NES #30: Zoda's Revenge: Star Tropics 2

So last time I was on here I was talking about the somewhat fun but ultimately lazy Rescue Rangers 2. In that post I was talking about how many of the late releases showed what the NES could do both in terms of graphics and gameplay. Well Zoda's revenge is the perfect example of this. Zoda's Revenge came out about a month after RR2, and it's one of the last three games Nintendo released for the NES. It's such a late release that they could've done a lousy job on it and nobody would have even noticed. Luckily they put a lot of time into it so that the NES could go out in style.

I feel slightly weird about the fact that this game came out right around my tenth birthday. The NES has always been such a part of my life that it's hard to believe that by the time I was 10 it was all over. They would start clearing out all the NES stock from stores, and rental places would get rid of them in favor of the 16 bits. This was something that I had a hard time dealing with way back in '94. Every kid has trouble dealing with change, and this is one that I just couldn't tolerate. I felt like my whole world was crumbling away. It caused me to be bitter at the SNES for years to come. That's probably why I have 260 NES games and about 30 SNES ones.

The commercials for this game did give me a little bit of hope however. It was advertised in the same commercial as the top loading NES. By then the price of the NES had dropped to 49.95 which just about any collector would be happy to pay today. If only we had known. The same commercial also advertised Mega Man 6, so I thought that the system was making a comeback. Little did I know that it was more of a last gasp.

Thankfully this was quite a last gasp. Zoda's Revenge is one of the best action RPGs that I've played on the NES. By this point most of the ambiguity and slow pacing that plagued earlier RPGs is gone. This game moves at a very quick, action packed pace. It has an entertaining story where Mikey is time traveling while looking for magic Tetris pieces, and it's able to unfold well while never slowing down the pace. This is something I wish modern games would be able to do. Also, unlike some games that will remain nameless, you get to go to Egypt and fight Sphinxes that shoot lasers out of their eyes.

They also tried to fix the problems from the first game. I appreciate them for trying, but some of the fixes are better than others. You get two weapons at a time in this one, and only one of them has strength based on your heart level. No matter how weak you are you will still have a good weapon to use. There also seem to be more opportunities to save your progress which is helpful in a game full of difficult dungeons. Most notably this game does away with all those green boxes. They are still there, but you can simply walk over them instead of jumping one space at a time. This is a welcome change, but it does make the jumping a little odd in this one. It was far too easy to jump to your death which was usually not a problem in the first game. You still move like you're walking on ice as well. At least they tried to fix the motion problem.

This game still has very difficult dungeons and bosses, but unlike the first game I never got overly frustrated. I'm not going to spend too much time talking about the bosses on this one, but some of them were difficult. A few of them felt like mini bosses, but I didn't really mind that so much because they came after difficult dungeon stages. The final stage is set up Mega Man style where you fight many of the old bosses over again. Zoda isn't as difficult as he was the first time around, but he's got about 8 bosses in front of him so it all balances out.

This game really feels like it was made by a group of people that were going to miss the NES as much as I did. As a result they put much more into this game than was probably required and I do appreciate that. The Nintendo suffered a long, painful death where it had to watch its younger brother rise to power. I'm happy that even in its last moments there were still people out there that cared about it.

NES #29: Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers 2

Most of you who are interested in games enough to read this blog have probably played the first Rescue Rangers game. However, I'm sure hardly any of you have played the sequel. There's a good reason for that. This is a very late, 3rd party release for the NES. By the time it came out everybody had already moved on to SNES and Genesis. If you want to play this one today you've got to hunt down a copy and pay good money for it. I never see it on ebay for less that 50 dollars anymore. Actually, it's one of the most expensive licensed games on the whole system. So good luck on finding that one anywhere. Too bad you missed it the first time around.

Of course you could always get lucky and find it at your local used video game store for 15 bucks. That's what I did anyway. You never know what you're going to find out there. That's why I love this hobby so much. Of course, that's also what makes me put off buying certain things for years and years. I should've bought Action 50 about 80 dollars ago, but I wanted to wait and find one that was ridiculously cheap. But enough about me, let's talk about the game.

Rescue Rangers is a lot like the first game in the series except shorter and possibly even easier. The world map that I loved so much from the first game is gone and replaced by cutscenes that make the game feel like an episode of the show. The gameplay from the first one is still in tact. There's lots of running and throwing boxes. It's actually pretty fun. Also, you collect tokens all throughout the game which add to your health bar. It's sort of a level gaining system that almost makes the game seem deeper.

The bosses are extremely cute in this one. You sorta feel bad killing them, but I guess they attack first. I haven't seen the cartoon show in about 15 years so I have no idea if they are characters from the tv show or not. Was there a bunny that squirted water at you in the show? Maybe they were all made up for the game. Anyway, I have no idea why they turned over to the dark side. I'm sure all those kitties could've found nice homes, so that they wouldn't have to fly around on bat wings or dress up like magicians and throw playing cards at hat wearing chipmunks. That may be the best sentence I've ever typed.

