NES #27: Monster Party

Okay so this is a weird one. I remember playing this one a lot as a kid which doesn't surprise me considering how much I was into weird things. It's also one of the better games published by Bandai, but that really isn't saying too much. Bandai is one of the more infamous licensed NES publishers. They're not quite down there with THQ or LJN, but they're pretty close. They did publish Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde after all. However, that's another entry for another day. I sure can't wait to go back through that one again.

So what's up with Monster Party? I will say that it's not much of a party, but it sure is full of monsters. The name might not be the most appropriate, but I can't think of a better name for it. The main character is a cute little kid with a baseball bat, so you can't really name it after him. Monster Bat Boy just doesn't have the same ring to it, although I wouldn't be too surprised if that's the game's name in Japan. Actually I think it's just called Monster Party over there, but that's not nearly as interesting.

As I was saying, you play as a little kid with a baseball bat taking on some of the weirdest monsters I've ever seen. The picture on the box has a vampire and gill man, but the only movie monster I remember seeing is the plant from Little Shop of Horrors. Ok so if there aren't any famous movie monsters than what is there? Well how about a fried shrimp? Or a couple of zombies that dance themselves to death? Or an empty pair of pants with a life of its own? Or a giant spider that just tells you it's dead? I'm not kidding guys, there is some weird stuff in this game. In fact that's really the whole reason to play. The gameplay itself is fairly dull. Take out all the weird monsters and it's a perfectly dull side scroller.

Well I guess that's not entirely true. There are a few other interesting things about this game. You've only got one life in this game, but you do have a really huge life bar. It starts half full, and one of the main goals in the game is to keep this meter full so that you can take on the boss at the end. I think that's interesting. Also some of the levels scroll in different directions so at least you won't get bored just traveling from left to right.

However, even with this the game is a little dull. The whole game is spent going from door to door in the levels and looking for bosses. Some doors are hard to get too and contain nothing at all. I hate these doors. Once you kill all the bosses you get a key and then go on to the next level. A couple of doors are a little bit hidden, but it's still pretty basic. There's also a password given after ever level so the stakes are pretty low. You don't have to try especially hard when you know you can always just start back at he same level again.

I will say that I had a pretty good time playing it. As I said earlier in this post, I used to play this game all the time when I was a kid. Or at the very least I remember it well. I never did beat it though. I got very close once in college, but I got stuck at the boss and then lost my password. I played through it this time with the knowledge that the final boss was going to be very hard. I was very careful throughout the game. I spent large amounts of time fighting overworld monsters so I could build up my life bar. This epic battle was in the back of my head the whole time. So what happens when I finally get there? It turns out to be real easy. I have no idea what hung me up the first time. I bet I only had about half of my life left when I figured out what I was doing, but he was still no problem. Just jump over stuff and hit him in the mouth. What was my problem anyway?

It was all for the best though, because it gave me a brand new game to beat on my blog. It's nice not only playing through repeats. So how was my Monster Party experience? The gameplay is boring, but this game has character to spare. It's worth it just to see all the bosses and read the stupid things they say. There really is a monster in this game that curls up into a ball and says "My Name's Royce." If that doesn't prove that playing video games is the best way to waste your life than I don't know what will. Sorry stamp collectors, but this is the best hobby ever.

NES #26: Darkwing Duck

Well here's the one you've all been waiting for. After all these months of anticipation, I'm finally writing about your favorite game. You'd better sit tight because this game's got a lot of nuance and mystery attached. What's that you say? This is just a typical side scroller? It's not you're favorite game but in fact one you've never really thought about much? Actually I knew that going into this post, but since it's been almost a month since my last NES game, I thought you would cut me some slack. Well that's very kind of you.

Alright well enough talking to myself. It's time to talk about some Darkwing Duck. It's based on the cartoon series from twenty years ago. If you didn't see it you missed out, especially if you're now an adult. You can watch it if you want, but I doubt it would be the same. You can try, but can never truly recapture the joys of childhood. Am I sill not talking about the game? I'm really trying to avoid this one.

Okay so Darkwing Duck is a typical NES side scroller on the way easy side of things. It may actually be at the base of the Capcom difficulty scale. It's easier than Rescue Rangers and even shorter. If you are an adult who has been playing Nintendo for 20 years or so, and you're just picking it up for the first time than you shouldn't have too much trouble with it. I know this from experience. The only two parts that gave me trouble were Liquidator's level and the final battle with Steelbeak. Although even that turns out to be easy when you've learned the technique.

