30-Second Review: Half-Minute Hero
HALF-MINUTE HERO is a PSP game from Marvelous Entertainment that boils jRPG tropes down into easily digestible chunks. Looting and level grinding are still here, they just take seconds instead of hours. It's based on the freeware game 30 Second Hero, and playing that gives you a good idea of what to expect from the game's title mode. When it sticks to the formula of short, self-contained RPGs, it works beautifully.
Unfortunately, the game deviates often, breaking up play into four separate modes. It tries to simplify the RTS, shoot-'em-up and escort styles the same way it does with the RPG, but with varying degrees of success.
Hero finishes off a dark lord.
Each mode has a goal that must be completed in 30 seconds. The hero has to defeat a dark lord. The knight has to make sure nothing distracts the sage while he casts a spell. The evil lord and the princess both have curfews for some silly reason. Each mode ranks you by how fast you're able to complete the level. If your overall rank is high enough for the mode, you unlock a harder enemy in a later mode, sort of like the Weapons in the Final Fantasy series.
Jumpman Review: "New Super Mario Bros. Wii"
I missed Mario. Sure, there's been a great Mario game on each of Nintendo's last three consoles, but it's just not the same when he's in three dimensions. Mario is the one character that I don't want to see punching bad guys in the face. NEW SUPER MARIO BROS. WII gives me the chance to stomp on goombas again.
Not much has changed. Bowser has stolen Princess Peach, again, and Mario will stomp on any residents of the Mushroom Kingdom who get in the way. And if you haven't played a Mario game since SUPER MARIO WORLD was released nearly 20 years ago, don't worry.The title character has a few new costumes, and he's learned how to jump off of walls, but he's still Jumpman at heart.
In addition to the fire flower and super mushroom common to all Super Mario games and the tiny mushroom that showed up in the Mario for Nintendo DS, New Super Mario Bros. Wii introduces an ice flower, a propeller suit and a penguin suit. The ice flower lets Mario freeze most bad guys into blocks of ice. When in the penguin suit, he shoots ice, swims quickly and can slide on his stomach. In the propeller suit, Mario can shoot straight up in the air and float down. Unfortunately, to get Mario to spin, you have to shake the Wii remote up and down, which isn't precise or very natural. It's not going to kill you often, but it is going to happen once or twice.
The propeller suit is handy, but handles poorly.
But aside from that one irksome control scheme, New Super Mario Bros. Wii oozes polish. Most levels are short, tightly designed obstacle courses that can be dashed through at full speed if you have the skill, and confidence, to jump at each right moment.
Three big coins are hidden in each level, and the coins can be traded for movies in Princess Peach's castle in the first kingdom. These movies are worth unlocking. Some of them reveal the big coins you haven't found yet, some of them reveal secret level exits, but the most interesting ones are the super skill videos that show off amazing precision work by people playing the game. The skill videos are fun to watch and give you ideas for how to up your game, which is important for the multiplayer portion of the game.
Players can work together to play through the game in coop mode, they can compete for scores, kills and coins in free for all, or they can compete for coins in coin battle
Luigi controls the lights while everyone else plays the level.
No mode works well well with two players. My roommate and I did little more than send each other to our deaths when we tried to help each other in coop mode. And if one player has more experience with the game, coin battles and free for all are lopsided and frustrating for the other player. A third or fourth player makes each mode more chaotic. That detracts from coop, but evens the playing field during coin battles and free for all because weaker players can conspire to doom the better players (like Luigi, the jerk).
It's a testament to Nintendo's polish that neither single nor multiplayer mode feels tacked on, and it's hard to say which style of play is more enjoyable. Among the multiplayer options, coin battle is the clear winner for me, but my solo playthrough was only broken by sleep and work. If you have access to three friends who want to play the game, use them, but it's not a big deal if you don't. Either way, "New Super Mario Bros. Wii" is an ode to the two-dimensional side-scrolling plumber platformers of the 8- and 16-bit consoles, and I couldn't be happier.
Exploratory Review: "Spelunky"
As a gamer, you're bred to take chances. There's little penalty for throwing yourself off a cliff just to see what's below. After all, what's one death among the extra lives, automatic saves and endless continues that most games throw at you today, or the save states that make death in older games meaningless. Put enough time into most games and you'll see the end. You might have to adjust the difficulty, but you'll get there.
This is not the case for SPELUNKY, a 2D retro platformer by Derek Yu. Spelunky will kill you. Over and over again. And each time you'll start from a new beginning. And you'll love it.
I want the gold.
At the start of each level, Spelunky generates the map and populates it with area-specific monsters. The first set of caves has cavemen, snakes and bats. The jungle area has piranhas and frogs. The ice area has yetis, and the last set of stages is still a mystery to me, but in my two trips there, I've seen giant mummies and los luchadores. If you die or finish the level, you'll never see one like it again.
Deaths are easy to blame on the game. The first time you break a pot and find gold instead of a spider, you'll probably die. If you open a chest and find an active bomb, you'll probably die. It doesn't seem fair -- the game never warns you of danger -- but the next time you're in that situation, you might survive. It's up to you to use what you've learned: Explore further down the caves or take bigger risks.
You can save the damsel or please Kali. Not both.
Spelunky's casual approach to death makes exploration the most rewarding and dangerous aspect of the game. You start the game with four bombs, four rope and a mostly useless whip. The bombs, ropes and other items found or bought throughout the game help you explore each level. It's possible to run straight for each level's exit, but then you'll miss a lot of the weapons, treasures and damsels strewn around the level.
There are progress points that make seeing the later levels a possibility. If you make it to the end of an area, you meet a digger who will make a shortcut for you if you pay enough money, allowing you to start at later areas.
