That's What She SNES!

Title: Home Alone

Developer: Imagineering Inc.

Publisher: THQ

NA Release Date: December, 1991

Now as a kid I love this movie. It still plays every Christmas. This game completely does the movie zero justice. It looks more like an NES game with the way it looks and sounds.

The game starts with Harry and Marv scopin’ the place out and chatting. Then you start in Kevin’s room armed with a crappy water pistol. Now you’d think you’re going around his house seeing up traps and luring those two bumbling burglars into them. But nope. You go around searching treasure in hidden places, throw them down the laundry chute, rinse and repeat.

You enter different rooms in the house (denoted by white doors, you can’t open the green or brown or whatever colour it is door yet until you get the treasures and get the door key). Press up a lot to open drawers and cabinets and find treasures hidden in them, or hidden in paintings on the wall.

You’ll occasionally stumble across different baddies in the house. There are sometimes traps set up for them. Though I think it’s stupid your own toys on the ground would injure you.

You can only hold six items in your bag, so you need to constantly make trips to the laundry chute and throw your treasures down.

I died a lot playing this game. The controls feel sloppy and floaty, and the squirt gun is pretty useless as a weapon. It does make a funny sound like someone spitting though. It takes quite a few many hits to disable anyone temporarily so you can jump over them. There is a slingshot you get early on, but the ammo is limited and it doesn’t seem to really do a lot of damage either.

I persisted long enough to finish the first level. You end up in the basement and throw all your treasures into the vault. Then you go onto the next level which looks almost the same as the first one, except you collect different valuables and there are different set pieces around the place. I couldn’t play it anymore after that.

Control/Gameplay: The premise is simple, but it’s unimaginative and boring. After I finish the first level, I really should be somewhere else instead of the same house with different decorations. The controls feel very floaty and don’t make the game any better. You can’t stop fast enough when you see the traps, and you have to press backwards and forwards to line yourself up just right to jump over any of the bandits.

Sound: The music tracks are short and repeat endlessly which kind of grates on your nerves. The second level has the exact same music as the first one. Though you’ll probably recognize the tune from the movie. There isn’t much to say about the sound effects except Kevin’s death scream is hilarious. It is exactly the same sound as the worst sound in the world from Dumb and Dumber. I’m going to try to record this and put it up on YouTube.

Graphics: It looks like an NES game. Everything is plain looking and there isn’t much detail throughout the levels. The character sprites are pretty lacklustre as well.

Fun: The only fun I had was playing this with some friends and wondering just what the heck I was playing. I said I played this as a kid, and I did play a Home Alone game, but I remember tobogganing and such. That was not present in the game, or at least the little bit that I played. Also death scream = hilarious.

Coop: None. Thank goodness.

Overall Presentation: This is another one of those games where everything is just terrible and it all just snowballs into a cartridge of crap. It controls terribly, looks terrible, and sounds terrible. It’s definitely not what I would have imagined in a Home Alone game, and is just trying to cash in on the franchise with McCauley Caulkin’s face on the cover. I couldn’t persist long enough to get to the end of this game and in the short amount of time I gave this game, I ended up having a pretty terrible time. Hopefully the next game I review is better. Until next time!

-TWSS!

Title: Super Baseball Simulator 1.000

Developer: Culture Brain

Publisher: Culture Brain

NA Release Date: December, 1991

Coincidence that I’m playing another baseball game and I’m heading to another baseball game this upcoming weekend. Hopefully the actual game I’m going to fares better that this one.

I present Super Baseball Simulator 1.000. Originally I thought it was 1,000, but I suppose it’s just version 1. Sadly version 2.000 never came out. Well baseball is pretty simple; pitch, hit, run, and catch. Let’s see how this goes shall we?

What separates this from something like Super Bases Loaded is the presence of powerups. Powerups can be applied to the pitcher or the batter and generally make the job easier for you. Now you can play without powerups (which is the mode I’d recommend). Some will make the ball twirl around as you pitch it, or split into three balls. Some will turn the ball into a leaf as you hit it, and it gently floats down making it difficult to catch.

Controls are fairly simple and responsive. It’s A to pitch or bat. You can use the d-pad to move the pitcher and batter around to change the angles. Up and down changes the pitching speed. It’s easy to jump into and play, but this is one of those games that I believe is most fun to play with two people.