So what is there to set this game apart from other games? Well like Mega Man and Duck Tales you can select your level. Although unlike those games it make absolutely no difference in the game which order you beat the levels in. DW's got a pretty cool gas gun, but the only special gas weapon that you'll ever need to use is the arrow gas. Actually avoiding the other types of gas made the game a little bit more challenging. I sort of enjoyed it. Oh and I do like the way DW can hang off of ledges and get back on. That's probably the game's best feature. You can go up and down very easily, and I wish more games would've followed its example. So there's a negative, neutral, and positive thing about this game. I think that's pretty good.

I wish I had more to say about this one. I never got to play it as a kid and was actually a little excited when I found it recently at Savers of all places. I wish I had got to play it in 1992 when I was really into the cartoon. I would at least have some good memories about it. Of course if you read my Rescue Rangers article you know that I don't automatically love a game just because I played it as a kid. So perhaps it's just was well. You get a totally honest opinion not biased by nostalgia. I had an alright time playing this game. It's one you don't see in stores too often so if you see it cheap sometime you should probably pick it up. Just don't expect it to be Contra or anything. It's not a classic, but it gets the job done. I'm just glad there's not 400 games just like it on the NES. What's that you say? There actually are? What have I gotten myself into?

Super Nintendo #1: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

I like to talk on here about how it's harder to write about a great game than an awful game. That's especially true if the game in question is one of the most famous ever made. Writing about A Link to the Past is a little bit like writing reviews for Beatles albums or Citizen Kane. So much has already been said that it's really difficult to say something that nobody's said before. It's also hard not to spend the whole article talking about how awesome it is. So let me try to get all the gushing out of the way here in the first paragraph. A Link to the Past is one of the greatest games of all time. I still think it's the best game in the series, even though it might not be my favorite. I'd say it's about 200 times better than Ocarina of time. It's also a game that represents the golden age of gaming possibly better than any other. This hobby that I love so much really hit its peak in the early 90s. I know that modern games have a lot more flash and do some amazing things, but nothing will ever top the 16-bit era for pure fun and innovation. Okay, I got that out of my system, now I can actually talk about the game.

There are many things about this game that would influence gaming for years to come. I want to start right at the beginning and talk about the title. Earlier, when I talked about Super C I mentioned the rise of games that had the word "Super" in the title. This game is the first (and only!) installment of the Zelda series on the SNES, and yet it is not called Super Zelda. No, it's has a cryptic title that includes a pun. It is not numbered and instead has a colon followed by a subtitle. Back before this game came out almost every game sequel was given a number. This was one of the first to forgo the number system completely and just have an odd subtitle. Thanks to this game our series have really got mixed up. You never know what game came before and what game came after. Seriously, what number are they up to in the Castlevania series? The world may never know. I would say that this it the only one of the game's innovations that I do not enjoy.

So in this game you're running around in a big ol' world full of surprises and fighting your way through a bunch of dungeons. It's called A Link to the Past, but you're not really traveling through time. It's more of a dimensional shift. It has a very well done overhead perspective. This is a good perspective for an action RPG, but it didn't always work that well. If you don't believe me just play Lagoon. Luckily Link's sword is just the right length so that he doesn't get a lot of cheap hits, but he can't wipe everything out at once either. Actually I want to talk about the perspective for a minute. People always talk about Ocarina of Time transforming the Zelda franchise into 3D. While I suppose this is technically true, it's not really much of an improvement. In LTTP you can move in all directions including up and down. It seems like OOt is about he same except ledges are harder to jump to and monsters just get rotated around. Of course you can't jump in the older Zelda games but that's beside the point.

Now there's a lot to love about this game. It's got cool graphics, a good storyline, engrossing dungeons with some good bosses in them, and lots of other things I could use adjectives in front of. My favorite things about this game, however, is exploring the overworld. In later Zelda games, and many action RPGs for that matter, the overworld is mostly just a means to get from place to place. Sure there will be a few secrets scattered about, but they mainly feel like they were put there to keep you from getting bored. In LTTP there's something exciting in almost every screen. You never know what you're going to find when you pull up that next rock or go into that cave. Will it be a heart piece or just some rupees to add to the 800 you already have? I almost hate going to dungeons because they cut into my item exploration time. Link to the Past is one of the only games I can think of that makes the journey just as much fun as the destination.

As you can tell, I really like this game, and I had a lot of fun playing through it again. Despite my tendency to play SNES games to death, I think I only beat this one once about 16 years ago. I've started up a game several times since then, but I never really had an excuse to go back through it all the way. That's why it's nice having a blog. As usual I was surprised both by how much I remembered about it and how much I had forgotten. I even had to use the internet to help me out a couple of times. I guess I shouldn't bee too ashamed about that. I remember when the game came out I read a few of the secrets on the back of a cereal box. So now that this game is approaching 20 years old it might be a good time to dust it off and play it again. When I played through it this time around it felt just as fresh as it did in 92. Of course if you read about games on the internet much you probably already know that.