Check out the first entry in this series for additional context on what these are and what the nuances of my Game Clearing is~
Game 1: Sutte Hakkun - Beat
Something I really enjoy doing is having a sort of "chill game" alongside my longer game clearing projects. You'll notice that a lot of these have started popping up on the blog as of late, mostly because of a renewed NSO subscription. It has been a lot of retro games, a lot of puzzle games, this is the slot that roguelikes would slot into if I had any on Switch that were interesting to me and I could like play in bed. Which I do, I've been doing low key runs of Necrodancer on the side for a while now. But currently I've been working through the retro games on NSO, picking out anything that looks neat to me and that I've maybe heard about. Which brought me to Sutte Hakkun, a puzzle game that I've heard is quite the sleeper hit on SNES/Super Famicom.
Sutte Hakkun is a puzzle platformer where you play as Hakkun. Hakkun is a tiny cloud/hummingbird guy who lives on a series of islands connected by rainbow bridges. One day, the rainbow bridges are broken apart, their shards scattered across the islands. Hakkun, being the hero of our tale, must go around the islands solving the 100 puzzles which are guarding the 100-ish shards, some levels have more than one but the majority of them only have one. As you progress on this task, you unlock more islands and, as such, more puzzles, ultimately only needing 75 to unlock the final area and the final set of puzzles. As you might imagine, the puzzles get more and more difficult, with them starting simple and easy and very forgiving and ending up so precise that any mistake has you hitting that reload checkpoint and/or death button.
Hakkun's ability to solve the puzzles comes from his distinctive hummingbird-esque nose. Hakkun is capable of utilizing his nose to interact with a variety of elements in the stage. The primary usage of this is moving blocks, Hakkun can absorb certain blocks and then place them down in other areas. And while he has absorbed a block, he takes on all the qualities of a block. Similarly, he can interact with the rare enemies in the game, the Rokkun and Makkun. Not the Blokkun though, which are sentient version of the blocks who can't be absorbed and can only be pushed with Hakkun's nose. He must use all these elements, shuffling them around each individual puzzle, until he finds a path to the solution. Aiding him on his quest are vials of potion in three distinct colors, red, blue, and yellow. The most common usage for these potions is to imbue the blocks with different movement properties, red being vertical, blue being horizontal, and yellow being diagonal. But they interact with the other elements in the puzzles too for unique effects.
And that's kind of just what Sutte Hakkun is. It's an incredibly fun puzzle game, it's not too difficult but also not too easy, it makes you really think about puzzles and it's a master at making the solution obvious but making the mechanisms through which you achieve that solution obtuse. I will say though, I'm not super plussed by how many puzzles in the late game just go "you made one mistake so now you have to completely reset the puzzle instead of having a method to work your way back to an open game state". But it's a very fun, very solid puzzle game that I'm glad I checked out. If you have NSO, definitely check out Sutte Hakkun if you need a puzzle game, it's genuinely a hidden gem. 8/10
Game 2: Claymates - DNF
Claymates is one of those games that has lived in my memory for a long time. I have never played it myself, this isn't one of those "I played a random game growing up and then lost it, can the internet help me find it" deals. I knew exactly what Claymates was this entire time. A content creator I watched from the early internet days kind of made a career off of playing these sort of off-kilter, left of the dial games. She is how I learned of E.V.O. Search for Eden and actually Luigi's Mansion at a time when that game wasn't very famous. Also LOST: Via Domus, meaning she was my introduction to the LOST franchise. One of the games she played was Claymates, this weird 2D platformer with a claymation visual style that I always wanted to play because of how unique it looked but never had a way to play it properly. Luckily for me, Claymates got put up on NSO. Unluckily for me, it's kind of bad!
Claymates is a 2D platformer of the type that games like Bubsy, discussed in one of my previous entries, occupied. Sonic the Hedgehog had been a big hit and a lot of people were attempting to cash in on the mascot platformer gold rush. Claymates was the now-defunct game studio "Interplay's" first foray into this market, before their later, far more successful and far more beloved entry into the genre, Earthworm Jim. In Claymates you play as Clayton Putty, a young boy whose father, Professor Putty, has developed a shapeshifting serum which, when consumed, will transform the user into animals. But the evil witch doctor Jobo appears suddenly and demands the serum. When Professor Putty resists, Jobo turns Clayton into a ball of clay and then absconds with the serum and the professor. Clayton must then follow the witch doctor across the world, fighting his minions in Oceania, Japan, Africa (it's as bad as you expect) until eventually cornering the Witch Doctor in the place all 90s mascot platformers end, in space.
