A Personal Video Game Retrospective (1986-2015) 1998

Welcome back to a another year of video games that must be cataloged. I’ve typed up a lot of text about every game I’ve ever played up to this point. Many years have had great selections of games coming out. Yet for me this year is infused with a crazy amount of memorable video games. Never before have I seen so many developers create such a wide selection experiences that I really enjoyed. This is just my personal experience so I’m sure this list of games might not be as impressive to someone else. Plus like every year this one has a assortment of bad games as well.

1998

The big 3 console makers have stayed on a similar course as last time. Nintendo meanders along creating at least one big game in house every year. Sony continues amass more momentum toward being the biggest profiteer in this generation. At this point Sega has decided to take a back seat to amass one last attempt with the Dreamcast. More than anything else this year shows how well a good stable of third party games can prop up a console whenever the first party games don’t hit as well.

Game Boy Color

Finally the Game Boy gets a small but vital upgrade. The guts of the GBC is almost the same as before other than getting a smaller form factor. Obviously the addition of color is the biggest selling point. So many other portables were vastly superior than this yet Nintendo continues to prove that the less powerful device is always better. Doesn’t hurt that everyone tends to support it too. This is the point where I started to buy more portable games. Yet overall I don’t tend to play any of these games on the go. Sitting in my house is where I played most of them. Especially if it was a RPG.

I loved this portable James Bond game. At the time I was impressed by how well the developers created an interesting adventure story similar to one of his movies. Even the basic flow of the story is well paced starting off in China with a kung fu escape scene leading all throughout the world hitting every notable point you might want to see. It also didn’t hurt that this was more of a adventure game that required the player to have the right item to proceed. Sure battling with enemies is part of this game too. I wouldn’t call that part the highlight but it works. This was also the first example of me save scumming to win during the blackjack card mini game.

We have made it to the part of the timeline where a lot of collectible 3D platformers start to show up. From their point of view a comical take with a crazy amount of collectibles was the way to go. Hard to not make a direct comparison to Super Mario 64 with the setup being exactly the same except jigsaw pieces are required to proceed instead of stars. Although Rare did take more time to create more unique ways to collect everything. Every mini game or challenge might not be fun but I did end up 100% this a few years ago.

Who knew a little developer known as DMA design putting out a game about giant bugs taking over the world would one day become Rockstar. Hints of this can be taken from Body Harvest which is a open world game. The player can go anywhere in the map and steal a bunch of vehicles. Yet it has a linear progression of objectives that must be completed and then a giant harvester alien must be blown up to proceed to the next section of the world. Oh yeah our hero is a time traveling human from the future who has come back to stop the aliens when they first appeared. Starting off in Greece and then to other countries as he keeps getting closer to stopping the alien menace. As the title implies that other goal is to prevent the aliens from harvesting humans since if they get enough they will evolve and become nigh indestructible thus dooming the human race. For the time I thought this game was pretty cool even if I never finished it.

The most nontraditional Bomberman game every way and I love it because it is unique. Hudson Soft must have saw Super Mario 64 and decided try something similar. With a small twist in the form of adding in behind the back space shooter levels. The main set of levels are platforming focused with Bomberman still having the ability to throw and kick his bombs around. Going for a perfect score in each level is encouraged if you want to unlock everything this game has to offer. This was one of few games that gave Bomberman a jump and a life bar. Doesn’t make it a easy game though since Hudson decided to not refill his life bar between levels and some bosses are pretty tough.

The intro to Bomberman World may be CGI now but it tells the same story as the rest of his games. Far as I can tell a great evil summoned 4 intergalactic space villains to take over 4 planets. So it comes down to him to save the day. Unlike previous games where I had to blow up all the enemies crystals are now the way to unlock each exit. Enemy monsters are still an issue too. Bomberman’s mechanics of having to collect power ups to make him not feel useless doesn’t lend itself well to letting the player continue. Fighting the very first boss with only one bomb was almost impossible. Especially since I couldn’t predict how long his invincible roll would last.