There are some issues with this game that make it really frustrating to play. I got into an instance where every pitch I would hit, would send the ball accelerating behind me. No matter how good the hit and the angle was, it would always foul. This actually happened to me several times. The other thing is that sometimes when the computer hits a line drive and one of the basemen run out to catch it and someone else takes over the base, you can’t throw it to them. It always ends up sailing over them. This is what eventually caused me to quit the game. Not to mention that the computer is difficult to play against.

Graphics are meh (Super Bases Loaded looks much better) and the sound is also mediocre. A few baseball-y music tracks and your ‘out!’, ‘safe!’, and ‘foul!’. You can create your own team which probably would have appealed to me when I was 8 years old. The powerups really take the simulation out of the game (but I’ll let you guys know if any balls turn into leaves at this weekend’s Jays game). What I enjoyed about this game was the full fledged season mode. I didn’t play the whole thing of course, but you can set it for 165 games! You get a few gradations between a few games to 165 of course.

This is a game I would say to rent, if places still rented SNES games. But just give it a quick shot if you’re looking for two player baseball action and you’ve absolutely played everything else. It’s much more fun that way and you won’t have to deal with the computer’s lightning pitches.

Control/Gameplay: They are simple which makes it easy to play, but only if you’re playing against another person. It is incredibly crap to play against the computer and they will kick your arse so I don’t suggest it.

Sound: Nothing special here either. You get some neat effects when there is lightning in your pitch, but some effects seem to be randomly thrown in. A leaf floating down the screen seems to emit a sliding whistle noise. Music? Nothing to write home about either.

Graphics: Nothing that’ll wow you. Considering the amazing looking titles already out on the SNES at this point, this game just looks plain. The field looks plain, and the sky could do with a cloud or two. Seems like solid colours is the motif of this game. When a player is pitching, you can’t see the 2nd baseman behind him. What is he just sitting on the bench?

Fun: Definitely not if you’re playing on your own. Solicit the friendship of a neighbour or your siblings, but only if you want them to dislike you.

Coop: Versus only.

Overall Presentation: A mediocre game at best. I wouldn’t even really say to try this out even if you have two people and want to play some baseball unless you really have nothing else to play. You’d be better off playing something like Super Bases Loaded. Looks better, handles better, and just genuinely more fun. The powerups don’t seem to add much but frustration to this game and are much better executed in Base Wars or Super Baseball 2020 (both of which are ridiculously fun).

-TWSS!

Title: D-Force

Developer: ISCO

Publisher: Asmik Corporation of America

NA Release Date: December, 1991

A top down shooter for the SNES. Think this is the first one so far in the life of this blog. I haven’t played this before and I was looking forward to a good top down action shooter. But good it is not!

So the game starts out with your helicopter plowing through a brick wall. I don’t know about you, but I don’t know of any choppers that can do that without sustaining a lot of damage. Actually you start off on a very Mode-7 pixelated aircraft carrier. You’re piloting a top of the line nuclear powered helicopter (which doesn’t really seem like a really good idea to me).

Right away, this did not feel like a top of the line aircraft. It sounds like the helicopter is sputtering all over the place like a 2-stroke weed whacker. It controls very sluggishly and imprecisely, and there’s nearly constant slowdown!

It was as if the programmers of the game didn’t take the time to make the game run well. I could understand slowdown if there was tons of enemies on the screen with loads of detail, but it isn’t the case. There are never that many enemies or projectiles on the screen at once, and their detail is low.

Anyways, I suppose I should talk about the game a little bit. There is one button you use. B. It shoots a machine gun. The larger enemies will drop a powerup that will upgrade your gun, making it shoot more projectiles over a wider range. You can also get missiles. You can only take one hit and then you explode. You also take one step back in upgrades. For example, if you had obtained 3 powerups and died, you would regress back to level 2. That’s pretty much it for weapons. No nuclear bombs or anything that can clear the entire screen of enemies. Then fight your way through the level and fight a boss at the end. Stage clear, move onto the next level!