As mentioned previously, Claymates is a Sonic the Hedgehog-style platformer, valuing large levels with numerous paths to approach them and a general sense of speed. What makes Claymates stand out is the aforementioned serum. When Jobo flew off with the professor, he accidentally scattered drops of the serum across the world. This was fortunate for Clayton, as he can use these serum drops to transform his clay body into one of five animals: a mouse that can speed through levels, a cat that can climb walls, a bird that can briefly fly after a running start, a fish that can easily traverse through water, and a chipmunk who can throw acorns as projectiles. This is not the only gameplay style to the game, though, as when you beat a level you are thrown back into the overworld where you will be faced with a puzzle: two or more robots have left the level with you and they will automatically move about the area. Clayton must push rocks and carts around to put the robots on a path where they will pick up the axes or bombs laying about the area and then head towards the road blocks that they must then clear.
I really wanted to like Claymates, because I do enjoy its unique claymation visual style and its interesting dichotomy of platforming and puzzle levels. And I like the way it handles power-ups, with these transformations that each have their own strengths and weaknesses. But it is a truly awful platformer. Much like a lot of the post-Sonic platformers, it's designed to be a visual or stylistic leap forward for the medium and the gameplay is unfortunately secondary. It's one of those games that reviewed very well at launch because, back in the day, reviewers were very positive about games that visually innovated. Bubsy got good reviews. But unfortunately Claymates' platforming is just really bad, it's stiff and way too precise for a game that also wants you to gain as much speed and momentum as this one. Like, in general the speed of this style of game is counterintuitive to its level design, but this one is REAL BAD about it. It's a shame, I was hoping that this one would be a super neat hidden gem that validated how much headspace it has occupied for all these years. But alas. 4.1/10
Game 3: Trine 2 - Beat
Yet another game, or in this case game series I know about from a content creator whose name has been lost to time. Trine is a very cool but very obscure series of puzzle platformers built around the idea of utilizing three classic RPG tropes, a wizard, a thief, and a knight, who through interacting with a mystical object have had their souls intertwined and as such exist as one entity, switching between who is occupying their shared existence at a time. You must use their unique skills, one being puzzle based, one being combat based and one being movement based, to traverse the levels, solve puzzles, defeat enemies and figure out a way to get yourselves unbound. But the artifact, the "Trine" will always come back, unifying out three heroes at times of peril to once again save the land.
Trine 2 picks up some time after the first game. Amadeus, in the first game a flirtatious and unserious wizard, has settled down and started a family, living a provincial life in a tiny town by the kingdom's forest. One night, though, he is awoken in his sleep by a bright light and, following it, reunites with the Trine and his compatriot Pontius. Pontius was once a drunken and dim knight of no notoriety, but now has made his way to the captain of the guard. Pontius explains that the kingdom is in peril, massive plants have begun to overtake the world and the trio must reunite to find out who is behind this magical malady. They then both find Zoya, the thief, who now makes her living not by stealing for herself but stealing to bring justice upon the rich. The three of them reunited, they delve straight into the mystical forest to find the villain at the center of all of this. Along the way, they are beset by the goblin army, who have taken advantage of the chaos to expand their territory. And by the end, the trio will uncover a lost history of the kingdom, one which reveals the hidden lore of the royal family.
So the way Trine works, as previously stated, is that essentially each member of the trio is built around one aspect of the game. Amadeus is notable for lacking any offensive capabilities at all, outside of dropping objects on the opponents, which is unreliable. He can't even cast fireball. Instead his skills are entirely built around solving puzzles, utilizing conjuration and telekinesis to make boxes and planks as well as hit switches. Zoya has some combat capabilities and, in a pinch, will probably be your back up if Pontius ever gets overwhelmed, utilizing her bow to pick off enemies from afar. But moreover her thing is movement, her grappling hook is the backbone of the games' platforming, allowing you a lot of freedom in how to get around obstacles. And Pontius is entirely built around combat, he very rarely, if ever, contributes to the puzzles or platforming in the way the other two do but he mows down enemies like it's nothing. If Pontius ever falls in battle, you are likely just done, you need to get back to a checkpoint to revive him because he is crucial.
