Tag: Nintendo

Star Fox 64 review

It’s kind of a tough call to pick between the original “Star Fox” and its N64 reinvisioning, at least for this writer.

Thankfully, I don’t have to make that call here, since this is more about evaluating “Star Fox 64” in a vacuum.

In that context, 64 is an unqualified success, boasting a proper advancement of the controls, story, graphics, and sound you’d expect from the era, resulting in one of the better rail shooters you’ll find anywhere.

The branching paths are really what will make or break the game for most people. If you’re a fan, they’ll extend the life of the game considerably. If you’re less enthused, well, this is an hour or two of a good time and that’s pretty much it.

I think with the announcement of the Switch 2 remake, more people will try checking this one out. They’ll be greeted by a game that is self-assured and enjoyable. Not ground-breaking. Just good.

Dave’s Score: 8/10

Ice Climber review

I’ve always thought “Ice Climber” is pretty sucky.

But I’ve also wondered if maybe I wasn’t being fair with that opinion since lots of folks go to bat for the game, Nintendo itself seems fond of it by choosing to include the characters in its “Super Smash Bros.” series, and I’d just personally never managed to make it through more than about five minutes without turning the game off in utter annoyance.

Maybe it needed a full evaluation.

So I sat down and committed myself to playing through all 32 levels of the thing, braving super basic design, unavoidable deaths, baffling scoring systems, muddled hit boxes, and terrible jumping mechanics to give it its proper due.

And yes, Ice Climber is pretty sucky.

The main enjoyment I got from this game was the knowledge that when I completed it I could come on the Internet and talk about how much I dislike it.

Truly, I think people who say they like this game are either messing with you or kidding themselves.

It’s like breaking a toe. Yeah, it’s better than breaking your whole leg, and you can tape it up with a buddy toe and hobble around with it, but you don’t enjoy doing that.

And that’s what it feels like navigating these controls: It’s as though you’re encumbered by them, not helped. That’s Ice Climber in whole: hobbling around with a broken toe.

I’ll give it a few points for originality and historical relevance and move along to better pursuits.

Dave’s Score: 4/10

StarTropics review

This one has been a long time coming. I’ve had “StarTropics” on my to-do list pretty much since it was released for the NES in 1990.

I can’t explain very well why I hadn’t committed to sit down and finish it in all that time, though I believe that conversation begins with the notion of “NES hard” and an aversion to the time commitment of an RPG. Regardless, I’ve now finally completed it.

(The RPG hang up was probably a little misplaced, because this game leans into adventurey, Zelda-like tendencies.)

But a proper review of the game needs to address firstly its charm, which is downright irresistible. The island setting surely helps in that, imbuing a sense of spirit and tone from the jump. The humor only helps, contributing to the light mood, and the action and plot are satisfying to navigate.

Having all of those points in its favor serves StarTropics well, because the game has a series of knocks against it well before it flies completely off the rails in the final act.

The sluggish controls and unforgiving enemies/easy deaths are a smidge too much. This game earns its reputation for being tough. And there’s a lot of silly backtracking and fetch-questing that irritates. And oh yeah, some of the puzzles sorta suck.

The last level definitely sucks, at least until you get properly leveled up. But I bring all this up to emphasize just how much heavy lifting the aforementioned charm has to do. It’s like this clumsy baby deer sliding around on the ice. You find it adorable despite, nay, because of its missteps. That this game ultimately succeeds is wild to me.

I can’t give it an 8, but this is a very high 7, flirting with must-play status for NES fans.

Dave’s Score: 7/10

Pinball review

One of the original releases on the old Nintendo Entertainment System was “Pinball,” which wasn’t much for wowing people. It was there strictly for variety, like those doughy donuts at the Chinese buffet. No one goes to the buffet for those doughy donuts. But them being there give you something else to munch on that doesn’t much resemble anything else there. And they’re comforting.

