An experiential and analytical look at the medium of video games in a particular order. Currently there is "Capcom A to Z," a look at the games of Capcom in alphabetical order, and "Super FamiComplete" a look at all of the games of the SNES/Super Famicom in chronological order.
Title: "Jumbo no Ozaki Hole in One" (JP) Hal's Hole in One Golf (US)
Release Date: 2/23/91 (JP)/8/13/91 (US)
Developer: Hal
Publisher: Hal
Here we are folks, the first game for the SNES/Super Famicom for 1991. Looking at the dates, it had been two months since a SNES game was released. Many games were still being developed for the original Famicom at the time, and the Super Famicom was still a fairly new system. It was no surprise, therefore, that it wasn't until February that a new game was released (January is, historically, a slow month for video games and movies)
Background
This is also the first of many sports games for the Super Famicom/SNES (in fact, we will have another golf game within the next ten games for the Super Famicom), and this one, at least in Japan, sports the visage of Japan's famous golfer, Masashi "Jumbo" Ozaki.
This game was actually the latest in a long series of "Jumbo" Ozaki games, the previous one being Jumbo no Ozaki Hole in One Professional for the original Famicom in 1988. So who is "Jumbo" Ozaki? Well he was a famous golfer in Japan known for his relatively large size and stance off the tee, standing at only 5'11" but weighing 200 lbs. Apparently he started as a professional baseball player, but moved to the Japanese professional golf circuit in 1970. Since that he has become wildly popular in Japan, and still plays in the Japanese league today.
Priceless
In the US, where "Jumbo" Ozaki is sadly not a celebrity, this game is known as Hal's Hole in One Golf. Hal is a company that has incredibly close ties with Nintendo. They are the developers of the Kirby series, the original Smash Bros. for the N64, and the Earthbound/Mother series as well. They often co-develop games for Nintendo, and they even used to be housed in one of Nintendo's office buildings before they secured their own headquarters. Their logo is pretty recognizable, because it is a dog nursing eggs in a bird's nest (!?!).
Story
It's a sports game. This isn't Mario Golf or Golf Story; just a golf simulator (you silly billy).
Gameplay
Players can choose from either a straight stroke play, playing against another player (up to four), playing against the computer, or entering the "Hal" tournament.
Really, though, each of these modes play out the same way. Each match consists of 18 holes, and the goal, like any golf game, is to try to complete as many holes under par as you can.
One thing that is interesting about this game is that it is played completely from a top-down perspective, once again using Mode 7 to rotate the course and move the ball alongside it.
Playing the game from this position really changes the gameplay, but it does make some aspects of the game more challenging. For one, it is tough to tell how slanted a piece of terrain can be, especially in bunkers. This means you will aim some shots, feel like your ball landed correctly, and it will just start rolling down a hill you didn't know was there. A lot of reviewers, at the time, praised the game for this top-down perspective, but I don't really care for it. It is hard to see, on the main screen, where you will be hitting your ball and how far it will really carry down the field. Maybe I just suck at the game, but my ball was always going into hazards and bunkers.
The game also assumes that you will really know your stuff, such as your "wood" clubs hitting a farther distance than irons, but not gaining as much in elevation. This means that if you hit anywhere near a tree with a wood, it will most likely just smack against a tree and stop dead. In fact, the game sticks to the "rules" of golf almost too well, as it is impossible (like actually programmed to be impossible) to drive or chip out of a bunker without using a Pitch or Sand wedge. Kind of annoying.
But overall the gameplay is pretty fun. It is quick and easy to pick up, and the game remains challenging but entertaining. My one last gripe is that when your avatar swings the club, the "meter" for the backswing and the follow-through moves way to quickly. It especially makes finessing the ball very difficult, with putting in particular.
The presentation is quite well done, with decent visuals and some nifty effects (especially when the ball gets close to the hole). I really like how when the game goes for a birdie or eagle putt, the music shuts off completely, as if the crowd was hushing for an intense putt.
How about that classic golf game music?
