Shinobi - Arcade

Not a very good ninja if we can see him.

In what has become a slightly less iconic character for Sega these days, Shinobi was, at the time, a popular arcade platformer with the lovely little ability to play with multiple levels within an area while getting to relive the fantasy days when ninjas were cool and mysterious little things that children wished to aspire to before that lovely little hammer of REALISATION comes slamming down and informs you that ninjas are covert assassins and generally underhanded in their approach to their missions.

Kill peoples, save kids, rather noble really. But, Rocket Launcher???

However, what we have here is a simple, but smart, platform game from the late 80s that takes the idea of the ninja from childhoods and has them gallivanting off around the world to stop some prick from achieving some nefarious goal of similar. Joe Musashi takes it upon himself to travel the world and stop the evildoers from kidnapping children and also stopping world domination/destruction across 5 levels and multiple stages within each level.

I screwed up the special level... And taking this screenshot.

Joe Mysushi has a selection of talents within Shinobi. The ability to jump from the ground to higher platforms and back again, unlimited shurikens (not always prevalent in future games in the franchise), a special one-off move that kills everything on screen or damages bosses fairly heavily, and if he rescues the right kids he'll receive an upgrade to his attacks in the form of a large POW sign that gives him rockets instead of shurikens (What stealth was involved here again?). Sadly, Joe sushiboy is a one-hit wonder and any slight impact from any enemy's weapons will result in his death, though he can bump into some enemies and knock them about a bit. But the general rule in Shinobi is that you're a fragile little thing and getting taken out can be done sooner rather than later and often while being presented with nigh-ridiculous situations and circumstances.

There's a boss? Use the special for a few extra hits on it.

The levels within the game are fairly linear at the start, with the usual progression from left to right being considered the normal approach, but it's about half-way through the second level's second stage that the approach differs and you'll find yourself scanning back and forth through the level while seeking a way and means to ascend to the top while fighting off gunners, sword masters, ninjas and finding more kidnapped kiddies. It's at this point that a new approach to the way one plays the game needs to be developed (and quickly) so that the player can progress without coming up against the key issues of dying repeatedly. Checkpoints are a rarity in the level design and as such the happenstance of seeing the end and dying while it's in sight, becomes a little too regular to be fun.

Even if the boss is an attack chopper.

The audio within Shinobi is fairly lacklustre, the music takes a back foot for the mediocre plinks and plonks of an attempt to sound like some oriental mishmash fusion but is so weak that it comes across as poor ambience at best while the grunts, hits and impacts of shurikens upon metal are far more crisp and more pronounced, curiously it does sound like Joe Sugarboy has been recorded and digitised for his speech (read: grunts when getting hit or bounced about), which makes a welcome change to some of the characters from the 80s making the generic beepy boop noises.

A dossier of the mission... Or, just turn up and kill everyone.

Overall it's a solid little game that has a sharp incline in difficulty that spikes periodically just to try and catch people off guard and to encourage credits from pockets, there's an added frustration factor in Shinobi in that pumping in more credits will still leave you with no progression through the level as you don't pick up from where you left off within the game. Meaning you'll actually require some skill to beat it rather than paying your way through the game from start to finish. Ah the old days where you needed to be good at a game, I miss those.

Wonderboy in Monsterland - Arcade

Don't you just love when resolutions don't quite work

The original Wonderboy was a rather interesting little platformer that took the Mario approach, slapped in some graphics and sped up the fluidity of the gameplay. This outing of Wonderboy however has taken the adventure approach from platforming and put a lot more emphasis on combat, a pseudo RPG element to the game and thrown in a little exploration with it too.

Kill Dragon, Restore Peace. Nothing about political balance or economies.

You start off as Dicky McNoRealSignificance and before you can say "First Screen Away" you're talking to a fortune teller that lets you know that you're the last hope for the world and must go kill a dragon, and with that, gives you a sword and sends you on your merry way. What you're not told is that you'll have to fight, kill and find a hell of a lot of gold if you want to stand a ghost of a chance at getting anywhere NEAR that goal. As well as finding secret bosses, swords, weapons and everything else in between.

THE FIRST BOSS, is DEATH. (Yes I cheated and no I don't care)

Combat and movement in Wonderboy in Monsterland is very simple. Joystick for the movement, one button to attack, the other button jumps. Blocking is done automatically with a shield as long as you're not attacking and if you've got yourself a shield, while magic is cast by pressing down on the joystick. This does become problematic later in the game when enemies are dropping spells and there's ladders to navigate downwards, by pressing DOWN ON THE JOYSTICK... Anyone seeing this as a problem just yet?

