Castlevania: Dracula X

Released in North American in September of 1995 for the Super Nintendo by Konami, Castlevania: Dracula X features classic, 2D side-scrolling, monster-killing action in Dracula's castle.

$200. That's how much an original Castlevania: Dracula X cartridge will cost you in today's retrogaming market. Want the box and booklet?  Got $500? For a long time, I didn't even know Dracula X existed. I loved and played the heck out of the 1991 Super Nintendo entry in the Castlevania series, Castlevania IV. That's an all-time favorite of mine. When I found out there was an even newer Castlevania game for the Super Nintendo, I freaked out. With four years of technological advances, would this game be even better than its predecessor? Then I started hearing some strange information: Dracula X was actually only a subpar port of a Japanese only CD game called Rondo of Blood. Konami barely produced any copies of the game. No stores had it. Years later, when online shopping was an option, I found the game, but it was ridiculously overpriced. It has has only gone up in value since. Over time, various versions came out for reasonable prices on various Nintendo consoles' eShops. Still, I wanted to play the game on my Super Nintendo, not on a 3DS. Thankfully, there's another option, and it rhymes with spreeproduction, a legit word I just made up. Time to suit up and grab the Vampire Killer.

Time for some Clinton administration-era gaming

 Dracula X furthers the saga of the Belmont clan, a family that has to battle Dracula and his fiends every hundred years, when he rises from his grave. This time its Richter Belmont, who must rescue his girlfriend, Annette, from Dracula's clutches.
Previous reviews have negatively compared Dracula X to Rondo of Blood. Considering Rondo of Blood is an obscure game from a completely different system that never even made it to America, and that Dracula X only takes a few graphical assets and some music from it, that's not exactly fair. What they should be comparing Dracula X to is the four years older Super Nintendo classic, Castlevania IV. Or I guess they, in this case, me, should try judging Dracula X by its own merits. So here's an experiential review, as in, here is a review of the game as I am playing it.
Okay, so the title screen is not as atmospheric as Castlevania IV...wait, crap, I'm not supposed to compare them. Okay, let's start this thing. The first level is stunning. It takes place in a burning town, and it looks great! Flames dancing into the sky, heat warping the sight of the impressive background architecture.

We didn't start the fire, but I really hope this is Billy Joel's re-animated skeleton, so that I can finally punish him for writing  that terrible song.

The music is uh...an early 90's take on Castlevania's gothic trademarked music. The opening level's music begins with a wah-wah disco guitar sound before settling into a more traditional symphonic mold. The sound quality is great, really pushing the already famously good Super Nintendo sound chip. However, after a few minutes of gameplay, something becomes painfully clear: from a control standpoint, Dracula X is a throwback to the original NES games in the series...which is not a good thing. The first Castlevania game treated jumping like a thing Super Mario Bros. didn't already perfect--once you jump forward, there's no changing your momentum. Castlevania IV remedied this...but Dracula X brings this issue back like it's 1986.

Er...time for some Reagan administration-era gaming?

This is highly exacerbated by the fact that Dracula X loves throwing unseen bats and flying medusa heads at the player. Jump forward across a chasm, and chances are high a bat might fly onto the screen while you are in midair, and knock you backward. Knock you backward? Yes, that's another element Dracula X has inexplicably retrieved from 1986. When something hits Richter, he is knocked backward a couple of feet. If you are standing on, or about to land on a platform, and a stupid, previously unseen bat flies into you, get ready to go toppling over into a bottomless chasm. This is the most common form of death in Dracula X, and it is maddening. IT IS INFURIATING.

Uh, oh, better gaze into this soothing cave photo to calm down.

Okay, I'm better, but now I'm too flustered to keep writing this review as if I'm first playing the game. Let's cut the illusion.
The jump and "knock-back" mechanics in Dracula X are unforgivable. Castlevania IV progressed this series into the 90's, and for the most part, X throws it right back into the soft, gauzy perm of the 80's, replete with gameplay that feels more like trial-and-error memorization than pure skill. Admittedly, those 80's games are fun, but those particular mechanics are absolutely frustrating. Dracula X is fun in the same way, really feeling more than anything like a big dumb, late 80's arcade version of Castlevania, with large character sprites, and extremely simple gameplay. Castlevania IV let its Belmont hero swing from hooks with his whip, and lash out in any direction, while giving the player ultimate control over his jumps. That 1991 game has an air of sophistication that Dracula X never even sniffs. However, my previous statement rings true. Dracula X can only be judged on its own merits: as that of a big, dumb, arcade style Castlevania.

Look, it's big, dumb Dracula.