The most notable thing about Trine is, in general, how pretty these games are. It doesn't seem very notable nowadays but when Trine was new, there weren't a lot of indie games of this standard of visual quality. The Trine games originally came out at a time where the majority of indie games were primarily made with pixel art and usually meant to replicate a classic style of game that was no longer made, and/or provide commentary on classic genre tropes in a deconstructionist way. Trine was one of the very early games that tried to be very modern in its aesthetic, and I think it works really well. It has this very dreamy, beautiful look to it, like a storybook come to life in full 3D and the second game just maintains its signature beautiful style. I don't know if it really adds to it, but it doesn't have to as Trine 1 was already very strong visually.
Unfortunately the actual level design is not up to snuff with the rest of the game. Like, it's fine, it does its job, but I think the issue with how Trine 2 carries itself is that it can't decide whether or not it wants the player to be able to find a solution with each character on their own or if it wants them to have to work the trio in tandem. Some puzzles and platforming challenges are remarkably easy, usually only needing Zoya's grappling hook to get past without any other contributions, while others are just complex to a point that doing them with even all three characters contributing is difficult. The puzzles are adjusted more around multiplayer as well, meaning there is a lot of having to move way too quickly on them if you are playing solo. Thankfully it doesn't really matter if you fail at any point in this game because checkpoints are plentiful and can be accessed incredibly easily should you lose a character to a battle or a violent puzzle. 7.6/10
Game 4: Donkey Kong Land 2 - Beat
This one was so disappointing. So I really liked Donkey Kong Land 1, probably more than I was expecting to. I kind of expected it to just be an inferior port of DKC1 and, although it definitely starts out that way, Donkey Kong Land very quickly evolves into its own entity with its own flavor. It even became a surprisingly early entry in the series that attempts to connect the modern DK with the classic Arcade style, ending the game in a big city setting. And so I was excited to continue the Donkey Kong Land trilogy, hoping that the later games kept up this momentum of being wholly unique. Unfortunately, that was not the case for Donkey Kong Land 2. Donkey Kong Land 2 IS an inferior port of its console counterpart, DKC2. It has some original levels but, on the whole, it is an attempt to properly demake the game for Game Boy. This is especially unfortunate as, of the classic DKC trilogy, I think DKC2 is the worst and it's not particularly close.
Donkey Kong Land 2, much like its console counterpart, takes place sometime after the first game. Donkey Kong has been kidnapped by King K. Rool leading Diddy Kong and his girlfriend Dixie to mount a rescue of the big ape. Much like DKC2, the game starts at the ending area of the first game, K. Rool's pirate ship, and you instead go to K. Rool's home turf to get your friend back. Although the individual levels can be different in DKL2, it is functionally a near identical game to DKC2, porting over much of its levels, all of its worlds, and just its general structure. It's weird because at the time this was probably such a cool thing, they effectively got DKC2 on the Game Boy without having to compromise too totally much, it feels like a portable DKC2. Nowadays, with both games being equally accessible and, moreover, accessible portably thanks to the Switch family of systems? This is just a waste of time.
That being said, I do kind of like Donkey Kong Land 2 more than I did like Donkey Kong Country 2. This is a pretty low bar, mind, I don't particularly like Donkey Kong Country 2. Even though it isn't the Donkey Kong game I want to play the least, I deeply and truly despise Donkey Kong Country Returns, it's the one I find least compelling. DKC2 to me just doesn't feel very interesting, it has this bad habit of just forgoing the world theming to have generic "Donkey Kong" level themes and I actually think it's like easily the worst soundtrack of any Donkey Kong game. Heresy I know. And while all those problems are still in DKL2, I think the fact that it's DKC2 on the Game Boy kind of gives it a certain charm that makes me like it more. I don't think it is a better game than DKC2, it has literally all the problems that game while also being objectively inferior, and honestly I don't think it's as good as DKL1 even though it's objectively the better game just because it is a worse version of a SNES game instead of its own entity. But if given the choice between Donkey Kong Country 2 and Donkey Kong Land 2, I just find DKL2 more endearing overall. 7/10
Game 5: Double Dragon - Beat
Fair warning, there are about to be a lot of beat 'em ups on the NES in these entries. I know, I'm sorry, we're going to get so many games that no one really has much to say on anymore but they're all like. "Important". They're also just very easy games to justify me playing, they're perfect to just pick up and do a full playthrough before bed or while I'm eating lunch or whatever and there are a lot of really significant ones on NSO that I've just never played. So bear with me, we have a lot of "dead space" on these posts coming up, especially with regards to the Double Dragon franchise and it's sort of sister franchise, Battletoads. I'm working my way up to Battletoads/Double Dragon on SNES.