A lot like the next RPG on this list Brave Fencer Musashi has a great introduction chapter. Without a good intro most players most likely wouldn’t keep playing a 20-40 hour RPG. Getting better later on is fine but for any first time players that is a good way to lose their interest. As you should be able to tell by the title of the game this is about Musashi a hero from another land who turns out to be a bit smaller than the princess was expecting when summoning him. Either way he must journey to reclaim his sword Lumina and save the princess from the vile Thirstquencher empire.

Right off the bat this has more of a comical tone of storytelling. Along the way the player learns about how Musashi can steal the power of enemies to use a special skill. For example the first skill he has to use to shoot down a bridge is gained from the pistol shooting enemies. Oh by the way this is a action based RPG with simple 3 hit combos. Nothing too fancy but enough depth and unique set pieces to keep you interested till the end. Right after learning the basics the game throws a giant steam knight at you to see how well you’ll do against a big enemy. Starting off with humor mixed with impressive looking bosses is a great way to get a few hooks into me.

This might have the best random title screen rap song ever but that doesn’t carry over to the game. If it did carry over to the gameplay I might be able to tolerate the so-so flying controls. On paper being able to brake down to zero MPH seems like a great way to deal with flying enemies. Turns out that isn’t as useful as I thought it might be. Especially since most enemies just fly directly at me anyway. Littering the maps with stuff that can almost kill me in one blow is never a great way to earn any respect from me. Oh well at least we got a awesome song from a very bad game.

Another arcade classic that I never got good at but enjoyed playing it anyway. Match 3 bubbles or more to take down a CPU opponent. Or in my case I tend to enjoy puzzle mode more. I still have to worry about the ceiling coming down to crush me but I would rather not see the CPU screw me over. Uh not sure what else I can say other than this being my favorite Taito game.

Midway tried so hard to keep the arcade era relevant for as long as they were around. Chopper Attack is one of those efforts to keep it alive. But time wasn’t on their side and the super short tough games were starting to be replaced by longer games with much more content. At the time I certainly enjoyed blowing stuff up with a helicopter. Looking at it now the amount of missions rather small and they even reused environments a few times with more enemies. Even compared to the Strike series from EA this had a lack of objectives as well. At least the final level against a giant UFO is a stupid fun idea.

I always manage to do well in the first act of this game. Once the warpgate opens everything falls apart. Instead of just getting a game over I do appreciate that they decided to go with alternate missions and alternate bad endings depending on if the player always succeeds. More ways to play through a game is great in my book. The overall narrative is the same each time even if you might see different missions. At its heart this is a arcade space battle game. Blast other ships out of the sky to protect navy battleships and save a besieged world. It isn’t my favorite kind of mission since I fail it so often but escorting ships shows up a lot during one playthrough. Yet Flying around switching between missiles and lasers depending on the situation is fun. Everytime I feel like playing this game I always think about picking up the first Colony Wars since I enjoy what they made in this sequel.

Einhander has a lot of nice touches that made it one of my favorite side scrolling shooters. The must has a lot of do with why I might haved liked this one compared to others. The developers did a great job mixing in frantic techno beats and slower paced beats to fit the mood of the current mission. The songs just last just long enough to end right when the player reaches the boss. Meanwhile the gameplay is a standard shooter but getting power ups is different. Enemies will drop guns and depending on which Einhander the player has chosen can load up 2 types of extra weapons to deal with certain situations. Good use of something like a gatling gun can let you damage a boss while still being able to avoid any attacks. After all one hit is all it takes to blow up the Einhander.

Top down turn based RPG’s never did that much for me till Disgaea. I know this is a game enjoyed by a lot of people but it never did that much for me. Might have been because of the slow opening. Giving me control of just one character in the intro level was a great way to make me not care about the story too much. They do give the player access to a full party after the intro level. Moving a party around different areas without placing anyone in a dire situation is the goal of the game. At least from what I saw of this game it seemed like careful leveling of the characters would be required to beat the game. Finding out the true hero of a story that was falsified is an interesting introduction to the overall story. If only I got more than a few missions in when I first played it could have been one of my favorite games too.

