A Collection of geekery. Featuring vintage and retro reviews of anime, video games, manga and figures. With a smattering of personal collection updates and miscellaneous geekery to keep things interesting.
Showing posts with label Super Nintendo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Super Nintendo. Show all posts
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Collection update: Zelda stuff straight from Japan
Just last week we got a box containing several months months worth of stuff purchased from Japanese auctions. There were lots of interesting things in it like some hand drawn shikishi and new cels. But what I was the most excited about was a bunch of cool Japanese Legend of Zelda items. Zelda was one of my earliest video game loves and while Mario is better represented in our collections (mostly due to availability) but the legend of Zelda is my favorite series of games so I'm always excited to add new things to my collection. So here's what I got:
Look at all that sweet wonderful Zelda loot. I was a very very happy fangirl the day all this stuff came in. Items in details after the jump
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Retro Review Tuesday: Pilotwings
It's been awhile since anyone else has worked on a review, but this is one neither Jen nor I were good enough to do. We had to call in our third contributor to work on this title as he's the only one of us who can beat it. This week we salute one of gaming's odd little classics, Pilotwings.
-Introduction-
Nintendo is a truly legendary company. They can take a plumber and a mushroom and make arguably the greatest video game of all time. They also do a pretty damn good job with two elves and a pig-shaped thief. And the most magnificent video game company of all time can take a game about earning your Pilot's Wings and make it a super fun, classic, aerial experience. Here you will find the quaint wonders and oddities of this SNES gem, Pilotwings.
-Overview-
The basic idea of this game is that you are an aspiring air wizard who's joined the instructual institution of the Flight Club in your quest towards your goal of earning, you guessed it, your Pilot's Wings. You will meet four different instructors (twice) and attempt to complete their unique courses. You will do this by passing fun and challenging lessons which include the Light Plane, Skydiving, Hang gliding, and the Rocket Belt. These lessons involve flying through floating, colored rings, touching erect bars, climbing to certain heights, and other various obstacles. And of course, easily the most challenging part of all this - Landing.
Sound - Sounds are good, you've got the sound of air passing by, the unmistakable sound of the Light Plane's motor, the rough expulsion of the rocket belt's flames, and the sound of the air whipping past you as you fall to the ground, before you open your parachute. Nice little chimes are heard when obstacles are cleared. No real complaints on the sound. The music is memorable if not a bit repetitive. Each lesson has its own music, and when you check back with your instructors after a lesson, the music is a good indication of how they feel you did. Upbeat if you did well...not so much if you didn't.
-Gameplay-
The gameplay of Pilotwings is very dependent on the lesson you are doing, as well as the instructor that's offering it. Two things thing they all have in common would be that they all offer a certain amount of points depending on how you performed, and they're all successfully completed once you've found yourself safely back on the ground.
Hitting the ground too hard results in lost wheels and bent wings. Harder yet and the plane's engine blows up, a crash you're lucky to be able to walk away from.
Controls: Controls are as easy as they can be, but the only thing that can really help you here is genuine skill.
Skydiving: You will be lifted up to a nose-bleeding 3,800 feet into the air by helicopter (If you don't want to wait the entire time it takes to climb to this height, you can push the A button to be taken straight up to near the max height.) Once you reach the target height you will let go of the rope ladder and begin your plunge to the ground below. As you fall, you can change your angle and how your body falls. Useful, as now you must maneuver yourself through 3, 5, or even 8 rings, turning your body in the air to get yourself in the correct position. Falling feet/head first will cause you to fall straight down, whereas falling belly/back down will do the same but slower. Feet/head a little forward makes you fall forward. Backwards, well you get the idea. After all the rings fly by, passed or not, open your parachute when prompted, and try to land on the multi-scoring target below.
Landing too hard with this will cause you to land on your back, although this doesn't seem to effect score. If you just neglect to open the parachute entirely you'll hit the ground so hard that you fall right through, leaving a humorous man-shaped hole.
Controls: A little restricted as far as what you can do but let's agree that that's bound to be true while parachuting. Still, smooth and simple.
Rocket-Belt: Possibly the most fun lesson in the game, the Rocket-Belt is essentially a jetpack and offers the most control of all of the lessons. That said, it can still prove rather difficult to control the flight of this gadget. It is first available with your second instructor, Shirly. Generally what you do is use two different speeds (B button = slow, orange fire; A button = fast, blue fire) to navigate your way around the 3-D course and pass through the green rings or what have you, and then land as accurately on the target as you can. If you touch the ground prematurely you will loose 2 points off of your final score. Also mind your fuel meter, If you run out fuel, you will fail your lesson earning 0 point.
Landing too hard with this will cause you to fall onto your back. Harder yet (and this is pretty hard to do on accident) will cause the Rocket-Belt to explode, leaving your character grounded and charred.
Controls: Simple and responsive, but this thing can get away from you.
Landing too hard with this (with your feet out) will cause you to land on your backside. This does not count as a failed landing, however
Controls: Smooth? Yes. Simple? Yeah. Easy? ...
Rings: A big part of this game would be the Rings, the main obstacle to overcome throughout all of the lessons. Rings usually take the form of many small, [generally] green balls that spin in a circle, creating the actual ring. Clearing them requires you to fly through their center. Some lessons give you a score for each ring passed, others do not but still require that all rings are cleared before landing. For difficulty reasons, at times rings may be smaller in size, move in strange ways, or take alternate forms such as Bars (several green balls stacked vertically) Arches, and more. When cleared, you will hear a chime, be given a message, and the Rings will change color (usually to red) to indicate that they have been cleared.
Water: A big part of this game would be the water. Landing in the water will effectively end your lesson right then and there. It comes as no surprise that the moving Bonus Targets are located in the water. Even for normal targets, as you progress, you'll notice that the Target-to-Water ratio is getting to be less and less in your favor.
Scoring: Depending on the game, you will be scored on the following factors - Speed, Time, Angle, Accuracy, and Rings. All lessons offer an opportunity at a perfect score of 100. Needless to say, this is not an easy task to acheive. You must accumulate a certain amount of points in each Flight Area to be certified for your next license, moving one step closer to the coveted Golden Pilot's wings.
Bonus: All Lessons apart from the Light Plane offer an instant 100-point target that is not effected by time, accuracy, etc. as long as you hit it. The obvious catch is that these targets are very hard to hit and missing often means no points at all. Generally the Bonus target is indicated as the floating yellow square in the water and will get smaller in the later Flight Areas. This excludes the Hang Glider, in which case the Bonus Target would be the Rocket-Belt/Skydiving targets, as they are almost too small too land on with the Hang Glider. Upon landing on one of these targets, you will then be granted a "Bonus Chance," a very fun mini game that can award you anywhere from 5 to even 70 bonus points on top of the 100 you received for landing on the Bonus Target (Interestingly, your instructors seem more impressed with normal 100-point scores than the Bonus ones).
Instructors/Flight Areas: Before jumping into training at each new Flight Area, you will be given a small introduction by your new instructor, basically telling you what you can expect to learn with them. Your instructors offer different personalities and expressions. Doing poorly influences unhappy expressions whereas doing well makes them happy. Doing VERY well will prompt an overjoyed or shocked expression on the face of your instructor and a perfect score of 100 will be met with a face that can only be described as absolutely hysterical. Before each lesson, they will tell you what you need to do. Once you've scored high enough to see the next Flight Area/meet the next instructor, you will be given a password to use at the titlescreen if you'd like to return, later.
Tony: A young looking, dark-haired, mild mannered man. May seem impatient with you if you do poorly but encourages you to "never give up." Offers Light Plane and Skydiving. 120 points are required for certification. Passing his course grants you a Class A license.
Shirly: Nice brunette woman who offers a wide-eyed encouraging smile when things aren't looking so good. She'll never get mean with you. Offers the Light Plane, Skydiving, and Rocket-Belt. 220 points are required for certification. Passing her course grants you a Class B license.
Lance: A blonde-haired, hard-nosed man, who is quite difficult to please. Asks you if you want to give up when you're doing badly. Offers Light Plane, Rocket Belt, and Hang Glider. 220 points are required for certification Passing his course grants you a Silver Class license.
Big Al: As the name implies, a large looking tough-guy kind of man with shiny sunglasses and a waste-no time kind of attitude. Also a bit hard to please, but seems to have a slightly better attitude than the previous instructor. He reviews all of your past lessons. A big, bad 300 points are required for certification. Passing his course grants you a Gold Class license.
Helicopter Rescue Mission: Once you've earned your Gold Class license, Big Al will accost you with a request that is "above and beyond the call of duty." Tony, Shirly, and Lance have been captured by the EVIL syndicate, and need you to rescue via Attack Chopper. You are the only one in the Flight Club whos qualifications are near what is required to pilot the chopper. Take off from the carrier and ready your missles, as the anti-aircraft guns will be blaring. Find the heliport and successfully land on it to complete the mission. If you can do this, you've not only proves how skilled a Pilot you truly are, but you've proven something to the video game universe itself, as this mission is one of intense difficulty. After surviving the quest, destroying the artilery (some of it being invisible to the eye), and rescuing your instructors, you will have truly earned your Silver Pilot's Wings.