Golf games, around these generations of video games, had some surprisingly good music. This game is no exception. I am including the entire OST so you can see for yourself.
Ads and Commercial
I found a single, solitary advertisement.
But I also found this amazing commercial.
Priceless.
Final Verdict
In the end it is a dirt cheap game to find (it only costs about $5 with shipping), and I would recommend it for the retro sports game fans.
Our game this time, SD: The Great Battle, has two distinct pleasures: it is the first game on our list to be a Japanese exclusive title, and the last game released for the Super Famicom in 1990.
Background
This game, by Banpresto (no surprise if you haven't heard of them; they developed only a few series that made it to the US, such as Pocky & Rocky and the Super Robot Wars series), is a part of the Compati Hero series. This is a cross-over series from three well known (at least in Japan) properties: Ultraman, the Gundam series, and the Kamen Rider, though sometimes other licensed heroes would make appearances as well. The Compati Hero series is actually a very large series in Japan; there were three games before this in the main series for the Famicom, and then there were four more sequels for the Super Famicom after this game. This doesn't even count all the games that came out for other platforms, or their spin-off games, such as Compati HeroSports or Compati Hero RPG.
The "SD" in the title stands for "slightly deformed," since, as you can see above, each of the heroes and villains are shorter, more cartoony versions of their normal selves. They have been "chibi"-i-fied. Each of the main heroes, in their own right, have a huge following in Japan, and are the protagonists of their own brand of tokakatsu ("special effects" shows, like Power Rangers) films or shows (such as the Kamen Rider or Ultraman) or anime shows (such as Gundam).
Here's a quick intro for each of the playable characters...
This mamma-jamma is Ultraman. Ultraman was the "star" of his own television series, Ultraman (a spinoff of the show Ultra Q) where he defended Tokyo from the giant monsters and aliens that sought to destroy it. Ultraman is actually a human member of the Science Patrol, a branch of the UN whose job it is to investigate aliens and giant monsters. Whenever the world is threatened he uses a magical artifact in order to increase his size and grant himself the powers of telekinesis and the ability to use the "Ultra Ray" and "Ultra Slash." These last two abilities, in particular, are worth mentioning as they are the two attacks that Ultraman can use in the game.
The second playable character is the above gentleman, the Kamen (or Masked) Rider. He, as well, came from another popular Japanese television and manga series. He is supposed to be the product of cruel experiments by his mortal enemies, the terrorist group known as the Shocker, which resulted in him becoming a mutant cyborg.
The final character is the main Gundam mech suit from the Mobile Suit Gundam series. If you haven't seen this wildly popular series, it is a space opera anime series which focuses on a war for independence between the Earth Federation of planets and colonies and a principality known as Zeon. What makes this war interesting, though, is that it is fought between giant mech armors instead of just spaceships...Awesome. It became a wildly popular show in Japan, and certainly revolutionized the genre of "mech" anime. It is a pretty fantastic show and worth the time to check out.
Story
Of course, we have kind of forgotten to talk about the game itself. While the source material for these games each have pretty rich stories themselves, the story of this game is rather simple. The main villain is Dark Brain, an evil cloaked cyborg (he has a human brain) who has invaded the lands of the heroes with his army of minions, and is starting to perform cruel experiments on the people of the land.
In fact, one of these experiments whom you rescue becomes one of the playable characters in the next installment, Great Battle II.
Gameplay
SD: The Great Battle is a top-down platformer with a psuedo-run-n-gun feel to it (if you remember or have played Pocky & Rocky then you know exactly what I am talking about). The goal is to make it through the level, platforming and shooting enemies, while defeating the certain mini-bosses to make it all the way to the end boss of the stage. There are platforms to jump on and from, sometimes a lot of enemies on the screen at once, and some environmental hazards in each level, but overall the game is simple gameplay-wise.