It may not be called Future Strike anymore but at its core it is still part of the Strike Series. Now set in future LA where crime still runs rampant. The AX-1 has been built to deal with a new level of criminal activity. AKA this might as well be a warzone with the amount of rockets and missiles this mech has to launch at it’s enemies. Other than it not being a Helicopter anymore each mission is set up in more of a linear fashion. Unlocking gates and blowing up a few objectives will be the main tasks throughout this entire game. Since the player is now on the ground each level feels more like a maze than the open plateaus of the previous games. Doesn’t make it bad just different. Really I rather enjoyed this premise a lot. Any game that lets me play as a super cop in a mech is ok in my book.

This is the Darius game I spent the most time with. Being able to capture every enemy in the game gives you different ways to deal with different situations. With the mid bosses being like a big shield wall to protect the ship from shots while also sending out a ton of shots. I appreciate how they decided to make shot power ups tiered. So once the ship gets upgraded to super status you’ll only get downgraded to the laser shot instead of the normal pea shooter. The stylish looking boss intros along with nice looking background settings makes this a nice game to look at. Like a lot of other side scrolling shooters I tend to have a tough time getting to the ending. The multiple path system taken into the stage itself was a great way to add even more replay value if you do manage to get to one of the endings.

Well at least I got the version of Gex Enter The Gecko that doesn’t have any load times. As a 3D platformer once again this is a well made game. If only the player character wasn’t a gecko that likes to spit out one liners from movies. Like the rest this has a set of collectible remotes that are needed to progress. Once again each level is a parody of a tv show or movie. Everything Gex had before has been transferred to 3D like being able to crawl on certain surfaces or eating flies to regain health. On the plus side it looks like Crystal Dynamics didn’t go to crazy with collectibles with only 5 remotes per level.

Ah yes Glover the game all about a magical glove that must save a Wizard who has been trapped in stone by his evil twin brother glove. Only magical crystals that have been turned into rubber balls and scattered around many worlds will restore the Wizard back to his normal self. In some ways this entire game is one big escort mission. If the ball gets hurt in any way the player loses a life. As a 3D platformer this has the usual set of skills like a ground stomp and a double jump. The unique aspects come in with the ways Glover can use his ball. Either by turning it into a different form like a bowling ball. Using it to hit targets will also come up every now and then. To bad dragging the ball around everywhere could get annoying hours into a playthrough.

Great idea Kemco release a lighgun game on the N64. A device that never got a lightgun. This game doesn’t seem to be built for a controller either on normal. Laser fire came at me fast enough that I didn’t have enough time to blow up most of the enemies without dying. The one little addition they added was allowing the player to dodge shots with the c buttons. To bad the reaction time it takes to move the camera is usually enough time for the cpu to lock onto the player's new position. The visual style is rather muddy and bland looking. Even the animeish portraits of the characters look bad. Not even giant boss battles could turn this game into a good time.

I’m beginning to notice a pattern of old me spending a lot of time getting 100% in most Zelda games post Link To The Past. Once again I have a file with ever heart piece and gold skulltula found. Here we are the Zelda game that would be the blueprint for almost every game after this point. Ocarina Of Time easily earned the title of instant classic thanks to how well it transferred Zelda to 3D. Even the storytelling was upgraded compared to the previous games with this one spending more time creating a few likable characters that’ll show up again after Link travels through time.

If I didn’t see it myself I would have found it hard to believe that very few developers thought of using lock on targeting before OoT. Locking onto enemies does allow the combat to be fun and the rest of the game is set up similar to the previous one. Go to dungeon, find item, use said item to compete dungeon. Repeat those 3 steps till you win. That isn’t everything the game has to offer though with a smattering of mini games and plenty of places to explore it allows the player to do what they want while sending them down a linear path. I will say that the 2D backgrounds used in certain areas like Hyrule Town don’t hold up as well these days. Even if some of it feels dated the entire package is still a great game.

Obviously I don’t have much experience with very many Baseball games. But it really looks like they spent a lot of time trying to make this one super realistic. Compared to now it would be laughable but all the little touches start to add up. Like recreating all the ballparks or naming off all the batters like it was a real ballgame. It might not match up with the real deal but the overuse of having a different musical intro per player was also a nice touch. No matter how 2D bad the models look at the time I bet they were impressive looking.As for playing baseball this one required me to aim my bat. Which could have been bad thing but since the pitcher gives away where he is aiming it isn’t so bad. In some ways that kinda favors the batter a bit more. Only balanced by the assortment of pitches that can be thrown to make the batter miss. Overall I still rather enjoyed playing this again.