And it's not over, yet. For you've set out to earn your Golden Pilot's wings, right? Well as it turns out, this game is only half over. Now you must revisit all of your past instructors in Pilotwings: Expert Mode. Now, their lessons are much more difficult. After enjoying an altered title screen, use the password presented with your Silver Pilot's Wings and get started on your road to the Golden Wings.
Expert Tony: Snowy, winter conditions. Runway is slick, and targets are smaller. 140 points to earn your Class A Expert license.
Expert Shirly: Rainy conditions. Once again, a slick runway and windier conditions. 240 points to earn your Class B Expert license.
Expert Lance: Very windy conditions, and a sunset time of day. Control is harder, here, be careful. 240 points to earn your Silver Class Expert license.
Expert Big Al: Nighttime's the name of the game, keep your eyes open wide and use the illuminated lines as your guide. A staggering 320 points stands between you and your Gold Class Expert license.
...And once you've finished with these four again, you will find Big Al once again waiting to request your help in another rescue mission. This time the Evil Syndicate as captured a government figure who opposes them. Not on-ly that, but he is Big Al's brother. Fire up the chopper and get ready for a nocturnal mission, your for difficult task yet. Succeed and you've done it. You have earned your Golden Pilot's Wings and are now not only a true pilot, but a true hero as well.
-Conclusion-
Pilotwings is one of those titles that seems so random, and maybe not even the best idea. But when executed with the genius mind at Nintendo, it proves to be another classic in the company's big vault of gold. With its quixotic themes and unforgettable gameplay, we would highly recommend this to anybody who has not played it. It is almost guaranteed that you will find it fun and addictive if not sometimes infuriating. We love it, and we certainly think that you should, too.
Richard M.
Don't forget to stop by our shop for retro gaming collectibles:
-Introduction-
Nintendo is a truly legendary company. They can take a plumber and a mushroom and make arguably the greatest video game of all time. They also do a pretty damn good job with two elves and a pig-shaped thief. And the most magnificent video game company of all time can take a game about earning your Pilot's Wings and make it a super fun, classic, aerial experience. Here you will find the quaint wonders and oddities of this SNES gem, Pilotwings.
 |
| I can hear this image |
-Overview-
The basic idea of this game is that you are an aspiring air wizard who's joined the instructual institution of the Flight Club in your quest towards your goal of earning, you guessed it, your Pilot's Wings. You will meet four different instructors (twice) and attempt to complete their unique courses. You will do this by passing fun and challenging lessons which include the Light Plane, Skydiving, Hang gliding, and the Rocket Belt. These lessons involve flying through floating, colored rings, touching erect bars, climbing to certain heights, and other various obstacles. And of course, easily the most challenging part of all this - Landing.
 |
| He's not the man they think he is at home. |
Graphics -The graphics of this game are quite crisp and good for their time.Your instructors look like reasonable illustrations of people and everything is clear as far as what it is. Probably the most notable thing about this game's graphics would be the 3-D mobility the game offers, allowing you to travel in every direction in each of the lessons. The different items on the ground are actually all flat, which is made slightly less notable with simple lighting and shading on their surfaces. The sprites are smooth and easy on the eyes. Over all, it's a nice game to look at.
Sound - Sounds are good, you've got the sound of air passing by, the unmistakable sound of the Light Plane's motor, the rough expulsion of the rocket belt's flames, and the sound of the air whipping past you as you fall to the ground, before you open your parachute. Nice little chimes are heard when obstacles are cleared. No real complaints on the sound. The music is memorable if not a bit repetitive. Each lesson has its own music, and when you check back with your instructors after a lesson, the music is a good indication of how they feel you did. Upbeat if you did well...not so much if you didn't.
-Gameplay-
The gameplay of Pilotwings is very dependent on the lesson you are doing, as well as the instructor that's offering it. Two things thing they all have in common would be that they all offer a certain amount of points depending on how you performed, and they're all successfully completed once you've found yourself safely back on the ground.
 |
| I've always wanted more information on the suspended ring technology used in the Pilotwings universe |
Light Plane: Probably the most basic lesson in the game, and one of the hardest. This is the only lesson with no bonus game available. Basically, you will have to fly the plane through the air and pass through obstacles of multiple types then successfully land the plane on the runway. This is quite difficult, as your wings cannot be dipped in the slightest way, your speed must be right, and you must not be coming at the ground too hard. Additionally, you MUST land on the runway. One centimeter on anything but runway will cause you to loose a wheel and skid your plane until it stops, meaning a failed landing. However, All Light Plane lessons will still offer some points for the obstacles you passed before the crash. Early Light Plane lessons have you start already in the air, and later ones require you to take off on your own. Be sure to watch your fuel meter as running out of fuel is an automatic failure and will earn you zero points.
Hitting the ground too hard results in lost wheels and bent wings. Harder yet and the plane's engine blows up, a crash you're lucky to be able to walk away from.
Controls: Controls are as easy as they can be, but the only thing that can really help you here is genuine skill.
 |
| "I'm directly under the earth's sun......now" |
Skydiving: You will be lifted up to a nose-bleeding 3,800 feet into the air by helicopter (If you don't want to wait the entire time it takes to climb to this height, you can push the A button to be taken straight up to near the max height.) Once you reach the target height you will let go of the rope ladder and begin your plunge to the ground below. As you fall, you can change your angle and how your body falls. Useful, as now you must maneuver yourself through 3, 5, or even 8 rings, turning your body in the air to get yourself in the correct position. Falling feet/head first will cause you to fall straight down, whereas falling belly/back down will do the same but slower. Feet/head a little forward makes you fall forward. Backwards, well you get the idea. After all the rings fly by, passed or not, open your parachute when prompted, and try to land on the multi-scoring target below.
Landing too hard with this will cause you to land on your back, although this doesn't seem to effect score. If you just neglect to open the parachute entirely you'll hit the ground so hard that you fall right through, leaving a humorous man-shaped hole.
Controls: A little restricted as far as what you can do but let's agree that that's bound to be true while parachuting. Still, smooth and simple.
 | ||
| It's NOT gonna be a long, long, time | 'Til touchdown brings me 'round again |
Landing too hard with this will cause you to fall onto your back. Harder yet (and this is pretty hard to do on accident) will cause the Rocket-Belt to explode, leaving your character grounded and charred.
Controls: Simple and responsive, but this thing can get away from you.
 |
| Gamers who aren't entirely comfortable in their masculinity may want to avoid this discipline as the Hang Glider only comes in hot pink. |
Hang Glider: One of the most difficult lessons in the game, the Hang Glider is likely to make you not too picky about whatever score you get, as long as you get one. You will start off attached by a cable to a Light Plane (don't worry, you don't have to pilot this plane) and then you will be released, required to fly yourself around. The Hang Glider controls much like the plane, pushing up causes you to nose dive, back causes you to swing back up, and you can move side to side on the 3-D map. Unlike the plane, however, your speed and height is not so much in your control. As your Hang Glider flies through the air, it will loose steam, and begin to fall to the ground. The only way to regain your momentum is to fly over a "Thermal Current" to gain a substantial amount of height again. Completing these lessons involve either climbing to a certain height, or passing through a ring twice, landing on the Hang Glider's special target afterwords. Landing prematurely will disqualify you, entirely. To land, you "flare" with the A button to tip your Hang Glider straight up and put your feet underneath you when you're just feet off the ground. Beware, however, as you will not come to a dead stop, and will take a few steps forward, or even "hop" and step before coming to a complete stop. Also keep in mind that failing to land on your feet will result in no points.
Landing too hard with this (with your feet out) will cause you to land on your backside. This does not count as a failed landing, however
Controls: Smooth? Yes. Simple? Yeah. Easy? ...
Rings: A big part of this game would be the Rings, the main obstacle to overcome throughout all of the lessons. Rings usually take the form of many small, [generally] green balls that spin in a circle, creating the actual ring. Clearing them requires you to fly through their center. Some lessons give you a score for each ring passed, others do not but still require that all rings are cleared before landing. For difficulty reasons, at times rings may be smaller in size, move in strange ways, or take alternate forms such as Bars (several green balls stacked vertically) Arches, and more. When cleared, you will hear a chime, be given a message, and the Rings will change color (usually to red) to indicate that they have been cleared.
Water: A big part of this game would be the water. Landing in the water will effectively end your lesson right then and there. It comes as no surprise that the moving Bonus Targets are located in the water. Even for normal targets, as you progress, you'll notice that the Target-to-Water ratio is getting to be less and less in your favor.