One of the nice features of the game is that you are not locked into any of the characters that you pick, but instead can switch through each of the characters whenever you like by just pressing "R." One of the neater touches of the game is one that I feel is a perk and a detractor. The game has well done music, and the game will play the popular theme of whatever hero you are playing as; the only problem with this is that the only music in each stage (aside from the boss music) is the theme of each character. This gets incredibly repetitive; it's the same problem that Kablooey had, except thankfully Great Battle is much quicker than that one.
Is this game good? Well...its okay. There are seven stages to get through, each with a different aesthetic theme. The concept for each stage seems really cool: the first stage is a series of floating islands overtop a forest (it is actually pretty)...
...and the fourth is this world of crystals thatreminded me of the final dungeon of Final Fantasy IV.
While the idea of each stage is good, the execution of each stage, though, is mediocrely handled. Those floating islands, while pretty and show of the Mode 7 design once again, are just a series of grass platforms. The enemies in each stage just mill about aimlessly, either on the ground or in the air, and will every so often absentmindedly shoot a projectile at you. Most enemies take one or two hits to kill, so they are rarely ever a threat to you as a player.
The platforming in the game is rather abysmal as well. You only can move at one speed, which makes avoiding attacks rather difficult, and your jumps are rather stunted (especially with the Gundam). Every "platforming" part of a level usually consists of jumping onto a moving platform that will take you to the next main "island" of the level, and the jumps to get on to them are sometimes challenging, but in a poor controls kind of way, not in a satisfyingly constructed platforming challenge kind of way. You see, the game builds in invisible borders on the islands so that you can't fall off of them. Smart, but remember most games with platforming usually require you to run right up onto the edge in order to make a jump, and the invisible borders seem to be a bit larger than they should be. So what happens is you will be moving to make a jump, run right into this invisible border, hit the jump button...but your timing did not take into account the invisible wall, and you have already taken your hand off the move button; so your jump only moves you half of what it was supposed to, causing you to fall to your death.
At first it isn't too bad, but in later levels you have to move down narrow platforms, and the invisible borders will actually lock your character into place sometimes, allowing him to get pinned down while enemies are attacking him.
The boss fights are the big highlight of this game though. They are pretty fun, though some are rather simple as far as bosses go. A lot of boss fights boil down to "shoot them as much as possible before they can kill you" but there are some that take a wee bit of strategy.
Overall, though, there is nothing too complex. Pocky and Rocky is a much better example of a game in this genre.
Let's hear some of those tasty Super Famicom jams...
Final Verdict
The game is definitely challenging, but not in a good way. It is a game that shifts variably in its difficulty. You can avoid damage in platforming if you take your time, but sometimes a whole bunch of enemies will swarm you and shoot in random bursts, making it rather difficult to avoid. You only get three lives per continue, and only two continues overall, so you can only afford to make so many mistakes. I will admit, I could only make it to the fifth world before I gamed over, then to the sixth out of seven on my second try, and I just couldn't muster up the interest to try to make a third attempt at it.
So there you have it, the first Japanese exclusive game for the Super Famicom. It is okay, and definitely worth playing once to see it as an oddity (it certainly is that). Personally, I am surprised that Banpresto actually released a game this early for the SNES. I thought they were a company that came along later in the systems history.
Title: Gradius III: Densetsu kara Shinwa he (From Legend to Myth) (JP), Gradius III (US)
Release Date: 12/21/90 (JP), 8/13/91 (US)
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
The Gradius series is often considered one of the most difficult "schmup" series out there. It is not quite up to the bullet-hell levels of the more arcade style shooters (a la Cave shooters like DoDonpachi), but it definitely has old school toughness in spades. Schmups have become an acquired taste for me over the past couple of years. I have started to get into twin stick shooters such as Enter the Gungeon, Ruiner, Pocky & Rocky, and Assault Cactus. I have started to branch into some modern schmups like Jamestown and I got to play the classic Donpachi when I was in Akihabara a few summers back. Before this recent heyday, though, the only shoot-em-up I had ever owned was Earth Defense Force for the SNES, and I found that game challenging but not impossible. I first tried this game for the blog, and I managed to beat the game (granted on Easy) on my third attempt. Was it tough? Yes. Impossible? No. Manageable? Yes.
