Nuu’s Top 100 Greatest Games of All-Time
#50-41
50| Gunstar Heroes
Released: September 9th, 1993
Definitive Version: Sega Mega Drive; Also on: PC, Virtual Console for Wii U, eShop for 3DS, PSN for PS3, XBLA for Xbox 360, iOS
We have officially reached the latter half of this list. And due to the occasion I’m going to celebrate with a bang. Gunstar Heroes on the Sega Mega Drive is one of the best, if not the best, run and gun shooter of all-time. The origins of the game began when when a group of developers decided to pack up and leave Konami to start their own studio. This was the birth of the well renowned game developer Treasure. Their first game was going to also be a run and gun game, but this time for the Super Nintendo’s rival platform the Sega Mega Drive. However, they wanted the game to differentiate itself from Contra. For starters the game was going to be a lot more bright and cartoony as it would take more influence from Japanese anime more so than dark and serious American cinema. Most of all, the game would be much faster paced and chaotic than Contra to take advantage of the Mega Drive’s extra processing power. The result is one of the system’s finest titles.
The game begins as one, but preferably two, player(s) start the game and select their weapon type. Initially the player(s) have the choice of a rapid fire weapon, a beam weapon that is slightly slower than the rapid fire weapon, a lock-on weapon that automatically hits any enemies but is very slow, and an extremely rapid fire, but limited range flamethrower. Being honest, only the rapid fire and beam weapons are useful in these initial forms. The player(s) can then select from four different stages. Each stage is different, so I’m going to start off by focusing on the first one. The first stage plays much like any other run and gun game at first. The player(s) run to the right side of the screen as enemies and the occasional platforms appear. Suddenly, something about the game becomes quickly obvious. There are a lot of enemies on screen, and when I mean a lot of them I mean A LOT. The game throws as many enemies on the screen as the player(s) can handle, the fact that they explode when “defeated” leaves the screen to be constantly covered in a shade of yellow, orange, and red. As the player(s) walk through the area they will see flying robots dropping orbs that look just like those in the weapon select menu, or with hearts on them that heal your health. When player(s) pick up these familiar orbs they power up their weapon. If they grab a rapid fire orb, their weapon will now fire even more rapidly, if they grab the beam orb than their current weapon will become “beamier”, if they pick up the lock-on orb than their weapon will automatically lock onto enemies, and if they use the flame orb than their weapon will become a charged up flamethrower. If for whatever reason the player doesn’t like this new addition, they can then cancel out one of the two orbs and use the default weapon. It may seem basic today, but it is pretty impressive that the game managed to incorporate all of these actions.
One thing that makes Gunstar Heroes stand out from other run and gun games is the sheer mobility the player(s) have. Not only do the characters run at a reasonable speed, but they are also very nimble, and can jump a considerable distance while being able to damage the enemy by body slamming them. On top of that the player(s) can also throw the enemy to damage them. In a way this gives the game pseudo-combos as the player(s) can technically shoot at the enemy, then body slam them, and finish them off with a throw.
Even as an introduction level, it is very varied. It doesn’t take long before the player(s) come across the first boss of the game, which involves avoiding projectile cocoons from the sky, not long after starting to fight another wave of enemies, there is a large pyramid that need to be climbed. After reaching the peak, another boss fight is under way. When that boss is defeated the player(s) then slide down the pyramid as they dodge enemies and obstacles. After that there is another brief wave of enemies and then a large final boss. After such an exhausting level, it may seem that the game put most of its effort upfront to give players the best impression of the game. The reality is that this is by far and wide the most normal level in the entire game.
Gunstar Heroes biggest criticism is its lack of levels. There only the four initial levels to choose from in the stage select screen and a final boss level once all of the initial stages are completed. What Gunstar Heroes lacks in quantity it makes it up in variety. Besides the introductory stage, the one right next to it is a mine cart level in which the player(s) can ride the tracks both on the bottom and top of the screen as they mow down enemies on carts and trains. Very soon however, they quickly encounter a boss named “Seven Force.” A very ambitious boss, especially for its time, Seven Force is a mechanical robot that transforms into seven different bosses while fighting it. It has a lot of health and takes some time to defeat, especially due to the player(s) having to memorize its patterns. But once it’s defeated it gives off a huge sense of satisfaction.
Next in line, is a very vertical based level. Essentially a blimp is taking off and it is up to the player(s) to reach it in time. They are forced to climb up various platforms to hop on the blimp while taking out enemies. Eventually they will board the blimp and then fight a wave of baddies before encountering the boss. It is a pretty good level, but all in all is the least memorable one in the game. I feel that the developers should have played around more with the vertical aspect of it.
The last stage in the select screen’s order, is probably the most unique one. It begins as a normal stage as the player(s) simply walk to the right side of the screen taking out enemies. After a few minutes they come across a room. A single dice is on the floor and the player(s) have miniature versions of themselves on a square of a board game that says “Start”. At the end of the board is another square that reads “Boss”. This section of the game requires the player(s) to roll the dice as they play a virtual board game to either progress through the board to get closer to the boss, fight a mid-boss, or possibly go all the way back to the beginning. This is, in my opinion, the most difficult level of the game as player(s) may be required to fight multiple bosses before the final boss. Just like Seven Force though, it is very satisfying once completed.
Once all four levels are completed, the player(s) are transported to the final stage. It starts off as a shoot-em-up, this becomes a very common thing for Treasure to do during the ’90s, as the game literally changes genres to play just like horizontal shooter. Once the wave of enemies are defeated, the stage becomes boss rush stage. After beating Seven Force once again, the player(s) enter the enemy’s base. Once there, the place is essentially a boss rush as it is literally half a dozen or so boss battles back to back. Eventually all the bosses are defeated giving the player a well deserved finish to an enjoyable but also tough game.
There is a reason why rather than saying “player” throughout this review I keep saying “player(s)”. It’s because this is game that really requires two players. Sure it is doable with one player, but not only is it much more difficult, but it is nowhere near as fun. It’s not quite as chaotic with a single person, and not having anyone to share your success with or compete against is very detrimental to the overall experience. I’d personally go as far as to say if Gunstar Heroes was a single player only game, it probably wouldn’t have made this list.
Before wrapping up this writeup, one can’t talk about Gunstar Heroes without talking about its technical achievements. The game looks beautiful in motion as it is very bright and colorful. It is easily one of the Mega Drive’s best looking games, and could compete against the Super Nintendo’s higher end graphical games. The game also doesn’t have any sort of slowdown, even amongst its most chaotic moments in two player mode. It is as much as a showcase to the Mega Drive’s graphical capabilities as it is to its processing capabilities. This isn’t to mention the game’s clear and fitting soundtrack. Treasure has always had a knack for pushing their platforms to their limits, and the Gunstar Heroes shows that they hit the ground running.
It’s crazy to think this game was so close to not even being released in West. The only reason it came out of Japan was because a single producer at Sega of America demanded it to after a dozen others stated that they weren’t interested in the game, primarily due to its small sprites. Lucky for him that the game he fought for turned out to be a gaming classic. Gunstar Heroes let Treasure flex their muscles early on, and quickly became one of the defining titles for the Mega Drive. Despite all of the modern technology to produce bullet hell shooters, hundreds of enemies on screen, giant bosses, and what not, there are still very few games that can match the fun and sheer chaos of 1993’s Gunstar Heroes.
