The Great Playthrough - Game 63 - Ghosts 'n 'Goblins and Game 64 - Ghouls 'n' Ghosts

So for the first time in this experiment, I'm reviewing two games as if they were one. I know this may seem like a cheat, but there's a reason for this (honest!).

You see, recently I acquired some more original Xbox games, one of which was the Capcom Classic Collection, which as it boasts on the cover, contains 22 games....

Now, so far on this playthrough, I've attempted compilation discs in two different ways. Midway Arcade Treasures I reviewed all in one go - and I think that was the right decision for that particular game, as most of the games on it are very simple arcade games that wouldn't entertain you for an hour. However, my two Sonic Compilation discs are being played one game at a time, as they are each a full game.

So what to do with this Capcom disc? I could have played every game individually - but for a start, that would mean I have three MORE versions of Street Fighter II to review, and that would be a boring set of entries!

So I've made a rather unorthadox decision - I'm grouping some games together. I will do one more Street Fighter II blog for example, which will take in all the arcade versions on the disc. Some of the games on the disc will get their own review (Final Fight being one example) and then there are a couple of entries where I have grouped a game with it's sequel, working on the basis that as arcade games were designed for five minute plays, each game might not occupy a full hour of my time...

Could I have played the two seperately? Probably. However, as one is a direct sequel to the other, it did mean that I can compare one game to it's sequel, something I rarely get to do in this blog..

So without further ado....

Ghosts 'n' Goblins
Released on: Arcade - then ported to NES, Commodore 64, Amiga, and then many other later consoles (Sega Saturn, PS2, Xbox)
Played on: Xbox
Release date: 1985

Ghouls 'n' Ghosts
Released on: Arcade - then ported to Amiga, Mega Drive, Master System and then many other later consoles (Sega Saturn, PS2, Xbox)
Played on: Xbox
Release date: 1988 

Whenever one mentions either of these game to retro gamers, the thing that people always talk about is the difficulty level - and it's true that this is one of the most noticeable facts about the games, but we'll talk about that in a bit.


So what are these games? They are arcade platformers where you play Arthur, a Knight, who has to rid the kingdom of Ghosties and Goblins and Ghoulies so that he can... feel good about himself I guess? I don't know - I don't think there's really much of a plot! But does that matter?

Well no, no it doesn't. You run around, throwing spears at evil things, and trying not to lose your clothes.

Yes, I said that right. You try not to lose your clothes. Now this isn't because Arthur has some kind of exhibitionist streak (well not that I know of), it's the game's health system. One hit from an enemy and you lose your suit of armour, leaving Arthur running around in his underpants, and then a second hit leaves you dead.

As I mentioned earlier, this game is infamous for it's difficulty level, and consequently Arthur removes his clothes more often than a stripper who has been septuple-booked for stag parties, and is trying to please everyone rather than explain the misunderstanding - Which does lead to some interesting questions - like where the hell is he carrying the infinite number of spears (or flaming torches, or axes) that uses to dispatch enemies? Those must be some spacious Y-Fronts he's got on there!

But I digress (this whole blog post shouldn't be about a video game character's lack of clothing - it's not a review of Dead or Alive Volleyball or anything!) - what are the games themselves like to play?

In a surprising twist, they both stand up REALLY well. The controls are great, the levels are well designed, and there's a definite feeling of accomplishment when you graduate from one section to the next. It is designed for arcade play, and that does mean you will use quite a few continues to get anywhere, as continues would have cost money at the time, but within the home environment, they are both incredibly addictive games.

It takes me back to when I was a lad...

