Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.... Welcome to the first installment of the Kirby series! Today we will be taking a look back at the first Kirby game ever made, Kirby's Dream Land. I know back in 2013 I did a review blog on this game, but that was a couple years ago and my opinions on the game may have changed.
Unlike most of Nintendo's big icons (Mario, Link, Samus, etc.), Kirby got his start on the Game Boy and not on the NES. This explains why on the box art for the game Kirby was not his classic pink color we all know and love today. Simply put, the game boy had no color and the creators were unsure as to which color Kirby should be so he simply remained white.
The game itself was developed by HAL Laboratory and was released on April 27th, 1992. Compared to the Kirby games of today, this game can be summed up as foundation for the rest of the series. The characters, the style, and basically everything else in the series was built upon the foundation of Kirby's Dream Land. As you read on I'm sure you'll understand exactly what I mean with that. The difficulty of the game is by no means hard and the length of the game is by no means long. In fact I've beaten Kirby's Dream Land in just over 15 minutes. Yes, it's that short once you get the hang of it which should not take long to do.
In this game you play as Kirby and there are a few things the little white fluff ball can do. His main way of attacking is by sucking up enemies and spitting them back out at other enemies.
Unlike in modern Kirby games, Kirby did not have the ability to copy his enemies powers so the only thing that he could do is simply digest them or spit them back out. Kirby's signature floating ability also debuted in this game. If a player wanted to, he or she could simply soar over the entire level, potentially without ever having to run into an enemy.
That is about is as far as Kirby's abilities go. As I said before, this was really the ground work for things to come at a later time. There are a few powerups in this game that Kirby can make use of.
Anyone who has played Super Smash Bros. Brawl is probably familiar with the Superspicy Curry. Well that item debuted in this game and granted Kirby the ability to shoot fire balls for a limited amount of time. Other notable items include the invincibility lollipop, the max tomato, and the microphone (which would later become a copy ability).
Many of the series most popular bosses debuted in the original game including the game's main antagonist, King Dedede.
Two other often repeating bosses include Whispy Woods and Kracko along with a slew of basic enemies that will be seen time and time again throughout the series.
So with the groundwork lain for an epic game series to rise how did this one really fare? Graphically the game is actually pretty good for the original game boy. Honestly I did not have any problems with them at all. On occasion the game got a tick laggy if too many Waddle Doos were shooting at once or there was just a lot going on on screen. I ran into this on Stage 4 in particular. The soundtrack is also one that lays the foundation for the rest of the series. That being said, the soundtrack is very catchy, upbeat, and in a word... Fun. This game is really ideal for anyone who's got 15-20 minutes to kill and is looking for a fun time. Alternatively, this game is a fantastic game for young or beginner gamers as again, the difficulty is by no means high.
Looking back on Kirby's Dream Land I'd still give it a 7.5 out of 10. It has a ton of nostalgia to it now and the game remains fun to play. It is a nice relaxing change of pace from all the high paced games that are flying all over the place now. There is a extra mode after you beat the game that offers a bit more of a challenge to seasoned players as you start with half health and the enemies are generally stronger. However, the game lacks any kind of a save function that would allow you to try and beat your high score making the scoring system kind of pointless unless you were writing it down. Still though, a very fun game with more ups than downs and plenty of cuteness to go around.
Final Verdict: 7.5 out of 10. If you are a Kirby fan and have not played the original, you gotta try it!
Hello again everyone. I guess you could say I'm slowly trying to make up for some lost time here as I look at another game in the span of what? One week or so? Anyway. Today I'll be looking at a racing game that I personally do not think gets nearly enough attention, Stunt Race FX for the Super Nintendo. On a personal level, Stunt Race came into my life right around the same time that Super Mario Kart did, probably within a month of each other. Honestly for me it was a big toss up as to which game I liked more. Overall I think Super Mario Kart is the better game, but I found Stunt Race to be, and still do find it to be more of a challenge.Both are great games, but today I'm going to focus on Stunt Race FX as not nearly as many people are familiar with that game. Super Mario Kart I'll look at another time for sure though. So here we go!
Stunt Race FX is a racing game produced by Nintendo released in October of 1994. It was the second game for the Super Nintendo to use the 3-D FX chip, which obviously was a big selling point. Unlike Super Mario Kart, the game features no weapons and an arcade racing feel. By that I mean when you are racing there is a timer and you will pass through checkpoints to get more time just like in arcade racing games such as Cruisin USA. There are 5 cars in which you can control in this game. I'll go over each of them as they all do function quite differently from one another. As you play this game you will have to be careful as your car can take damage from long falls, crashing into other cars, hitting walls, and other hazards that can be found on the tracks. For now though I'll look at the vehicles and get back to the tracks later.