Story/Background
What is the story of this game? Well you are the pilot of the ship known as the Vic Viper, and you are flying to fight against the Bacterion Empire. And...that's it. Basically you are a one man air force and you are just tearing through the enemy fleet.
The series Gradius is a staple Konami franchise that started in the arcade. This game was the brainchild of Hiroyasu Machiguchi, who worked on this franchise previously, but this was his first game as the director at Konami.
What's Konami you ask? Well Konami is one of those staple video game companies that started a ton of classic franchises (in the same league as Capcom). Konami's claim to fame were series such as Metal Gear, Castlevania, and Silent Hill. Lately, they have caught a ton of shit from gamers due to eschewing many of their "favorite" franchises in favor of developing mobile games and pachinko machines. Some fun wikipedia facts: Konami started as a jukebox manufacturer. Also, the name Konami comes from a portmanteau of the founders of the company: Kagemasa Kozuki, Yoshinobu Nakama, and Tatsuo Miyasako.
Gameplay
The game is structured over ten levels, and the game segues seamlessly from level to level. Each level begins with an "outer space" section that allows you to mow through smaller enemies in order to farm power-ups, then moves onto the main stage itself, and finally ends with a boss fight.
The game is packed: the screen is filled with enemies, obstacles, and swarms of projectiles. What makes this unique from other schmups, and has become the Gradius series special sauce, is that you are able to customize and choose your upgrades that you will use throughout the game. You can customize everything from the path of your ancillary missiles, what pattern your guns and lasers will shoot, the type of shield your ship will use, and in what formation your "options" (secondary pods which replicate your ship's attack patterns) will fly in next to your ship. This was my personal "build" for my play-through, and I found it pretty effective.
Missiles: 2 way back (this way the missiles spread behind you and hit anything coming from behind)
Double: Doesn't matter, never use it.
Laser: Twin Laser (once you have options enabled, this becomes ridiculously powerful)
Option: F Option (it creates a blanket of cover fire)
?: Reduce (makes your hit box much much smaller)
!: Full Barrier (gives you an extra hit)
This customization continues into the game itself: you must collect power-ups from defeated enemies, which will charge up your "weapon meter" one slot per power-up collected.
The meter is right there on the bottom (selected power highlighted in yellow)
Once the power-up is selected, you can activate it by pressing the A button. All activated power-ups will stay on until you die, whereupon you will be forced to start all over again building your ship back up. When starting a game, it usually takes till about half-way through the second level to be completely built up, so the process does take a while. The amount of power-ups you get later in the game do diminish greatly, so it pays to avoid death as much as possible.
In fact this is one of the reasons the game can be so challenging. When you are fully powered-up, you are pretty damn hard to kill. Your ship is fast, you can take two hits, and you are firing projectiles in every direction. If you get killed, though, all this power is taken away, and your base ship is pretty darn worthless. You move very slowly, and you are basically a sitting duck in some of the later stages. One of the last stages of the game actually has you flying through a space station, and the stage itself moves faster than normal, meaning you must dodge the walls just as much as the enemy fire. If you die in this stage, your base speed is so slow that it is impossible to beat the stage. This is actually the stage that stopped my first and second playthrough.
To beat this stage, you have to be almost fully powered-up when it comes to speed, and even then it is incredibly difficult. The best way to beat this stage, consistently, is through memorization.
Now Gradius III purists will not use options (not the menus, but the secondary pods that fly with your ship) when playing the SNES port, or at least try not to, as many feel that using options is kind of like cheating. This isn't because of the extra fire power they provide, but instead because the game's framerate moves to a crawl; the options, when firing at full blast, seem to be too much for the poor little SNES to handle. Now even slowed down this game is very difficult, but for the average gamer, this game would be near impossible without options. I admit, I beat this game using options, but I don't think I could have otherwise. Here are some clips that will show the difference in speed.
Quite a bit of difference in speed and difficulty, wouldn't you say?
