The Great Playthrough: Game 68 - Choplifter

Choplifter
Released on: Apple II, Atari 5200/7800, Colecovision, Commodore 64, MSX, NES, Master System and many more
Played on: Sega Master System
Release date: 1985

After my venture into popular modern gaming last blog, I'm back to some traditional retro goodness here, and I do believe this is the first Master System game I've reviewed...

*Checks back over the list*

Oops, I was wrong! I totally forgot about Castle of Illusion!

Anyway, it feels like ages since I've played on the Master System, so I was looking forward to this - although, it has to be said, I was unsure about Choplifter. I got it recently when I bought a few games from a flash sale the wonderful Vintage Gamer had on Facebook - and I bought five games from them - four of which I really wanted, but Choplifter was kind of an impulse buy.

I remember playing a version of this game many MANY years ago when I was young and we had a BBC Micro (back in the days when you could just rip off other games and no-one really cared) and I remember enjoying it then, but I've been disappointed before with 80s arcade games when I try them out in the modern day.

So I fired up the Master System, took the pad, pressed the start button and.... spent five minutes trying to figure out how to turn the helicopter around!

But once I'd figured that out, I set out on my mission to shoot down planes, collect stranded soliders and get them back to base. And after getting over the fact that the game is quite hard (which is the normal state of affairs with older arcade conversions) I really got into it, and enjoyed my time with it.

It does have it's negative points (just like any game) - the sound design is pretty non-existent and very repetitive, and while I do enjoy a challenge, the difficulty level did mean that I didn't even make it past the first stage. The graphics suffer occasionally from trying to fit too much on screen at once, although it is a remarkably good job - whoever programmed this conversion really knew what they were doing!

In regards to the difficulty level, although it was hard, the game never felt unfair. In comparison to games I've spoken about recently, it felt more like Ghouls'N'Ghosts than Super Star Wars - death was common, but never malicious or unavoidable. Instead, thanks to the good game design, I felt like I was getting somewhere slightly further or learning something new every time I tried the level.

And I know this is going to sound strange, but the thing that affected me most about the game, and really reeled me in, was this innocent little box in the top-right corner:

That's right, the box shows you how many men are DEAD - whether by your chopper being shot down, or by them being shelled while you were ferrying their friends back to base, or (and this is the embarassing part) by you accidentally LANDING THE CHOPPER ON THEM AND KILLING THEM!

OH THE HUMANITY!!!!!

I may be mocking it slightly, but this ticking clock of death really made me worry about the people I was trying to save! And it kept me going back, over and over again.....

In short, it's a fun arcade game that will entertain you for a short time - is it a game designed for constant hours of play? No, but if you've got a spare half-hour, you could do a lot worse than to slot it into your system and enjoy the retro fun

Rating - 7.5/10
Time Played - 45 Minutes
Would I play it again? Definitely!

The Great Playthrough - Bonus Round: Uncharted 2 and Heavy Rain

It's time for a break in the normal playthrough for another Bonus Round! This time it's a discussion about two popular modern games that were lent to me by the ever lovely Andy Isaacs. So let me begin:

Uncharted 2: Amongst Thieves
Released on: PS3
Played on: PS3
Release date: 2009

Heavy Rain
Released on: PS3
Played on: PS3
Release date: 2010

When I started to play these two, I actually began with Heavy Rain - but I'm going to talk about Uncharted 2 first. This may appear to make absolutely no sense to you at the moment, but bear with me, and hopefully by the end you'll realise why.

These are both PS3 exclusive games, and for ages I didn't have a PS3, as we had an Xbox 360. Just to clarify, I'm not a Microsoft lover or a Sony hater or anything like that - it's just that the vast majority of games that came out for that generation were multi-platform (certainly the ones I wanted to play) - and therefore we picked an Xbox 360 because we got a better deal on one.

Also, the controller is better. There, I said it!

But I finally got a PS3 recently, so it's time to start looking at what I missed...