The power of a nice looking animated art style can go a long way in making a PS1 game still look nice even today. The pixelated look the world of Mega Man Legends goes well with the animated look Capcom decided to use. At the time the fact they decided to go with something completely different than the rest of the Mega Man series was a great idea. Sure the gameplay is kinda just Mega Man translated to 3D but they added in some RPG elements along with some explorations sections to find new sub weapons. The overarching story about Mega Man being a Indiana Jones like hero that digs for treasure was a fun idea too. Over time as the player continues exploring Katalox island new villains and mysteries start to arise to keep almost anyone interested in seeing what happens next.

The true start of Kojima’s most enduring franchise. Action hero Solid Snake must once again work with the government to take down a terrorist plot to prevent them from using Metal Gear to launch a nuke anywhere in the world. The reason this game was so beloved was because it was the first game that did a exceptional job of telling a over the top story. The cast of likable characters also played a part in why everyone enjoyed this game. The weakest link is the gameplay which is playable but rather imprecise. Fighting bosses is left up to firing a bunch of shots and hoping one of them hits. The radar makes sneaking possible but I usually end up getting caught a bunch before reaching the conclusion of the story.

Goldeneye is the better spy movie turned into a FPS but Mission Impossible does a better job giving the player more cool spy stuff to do rather than make it all about shooting everyone. Not to say that this game doesn’t have missions where you need to shoot everyone. It just has a better mixture of missions that allow Ethan to use the facemaker to bypass guard checkpoints. I’m sure Ocean didn’t want to highlight the gunplay as much anyway since it is literally point and shoot. Taking the time to aim seems pointless because two shots sent in the direction of the enemy will take them down. I can see why this game wasn’t rated high in it’s day but I enjoyed it because it spent more time letting me figure out the puzzle each level had compared to it just being about shooting everything.

Here we go again another 3D platformer although the Mystical Ninja series takes a lot more inspiration from Zelda. The entirety of edo era Japan is open to explore. With most areas either having some shops to buy items from or open areas to look around to collect items. As for the set up Goemon must stop the evil Peach gang from turning every castle in Japan into different stages. Jumping up Mt. Fuji and then running through Edo Castle to take down a giant golem head is fine but that isn’t the true reason I remember this game so well. That reason is the giant robot Impact and his catchy theme song. Fighting a giant Kabuki robot with one that looks like Goemon is a silly good time. I just wish these fights weren’t spaced so far apart from each other since they were always the reason I tried to beat this game in the past.

Like NBA Jam Blitz is more about creating a over the top game instead of sticking to the rules. I don’t even know the rules of football so it’s a good thing crazy tackles and insane runs down the field is the norm in NFL Blitz. Even if it isn’t sportsman like who doesn’t like to quickly body slam a opponent after stopping them from getting across the field. One of these days a fumble is going to happen in my favor but the AI never seems to lose the ball when I play them. I’m always afraid something bad is going to happen whenever pass the ball leading me to run down the field every time. In the end this is still a fun game to play to this day.

I’m a awesome ninja that likes to fall into pits. Absolutely nothing about this intro level inspired any confidence in me to try to even get to the end of it. This game just wants to kill the player as quickly as possible. No mercy between hard to tell platforms in the water. A ton of traps that were made to make you lose lives. They don’t even give you the much needed sword to deal with enemies till half way through the first level and if you die it disappears. Maybe this just gives off a bad first impression. More likely this is just a really bad game.

I guess Hudson might have been trying to make a different kind of Bomberman game but I find that hard to believe. Instead I’m pretty sure this was going to be a game starting a generic knight hero till someone decided to make Bomberman the hero. Why else would he be clad in armor and now have the uncanny ability to jump? This is more of a platformer with the twist being your attacks are bombs instead of something normal like the sword he has in every cut scene. Really this is set up like every other Bomberman game from this time with the main goal being to blow up every enemy to open the exit. The jump side game is an early example of a endless jumper. Well it would be that if the level didn’t end after a while.