The bosses in this game are pretty fantastic, in that they are both challenging yet fun. There is definitely a high-science fiction/bio-organic feel to the enemies in the game (I mean the bad guys are called the Bacterions). Look at this plant boss towards the middle of the game; it is terrifyingly huge and creepy in its design.
It's got baby hands...
There is even an old fashioned boss rush before the final level, though the bosses in this level are all completely new; it is just one new boss after the other!
My one criticism is that the last boss is kind of a joke. He definitely looks imposing (and definitely freaky)...
Yet all he does is shoot those three blue orbs at you which trail slowly across the screen...they don't even follow you. Really he just grunts at you, pukes out those orbs, and then dies after a short bit. It is kind of pathetic for such a tough game. The level before him is certainly tricky; it has walls that must be destroyed but regrow at random while you are traveling through them, yet this boss is a lackluster ending to not only a tough level, but a tough game.
What about them tasty licks?
The music in the game is fantastic, and definitely sets the mood for a high space adventure. As well the sound effects are dead on, and the pew-pew of lasers and the explosion of space-ships have never been more satisfying. Here are some of those quality SNES jams.
Ads, Art, and Commercials
Sadly there is no Paul Rudd in this commercial. It is pretty straight forward.
Final Verdict
In the end, it is certainly a great schmup due to its difficulty and its customizability. As well, it is pretty easy to pick up; just about $10 on Amazon for the loose cart. This one gets a very high recommend.
Release Date: December 21, 1990 (JP), August 23, 1991 (US)
Developer: Nintendo EAD
Publisher: Nintendo
I love Pilotwings. It is another game I return to with some regularity. I love the music, the characters, and the gameplay. This is another one of my favorites from when I started this blog.
Background
One month after the launch of the Super Famicom and we have the third Nintendo developed game. When I first mentioned F-Zero and Super Mario World, I mentioned how there were three games in development by Nintendo EAD for the launch of the Super Famicom, and this is the third and final one.
This was another game developed by Nintendo EAD. While Shigeru Miyamoto oversaw development and produced the game, the director in this case was Tadashi Sugiyama. He is a veteran developer at Nintendo, but seems to often work on the projects that require a lot of technical innovation or radically new gameplay styles. For example, he works on games like Luigi's Mansion, directed the very first Super Mario Kart, directed Zelda II, and even the much maligned Star Fox Zero. In this case, Pilotwings was to be showcased as another tech demo for the Mode 7 features of the Super Famicom. Each of the "simulator" portions of the game shows of the faux-3D capabilities of Mode 7, and it effectively creates the illusion of depth of field, altitude, and flight over a surface (albeit a completely flat planar surface).
The game's first incarnation was as a tech demo known as Dragonfly which was shown at a trade show in 1988. This demo showed the capabilities of Mode 7 by having a dragonfly fly in a similar fashion to what would become the game-play of Pilotwings.
Gameplay
Pilotwings is a simplified flight simulator where the player attends a series of flight schools, known as "Flight Clubs" in the game, in order to reach higher levels of certification. At each school, there are four challenges to play through: a light plane challenge, a rocket pack challenge, a hang glider challenge, and a sky diving challenge.
At each flight school, you have to perform well enough on the challenges to earn enough points overall to earn your certification for that round. With each challenge, you get graded on criteria that determines your point total; for example on the Light Plane challenges, you get graded on the angle of your landing vs. the runway, the speed with which you complete the challenge, if you hit all the rings/targets you were supposed to, and the accuracy overall of your landing in the target zone.
Each school, as well, has a different coach or trainer. One thing I like is that each trainer has a nice bit of personality. Here is the first trainer, Tony...
Here is Tony mad...
Here is Tony elated...
Here is the next Trainer, Shirley...
Here is Shirley mad (not much difference here)...
Here is Shirley elated (she gets the anime eyes)...
Here is the third trainer, Lance (this guy is my favorite; he looks like he just hates his life)...