Scoring: Depending on the game, you will be scored on the following factors - Speed, Time, Angle, Accuracy, and Rings. All lessons offer an opportunity at a perfect score of 100. Needless to say, this is not an easy task to acheive. You must accumulate a certain amount of points in each Flight Area to be certified for your next license, moving one step closer to the coveted Golden Pilot's wings.
 |
| Shot from the little Known Match of the Penguins follow-up Awkward fall of the Penguins |
Instructors/Flight Areas: Before jumping into training at each new Flight Area, you will be given a small introduction by your new instructor, basically telling you what you can expect to learn with them. Your instructors offer different personalities and expressions. Doing poorly influences unhappy expressions whereas doing well makes them happy. Doing VERY well will prompt an overjoyed or shocked expression on the face of your instructor and a perfect score of 100 will be met with a face that can only be described as absolutely hysterical. Before each lesson, they will tell you what you need to do. Once you've scored high enough to see the next Flight Area/meet the next instructor, you will be given a password to use at the titlescreen if you'd like to return, later.
 |
Helicopter Rescue Mission: Once you've earned your Gold Class license, Big Al will accost you with a request that is "above and beyond the call of duty." Tony, Shirly, and Lance have been captured by the EVIL syndicate, and need you to rescue via Attack Chopper. You are the only one in the Flight Club whos qualifications are near what is required to pilot the chopper. Take off from the carrier and ready your missles, as the anti-aircraft guns will be blaring. Find the heliport and successfully land on it to complete the mission. If you can do this, you've not only proves how skilled a Pilot you truly are, but you've proven something to the video game universe itself, as this mission is one of intense difficulty. After surviving the quest, destroying the artilery (some of it being invisible to the eye), and rescuing your instructors, you will have truly earned your Silver Pilot's Wings.
And it's not over, yet. For you've set out to earn your Golden Pilot's wings, right? Well as it turns out, this game is only half over. Now you must revisit all of your past instructors in Pilotwings: Expert Mode. Now, their lessons are much more difficult. After enjoying an altered title screen, use the password presented with your Silver Pilot's Wings and get started on your road to the Golden Wings.
Expert Tony: Snowy, winter conditions. Runway is slick, and targets are smaller. 140 points to earn your Class A Expert license.
Expert Shirly: Rainy conditions. Once again, a slick runway and windier conditions. 240 points to earn your Class B Expert license.
Expert Lance: Very windy conditions, and a sunset time of day. Control is harder, here, be careful. 240 points to earn your Silver Class Expert license.
Expert Big Al: Nighttime's the name of the game, keep your eyes open wide and use the illuminated lines as your guide. A staggering 320 points stands between you and your Gold Class Expert license.
...And once you've finished with these four again, you will find Big Al once again waiting to request your help in another rescue mission. This time the Evil Syndicate as captured a government figure who opposes them. Not on-ly that, but he is Big Al's brother. Fire up the chopper and get ready for a nocturnal mission, your for difficult task yet. Succeed and you've done it. You have earned your Golden Pilot's Wings and are now not only a true pilot, but a true hero as well.
 |
| ♪Practicing our night moves in the summertime...♫ |
-Conclusion-
Pilotwings is one of those titles that seems so random, and maybe not even the best idea. But when executed with the genius mind at Nintendo, it proves to be another classic in the company's big vault of gold. With its quixotic themes and unforgettable gameplay, we would highly recommend this to anybody who has not played it. It is almost guaranteed that you will find it fun and addictive if not sometimes infuriating. We love it, and we certainly think that you should, too.
Richard M.
Don't forget to stop by our shop for retro gaming collectibles:
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Retro Review Tuesday: Vegas Stakes
Introduction
Nintendo is a company that never ceases to surprise us. Amidst all the Mario, Zelda, what have you, you forget that they do indeed have other great games. And one of those other titles would be Vegas Stakes. Perhaps you're not in the mood to save this princess, or that one. Perhaps you just want to tell both of them to figure it the hell out, and relax over in ol' Vegas, trying your luck on Poker, Roulette, Craps, Blackjack, and of course, the Slots. A real "just sit down and play" kind of game, Vegas Stakes offers the fun and interaction that [their interpretation of] Las Vegas has to offer. Place a bet, buy a lottery ticket, insert a coin, get your pocket picked, do it all in this very fun, classic gambling simulation.
Overview
The premise for Vegas stakes is five friends headed out together on a long planned trip Vegas. The main character is whatever you put your name in is , we played as Mr. Cooteller (No I don't why we named ourselves that either). I'm not sure of the motivations of your friends, but your completely reasonable and rational goal is to turn your 1 thousand dollars in to 10 million dollars before leaving Vegas. The game doesn't end until you hit that goal or spend every last dime trying.
Controls are very simple. This is one of the few games that supports the SNES mouse and obviously we all know how to use a mouse. If you use a control it's not much different as you only use 3 buttons anyway. They're responsive enough, though it honestly doesn't matter much as it's not an action oriented game.
Graphically it's pretty dated. The graphics aren't bad, but they reek of the early 90's limited Palette VGA "realism" graphics that are more commonly seen in PC games of the era. They were mind blowingly realistic at the time, but not so pretty by today's standards. However this game does feature some of the best facial expressions on NPcs in any game ever. Johnny's smile is my personal favorite.
Soundwise it's memorable if not a bit repetitive. Each Casino has it's own theme song that you'll constantly be hearing in the background. the songs correspond to theme of each casino IE the Buffalo head has a western song playing and the Laurel Palace has a generic "classical piece". In my opinion the best music is easily the electronica in the 2020, though I'm rather fond of Laurel Palace's music as well. Regardless of which music you personally prefer, it is probably going to get annoying after awhile as it will play no matter what game you're playing and there's no way to turn it off.
Gameplay
You start off in the car with your friends all having a conversation about how excited they all are to be going to Vegas. Once you make it to the hotel you put in whatever name you choose and head up to your hotel room. From the room you can choose one of your friends, Cliff, Maria, Isabelle, or Richard to go out gambling with. We always choose Richard because he's so cute and non-threatening. Whomever you choose will give you info about the locations and games.When you want to take a break from gambling or just get tired of looking at whomever you've gone out with you can head back to the hotel room. Here you can save your progress and choose a new friend to go out with. Once you're prepared to hit the strip, you get 4 Casinos to choose from each with their own theming and table limits.
The Hideway: The Casino equivalent of a dive bar. This is the cheapest Casino you'll find with $1 minimums and $50 maximums. You won't lose a lot , but you won't make a lot. This is probably only a good bet if you've spent almost all your cash elsewhere.
The Golden Paradise: Your standard generic looking casino. This is the Casino your hotel is in and the one you start off in. It's right in the middle, not to high and not to low. Table minimums at $20 and the maximum $250. Definitely a good starting point to amass your vast fortune.
The Buffalo Head: The wild west, Vegas style! It's another middle of the road casino, with slightly higher minimums at $50 and Maximums at $500. Another good spot to start off amassing your fortune.
The 2020: Futuristic post apocalyptic sci-fi gambling. This is the last casino you can visit before reaching your high roller status. The table minimums start at $100 and go to $1000. This is probably going to be where you're going to make it to high roller status, but you're going to want to avoid it until you've got a good cash cushion built up or you'll eat through your cash in short order.
Once you've effectively gambled your way to $100,000 you're elevated to High Roller Status and you'll get new swanky hotel room and you gain access to the Laurel Palace.
The Laurel Palace: The creme de le creme of casinos with ornate detailing including marble statues on the slots. Even though you can gamble here as soon as you've reached $100k, it's a better idea to wait until you're at around half a million as the minimum starts at $1,000 and there's no limit. It's very easy to blow through money here, but when you hit, you hit it big. Once you're at a million or better you'll probably be constantly playing here if you want to make any real headway towards your $10 million goal.
Of course you don't make money just hanging out in Casinos so you've got your choice of 5 games which you can use to make your fortune.
Black Jack: Your standard rules game of 21. Beat the dealers hand or get 21 to win. You won't make a lot of money playing BJ, but your odds are pretty good.
Slots: You choose from 1 of 4 bet denominations. Depending on the Casino you get different machine style and a different choice of limits. Slots are probably the quickest and easiest means of making money also the easiest means of losing. Slots require no skills or planning just a lot of good luck.
Roulette: Another luck game. Bet on your lucky number and hope for the best. You can get the odds for each bet from whichever friend you've decided to go with.
Craps: A game of odds. Mostly toss the dice and hope for good luck. But there's a good amount of skill involved in knowing and playing the odds in your favor.
Poker: 7-Card Stud. The Most Complex game. You play with 4 other people random selected from the pool of 8 NPCs + 3 of your 4 friends (you can't play with whomever is with you) for total 11 potential players. Each NPC has their own unique playing style, bluffing style and tells. It takes a good amount of skill, research and luck to be successful. This is the most engaging and interesting game because of the other players and complexity of the game itself.
As if playing exciting Vegas games on your SNES isn't enough there are several random interactions with NPCs that happen while you're playing your games. In every case an NPC who magically knows your name will approach you and ask for something or offer something. Sometimes these are very good for you, sometimes they're very bad and sometimes they do a whole lot of nothing. They are however some of the most memorable and interesting parts of the game.
The Diamond: Occasionally someone will approach in need of money and asks if you're interested in purchasing a diamond appraised at $5000. You can make an offer for it, the lowest we've gotten someone to accept is $700. You can have one of two outcomes: The diamond is fake. After you've bought the diamond someone else will come along and offer you $100 for the diamond and tell you you've been conned. This is what happens roughly 9 times out of 10. The second, the diamond is real and someone will offer you $10,000 for it. In spite of the potentially high pay off this is probably a interaction best avoided.
The Watch: Someone will come along saying they need money for cab fare and asks if you'll spare $200 for a watch. As far we've seen this is always a safe bet. After purchasing it someone will come along and offer you between $400 and $1000 for it.