Another fighting game for beginners which happens to be just as enjoyable to play as the real deal. It doesn’t hurt that Capcom obviously put a lot of time into this spin off game. Part of the cast of Street Fighter and Darkstalkers come together to create the cast of fighters in this game. They have all been transformed into their chibi forms and now only have access to 3 buttons. Far as I can tell they are punch kick and a knockback attack. Not every attack is as serious as before leading to silly moments like sending an opponent flying across earth and back with a punch. Tons of references to other Capcom games are scattered throughout each level and even some moves like Chun LI putting on Jill Valentine's clothes during a attack animation.

Pokemon Blue/RedGotta catch em all Pokemon! The animated show most likely was the reason I kept up with this franchise for quite a few years. Really this first game sets up a world they will expand on over time. Along with 150 Pokemon that have stuck to me over the years. Still being able to name off almost all of them is a pretty pointless skill. Going back to it now is a little tough. The extra touches Nintendo put into this series today makes it easier to get into.

As a RPG Pokemon is rather basic but the collectible nature of the game is where it really shines. Having so many varieties of pokemon to face required players to mix up which pokemon he/she was training to overcome certain weaknesses. Presenting new challenges to the player in the form of Gyms was a good way to show how much they’ve learned about Pokemon at that point. If they aren’t ready then they will end up getting stomped thus leading to more training.

A fighting game on the Game Boy that actually works? Sunsoft knew the limitations they were working with on the GB. Other than a fun fighting system I was also impressed by the animations they managed to produce on this hardware. If only the main story mode wasn’t one big grind for parts to make the player's model kit robot better. At least it has a standard arcade mode too. As a fighter this has a everything you need to take down a opponent. Between a light and heavy attack they even included overhead attacks to produce some mix ups. It even has ultra attacks as well. A neat little game that exceeded my expectations.

Well someone needed to make a RPG for the N64. A developer named Imagineer decided to try to make one. Well the best thing I can say about Quest 64 is that they did try a few new things. The leveling system is different with a focus on leveling 4 elements. Going all in on one might give you a epic avalanche attack but it might also make that attack pointless against certain enemies that are resistant to earth. Battles are slightly different as well with some mobility to move around a circled area and then follow up with a attack. It is still turn based but I did notice that I could dodge earth attacks if I was quick. The run of the mill hero story didn’t impress me any and with the rather high encounter rate I barely got through the forest in any of my previous attempts.

Midway brought Rampage back and put a claymation like artstyle on the monsters. This really is just a remake of the first Rampage game with more buildings to destroy. As it is a world tour the monsters will blow up buildings all over the world. They basically recreated important buildings from different cities and put a bunch of generic buildings beside them. The army can do a absurd amount of damage to the player and it isn’t possible to refill the monsters life on food alone. So it is just a constant cycle of blowing up buildings by punching them and then dying a few seconds later. The fact that they gave the player infinite continues makes it pretty obvious that they knew no one would get to the end of the game otherwise.

I remember the Rugrats cartoon being pretty funny when I first watched it. As for this game it follows in the footsteps of many random licensed movie games. Turning the game into a collectathon that required me to find items to finish the level. Once again I just seem to not enjoy this type of gameplay in a 2d game. The limited perspective of the game boy doesn’t help this game either. Getting hit by a enemy loses all of the items forcing me to collect them all again. Making me repeat actions over again isn’t a great way to make a fun game in my opinion.

Recreating a show in a video game goes a long way to make me enjoy this somewhat barebones mini game collection. THQ did a exceptional job of recreating Tommy’s house from the show. His house is used as the hub to a selection of 11 levels going by how many Reptar pieces must be collected. They also reference a different episode with each new level. As for the game it is mostly a assortment of different mini games.From what I saw they can be broken up into a few categories. Some are platforming focused with some variations like having to collect a bunch of objects. Others like mini golf use a meter which must be timed correctly to score a hole in one or launch Chucky into some leafs. The final type depends on how well you can aim a pie or a ball at a enemy. So it can get old quick thus the game relies on recreating episodes of the show with voice acting. Which is really the only reason you might still enjoy this game.