I'll go through these vehicles in order from my favorite to least favorite. I enjoy all of the vehicles in the game honestly, but as with any other racing game I do have my favorite.
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F-Type is a formula 1 car that as you can see has slow acceleration, a weak frame so he takes a lot of damage, and a game high max speed of 140mph. His turning is also heavily dependent on the player. Taking turns to fast will slam you into a wall or other hazard so you'll either need to drift or play around with the brake to find the right speed to quickly get through the corners. I forgot to mention earlier that you can take damage in a couple forms. You can slowly take damage from brushing along things or landing a little awkward from a jump. When you take heavy damage your car will literally blow up and pull itself back together. When that happens you do lose a good chunk of time and well.... You can guess what kind of damage F-Type takes more often... So yeah. My favorite car goes to the hardest to drive... F-Type!
Coupe is from what people tell me, most people's least favorite car. Personally I enjoy him a lot. He is literally the middle ground of all the cars. Medium body strength, acceleration, and a top speed that sits right in the middle of everything. He handles well... medium as well... Really it's a nice and relaxing car to play... Just a pain to hold off a hard charging F-Type in later levels.
2WD is the unlockable car... bike.... thing... I mean it's a two wheeler with a windshield... I dunno... Anyway. 2WD matches F-Type in speed, has the same strength as Coupe, and the same acceleration of 4WD. He's literally a mix of all the other cars and has the handling of a car trying to stop on black ice going 140mph. Needless to say 2WD is all over the place most of the time, but he is very very fun to play as simply because of that. As I mentioned, 2WD is the unlockable character and can be unlocked by beating SPEED TRAX on Master. (More on that later).
4WD is a monster truck that has the toughest frame, the fastest acceleration, and the truck's top speed is the slowest of the racers at 100mph. His handling is so so as players will want to be making sharp turns with this truck. Despite that being the case, it will hardly ever spin out which is a huge challenge for F-Type and 2WD players. 4WD is considered the beginner vehicle of the game as well as the best vehicle to use in Stunt Mode. That is largely thanks to his very tough frame. It is also the only vehicle that can be used in Test Run.
There is one other vehicle that does not see any racing action. Rather it has it's own bonus stage.
Yes that is an 18 wheeler that is loading Coupe. In this bonus stage you'll drive the massive truck that is so big it has it's own special camera through markers in an effort to add time and get extra lives. As you might expect, driving Trailer is not the easiest as it's back end does not really want to go with the front end. Truck drivers will get a hang of him very quick, but for people like me that wouldn't know how to turn an 18 wheeler, it is a very difficult truck to handle.
So that is the little cast of characters in this game. I mentioned a couple game modes that I'll quickly hit now. In Stunt Trax you take your vehicle onto a stunt track. As you go through the course you will want to hit as many star balloons as possible to get the highest score possible. There is an unlockable course that is a demolition derby in which you are a part of a demolition derby... Poor F-Type on that level...
Speed Trax is the main game mode. There are novice level tracks and expert level tracks for players to try and conquer. Similar to Super Mario Kart you will be given a set of lives. Failing to finish a race due to running out of time or having your car destroyed or coming in last place will cost you a life. Run out of lives and it's game over. There are a few fun little things to keep an eye out for in addition to racing such as posters of Mario, Kirby, and Star Fox. You can also find an Arwing from the Star Fox series in the game. On a certain level it will fly just in front of you and drop off repair and boost boxes. In another level the Starfox Team will fly in front of you in an airshow formation. Kinda cool!
Battle Trax is for 1 on 1 racing between computers, humans, or a human and a computer. The tracks in Battle Trax are not regular tracks from Speed Trax. Instead there are 4 different tracks.
Test Run is designed for beginners to the game to get a hang of how to play while playing as the game's beginner vehicle, 4WD.
Free Trax is basically Time Trials. You can choose any level that you have completed and practice on it. This is also where you will first meet 2WD until you unlock him for use in the other modes.
Overall the tracks I found to be easy or tough. The grouping of the tracks into Novice and Expert tracks is certainly a good call as the expert tracks do tend to be quite difficult and the Novice tracks are easier, something that can't be said for all racing games, especially today.
