A Personal Video Game retrospective 1988

Yup I am trying to put these articles up weekly. From now on this'll be one year at a time. NES games only once again. This year appears to host quite a few classic games. At least in the US I like how both Zelda 2 and Super Mario 2 were both wildly different games compared to the first games. Mario 2 may just be a reskin of Doki Doki Panic but I do wonder what Nintendo was thinking when they decided to turn Zelda into a side scrolling adventure instead of using the top down viewpoint. At minimum it gives the game a unique take on a formula we've seen many times by now.

1988

Zelda II the Adventure Of Link follows Link as he roams the land trying to cure Zelda's sleeping curse by defeating 6 guardians and then placing a crystal at each shrine. At the time Zelda 2 soured me on franchise slightly. Although that was mostly thanks to how hard it is. A few years ago I ended up doing a compete playthrough of it and now I at least have a new found respect for the direction they decided to go in.

Seeing it now continues to reaffirm my new stance. The side scrolling viewpoint gives this game new ways to challenge the player compared to the top down view. Along with the combat still feeling great even if certain enemies are really annoying like the armored guard. Collecting items and magic to take down foes easier is just as fun as any other game in this long running franchise.

Donkey Kong follows Mario as he tackles a skyscraper to save his girlfriend Pauline from DK. Afterwards Mario decided to get his revenge by caging up DK and throwing a bunch of snakes at his son DK Jr who is trying to rescue him. Both games are only 3-4 screens each with them both going on indefinitely till the player runs out of lives. At least in the case of the first game I've always had the most trouble with the falling barrels. Only because they seem to be random unlike the other two stages. Climbing vines in DK Jr adds a new mechanic which makes it just a fun to play. I can't say I'm much of a high score person yet it is still fun to at least come back to these games and play through a few rounds.

I'm sure everyone knows the game show this game is based on. This version looks to be a port of a PC release with Rare being listed as the main developer. The reason why I assume this is a pc port is because they expected me to type out the answers with the dpad. Typing out some of the long answers they expected me to do would have been something I did at the time but these days I'm not in the mood to do that. The game itself seems to be a accurate emulation of the game show except the contestants look like psychopaths.

It wasn't that long ago that I did another play through of the MSX version of Metal Gear. Other than missing a giant robot to fight at the end plus a bad translation this is a good port. It follows the exploits of Solid Snake who must take down a terrorist installation named Over Heaven run my Colonel CaTaffy. (Yes that is how the instruction booklet spells his name.) I did notice something these game had over the MSX version. I was able to hide under cameras and let them pass by so I sneak by which was not possible on the MSX. Yet neither one had a quick select for items. This leads to a lot of time spent looking at the item screen to progress. Overall I still find this game fun to play though and it is a game that can still be enjoyed even if you are a modern Metal Gear Solid fan.

Out of all the games I've actually played again recently before writing these articles this one is a rather random choice. It stars Mickey and Minnie who are on a vacation? Or are they on a adventure through pirate ships, forests and even a castle. Well whatever they are up to this is a game that controls well plus the difficulty is reasonable. But it has the worst secret mechanic ever since sometimes a enemy will appear and take Minnie away. To get her back you must find a hidden key and then randomly choose a statue that'll either turn out to be her or a fake. Repeat this process till she is found. The only way this wouldn't be a issue is if you don't get hit. Thus most of the time I spent playing through this game was getting sidetracked.

I do wonder if I just happened to buy a lot a arcade game ports early on or the NES should have been glad that arcades were doing so well during its early years. Anyway Millipede stars a heroic space pilot who must single-handedly stop a giant bug invasion of earth. Like Galaga he can only shoot faster if his laser bullets hit thus it is easier to wait till the enemies get closer. But if the giant bugs get to the bottom of the screen the player has no way to stop them.

Other than millipedes slowly making their way down to the bottom of the screen if you get far enough in you'll face giant scorpions that fly in a pattern towards the bottom. In those stages it is more about dodging them all. I haven't mentioned it till now but most of these arcade ports have a A and B game with the B side being harder. Seems like they wanted to give the player a little something extra since it isn't to hard to get past the first few sections that then begin to repeat till the player gets a game over.