The amount of jumps in the first game made it hard to actually stay on the track. So sticking to one or two per race makes it easier for me to actually get close to first. The car's control better and it is possible to drift around corners. They started to go down to making a courses just for doing stunts. But almost every flip ended up with my car turning into a fiery wreck. So I would consider this one the best one to play for just pure racing. Compared to the two other Rush games.

I continue to be pretty bad at winning any races in games from this time period. While still enjoying them just for the fact it was fun to race. It didn’t hurt that the cars would blow whenever I messed up. Also pretty crazy that Midway managed to port both of theses games in the same year. Although they came out a short time from each other this first game feels like it doesn’t control as well.

Playing this game with almost no context about a movie I barely remember is making me confused. Wasn’t the plot about toys coming to life? Or were they always intergalactic space aliens as this game implies. Whatever it doesn’t matter to me that much. As a video game Small Soldiers is a okay super simple third person shooter. To bad a lot of developers didn’t feel like adding in a lock on. Well it does have one but the ammo is limited. Since most of this game is strafing around enemies that seems like a bad thing. These first few levels don’t even take place on earth. Plus this appears to be mostly about collecting keys to unlock doors too.

Once again Rockstar proves how creative they were at this point by putting out this game. After all who else would create a game about robot animals taking over a space station. While the main hero is a microchip that can take control of any broken animal. Using the different skills of each animal lets Evo compete the sometimes stupid objective his partner Dan gives him at the start of each zone. Some of the later zones can get quite rough so I’ve never seen the ending. Even after all this time the hyena making other animals laugh so hard that they break is amusing. A turtle also turns into a tank because why not.

Spyro The Dragon once a somewhat successful 3rd party series that ended up getting used to sell toys in Skylanders. With this being the first game Insomniac does a great job setting up a world to explore. Going around collecting everything is the main goal even if the playoff isn’t worth it. I ended up adding this this my tally of games that I thought were worth 100%. Spyro controls well and it is fairly easy to collecting everything in each level so I just couldn’t stop myself from getting everything the last time I played this. Almost every time I go back to a PS1 game I seem to expect the worst from the graphics but most games tend to look better than what I’m expecting.

It wasn’t that long ago that I spent some time reviewing this game. So this will be a small recap. Factor 5 finally got their act together and made a space fighter sim control well. The wide open spaces in each level allows the more maneuverable craft to fly circles around enemies. Blowing up or using a tow cable on a AT-AT is about as satisfying as you might think. On the down side this game has way too many homing missile turrets. Would have enjoyed a game that didn’t feel like it needed to kill the player at least once each level. Must be why they decided to add in a lives system since without it some of these missions are impossible.

Tekken 3 seems like the perfect time to get into series. The blocky looking characters from the first two games have been replaced with nicer looking models. Along with the usual modes like arcade this also includes silly modes like Tekken Ball and Tekken Force which is a beat em up. The comical CGI cutscenes are always as highlight as well. To bad Hwoarang’s ending is rather bland with him saving Jin. I’ve always appreciated how fast a match could be. One combo later could leave the enemy's life bar near empty and I’m not even trying to do anything fancy. Hits feel good and even when I lost to the CPU the game reloads fast. At least for me Tekken was always the simple fighting game I could check out and mash my way to victory. Over time that hasn’t changed much other than me being more of a patient fighter.

In this case I wish Konami still had this license. Going back to a simpler platformer after the tough first two games I played made this one rather boring. They did a good job of animating the style of the tv show and the platforming is fine. Little to no challenge and going through the same environment over and over just isn’t that fun. Once the player reaches one of the extra screens it turns into a hidden object hunt for one object. No challenge on that front either since each screen only has a few things to click on. The only reward is seeing the story play out as you would expect from a retelling of Jack and the beanstalk.

How to turn Turok 2 into a even worse game. Step 1, turn it into a sidescroller with your main weapon being a knife. Step 2, make the player kill every enemy to exit the level and yes you need to run back to the portal to leave. The final step is to make the combat boring by only giving the player one attack. Also fall damage ended my short time trying to play this game again. So yeah this Game Boy version doesn’t start off on a great note. My memory is spotty sometimes but did Turok 2 start off with reptile looking humans trying to blend in the real world? Cause that what the first level of this version seems to imply.