49| Fallout: New Vegas
Released: October 19th, 2010
Definitive Version: PC; Also on: Xbox 360, PS3
Fallout 3 sucked. It was a disappointment. Rather than being a deep and compelling WRPG, it was essentially an open world quasi-FPS with RPG elements. It was essentially STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, only not as well designed. Fallout: New Vegas was announced and many were immediately skeptical. Some of that skepticism was lifted when it was revealed that Bethesda wouldn’t be at the helm, but rather Obsidian.Obsidian had a history of developing deep and compelling WRPGs including Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer, and the then hot on the shelves Alpha Protocol. People hoped that Fallout: New Vegas would follow the same path those other games did, in terms of having a game that focused on having a quality role playing experience first and foremost. It did.
Fallout: New Vegas is everything Fallout 3 was supposed to be. For starters it had a 3D open world where the the map was designed less to be a frontier for the player to explore, and more so to have the player encounter various hub towns and areas. In these towns and areas were locals in which many had a handful of quests for the player to complete. These quests weren’t your typical “collect X amount of radioactive goat spleens and I’ll give you a reward”, but often intertwined the player with what was going on in the particular community. These objectives often had players choose sides under specific conflicts and were rarely morally black and white. They would often affect what the player would be able to do later and how the game would be played. Allies and enemies are frequently made due to how the player chooses to align during the various situations that are presented. Fallout: New Vegas truly made the player’s choices matter.
Of course, role playing would only matter so much if one didn’t care about the characters. I will admit, while the characters aren’t the deepest, or even that appealing, they definitely are memorable.Throughout the game one will encounter: a genocidal Roman barbarian group, Elvis, servant robots, cowboys, a supreme being A.I., and many others. The player’s allies are just as unique. I played the game with a cyborg dog and a grandma Supermutant as my companions. Say what you want about Fallout, but it truly branches out of the traditional Tolkien and SciFi trope characters, especially in this entry.
Presentation wise, the game looks just like Fallout 3. Looks can be a bit deceiving though. Despite having the same texture and similar artstyle to the first game, the theme has been altered a bit. Rather than being a 1950s version of the post-apocalyptic future, it instead is an 1850s version of it. Fallout: New Vegas takes the post-apocalyptic vision of the Fallout series, and adds some cowboy flavor. In the first five minutes of the game, it even presents the trope of shooting beer bottles on top of the wooden fence for target practice. This proceeds to set the tone for the rest of the game. The area that is the one exception that doesn’t feel like the 1850s is the city of New Vegas. It is, as one might expect, a 1950s version of Las Vegas. This is complete with the bright lights, casinos, and the tacky decorate. In fact, it is one of the few places in the game that actually looks habitable…somewhat…not really, but still.
Combat in Fallout: New Vegas works just like Fallout 3. This is actually pretty good, as Fallout 3’s combat was enjoyable. The VATS system is back and is more satisfying than ever. The game gives the player a variety of weapons from pistols, to energy guns, to rocket launchers. My only complaints is that while the combat looks flashy, it is fairly shallow. There is a long list of games that just did the quasi-real time battle system far better. To be fair though, the Fallout series always had mediocre combat.
In terms of the story, well I don’t want to give much away, but it does manage to hold the player’s interest. Like many WRPGs, the story begins with the player being near death as they recall being in some heavy shit. They miraculously survive their ordeal, and have inconveniently developed amnesia. They now roam the world as they try to pick up the pieces. Despite being cliche as all hell, the plot gets the job done as it gives the player an excuse to transverse the world and conversate with others. It isn’t the best story out there, but like with most RPGs, the meat is in the journey not the destination.
Fallout: New Vegas is a game that seems to be part of a some sort of parallel universe where Fallout 3 actually did justice to the franchise. It took the Fallout series and expanded and refined it. It was part of a small wave of games in the dawn of the 2010s that were both ambitious and had deep role playing mechanics. With Fallout 4 being released and falling prey to the same potholes Fallout 3 tripped over, fans of the series are hoping for a repeat of when Obsidian would proceed to take the developer’s chair to create their own entry. Only time will tell if this will occur, but at least the studio left fans with a quality game in the series that they could continue to replay.
48| The Legends of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Released: November 23rd, 1998
Definitive Version: Nintendo 3DS; Also on: GC, N64, Virtual Console for Wii and Wii U
Out of all the games I have on this list, this one is likely to be by far the one to get the most complaints in terms of its ranking. In virtually every single “top X games of all-time” lists, one game consistently takes the number one spot. That is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. To be fair, there is a big reason for that. During its release Ocarina of Time was revolutionary. Prior to it full 3D movement games were mostly limited to 3D platformers, in no small part due to Ocarina of Time’s director Shigeru Miyamoto pioneering that genre. “3D games” in general still moved around in a 2D space. Sure games like Resident Evil and Final Fantasy VII seemed impressive, but they relied moving around in two dimensional painted backgrounds. Even when games ditched 2D backgrounds and went full 3D, they were still technically 2D. Metal Gear Solid made a huge buzz when it was released two months before Ocarina of Time, and was essentially Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake with polygonal graphics and a zoomed in camera. Unless it was a racing game, first person shooter, or a platformer, the game wasn’t going to have full 3D movement. Nintendo could have taken the easy way out by essentially having Ocarina of Time follow in these game’s footsteps, but that isn’t the “Nintendo Way.”
Nintendo actually had Ocarina of Time be a full 3D game. The game had full 3D combat, full 3D interactive dungeons and puzzles, and even a full 3D overworld. In fact the only place in the game that wasn’t fully 3D was the main town, as that used painted backgrounds. Usually a developer juggling too much at once leads to an over ambitious project that ends up falling flat on its face. Instead, Ocarina of Time soared to being the most critically acclaimed game of all-time, a title that it still holds to this day. There are primarily two reasons for that. The first is that it solved so many problems with working in 3D that developers just couldn’t figure out. For a modern comparison, think of virtual reality. Try imagining making a game like Zelda with the HTC Vive. The concept of just sword fighting with the enemy is confusing enough. One would having to figure out just how to sync the animation and hitbox correctly with the player’s swinging motions. They would also have to figure out what would happen when the sword clashes with the enemy’s sword or shield. This doesn’t even bring up the matter of depth perception. Keep in mind we haven’t even begun to talk about how the A.I. will even react toward the player. And all this just for a sliver of the Zelda experience! It comes to no surprised that virtually every VR game designed from ground up so far is very simple and essentially a walking simulator. This was where 3D was more or less at during most of the 1990’s, as developers then had the same problems working with 3D as modern developers do with VR today. Ocarina of Time figured all of these problems out, that is one of the reasons why it is so renowned.
Of course, the other reason why the game was so critically acclaimed is because it is so good. To this day, Ocarina of Time is amongst the best games.one can play. Despite laying the ground work for interactive 3D gameplay, it still manages to not feel outdated. This is a very rare thing to see with 3D games of that era that dared to experiment. So it wasn’t just the fact that Ocarina of Time solved the many problems of making an action/adventure title in 3D, but that it did it very well from the get go.
Ocarina of Time is more or less The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, but in full 3D. The game is presented in a behind the back perspective as the player transverses across the world through various towns, forests, plains, and other locations. The game starts the player off in a village where an infamous fairy greets them. It continues the basic formula of a Zelda entry’s opening scene to the first dungeon essentially being a tutorial. The game begins by moving very slowly, as Link explores the town, moves throw mysterious woods, and explores the first dungeon. Once that is complete, the world opens up for our legendary hero. Well, at least somewhat. After leaving the village one goes to the main town. There they will briefly meet the princess and later see her kidnapped. After that, the game opens up where the player explores the overworld to tackle whatever dungeon they want to first. There is plenty of variety as there is a water dungeon, fire dungeon, ghost dungeon, and what have you. Like all Zelda game, the objective is to complete each dungeon to receive a special item and eventually collect the pieces of the tri-force and defeat Ganon.