That’s Pinball. Nintendo’s effort, spearheaded by HAL, is low on frills (no music at all) and suffers from some floaty physics that irk purists. The theming is weirdly mismatched, featuring ducks, penguins, and casino playing cards. No, I do not understand what is going on here.

It’s not a landmark title within the genre, though it deserves a look for the sheer “Nintendo-ness” of it all. Mario makes a nonsensical appearance in the bonus area, and for console gaming pinball enthusiasts circa the mid 1980s, this was about as well as one could do.

The Internet told me that clearing 250,000 points qualifies as having given the game its proper paces. That’s a good thing, because I’m not sure I’d have the patience for the full million. I do recommend trying to hit 100,000 at minimum, as you’re greeted by a supremely wonky surprise at that point. It’s so strange, I had to pause the game and look up if it was intentional or some kind of glitch. That experience kind of made the game for me, if I’m honest. I found it charming.

In the final analysis, the game provides that sort of trance-like getaway that video pinball needs to provide, earning it a passing grade and my patented “tepid thumbs up” ranking.

Dave’s Score: 7/10

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker review

I think most people already know a fair bit about this one. But for those who don’t, “Wind Waker” continues the tradition of 3D Zelda established in “Ocarina of Time,” bumping up the graphical output for the GameCube and building a much larger adventure in the process.

People were mixed on the cartoonish visuals at the time (and some still are I suppose), though frankly the thing is gorgeous, a better-looking Zelda than probably anything other than the two newer Switch titles.

It also boasts a killer soundtrack, a great sense of design and style, solid bosses and weaponry, a fairly unique story, and its sense of scale and exploration again only take a backseat to the two modern Zelda entries.

I think the sailing and digging for treasure bits are super repetitive, though I suppose I had more fun there than I would have expected. The bigger issue to me is how confusing some of the side quests are. That on the face of it could be okay … but the “side quests“ are actually tied into the main game. You’re required to complete them. So, them being cryptic is a frigging problem.

I’ve come to appreciate modern Zelda for its lack of these roadblocks. And yet, I think there’s a place for traditional 3D Zelda too. We can all point to our favorites within that. This one is below Ocarina and “Majora’s Mask” for me. Beyond that? Kind of a grab bag. These are great games, but mileage will vary some from title to title.

If you want a beautiful, longer Zelda, this might be your huckleberry.

Dave’s Score: 9/10

Balloon Fight review

The older, Nintendo-published “black box” games on the NES are, on the whole, an interesting experience.

Most of them feel a little arcadey, for lack of a better term, calling to mind previous generations of home gaming which aimed to recreate the arcade experience at home in lieu of basically everything else.

“Balloon Fight” is no exception. It involves a single screen of little dudes floating about via balloon. The object is to be like Obi-Wan and get the high ground (or high “air”) from where you can pop the other balloons, rather than have yours popped instead.

The basic game is fun enough, but it turns into an endless repeating level quest, wherein you try to get high scores before you eventually die.

Like I said, arcadey.

I enjoy it in bursts, but it’s not the sort of thing I make a point to return to.

Dave’s Score: 7/10

Xevious (NES) review

One of the very first vertically scrolling shooters, “Xevious” stood out quite a bit at release for having a varied, topographical background rather than a simple star field.

It’s also a smart game, varying the enemies it sends at you based on the way you play.

All of this is really cool.

The NES port is … okay. It literally never ends. And it’s a tough game. And of course, as an NES shooter, it’s ugly.

It didn’t piss me off like “Star Soldier” did, so that’s something. But it’s definitely dated.

How much you enjoy probably depends on how much you appreciate the historical importance.

I like video game history, so …

Dave’s Score: 7/10

Star Soldier (NES) review

I’m a big fan of the Super Star Soldier trilogy on the Turbografx-16, so much so that I have listed the third entry in that series, “Soldier Blade,” as one of my greatest games of all time.

(I also listed parody spinoff “Star Parodier” for good measure.)