Let me take the time now to mention that I have no idea what the story is about in this game. Normally when dinosaurs show up, I’m enjoying it. But for whatever reason in D-Force, there was a big WTF. Maybe from all the non-fun I had playing this game caused that. Anyways, dinosaurs vs. nuclear helicopter. This is where I discovered if you hit R, your helicopter would move down to a lower plane so you could hit the lower enemies, or just fly over them. Interesting mechanic, but not enough to save this game. I don’t want to play this anymore.

I did try out exploration mode briefly. I can’t figure out what is different about this mode other than, I have no weapon upgrades, and I seem to be fighting fantastical creatures only. Wikipedia only said it was a fantasy setting. News flash! There aren’t any nuclear helicopters in fantasy! Only magical ones!

Control/Gameplay: The controls lag, and combined with the slowdown of the game contribute to a very unsatisfying gaming experience. There isn’t a large variety of enemies and if you do manage to die early on, your single gun really is not enough to get you through the level. I thought this would be a military shooter, but the presence of dinosaurs in the 2nd level really shook it up. This game isn’t making a whole lot of sense to me.

Sound: The sound effects sound like someone held their cell phone up to the speaker of a 1980s mono television. They are muffled and seem to be extra low quality samples. Honestly, some NES games sound better than this. The music is also on what seems to be a 30 second loop, so that starts to grate on your nerves rather quickly as well.

Graphics: Nothing to look at. Just dull all around. Colours are dull, models are uninteresting. Every few seconds the main rotor on the helicopter seems to flicker and disappear. Actually there seems to be a general tone of flicker all around in this game. Also Mode-7 was never pretty start with, but it is just horrible in this game.

Fun: Not really.

Coop: None.

Overall Presentation: I think this game needs to go back. Who knows if they were in a rush to get it out or not, but every aspect of this game just seems like it was only half completed and then pushed out the door. You’ll probably do well just to skip this game and find another top down to play like Hot Dog Storm or Super Strike Eagle (My favourite, and it includes coop!).

-TWSS!

Title: Super Tennis

Developer: TOSE

Publisher: Nintendo

NA Release Date: November, 1991

When I saw this game on my next to play list, I was a little skeptical. I’d never heard of it before and was going to chalk it up to a generic sports game. I was pleasantly surprised after a while.

After the short intro, you can choose to play a singles, doubles, or circuit game. I went to doubles because I wanted to see how the computer played with me. Since I didn’t have anyone to play with (*tear*), I chose to play against the CPU. Here you choose the two people on your team and the two people on the opposing team.

I didn’t know that each player had different attributes. It was only when I looked up the game data online that I found this out. I’m pretty sure this information is also inside the manual. Since I also couldn’t see the controls in game, I also had to look them up and they are surprisingly in-depth!

You can hard serve, soft serve (though no ice cream came out of the cartridge or anything har har), there’s even a button to dribble the ball. I bet everyone who plays this game has spent a minute doing that. It probably works better against human players though! I also thought it would just be hitting one button to hit the ball, but you can get in a soft hit, a regular kind of swing that you can direct with the d-pad, add topspin, or get a high volley in.

There’s no way to change the difficulty of the CPU player that I could see as there really isn’t an options menu. They are quite good. I doubt it was the CPU players I chose to play against. Sometimes your CPU player and an opposing player will get up close to the net and the ball just flies back and forth between them at warp speed. Then it’ll suddenly fly towards you and you don’t really have a good chance at hitting it. I’ll just say I suck though.

You can’t just swing wildly in hopes you’ll hit the ball. You’ll actually stumble and fall on the ground and it takes you a second or two to get back up. Even when serving you have to wait for the ball to come down a bit from your toss or you’ll always fault it. This game actually takes a bit of skill to play. Hitting the ball at the right time, changing the direction of the ball, do I want to loft it gently or smash it across the court? This is also dependent on the type of court that you choose to play on which will affect how your ball bounces.

A singles game is just you and one other player. Circuit is kind of where you play a tournament and move from place to place. But where I think this game really shines is when you have another human player involved. Just as I was about to post this I was able to rope in a friend to play it with me. It was a whole ton more fun and invoked competition and even some animosity. This is going to be a weird That’s What She Wants as I wouldn’t say it for single player, but definitely if there’s another person!

Also Mode 7.