From the get go, you can tell Nintendo knew what they were doing. Controlling Link is a breeze as he smoothly runs across the screen as he can jump, roll, back flip, and side step. He can also slash and stab his sword and put up his shield with ease. There is also a targeting system in which a reticule stays on to the enemy and black bars cover the top and bottom of the screen like watching a widescreen film. Link locks on to the enemy, as does the camera, making battles easy to focus on and relatively painless to engage in. Combat is admittedly a bit slow, but like Dark Souls, it gives the advantage of the player being able to see what they are doing. The combat is surprisingly refined for the time that it was made, and still to this day holds up well enough. Being honest, I actually find the combat more engaging than almost every Zelda game that came after it. The enemy A.I. reacts very well to what the player is doing, and there is one sub-boss battle that is really impressive to how the A.I. engages in sword fighting, especially for its time.
The heart of a Zelda game is of course its dungeons. Ocarina of Time’s dungeons are very well made. They may not be the best in the series, but they managed to get A Link to the Past’s polished level design perfectly translated to a 3D space. The puzzles are simple enough to understand, but complex enough to have the player really have to think about what they are doing. Puzzles often take multiple stages to complete, and much of the time require transversing through the dungeon and interacting with the general environment. Sometimes, I feel that they were too advanced for their time. The Water Temple is a good example of this. Personally, I found this to be the easiest temple in the game, but at the time of release it was infamous of being so confusing. This was primarily due to the fact that in order to progress in the dungeon, one would have to raise and lower the water levels. This would require exploring and memorizing where all of the main doors are, and having great spacial awareness. These were things that most game player lacked in the early days of 3D gaming. Sure games like Duke Nukem 3D and Doom required exploration, but that was in mostly on a flat map contained to a single floor with limited interaction with the environment. Ocarina of Time took its exploration to multiple floors throughout its dungeons, with the player regularly picking up and stacking items, observing to shoot down objects and enemies, and so on. The level design was very complex for its time, and in some ways shows how many games have gone backwards since its release, as doing such things highlighting a key to pick and up and open a door across the room to solve a “puzzle” is so commonplace now a days.
In terms of presentation, Ocarina of Time certainly gets the job done. In either version you play, the graphics have a nice and clean cartoony style, and the world has a very washed out colored look to it. Admittedly it seem a bit weird at first, but one quickly gets used to it. There is no voice acting, but personally the game doesn’t need it as characters don’t have much to say. The music is also very catchy as people are still humming the tunes almost twenty years after the game was released. The game does have cutscenes but they rare. It isn’t the most cinematic game, and wasn’t even considered as such during its original release, but the game isn’t suppose to be cinematic so it makes sense.
It isn’t difficult to see why The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time ranks so high on so many lists. It is a very well made game that has few weaknesses. Its mechanics and design are timeless, which ensures that the game will enjoyable for generations to come. That said, much like Super Mario Bros., the game has been picked and influenced by almost every game released after it. It is inevitable that games will improve upon aspects of its design almost twenty years after its release. Regardless, the game still holds up very well today and still deserves to be listed among the greats. The fact that it’s on the top half of this list speaks volumes of its quality
47| Banjo Kazooie
Released: June 29th, 1998
Definitive Version: XBLA for Xbox 360; Also on: N64, XBO
Just like its 2D predecessor, after Super Mario 64 there were a lot of games that emulated its design. Games like Gex: Enter the Gecko and Glover clearly took notes from Super Mario 64’s playbook as they featured a hub world, multiple collectibles, and large semi open-ended levels. While these games were good, none of them came close to being as good as Super Mario 64. It turned out that Rareware was creating a 3D platformer of their own. According to trailers and interviews, the game would be much like Super Mario 64. This seems very familiar, as the game that put the studio on the map was heavily influenced by the previous Mario platformer. The difference is however, is that the new game couldn’t rest on unique technology to stand out from the crowd. It would instead be on the same playing field as Miyamoto’s and everyone elses’ efforts. Would Rareware be able to make a hit platformer game on its own merits? This question was answered with the release of Banjo Kazooie. And the answer was a resounding “yes!”
Banjo Kazooie is essentially a Super Mario 64 reskin. It has a hub world the player travels through to enter levels, stages are completed be earning golden items from various objectives, and it offers collectibles to… well collect. The key difference between Banjo Kazooie and Super Mario 64, is that Banjo Kazooie takes Super Mario 64’s formula and adds a shit ton of hot sauce. The game does everything Super Mario 64 does but more of it. Yeah, Banjo Kazooie has a hubworld, but the hubworld is massive. Rather than being a series of interconnected rooms it is more spacious and larger than any level. Yeah, Banjo Kazooie has objectives to complete in each level like Super Mario 64, but rather than having five or six of them, each level has around ten different objectives. Yeah, Banjo Kazooie has collectibles like Super Mario 64, but instead of having just two or three types coins, Banjo Kazooie has even more collectibles…a lot more collectibles…A LOT MORE. The point is Banjo Kazooie took everything good about Super Mario 64 and expanded on it.
The game’s story is fairly simple. Banjo and Kazooie are having a nice day and relaxing, when Banjo’s sister, Tooty, gets kidnapped by the evil witch Gruntilda. Gruntilda, often called “Grunty”, kidnaps Tooty in order to extract her “cuteness” to become beautiful. Seeing that his sister is kidnapped, Banjo teams up with Kazooie to save Tooty. There isn’t really much else to the game’s plot. It certainly isn’t the deepest out there. However, the story does stand out a bit, as it is pretty humorous. The entire game has a tongue and cheek Saturday morning cartoon tone to it. Admittedly the game won’t have you laugh out loud, but it will make you chuckle or at least smile.
Presentation wise, like most Nintendo 64 games, Banjo Kazooie isn’t too cinematic. However, the game has a colorful art style that is very easy on the eyes. I guess it helps that there are no humans featured in the game, so the blocky character models and muddy textures are more forgivable. The title also features a great soundtrack that is amongst Rare’s best. The music goes perfect with the game’s wilderness setting and cartoony vibe.
Gameplay wise, as said before, Banjo Kazooie is essentially a souped up version of Super Mario 64. One thing to note however, is that exploration plays a much bigger part in this game than any other 3D platformer out there. Levels are huge and sprawling with content. Finding out where to go and how to get to it isn’t always obvious. This game was released in a period where either 3D level design either really relied on players to use their heads or where everything was spoonfed to them. Luckily this title falls into the former. It can take quite some exploring in certain levels just to find the next puzzle piece (Banjo Kazooie’s version of gold stars). The maps in the game aren’t flat with occasional platforms about, they are designed with the third dimension in mind as the player will frequently travel vertically and horizontally as they hop across ledges, fly in the sky, or swim underwater. Like most games of its era, it shows in many ways how 3D game design has gone backwards over the years.
Controlling the characters feel great. Banjo moves around well as he clearly has some weight to him. If the player ever wants to speed things up at the sacrifice of brawn, they can immediately switch to his partner Kazooie who is much faster and lighter, but can’t do much if any damage to the enemies. Players can use the two characters to perform a variety of moves. This includes the butt stomp and the punch that were shamelessly taken from a certain other platforming game. However, there are also unique abilities such as Kazooie’s multi-peck for up close baddies and egg coughing for range attacks. They aren’t the most accurate attacks, but they get the job done. Banjo can also perform a double jump as after Banjo’s first jump Kazooie will flap her wings to give Banjo an extra oomph. There are also parts of the game where Kazooie can fly Banjo throughout the air and that Banjo can dive underwater. Like in Donkey Kong Country, the characters can turn into various enemies to get into tight spaces, but it is rarely used.