So, Uncharted 2: Amongst Thieves. The Uncharted series is one of the most popular series' of the current generation...

Oh wait. The PS3 is a LAST generation console now, isn't it? It's officially old news.... well there's going to be an Uncharted for the PS4, so the game series is still current, right?

*Watches Tumbleweed roll past as I realise I'm the only person who cares about the definition. Smiles and carries on*

Uncharted is one of those games that is described as "Action-Adventure" which is brilliantly non-specific. However, in my experience of games, it is quite like Batman: Arkham Asylum with extra guns. Or Resident Evil 5 with fewer zombies. Or...

You get the idea. It's like most current popular games that aren't a first person shooter. You take control of Nathan Drake - an Indiana Jones-wannabe with less scruples than Dr Jones but the same awful taste in sidekicks who you know will betray you - and you run around, jump, solve puzzles, sneak and get into gunfights in pursuit of a treasure of some kind.

Make sense? Good. Because that's about all I can tell you about the plot! The game starts with you injured and climbing up a train that is half-off a cliff in some snowy mountains, and then slowly but surely you see some flashbacks before jumping back in time four months for the second level.

Most importantly, however, it's fun. Lots of fun. Don't get me wrong, I'm not the best at modern games, so I found it quite hard going, but it's forgiving and if you die, you just automatically restart at the start of the section you were doing, which is great for me.

However, this had something in common with my previous blog - there are cutscenes galore. Lots of cutscenes in which vital parts of the plot are stated... but it turns out, I just stop listening. And that's the problem you get with cutscenes - if I don't know or care about the characters, then I just stop listening - and I found myself doing that more with Uncharted 2 than with Kingdom Hearts 2.

Maybe it's different for those people who played Uncharted (the original) - maybe you are more invested in the characters we see - but for me this highlights the problem with starting mid-adventure and telling your story non-linearly - you need to make sure the audience care, and it just doesn't quite pull it off for me here.

Discussion of cut-scenes leads us neatly to Heavy Rain - a game that is almost entirely made of cutscenes and quicktime events.

*Sees you all getting up to leave*

No wait! It's not like that! It's not a bad game. Although I'm not entirely sure game is the right word...

For those of you who don't know, Heavy Rain is an interactive drama that feels more like a film than a game. The graphics are gorgeous, and the plot is intriguing (if really rather depressing). You play as four different characters and it's all tied into a serial killer known as the origami killer...

"What the hell is an interactive drama?" I hear you all ask

It's a game that is more interested in telling it's story than giving you lots of gaming mechanics to master, and that should be one of my worst nightmares. But it isn't. The big selling point is that what you do early in the game affects the results of the story later in the game and that sort of thing is hugely intriguing for me.

As a game, it's really quite clunky. The controls for moving the characters are the modern-day equivalent of Resident Evil's notorious "tank" controls, and the "action-packed" sequences that involve quick button pushes would be fine, if my brain would remember which button was where on a playstation controller!

So to sum it up, I don't know why I enjoy Heavy Rain, but I do, quite a lot. It's not a game, but it is interactive entertainment, and I don't know how better to describe it than that.

Unfortunately my experiences with both of these games has been affected by the nightmare that is a Playstation 3.

Now I know many of you out there have a PS3 and use it as a primary gaming console, and I've got no problem with that. In fact, when I got mine I was excited. And then I discovered how often it downloads updates, then installs stuff, and then crashes and demolishes it's file system! It seems to be more sensitive than ... *searches desperately for a metaphor, before failing* - basically it's just ridiculously sensitive.

I've had to recover the hard drive three times in a month since I got the PS3, and I've now taken to backing up my save data on a memory stick every time I play. Sadly, I didn't do this for Heavy Rain, so I've played the opening twice, and then lost the save file both times... which means I am much less excited about playing it again to see where it goes!!

Uncharted 2: Amongst Thieves

Rating: 7/10
Time played: 1 hour 10 minutes
Would I play it again? Yes, I think I will . The story may be dodgy, but the gameplay is very solid.