(NOTE - If you have a pipe and some slippers, you may want to grab them and get comfortable now, as this is about to become a misty-eyed look back at some long-forgotten time that probably wasn't at all as it is about to be described)

... when games were designed to be hard. (I told you we'd discuss the difficulty thing later!) Ghouls 'n' Ghosts (and indeed, Ghosts 'n' Goblins) are very hard and unforgiving games - but not once did I feel that I had died unfairly. In this day and age of cheap deaths, glitches, and difficulty curves that resemble a mobius strip, it's a great feeling to be able to master a level by simply playing it over and over again, remembering where enemies or obstacles appear, defeating them, and successfully moving on. It gives a sense of accomplishment that many modern games lack, and I couldn't stop smiling for the entire time I was playing these.

"But Brawny," I hear you cry, "Surely there are bad bits of these games?" 

Oh sure, there are niggles - the music does start to burrow into your mind until it won't ever leave you alone (and not in a good way), jumping back to the start of a section when you use a continue can be frustrating, and there appears to be very little point in choosing to pick up either of the two weapons I discovered (flaming torches or axes) as the spears work so much better!

But these points are me being fussy for the sake of it. These are well-made, enjoyable, rewarding games, which pleasantly surprised me, as I had never played either of them before.

I suppose, before finishing this review up, I should say which of the two games I preferred. Ghouls 'n' Ghosts has the nicer graphics, more variety of enemies, and is slightly harder than Ghosts 'n' Goblins - so obviously I prefer...

Ghosts 'n' Goblins.

Maybe it's just because it's the first of the two I played (another reason why combining two games in one playthrough may not be the best idea) but Ghosts 'n' Goblins just felt more fun - it may have worse graphics, but the levels intrigued me more, and the difficulty level was exactly right for me.

That's not to take away from Ghouls 'n' Ghosts, I just enjoyed my time with Ghosts 'n' Goblins slightly more. So with that in mind...

Rating: Ghosts 'n' Goblins - 8/10, Ghouls 'n' Ghosts = 7.5/10
Time played: A combined playtime of 1 hour 45 minutes, and I would have kept going too!
Would I play them again? Oh yes. I'm sure I can complete one of them... one day!

Next time, it's a game I haven't sat down and played since I was about 12, and I'm very excited about it!

The Great Playthrough - Game 62: The Legend of Zelda - A Link to the Past

According to my wife, I look pretty smug. :P

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Released on: SNES
Played on: SNES
Release date: 1992

OK, so it has been over a month since I last posted. I'm sorry about that - things keep getting in the way (like work, social life, etc!) I'm going to try and stick to a more regular schedule, so you ought to start seeing these things more regularly from now on (I hope!)

But anyway, back to today's review. When I reviewed Zelda - Four Swords Adventures a year and a half ago, I discussed my love-hate relationship with the series - as a Nintendo staple I have a soft spot for it, but RPGs do tend to leave me cold, but I do remember spending a lot of time with this game when I was younger. (In fact, it was the exact same cartridge I spent the time with, as this is one of the few games that has stayed with me since my childhood years and I haven't had to replace!)


And while we are on the subject of the physical cartridge itself (rather than the game, which I will get onto in a minute) then I need to give a quick shout-out to my long-standing friend Mr Andrew Gray - as he lent me this cartridge about twenty years ago, and I never gave it back! :P

However, owning the same cartridge for twenty - odd years (and using it semi-regularly over that time) can lead to some minor inconveniences. Most notably, battery issues. I touched on this briefly in my review of Pokemon Silver, but the batteries in cartridges do not last forever, and at some point soon I'm going to need to learn how to replace them, as I discovered when playing this game.

The problem was that I played about twenty minutes before realising I had to go and do something else. So I saved the game and went off to do other things. Then, when I came back... there were no saved games. At all. So I had to start again.

Luckily, that wasn't a huge problem, as this game is a lot of fun. Yes it's an RPG (Role Playing Game - not Rocket Propelled Grenade. An important difference, as confusing the two could get very painful), a genre of game I traditionally enjoy slightly more than FPS's but slightly less than EVERY OTHER GAME GENRE OUT THERE (apart from sports games), but it belongs on my favourite console of all time, and my favourite era of all time. Plus, it balanced out.