I guess the thing that was really supposed to set this game apart was the dialogue between levels. As I stated earlier, the game plays like an episode of the tv show. It's actually a pretty good idea. The only problem is that the story is quite flimsy. The story goes that Fat Cat escaped from prison and wanted to steal something important from Egypt. You'd think that since I played this game three days ago that I'd remember what it was. I guess that tells you something right there. I figured that this would be a trek across the world leading to a big show down in a pyramid. I was dead wrong though. It's just the same ol' generic levels like in the first game. There's always some excuse why you're in a factory or pier instead of Egypt, but I don't buy it for a minute. Would it really have been so hard to put some sand and pyramids in the background? I wanted to fight some sphinxes with lasers shooting out of their eyes, not just the same old robot dogs!

The worst part is probably the ending. I was expecting something a little more involved since the whole game was set up like a tv show, but you never even get to fight Fat Cat. You just find his factory or evil headquarters on the end of town and fight the robot Fat Cat. No problem with that battle. Then the building collapses and Monterey Jack compliments you on making Fat Cat's life slightly more difficult. That's it? Mild irritation!? That's how the heroes save the day? What about that thing that he was going to take over the world with? What about getting him back into prison? It left me feeling pretty empty inside.

The ending implies that they wanted to make more games in the series, which is odd to me on a few different levels. This game came out in 1993 which was three years after the first game and the original run of the series. It was also at the very end of the system's life when nobody was playing the system anymore except for me, and I wasn't that interested in another Rescue Rangers game. I know that there were still little kids playing the NES, but if you really wanted to continue the series on why put it on a dead system? SNES and Genesis both made excellent side scrollers that plenty of little kids played. It just doesn't make any sense to me.

So in my collecting I've always been interested in the last games for consoles. What goes into making a game for a system on its last legs? Every year after 1991 saw less and less NES games up until its final year in 1994. What surprises me most about the 93s and 94s out there is that they really seem like the people involved were trying to make good games. You can see a lot of time and effort in them. This game is pretty good, but I just don't see the love in it. There isn't one from the era that seems more phoned in that I have played. It was just a game made for kids who were all playing Kirby's Adventure instead. At least its rarity makes it a conversation piece. After all I did spend more time writing this blog entry than I did playing through it.

TurboGrafx-CD #1: Y's Book I and II

I'm sure that it would be a safe bet to say that if not for the Wii Virtual Console than this would be the most obscure game I have ever written about on here. Not only is it for the extremely unpopular TurboGrafx system, but it's for the even harder to find CD add-on. It seems like everybody was trying to make one of those in the early 90s, and at least in America they were all dismal failures. Remember how unsuccessful the Sega Cd was? Well that was the most successful of any of the CD add-ons. Nintendo still gets criticized for splitting Sony in the early 90s, but given the history of CD-Rom gaming up to that point who could blame them? The Turbo CD came out in 1990 at a price of 399.99 which was pretty steep back then. That's one of the many reasons that the system never caught on and is only really sought after by obsessive collectors like me. I'm not sure if the retail price was ever truly justified, but there are some impressive games.

I can't even imagine how awesome Ys must've seemed way back in 1990. I mean, this was a time when there were still a few stray Atari and Intellivision games coming out. Here was a game with large anime type characters during cutscenes, CD quality sound, and real voice acting. Who wouldn't want to hear some of Debi Derryberry's early work? Of course there are a couple of problems with the new technology. There are times where the music will cut out which I suspect is due to the music track ending and not being able to loop. You have to leave the room to get it to start back up again. There are also some load times, especially when someone is about to talk. It's not as bad as Playstation or some of the other more advanced systems, but it can get a little annoying sometimes. It also has a picture frame around it making the action screen smaller. It didn't bother me much, but I have a big TV.


Thankfully behind all this flash there is a very good RPG with one of the most unique fighting systems of all time. When you see a monster in you sight you just run right into him. Then you keep doing that until he is dead. You don't even have to swing your sword. This takes a little getting used to, but I enjoy it because it takes up much less time than standard action RPG fighting. Another unique thing about this game is just how much of it is spent in dungeons. There's an opening grassland and mountain in the first half of the game, and that's really about it. The rest of the game will be spent in long, confusing dungeons. Luckily you are able to save anywhere, and in the second half of the game you have a magic spell that that teleport you back to the nearest town.

Another important feature about this game is its boss fights. I've honestly never really been that in to boss fights in RPGs. They always take too long. These, however, are some of the funnest and most difficult bosses I can remember fighting in a long time. Having to make contact to hurt them makes for some interesting strategies, and no two bosses are fought the same way. This was my second time playing through this game, and I had the same reaction as I did when playing back through Star Tropics. I couldn't believe that I had killed all those bosses twice.