188 plays. 188 deaths. 0 wins.
I've died nearly 200 times so far on this install. That number creeps to around 300 if count the ones I've racked up in previous versions of the game, which came out of beta recently. I still haven't made it to the end. I've only made it to the fourth set of stages twice, and my visits to that area have not been very long. Los luchadores are a lot meaner than cavemen and lava is not very friendly. But I'll trust that in the next hundred deaths, I'll accomplish something.
But Spelunky makes each death important. No mater how much gear you've found, death isn't as devastating as the loss of a high-level Diablo character in hardcore mode; the feeling is closer to a bad drop in a particularly good run in Tetris. I may quit in a huff after an untimely death, but more often I'm up past my bedtime saying "one more run" to myself.
I make bad life decisions. For other people.
Virtual Console Round-Up: March '09 (and a brief look at the best and worst of all months prior)
Call it the TurboGrafx to my face and I'll punch you. Hardcore importers know that NEC's PC Engine is the greatest thing that didn't take off in North America.
One of our planned monthly features on Gameosaurus is a "Virtual Console Round-Up." It's a fairly relevant piece; after all, who doesn't want to pay for games you could have had freely (though illegally) on your computer anytime over the last decade?
Seriously though, there is something satisfying, not to mention ethical, about paying Nintendo a nominal fee to enjoy some of the greatest games from the 8, 16, and 64-bit eras. It's certainly cheaper than trying to hunt down all those old consoles on eBay and rebuilding a solid game collection. All that matters from here is that Nintendo puts all our favorite games on the service so we can freely spend our hard-earned dough on true classics!
This month, two games were released on VC on TurboGrafx-16 (aka the "PC Engine" in Japan). Both games were developed by Hudson, though Konami is the publisher on the latter title, which has never before reached North American gamers.
The first of the two games is BOMBERMAN '94. It had never before been released on TG16 in North America, but a port for the Genesis did reach Americans in 1994. If you remember playing MEGA BOMBERMAN for your Sega Genesis, then you've played this game. It's just the original TurboGrafx version of it, which (prior to now) had not existed in North America. Now personally, I am more prone to enjoying the Super Nintendo game SUPER BOMBERMAN; but until Hudson gets off their butt and puts that on Virtual Console, I suppose I'd be happy to play BOMBERMAN '94. It's all the same lovable, bomb-dropping dudes getting through maze-like environments to save the day.
It doesn't even matter what kind of game it is: you see this poster, you want to play it. And yes, we found this image on Wikipedia.
The other game coming to North America is DETANA!! TWINBEE. Now this particular game is a cutesy, shoujo-anime-style vertical scrolling shoot 'em up (or as I like to call it, "shmup") (REX: You and everybody else) that has seen unprecedented success in Japan, with a variety of ports and remakes in tow. At one point, Europe got this game in a limited release for the TG-16 under the name BELLS & WHISTLES ... so for the one European who stumbled upon our site, maybe you played that game (but chances are you didn't). Anyway, it's an admirable game, particularly because it blends two seemingly-disparate concepts (cute girls and massive destruction) and makes it work like a charm. But in terms of replay value and difficulty, it doesn't hold a candle to GRADIUS, or any of the new import shmups. And, that said, know that we will eventually devote some time to the TOUHOU phenomenon on Gameosaurus.
Other March releases include ALEX KIDD: THE LOST STARS (Sega Master System), OGRE BATTLE: THE MARCH OF THE BLACK QUEEN (SNES), and the extremely underwhelming SUMMER GAMES II for Commodore 64. Among these games, I'd say that the only one worth playing is OGRE BATTLE, and that's only if you like RPGs.
Now, since Gameosaurus hadn't existed from November of 2006 to the very recent past, we don't have a monthly Round-Up of releases for the 28 months we missed. So here's a quick summary of worthwhile Virtual Console content.
Obviously, all oldschool Nintendo fans have plenty to love. Nearly every MARIO and ZELDA game for Nintendo 64 and all prior consoles exist on the VC. Other classics, such as MEGA MAN 2 (NES), the DONKEY KONG COUNTRY series (SNES), SUPER CASTLEVANIA IV (SNES), and SUPER METROID (SNES) can all be found.
RPG fans will be pleased to find such classics as SUPER MARIO RPG: LEGEND OF THE SEVEN STARS (SNES), SECRET OF MANA (SNES), SHINING FORCE I and II (Sega Genesis), and PHANTASY STAR II, III, and IV (Sega Genesis). If you're into fighting games, there are a ton of SNK-developed games on the Neo Geo: FATAL FURY, SAMURAI SHODOWN, ART OF FIGHTING, etc. But beware of the disgustingly bad VIRTUA FIGHTER 2 (Sega Genesis). The 32X-based port of the Sega Saturn title isn't worth a single penny. I have a friend who made the mistake of paying for this one.
In my opinion, the vast majority of notable games are originally SNES titles. And for 800 Wii Points apiece, they're definitely worth the price paid. If you've never played ACTRAISER before, you owe it to yourself to give it a try. And there are plenty of other gems you can find using the VC service. I'm serious.
Play this game. Play it right now.
I'm also serious about this point, however: Nintendo needs to drastically increase the catalog of games available, and reduce prices as much as possible, if they want to effectively fight the "problem" of illegal emulation. Japan has nearly double the amount of Virtual Console titles that we have, and their list is far more interesting, with far more worthwhile games, than what's available in North America. The rate at which games are released on the service, and the reputability of those games, needs to increase in a hurry of the Virtual Console service wants to remain competitive against...um...piracy.