You see, normally with RPG's, my big beef (and by that, I mean my biggest problem, not my largest joint of meat) is the ridiculous amount of wandering around required. And (certainly in my playing time), A Link to the Past didn't give me that. In fact (as one expects from a Nintendo first party game) it gave me an exciting and entertaining adventure, leaving me wanting more.

It just seems so well balanced. You have to do a little exploring, but not so much that you are just walking around getting annoyed - and it's always clear what you have to do next. Dungeon exploration is fun, and even though I died more than Captain Jack Harkness (a reference for my Who/Torchwood loving fans there)
at no point did I feel any of my deaths were unfair - I always learned from them, and got a little bit further the next time.

Plot-wise, it's a Zelda game. You are Link, a young boy with a green tunic and hat (not to be confused with any of the other Links in any of the other Zelda games, who are entirely different young boys with green tunics and hats) and you need to rescue Princess Zelda (who is entirely different to any of the other Princess Zeldas in other Zelda games). Your father, after getting into the dungeon but no further, is shocked when you turn up, but then gives you his sword and shield and encourages you to go and rescue her,  Yes, that's right. Your dad arms you and sends you off to fight the palace guards and rescue a princess. Now if that's not responsible parenting, then I don't know what is!

Anyway, it takes about 15 minutes to rescue the princess, at which point you then have to go and find the Village Elder, who tells you all about some things and stuff that you have to find... I'm sure more dramatically awesome stuff happens later in the game, but do you know what? I was quite happy wandering around the 16-Bit world swinging my sword angrily at bushes that happened to be nearby.

Graphically it is beautiful. I have oft-stated my love for 16-Bit graphics on this blog, and these are some of the most polished and perfect ones you have ever seen. And the music is great too, full of memorable snippets of Zelda music.

So as you've probably guessed from reading this, I enjoyed it a lot - and I look forward to turning it back on another day and carrying on (if my save game has survived!).

Rating: 9/10
Time played: 1 Hour and 20 Minutes
Would I play it again? Definitely.

Next time on Brawny's Great Playthrough - it's a couple of Capcom arcade classics. Which ones? You'll have to come back to find out!

The Great Playthrough - Game 61: Guitar Hero Metallica

Could I be more metal?

Guitar Hero: Metallica
Released on: Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360, PS3
Played on: Nintendo Wii
Release date: 2009

I enjoy other things in this world apart from video games. One of the other things I enjoy is playing the guitar, and another thing I enjoy is the music of Metallica. So knowing that about me, this must be a game that I will absolutely love.. right?

Yes.

There are no words.

I've been a huge Guitar Hero fan since the first release on the Wii (the notoriously difficult Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock) and since then I have accrued two more editions (both of which are due to appear at some point in this playthrough. I know that these games have fallen out of favour with a lot of people, and I know that some people prefer Rockband (and indeed, I have one of those games as well) - but I've always been a Guitar Hero boy through and through.

I don't know why, maybe it's just that it was the first plastic-instrument bashing game I played, but all of the Guitar Hero games hold a special place in my heart. And I remember being ridiculously excited the day they announced that there was a Metallica version coming out.

There are a lot of parallels between Metallica and Guitar Hero. Both are things that many people will now tell you are past their best, and that their best work was the early work. And there's a parallel in my enjoyment for them as well.

I like their early work, but I also like their overblown middle years, and later years when they try to recapture the early magic. I agree that some mis-steps have been made by both, but they both provide entertainment that I find completely amazing, and I will support both to the bitter end. (Even through their low points - Guitar Hero 5 and St Anger respectively!)

And while Guitar Hero appears to have come to a screeching halt (although, given the fascination with re-booting gaming franchises, I imagine we'll see it return at some point), Metallica are still making music (in fact, right now I'm listening to the new song they premièred the other day - The Lords of Summer, which I am enjoying a whole lot).

I think that the point I am making (in my random and convoluted way) is that these two things are perfect for each other. And boy does it show in the game itself.