There are a lot of people give this game flak for it's graphics. Much like Starfox, the game makes use of polygons, squares, etc quite a bit. While the Arwing (see above picture) my look like a bunch of flying triangles, the vehicles in this game actually manage to look like they are supposed to.
Sure sometimes it becomes difficult to see things and watching box shaped animals run across the track may look ugly, but the tracks themselves seem to maintain themselves very well despite some having some pretty big twists and turns. I mean trying to get a completely underwater scene in this game using the FX chip was probably not the easiest thing to do, but to me they did a decent job with it.
While certainly not on the level of other racing games for the SNES, I did not find the graphics in Stunt Race FX to be a big issue. The soundtrack is nothing special. There are a few catchy tunes that may get stuck in your head for a few minutes, but they are far from as memorable as Super Mario Kart's or even F-Zero's for that matter. This is probably my favorite song out of them all.
Overall I still find Stunt Race FX to be a very well put together game that showed off what the FX chip could do. While the lasting appeal of this game may not be as strong as Super Mario Kart, I would rank this game in the top 3 of racers on the Super Nintendo. The other two being F-Zero and Super Mario Kart. This game kind of reminds me of a cross between the crazy racing of the Mario Kart games and a standard racing game. Again, there are no items to use to defeat your rivals, so your driving skill alone will be what wins you the race or loses you it. There won't be any last second red shells to secure or cost a win which is kind of a nice change of pace. On a scale of 1-10 I'd give Stunt Race FX a solid 8.5 out of 10. The upsides of the game I have gone on about and the negatives are few and far between. The reason I can't give this game any higher than an 8.5 is it's graphics, a camera that will sometimes be as wacky as the racing (usually when wrecking), the inability to play the Speed Trax courses in multiplayer, and a soundtrack that is pretty mediocre in my opinion. The big ups are the different game modes, the way the vehicles are designed and handle, the tracks themselves, the overall presentation of the game, and the way the game makes use of it's blocky graphic.
Final verdict: 8.5 out of 10. Really a great game that doesn't have the vest visuals, but is really just a blast to play!
Hey everyone. Today I'll be looking at the NES game that is based loosely on the Sci-Fi thriller, "Jaws".
As you can clearly see from the box art, this game meant serious business. You've got the classic movie poster like title and image with a quote of no escape. Despite the name, the game ties in more with the fourth movie "Jaws the Revenge" than it does the original...So.... that's a thing... The game was released on the Nintendo Entertainment System back in 1987 by Ljn.
Ok so where do I begin with this game. Honestly I love sharks so when I saw that there was a Jaws game on the NES, I had to play it. After beating it I kinda stared at the TV screen with a look of confusion and disappointment as the game just seemed so... I dunno... groundhog day like? Allow me to explain. In the game you start off on your boat looking for the monster shark, Jaws.
As you sail your ship around you'll collide with seemingly nothing on the map a bunch of times triggering a diver to jump in the water. At this point the game will change to a side view and you'll have to kill off things such as small sharks and jellyfish. Crabs, shells, and stars act as upgrades and currency that you can use at two ports to power up your ship against Jaws.
Eventually as you aimlessly sail around you'll see a fin sticking out of the water which will as you probably have guessed be Jaws. The battle against Jaws is nothing overly challenging. You'll fight him in the water first and then you'll be shifted to a first person view of your ship where you'll have to time 3 strobe blasts (which was honestly the hardest thing in the game to do) to finish him off. So that's the basis of the game. Sounds exciting right? Well not so much on the NES.
The music that goes along with this game, outside of the title screen music, bears no similarity to the music in the movies. In fact the title screen is the only real reference to the music in the movies. The little side view game when you jump into the water is fun at first, but personally it got boring pretty quick. The game can be as short or long as you'd like. I've seen it beaten in under 10 minutes. Really, outside of the little diving game and actually hunting Jaws himself there is nothing to do. Sadly no multiplayer exists in this game, but there is a fun minigame you can play if you kill enough small sharks. You'll actually be able to use a plane that looks like the plane in Jurassic Park and bomb jellyfish cause why not?!
I really can't think of anything positive to say about this game. I was saddened when I played it after being so hyped about it at a young age and now I am annoyed that I even wasted the 15 minutes it took me to beat it again. I'd be generous to give this game anything more than a 1 out of 5, and I am! I'm going to give this game a 2 largely thanks to the jellyfish bombing mini game, the fact that you can end the nightmare of the game quickly, and the underwater side view game handles pretty nicely.... which is a plus considering the rest of the game... Perhaps I'll rethink this...