Sick Child: Someone will come along and ask you to help them paying for their sick child's bills. There are two outcomes, it's a con or it's legit. when it's a con right after you've given the money a police officer will approach you to tell you about a scam happening. If it's legitimate you'll get $200 back. It's only $100 so it's probably not going to hurt you unless you're just starting out, but the return isn't really great either. It's probably just best to say no unless you can't live with the guilt of not helping a child in need.
Oil Well: You'll be approached and asked if you're interested in investing in an oil well and you'll get double you investment. It starts off at $5000, but you can haggle it down to $3000. However, if you strike oil you still only get double back so you invest less, you get less. You can also strike water in which case you obviously lose your investment. It seems to be roughly 50/50 odds.
Lottery ticket: Someone will come up to you and ask if you're interested in buying a a lottery ticket for $500 that was a potential $10,000 payoff. Odds seems to be pretty good for this one, it's generally worth going for unless you're really strapped for cash. Sometimes when someone asks to wipe a spot on your shirt they'll give you a lottery ticket which will always win. The catch to this is they could be a pick pocket or they could do nothing.
Sports bet: Sometimes the person your with will say they're headed off to make a sports bet and ask if you're interested in making a $500 bet. If you win you double your bet. Odds seem completely random.
Check your meter: This only happens while playing slots, occasionally a casino worker will come by and ask if they can check your meter. You can send them away, but if you let them do their thing you'll get a free max bet pull on your slot machine.
Remembering the face: Someone will come up and ask if you remember them. Always say yes even if you've never seen them before that moment as they'll always give you what you for "being so nice" to them.
Returning the wallet: Whomever you're with will occasionally tell you that they found a wallet with cash and asks if you should keep it or return it. I suggest returning it not only because it's ethical, but because it can lead to a payoff much greater than whatever was in the wallet. Occasionally you'll get nothing, but it's a safe gamble given you're not out anything.
In a class of their own are the loads of Pickpocketing scams. They include: twisted ankles, bad luck and a spot on your shirt. While the claim changes from incident to incident, in each of these cases the perpetrator will come up to you and ask for something that requires them to get close to you. Most of the time they'll be walking away with half you current cash if you decide to aid them. Sometimes however, they'll be legitimate and will reward you handsomely for your help. Depending on how much cash you're currently carrying around really depends on whether or not you want to chance them.
Overall you just keep casino hopping, playing the games and dodging the scams until you hit 10million. It's actually quite engaging and entertaining.
Conclusion
Vegas Stakes is so much more than your standard gambling game. Sure all the games are there and you are in Vegas after all, but it's the interaction of that sets things apart. Maybe modern gambling games include pickpocketing scams and intelligent unique poker players, but this was revolutionary for the time period and has managed to stand the test of time admirably. I haven't noticed any real decrease in fun factor from playing Vegas Stakes years ago until now. I'm still just as happy to spend a lazy afternoon of gambling, scams and quick money.
~Stephanie
Don't forget to stop by our shop:
Nintendo is a company that never ceases to surprise us. Amidst all the Mario, Zelda, what have you, you forget that they do indeed have other great games. And one of those other titles would be Vegas Stakes. Perhaps you're not in the mood to save this princess, or that one. Perhaps you just want to tell both of them to figure it the hell out, and relax over in ol' Vegas, trying your luck on Poker, Roulette, Craps, Blackjack, and of course, the Slots. A real "just sit down and play" kind of game, Vegas Stakes offers the fun and interaction that [their interpretation of] Las Vegas has to offer. Place a bet, buy a lottery ticket, insert a coin, get your pocket picked, do it all in this very fun, classic gambling simulation.
Overview
The premise for Vegas stakes is five friends headed out together on a long planned trip Vegas. The main character is whatever you put your name in is , we played as Mr. Cooteller (No I don't why we named ourselves that either). I'm not sure of the motivations of your friends, but your completely reasonable and rational goal is to turn your 1 thousand dollars in to 10 million dollars before leaving Vegas. The game doesn't end until you hit that goal or spend every last dime trying.
 |
| This probably the worst approach to gambling |
Graphically it's pretty dated. The graphics aren't bad, but they reek of the early 90's limited Palette VGA "realism" graphics that are more commonly seen in PC games of the era. They were mind blowingly realistic at the time, but not so pretty by today's standards. However this game does feature some of the best facial expressions on NPcs in any game ever. Johnny's smile is my personal favorite.
 |
| Keep an eye on Silver, He may have beat the Elite 4 when he was 10 but life's been hard since then and he's a desperate man. |
Soundwise it's memorable if not a bit repetitive. Each Casino has it's own theme song that you'll constantly be hearing in the background. the songs correspond to theme of each casino IE the Buffalo head has a western song playing and the Laurel Palace has a generic "classical piece". In my opinion the best music is easily the electronica in the 2020, though I'm rather fond of Laurel Palace's music as well. Regardless of which music you personally prefer, it is probably going to get annoying after awhile as it will play no matter what game you're playing and there's no way to turn it off.
Gameplay
 |
| Cliff's right to be irritated 5 people is too many for a car trip in this car. |
You start off in the car with your friends all having a conversation about how excited they all are to be going to Vegas. Once you make it to the hotel you put in whatever name you choose and head up to your hotel room. From the room you can choose one of your friends, Cliff, Maria, Isabelle, or Richard to go out gambling with. We always choose Richard because he's so cute and non-threatening. Whomever you choose will give you info about the locations and games.When you want to take a break from gambling or just get tired of looking at whomever you've gone out with you can head back to the hotel room. Here you can save your progress and choose a new friend to go out with. Once you're prepared to hit the strip, you get 4 Casinos to choose from each with their own theming and table limits.
The Hideway: The Casino equivalent of a dive bar. This is the cheapest Casino you'll find with $1 minimums and $50 maximums. You won't lose a lot , but you won't make a lot. This is probably only a good bet if you've spent almost all your cash elsewhere.
 |
| Richard just doesn't appreciate a good deal |
The Golden Paradise: Your standard generic looking casino. This is the Casino your hotel is in and the one you start off in. It's right in the middle, not to high and not to low. Table minimums at $20 and the maximum $250. Definitely a good starting point to amass your vast fortune.
The Buffalo Head: The wild west, Vegas style! It's another middle of the road casino, with slightly higher minimums at $50 and Maximums at $500. Another good spot to start off amassing your fortune.
 |
| I'm a little sad there's not actually a Casino with this aesthetic |
The 2020: Futuristic post apocalyptic sci-fi gambling. This is the last casino you can visit before reaching your high roller status. The table minimums start at $100 and go to $1000. This is probably going to be where you're going to make it to high roller status, but you're going to want to avoid it until you've got a good cash cushion built up or you'll eat through your cash in short order.
Once you've effectively gambled your way to $100,000 you're elevated to High Roller Status and you'll get new swanky hotel room and you gain access to the Laurel Palace.
The Laurel Palace: The creme de le creme of casinos with ornate detailing including marble statues on the slots. Even though you can gamble here as soon as you've reached $100k, it's a better idea to wait until you're at around half a million as the minimum starts at $1,000 and there's no limit. It's very easy to blow through money here, but when you hit, you hit it big. Once you're at a million or better you'll probably be constantly playing here if you want to make any real headway towards your $10 million goal.
Of course you don't make money just hanging out in Casinos so you've got your choice of 5 games which you can use to make your fortune.
 |
| There's a joke in here about how a BJ is always a win but I'm too classy to make it. |
Black Jack: Your standard rules game of 21. Beat the dealers hand or get 21 to win. You won't make a lot of money playing BJ, but your odds are pretty good.
Slots: You choose from 1 of 4 bet denominations. Depending on the Casino you get different machine style and a different choice of limits. Slots are probably the quickest and easiest means of making money also the easiest means of losing. Slots require no skills or planning just a lot of good luck.
Roulette: Another luck game. Bet on your lucky number and hope for the best. You can get the odds for each bet from whichever friend you've decided to go with.
 |
| Snake Eyes, You LOSE |
Craps: A game of odds. Mostly toss the dice and hope for good luck. But there's a good amount of skill involved in knowing and playing the odds in your favor.
Poker: 7-Card Stud. The Most Complex game. You play with 4 other people random selected from the pool of 8 NPCs + 3 of your 4 friends (you can't play with whomever is with you) for total 11 potential players. Each NPC has their own unique playing style, bluffing style and tells. It takes a good amount of skill, research and luck to be successful. This is the most engaging and interesting game because of the other players and complexity of the game itself.
As if playing exciting Vegas games on your SNES isn't enough there are several random interactions with NPCs that happen while you're playing your games. In every case an NPC who magically knows your name will approach you and ask for something or offer something. Sometimes these are very good for you, sometimes they're very bad and sometimes they do a whole lot of nothing. They are however some of the most memorable and interesting parts of the game.
The Diamond: Occasionally someone will approach in need of money and asks if you're interested in purchasing a diamond appraised at $5000. You can make an offer for it, the lowest we've gotten someone to accept is $700. You can have one of two outcomes: The diamond is fake. After you've bought the diamond someone else will come along and offer you $100 for the diamond and tell you you've been conned. This is what happens roughly 9 times out of 10. The second, the diamond is real and someone will offer you $10,000 for it. In spite of the potentially high pay off this is probably a interaction best avoided.
 |
| I know Vegas is expensive by $200 for cab fare seems pretty high |
The Watch: Someone will come along saying they need money for cab fare and asks if you'll spare $200 for a watch. As far we've seen this is always a safe bet. After purchasing it someone will come along and offer you between $400 and $1000 for it.