Here is Lance mad (he is kind of a sarcastic asshole, but then again, he does live on an island in the middle of the ocean)...
Here is Lance elated...
Finally here is the last trainer Big Al (I had high hopes for him but he is just matter of fact about everything).
He really has no difference between his normal and mad face, but his happy face is my favorite.
Those are man tears
It adds a nice bit of personality to a game which is pretty much just a series of mini-games.
After you pass each of the trainer's Flight Clubs, you get selected to participate in a "Secret Mission." Basically the EVIL Organization (that is the actual name, not me emphasizing the word) has kidnapped each of your trainers and are holding them on their secret island base. You have to fly a helicopter, destroy all the surrounding SAM sites with your rockets, land on the enemy base, and then return with your prisoners to the aircraft carrier you took off from. There are two of these missions in the game, and they are very hard to complete, as not only are the SAM site missiles hard to dodge (one hit and you are dead), but also later in the level the SAM sites are hidden in the forests as well. These missions are very challenging to say the least.
After you beat the first helicopter mission, you go back to each trainer for a second round of "Expert" flight school (the main screen also changes as well).
Each trainer will give you much tougher challenges, also with unique weather conditions: Tony now has snow on the ground which obscures your vision, Shirley's runways are now rain-slicked and slippery, Lance has strong winds which push your vehicles all over the place, and Big Al runs his lessons at night now, forcing the player to use their radar. The second half of the game is pretty tough.
There are also bonus stages available as well, which allow you to rack up extra points after lessons. You can reach these by landing on any of the moving "bonus" pads in your challenges. Granted most of the time if you try for these, you will just land in the water, so the risk really isn't worth failing the challenge. These bonus games are pretty fun, though, and include skydiving as a Penguin in to a pool, or getting to use a Birdman suit.
What about them tasty Super Famicom Licks?
The music in this game is really catchy. I find myself getting these songs stuck in my head. I also put them on all the time when I host Smash Bros. tourneys.
Ads, Commercials, and Art
I could find no ad for Pilotwings in print, but I did find this commercial which featured the game. This was the commercial for the SNES holiday launch season in 1991. Yes that is Paul Rudd.
Final Verdict
In the end, is it a game worth purchasing? I would say yes. It's a pretty fun game overall. The learning curve is a BIT tricky, as unless you read all the menus, you often won't know what exactly to do in each challenge. It is not a game to just play blind; you really should do your homework first and test out the controls. The end reward is very satisfying though, as the game is certainly challenging, but that feeling of completing the game all the way through and earning that Gold Certification is definitely reward enough.
The controls are pretty great for a 16 bit flight simulator, and you never feel as if failing a challenge is the fault of the game. Some mini-games are definitely more vexing than others, especially the Hang Gliding challenge, which has the toughest to learn controls out of any of the vehicles.
The sound work is very good as well, and it really helps pull you into the game. The sound of the wind rushing past you as you sky dive, the screech of the plane scraping against the ground if your plane lands incorrectly, the sound of a hang glider catching wind; all of these are really accurately captured and represented in a 16 bit game. Nintendo really did a great job with the immersion factor on this one.
The graphics, though, are one of the best features of this game. This game, in the end, is like F-Zero in that it is another game meant to show off the design capabilities of the Super Famicom/SNES and its Mode 7 development mode. This entire game, from the opening animation of the Pilotwings logo dashing towards the screen, to every flight game, is all made in Mode 7 (for those who haven't read the first post on F-Zero, Mode 7 is creating a sense of 3-D graphics by allowing the sprite to move independently from the background). At the time, the graphics in this game were revolutionary; I remember playing this game when I first got the Super Nintendo, and I can remember having played nothing like this before then. It captured a feeling of wonder and that feeling of needing to explore the game's world, and in such a modest game too. It is a beautiful game in motion, and it is just a joy to watch.
If nothing else, this is another very important game of much historic value for the SNES. Nintendo went on to remember this important title when it released the N64, as they released a sequel, Pilotwings 64, as a launch title for the system.
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