Heavy Rain

Rating: 7/10
Time played: 1 hour 30 minutes (roughly)
Would I play it again? Yes, if I can stomach playing the opening for a THIRD time (Damn you PS3!)

Next time - We're going back to the 80s and to the 8-bit era....

The Great Playthrough: Game 67 - Kingdom Hearts 2

Wow, it's been about two months since I last did one of these! Sorry about that - it's not that playing games has lessened in the Braunton household, it's just that my computer broke and it's taken me a long time to get back to this blog.

But I'm here now! And this next game is a member of a very popular franchise...

 
Kingdom Hearts 2
Released on: PS2
Played on: PS2
Release date: 2005 

Kingdom Hearts is one of my darling wife's favourite computer game franchises of all time, and this sequel stands up as one of the best (or so I am told).

(Before we go any further, if you are a fan of my darling wife (and who isn't), you might like to know she's started a new gaming blog HERE)

Now I was slightly wary going into it, as I have seen her play it before, and it does look like a lot of fun, but it's also an RPG, and I've discussed many times my problems / worries with those.

Having said that, this is an action RPG, so at least battles are in real time, not the strange turn-based antics that a lot of RPG's utilise that I cannot get on with at all.

The game starts with a ridiculously long cutscene, which I am told basically tells the (very condensed) story of the plot up to this point, with no dialogue, set entirely to music. I had to be told that this was the story of what had previously happened, as I wouldn't have had a clue otherwise! This is not a newbie-friendly opening...

And then, the game finally starts and I am playing as a new character. One who didn't appear in ANY of that previous cutscene! Nice one Square Enix, thanks for confusing me even further.

At the start of this game you play as Roxas, a guy who looks suspiciously similar to Sora - the protaganist of Kingdom Hearts (the original) - and as the mythology of these games introduces lots of different versions of the same people (Real People, Nobodies, Heartless... hell for all I know, everyone has a pink and blue dinosaur version of themselves in the Kingdom Hearts-verse!) it is a bit of a foregone conclusion that... SPOILER ALERT!

Roxas will turn out to be Sora, and then you will begin the quest proper.

However, I only know this from conversations with my wife, as I didn't get that far. This opening section (which apparently acts as some kind of prologue) took me over an hour and I still didn't even complete it!

But that's enough complaining about the somewhat confusing nature of the plot. What's the actual game like?

You know what, dear reader? I enjoyed it.

Don't get me wrong, it's not perfect, as it has flaws - slightly wonky camerawork, an over-reliance on repetitive tasks (although that may just be this early section) and due to the non-linearity (which I know is supposed to be an advantage in games like this) - if you don't walk into the right area to trigger a cutscene, you can be running around for ages with no clue what to do next...

However, it has a very good control system, the graphics are pretty nice for a PS2 game, and most importantly of all, I was having fun - and it's rare that I say that about an RPG! Mind you, with this and A Link to the Past, maybe I'm going to have to re-evalute whether I enjoy RPGs, it seems like I'm starting to enjoy them more and more...

The only other flaws in this game come about due to the rules of this playthrough, rather than the game itself. After playing for just over an hour, I felt like I had achieved absolutely nothing, and had absolutely no idea what was going on.... plus it felt like I'd spent an inordinate percentage of my time watching cutscenes.

But I'll play it again (although, on the basis that I'm sure we'll buy the HD re-release for PS3, I may continue it on that), because, as I said earlier, I had fun playing it - I just want to get past this stupid opening sequence and get into the meat of it with the Disney worlds etc!

Rating: 7/10 
Time played: 1 hour 5 Minutes
Would I play it again: I already said that I would! Jeez, stop picking on me! 

So, from now on, I intend to (try and) get these blogs much more regular again. Spread the love people, send the readers back to me, and I shall make sure you get new blogs on a regular basis (I'm halfway through another one already!)

Next time, we'll have a bit of a different blog - why not come back and see?