Control/Gameplay: The controls are crisp and responsive and you really feel like you connected with the ball when you get a good smash in. Once you figure out the controls that is. Gameplay is fast, CPU isn’t too easy or frustratingly hard, but it will take you a bit of playing to be able to compete with the CPU’s sometime ungodly reflex time. No slow downs or anything to hamper game play. A few modes to keep you interested, but the main draw of this game is how much fun it is to play with another person. I’ll probably break this out at my buddy’s cottage (with which SNES always makes an appearance). I could see some friendships being tested here. Sadly, it does not support multitap.

Sound: Sound was a little lacking here. The only sound you get is when you hit the tennis ball, and it makes that satisfying ‘pock’ of a sound. That’s about it though. There’s a little bit of interlude music when you switch courts. So aurally the game is a bit sparse, but you’ll be unlikely to hear it over the shouting that will undeniably accompany this game.

Graphics: Well I guess there isn’t a lot to write about either. All the people that are supposed to be present at a tennis game are there from the guys that run across the court to grab a stray ball to a sufficiently drawn crowd. And uh.. Mode 7!

Fun: Yes! A hundred times yes! It was fun, especially two player. It was pretty good fun in single player as well!

Coop: Yes! You can play 1P 2P vs. CPU. I didn’t get a chance to really try this mode out for an extended period of time, but it does work better than you and a computer doing a double match.

Overall Presentation: This game is just tons of awesome. Sure it doesn’t look like the best the SNES can pump out, and sound is lacklustre, but man is the gameplay so satisfying. I don’t even like tennis and I like this game. I’ve said it some many times, but it is just so much fun with a friend. Wow, what a refresher to get a game like this after Super Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts. Please play this game if you’re looking for something to play between Call of Duty and Smash Brothers! That’s What She Wants!

-TWSS!

Title: Super Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts

Developer: Capcom

Publisher: Capcom

NA Release Date: November, 1991

A side scrolling platformer originally released on the SNES; it has also graced collections or downloads on the PSX, PS2, Xbox, GBA, and PS3 to name a few. What really boggles my mind is WHY? I had a friend when I was in grade 8 who didn’t have an SNES, but bought this game so he could come over and play it at my place because he loved the game so much. I didn’t really like him, and I also didn’t really like this game. Nonetheless it is one of Capcom’s best selling games ever.

It’s a ridiculously, stupidly, hard game. If you have enough patience to make it to the end of the game, you have to play it from the beginning again with some bracelet in order to make it to the end. The game is unforgiving, controls terribly, suffers horrible slowdown, and I hate it.

You play as Knight Arthur who must rescue a princess from some demons who have kidnapped her (probably again since there were previous Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts games). Emperor Sardius is the one that has kidnapped her and also the jerk that you must destroy with some bracelet on the second playthrough to get the real true ending.

As you start the game, you are given an ordinary suit of armour which doesn’t stop a damn thing. You get hit once and it just shatters off your body and you’re running around in your boxers. Your boxers offer just as much protection because you’ll die after another hit.

If you lose your awesome armour, treasure chests usually hide a set for you to put back on. You can also upgrade your armour along the way. Bronze will let you add some magic to your weapons; Gold will allow you to charge a special attack and gives you a shield which blocks one attack. Finally, the third upgrade is a moon shield which will let you block 3 attacks and reduces the time required to charge your special attack. I didn’t get any of these due to ultimate frustration.

There are also multiple weapons which was my favourite part of the game. There’s the lance which goes straight ahead, there’s a scythe which is much slower, but I believe it does a double hit (useful for bosses). My favourite is the cross bow which shoots ahead and up at an angle. It’s also kind of useful for a boss because if you’re up close you can get a double hit in. There are more weapons than that, but I never got that far in the game.

Speaking of bosses, they’re fairly easy. At least the few that I got to. Their attacks are not difficult to predict and avoid, and I found that the crossbow did an exquisitely decent job of knocking them out quickly.

The game features some neat gameplay controls. For example; you can double jump. However, once you’re in the air, you cannot change which direction you’re going (you can change direction if you initiate the second jump, but then it’s harder to tell how far you’re going to go). For example if you’re trying to jump to another platform in water, if you don’t judge it right from the first jump, you’re not going to make it. You can spin around and shoot in the other direction in the air, but where you’re going to land is already determined and there ain’t no way around that.

Some of the level designs are cool as well. There is a pseudo 3d spiral up a tower (which uses a mode 7 effect to make it happen), and also levels that change orientation. You hop into these platforms that form a cage around you and the entire level rotates.

