year doesn’t have any big moments of note that I didn’t already cover in the console sections. So I’ll talk about secrets. Hidden secrets/easter eggs has been a thing in games ever since the hidden room in Adventure on the Atari 2600. Finding some of these without help is nigh impossible but whenever the player does find something hidden it will always make you feel like you accomplished something awesome. Even something small like accidently finding Samus in Super Mario RPG was cool at the time.

The even bigger fact about this time period was the swath of false easter egg rumors spread throughout the internet. Most went something like this. Hey do you want to unlock Luigi in SM64? Well if you follow these instructions you will unlock him. Clear out every Boo in the courtyard 10 times. After clearing them out for the 10th time you will need to collect every coin in the haunted house level. Finally one of the walls in this area will now be a portal to where Luigi is. The early internet really let rumors like this to get spread through it as facts. Once it was possible for anyone to upload photos these rumors began to disappear. Still even if they were false some really stuck with us over the years like the one about Mew being under the truck. Not sure where I’m going with this other than secrets are pretty neat even when they turn to be fake. Come back next week if you want to see the power of the Guncon and to revisit Midgar.