Double Dragon is, possibly, the most famous beat 'em up ever made. Its now iconic intro has been immortalized and recontextualized and critiqued to death. In the NES version, you play as Billy Lee, one of a pair of martial artists in a crime filled city which may or may not be the same series from the other iconic NES brawler, River City Ransom. At the beginning of the game Billy girlfriend, Marian, gets kidnapped by the Black Warriors gang and Billy must set off on a quest to rescue her, fighting through waves of the Black Warriors' goons to eventually get to their boss and rescue your girlfriend. It's a very simple plot that is bolstered by the dramatic twist that the final boss is your own twin brother, Jimmy Lee, who has arrived at your moment of triumph to fight you for Marian's hand.
Double Dragon holds up surprisingly well in the modern day. It's very simple, which I think contributes as to why, Double Dragon is to beat 'em ups what Dragon Quest is to RPGs. Just a very simple, platonic ideal of the genre and its game design. But it does have its own flair. But it does have some serious depth in the form of its level up system. Double Dragon has a very interesting level up system, where as you go along you will gain experience from defeating foes and, the more experience you gain, the more of Billy's moveset is unlocked. It is not the only beat 'em up of this era to adopt a level up system, there's a very famous one we'll be getting to later on this list that also had vague RPG mechanics, but to spoil how I felt about that game in comparison; I think between the two Double Dragon's level-up system just simply holds up much better. It's far simpler and less obtuse and I think in terms of NES beat 'em ups, it makes Double Dragon hold up very well even if it is just the platonic ideal of a beat 'em up. I liked Double Dragon, didn't love it but definitely did like it. 7.3/10
Game 6: Star Fox 2 - Beat
I don't like Star Fox. Of the "core 8" Nintendo franchises as shown in the Super Smash Bros. series, Star Fox is the one I got to the latest and is, by a very large margin, the one I like the least. Which, side note, let's be honest those aren't the core 8 anymore, like, if they did Smash Bros. today that core 8 would probably be Mario, Pikachu, Villager, Link, Inkling, Kirby, Donkey Kong and like, maybe Olimar? Star Fox has always been the oddball to me, a series of super arcadey, very short shmups that are more designed to show the power of the hardware than anything. Which may explain why it went to the wayside for so many years come to think of it. But with the announcement of a "new" Star Fox game and the fact that I did kind of write off the series after its first entry and some multiplayer stuff forever ago, I decided to give it another go. No promises on if I'm going to continue Star Fox, I should probably play OG 64, but for now, let's talk about Star Fox 2.
Star Fox 2 takes place some time after the original Star Fox. The Star Fox crew has been once again hired by the military of Corneria to defeat the forces of the mad scientist Andross, who after his defeat in the first game has shored up his resources and is now launching an all out assault on the solar system which Corneria occupies. Now joined by new members Miyu and Fay, the six-man team Star Fox must launch a defensive military campaign in the solar system, stopping Andross' assault and pushing him back. All the while having to combat a rival faction of mercenary space pilot, Team Star Wolf, who serve as Andross' hired goons and are a darker, more violent, more brutal version of Team Star Fox.