Maybe it’s just more fun on the arcade, or maybe watching your friends play it. But it’s not one I enjoy. Its difficulty blasts past difficult and frustrating, but I suppose if you ever do get the true ending, you can go around with some bragging rights.

Until next time!

Control/Gameplay: The game is easy to pick up and play. Controls are simple and responsive, story is simple. The double jump mechanic is nice, but lack of directional control after you’ve performed a jump (or the 2nd jump) greatly increases the frustration factor. Factor in some severe slowdown at points in the game when there doesn’t seem to be a lot on the screen and where you’ve probably just jumped and now you’re watching your death in slow motion as you realize you’re falling into spokes. Variety of weapons is pointless as there’s only one good weapon in my opinion, and the bosses are too easy. You also have to beat the game twice with specific items as well. The level design is awesome. The ground moves as you walk over it, you run up spiral towers and the tower spins (incredible at the time I’m sure), or the level just rotates around you.

Sound: The sound effects are generic and dull sounding. Is there some sort of soundbank like those stock photo sites for pictures? I’m pretty sure I’ve heard these sound effects somewhere before. The music fares much better, synthesized organ portrays a Halloween-like or even Goth-like feel. Though that was nearly always promptly ruined by the death music.

Graphics: Not pushing the SNES technology to the limits, but does utilize mode-7 in creative ways and incorporates those into the gameplay. Arthur and the enemies are a little rough looking; however I must say that the backgrounds are pretty neat looking. Dark, dingy looking trees or waves of water help to convey the mood that the game is supposed to be in.

Fun: I started out optimistic remembering how difficult this game was in my youth. I ended up frustrated, cursing, and not having a good time. People will call this a classic, a must play, I am not.

Coop: Your friends will thank you that it’s only single player.

Overall Presentation: I’m not out to put down games I hate and tell people never to play them. This is one of those games where it does have a lot of fans, and a lot of those fans enjoy the difficulty level (like Ninja Gaiden for example, though you can tone the difficulty in that). I don’t enjoy it, but try it out if you get a chance to see some nice level designs, get into the goth mood, and try not to break your controller in absolute anger. If you’ve never played it, maybe you’ll find a new classic. After playing this game, you’ll see things are not as bad as Super Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts, and maybe you’ll go out for a breath of fresh air, pet a dog, and hold a door open for someone. Or just play Mega Man X like I did.

-TWSS!

Title: Paperboy 2

Developer: Tengen

Publisher: Mindscape Inc.

NA Release Date: November, 1991

I’ll save you all some time. If you’ve played the original in 1988 on the NES, you’ve pretty much played this one. Not much has changed in the 3 years separating the two games. I was never really a huge fan of the game. The premise is simple. You’re a paperboy (or you can be a papergirl in this SNES sequel), you ride up a street, and you throw newspapers. The big gameplay difference between the first and second game are that in the latter your houses are both on the left and right side of the street! Wow! There is a two-player mode; however you don’t both ride at the same time. You just ride until you run out of lives, then it’s the other person’s turn.

My favourite part of the game isn’t even delivering the papers; it’s seeing what kind of carnage you can inflict. Throw a newspaper at the car with a guy underneath trying to fix it and it falls on him. Throw it at the old couple on the swinging bench and they go flying off it. Once you make it through your route (and delivered zero news papers like me), you are faced with an obstacle track that you weave your way through for points. I promptly hit a cone and fell off my bike though.

\

The premise of this game is so simple there isn’t a lot to say. I do have a few gripes about this game though. The graphics are only a mild improvement over the NES, the sound and music are abysmal, plus it controls terribly. This isn’t a game I’d ask you to play, not unless you’re a hardcore fan.

Control/Gameplay: The controls are even worse than the NES version. Sure there are obstacles, but the sluggish and unresponsive controls make it extremely difficult to avoid them. By the time you see a speeding car come towards you, it’s too late. Combined with the camera angle that just doesn’t work for this game, and you end up with a frustrating time. Some of the houses/mailboxes are so far from where you can ride, that you don’t even know if the paper made it in. If you can manage to pull it off, you just might have a little bit of fun though. Also who has active firing cannons in their front yard?!