The game isn’t perfect however. For starters there are way too many things to collect. There is such a thing as too much content, as at times I was wondering just what I should focus on collecting. The levels require the player to explore and use their heads to figure out where to go and what to do next, which is something I commend Rare for doing. Unfortunately, it does get very annoying walking around for thirty minutes as one explores every nook and cranny just to find the last puzzle piece. But by far and wide the game’s biggest offense is the last part of the game. To actually end the game requires getting almost every single puzzle piece. With how large and complex each level is (not to mention all of he collectibles) this is just too daunting of a task. Personally they should have just ended the game after completing all of the levels. The last part really wasn’t needed.
Even if one doesn’t complete the game, Banjo Kazooie is still one of the best, if not the best, 3D platformers ever made. As saturated as the genre was during the late 1990’s, it is unfortunate that adventure 3D platformers went the way of the dinosaur. Or at least so it seemed. In 2014, a group of ex-Rare staff formed a development studio called Playtonic Games. They went to set up a Kickstarter for their first project called Yooka-Laylee, a “not Banjo Kazooie, but it’s Banjo Kazooie” platformer. They reached their project’s goal in just thirty eight minutes and ended up raising over €2,000,000, shattering their expectations by over tenfold. It just goes to show how much of an impact Banjo Kazooie made on the gaming community.
46| Super Castlevania IV
Released: December 4th, 1991
Definitive Version: Super Nintendo; Also on: Virtual Console for Wii and Wii U
Yes, it’s the “casual” Castlevania of the 16-bit era. Yes, it is the “boring” answer of what the best classic Castlevania game is. Yes, the game is “easy”. Yes, it isn’t as “dark” as the other games. But god damn it, if it isn’t the best classic Castlevania out there. The reason? Because it is fun to play that’s why. Releasing just a few months after the Super Nintendo crossed American shores, Super Castlevania IV gave gamers no excuse to not want a Super Nintendo. It took everything that made the original games good and refined it to create a highly enjoyable experience.
Anyone who is even familiar with the Castlevania games knows the deal. The player controls a vampire hunter out to kill Dracula. They venture off on a journey across the country to reach the castle. The perilous journey is conveyed in game in a sidescrolling fashion, as the player hops from platform to platform as they dodge projectiles and defeat enemies. The primary weapon in these games is the whip. It is truly the trademark to the series because, well whips are fun to use. In addition to that the player can pick up secondary weapons for range battle such as a knife, ax, and holy water. There is also a secondary weapon that can be used once to stop time, as enemies all turn into stone for a couple of seconds. The enemies the game offers are usually skeletons, bats, mermen, zombies, and pretty much any classic movie monsters you can imagine.
Admittedly, Super Castlevania IV doesn’t deviate much from this. There are a few new features such as the useless, but addicting, spinning your whip around like a baton, and manually swinging off of hooks to hop on ledges. Again, these aren’t the most groundbreaking features, but they are fun. What makes Super Castlevania IV head and shoulders above the rest is that it is so expertly designed. Levels are crafted as each platform and enemy are placed to give the player a sense of enjoyment. While there is a lot of trial and error in the game, it is always fair, because enemies never just pop out of nowhere, and as long as the player is paying attention to their patterns they can be easily defeated. This goes from the smallest baddies to the biggest bosses.
Presentation wise the game is great. The pixel art is very colorful, for a Castlevania game, and the sprites are large and detailed. This does come at a cost however, as the game features significant slowdown. This is especially true when fighting the “mud men” in which they break apart and create smaller versions of themselves until there are around half a dozen on the screen. The good thing is that the slowdown doesn’t really effect the gameplay much as it only occurs during the flashy effects the game offers. This may sound like I contradicted myself as I just brought up the mud men, but they are so slow and have such a simple pattern that the game could be sped up by three hundred percent and they would still be easy to kill.
But let’s be honest. Where Super Castlevania IV really stands out is the soundtrack. It’s just baffling that such quality music is coming out of the Super Nintendo less than a year after its launch. The game could arguably be the pinnacle of midi music. Yes, later Castlevania games featured CD quality sound, but I always felt that the music was better with the “chip tune” aesthetic.
Saying all of this, the game isn’t perfect. For one, it is a little on the easy side. The game isn’t easy per say, but for a Castlevania game it is. There is a certain expectation one has when playing an entry to the series, sort of like when one picks up a Dark Souls title. Sure Castlevania isn’t that unforgiving, but they are still a bit difficult to get through all the way. On top of that, the game doesn’t have a save feature. There is a password system, but come on! This is the Super Nintendo and battery saving should be standard.
It is rare for a title to launch so early on its consoles life and sit on top of its throne as the best game in its genre. But Super Castlevania IV did just that. It released less than a year after the Super Nintendo hit store shelves anywhere in the world, and despite that it managed to push the system to its limits in many ways. It is unfortunate that Castlevania never returned to its popularity that it had with this entry. Rondo of Blood was only released on the PC Engine in Japan and received a less than favorable port to the Super Nintendo. Bloodlines was a good entry for the Mega Drive, but that’s it. Symphony of the Night certainly is held in high regards in the hardcore gamer crowd, but it hardly lit up the charts. The series proceeded to be adored by handheld gamers, but only sold in the hundred thousands. Today the series is about alive for Konami as Mega Man is for Capcom. At least the last time the series was in the spotlight it was for its most exceptional title.
45| Persona 4: Golden
Released: December 9th, 2008
Definitive Version: Playstation Vita; Also on: PS2, PSN for PS3
In December of 2008 the then new current generation systems were red hot. Nintendo’s Wii was selling extremely well to the annoyance of a lot of gamers who were displaying self-parody levels of hysteria, their DS system was selling even more, the Playstation Portable was at its high point, and the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 were in their stride. Persona 3 was released in the summer 2007, when all the new systems were out and gaining traction. Despite the media and the market being laser focused on the new generation consoles, Persona 3 gained a huge amount of buzz being released on the Playstation 2, the senior citizen of the console market. The game sold well and gained a big cult following. When Persona 4 was announced shortly after, fans were ecstatic. However, people were shocked to hear when the game was announced for the Playstation 2, when every other developer seemingly moved on to one of the major new consoles, or even handhelds, to develop games. Despite the initial bemoaning, in hindsight it was a great move as it gave so many more people the opportunity to play one of the greatest games in the genre.Persona 4 quickly became one of the best regarded JRPGs of all-time, and threw a wrench in the common notion that the subgenre has stagnated.
Persona 4 starts off as you play a teenage boy who is going to live with his father and his cousin for a year. The transition is going to seemingly be rough as the main character, I’ll call him “Senpai” as that is what most people call him (yes I know this is a formality in Japanese), is a city boy who is moving into a small town. The transition occurs smoother than expected as he picks up new friends fast. Before he knows it, he has his own little clique going on. Suddenly a grisly murder occurred as a former TV announcer’s deceased body is publicly displayed for all to see. Murders and disappearances start becoming a common occurrence. Senpai begins to notice that prior to a murder occurring, silhouettes of human figures begin to appear on TV at midnight when it is raining. What is strange is that this happens when the TV is turned off. As the days pass by, eventually the silhouette will turn into a visible person who rambles on and on about strange things. It turns out that these figures are of those who have disappeared. In sheer curiosity, one night Senpai touches the screen on his TV and discovers that his hand goes through it. He tells his friends, but they obviously don’t believe him. When they go into a department store, he and one of his friends are in the TV section. They joke about Senpai putting his hand inside the TV. It’s all fun and games…until he actually does. In a panic Senpai and his friend fall into the TV world. They are greeted by a stuffed bear who claims that strange occurrences have been happening lately. They form a pack with the the bear to solve the mystery for him. The rest of the game follows the Senpai as he makes new friends to save innocent people from being murdered as he tries to find who the real mastermind behind these murders are.