Sick Child: Someone will come along and ask you to help them paying for their sick child's bills. There are two outcomes, it's a con or it's legit. when it's a con right after you've given the money a police officer will approach you to tell you about a scam happening. If it's legitimate you'll get $200 back. It's only $100 so it's probably not going to hurt you unless you're just starting out, but the return isn't really great either. It's probably just best to say no unless you can't live with the guilt of not helping a child in need.
Oil Well: You'll be approached and asked if you're interested in investing in an oil well and you'll get double you investment. It starts off at $5000, but you can haggle it down to $3000. However, if you strike oil you still only get double back so you invest less, you get less. You can also strike water in which case you obviously lose your investment. It seems to be roughly 50/50 odds.
 |
| A three digit lottery ticket seems a bad bet for the casino frankly |
Lottery ticket: Someone will come up to you and ask if you're interested in buying a a lottery ticket for $500 that was a potential $10,000 payoff. Odds seems to be pretty good for this one, it's generally worth going for unless you're really strapped for cash. Sometimes when someone asks to wipe a spot on your shirt they'll give you a lottery ticket which will always win. The catch to this is they could be a pick pocket or they could do nothing.
Sports bet: Sometimes the person your with will say they're headed off to make a sports bet and ask if you're interested in making a $500 bet. If you win you double your bet. Odds seem completely random.
Check your meter: This only happens while playing slots, occasionally a casino worker will come by and ask if they can check your meter. You can send them away, but if you let them do their thing you'll get a free max bet pull on your slot machine.
Remembering the face: Someone will come up and ask if you remember them. Always say yes even if you've never seen them before that moment as they'll always give you what you for "being so nice" to them.
Returning the wallet: Whomever you're with will occasionally tell you that they found a wallet with cash and asks if you should keep it or return it. I suggest returning it not only because it's ethical, but because it can lead to a payoff much greater than whatever was in the wallet. Occasionally you'll get nothing, but it's a safe gamble given you're not out anything.
 |
| Even when doing high rolling gambling keeping tens of thousands of dollars in cash in your pockets is asking for trouble |
Overall you just keep casino hopping, playing the games and dodging the scams until you hit 10million. It's actually quite engaging and entertaining.
Conclusion
Vegas Stakes is so much more than your standard gambling game. Sure all the games are there and you are in Vegas after all, but it's the interaction of that sets things apart. Maybe modern gambling games include pickpocketing scams and intelligent unique poker players, but this was revolutionary for the time period and has managed to stand the test of time admirably. I haven't noticed any real decrease in fun factor from playing Vegas Stakes years ago until now. I'm still just as happy to spend a lazy afternoon of gambling, scams and quick money.
~Stephanie
Don't forget to stop by our shop:
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Retro Review Tuesday: Super Ghouls N Ghosts
-Introduction-
With the playstation coming out in the mid to late nineties, the aspect of unsaveable, unforgiving games was beginning to fade away. During the days of the SNES, the early end of the decade was reserved only for those with serious will, and plenty of time on their hands. Some games will just never be forgotten long after their time, and in the case of Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts, the struggle and pain that it put its players through will resonate with them until the end of time.
-Overview-
Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts, sequal to Ghosts 'n' Goblins on the NES, is a side-scroller/shooter with a medieval-horror theme. You run through the levels and hurl your projectile-only weapons at zombies, demons, and of course, Ghouls and Ghosts, having nothing but a rather unreliable suit of armor and in special cases, a shield to protect you. Neither item with protect you for long, and your only true tool for survival would be the amazing maneuverability and more specifically, jumping and double-jumping capabilities of Sir Arthur, the protagonist. His quest is to save the princess he loves from the clutches of the demons. He will do this by trudging and toiling through 7 long, extremely difficult levels, a journey which can only continue as for as long as you keep your Super Nintendo powered on. And one more thing - you'll have to do it twice.
Graphics, Controls and Music:
Graphically, it's a pretty nice looking game with highly detailed backgrounds, vibrant colors, smooth animations, and complex level designs. However, during heavy sprite activity, the games will slow down, often times considerably. Sprites and characters are well rendered with clear actions. The controls are smooth and easy to use, with a simple jump and shoot premise, which is good as the game requires sometimes insane amounts of maneuverability to survive. The music is well composed, well executed, and quite distinctive, making it hard to forget even years after you play. Although to be fair, that could also be because of how much time you'll spend in each level before progressing.
-Gameplay-
Start up:
When you begin, you can decide to plunge with in with "Game Start" or check out the options, and see what it has for you. You can choose how many lives you get per continue, ranging from one to nine. You can also change controls and the difficulty of the game.
Playing the Game:
As stated above, the gameplay is relatively simple in light of the infamous difficulty of the game. You start the game, and you're ready to go. Start running, and throw your weapon at the enemies as they come at you. Normal enemies can take anywhere from one hit to far too many to count. You can collect new weapons as you go, each with different strengths and uses. There are also pickups that award points which can help you to retain lives/continues (although it's actually rather hard to run out of continues).
Most levels have two areas, with a check point at the beginning of the second. Usually, both areas are vastly different from each other, exhibiting two very different styles of gameplay or enemies or both. There is a timer on the game, giving you just five minutes to reach the next checkpoint or to beat the level. At the end of each level there is a boss character, always huge compared to your character, and withstanding any barrage you can throw at them for a good long while. If you can manage to defeat the boss, you will be given a key to the next level. Once you've completed level seven, you will have to go back and do it all again, this time collected the Goddess Bracelet that will grant you the power to defeat the main fiend, Sardius. If you were playing on Beginner, the difficulty will be bumped up to Normal.
-Equipment-
Armor: A big part of this game would be Sir Arthur's suit of armor. Much of what makes it a big part of the game is how little it protects against attacks. As soon as an enemy or enemy projectile strikes you, Arthur will be thrown back from the impact, and his armor will crumble, leaving him in just his boxers. Yes, it's wonderfully absurd, but it also serves as a very effective feeling of powerlessness. You can still do all your same basic maneuvers, but in a game like this, it's rather a rather uneasy feeling knowing that you've got nothing protecting you from enemies, their fireballs, or just simple dangerous parts of the level, such as spikes. If Arthur suffers a hit when his armor is gone, he is instantly reduced to bones, and not surprisingly, you've lost a life.
However, you can upgrade your armor by finding better suits in hidden treasure chests. While upgrading your armor doesn't make it any more apt to withstand attack, it does significantly boost your attack abilities, turning your ordinary weapons into powerful relics of mass destruction.
Armor Levels:
Normal (Gray) - It protects you for one hit and...that's about it. Still, you feel tons safer with even this armor on then none at all. If you defeat a boss while suitless, you'll gain this one back upon collecting the key to the next level.
Green: - A ridiculously complex looking armor, it changes the functions of your weapons and makes them more powerful.
Gold - The best suit in the game, this does the same thing as the green suit and more - by charging the attack button, you can build up your power and unleash a devastating Special Attack, unique to the weapon you're wielding. It also comes with an upgradable shield which will block certain attacks just once before it too will crumble, just like your suit.
Treasure Chests: A very important part of the game, treasure chests can hold weapons, armor, shields, enemies, bear trap, or even an enemy who can change Arthur's form. Once you get used to the game, you can have a slight idea about what might be in a chest before you open it, as its usually the same order, depending on the circumstances. Chests are usually found by jumping in certain areas, or sometimes they're just given to you. You can also try to explore a corner that seems otherwise useless. Whatever it takes, once you've done the secret action, the chest will pop up out of the ground. The only way to open a chest is to strike it with your weapon until it breaks open. It seems annoying, but honestly it makes sense. After all, treasure chests are usually locked. Even if most games wish to ignore that fact.
Weapons:
Each weapon boasts different attack power and different uses. If you know what you're coming up on, it may be pertinent to change your weapon (if you can find a new one) to what you think would be better.
Lance (Default) - The weapon you start the game with, you can
throw two in a row. It's rather slow and not considered too useful in any situation. And with its length, it's also rather difficult to avoid picking it up if you don't want it.
Upgrade: Flaming Lance - More power, but less function
Special Attack: Bolt - A bolt of lightning will strike Arthur, which he then shoots outward in both directions. Very powerful.
Torch - A weapon of great power, these will fall to the ground soon after you throw them and burn, allowing you two different methods of attack. Straight-on attacks will highly damage the enemy it hits, or you can throw the torch to the ground and burn the enemy with the burning fire, which will lightly damage them many times at once. The only downfall to this weapon would be its lack of range, but that is usually made up for in its functions. Not always, however.
Upgrade: Fire Ball - Now featuring amazing power, this works just like the normal Torch, with a much large burn when it hits the ground.
Special Attack: Orbs of Protection - Three orbs will revolve around Arthur, killing weaker enemies as they touch them, and damaging strong ones. It's not complete protection however, so you shouldn't get over-confident when you use it.
Arrows - These are a little hard to use, as they always shoot at an upward angle. They have a decent rate of fire, and speed. They are thrown two at a time, with is good because an individual arrow is very weak.