Metallica songs are mini-masterpieces of riffery and mayhem, a perfect match to the button-clacking precision required for a good Guitar Hero game. By this point in the franchise, GH had mastered all of the game basics - hammer-ons, pull-offs and tapping are all part of the game - and the whole game feels fair. Don't get me wrong, it can be very hard to get a great score - but it's a totally fair game. It takes the solid framework of Guitar Hero: World Tour and gives you brilliantly cartoonish Metallica figures bouncing around playing all their hits and many other songs besides (including one of the best (and under-rated) Metallica songs of all time - the fabulous Dyers Eve!).

Are there any downsides to this game? Well, only the tracklisting from the other bands that make up the extra songs. 28 of the songs are Metallica songs, and the other 21 are songs which are the band's "personal favourites and influences from the years" - and to me, some of these are weak links. But I'm really just picking holes now - how can you complain when you get 28 Mother-F*****g Metallica songs to play!

In conclusion, I know I'm out of sync with many in the world, but I still believe Guitar Hero to be a fantastic game model, and Metallica one of the greatest bands of all time.

And if you disagree, then I completely respect that. (You are wrong, but I respect your right to be wrong!)

Rating: 9/10
Time played: About an hour and a half, and then a couple more goes at Dyers Eve...
Would I play it again? I might play it right now!!

Next time - Brawny is venturing back into the world of RPGs.... how will that go? Come back and find out!

The Great Playthrough - Game 60: Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles - Tournament Fighters

This is George and Elliot (our turtles) posing with the
Turtles games. Because why not :)

Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles: Tournament Fighters
Released on: Sega Megadrive, SNES, NES
Played on: Sega Megadrive
Release date: 1993

Does anyone else remember the period in the 90s where all the computer games in the world seemed to be one-on-one fighters all chasing the success of Street Fighter II? I remember it being a huge craze, and every time a game came out, particularly a licensed game, it seemed to be a one-on-one fighter. So it was no surprise to me when I first discovered TMHT: Tournament Fighters.

It is exactly as you would imagine - it looks as if someone took Street Fighter II, removed 90% of the character from it and dropped six characters from the TMHT series, one from the comics and one random newbie in to create the game.

(Seriously, why create a new character for a licensed game? Could they not use Bebop? Or Rocksteady? Or Shredder? Or ANYONE already created for the comics/TV series?)

Firstly, the positives. The graphics are pretty good - I'm a huge fan of 90's 16-bit era cartoony graphics and these are good, well animated, large colourful sprites. OK, so the health bars etc at the top of the screen look a bit rough and unfinished (in comparison with the SFII ones, which is what I will compare them with as they are obviously designed to be the same!) and the backgrounds are a bit lacking, but it's not too bad.

And then we get to everything else. And I'm sorry to say, but the rest of the game alternates between dull and ridiculously hard. It has just the one punch and one kick button, which makes the game rapidly diminish into button mashing, and with four very similar characters included (the four turtles of course), there doesn't seem to be much in the way of variety.

The other big negative point for me is the difficulty, which is hard. Really hard. We're talking harder than a baked diamond embedded in a block of Marble wrapped in adamantium.

And I know what you're all thinking - "Maybe it's just cos you're crap at playing the game!" And that is probably true. But still... damn, it's hard!

There's not a lot more to say. The two-player mode is slightly more fun (because the ridiculous difficulty isn't an issue), but even so, the dull button mashing gameplay just bored me extremely quickly...

Rating: 4/10
Time played: About 25 minutes
Would I play it again? No, I'm pretty sure the answer is no.

Next blog to follow very, very soon....

The Great Playthrough: Game 59 - Samba De Amigo!

Once again - this entry starts with apologies for the delay. I've been kinda busy lately. However, having looked at my list I've realised that I am now at over 200 games (thanks to charity shop finds etc) so I really need to step this up a gear, or I'll be writing this playthrough until I'm 64!!!

