NES #36 - Bucky O'Hare

I felt like getting back to my roots and writing about NES this time around, so I picked the type of game that NES did best. This is a game about an anthropomorphic rabbit in space and his other space animal buddies. Now I know that this sounds like a Star Fox clone, and you're probably congratulating yourself for solving that puzzle, but in truth Bucky O'Hare is a much older franchise. It started as a comic book in the late 70s and in the early 90s was turned into a Saturday morning cartoon.

Does anyone remember watching the cartoon? I know that I looked forward to it every week, but it came on at something like 7 in the morning. Even at that age I had a little trouble getting up so early. It didn't come on quite as early as Widget or reruns of The Tomfoolery Show, but it wasn't in one of the prime slots like Garfield and Friends or Bugs Bunny and Tweety. Am I getting off track?

So let's run through the checklist to see how good of a game Buck O'Hare is going to be. It is a side scrolling platform game so we can check that box. It's based on a cartoon, that's another one. It was made by Konami so that's a plus. It has a level and character select feature with a world map. You know I love those. Hey, that's all the check marks. This game's going to be great!

Okay so maybe it isn't great, but it's still a hidden gem. It has challenging and well designed levels, but I guess the problems is that some of the levels were designed for other games. Yeah, this game is kind of a thief. Playing through it, I noticed some familiar layouts and enemies. It had a section that looked like the first level of Contra, those moving blocks from the Mega Man series, and elements from the Mario games. Of course all the games it stole from were classics, and they are blended in nicely with some more original ideas. I guess this is sort of like the Oasis of gaming. Sure it stole, but at least it stole from the best.

I suppose the most important feature in this game is the ability to change between characters. In each of the first four levels Bucky is able to save one of his companions who each have their own unique skill. Bucky can do a charge jump, Blinky can blast through blocks, Dead-Eye can climb walls and so on. There will be parts where you will have to use a certain character, and this makes for some more interesting gaming. It also has one of my favorite features of old gaming. To switch between characters you only have to push a button and they appear where your previous character was just standing. There is no explanation for why one character turns into another. Is the ship beaming people up? Maybe that human kid invented a machine that can teleport people? It seems like the group would be able to get through those planets easier if they used teamwork instead of fighting individually. Anyway, the part I love is that it doesn't really matter. The only explanation you needed back then was that it's how the game works. If this game came out now I'm sure there would be some convoluted explanation that only confused things. I'm happier with the old system.

Another thing I enjoy about this game is how it keeps the action moving. When you get a game over you start back in the section that you died in. There's no starting over from the beginning of the levels in this one. This is good for a couple of reasons. First of all it allows the levels to be more difficult. Some points seemed impossible upon my first inspection, and only became possible after I failed a few dozen times. The other thing is that it keeps the player from giving up. If I had to start over at the beginning of those difficult levels every time I got killed by a boss than there's no way I would beat the game or even want to. And I died many times at the bosses. They are thoughtful and challenging. This game is perfectly designed for what it is, and you can't always say that about franchise games.

The NES had a difficult track record with licensed games. Almost every game based on a movie sucked. Almost every game based on a game show or board game was too simple. The few that are based on live action tv shows did not fare well. The one area where they found success was cartoon adaptations. Maybe it's because they fit the look of the NES so well, or because with a cartoon series you could take more dramatic license, but whatever the reason the batting average for cartoon games is very high. Now Bucky O'Hare isn't as good as Duck tales or as fondly remembered as Rescue Rangers, but it certainly belongs in the same discussion even if it as game you've never heard of based on a cartoon that you never knew existed.

Nintendo DS #4: Professor Layton and the Curious Village

Professor Layton

Well here's a game that reminds me of a couple different things from my childhood, and isn't that one of the things video games do best? This is an easygoing game that combines point and click adventures with brain teasers. It reminds me of a book of riddles that I used to have as a kid. Actually, it has a couple of the same puzzles. Getting the tennis ball out of that hole is easier than you think.

So Professor Layton and the Curious Village is an easygoing murder mystery with a nice young adult vibe. Is that an odd description? Well it's not really that odd of a game. You play as the plucky mystery solver as he tries to uncover several mysteries involving a strange little town. The game is done in a first person point and click style like Myst or Shadowgate. The trick is that whenever you approach someone and talk to them you almost always get a request to solve a puzzle.

The puzzles are widely varied. Some of them require you to pick from several different choices. Some of them ask you to write in your answer to a logic puzzle. Some of them are more puzzle game based and require a bit more action. Many of them are intriguing, but they are not flawless. So many of the puzzles can be solved by guessing 0,1, or either the highest or lowest number. I was able to solve several puzzles that I didn't even understand by simply picking 1. Another problem is that it's a little too easy to cheat. Want to save your hint coins and get a very high score? Just save before you talk to a person, reveal the three clues, guess until you find the answer, and then reset. I know that's a cheap strategy, but this is a cheap world. Probably most people out there red all the solutions on an online faq anyway. Now I never did anything like this, but I sure thought about it at times.

Well I know that this is mostly just a description of the game, but I think that's somewhat appropriate. Don't get me wrong though, this game does have a lot of character. The visuals are quite nice, and everybody's got a funny British accent. The mystery really goes in an unexpected direction so it kept me interested. Yep, this is a high quality gaming experience.

SNES #5- Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest

Yes, I'm following up Final Fantasy 13 with that fake Final Fantasy game that was only released because people thought Americans were too dumb to play real RPGs. Actually, the two games are much more similar than they initially appear, and I'm glad I played them back to back. They are both action oriented games that are considered black sheep in the series. At least 13 is considered a real Final Fantasy game. Mystic Quest is another story altogether.

When I was a kid I didn't think there was anything strange about this game. It was just the next Final Fantasy game. The gameplay was different, but this did not seem unusual. Developers took much more radical chances with sequels back then. This wasn't too long after we had the side scrolling Zelda game and RPG styled Castlevania game. So I remember renting this one a couple of times and actually being a little excited about how easy it was. I could never beat games that I rented, especially RPGs. With this one I felt like I actually had a chance.

Of course it wasn't too long until we all figured out that this game was different. It was probably around the time Final Fantasy 3 came out. That game was a life altering experience. It was one of the most in depth and exciting games to ever come out, and we all knew that Mystic Quest wasn't in the same league. I'm not sure how you figured stuff out back then, but one of my friends stumbled on the secret. Mystic Quest was made as a simple starter RPG for the American audience. The genre had never sold well in this country, so this was a trick to lure people in.

Of course, the game developers made some odd choices in what they thought the mass market would enjoy. It must've been bad market research or something. They thought that people really liked using heal potions and not knowing how many hit points they had left. There are some points in this game where I was using heal potions every other attack, and the life bar only confuses things more. It's shown as a bar, but enemy attacks are shown as a number above your head. It can get confusing. They must've also decided that people hate exploring, because you almost always know where you are going. The game is mostly stripped down to fighting battles and visiting towns. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it can be a shock to the system if you've played other FF games and are expecting something like that.

I really hate to dwell on what this game lacks, but it's hard to avoid. This's game's reputation is based on it being a failed experiment. I know this games gets a hard time among fans, but I actually think it's pretty good. I think it's fun that you get items which let you interact with the environment more. I also think it's fun that the monsters will transform as you hit them. That's something that not even FF3 did. All in all this is a fun little game that is good for a couple afternoons and isn't hurting anyone. I certainly don't see a problem with that.


(As a bonus here's the infamous brain ad for the game. I love how they make the game sound like it's both really hard and really easy. It sure confused me in 1993.)