They do twist the obvious devil vs angel war you might be expecting from this title. This unholy war is more like technology vs demon aliens. The Teknos are pretty much humans taken to the technology extreme of giant robots and liquid metal armor. The demolish enemies are actually a native race and going by the text crawl the good guys. This is a rudimentary 1v1 action game with a alternate board game strategy mode. The different characters you can use are more effective against certain other enemy targets. Which leads to a rock paper scissors approach to some battles although you can beat the enemy even when you're at a disadvantage. Overall this is a okay game with very little replay value.

Wario gets his very own sequel with no reference to Mario in any way. After amassing a absurd amount of gold coins in the first game and building his very own castle Wario is living the high life. Till a bunch of pirates come in and steal all his gold and flood his castle. After fixing his castle he goes off to reclaim all the treasures he lost. For a 2D platformer this does an alright job of telling a simple story. Instead of just making Wario more like a traditional Mario platformer he has his own style. Which is mostly about charging through walls and enemies with his side tackle. Instead of relying on hats to give him power enemies tend to give him special effects. Like catching on fire or getting flattened by a hammer let him get to places that would be unreachable. Collecting as much money as possible is the main goal of the game. Which is then used to collect the special item in each level and unlock the special picture at the end of each one as well. Nintendo certainly gives plenty of reasons to go for 100% if you enjoy collecting everything.

The Aki era of wrestling games was best time for me to enjoy something I knew nothing about. If the next release after this wasn’t made by someone else I might have continued to pick up more than one more wrestling game. The gameplay is pretty much exactly the same as last year. Nothing new has been added other than a full Royal Rumble match now being possible and some customization options. The Ai compared to the last game seems brain dead easy. I can easily smash them into submission a few minutes into the match. I’m surprised by how many THQ games I owned on the N64. I’ve been seeing that logo come up a lot.

For its time the animated intro cinematic is surprisingly high resolution. Whoever did it must have took a lot of time to make it look pretty. The introduction also has nothing to do with the game itself at first. Other than setting up why the world has a bunch of robots yet no one really knew how to use them until recently. Our protagonist Fei like many RPG heroes has amnesia and going by a few flashback scenes it might have been a good thing. Squaresoft decided to mix in some combos into a turn based RPG.Near the beginning I couldn’t pull much of anything off other than something basic like 3 light attacks. Piloting a Gear for the first time was even more basic but I know that changes later down the line. In the end this was a neat way to begin a story even if I don’t remember ever finishing it.

Some fighting games know how to push my buttons. The AI is weirdly good at beating me no matter if I try to be defensive or offensive. But they only seem to be super effective sometimes. I’m sure it’s because I haven’t put a lot of time into learning any of the characters. Between the fast pace of the combat and super jumps it is easy to see how Capcom used this as a base for Marvel Vs Capcom. As a fighting game it still feels fine. Nothing feels unbalanced other than me being bad at it.

I was pleasantly surprised that Yoshi’s biggest mark against it was actually fixed in Yoshi’s Story. Instead of having to wait for an aiming icon Nintendo made it possible to aim anywhere on the screen. Yet that was replaced by poor design decisions. Now instead of playing through a set of levels the player only has to play 1 level before the game automatically moves over to chapter 2. Plus the goal of each level is to gather enough fruit to end the level no matter where you happen to be in said level. It is like Nintendo wanted us to get through this game as fast as possible. A lousy way to make a new Yoshi game even if the gameplay is good.

Conclusion

Well the one thing I got out of this year is that it would be great if every year was like this. No year is perfect but I had a lot of good memories of most of these games. Each one slowly pieces together the kind of games I tend to enjoy more now. I may be all over the place but certain ones had more of an impact on me now that I look back at them. Brave Fencer Musashi is part of why I tend to prefer action RPG’s today. TLOZ Ocarina Of Time turned a fan into someone that would always be willing to check out any mainline Zelda. Finally Metal Gear Solid showed me how much I could love a good narrative in video game form. Obviously if I didn’t like to look back at all these old franchises I wouldn’t be doing this blog series. So I’m glad that I can now see a better picture of why these games mean so much to me. Tune back in next time to see one of the worst games of all time along with the start of the loved/hated Nintendo party franchise.