Sound: The sound effects are annoying and too loud. I can barely hear the music but that isn’t really any good either. It sounds like a really early 90s ringtone from a phone that can only play beeps.

Graphics: Really aside from a few seemingly minor upgrades, like modifying the grass slightly to make it look like it had some texture, there didn’t seem to me a lot done. Oh my bad, they did that to the road too. Okay, I guess they used more colour. It just looks bad for SNES compared to some of the games that came out before this!

Fun: I only had a slight amount of fun playing this game. Perhaps this was because I was playing this game while some wedding planning was going on and this game only slightly relieved me from the frilly world of doilies and bridal showers.

Coop: None :(

Overall Presentation: Lacklustre graphics, poor sound, unresponsive controls. You do the math and it’s pretty dismal. It has an unusual and quirky style that will appeal to some and prior fans of the series, but don’t expect that appeal to last. You won’t replay it much and it’s just pretty much the same thing as the original, but somehow more aggravating.

-TWSS!

Title: Final Fight

Developer: Capcom

Publisher: Capcom

NA Release Date: September, 1991

Another classic for the SNES. I think most people have played Final Fight before. Is this the first side scrolling beat ‘em up I’m going through for this system? I think it is!

I first played this at the local Pizza Pizza on one of those arcade machines. Coin-op it was, but it also featured 2-player simultaneous. Sadly, the SNES port did not include the second player option, but later games in the Final Fight series would. Also missing in the SNES port was an additional character by the name of Guy. He would return in a later SNES game; Final Fight Guy.

Originally this was supposed to be a Streetfighter style game, but it was later changed to be a side scrolling beat ‘em up. I think I prefer it this way a la Double Dragon. Your daughter Jessica is kidnapped by the Mad Gear gang. You either play as Haggar, former wrestler and mayor of Metro City or as Cody, boyfriend of Jessica.

Gameplay is simple. Move with d-pad, attack and jump. If you move near an enemy, it is possible to grab them and punch the crap out of them or you can jump and do a piledriver-esque move.

A somewhat destructible environment is also featured with the occasional barrel, crate, or door.

You just beat your way through the different levels until you reach the bosses.

Now onto what annoys me about this game. Haggar is slow, Cody is somewhat faster. I’ve played as both and never really noticed enough of a difference to offset what really annoys me about this game. For example. I can do a drop kick at a boss, and I time it right just so my feet meets their schnoz. They can immediately grab me out of the air somehow and perform some boss attack that drains me of my health. I can be in the middle of an attack such as throwing someone through the air, and someone can interrupt me. This then drops the guy I was attacking in front of me and immediately I am in a situation where I will lose that life.

Everytime I get hit, it takes way too long to recover. Come on! Haggar, you’re a professional wrestler and everytime you get hit it’s like, ‘You broke my nails!’ When he gets knocked down, he takes way too long to get up, allowing the enemies to again surround you.

Whenever I play the first Final Fight, I go from ‘Yeah! This is an awesome game’ to wanting to throw my whole system out the window. It’s amazingly frustrating, combined with how slow your character can move.

Well at least there’s a car bonus level that will remind you of the game’s Streetfighter roots.

Oh well, regardless this is still one of my favourite games of all time to play, and one that you should definitely play if you haven’t before.

Control/Gameplay: Controls are very simple, reminiscent really of any side scrolling beat ‘em up. The gameplay could use a little tweaking. Especially with what I noted was the really annoying as how the bosses or anyone really could interrupt my drop kicks. I don’t think the guys who developed the game realized how much effort it takes to stop 200+ pounds flying through the air.

Sound: The sound effects are pretty good, the punches, screams, death cries. I did notice there aren’t any females in the game so, everybody sounds the same. The music does sound pretty good, in its arcadey-like form (since it was originally a coin-op game).

Graphics: Due to Nintendo and their game publishing policy at the time, there aren’t any blood droplets, or bottles of alcohol. I also remember some level transitions in the arcade version that weren’t in this game. I find the game colours to be kind of drab/dull as compared to the arcade as well. However, for 1991 I think this is a pretty good looking game regardless of the cosmetic changes.

Fun: Heck yeah. Side scrolling beat ‘em ups have remained one of my favourite types of games. The action is fast, the enemies are aplenty. Just nevermind the fact that a little love tap will throw you halfway across the screen.