I would like to first state how interesting I find Star Fox 2. Star Fox 2 is a rather famous game in gaming history circles, the basically finished, ready to ship SNES title that got canned at the last minute as Nintendo was shifting their focus entirely towards the upcoming N64, which had a superior Star Fox title in development concurrently with Star Fox 2. It would then release through leaked builds over the years until finally being released on the SNES Classic microconsole and then, subsequently, the Nintendo Switch Online service. It's a very fascinating piece of gaming history, one which on its own makes it a worthwhile game to experience. But also, playing it, I have to question how accurate this narrative surrounding the game is.
Star Fox 2 is a game that feels unfinished. Star Fox games skew short, mind, they're very arcade-y affairs that are designed for players to play over and over, learning the best routes, finding secrets, and getting the optimal ranks. So it not being that long isn't super surprising. That being said, Star Fox 2 just feels like it's lacking in content. Like what we've been told is that Star Fox 2 was around 90-95% finished when it was canned, basically ready to ship, but it feels like half a game. The Normal mode gameplay consists of like 3 very short levels, a couple dogfights, and then the final boss. It is a 20-30 minute experience depending on how quick and efficient you are. It feels to me like the game was probably in a "finished state" but was lacking in serious content and probably needed to be fleshed out more, and was cancelled before they could do that fleshing out. And then what was there was just cleaned up and released by Nintendo later on.
That being said, I actually like Star Fox 2 more than I did Star Fox 1. I feel like the rail-shooter stuff is actually kind of dull in the way Star Fox does it, just kind moving forward on a track firing at things that just spawn in. I played KH1 as a kid and so I always associate this kind of gameplay with the worst parts of my childhood games. Star Fox 2 instead focuses more on dogfights and incorporates strategy elements into the game, having the player manage the team as they have to fight their way through Andross' fleet while protecting Corneria. It's definitely, as I've mentioned before, probably not as deep as they wanted it to be and I think that ultimately the game is still not very good, but I think Star Fox 2 has more interesting and compelling ideas to it than the previous game and honestly, I'm surprised there hasn't been an attempt to revive Star Fox 2 in some way? Star Fox is now infamous for not being able to let go of the Lylat Wars storyline but I think this works super well and I think doing a full remake and fleshing out 2's ideas would really benefit the series. But also I'm not the person to ask, I'm literally only playing Star Fox games because they are effectively free. 5.7/10
Game 7: Strange Horticulture - Beat
Finally back to my wheelhouse: really strange indie games that I eventually make all my friends obsessed with. If there is any type of game that is an instant play for me, it is a supernatural mystery puzzle game. It's an oversaturated genre at this point, mind, as a lot of genres that get popular in the indie space are. Don't ask me about how I feel about deckbuilder roguelikes unless you want me to get on a whole tangent. But it's one of my favorite oddly specific game genres, I love these weird occult indie puzzle games and I'm always glad to play one of them. Especially when said puzzle game is all about deciphering cryptic clues and descriptions to progress. See my Gaming Diary on Return of the Obra Dinn. And Strange Horticulture is very much in-line with that sort of game. I'm so glad to finally play this one, y'all.
Strange Horticulture is set in the small provincial town of Undermere, one of many towns, cities, forts, and castles that pepper a diverse country side. In it, you play as a fresh faced shopkeeper of an occult horticulture shop named "Strange Horticulture", a shop recently inherited by the protagonist's late uncle. Strange Horticulture is a supplier of all sorts of medicinal plants and fungus, stuff used in traditional medicine, magical enchantments, or occult rituals. The protagonist, however, is very new to this world and knows very little about the plants in their shop. Luckily, their uncle has left them a book of various plants, one that is missing numerous pages but can be used to aid in identifying the various plants and fungi that the shop stocks. But something strange is occurring in the countryside, the patrons of their shop speak of weird rituals and ancient evils best left sealed. A murderer hides among them, and a ritual is being conducted to awaken an ancient god who will threaten to destroy the world. Will the protagonist aid in stopping this ritual, or will they become bound to it? The player's choices will decide the fate of this land. And also you can pet your cat!