Gameplay wise Persona 4 is very unique. It’s part dungeon crawler and part dating simulator. It seemed to hop on the date sim bandwagon well before the likes of (waifu) Fire Emblem and other titles. This really help set the series apart from other RPGs during its initial release. Basically during the day the player goes to school. Once school is finished, they have the option of either going to a school club, talking to their friends, or going inside the TV. The former two choices can result in building social links. Essentially, the stronger the link, the stronger the friendship. This results in specific perks, mostly that whenever the player fuses as persona of the same arcana, alliance type for the layman, as their friend, the persona gains experience points to level up depending on their strength of their friendship. If the player strengthens their friendship with one of their party members, then that party memebr gains special battle abilities. Some of these are useful such as characters learning new magic skills, but others are extremely important such as the ability to resurrect the player automatically from death. If one chooses to go through the dungeon instead, then the game plays just like any other dungeon crawler. The party walks around an, often randomly generated, dungeon trying to find the next stair case until they get to the dungeon’s boss and save the kidnapped victim. As hinted at before, the party fights enemies with creatures called “persona”, they are literally the demons from the Shin Megami Tensei games, as you can collect up to a certain amount at a time. Players can fuse demons into specific types as they can customize some of their moves to create the perfect persona for any given situation. Boss battles will often require the player to craft the right persona for the job. Some times bosses may change into different forms and what not, and lucky for that the player can switch persona at any given turn.
The battle system is press turn. Essentially this means that one can exploit an enemy’s weakness as if they use an attack they are weak against, one can attack again. For example imagine fighting a fire monster and then proceed to use an ice attack. After the fire monster is hit, it collapses and gives way for another attack. If all enemies are collapsed it gives the option for a gang beat up as all party members rush across the screen to the enemy(ies) to give them an ass whooping.This results in the foe(s) taking significant amount of damage. The press turn system is powerful, but is also a double edged sword. The game’s rules goes for the player’s party as well, as if someone is hit with an attack they are weak against, they fall down and receive another attack from the enemy. Fortunately enemies don’t have a rush down attack like the party does, but that only comforts one so much when an enemy gets three attacks in a row by exploiting your characters weaknesses.
While the game’s general story is pretty good, Persona 4 truly shines in its individual vignettes. Building social links with friends and acquaintances has the player get to know them much more personally and even intimately. The player feels a connection to others, as their stories are often well written and very human. There is story that everyone can relate to, as the stories often touch upon families, dreams, and expectations. Building social links isn’t best just to gain advantages in battle, but to also experience to core point of the modern Persona games. If one doesn’t feel like doing social links for some reason, but still wants to fulfill more traditional, and boring, RPG duties, the game has many sidequests for the player to complete. Admittedly most of these are fetch quests or “find person X”, but they can be a nice distraction at times.
As said before the game’s main story is very good. What really makes it so good is the cast of characters. Even if one doesn’t bother to build up their social links, they really stand out. They are actually arguably some of the best cast of characters in RPGs in general. Each of them has a very unique personality and back story. In a way, it makes the game’s ending very sad as one knows that they will end up wrapping up the story and no longer seeing the characters. It isn’t surprising at all that Atlus managed to milk the cast for four completely unique games.
Presentation wise the game is probably has the most memorable style since Jet Set Radio. The entire game has a very “hip” feeling to it, thanks to its art style, fashion sense, and menus. But what really makes the game stand out is its incredible soundtrack. It’s “groovy” and stylish soundtrack really give tons of character to the game. I say this with no hesitation that it is probably the best soundtrack in any video game ever. Eight years later I still find myself listening to the music on an almost regular basis. It is kind of ironic thinking of how trendy and “cool” the game is being that it doesn’t take place in Shibuya or Akihabara, but a small town.
The game received an enhanced port on the Playstation Vita called Persona 4: Golden. It is the exact same game but with updated graphics, new music tracks, new social links, a new character and dungeon, and a much more fleshed out epilogue. It is comfortably the best version of the game. Being on the Playstation Vita also makes it a portable experience, which despite being developed with a console in mind, fits the game much better.
Persona 4 isn’t perfect however. For starters the game is a bit too grindy and the bosses take far too long to beat. To be fair this may be because I suck, am too good, or both. This may sound weird, but when ever I made these complaints people always said grinding literally isn’t an issue with the game if one hunts down the golden hands. This is something I often didn’t do because I found the golden hands way too difficult to defeat, especially since they would often run away. People were also shocked when I told them what level I was at, and were amazed that I managed to beat the bosses at such a low level. So I’m not sure if grinding and repetitive fights became a problem with me because I was too bad at the game or too good at it.
However, one extremely obnoxious aspect of the game that is universal to all players is the difficulty to actually get a satisfying ending. First is that around two thrids through the game there are a series of actions one can choose, unless they choose the exact correct order, the player will immediately receive the bad ending. What’s worse is that if somehow the player doesn’t realize this, the game gives the option of saving over the previous file. This could result in hours of loss play time, or even having to replaying the game from scratch as the player goes through dozens of hours just to get back to that specific scene once they realized that they made a mistake. On top of that, the true ending of the game is very obtuse to get. The game tricks the player at literally the last minute thinking everything is finished and wrapped up. It turns out that if the player goes to the major department store at literally the last second before heading home, they will meet up with their friends and end up fighting the true final boss. This is something I would have never figured out by myself if it wasn’t for someone telling me, especially since you can go to the department store beforehand and nothing happens. The plot, while interesting, is kind of ruined by how stupid the concept of the Midnight Channel is. How the fuck do such few people notice that their TV will turn on mysteriously at midnight showing crazy people on screen. Midnight isn’t even that late! I refuse to believe if something like this really happened that it wouldn’t be all over world news the next morning. The game is also a dozen hours or so too long for its own good, but again this could be because I had under leveled characters while playing through it.
With the fifth entry finally in sights of being released, I feel that there is no better time to reflect on Persona 4. In development for less than two years, Atlus managed to create one of the most classic RPGs ever made. The game is almost ten years old and despite that still has a fanbase that is hungry for more as they purchased games in the dungeon crawling, fighting, and music genres due to the characters starring in them. It isn’t surprising as the world of Persona 4 is one of the most engaging around. Here’s hoping that Persona 5 will capture the same magic that this title did.
44| Rolling Thunder 2
Released: 1991 (Exact date unknown)
Definitive Version: Arcade; Also on: MD, Virtual Console for Wii
Before Street Fighter II stepped on the scene, arcades were dominated by two genres: beat-em-ups and run-and-guns. Games like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Sunset Riders dominated arcades. Whether it be at Chuck E Cheese or a Mom n’ Pop establishment, any arcade would have rows and rows of cabinets of games in these genres. Due to the Super Nintendo and Mega Drive still being relatively new or not even released during the heyday of these genres, the only option most had to play a reasonable version of these games was at an arcade. In today’s world, these games are either widely available to play or are lost in time, depending on your stance on emulation for abandonware. While there are a lot of quality series in the run-and-gun genre such as Gunstar Heroes, Contra, and Metal Slug, none of them are quite as enjoyable to me as Rolling Thunder.
In this write-up I will be talking about Rolling Thunder 2. The easiest way to explain the Rolling Thunder games is that they are typical run-and-gun games, but with dash of Time Crisis. These may seem like polar opposites, but the game achieves this blend very well. Essentially the player can choose between two characters, with the ability of a second player to tag along if they want to. The player walks around the screen, but can only progress by walking to the right. Soon enemies and multiple platforms appear. Enemies obviously need to be shot at, otherwise they shoot at the player. The player can have the character hop up or down on different platforms. No matter which floor the protagonist is located on there will be boxes and similar items about. The player can move their character in front of these objects, where they can duck and cover to dodge enemy bullets. When the wave of bullets come to a brief halt, the protagonist can stand up and fire bullets at the enemy killing them. It takes the duck and cover aspect of Time Crisis and uses it very well. The difference is that this game is 2D and came along years earlier. The game also has a set amount of bullets the player can use per gun. When a weapon is out of bullets, the gun fires seldomly and bullets move across the screen very slowly. Fortunately there are doors to enter that either give the characters more bullets, more powerful ammunition, or even a different weapon. There is also a timer that counts down at each level. If the level isn’t cleared by the end of the timer then the stage is automatically failed.