Coop: None :(

Overall Presentation: Despite Nintendo’s neutering, some gameplay issues, it is nevertheless one of the best games for the SNES. It’s easy to pick up and play, and you’ll be in the action in no time. I promise you a good time if you play this game and you’ll be glad to know that there are 2 additional instalments to this series for the SNES! That’s What She SNES for sure.

-TWSS!

Title: Darius Twin

Developer: Taito Corporation

Publisher: Taito Corporation

NA Release Date: November, 1991

A side scrolling shooter set in space. Nothing too original there, but as you’ll see, the enemies aren’t just robots, they’re all themed around robotic *fish*. I think everyone knows the premise of these games. You have a main weapon, you have a secondary weapon, you avoid enemies, and you kill the boss.

The story in these games are usually something you can ignore pretty well, and that’s what I did here. I’ve never played any other Darius games at the arcade or any other system.

You have a main weapon which shoots straight out front. Sometimes after you defeat a certain group of square shaped enemies, you will receive a power- up. There are different colours for what it gives to you. Since I’m colourblind, this system mainly doesn’t work for me. I noticed some gave me a shield and some powered up my secondary weapon.

Speaking of secondary buttons; you hold down Y to shoot your main gun repeatedly. You hold down the B button to fire your secondary repeatedly. There is no point in the game that I know of that you would want to stop shooting either. Why couldn’t they just use one button to do it? Using your thumb to cover Y and B really gives your thumb a cramp after a while.

Eventually you make it to a boss and you’ll see a warning screen telling you the boss is approaching and what their name is.

The bosses were somewhat tough. Some of them were pretty annoying to play. But I guess that’s what this genre thrives on, having difficult bosses that shoot 30 missiles at you that you need to constantly dodge while scoring very few hits against them. You can figure out their pattern in short time and then defeat them soon enough.

Defeat the boss and you get to a map screen where you can choose where you want to go. I suppose this adds a little bit to the replayability of the game.

I’ll leave you with some screenshots and move onto the final verdict.

Control/Gameplay: There really isn’t much to the controls of this game. The D-pad works appropriately, though it would have been nice had they given you a setting to change the sensitivity of it. I got a terrible thumb cramp holding down the Y and B buttons down for so long though. Gameplay is simple. There aren’t many variations of enemies though and there never seems to be a whole ton of action on screen. Perhaps a hardware limitation. The non-linear story progression was nice too. The game is very easy in some parts and very difficult in others.

Sound: Sound effects are dull and just very generic sounding. The music doesn’t seem to match the game and kind of throws the ambience off.

Graphics: The backgrounds are well done in some of the stages. The clouds on the land based stages are very detailed but the space levels are really bland looking. The bosses take up a large part of the screen and are very detailed as well. The smaller enemies that can be destroyed in one hit are not very good looking at all, but any of the larger ones are detailed and intricately coloured.

Fun: The game was fairly fun, but there was just something about it that I couldn’t put my finger on that just didn’t make it that good. The game feels like it didn’t move fast enough, but regardless it was a decent time killer. Though after a few tries, I stopped playing!

Coop: Yes! 2 player on the same screen coop! Same thing as single player but with two of you on screen. This is what made me want to start playing the game again! The only other 2 player on screen at the same time coop that I played was Ikaruga on the Dreamcast.

Overall Presentation: An average shooter at best I think. Though I will give it top marks for the coop play. Sound could really help, speed up the movement of the ship or provide sensitivity controls. It’s not a bad game by any means, but I’m not wowed by it. If you’re into two player side scrolling shooters, search this out and play it and I guarantee you’ll have a good time. It’s probably not a must hand nor must play though. Until next time!

-TWSS!

Hello Everyone!

If you haven’t noticed, I added a reblog button on the top of each post. Turns out it’s a huge deal in the Tumblr community. Anyways, I’ve been testing it out, so I’ve been reblogging my own posts if you guys are wondering why I’m tooting my own horn here.

I’m having problems gettings the notes counter working. People will like my post but it won’t show in my dashboard or as a note. For example, my ActRaiser post had no likes. I tested my reblog, and all of a sudden there were 3 likes. But the notes counter only said ‘1 Note’ due to my reblogging. I had a friend like the post, and that pushed it up to ‘2 Notes’. But the other 3 likes weren’t counted.