The best thing about Strange Horticulture is, genuinely, the gameplay loop of identifying plants and/or clues to find new plants. Customers do not tell you directly "hey, I want this plant", instead they leave with you either a name (scientific or common) or a description of what the plant is/does for you to go off. At which point, the player must look through their book of herbology to find a plant matching the description, however, the plant is not just on the page. The page will give you a description of the plant and a drawing of some key feature of the plant, which you will then use to look through the plants on the shelf to find one matching the description. It's a very fun gameplay loop, and one that always leads to more plants either being identified or being added to your shelf as, rather than simply paying you, customers will typically gift you either new plants or new pages for your herbology book. Or, if they don't, they will instead gift you a clue that, when solved will allow you to go out into the world and find a new plant. It's a game designed to make the player feel clever, and I love that as a goal.
The mystery is also really compelling. You are visited by a lot of similar players on the day to day and you must piece together what is going on by giving them their plants and listening to their stories. The "culprit" in the mystery is kind of obvious unfortunately, there is only one person who talks of the events other people see as "prophetic visions", but there is a deeper mystery going on regarding an apocalyptic death cult and their obsession with plants that the player can become privvy too as well. It's a very fun plot for this game and while it's not the most deep or compelling mystery, it is a very nice throughline that leaves the player wanting more.
If there is any criticism I can level at Strange Horticulture, it's that I think it's lacking in a sense of tension. Like, the game is very relaxing, you can do literally everything at your own pace, but I think it's maybe to a fault sometimes. You can sit there with a customer for infinite time solving their request and the punishment system for misidentifying plants is, honestly, pretty generous. Usually the clues are put together in such a way that it could only apply to a couple plants anyways, so it's really a matter of losing a coin flip on the more ambiguous identifications. There's a logistical reason for this ability to take infinite time, you will sometimes have to go find a plant in the world to fulfill an order and so having a time limit would be a problem. You'd just fail out of turn. But still, I'd like for there to be more stakes. This is still an amazing little puzzle game though, I'm a big fan of it, it's a top 10 contender for this year. 8.8/10
Game 8: Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble - Beat
It is sometimes impressive how committed Nintendo, and the games industry as a whole, were to trying to get motion controls to work in the past. From essentially the start of the video game industry, everyone was seemingly trying to make the idea of "gaming without the need for buttons" to work. And it's not hard to see why, having to play around with a controller is by far the biggest hurdle to getting into video games. For non-gamers, it is the most intimidating part. As we saw with the early success of the Wii, if you remove that aspect, if you instead focus in on just movement as control, you can tap into a whole ecosystem of people who would enjoy video games but can't get past the complexity of traditional controls. And also controlling a game with motion just feels cool, everyone imagines actually being able to punch to fight Mike Tyson or being able to realistically fly a plane in something like Pilotwings. And while everyone has tried, no one has had the same consistent success as the big N. Among their earliest forays into motion controls, however, is this game right here. Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble, all the way back on the Game Boy Color.
Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble is a puzzle platformer game unique for its motion control gameplay. Kirby, everyone's favorite pink puffball, is unable to move "normally" in this game, instead moving about stages in a ball form. The plot explanation for this being that King Dedede has been causing mischief in Dream Land again, setting up pinball bumpers around the land for some unknown goal. Basic Kirby stuff, Kirby stories are very simple. This is ragebaiting, I am ragebaiting the people who care a lot about Kirby stories to comment about it. Using a series of accelerometers, or more likely the gyroscopes in the Joy-Cons if you're playing today, you tilt the Game Boy/controller to get Kirby to move about the stage, flicking it to jump over obstacles and using the buttons to solve puzzles and interact with objects. It works really well, it probably worked even better on the Game Boy as the Joy-Con is famously finnicky and needs to be resynced way more often than it probably should.