Oooh, secret hidden door leading to more bosses.

Wonderboy in Monsterland, treats us to a rather jovial set of music, uplifting and jaunty as it bounces along with a slightly casual set of tunes with a light spring in their step. There's little sense of atmosphere beyond the entire game being treated as a kid's adventure and it fits in well with the graphics and setting.

"Take my large flute and blow on it... Gently..." -this is why I don't go adventuring any more.

Graphically in Wonderboy in Monsterland, everything is nice, friendly and rather cute. Even Death (your first boss), looks nice and cute for a skeleton wearing a robe and holding a scythe. Everything from snakes and yetis, to knights, demons and the last boss, the dragon, looks like a cheerful reject from some Saturday Morning show. The background and foreground are brightly coloured, clear and crisply presented while the design of the levels suffers a little in the later parts when having to jump and navigate up and down screen and the scrolling isn't enough to get through.

All healed up.

 

That said, Wonderboy in Monsterland, starts innocently enough with fairly linear levels and the unknowing behind each door that it could be a shop, a hidden trader for health and such (though in towns they'll be clearly marked) or a boss you weren't prepared to fight. That said, there's the hidden doors that are initially announced and unless you realise what the game is telling you, you have to press up to enter the door or walk past blissfully unaware that you're missing the chance to get more powerful swords and key items that will either solve the final dungeon or make Dragon very easy to defeat.

For what? A "?" and a "?" and that's all I get?

As for the final dungeon, the ramping difficulty for that last level is vertical to the point of coming back on itself as the maze is incredibly long, doesn't make it abundantly clear when you're going the right way or the wrong way at times (unless you have the bell) and is flooded with previous bosses, leaving you to the final battle against Dragon with likely far less hearts than you should have and few spells left. Though if you've the maximum armour, weapons and such, it shouldn't be a challenge. But with a strict timer throughout that drains lives, respawning enemies that stop dropping items after the 2nd or 3rd kill, you NEED to keep on the move or McNoRealSignificance will be gaining his wings sooner than expected and awaiting more cash/credits from the player.

Bad Dudes vs Dragonninja (NES)

This game is definitely BAD enough to waste your time and grammar.

Are you a Bad enough Dude to play this game? Don't bother. However, I should be fair. The arcade game is a decent enough platform-ish romp, enjoyable to a point where it becomes more tedious than fun. THIS game, for the NES is diabolical by itself and atrocious in comparison. Granted I am taking into account that there's a significant scale-down from arcade to console, but if Bubble Bobble can do it, as well as Ramparts as reviewed earlier by myself, there's no reason THIS should be so downright unplayable.

Generic tittymen.

You've the nice graphics, which is signalling a big rip-apart coming up if I'm jumping straight to the graphics and the best I can say is "nice", but there's some strong presence of trying to replicate the arcade's graphics though perhaps that is where this game has fallen down, the attempt is so strong that there's little effort been put into realising that it's going to slow everything down.

Sadly, this is possibly the best part of this port of the game.

Controlling the game is a chore, your Bad Dude (With strong emphasis on the word "bad" to mean "SHITE") moves in chunky, blocky and almost in grid-like fashion, ninjas in all their off-colour glory run about in blocky movements and there's no fluidity behind anything regarding characters and motion. To add to this, there are significantly less enemies on screen to prevent sprite flicker but to compensate for this, some ninjas have multiple hit-points which does change the game mechanics A LITTLE, and note I said 'change' not 'improve'.

So painful, to even look at it, it's just... so "bad". In the bad way.

Combat is almost as hit and miss as Battleships, you've got to have some quick reflexes to be able to hit something that moves the way these ninjas do and also to be able to accurately time the difference between jump then attack, jump and attack, and finally, jump andattackalmoststraightaway, to get the spinning kick move that will basically let you trawl through the levels very quickly and not have to fight anything while you speed it towards the boss on the short levels. The auto scrolling levels do not give you this shortcut, you're in it for the very long boring haul.

Thank god that's over.... what? There's MORE LEVELS?!? Shoot me now.

The music is an assorted mess of squeaks and poorly processed notation with a possibly memorable instance of one bit of music that sadly, is so distorted, that it ends up sounding slightly better than it would do normally, so it's not really as a result of planning or composition but blind luck. Makes me wonder if it's Deaf-Luck when vision is not an issue... Never mind. The sound effects are barely existent but the most risible of all is the end of the boss fight when the pitiful attempt to copy the arcade's sounds of "I'm Bad" come out sounding like the most guttural grunt from the most base Neanderthal in existence. Or the final satisfying grunt from a constipated gorilla, I've yet to decide.