In past posts I would see the notes but not who liked it. This seems like a sporadic problem for tumblr, because my notes counter worked (and I scoured all afternoon to figure out if it was broken or not).

Does anyone have any solutions or hints? I will be super gratified if you can help me fix it. I will also play a SNES game of your choice from beginning to end and make a super post about it! That reminds me, I should really finish Super Mario World.

Thanks for your patronage and I hope I have brought back some memories for my readers!

-TWSS

Title: ActRaiser

Developer: Quintet

Publisher: Enix America, Inc.

NA Release Date: November, 1991

Alright, straight off. That’s What She Wants.

A mixture of a platformer and top down city planning god overlord game that is notoriously fun. This was a game that I rented from the local Blockbuster (when they still existed), and beat in one night.

You are known as ‘The Master’ to the people and the evil guy is Tanzra. So you were defeated by Tanzra and six of his friends and you left for your sky castle to sleep it off. Tanzra split the world up into six pieces; one for each of his friends.

Now you’ve come back and are ready to take over.

In the top down city building view, you fly around in this skycastle. Inside your castle, you can choose different options such as magic you want to take down with you to the platforming stages. At this point you don’t have any magic, and you don’t have any cities that are faithful to you so all you can do is choose to go down and fight.

The screen spins around Mode 7 style until you go into the platforming stage.

The first stage is called Fillmore. You aren’t high enough level yet to visit any of the other stages. On each of these worlds, there exist these statues your sky master ‘presence’ inhabits and animates and then you go hack n slash platforming.

The first time you visit every world, you must first defeat the boss before you are allowed to go down and direct the people. None of the bosses you face will be terribly hard. You might die a few times to figure out their pattern and then you’ll pretty much be unscathed provided you still got some reflexes left in your old age.

In the city-building-directing phase, you take the form of an angel that can shoot arrows. You’ll find enemies spawn out of these portal like things on the ground. You don’t build any of the buildings directly a la SimCity, but you can select an area where you want your people to build towards. You want to build towards a portal and your people will seal it.

You also have magic you can use. One of the magicks you’ll probably be using most is lighting. It can destroy trees and allow your people to build out more. The sun can dry up marshy bits, and earthquake can alter the landscape (but it will also knock down your village if they haven’t built earthquake proof shelters).

You keep building and your villages will find artifacts that can give you more MP, or allow some villages to have boats. In each city once you’ve been building for a bit, your villagers will tell you there is castle or a cave or something that has another boss in it that you must dive into the platforming stage to do. Once you defeat this boss that world will be completely free.

What a game! I started playing and just couldn’t put it down again. So I finished the game. I guess the downside to this game is that, it is short, and it is terribly easy. Anyways I leave you with some screenshots!

Control/Gameplay: Gameplay straight off is amazing. It’s such a good mixture. When you tire of the action, you can just hop in your sky palace and fly somewhere else. Build a city and then hop back in the action and slash your way through. The controls could use a little tweaking however. They’re not the most responsive controls. They’re fine in the city building phase but when you’re in the action sequence and you hit the attack button there is a little bit of a noticeable lag, resulting in me getting hit more often than I would like.

Sound: Yuzo Koshiro composed the music to this game and according to one of my old Nintendo Power magazines, I believe it said that he was one of the most famed composers of the era. I mostly remember his music from the Streets of Rage series.

Graphics: Look at any of the screenshots above. During the action sequences the backgrounds are incredibly detailed. The top down city building view isn’t as detailed, but at least you can see the little guys running around destroying the caves! The bosses are very big and detailed as well. Mode 7 is seen throughout the game. You’ll see it when you’re zooming down from your sky palace into one of your cities, and in some of the backgrounds during action sequences. The enemies and the player don’t move the most fluidly, but it’s rather easy to overlook.

Fun: While the game and concept seem rather simple, it is tons of fun. The first time I played it, I went all the way through without stopping. This time I did it again.

Coop: None :(

Overall Presentation: A completely amazing game. Really I think the only fault that detracts from it is that it is short and extremely easy. Sure some of the bosses will give you a little bit of trouble, but you’ll figure out any of their patterns rather easily. Play this and you will not be disappointed! That’s What She Wants!

-TWSS!