I guess my one major complaint with this game is the ending. I was expecting some really spectacular visuals, but it was mostly text moving slowly across the screen with about 30 seconds of voices. The final cutscene was actually quite short. I guess they spent all the money on the cool intro which is very easy to miss. You have to let the game load up without pushing any of the buttons. I only knew about because I read it in EGM. They sould've put something like that at the end of the game so everybody would see it. Oh well, I guess nobody's perfect.

This is one of those games that falls into the lost classic category. I hope some of you have gotten to play it now that it is on the virtual console. I wish I could've taken my time and really enjoyed playing through it again, but I didn't have any other games going so I wanted to get it finished for the blog. I actually got pretty mad at it sometimes. I guess I should apologize. Sorry Ys. It's not you, it's me.

NES #28: Star Tropics

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. I've been all distracted with the holidays. You would think that I would've finished some games with the extended time off, but I've been too scattered lately and have been playing every game I own for 10 minutes. I haven't gotten very much done like that. Thankfully I finished Star Tropics before this happened and saved it just in case something like this happened. Just keep in mind that I did not beat this game yesterday. It's been a few weeks.

So what can I say about Star Tropics? It's sort of a lost classic. It's a whole lot of fun, but also insanely difficult. The difficulty of this game is both intentional and accidental. This is another game released by Nintendo in the early 90s when they realized there wasn't going to be another NES Zelda game, but they still wanted to draw in the RPG/adventure crowd. Thankfully they didn't rip themselves off too much with this one. Aside from the similar looking hearts and that familiar overworld perspective it is a vastly different game. It was also made exclusively for North America, so for once the Japanese missed out on the cool new game. That didn't happen very often after about 1983.

This game has a lot of memorable moments in it. It certainly oozes personality. I can't think of that many NES games that have dialogue in them that is actually meant to be funny. Most funny NES lines are due to poor translations. The island hopping aspect is enjoyable, and it really makes the game feel like it takes place in our world. Even though you're fighting giant monsters and aliens the game feels like it takes place on Earth. I always thought that was unique in RPGs. However, with all the memorable scenes in this game, the thing that it will always be remembered for is its difficulty.

This game really is punishingly difficult. Most RPGs are just a matter of time an leveling up, but this one requires some real skills. I honestly can't believe that I've beat it twice. So what makes this game so hard? There are many reasons for this. Mikey, the main character, moves very stiffly, so just about every enemy is faster. It's especially bad if you're trying to change directions quickly. It makes it feel like every level is the ice level. The stiff motion is deliberate though, because this game is all about green blocks. Every dungeon has about 1000 green blocks in it, and you'll have to jump on each one if you want to find the treasure. And trust me, you really do want to find it. So you've got to jump on all these green blocks while all kinds of monster are flying around trying to kill you, and even when you're not on green blocks you still feel like you are. This is not a game that lets you relax.

There is also the fiendish level design. You never really know what you're going to find in the next room, and it is often something that can kill you. In the very first dungeon there is a room with two sets of green blocks that go in different directions. The one leads you to safety, but do you know where the other one leads you? Straight to your death! You'll automatically jump into the next room only to find that there is no ground beneath you. And this is the very first dungeon! There are also disappearing blocks that don't make themselves known until you are already on them. You'll have a split second to react before it's too late. It's insane.

I also still don't understand the heart system. It seems completely random how many hearts you start back with after you die. Some dungeons will only give you three, but there will be a hidden room off to the side where you can find some more. Why not just start you back with enough hearts to survive with in the first place? There are other times where you will inexplicably have more hearts as well. It still doesn't make any sense, and I've been playing this game for 15 years.

All this ranting makes it sound like I had a miserable time playing this game. In truth though, I kinda love it. It's probably the game that I've had the most fun going back through. The high difficulty makes every step forward feel like an accomplishment, and the dungeons never get so frustrating that they are no longer fun. It really does have good dialogue too. I wasn't kidding about that one. You even get to fight evil aliens which is always a plus.

The final boss is insane. So most older games have predictable bosses. There are the ones that are fixed at the top of the screen and shoot things at you, the ones that are on the ground and either stay at the edge or move back and fourth, or the ones that move around in a big rectangle that is either the ground or a fixed amount of sky. Well Zoda moves in a completely different way than any of these. He's in a large room that actually scrolls, and he moves wherever the hell he wants. It's impossible to get any kind of a pattern down because there isn't one. He just moves everywhere and shoots at you. You just gotta try to hit him in the side before he turns around. I've really never seen another one like it.

Star Tropics is a game that I have really fond memories of. I got it in a box of games my grandma got me out of the newspaper that had almost every great NES game in it. I would devour just about any RPG I could get my hands on back then, so of course I loved it. It took me a long time to beat because I would always get stuck. I've gone through it a couple of times now, and I"m happy to say that it has stood the test of time wonderfully. It's only a shame that this never really caught on as a franchise. There's only this game and a sequel that was one of the last NES game ever released. It's a shame cause I'm sure the SNES version would've been great. But we'll always have this one, and I guess that's not so bad.