Final Verdict: 1 out of 5
Stick to Jaws Unleashed for Playstation 2 or Jaws Revenge on mobile devices.
Hey everyone! tonight I am going to be starting a series of blogs that will be focused on one series of games. I'll be blogging about each game in the series, reviewing some and just talking about others. Depending on how this goes, I may opt to do more of these in the future. The guinea pig series for this will be a series that I hold near and dear, the Kirby series. This is a series that I have had a ton of fun with and if my personal collection of Kirby games is not enough evidence of that... I don't know what is...
For those of you who have never played a Kirby game before I'll break down the majority of them for you. You play as Kirby, a little pink bottomless pit. As Kirby you will eat enemies, blocks, food items, etc etc etc and use them to your advantage. Kirby's biggest claim to fame is his ability to copy enemy abilities. For instance, if you eat and swallow a sword wielding enemy, you will gain a sword. If you don't want a certain ability you can always ditch the ability and go with simply spitting the enemy back out and into other enemies. The rest of the plots for the games I'll dive into in the game's individual blogs.
Despite this being a retro gaming blog, I will be doing the games that came out on the Gamecube, Wii, and DS. I will not be doing the new 3DS or Wii U games as I have not played them so I cannot give an honest opinion on them. The image may be a little bit hard to see but the games that I will cover include in no particular order...
Kirby's Adventure (NES)
Kirby's Dream Land (Game Boy)
Kirby's Dream Land 2 (Game Boy)
Kirby's Dream Land 3 (SNES)
Kirby's Pinball Land (Game Boy)
Kirby's Star Stacker (Game Boy)
Kirby's Tilt N' Tumble (Game Boy Color)
Kirby's Block Ball (Game Boy)
Kirby Airide (GCN)
Kirby's Return to Dreamland (Wii)
Kirby64: The Crystal Shards (N64)
Kirby's Epic Yarn (Wii)
Kirby Canvas Curse (DS)
Kirby Squeak Squad (DS)
Kirby's Dream Course (SNES)
Kirby's Avalanche (SNES)
Kirby Mass Attack (DS)
Kirby Superstar (SNES)
Kirby Superstar Ultra (DS)
Kirby Nightmare in Dreamland (Game Boy Advance)
Kirby and the Amazing Mirror (Game Boy Advance)
So you can see that there are quite a few games to get through. I have no timeline as to when these blogs will be coming out, but they will begin very very soon. They will not take over the blog however as there are many other games that I would like to discuss as well as top 10/20/whatever lists to make and so much more to be done that simply doing every Kirby game in a row is not going to happen. After the final Kirby Series blog has been posted I will try to compile them all into one page on this blog. For now though I hope you enjoy the Kirby Series!
Hey everyone. It's been a while since my last post and to say that it's because my life became completely crazy is an understatement. I changed positions at work, more recently got engaged, and have had just a ton of other things going on. With all that being said I have been able to get some gaming in and a lot of it has been quite enjoyable. The most recent game that I have completed for like the 50th time is the game I'll be reviewing tonight, Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest. I'm going to be changing up the way I do reviews too. I feel like the way I was doing it was too vanilla I guess if that makes sense? I'll also be working on an actual layout for the blog as I've just had an image of Majora's Mask there for forever...So that's the little update here. I'll be doing more blogs in the near future, but for now let's take a look at Donkey Kong Country 2!
Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest is the sequel to Rare's Donkey Kong Country and was released in 1995 on the Super Nintendo. In 2004 a port of the game came out on the Game Boy Advance in 2004. The plot of the game was quite simple. Donkey Kong (the hero of the 1st game) is kidnapped by Kaptain K. Rool (King K. Rool). It is up to Diddy Kong (the sidekick of the 1st game) to try and save Donkey Kong. Joining Diddy in his quest is his girlfriend Dixie Kong (no relation?). The two set off on an epic journey with help from other members of the Kong Crew. Funky Kong returns from the first game in the same capacity, an airline service that allows players to travel between stages. Cranky Kong (the original Donkey Kong from the 1981 arcade game) makes a return in the same fashion as he did in Donkey Kong Country. That being an old advice giving ape. Wrinkly Kong, Cranky's wife, assists the young Kongs by both giving hints and saving the game. Swanky Kong debuts as a sideshow bonus trivia level where players can potentially gain coins, extra lives, and bananas.