Unfortunately, in my opinion, it just ends up going the way of a lot of motion control games. Especially older motion control games, which is what it is. The early levels of Tilt 'n' Tumble are very fun, breezy and control very well. If you were to play the first couple worlds only, you'd probably adore this game. I sure did. But as the game increases in complexity and the levels require more precise motion from the player, it starts to get far more frustrating than rewarding. I'd be curious to see how many people who love motion control games are people who really value a first impression whereas people who dislike them are people who are more likely to have the last notes leave a bitter taste in their mouth. I am moreso the latter, I tend to care about whether a game continues to be good rather than if it starts good. To me, Tilt 'n' Tumble is just fine. I liked the early stages and all the cool concepts that they did with this control scheme but in the late game I was just like "I don't really want to play this anymore". 6.1/10
Game 9: Psycho Dream - Beat
There has, historically, been a lot of criticism about the Nintendo Switch Online retro games service. It's really funny as during the WiiU era, everyone was clamoring for Nintendo to stop doing a Virtual Console and instead do a sort of retro game streaming service and now that that's what they have essentially done, people are mad about it. A big reason why is, likely, that because Nintendo isn't offering a direct revenue source and instead is paying licensing fees to every publisher, way fewer publishers are willing to play ball with the service. Why would Capcom put up Mega Man 1-6 on NES Online when they could just sell the Legacy Collection on the same console, y'know? But I actually like this decision. NSO has so many games that no one would ever care about on a VC service, tons of obscure old Jaleco and Natsume titles and a lot of odd imports that wouldn't be likely to make it onto a service where people choose the games they want to buy. And one such title is Psycho Dream, a game that I'm glad made it over because I really like it.
Psycho Dream is a Japanese-only sidescrolling hack-and-slash from the company that made the originally Megami Tensei game, as well as the Valis series, which it shares a lot of gameplay with. It takes place in an alternate 1980s Japan where virtual reality films, films which exist as worlds for people to live in instead of just linear plots moving forward, have taken ahold of the culture. The Japanese government has, in response to a trend of young people getting so engaged with their virtual worlds that they abandon real life, created an elite task force to go inside these worlds and free them from the virtual reality before they deal irreparable damage to their physical bodies. Psycho Dream follows one such case, the case of Yuki Sayaka, a seventeen year old girl who had lived in the virtual world for three straight days and, due to pre-existing medical issues, is likely to die within the day if the task force doesn't get to her in time. But the virtual world will not give her up so easily, the film has become corrupted as the monstrous beings within have captured Yuki and refuse to let her go.
I am not going to try and sit here and convince y'all that Psycho Dream is a better game than it actually is. It does not have the best reputation, both concurrent and retrospective reviews tend to rate it as an incredibly average 16-bit hack-and-slash. And it's honestly pretty easy, while you will struggle in the early game no doubt, once you unlock the main characters' ultimate forms you should breeze through the entire rest of the game. What makes Psycho Dream so interesting, however, is its distinctive visual style. Psycho Dream has a very surreal visual style, clearly inspired by J-Horror and Japanese Sci-Fi properties in general. The contrast between the standard urban Japanese environments and the supernatural creatures that are invading them really gives this game its own unique flavor that, in my mind, causes it to hold up better than some of the other forgotten 16-bit era hack-and-slashes. It's much worse than other games in its genre, don't get me wrong, but I think it has aged like wine. It's very much a vibe. Also, it has an insane pull for a final boss theme, like, truly unhinged. 7.7/10
Game 10: Battletoads - DNF
I do, indeed, have Battletoads. Battletoads is one of the most infamous games of all time, a tough as nails retro beat 'em up from superstar developer Rareware. It was their "big hit" before they became a big deal, the "Walkin on the Sun" of their catalog. It's undeniably a classic, but it's also a very intimidating game to play. Battletoads is up there with Ninja Gaiden as one of the classical examples of "NES hard", games which utilize grueling difficulty to engage players. There's a longstanding theory that I'm unsure has ever been validated that this was mostly done to combat rentals, a common practice back in the day. If a game is exceptionally difficult to beat, it becomes nigh impossible to beat it on a typical game rental period, incentivizing the player to purchase the game to have a better chance at beating it. I don't think it's a coincidence that Battletoads lacks any save/password system, forcing players to start from the beginning. But I also wanted to give Battletoads a proper shot, not only as a classic NES game but part of my quest to clear the Battletoads and Double Dragon games to where I can eventually play Battletoads/Double Dragon.
Battletoads is an attempt to cash in on the boom of anthropomorphic martial artists that dominated the late 80s/early 90s, kickstarted by the success of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In it, you play as the Battletoads, a trio of alien warriors who resemble human-sized frogs as they run afoul of the evil Dark Queen on a mission to escort the Princess Angelica to her home planet. The Dark Queen manages to kidnap Angelica, as well as fellow Battletoad Pimple, and hides the two away in her base under the surface of a hostile alien world. The two remaining Battletoads, Zitz and Rash, along with their mentor Professor T. Bird, descend upon the alien planet to rescue their charge and defeat the alien sorceress, a woman who they are in constant contact with and who taunts them between levels. It's kind of amusing actually, it feels like they're more like rivals than archenemies, like if Gary Oak was a tyrannical space emperor.