What makes the game interesting besides its duck and cover mechanics, is that it is very vertically orientated. As said before, there are multiple platforms to hop on to. Namco took note of this, and had the level design take advantage of this. Not only do levels often require the player to switch platforms more often, but there are levels that are designed entirely to be scaled vertically top to bottom as some type of maze. This is something very rarely seen in these types of games, even today.
The presentation of the game is a bit disappointing. It comes of in trying to be hip and smooth ’70s spy thriller film, but falls short of it. The beginning of the game features some pretty cool music and character art that really sets the tone of the game. Unfortunately, this seems to get lost at many points of the game with music awkwardly switching to more traditional synthy game music of that era. You can still technically hear the hip and smooth ’70s soundtrack in the music somewhere, but it’s been considerably buried. The title still does a reasonable job in establishing a tone, but I feel that if the developers put in a little more effort into into the aesthetics of the game, it could have been something really special.
Another flaw with the game is its difficulty. I will admit I don’t play this game with a partner, but in single player mode the game is just far too difficult. It isn’t Metal Slug per say, but it is still a bit tough at times, especially in certain stages. To be more specific, it isn’t really the stages themselves that are difficult, but more so certain parts of their stages. The game for example relies on a duck and cover system, but sometimes the player find themselves juggling to take out enemies on more than one front. This makes things very difficult as the game gives each character two hits before they die. To be fair, each character has two or three lives, but that only goes so far when you are stuck at a certain group of enemies.
The game also has a story…and there isn’t much to say about it. Basically, satellites from countries around the world are being destroyed. The lack of information puts the planet into chaos. It turns out that the once defeated terrorist group Gelda has regrouped itself and is off to try and take over the world. It is decided that two agents, Albatross and Leila, will be sent to save the day. It is pretty forgettable, which is to par with games of this era.
Rolling Thunder 2 may not be perfect, but it is an arcade classic that is one of the go to games to play when bored and looking for a bite sized playthrough. The mechanics are fun, unique, and challenging. While run-and-guns started to become focused on being as chaotic and frantic as possible, Rolling Thunder always took the more calm and strategic approach. That alone makes it stand out from the pack. Unfortunately, these games never really got their due. While the series was moderately successful in North America, it never gained the popularity that Contra and Metal Slug had, nor the cult status that Gunstar Heroes did. This has led Namco to be very apathetic toward this series, proven that the only title in it available for modern home use is the second entry on the Wii’s Virtual Console. And it isn’t even the arcade version, but the Sega Mega Drive one. Though to be fair, it is a pretty good port and an okay substitute. But being that re-releasing old titles is so common these days and cost very little, there is no excuse not to be able to play the definitive version of any of these games on a modern platform.
43| The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky (First Chapter & Second Chapter)
Released: March 29th, 2011
Definitive Version: PC; Also on: PSP, PSN for PSP and Vita
As stated a few entries ago, the success of Final Fantasy VII opened up the floodgates of JRPGs to be released in western territories. In just a couple years virtually every noteworthy JRPG series received a Western release for their main entries. Even extremely niche and Japanese titles such as the Shin Megami Tensei series began to see frequent releases. There was just one hold out series…well really company in general. Unfortunately, that company was Falcom. One of the oldest, if not the oldest, Japanese game studios that primarily produces role playing games, their RPG origins date back all the way to the early ’80s, and had their first breakout hit with 1984’s “Dragon Slayer.” That’s how old this development studio is, that when they started the name for a game called “Dragon Slayer” wasn’t even trademarked yet. Anyway, the studio began to make a name for itself, with successful titles such as Xanadu and Popful Mail. But their most well known series by far was the Ys series. Despite it releasing on the ill-fated Turbo-Grafx CD, the game gained a lot of buzz for its cutting edge CD features such as cutscenes and an arranged soundtrack.
Unfortunately for Falcom, being limited by their platform of choice was always huge hurdle. While Final Fantasy VII opened up the floodgates for Japanese developers to release their games in the west, that was particularly only for consoles and handhelds. Falcom was first and foremost a PC developer. While Squaresoft, Enix, Atlus, and Namco focused on the Playstation consoles and Nintendo handhelds, Falcom stuck with Windows PCs. This made many diehard JRPG fans frustrated, as they saw Falcom as the “white whale” of Japanese role playing game developers. They made many quality games, but they weren’t released. There were occasional tidbits such as the terrible Ys VI port, which is also one of the worst games in the series, for the Playstation 2, but it wasn’t enough. What’s more is that during that time Falcom apparently really ramped up their ambition with their other well known franchise, The Legend of Heroes series, as the latest entry, Trails in the Sky, was highly praised. Unfortunately, PC gaming was declining in the west, and Japanese games in general on the PC was unheard of. Due to this, games like Trails in the Sky, Xanadu Next, and Ys: Origin never were released in the west despite being some of the best games in their genre. Well Xanadu Next did receive an NGage port…but that was for the NGage…
Luckily, during the 2000s many small western publishers like XSeed, Ignition Entertainment, and Aksys began releasing lesser known Japanese titles. Seeing that Falcom began to focus on PSP releases for their games, XSeed took initiative and contracted Falcom to release some of their games, specifically all three Trails in the Sky games. JRPG fans everywhere rejoiced. Things looked optimistic at first, as the first game was coming along nicely. Then something rather unfortunate happened. It turned out that the first chapter in the series didn’t sell well. On top of that, the sequel required the first game to be completed, as it literally continues the story the following morning after the events of the first game. So XSeed was put in a situation where they promised to release the next game in the series, which requires people to play the first game, which sold badly. What could be worse than that? That the games had a crazy amount of text to translate, with the second chapter in the series being by far the most text heavy and ambitious.
XSeed didn’t just choose to localize any game, they chose to localize the most ambitious game a publisher could choose. Seeing that the PSP was declining, like any reasonable company, XSeed decided to abandon the project. Fortunately, the company decided to release the PC version on a whim. Trails in the Sky: First Chapter was very successful on the PC, even selling significantly more than its PSP counterpart. Due to this, Falcom decided to begin localization on the second chapter of the game series. This resulted in a nightmare of a development process that was so bad that it led to a near suicide. The workload was unbearable for almost everyone involved. Despite this, the fanbase would not stop bitching about XSeed being lazy as shit for not releasing the rest of the following games. In a miracle, the game actually released on both PC and PSN for Playstation Vita and even PSP owners. Unfortunately it wasn’t the best selling game out there, but XSeed never said the sales were bad per say.
While the story of the localization of these games is fascinating, what of the actual games themselves? After all, Magic Knight Rayearth for the Sega Saturn had a very infamous localization story as well, but most say that the story behind the game was more interesting than the game itself, which many said was fairly dull in comparison. Trails in the Sky doesn’t fit this bill, as it is a very quality title that was well worth the time and effort XSeed put into it. It is easily one of the best JRPGs western shores have received in quite some time.
To spare confusion, Trails in the Sky is really one game split up in two. There is the first game titled “The Legend of Heroes – Trails in the Sky: First Chapter” and the second game titled “The Legend of Heroes – Trails in the Sky: Second Chapter.” While the games were technically released separately, the first game’s story doesn’t conclude at the end and continues on in the second game. On top of that the character’s choices and experience transfers over to the second game. In fact, going from the first chapter to the second chapter is no different than switching from disc one to disc two in a large console RPG. Due to this, I will be reviewing the game as a whole, as a combination of playing the first chapter and the second chapter.