The Great Playthrough - Game 66: Super Star Wars

It's a bit fuzzy I know... no not the photo - my hair!

 
Super Star Wars
Released on: SNES
Played on: SNES  
Release date: 1992

You may have noticed that there is a lot of Star Wars love in our house. The fact that I have already reviewed three Star Wars licensed games on this playthrough so far (The Force Unleashed, Racer Revenge, and The Clone Wars) should give you this idea, but this is the first game I've played that is based on the original trilogy and not the prequels / part of the expanded universe.

So by the laws of Star Wars, that should mean it is better, right?

Well.... no.

Don't get me wrong, it's a fun romp. And as it's on my favourite console, of course I am biased to like it's well drawn graphics and wonderful 16-Bit interpretations of John Williams' expressive score. And it's a lot of fun once you load it up.

But it is hard - this is the era that the phrase "Nintendo-Hard" comes from, and boy is it applicable here.

Super Star Wars is a run-and-gun platformer. In the first level, you control Luke as he traverses the desert trying to find the escape pod that he has seen crashing to Tatooine...

.. Wait. That didn't happen in the film....

There are a few liberties taken with the plot (although none as large as some other licensed games have done in the past) which on the whole, I didn't mind, as it just streamlines the plot down to making sense (and getting to the bits that make good video-game levels).

The levels are long and full of enemies that keep re-spawning until you leave that part of the screen, there are no mid points, no save points, if you die you go back to the beginning of the LONG level, and you start again. So that's one are of annoyance.

A second annoyance is that because the enemies respawn more randomly than an Rand() command on Excel, you can't PLAN your way through a level. And since Luke has only ever heard of aiming in 8 directions, and the desert floor isn't flat, so you go up and down little tiny hills, it can be a nightmare to actually hit the enemies that are approaching until they are almost on top of you!

And then, once you get to the end of the level, you have to fight the Sarlaac pit monster (which looks more like a sandworm from Dune and ALSO doesn't belong in a game based on the first movie) which is a ridiculously hard boss for a first level!

It may sound like I'm moaning, and I am. I really wanted to love this game and the mechanics are sound. In many ways it is similar to Ghosts n' Goblins and you all know how much I loved that game. But that rewarded you for progress, and as you could learn the layouts (and it has mid points in the levels) you always felt like you were moving forward, even if it was inch by inch. Whereas Super Star Wars just gets frustrating. After losing all my lives and continues once, I finally managed to defeat the boss at the end of level one, at which point I got onto the landspeeder level - which is easier, once you figure out what the controls are and what the hell you are trying to achieve...

And then I got to level three - where you are trying to climb up a sandcrawler. With pixel perfect jumping, respawning enemies, and no mid-level save points... and I died again.

I'm not proud of it, but that was the point that I gave up. I love a game with a challenge, but Super Star Wars just felt like it was unfairly difficult, and I wasn't getting anywhere further no matter how many times I practiced the levels, because there's just a little too much randomness in the respawning of enemies etc to plan your route.

And unfortunately for me, the difficulty was the deal breaker. I'm sure that later levels depicting some of the more exciting events of the film will be fun to play, but it felt like I would NEVER get there, and the slightly bland level design of the levels I already played didn't help...  

So I popped it out of the SNES and back on the shelf.

Sorry Star Wars - I tried, but I failed. The force was clearly not strong enough with me.

Rating: 6/10
Time played: 45-50 minutes
Would I play it again? I might do, but I suspect I still won't get past level three!

The Great Playthrough - Game 65: Fantastic Dizzy

Fantastic Dizzy
Released on: Mega Drive, NES, Master System, Amiga, Game Gear, PC, CD32
Played on: Mega Drive
Release date: 1991

Have you ever tried to navigate your way through a complicated one-way system, while wearing a blindfold, some Slipknot playing at 130db in one ear and a parrot reciting the contents of a Delia Smith cookbook backwards?


Well neither have I (as that would be silly), but that's what playing Fantastic Dizzy feels like.