Sadly, I've not been decapitated by the awesome pose of the boss, it's just sprite flicker.

Granted, the game has the same variety of moves found in the arcade, you can jump, jump kick, spinning-jump kick, punch, kick, crouch, grab weapons, use weapons and so on but there's no polish and shine to the delivery, it's a very stale and clunky method of control beset with the issues of there being a shade of a game behind the original. The original wasn't that great either, but this could have been better.

Another boss, another step closer to ending this. Or I could switch it off.

This version, isn't worth playing through to get a burger with the president. He can rot for this one.

Nemesis (GB)

Looks ominous, but Easter Island head??? Konami you've some explaining to do

More Gameboy reviews and this time it's a lovely little quaint side scrolling spaceship shooter called Nemesis. Sadly that's not the Nemesis from Resident Evil punching his hand-dick through idiots faces. Nor a righteous designation of retribution or punishment, personified by a "roight 'orrible khant, me", though the wonderfully lyrical stylings of BrickTop would be amusing anyway. Perhaps if we can do it to the trackline of Darth Vader... No it's been done already.

I... should have paused before taking this image.

Nemesis, is part of the Gradius series though released on the gameboy rather than in Arcades and on the NES. Retitled for some reason and made all the redundant when re-released later with the other game's title instead. Makes you wonder what the point of it was really. However while it's here, I'm reviewing it and despite a few flaws it's a good game overall. There are problems as usual with games but then nobody has made the perfect game and this isn't it because it lacks an ability to nuke-slam people from orbit. What we do have is a side-scrolling game with variable items to collect and use as powerups.

KONAMI!!!!!!!!!!

The distinct difference that Nemesis has over games like R-Type is that you choose your power up. Speed, missiles, double shots, lasers, extra ships (options) and Force Fields are all collected by simple power up objects and you select which one you want when you want. The problem with that is you're restricted to having to collect 6 items to get a shield that lasts 3 hits or one BIG object that may or may not kill you outright anyway. If you're continuing from a checkpoint there may not even BE enough objects to get the shield. You also cannot have double AND laser at the same time.

Kinda defeats the point really...

Given the lack of available colour, the detail and such for the levels is astounding for what was possible and what was achieved. Sometimes the enemies get a little difficult to differentiate between each other, the projectiles they're firing and the background/foreground, while it does seem that nearly every effort has been made to try and keep these objects and items separate and discernable enough for the player to recognise as enemies or things that need to be avoided.

Missiles, Double, Speed, but I need more, MUCH more POWAH!

The music is upbeat enough that it becomes memorable and while not entirely in fitting with the theme and style of the game (one boss music in particular is very out of nowhere and makes it sound far more dangerous and sinister than one might expect from a side-scrolling shoot em up. Else the usual beeps and plinks of the gunfire, laser fire, explosions and power ups are clear enough to know which is which (the fact they're being played when you do key things anyway is often the biggest giveaway at that point) and it all goes hand in hand together for the game.

Shields are out, boss just arrived, it's go time!

The controls are fairly solid, one button to fire and one to use your power ups and the well recognised D-Pad for movement. However you'd be advised to NOT sit at the back of the screen (i.e. the left edge) as you'll likely be smashed apart by enemies approaching from the rear and you'll have no indication of it happening until you actually explode, lose all your power ups and have to restart from a checkpoint. Quite the unfair instance of gaming there and it will happen more and more often as you progress through the game towards the final boss. (A blob with 2 guns... bit anticlimactic there. Imagine the CyberDemon turning up in Doom2 with a fucking water pistol and you're on my wavelength now for disappointment).

Even in the future, Margaret Thatcher haunts us.

Sometimes in games like this you'll encounter things like Easter Island heads (It IS Konami after all) and it makes no sense. It doesn't here either but at least the graphics artists made it look like it fits in well enough to have them hurl large hoops the size of your ship. Likewise with other levels, everything fits within that level and the fluidity of the scenery is impressive all the same. Each level also has a sub-boss of sorts (which in some cases is HARDER than the actual boss, but oh well) and it all makes for a good sized challenge with a decent level of replay value. Well worth playing at least once all the way through.

The Konami code works here too, I should add. But just once...