Upgrade: Homing Bolts - Three of these are shot at once, and will home it on enemies for you. It's useful but sometimes one of the bolts can continuously circle an enemy for a long time without actually landing an attack, disabling you from throwing any more until it finally disappears.
Special Attack: Chest Finder - This will cause any chests in the area to appear, without having to find them, yourself.
Dagger - These are weak but have great rapid-fire capabilities, allowing you to partially immobilize stronger enemies as you bombard them with these. Since they still kill weak enemies in one hit, they are plenty useful in areas very populated with these enemies.
Upgrade: Energy Beam - These first fire as a normal dagger
and then are magically turned into a long, white beam with a nice sharp point on the end. They boast an even better rate of fire than the old ones, and are more powerful. They also pass through enemies, allowing you to hit targets in a line. A rather nice weapon for all situations.
Special Attack: Fire Dragon - Charge this up to unleash a blue-flaming dragon that will shoot out of Arthur, himself, and whip around the screen. It's a very powerful attack but the Dragon's path makes it a little hard to hit a lot of enemies with it.
Scythe - This is a very interesting weapon, and the only one that can change directions. These can be thrown straight or downward at the player's discretion. Also, if they come into contact with an incline, they will actually travel up the hill. When they hit an enemy, they will actually strike the enemy twice.
Upgrade: Twisted Blade - Similar function to the normal Scythe, these are basically just more powerful
Special Attack: Whirlwinds - Power this up to unleash a very effective attack where two large cyclones will attack the entire screen's worth of enemies. Pretty good for clearing out hostiles.
Axe - A reasonably powerful weapon which spins in a wide circle. This allows it to hit enemies slightly above or below you. However, in tight, tunnel-like areas or inclines, this becomes a very ineffectual weapon.
Upgrade - Discus Blade - The axe turns into a huge, round object that, when thrown, flies straight up, and then forward in a very shaky motion. Very powerful, and passed through enemies so you can hit many targets with just one throw, but even more prone to ineffectiveness in even not-so-tight areas. Also, the rate of fire is slow.
Special Attack: Beam Burst - This will shoot off beams in all directions, hitting anything around you.
...Thing - Not quite sure what this is. Makes its debut in level 5, which is reasonably far into the game. These very strange items move extremely erratically, shooting straight up, going forward for a quick second, falling downward, and coming back towards Arthur.
Upgrade - Basically a stronger version of the above, but it will pass through enemies.
Special Attack: Aerial Bomb - This causes a series of explosions of energy which can effect the enemies in the area, even if they don't actually touch the blasts.
Goddess Bracelet - A very important weapon, you can only get this on your second play-through of
the game. You need it to defeat Sardius, but you can collect it as early as level one. It allows you to obliterate enemies with a very, very powerful magical blast. From point-blank range this will destroy most enemies and open chests with just one throw. But it loses strength as it flies through the air, so at it's weakest state, it will prove less effective than anything when hitting targets from afar.
Upgrade: The weapon is always the same no matter what suit you wear, but it does change in deceptively significant ways. It gains more strength and range as you collect better armor for example, it can snuff out some fireballs right out of the air.
-Conclusion-
There's a strange amount of amusement offered in this Capcom classic despite its abusive difficulty. If you can muster up an admirable amount of patience, this is a game that will give you challenges to last for as long as you're willing to take them. So go ahead. Close this window. Find this game. Put in in your SNES. Turn it on. And see if you can accomplish something truly worth a lifetime of pride and boasting.
But make sure a friend is there with you, or nobody will ever believe you.
~RM
Don't forget to stop by our shop for vintage gaming collectibles:
With the playstation coming out in the mid to late nineties, the aspect of unsaveable, unforgiving games was beginning to fade away. During the days of the SNES, the early end of the decade was reserved only for those with serious will, and plenty of time on their hands. Some games will just never be forgotten long after their time, and in the case of Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts, the struggle and pain that it put its players through will resonate with them until the end of time.
-Overview-
Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts, sequal to Ghosts 'n' Goblins on the NES, is a side-scroller/shooter with a medieval-horror theme. You run through the levels and hurl your projectile-only weapons at zombies, demons, and of course, Ghouls and Ghosts, having nothing but a rather unreliable suit of armor and in special cases, a shield to protect you. Neither item with protect you for long, and your only true tool for survival would be the amazing maneuverability and more specifically, jumping and double-jumping capabilities of Sir Arthur, the protagonist. His quest is to save the princess he loves from the clutches of the demons. He will do this by trudging and toiling through 7 long, extremely difficult levels, a journey which can only continue as for as long as you keep your Super Nintendo powered on. And one more thing - you'll have to do it twice.
 |
| Arthur takes the phrase "kill it with fire" to heart |
Graphics, Controls and Music:
Graphically, it's a pretty nice looking game with highly detailed backgrounds, vibrant colors, smooth animations, and complex level designs. However, during heavy sprite activity, the games will slow down, often times considerably. Sprites and characters are well rendered with clear actions. The controls are smooth and easy to use, with a simple jump and shoot premise, which is good as the game requires sometimes insane amounts of maneuverability to survive. The music is well composed, well executed, and quite distinctive, making it hard to forget even years after you play. Although to be fair, that could also be because of how much time you'll spend in each level before progressing.
 |
| There's a doins' transpirin' |
-Gameplay-
Start up:
When you begin, you can decide to plunge with in with "Game Start" or check out the options, and see what it has for you. You can choose how many lives you get per continue, ranging from one to nine. You can also change controls and the difficulty of the game.
Playing the Game:
 |
| This graveyard seems to have been used for some sort of cloning experiments as every zombie looks exactly the same |
As stated above, the gameplay is relatively simple in light of the infamous difficulty of the game. You start the game, and you're ready to go. Start running, and throw your weapon at the enemies as they come at you. Normal enemies can take anywhere from one hit to far too many to count. You can collect new weapons as you go, each with different strengths and uses. There are also pickups that award points which can help you to retain lives/continues (although it's actually rather hard to run out of continues).
Most levels have two areas, with a check point at the beginning of the second. Usually, both areas are vastly different from each other, exhibiting two very different styles of gameplay or enemies or both. There is a timer on the game, giving you just five minutes to reach the next checkpoint or to beat the level. At the end of each level there is a boss character, always huge compared to your character, and withstanding any barrage you can throw at them for a good long while. If you can manage to defeat the boss, you will be given a key to the next level. Once you've completed level seven, you will have to go back and do it all again, this time collected the Goddess Bracelet that will grant you the power to defeat the main fiend, Sardius. If you were playing on Beginner, the difficulty will be bumped up to Normal.
-Equipment-
Armor: A big part of this game would be Sir Arthur's suit of armor. Much of what makes it a big part of the game is how little it protects against attacks. As soon as an enemy or enemy projectile strikes you, Arthur will be thrown back from the impact, and his armor will crumble, leaving him in just his boxers. Yes, it's wonderfully absurd, but it also serves as a very effective feeling of powerlessness. You can still do all your same basic maneuvers, but in a game like this, it's rather a rather uneasy feeling knowing that you've got nothing protecting you from enemies, their fireballs, or just simple dangerous parts of the level, such as spikes. If Arthur suffers a hit when his armor is gone, he is instantly reduced to bones, and not surprisingly, you've lost a life.
 |
| Oh, I've wasted my life |
However, you can upgrade your armor by finding better suits in hidden treasure chests. While upgrading your armor doesn't make it any more apt to withstand attack, it does significantly boost your attack abilities, turning your ordinary weapons into powerful relics of mass destruction.
Armor Levels:
Normal (Gray) - It protects you for one hit and...that's about it. Still, you feel tons safer with even this armor on then none at all. If you defeat a boss while suitless, you'll gain this one back upon collecting the key to the next level.
Green: - A ridiculously complex looking armor, it changes the functions of your weapons and makes them more powerful.
Gold - The best suit in the game, this does the same thing as the green suit and more - by charging the attack button, you can build up your power and unleash a devastating Special Attack, unique to the weapon you're wielding. It also comes with an upgradable shield which will block certain attacks just once before it too will crumble, just like your suit.
Treasure Chests: A very important part of the game, treasure chests can hold weapons, armor, shields, enemies, bear trap, or even an enemy who can change Arthur's form. Once you get used to the game, you can have a slight idea about what might be in a chest before you open it, as its usually the same order, depending on the circumstances. Chests are usually found by jumping in certain areas, or sometimes they're just given to you. You can also try to explore a corner that seems otherwise useless. Whatever it takes, once you've done the secret action, the chest will pop up out of the ground. The only way to open a chest is to strike it with your weapon until it breaks open. It seems annoying, but honestly it makes sense. After all, treasure chests are usually locked. Even if most games wish to ignore that fact.
 |
| Sure you can't use weapons now but at least you look pretty isn't that what's really important? |
Weapons:
Each weapon boasts different attack power and different uses. If you know what you're coming up on, it may be pertinent to change your weapon (if you can find a new one) to what you think would be better.
Lance (Default) - The weapon you start the game with, you can
throw two in a row. It's rather slow and not considered too useful in any situation. And with its length, it's also rather difficult to avoid picking it up if you don't want it.