Now that's not to say that it's a bad experience - in fact, I enjoyed the game quite a lot, but it has a certain feel that you don't get from modern games. An overwhelming feel.

For those of you who don't know, Dizzy is an Egg (with arms, legs and a hat - just because) who lives in the Yolkfolk Kingdom (there are a lot of egg puns in the game!) and ostensibly it is a platform game in which you explore various areas of the world in an attempt to find all 250 stars, get to the evil wizard's castle and confront him! But it's slightly different to most modern platformers in the sense that although there are enemies that damage you, there is no way to eliminate them.

Instead, avoidance is the name of the game, which is actually quote a refreshing change of pace! Don't get me wrong, I love traditional platformers - I've gone on about that enough for you guys to know that by now - but having to avoid enemies instead of defeat them gives the game a completely different feel.

So if you don't have to kill enemies, what do you do?

Well, you have to traverse far and wide, locating all the stars so that you can get to the final confrontation. And a lot of this you do by solving puzzles - puzzles in the traditional adventure game mould - using an item with a situation to solve the problem.

For example, very early on, you find a plank of wood. You then find a gap you cannot possibly get across. You use the plank of wood and.. voila! It becomes a bridge.

Now, if someone were making this game in this day and age, you would be able to carry everything you picked up, and then just cycle through them all when you hit a puzzle, but Dizzy isn't that simple. You can only ever carry three things at once. So if you find something, and then put it down, you have to remember where you put it down so you can get back to it if you find the puzzle that requires that item as a solution!

And theis is where the overwhelming feel of the game starts to come into it. The game world is pretty large, with levels that scroll horizontally but are flip-screens vertically, and it can get very easy to forget where things are, where you left items, and where you have and haven't been. Add to this the slightly obtuse nature of some of the puzzle solutions, and before long you have been completely sucked into a world where your entire raison d'etre is "I know I had that, where the hell did I put it down!" Just to make things even harder, it is often possible to put items down behind trees... so you won't even be able to see them...

To make matters worse, you have two lives to start with, and Dizzy takes damage quicker than Mo Farrah runs a race (I know that's an unconventionally sporty metaphor for me - I had the TV on and I've just seen the advert where kids can win an Ultimate Sports Day, and every time I see it I think "I wouldn't like that as a kid, cos surely Mo Farrah's gonna win everything??) so you have to be very careful when exploring - as (unless you get them later in the game) you don't get any continues either, so once you have lost your lives, it's back to the start. Mostly this is OK (there's quite a lot of fruit around to boost his health back up) but there are a couple of slightly unfair situations where you lose a life straightaway with one slightly wrong motion - jumping across the waterfall is one, and the minecart minigame.

"Minecart Minigame?" I hear you say, "Well that sounds fun!" It sort of is - it's a vertically scrolling minigame where you are controlling whether Dizzy's minecart goes left or right at junctions - and it's a neat idea. However, it is implemented very slowly - it feels a bit like a video game version of that bit in Austin Powers where the henchman gets run over by the steamroller? It just doesn't quite get the adrenaline racing...

I know I've listed some negative points there, but I don't want you to think I didn't enjoy the game - I absolutely did! However, if I was going to play it again, I'd be sitting down with a pad of paper and pen, and lots of time to spare, and mapping my progress as I go through!

Graphically, it's lovely. When I was much younger I played a couple of Dizzy games on 8-bit home computers (Commodore 64, Spectrum etc) and even to this day it amazes me how much nicer the Mega Drive version looks. I've spoken about my love of 16-Bit Graphics before, and these really appeal to me. The music, on the other hand, is fun, but VERY repetitive - not so annoying for you, the player, but if there's anyone else in the room, they may want to break the speakers after a while!

On the whole, it was a fun experience, but it's very much an all or nothing game - I'd want to play it to complete it, not just for a half-hour play or anything...

Rating: 7/10
Time played: 1 hour 10 minutes
Would I play it again? Yes - but only with a lot of time to spare!

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!