So with that in mind, I've added the new games to the list - reorganised into a new random order, and I'm now ready to start trying to get three of these done a week! (We all know I won't manage three, but if I get more than one a week, then I'm on a roll!)

And with no further ado I present... Game 59!

Monkeys in Sombreros? Sign me up!

Samba De Amiga
Released on: Sega Dreamcast, Arcade, Nintendo Wii
Played on: Nintendo WiiU (using backwards compatibility)
Release date: Original - 1999, Wii Version - 2008

Samba De Amigo - one of the first hugely popular rhythm action games involves you shaking maracas to popular tunes. It's like a dance machine where you use your hands and was originally played with a pair of specific maraca-controllers - so this should be a perfect fit for the Wii, right?

*silence*

I should point out, before this review goes any further, that I am a huge fan of rhythm action games. I have at least four Guitar Hero / Rockband games, and I'm quite excited as one is coming up in the playthrough very soon, so I was predisposed to like this game.

And everything started out well - It's bright, colourful, there's a decent music selection (I mean, I couldn't play it for hours like I can Guitar Hero, because it's not all my type of music, but you have variety!) and just to add the icing to the cake, there is a Reel Big Fish song on the soundtrack! (What do you mean you've never heard Reel Big Fish? You must fix that immediately! Go here, or here, or here, and then keep searching!)

So I was excited to play this. And then it spent five minutes trying to get me to calibrate the controls - and once I realised I had to twist the wii-mote to make it reach the point it was telling me to reach, I got a bit worried.

You see, the thing about motion controls is that they're great, but (especially in the early Wii days when this was released) they can be imprecise if you are not careful, and on a game that requires split-second timing, that can be a problem... and I'm sad to say, that it was a problem with Samba De Amigo.

You see, I was getting immensely frustrated with the game saying I'd missed one, where I'd done exactly the same movement as before, and hit it perfectly. And this wasn't a one-off occurrence. I estimate that 30-40% of the time I was playing*, the motions I made were not accurately translated on the screen, and that just quickly becomes annoying.

(*And I estimate that approximately 67% of the statistics in this review have an approximate variance of between 1 and 7234%)

Now it's not necessarily a game breaker - especially in two player mode! I roped in my lovely wife and we played the "Love Love" mode (which is some kind of two-player co-op mode), and we had a good time. And then at the end, we got this screen....

That's right, we are a Handsome Couple, our relationship will apparently last six months, and our Love Key Word is Volleyball. Doesn't that make complete sense?

(Please note - the above sentence is sarcasm. It makes absolutely no sense!!! Strange Japanese people...)

So in conclusion - Samba De Amigo is a good laugh multiplayer, but don't expect to enjoy the single player if you like anything that even vaguely resembles precise controls!

Rating: 6/10
Time played: 45-50 mins
Would I play it again? Probably multiplayer, and when alcohol has been consumed!

Next time on Brawny's Great Playthrough - It's back to a 2D one-on-one fighter... but which one?

Find out soon! (I promise)

The Great Playthrough: Game 58 - Sonic Adventure Primal Rage!

Some sad news I'm afraid - this review was supposed to be of Sonic Adventure for the Dreamcast, but sadly my disk appears to be scratched all to hell. Cartridge games are so much more reliable!

I did get to play a few minutes of it, and basically it seemed like it would be fun, although the voice acting is brilliantly atrocious! Never mind, hopefully one day I shall get a replacement copy....

So I was stuck. I couldn't play my next game, and who came to my rescue but my lovely wife who had bought her own retro game this week - so I hand the rest of this blog over to her, for our first ever GUEST REVIEW!!

Primal Rage
Released on: Arcade, Megadrive, PC, Playstation, SNES, Saturn, Amiga, 3DO, Game Gear, Jaguar
Played on: Sega Megadrive
Release date: 1994/1995

It's thousands of years into the future (but somehow also the past)! Giant dinosaur gods and the odd pallette swapped simian fight for domination of Earth, shifted into a Pangaea-like structure that resembles a t-rex skull and imaginately re-titled...URTH.