Upgrade: Flaming Lance - More power, but less function
Special Attack: Bolt - A bolt of lightning will strike Arthur, which he then shoots outward in both directions. Very powerful.
 |
| If a 10 foot tall zombie pops up Arthur is definitely gonna hit it |
Torch - A weapon of great power, these will fall to the ground soon after you throw them and burn, allowing you two different methods of attack. Straight-on attacks will highly damage the enemy it hits, or you can throw the torch to the ground and burn the enemy with the burning fire, which will lightly damage them many times at once. The only downfall to this weapon would be its lack of range, but that is usually made up for in its functions. Not always, however.
Upgrade: Fire Ball - Now featuring amazing power, this works just like the normal Torch, with a much large burn when it hits the ground.
Special Attack: Orbs of Protection - Three orbs will revolve around Arthur, killing weaker enemies as they touch them, and damaging strong ones. It's not complete protection however, so you shouldn't get over-confident when you use it.
Arrows - These are a little hard to use, as they always shoot at an upward angle. They have a decent rate of fire, and speed. They are thrown two at a time, with is good because an individual arrow is very weak.
Upgrade: Homing Bolts - Three of these are shot at once, and will home it on enemies for you. It's useful but sometimes one of the bolts can continuously circle an enemy for a long time without actually landing an attack, disabling you from throwing any more until it finally disappears.
Special Attack: Chest Finder - This will cause any chests in the area to appear, without having to find them, yourself.
Dagger - These are weak but have great rapid-fire capabilities, allowing you to partially immobilize stronger enemies as you bombard them with these. Since they still kill weak enemies in one hit, they are plenty useful in areas very populated with these enemies.
Upgrade: Energy Beam - These first fire as a normal dagger
and then are magically turned into a long, white beam with a nice sharp point on the end. They boast an even better rate of fire than the old ones, and are more powerful. They also pass through enemies, allowing you to hit targets in a line. A rather nice weapon for all situations.
Special Attack: Fire Dragon - Charge this up to unleash a blue-flaming dragon that will shoot out of Arthur, himself, and whip around the screen. It's a very powerful attack but the Dragon's path makes it a little hard to hit a lot of enemies with it.
 |
| It might not be the most effect special attack but it is the coolest looking |
Scythe - This is a very interesting weapon, and the only one that can change directions. These can be thrown straight or downward at the player's discretion. Also, if they come into contact with an incline, they will actually travel up the hill. When they hit an enemy, they will actually strike the enemy twice.
Upgrade: Twisted Blade - Similar function to the normal Scythe, these are basically just more powerful
Special Attack: Whirlwinds - Power this up to unleash a very effective attack where two large cyclones will attack the entire screen's worth of enemies. Pretty good for clearing out hostiles.
Axe - A reasonably powerful weapon which spins in a wide circle. This allows it to hit enemies slightly above or below you. However, in tight, tunnel-like areas or inclines, this becomes a very ineffectual weapon.
Upgrade - Discus Blade - The axe turns into a huge, round object that, when thrown, flies straight up, and then forward in a very shaky motion. Very powerful, and passed through enemies so you can hit many targets with just one throw, but even more prone to ineffectiveness in even not-so-tight areas. Also, the rate of fire is slow.
Special Attack: Beam Burst - This will shoot off beams in all directions, hitting anything around you.
...Thing - Not quite sure what this is. Makes its debut in level 5, which is reasonably far into the game. These very strange items move extremely erratically, shooting straight up, going forward for a quick second, falling downward, and coming back towards Arthur.
Upgrade - Basically a stronger version of the above, but it will pass through enemies.
Special Attack: Aerial Bomb - This causes a series of explosions of energy which can effect the enemies in the area, even if they don't actually touch the blasts.
 |
| Literally everything happening in this level is terrible |
the game. You need it to defeat Sardius, but you can collect it as early as level one. It allows you to obliterate enemies with a very, very powerful magical blast. From point-blank range this will destroy most enemies and open chests with just one throw. But it loses strength as it flies through the air, so at it's weakest state, it will prove less effective than anything when hitting targets from afar.
Upgrade: The weapon is always the same no matter what suit you wear, but it does change in deceptively significant ways. It gains more strength and range as you collect better armor for example, it can snuff out some fireballs right out of the air.
-Conclusion-
There's a strange amount of amusement offered in this Capcom classic despite its abusive difficulty. If you can muster up an admirable amount of patience, this is a game that will give you challenges to last for as long as you're willing to take them. So go ahead. Close this window. Find this game. Put in in your SNES. Turn it on. And see if you can accomplish something truly worth a lifetime of pride and boasting.
But make sure a friend is there with you, or nobody will ever believe you.
~RM
Don't forget to stop by our shop for vintage gaming collectibles:
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Retro Review Tuesday: Mario Paint
Introduction
Mario Paint is a game that makes absolutely no sense at all to those who didn't grow up with it. On
the surface it seems like an early version MSPaint, only with Mario branding. Which honestly a lot of the drawing portion is, though it's filled with all sorts of fun extras that make it way more exciting and addictive than sitting at your desktop. Along with the drawing portion there's an animation program, a coloring book, a custom stamp maker, a coffee break mini game and a composition program. In short it was a whole world of digital creativity at our fingertips long before there was MSpaint on our desktops or windows music maker, or most of us even had home computers for that matter.
Overview
Controls
Mario Paint is one of the few games that utilized the SNES mouse. You use it like you use an ordinary computer mouse, you make selections with the left button. The right button has a few different context sensitive controls, but mostly it's used for going backwards while looking through the color palates. As you would expect you move around using the entire mouse. Like old computer mice it controls via a ball in the bottom and isn't terribly sensitive. It also gets dirty quickly so you'll often find yourself taking it apart and cleaning stray cat hairs and dust off the ball. Additionally the game offers three different mouse response speeds so you can experiment with which works best for you.
Music
In the sections that aren't specifically the composition program, Mario paint still offers plenty of musical excellence. You can select what you'll be listening to in the "paint" screens. You can select the main recognizable Mario paint theme (which I've oftentimes found myself humming in the grocery store), by selecting the man doing push ups. A generic fun song, by picking the three monkeys. Or some "relaxed" new age style music, which is the staff filled with various things instead of notes . The thing that looks like a nose (but is actually a dog...maybe) is silence.
The coffee break fly swatting game has several background themes depending on the level you're on. The stamp creation screen has it's own music as does the save screen.
In the composing section there are three pre-programmed songs including a version of the original Mario theme. However, you've got almost no limit to the songs you can create on your own so long as it's within the confines of 3 notes per beat and 25 measures.
So your game in particular can have either a great Nintendo soundtrack with the kind of outstanding quality you'd expect from a first party Nintendo game of this age or you can have a fantastic personalized one depending on your skill and patience level.
Gameplay
The game has several parts.
1. Paint
The main part is a digital paint as the title would lead you to believe. As I said earlier at first glance it's an early version of your standard computer paint program.
Your main page gives you several basic options at the bottom of the screen, a movement tool to reorient any and stamps, a pen in three thicknesses, a spray can tool, a stamp tool, copy tool, a shape drawing tool and an erasing tool. The top of the screen gives you 14 pre-programmed color/pattern/stamp palates and a 15th row for your original stamp creations. For paint functions second page offers a letter box tool, which simply removes the tool bars and frames your creation. There's also a page fill tool which fill the canvas with whatever you'd like without having to wait for the paint brush fill. And finally it also contains the text tool and custom stamp creation tools which I'll go into a little more depth about.
The text tool is exactly what you'd expect, you can use the full English alphabet in lowercase uppercase and italics, as well as what I believe is a full set of Japanese Kanji. You can change the colors and make them small or large.
In stamp creation you get a 16x16 grid with which you can create your own stamp images to use anywhere in the game. It works pretty much like the pattern editor in the Animal Crossing games, just with fewer functions.
There are also 4 coloring pages (which are for some reason located in the save an load screen) Which feature: an image of Mario on Yoshi, a collection of animals, a birthday cake, and an undersea scene. They're exactly what you'd expect black and white pictures you color using either the pen tool or the fill tool.
Depending on your level of skill and your patience the paint functions allows you to make everything from a few minute silly scene involving baby heads and flowers, or use the save feature to create a multi-hour multi session 16 bit Mona Lisa. However, all that could still be accomplished in a normal paint program that most of us have at our fingertips whenever we use a computer. What makes Mario Paint different and more fun is the little surprises. There are 9 different ways to do a full screen erase each with it's own animation, the paint brush dances while it's filling, and the dog runs around the screen when you ignore him. There are Tons of other fun things, but they're best discovered by playing the game.
2. Animation
On the second screen you'll find the animation tool which is represented by the person jumping rope. The animation screen lets you first select the desired number of frames for your animation 4, 6 or 9. You can free hand your animation within the box or use stamps. There are several stamps already set up for animation so making a walking Koopa, BaBomb or Spiney is quick and easy. This is also and excellent place to use your own custom stamps. There's a copy tool here as well so it's easy to copy from one frame to another to make sure you've got your positioning right as there aren't any grids to help you.
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Once you're finished making your masterpiece you choose the path you wanted it take across whatever you've left on the screen. The path will take into account any starts and stops you make so you may want o be aware of that. Once you've decided on the animation and it's path you can view the animation you've made. On the view animation screen you can put the frame on and set your masterpiece to whatever musical composition you last had up in the composition screen making for a full cinematic experience for the ages! You can even save your full creation by using the handy save robot, be sure to enjoy the hot techno beats while you wait (I died with happiness when I realized this same save music was used in Mario Maker).