I want to be clear about one thing here: me DNFing Battletoads has nothing to do with how I feel about Battletoads as a game. Because I actually really like Battletoads. Of the NES beat 'em ups I've played so far, Battletoads is the best one by far. Despite its limitations, only having one attack button, Battletoads has a surprising depth of combat that answers the problems things like Double Dragon and River City Ransom have had on the same console. I like both of those games, don't get me wrong, but they have this issue of trying to create very deep and interesting combat on a system that only has two buttons to work with and, usually, needing one of those buttons to be the jump button. Battletoads solves this issue by having combat be contextual, the moves you have access to at any given time are determined by what the context you use them in is. If you punch the air, you can punch forever in an endless cycle, but the moment you punch an enemy, you gain access to a potent combo string complete with larger than life finishers.
Which is another great thing about Battletoads, the game's larger than life nature. Battletoads adopts a very Saturday Morning Cartoon aesthetic and theming that gives the game a lot of charm and a lot of personality. The Toads have the ability to shapeshift parts of their bodies, turning into a ram when they do a dash attack, increasing the size of their limbs to do combo finishers, turning into wrecking balls when they swing from ropes. These wackier options really sell the cartoon come to life vibes they're going for. Moreover, the Toads just have tons of classical cartoon reactions, such as their eyes bugging out and their jaws dropping to comical degrees when they see a boss. It's a game that oozes personality and it remains endearing 35 years on, one of the NES games that holds up the best unquestionably.
So why didn't I finish it? Simple: I just couldn't beat Rat Race. There's no other reason for it, I got to the third part of Rat Race and was not able to do the essentially frame perfect run they need you to do for it. I tried probably a dozen times without even getting close and was like "I don't think this is happening". It's actually kind of funny, I messaged some friends when I started playing Battletoads, abouts when I finished Turbo Tunnel, and was like "Battletoads is definitely hard but I'm surprised at how manageable it is". Turns out, it wasn't that manageable, at least for me, I had just not gotten to my own personal wall yet. That being said, I did really like Battletoads, it's a very good game and I'm glad I played what I did. Truly an all-timer beat 'em up. 8.1/10
Game 11: Tomb Raider II: Starring Lara Croft - Beat
A game clear a month+ in the making. Since starting game clearing in 2023, one of my long term projects has been getting through the Tomb Raider series. I'm always surprised at how much Tomb Raider, as a franchise, has fallen by the wayside? Like, Tomb Raider was one of the most defining action-adventure games of all time not once, but twice, with the original 1996 release and the 2013 reboot being two of the most influential games of all time. It's always surprising to me how little people know about Tomb Raider, and especially the classic era of Tomb Raider which thankfully now have been getting rereleases. I guess something good has come out of Embracer purchasing Square-Enix's entire catalog of Western studios. And I've been enjoying going through them, I've only played a couple Tomb Raiders so far but I've enjoyed every one I've done tremendously. And Tomb Raider II is no exception, it has a reputation for being the best classic Tomb Raider and while it's not my personal favorite, I think it's fair if this one IS your personal favorite.
As is tradition, I'm not going to talk too much about the game here since I did a full blog post on it. I moreso just want to apologize how much Tomb Raider II stagnated this blog. I was doing so good earlier on in the year, I got essays and diaries done pretty regularly and I was super proud of my writing and then Tomb Raider II kind of conspired against me. I did really enjoy this game, obviously, but it was so difficult and so time-consuming that it kind of stagnated the entire month and I hope it doesn't happen again but I worry it is going to with what is coming up on the docket. I hope y'all are ready for me not to post for like two months only to come back with a whole thing about Dragon Quest. It's DQ summer baby, shoutouts to my boy Thomas for providing me with some capital C content. I'll try my best to get some more essays out, I'm in the midst of a big one, one that is very much in the style of "i don't like banjo-kazooie" but is much bigger in scope. It's probably going to be even longer than Radiant Historia. I'm so sorry.
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