Trails in the Sky is the quintessential JRPG. It features a group of teenagers who venture out and explore the world as they meet a cast of colorful characters. Eventually they stumble on an evil plot and decide to save the world. Throughout the game, the player picks up a variety of party members that can be used in battle. In addition to the main quest, there are a variety of side quests one can pick up at the local guild. The game uses a turn based battle system, but it also uses a grid on the battle map that the characters can move around in. It also has various minigames, particularly fishing. In other words, it is the definition of a typical JRPG. It doesn’t even try to do anything unique or noteworthy.
What makes the game so praised, is not due to its innovation, but more so how well it executes its story, design, and mechanics. Sure, the game is filled with tropes, however they are done very well. Part of this is due to the setting. The world Trails in the Sky takes place in is unique enough to differentiate itself from the medieval settings these types of games typically have, but is tame enough to be relatable to the player. It isn’t world that is as imaginative as say Final Fantasy VII or as immersive as say Persona 4, but it gets the job done. The world is an interesting mix of knights and dragons, steampunk industrialization, and magic and the supernatural. It manages to throw a bone to appease most types of fantasy nerds and ends up succeeding.
But the real formula to the game’s success is the writing. I say this with no hesitation that The Legend of Heroes – Trails in the Sky has the best writing I’ve encountered in a game. Each character from as important as the main protagonists to as small as a maid NPC cleaning a house is filled with personality. Playing the game, one can see part of the reason the English release took so long. XSeed didn’t half ass the localization process, that went all out. It seems that each line of text tells a character’s story and reveals their personality. This does wonders for the main cast as each character feels wildly unique and memorable. The game features an assemble of playable characters and each of them have as much depth and personality to them as the most memorable character in your average renowned RPG. Meanwhile, the brightest stars of the bunch lead to some very hilarious lines to which I found myself literally laughing out a loud toward their quirks. Again, this just isn’t limited to the main characters, every line in the game has a significant amount of thought put into it. Even when talking with two or three line NPCs, they almost always say something important that reveals something about themselves and the general community.Things such as “their parents are out paying respects to those that fell during the war” or “my brother is in a gang and is causing trouble”, or something similar.
Presentation wise the game does great. The graphics initially may seem a bit dated, but seeing them in 1080p on a PC really makes them shine. The pre-rendered 2D sprites add a lot of character to the game, and mesh very well with the fully 3D backgrounds. Personally I wouldn’t have the graphics any other way. On top of that the game features some of the best music gaming has to offer. Falcom is one of the very few gaming studios that still has an in-house music team, and it really shows. There is no voice acting in the game, but personally I prefer it this way. Playing the title is much like reading a book in many ways, and I feel that the characters are much more alive when I imagine their voice and tone in my head than actually hearing it myself.
The battle system is a bit dated by today’s standards, but still gets the job done. The system features the usual attack, skill, magic, and item choices. Though, unlike most of the game, it does have some unique features. Most notably is that it has a system that displays the order of which character will attack next, this includes both the party and the enemies. Occasionally some stat bonuses will be given out during specific turns, such as critical attacks and healing. This adds a layer of strategy to the game, as some party members will be better doing weaker and longer attacks in order to bump the stat advantage off of the enemies turn and into one of the party members. It is actually very innovative and can make for some real tense moments. On top of that, each character has a super move they can unlock if they achieve a certain amount of “CP” (craft point). When a certain amount of CP is achieved the player can select the party member’s super move and perform it at any time. Ideally these moves are best saved for when a critical attack bonus appears to be able to dish out the maximum amount of damage possible.
Trails in the Sky is a great game, unfortunately it has one severe flaw that prevents it from being amongst the top of the top. That flaw is the pacing. The purpose of the game’s pacing is for it to be very slow and gradual so that the player feels that they are in an adventure. This makes the settings and locations stand out more, as well as clearing areas all the more rewarding. When you journey from being a simple student in training to saving the world from ancient evil, you actually feel that getting to that point is justified due to all the shit you had to go through. When combining the two chapters the game is very long. By the time the credits roll comfortably over one hundred hours would have passed. Now during many of these hours are some of the best moments in gaming I’ve ever had. Some incredible plot twists, engaging battles, and whimsical characters. On the other hand, there are certain parts in the game, especially in the second chapter, that just drag on and on. In fact, I’d say that they were very tedious. By the time you have undergone the story for sixty hours, the formula of walking in a town, discovering a problem, doing various side quests to level up, and then tackling on the main quest, gets pretty damn old. Luckily the latter third of the game abandons this formula, which results in gaming bliss, but that doesn’t stop some points of the game, particularly the midpoint, from being very boring.
It just isn’t the progression, even exciting moments such as the boss battles can be a chore. Some bosses take way longer to beat than they should. One boss battle I clocked at close to twenty five minutes before my party stood victorious. Then again, this may be Persona 4: Golden syndrome, as when I commented on my party’s level during these boss fights people were impressed that I managed to get so far being so underleveled. That said, this gives no excuse for the general pacing as most of the time is eaten up by walking around and exploring rather than fighting enemies. The game certainly has its highs and lows, but luckily it isn’t quite as extreme as something like say Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura.
XSeed managed to strike a tomb of treasures when they struck the deal with Falcom, as they now have many titles under their belt that have achieved five figure sales. Unfortunately, the tomb turned out to be haunted as well as the effort to release some of the titles were plagued with difficulties. With the latest Trails games released/being released in the west, and XSeed even localizing the third and final game in the Trails in the Sky story, though its more of an additional chapter than a continuation of the story, all seems well with the series. I do find it a bit ironic though, as the company couldn’t release its games in the west due to being so focused on the PC market in Japan while JRPGs dominated handhelds in the west, and now that Falcom has transitioned to handhelds, the western market is beginning to favor their JRPGs more on PC than on handhelds. This largely due to a huge resurgence of PC gaming in North America and Western Europe. It’s quite amusing and sad, but hopefully Falcom takes cue from other developers and start releasing their games on as many platforms as possible. Trails in the Sky was the white whale series for localizers, and one was crazy enough to go after it. The journey to catch the series was perilous, but in the end was well worth it.
42| Lords of Thunder
Released: 1993 (Exact date unknown)
Definitive Version: PC Engine; Also on: Virtual Console for Wii, Mega CD
Despite the PC Engine’s strength in its native country of Japan, it was struggling everywhere else. It turns out that a Japanese competing console did manage to shake up Nintendo’s iron grip on the North American market, but it wasn’t NEC, but SEGA. In a last ditch effort, Hudson heavily pushed the game “Lords of Thunder” to the North America market in an effort to revitalize their Turbo Grafx CD platform. The game wasn’t anything special at a glance, it was your standard horizontal shoot-em-up. What made it stand out was the godly CD quality soundtrack and tight game design. While the game garnered a lot of buzz amongst the hardcore market, it was relatively unknown to the mass market. As the Turbografx faded in to obscurity, Lords of Thunder is forever known as not only one of its finest and defining titles for the platform, but also of the entire generation.
Let’s get this out of the way. The music in the game is fucking incredible. Despite being made in the ’90s, the game has an ’80s hair metal (power metal more specifically) soundtrack. As a metal head myself, I often cringe when games use metal soundtracks, as it almost always leads to disastrous results. I’m sure many hip-hop fans can relate. But with Lords of Thunder the music is actually legitimately good. If one of my friends were to play this music to me, I would have praised it and never would have imagined that it would belong to a video game.Stereotypically, this type of music often involves vocalists singing about high fantasy themed heroes, gods, and battlefields. It turns out that this is the entire theme of Lords of Thunder, hence the music fits in perfectly.