3. Composition
One of the most memorable parts of the game is the composing program. As I said earlier it comes with several preprogrammed pieces of music but you have almost endless possibilities on what you can create with it as many a YouTube video will demonstrate (though it's worth mentioning that most of the YouTube videos aren't made using Mario paints base program, but rather a computer program based on it that offers a few more features). In the composition program you start your new Magnum opus by first selecting a 3/4 or 4/4 time signature. From there you get a selection of 16 "notes" which range from a Starman to a baby's head to a boat, each with its own unique sound. You can put no more than three notes per beat 3 or 4 beats per measure, depending on your time signature choice, in a maximum span of 25 measures. Should your composition ended up shorter than the full 25 there's a a staff end tool which allows you to end early. You can also loop your creation which is a especially useful if you're going to set it to a long animation. Overall the composer is something you can have a lot of fun with and if you're musically inclined at all and you will very likely lose hours of your life to it.
4. Coffee Break
This mini game seems absolutely random compared to the
rest of the game as it has nothing do with any sort of creativity. It is however the only part that really seems like playing a regular video game. It seems as though it was primarily included simply to get players used to their using the mouse instead of a controller, but it really is a great mini game. Your cursor becomes a hand holding a flyswatter and your goal is to swat 100 mosquitoes,dragon flies,houseflies and bomb bugs. You then get a giant mecha bug you must hit several times while trying to avoid his projectiles and clouds of killer bugs. Once you defeat the bug master you move on the next stage which rewards you with a different background, different music and more of a challenge. You follow the same pattern until you beat all the giant bugs.
It's honestly a lot more and addictive than it sounds (which you already know if you've got the first Wario Ware), when going through the game in order to better write this review I got myself stuck playing it several times. It's also a heck of a challenge to keep your hand from getting stung/exploded/otherwise mangled and screaming (yes, the hand screams), I don't think I ever managed to beat it as a kid, but I know for certain that I spent hours attempting it. I'd like to take this moment to suggest that we all write letters to Nintendo asking them to include this game in their next set of mini games for the Wii.
Conclusion
Mario Paint is a fantastic game at the time was quite unique, (though there was at least one coloring book style game on the NES). There were very few games coming out for any console in the US that didn't have what would be considered normal formulaic gameplay. Mario paint challenged you to make your own game, and use your imagination to create what you wanted to see. Even more amazing than the concept itself is that it worked so well. Named one of the top 200 SNES games ever released, even now, 20+ years later people still remember this program fondly and still use it. If you've got a creative side, or just enjoy smacking bugs, Mario Paint won't disappoint.
~Stephanie
Mario Paint is a game that makes absolutely no sense at all to those who didn't grow up with it. On
the surface it seems like an early version MSPaint, only with Mario branding. Which honestly a lot of the drawing portion is, though it's filled with all sorts of fun extras that make it way more exciting and addictive than sitting at your desktop. Along with the drawing portion there's an animation program, a coloring book, a custom stamp maker, a coffee break mini game and a composition program. In short it was a whole world of digital creativity at our fingertips long before there was MSpaint on our desktops or windows music maker, or most of us even had home computers for that matter.
Overview
Controls
Mario Paint is one of the few games that utilized the SNES mouse. You use it like you use an ordinary computer mouse, you make selections with the left button. The right button has a few different context sensitive controls, but mostly it's used for going backwards while looking through the color palates. As you would expect you move around using the entire mouse. Like old computer mice it controls via a ball in the bottom and isn't terribly sensitive. It also gets dirty quickly so you'll often find yourself taking it apart and cleaning stray cat hairs and dust off the ball. Additionally the game offers three different mouse response speeds so you can experiment with which works best for you.
Music
In the sections that aren't specifically the composition program, Mario paint still offers plenty of musical excellence. You can select what you'll be listening to in the "paint" screens. You can select the main recognizable Mario paint theme (which I've oftentimes found myself humming in the grocery store), by selecting the man doing push ups. A generic fun song, by picking the three monkeys. Or some "relaxed" new age style music, which is the staff filled with various things instead of notes . The thing that looks like a nose (but is actually a dog...maybe) is silence.
The coffee break fly swatting game has several background themes depending on the level you're on. The stamp creation screen has it's own music as does the save screen.
In the composing section there are three pre-programmed songs including a version of the original Mario theme. However, you've got almost no limit to the songs you can create on your own so long as it's within the confines of 3 notes per beat and 25 measures.
So your game in particular can have either a great Nintendo soundtrack with the kind of outstanding quality you'd expect from a first party Nintendo game of this age or you can have a fantastic personalized one depending on your skill and patience level.
Gameplay
The game has several parts.
1. Paint
The main part is a digital paint as the title would lead you to believe. As I said earlier at first glance it's an early version of your standard computer paint program.
Your main page gives you several basic options at the bottom of the screen, a movement tool to reorient any and stamps, a pen in three thicknesses, a spray can tool, a stamp tool, copy tool, a shape drawing tool and an erasing tool. The top of the screen gives you 14 pre-programmed color/pattern/stamp palates and a 15th row for your original stamp creations. For paint functions second page offers a letter box tool, which simply removes the tool bars and frames your creation. There's also a page fill tool which fill the canvas with whatever you'd like without having to wait for the paint brush fill. And finally it also contains the text tool and custom stamp creation tools which I'll go into a little more depth about.
The text tool is exactly what you'd expect, you can use the full English alphabet in lowercase uppercase and italics, as well as what I believe is a full set of Japanese Kanji. You can change the colors and make them small or large.
In stamp creation you get a 16x16 grid with which you can create your own stamp images to use anywhere in the game. It works pretty much like the pattern editor in the Animal Crossing games, just with fewer functions.
There are also 4 coloring pages (which are for some reason located in the save an load screen) Which feature: an image of Mario on Yoshi, a collection of animals, a birthday cake, and an undersea scene. They're exactly what you'd expect black and white pictures you color using either the pen tool or the fill tool.
Depending on your level of skill and your patience the paint functions allows you to make everything from a few minute silly scene involving baby heads and flowers, or use the save feature to create a multi-hour multi session 16 bit Mona Lisa. However, all that could still be accomplished in a normal paint program that most of us have at our fingertips whenever we use a computer. What makes Mario Paint different and more fun is the little surprises. There are 9 different ways to do a full screen erase each with it's own animation, the paint brush dances while it's filling, and the dog runs around the screen when you ignore him. There are Tons of other fun things, but they're best discovered by playing the game.
2. Animation
On the second screen you'll find the animation tool which is represented by the person jumping rope. The animation screen lets you first select the desired number of frames for your animation 4, 6 or 9. You can free hand your animation within the box or use stamps. There are several stamps already set up for animation so making a walking Koopa, BaBomb or Spiney is quick and easy. This is also and excellent place to use your own custom stamps. There's a copy tool here as well so it's easy to copy from one frame to another to make sure you've got your positioning right as there aren't any grids to help you.
Once you're finished making your masterpiece you choose the path you wanted it take across whatever you've left on the screen. The path will take into account any starts and stops you make so you may want o be aware of that. Once you've decided on the animation and it's path you can view the animation you've made. On the view animation screen you can put the frame on and set your masterpiece to whatever musical composition you last had up in the composition screen making for a full cinematic experience for the ages! You can even save your full creation by using the handy save robot, be sure to enjoy the hot techno beats while you wait (I died with happiness when I realized this same save music was used in Mario Maker).
3. Composition
4. Coffee Break
This mini game seems absolutely random compared to the
rest of the game as it has nothing do with any sort of creativity. It is however the only part that really seems like playing a regular video game. It seems as though it was primarily included simply to get players used to their using the mouse instead of a controller, but it really is a great mini game. Your cursor becomes a hand holding a flyswatter and your goal is to swat 100 mosquitoes,dragon flies,houseflies and bomb bugs. You then get a giant mecha bug you must hit several times while trying to avoid his projectiles and clouds of killer bugs. Once you defeat the bug master you move on the next stage which rewards you with a different background, different music and more of a challenge. You follow the same pattern until you beat all the giant bugs.
It's honestly a lot more and addictive than it sounds (which you already know if you've got the first Wario Ware), when going through the game in order to better write this review I got myself stuck playing it several times. It's also a heck of a challenge to keep your hand from getting stung/exploded/otherwise mangled and screaming (yes, the hand screams), I don't think I ever managed to beat it as a kid, but I know for certain that I spent hours attempting it. I'd like to take this moment to suggest that we all write letters to Nintendo asking them to include this game in their next set of mini games for the Wii.
Conclusion
Mario Paint is a fantastic game at the time was quite unique, (though there was at least one coloring book style game on the NES). There were very few games coming out for any console in the US that didn't have what would be considered normal formulaic gameplay. Mario paint challenged you to make your own game, and use your imagination to create what you wanted to see. Even more amazing than the concept itself is that it worked so well. Named one of the top 200 SNES games ever released, even now, 20+ years later people still remember this program fondly and still use it. If you've got a creative side, or just enjoy smacking bugs, Mario Paint won't disappoint.
~Stephanie
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