Meanwhile, back on Terra Firma, two little oiks with a love for dinosaurs and itchy button fingers discovered this Gorn-fest of an arcade game in an Exeter pub. My little brother and I watched the demo mode and the accompanying film with gruesome delight. Dinosaurs! Coming out of the sea! Eating people! And you fight until their hearts explode! And that monkey just PEED that dinosaur's FACE off!

My Mum did eventually come and see where all of her spare 50ps were giong, and she reasoned that as long as we weren't going to have nightmares, she didn't mind us playing a fighting game. Score one for eleven-year-old me!

Primal Rage was developed in 1994, at the height of digitised sprite video-nasty fighting game fever. To my delight, while on a business trip back to my home city I found the Mega Drive console version in a retro game shop, and for the princely sum of £6, it was mine.

So, does it stand talon to toe with the likes of Street Fighter, or should it belong in a museum?

The arcade version was a four-button/joystick affair, so translation to the Mega Drive should have been trickier than it is. Various combinations of buttons are required, and thankfully the A, B and C buttons are about the same width apart as the sections of my thumb (my phalanges, if you will – you at the back, stop laughing) and so I could pull off tricky combos with relative ease. You can also use the start button as a basic close-range attack, although it does mean you can't pause the game (you know, in case real dinosaurs start taking over, or you have to pee).

If you have any experience of fighting games, you probably have some kind of preference as to how quick or heavy you like your characters, what kind of attack they provide (close range, melee, projectile) and how hyped up their defence is – bear in mind that I was about eleven when I first discovered this game and therefore just smacked buttons until somebody's heart exploded, but I'm pretty sure now that it's where my predilection for lightning-fast bruisers comes from. There is a small roster of seven playable characters in Primal Rage:

Sauron (no, not that one), your common-or-garden Tyrannosaur (medium weight)
Diablo, a fiery red pallette swap of the former (medium weight)
Blizzard, a frost-wielding monkey (light)
Chaos, a farting, vomiting pallette swap of Blizzard (light)
Vertigo, a cobra/platiosaur hybrid (medium, long-range)
Armadon, a heavily armoured stegosaur/ankylosaurus hybrid (slow and heavy)
Talon, a raptor (very light), and my personal favourite.

Despite only 7 characters, there's a bloody good range of attack styles – Vertigo in particular has a good variation of long-range and projectile attacks, as does Chaos (and with the game being targeted at young to teen boys, these are all to do with farting, vomiting and flinging nose nuggets).

But enough of this! What of the game, mortal?

Well, this was definitely worth the £6 I paid. In fact, I would have quite happily paid thrice that amount for sheer replay value – I cleared the required hour that Brawny set me, and then got up this morning with itchy fingers, dying for another play. I favoured Talon, and while he was more than a match for most of the heavy characters, I noticed interesting attention to detail: Brawny played me for a bit as Sauron (until he got fed up of being sorely trounced), I noticed that his throws were dealing me a lot more damage. When we swapped again and played as Vertigo vs Sauron, I noticed whenever Sauron fell, he took more damage. Things like that can quickly turn around an unfair advantage in a fighting game. I remember the arcade version came with a hilarious “NO CHEESE!” message, flashing up a block of Swiss cheese with a line through it, if you kept using super moves. So it's not a game that can be won with button-mashing, which is a common criticism of fighting games right up to the present day.

Any downsides? Well, the game is spectacularly gory, which weirdly didn't bother me as a kid (and I had some weird childhood fears). Hearts explode; brains wither, there's acid vomit and piss flying about everywhere: it's like backstage at London Fashion Week. The game was cert 15 back in '95 and would probably get the same treatment nowadays, but further research uncovered an action figure range and a novelisation – how 90s can you get!? So it was presumably bound for greater things, and possibly it suffered from bad publicity, hence the reason its sequel is virtually unheard of and supposedly a pile of droppings.