On your quest you'll encounter these characters as well as animal friends! These friends include Rambi the Rhino (returns from Donkey Kong Country), Enguarde the Swordfish (returning friend), Squawks the Parrot (returns, but can now shoot nuts!), Rattly the Rattlesnake, and Squitter the Spider. All of these animal buddies have different abilities that will help the Kongs reach new heights, bust open bonus rooms, or pick off normally difficult enemies. In some cases the Kongs will actually transform into the animal friend, in others, they will ride the animals. Note: There are 2 other animal friend, Glimmer the Angler Fish is one. He appears in only one level and provides light for the Kongs. Unlike other animals the Kongs do not ride or become him. Clapper the Sea Lion is the other. He appears in two levels and will either cool or freeze water depending on the level when the Kongs jump on him. He is a stationary buddy so he never leaves his spot.
The number of collectibles has increased since the first game. There is now a currency system in place. These banana coins can be used at Cranky's, Wrinkly's, Swanky's, and Funky's.
Also new are the DK coins that appear in each of the levels. There are 40 of these coins to collect (68 on the Game Boy Advance.
Lastly, there are 75 Kremkoins (bonus coins) that can be found throughout the levels. The only exception to this is in the Lost World where bonus levels will award DK Coins instead of Kremkoins.
So there is a good amount of new stuff to collect in this game that was not present in the first game. Returning collectibles include extra life balloons, the K O N G letters, and bananas, There is a couple new barrels that appear in this game. One is a barrel with a ! on it.
This barrel with cause the Kongs to become invincible for a short period of time. There are new animal buddy barrels, and barrels with either Dixie or Diddy's face on them. Those barrels can only be entered by the Kong that matches the face.
One of the largest changes between this game and first is the addition of Dixie Kong. Diddy Kong remains basically the same as he was in the first game. Dixie uses her hair like a whip and can twirl it like a helicopter to decrease her falling speed and cover long distances. You can get through a lot of tough spots in the game with this technique. Also new is a team attack where the Kong's will actually hop on the each others shoulders and use each other as a throwable weapon!
Finally with all of that out of the way lets look at the world and the game itself now that most of the new features are out of the way!
The world in Donkey Kong Country 2 is, in my opinion, incredible! I wont go into too much detail, but you'll be exploring pirate ships, lava lakes, swamps, bee hives, a carnival, haunted woods,mines, a castle, and more. Each world has their own maps of levels as well. The end of each world has a boss. None of them are really that difficult at all, but that was something that I felt in the first game as well.
Graphically speaking the game is beautiful.Given the year this game came out, the graphics really push what was the norm of the day to new heights.
The picture on the left is from Donkey Kong Country 2, the right from Donkey Kong Country. Notice the background of the DKC2. It looks like there are actually layers. You can see the blue sky and clouds which pass you by, then the bramble in front of it, and then the bramble you are trying to avoid. Yes, the original graphics are also good, but the improvements made for the second game are easy to see!
The crisp gameplay from the first game returns. After playing this game again and again and again, I can say that I've never had an issue related to the gameplay, the responsiveness of the character, or anything else for that matter. The only thing that feels kind of awkward is Rattly's super jump. It feels slow to charge and sometimes I think it's charged up but it's actually not. Other than that though I have literally zero complaints.
One of the best things about this game is the music. Every single bit of music in the game is I feel, amazing. You'll hear each of the songs a few times, but the levels are all so different that say a mining level with the same music will feel completely different, making the music fresh in the process. I'll leave a few videos of the music to give you guys a little taste of what I'm talking about here.
This is the Stickerbush Symphony that plays during the bramble levels. One of my favorite tracks in the game.
This is the Mine Theme (actually name is escaping me at the moment), another one of the great tracks in the game.
Overall I love this game. I really do. It has so much good going for it and in my opinion this is one of the top games that Rare ever made and one of the best games on the Super Nintendo. If you are looking for a challenging side scrolling experience with a good number of collectibles and hidden things to find, pick this game up. It is only for the Super Nintendo, but can currently also be purchased on the Wii U's virtual console. If I had to rate this game on a scale of 10 I'd have to give it a 10. I can't think of really anything wrong with this game. Some people say there isn't enough story, but I don't think there needs to be. The objective is clear and that's what matters. The two player co-op mode is another thing that some people will criticize the game for. No two players do not play at the same time, but back in 1995, how many games like this did 2 people play at the same time? Not Super Mario World, not any of the other Donkey Kong Country games. Nope I can't think of any that did it or at least did it well. The bottom line is this game is virtually flawless and will and should be remembered as one of the SNES and Rare's greatest achievements!