Luckily, Lords of Thunder is not a Sunsoft game, so it has the gameplay to match its quality music. The game begins with some light RPG elements. The player can choose between four different types of “armor”. This includes earth, wind, fire, and water. Each piece of armor has different types of attacks and advantages. All you need to know is that the water armor is by far the best one, as it focuses on shooting projectile beams and waves in both in front and behind the player. After that there is a shop screen where one can purchase health, bomb attacks, and various upgrades. When that is finished there is a stage selection screen that the player can chose to go to each stage in any order.
The objective of the game is simple, defeat all stages on the screen selection. The game involves controlling a “lord” that wears powerful armor that fire projectiles at enemies. The enemies obviously fire back in great quantities. Occasionally power up items will appear which, as one could guess, powerup the character’s weapon. Each weapon has three different levels to powerup to which usually results in the protagonist’s projectiles becoming bigger, faster, and stronger. The player scrolls across to the right side of the screen defeating as many enemies as possible to rack up the highest score. There is more benefit to this than the usual dick measuring contest at the high score screen. The more enemies one kills, the more money one gets, which can be used to buy valuable items from the shop. At the end of each stage is a “Dark General”, who is basically also a lord who acts as the final boss of each level. Defeat the Dark General and complete the level.
As one can see, the game isn’t that unique. Again, what makes the game stand out is that it is so good. The protagonist feels very good to control, the enemy placement is seemingly perfect, and the speed of the game is fast enough to be intense, but not reasonable enough to be draining. The bosses earn their title and are very intense to play and are very ambitious in general. In short, the game is just an all around great package.
Of course, Lords of Thunder isn’t perfect. The main gripe I have about the game is that it is far too difficult for its own good. I have no problem beating a stage or two, but I find it very difficult to tackle three or more stages in one sitting. Essentially, if one dies enough times, they then have to restart all the way back to the beginning. Unlike most shoot-em-ups there is not even a password system in place. If you fail at the game, you don’t get another chance, you go all the way back. While there is some admiration to the “git gud” philosophy of this, it is a bit overwhelming. While diehard shoot-em-up fans won’t be bothered by this, it will certainly affect the less hardcore players. That said, the difficulty isn’t to the point of being game breaking like say in the infamous Mortal Kombat Advance.
Lords of Thunder was the PC Engine’s last big push. It was the last major exclusive game on the platform to be heavily featured on major magazines and storefronts. Unfortunately, despite the game’s quality, it was in the wrong genre and the wrong lifespan of the generation. 1993 was the year of Star Fox, Mortal Kombat II, Street Fighter II Turbo, NBA Jam, and Shinobi III. Not only did the game have a tough hill to climb by being in a niche genre on a niche console, but it was also fighting off the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis when they were at their very strongest. Due to the growing popularity of emulation (both legal and illegal), the game has gotten a second look. Even major websites have revisited the game and given it a huge amount of praise. It is said to be one of the best shoot-em-ups ever made by the genre enthusiasts, and they may be right.
41| Team Fortress 2
Released: October 10th, 2007
Definitive Version: PC (All major OSes); Also on: 360, PS3
It is kind of surreal that after all of these years, Team Fortress 2 is still one of the most popular multi-player first person shooters. Releasing almost ten years ago, the game was extremely unique at the time for more ways than one. Immediately what stood out was its cartoony art style. When the seventh gaming generation was just getting started, games were often dark and grimy shooters with brown and beige pallets. In contrast, Team Fortress 2 was very colorful and cartoony, which made it a beautiful sight for weary eyes. What’s more is that the game had specific character classes, this was uncommon at a time when most games simply had the player choose any weapon they want at the beginning of the game, and even pick up dropped weapons while running around maps. Finally, Team Fortress 2 was a team based game, it revolved around each player doing their part in order to complete objectives such as capturing control points or capturing flags intelligence. The game has garner a huge following and is one of the most popular first person shooters of all-time.
As said before, Team Fortress 2 revolves around players selecting what specific character class they want as they work with their team in order to complete objectives. Originally, these objectives were limited to capturing control points and intelligence, but over the years Team Fortress 2 has added more modes to play. The most notable and innovative was payload mode in which players have to move an armed cart by walking up to it as they “push” it to the enemy’s base before the timer runs out. Admittedly it seemed dumb when first introduced but over-time it has become the staple mode of the game. The maps in the game are all specifically designed for their modes. Intelligence base maps tend to be very small, but maze-like. Control Point maps are moderately sized, but are filled with busy areas where players fight to claim each control point. Payload maps tend to not be too wide, but compensate for this by being very long, with various hidden paths to go through. Most of the maps are very memorable and well designed as as Valve definitely went for the quality over quantity approach. There are very few official maps in the game that I wouldn’t describe as “great.”
The classes are arguably the most defining part of Team Fortress 2. There are nine classes total in the game. These include: Scout, Spy, Heavy, Demoman, Soldier, Engineer, Pyro, Sniper, and Medic. Each class has defining traits and are crucial to complete any objective. The Scout scouts ahead the area and is able to cover a lot of ground fast. The Spy sneaks around as they can even dress like the enemy and kill critical opponents. The Heavy is a slow but powerful juggernaut who can annihilate enemies with his gatling gun. The Demoman can plant bombs and shoots grenades that bounce around the area, as he is great for taking out groups of enemies quickly. The Soldier is an all around balanced character who can handle multiple situations. The Engineer builds teleporting stations, health centers, and turrets. The Pyro is great for taking out enemies in close range as well as having them take damage over time. The Sniper kills enemies from afar. While the Medic heals other players. Each character has a specific job that they do and if a team is missing even one of them then the entire game leans toward the opposite teams favor.
In terms of presentation, Team Fortress 2 is a bit on simple side, but is still solid. All the characters have a unique personality to them that draws the player in. In fact there was time period of the game where Valve created short Team Fortress 2 films that were highly entertaining. The world of Team Fortress 2 is a bit of a mystery as Valve often leaves fans in the dark, however tidbits and winks often come across from time to time.The entire game is essentially that of a Saturday morning cartoon that takes place in the 1940s. However, it is clearly made for adults due to the violence, but despite heads rolling around and bodies exploding it never feels too unnatural or off putting. The game also has a nice 1960s esque spy film soundtrack that fits everything perfectly.
I feel that I can’t talk about Team Fortress 2 without talking about its move toward micro transactions and free to play. The game has changed so much since launch, that the only other game that comes to mind that has undergone so many radical changes without an expansion pack is possibly Splatoon. Not only has there been the addition of new maps and modes, but the game has added tons of weapons and costumes for players to wear. The most infamous of these are the hats. It may seem stupid at first glance to have a game economy revolve around costume changes for characters in a first person shooter, and it is, but nevertheless the community for the game can’t get enough of them. And to me this is the biggest negative aspect of the game. Prior to Team Fortress 2 moving free to play and having all of the cosmetics the game was highly balanced and very crafted. All the characters looked distinct so you would know exactly who is who and how to measure the threat effectively. Now that the game is filled with tons of weapons and obscure costume choices the entire game has changed for the worst. It is still a highly enjoyable title, it is just that Valve compromised competitive play for the booming in-game market.
Nearly a decade after release, Team Fortress 2 is still one of the hottest game titles around. The only team based shooter in the same vein that is getting more attention than it currently is, is one that is essentially a clone of the game and advertises itself as a “Team Fortress 2 alternative”. The game may not be as popular as its heydays, but it still one of Valve’s cash cows. I may not prefer what the game has become exactly, but either way it is still a fantastic title.