But if you like fighting games, dinosaurs or chimps, you absolutely have to own this game.

(Interestingly, the arcade version will probably never be experienced ever again – despite being featured in Midway Arcade Treasures 2, the arcade version is locked with an unbreakable encryption, and none of the people involved in the games seem to want to help. Presumably they were sick of having to censor different parts of it. Word from Uncle Internet claims that the PC version is the closest you can get to the Arcade version, including all of the endings, so if you can find it, grab it with both claws!)

Rating: 8/10
Time played: Way over an hour
Would I play it again?: Does dromiceiomimus enjoy a varied diet including berries and leaves and also the odd small lizard and bird? (Yes, yes it does – and don't get me started on the “raptors” in Jurassic Park) 

The Great Playthrough - Game 57: Castle of Illusion

So, in the last blog I promised you a game on a console that hadn't featured in this playthrough so far, and I don't aim to disappoint you guys!

It's time to play on my new Master System II! And what game will I be playing?

It's the return of photos containing an awkwardly
grinning Brawny!

Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse
Released on: Sega Megadrive, Sega Game Gear, Sega Master SystemPlayed on: Sega Master System
Release date: 1990

Firstly, before I carry on, I should give shout outs to both my gorgeous wife (who bought me the Master System II for my birthday) and the great folks at Warez, which is where I bought this game at a very reasonable price!

Believe it or not, the Master System is the first 8 bit console I have ever owned, and consequentially, I was so excited sitting down to play this game - and it didn't disappoint!

(Wow, I just noticed that I've ended the last two paragraphs in exclamation marks. I should keep an eye on that, or pretty soon I'll end up as one of those people who writes stuff in Comic Sans all the time...)

As many of you may know, or may have guessed by the fact I was excited to play the game, this is a 2D platformer. And a bloody well made one at that. This is from back in the day when Disney characters were in good video games - unlike such modern wonders as Disney Princess: Magical Jewellery, or Just Dance: Disney Party, or the money-sucking leviathan that is Disney Infinity.

So what's the plot?

Well, an evil witch has kidnapped Minnie, and Mickey has to go save her. He has to tackle a selection of levels (which you can attack in a non-linear order, no less) and find some gems, because then they will mean he can .. do something... which will mean he can save Minnie...

Oh who cares about the plot! The point is that this game contains running, jumping, bouncing on enemies to kill them and is set in a bright and colourful world - but still it doesn't feel like a rip off of any of the usual suspects - it is its own thing, and that is great.

It's also hard. Proper hard. There's a reason that something being "8-bit hard" is a phrase...

(Wait, is that a phrase? *Googles it* OK, it turns out it isn't a phrase. Ignore that sentence!)

It's amazing that this game was designed for children - because most children would give up on the first level! But instead of being like a lot of modern games, it always keeps you coming back for more. After my hour or so of play, I had completed two zones (including defeating two awkward bosses) and I would quite happily have carried on, were it not a ridiculous time at night!

The bad things about this game? There aren't a lot. The music is pretty damn repetitive, and very occasionally the collision detection can seem a touch unfair, but I'm really just nitpicking at this point. All of you who enjoy platformers, you should play this game. It's so good that not only am I likely to go back and play more, but I am seriously tempted to buy the Mega Drive version (as it has different levels etc) and then the sequels!

I can't get over how good it is. Everyone had told me that it was a great game, but I wasn't expecting it to be this good!

And you can all play (a version of) it now - it's recently been remade and released for current gen consoles (PS3, Xbox) - and while it's not an exact remake, it seems to have been enjoyed by many. Or you could head over to Warez and buy yourself a master system / mega drive and get a copy yourself!

Rating; 9/10
Time played: 1 hour 10 minutes
Would I play it again? Try to stop me!

Next time, it's yet another return for the infamous blue blur...