So visiting “Star Soldier,” the very first game that inspired all that Turbografx greatness, for the first time was an interesting experience.

First off, this NES port, much like “Gradius,” features concessions in order to run an arcade game on 8-bit hardware. This is to be expected. And, like Gradius, this port mostly runs way better than you might anticipate.

Generally speaking, I prefer vertically scrolling shooters to horizontal ones, and that helps this game along, as objectively, the power ups and level design are fairly mid. The gameplay and some of the set pieces (such as obstacles you can hide under) do the majority of the heavy lifting.

Where Star Soldier struggles most of all is with its stupid repeating boss, who gets more and more obnoxious in every iteration, until you get to the final boss and would rather put a literal boot through the screen than try to engage with him again, particularly when he’s at his most annoying.

I’m serious, he’s a genuine asshole. There’s this weird dynamic in the game where if you don’t defeat the boss quickly enough, he escapes, and you get warped back to the beginning of the level.

Fuck. That.

Plus, the trouble with defeating him quickly is he throws a gazillion projectiles at you to avoid. So, it sucks. And your reward is basically no ending at all.

I think most people will be left wanting for more with this game. I originally gave it a passing grade since I’ve been relatively generous with scores lately and there is some historical value here. But in good conscience I just can’t recommend it. That warping nonsense is unforgivably evil design.

Dave’s Score: 5/10

Mario Bros. review

One of my favorite things about “Mario Bros.” is how badly it seems to confuse people, since it seems the vast majority of people one encounters get it conflated with “Super Mario Bros.“ This phenomenon extends to search engines, which seem incapable of resisting the urge to add “Super” to the front of the search term.

For the record, they are, in fact, completely different games. If you’re thinking of the one with the catchy music and the mushrooms and rescuing princesses, congratulations, you’re thinking of the other one.

This one is perhaps most famous for being included as a bonus in other games. Remember the mini-game in “Super Mario Bros. 3” when you’d compete with the other player for the right to play the next level? You were in this static screen underground with pipes about, and you had to upend critters who were above you by bumping your head into the ground they stood on. Once they were upended, you could run up there and run into them to take them out (but only if they didn’t recover before you got there.

Having first encountered Mario Bros. via that mini-game in Mario 3, I was sorta taken aback when I found out it was its whole own game.

It was fun enough, but it seemed a wee underwhelming as a concept for an entire game.

That was probably unfair of me. Circling back to it now, I certainly don’t put it in the upper echelon of single-screen platformers with the likes of “Donkey Kong,” “Popeye,” or “Parasol Stars,” .., but it isn’t all that far off.

What helps the activity of this game stand out is it becomes trance-like in the best way that so many other puzzlers do. You get into a flow, and as you engage with it, the outside world melts away for a bit.

If you find yourself perusing the old NES library for ideas, this one really ain’t bad at all.

Dave’s Score: 7/10

Kid Icarus review

I’ve probably been overdue in playing this old-school NES platformer, though in my defense, “Kid Icarus” rarely gets mentioned first or second (or even 40th) on most people’s favorites lists.

There are reasons for that, starting with the general jank (simple things like landing on platforms don’t always go the way they should), the somewhat spartan look of the thing, and most critically the game being discouragingly difficult and non-welcoming to new gamers.

“Welcome to Kid Icarus; would you like to grind for health, die via enemy, or die via fall?”

If that’s all there was, we could safely dismiss it as an artifact and move on.

And yet…

The power-ups are actually fairly nifty, and the dungeon levels are fun and unique. That latter point is a valuable one: dungeons in 2D side-scrollers have rarely (if ever) been this intricate or interesting to navigate.

So sadly, in the same way I have been forced to admit that various forms of exercise are actually good for you, I must likewise admit that Kid Icarus has an intrinsic value. Get your teeth knocked out for a while and you’ll get to experience a game unlike most anything else.

Dave’s Score: 7/10