Ah the worst paper route ever full of break dancers, road workers and even death appear to stop the best paperboy in the world. At least he better be the best since getting through the week will take some skill. I made it to Thursday after a few tries but most of my runs ended the day before. Actually keeping everyone subscribed without dying didn't quite happen during my revisit either. At least I made it to the top of the high score table although that wasn't much of a challenge.

Well I assume this game is about a epic death race. At least the first stage seemed that way since I spent most of it bashing other racers into walls. Saving little blue people for points along with collecting energy so the bike doesn't run out is something you'll need to do to succeed. Really this is just a side scrolling shooter staring a guy on a bike instead of a space ship. I rather enjoyed revisiting this game so it is to bad the levels start repeating after finishing the 2nd one. Sure all similar games repeat fairly quickly but this game repeated slightly to soon.

I don't want to surprise anyone with this comment but Super Mario Bros is a absolute classic video game. It was the start of the platformer mascot era that lasted for two console generations. This was thanks to the tight the controls in SMB that kept players coming back to beat a level they failed. The game itself isn't crazy hard but the fact that most players only got 3 lives required a lot of practice. Or if they found out about the hidden level warps it was a easy way to get back to where they left off. As a random side note I accidentally ran into a glitch. While ending a castle level I ended up dying yet still competing the level.

Of course this is a triple pack of games so it also includes Duck Hunt along with World Class Track Meet. Shooting ducks or skeet is indeed the entire game while Track Meet is the usual set of Olympic events like 100 meter run. Neither one make a great stand alone release but in this triple pact they were at least complimentary. Plus this was also the start of the lightgun type of game thanks to the NES Zapper.

Hm I must have played SMB2 a lot. This was my first NES game that appeared to be corrupted. I was able to still play it. Enemies constantly had the wrong sprites and on the stage select screen Luigi turned into a green Princess Toadstool sprite. While in game whoever I was controlling was made up of two heads stacked onto each other. A game that was a big departure of traditional Mario mechanics was now even more unique thanks to these bugs. Don't think I would be willing to play through the game like this but it was a amusing 30 minute revisit.

Ah yes LJN a name you can trust to make bad games based on different IP's. This early example of their handiwork is just as broken and unfair to the player as any of their other games. From a top down perspective the player controls one of two X-men while the other one is AI controlled. Yes a AI companion in a NES game. Unsurprisingly it spends most of its time getting stuck in the environment and dying from enemies. After they die it is up to the player to die from instant kill doors or fire that either give very little time to move though or pretty much require a invincibility power up to get through. Without those issues this could have been a forgettable game but instead it remains in my memories as the very first bad game I've ever played.

By the way this is my first Nintendo game that doesn't have the seal of quality. Last year I got to play the Vidicators at Galloping Ghost Arcade so I can actually compare the two versions. Surprisingly the NES is the better version from my point of view. Sure the arcade game may have a joystick that emulates how you might steer a tank but the NES pad does a fine job of featuring a similar control scheme. If I remember correctly the arcade game seemed to have a stuttery frame rate compared to the rock solid one in this version.

The graphics are heavily downgraded but thankfully it has no flickering at all.Being able to upgrade the tank while going through stages is cool and the only read downside is that the first boss seems built to be a anti tank vehicle. Maybe I just didn't have the right tools for the job but the auto lock on shot didn't seem to do enough damage and tanking a bunch of shots just left me almost dead after beating it. Other wise I really enjoyed revisting this game.

Wheel Of Fortune

Compared to Jepopardy Wheel Of Fortune works a lot better as a NES game. Other than typing out the answer after picking a bunch of letters it doesn't constantly require the player to type a bunch every 5 seconds. Rare got rid of the silly contestants this time by not even showing them spin the wheel. Everything runs well and it plays like a episode of WOF. Also it turns out I'm bad at guessing phrases.

Conclusion

Overall 1988 was a really good year for game releases. Sure some of these were just re-releases but thanks to the fact I never played them before made this year a memorable one. At least if I actually played these the year they were released. Remember these retrospectives are going by release order and I didn't actually get around to playing some of these games till 92-93. 1989 looks to be the introduction of the Game Boy in my life. Although only one game is on that list. Tune back in next week for the game with the best space music ever and the worst use of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.