Like an arcade game, it's only got a limited amount of levels...in this case nine, though two of those are only accessed by taking an alternate path through the game...meaning that in any given playthrough there are only seven levels. Like an arcade game, the difficulty is heightened to lengthen the game (and get more of your quarters!), in this case with the lousy jump mechanics and cheap enemy locations. Even the one element of sophistication the game has, giving the player access to two pretty cool alternate levels in the middle of the game, only makes those levels accessible by crossing a chasm filled with tiny platforms and swarming flying enemies that knock Richter into a pit holding the path to the main stretch of levels.

You don't even want to know what I did to get to this water dragon boss.

The soundtrack mostly foregoes Castelvania IV's complex, gothic atmosphere for a bouncy, more superficial interpretation, just like you would have heard in a late 80's arcade. The game's one step forward for the series, the item crash, feels like an arcade super button as well--it allows the player to take their secondary weapon, a throwing axe, holy water, etc., and use a large chunk of its ammo to perform a massive, screen-filling attack. The graphics are also bold and in-your-face, with the large sprites I previously mentioned, and a simple, attractive design. Even the game's big, generally awesome-looking bosses feel a bit arcade-y.

All that's missing is that annoying stranger kid standing too close to you, trying to give you gameplay tips.

Thankfully, unlike the arcade, you don't have to put quarters in to keep playing when you die. Like Castlevania IV, Castlevania: Dracula X includes a password system. However, even with the heightened difficultly, and branching level paths, which lead to slightly different game endings, experiencing everything Dracula X has to offer isn't going to take even the most average player long. Maybe ten hours total if you take a lot of breaks to put the controller down to make some sandwiches. My overwhelming feeling is that while Castlevania IV is the definitive Castlevania game for the SNES, and a series standout, I'm not sad that Dracula X exists. For all its flaws, it's a unique foray into the Castelvania universe, and I can't say it's one I won't want to take again. I'm just glad that for players like me who want to experience the game on their original Super Nintendo, there are...um*cough*alternative means*cough*...to paying a fang and a leg.

Besides, climbing these steps is good for my calves.

Graphics: 8.5/10.0

Sound: 7.0/10.0

Gameplay: 6.5/10.0

Lasting Value: 5.0/10.0


Overall: 7.0/10.0

Super Metroid

Released in North America on April 18, 1994 by Nintendo, and developed for the Super Nintendo by Nintendo R&D1 and Intelligent Systems, Super Metroid sends bounty hunter, Samus Aran, into the 2D caves of Zebes to hunt down the titular creatures.

Everybody's got that game: you spend hours upon hours on it, get close to the end...and then your save file gets erased. You slam the game back into the box, and you move on. Stupid game. Well, if that game is Super Metroid, you better boot it back up.

It's super! I wish Nintendo would have continued to title their consoles with superlatives. We could have had the Excellent Nintendo, the Incredible Nintendo, the Awesome Nintendo and the Magnificent Nintendo, the latter of which would have surely sold better than the Wii U. No confusion about what a Magnificent Nintendo is. It's magnificent!

My Super Metroid tale is twisted, but brief. The first Metroid for NES was too obtuse for me. I skipped the SNES one, though I did play it a little bit at Toys r Us. Finally, the greatest game of all time candidate, Metroid Prime, woke me from my Metroid stupor. That game blew my mind, and was a one-of-a-kind, personal experience. I then decided to break my Super Metroid fast. I picked it up for my SNES, and dove in, enjoying the experience on the same level I did Metroid Prime...and then, just before Ridley, right before the final portion of the game, my file was erased. Goodbye Super Metroid.

I guess I'll find some other planet full of life-force sucking jellyfish!

I don't know what recently brought me back, but I think it was a combination of Axiom Verge re-awakening those Metroid feelings, and me just missing the eight-years dormant Metroid series. Whatever the case, I booted up my SNES and dove back into the caves of Zebes. Super Metroid is awesome on such a fundamental level, reviewing it will be easily brief.

Even for me, though that means I'll have to cut my 28-paragraphs of remarks about the game's awesome weather effects.

Super Metroid immediately establishes the series' trademark feelings of isolation,. The opening cinematic, set to haunting, atmospheric music, catches the player up to speed with series protagonist, the heavily-armored bounty hunter, Samus Aran. After answering a distress call in a remote, lonely corner of space, Samus ends up on the planet Zebes. She finds that those dastardly Space Pirates are again experimenting with the terrifying, life-force sucking creatures known as Metroids, and only she can stop them. To do so, she must traverse the vast, environmentally diverse, underground caves of Zebes, fighting Zebes' antagonistic native life forms, and avoiding its spiky, often lava-filled perils. Along the way, she'll earn new items and abilities to help her in her quest.

Out of the mouth of madness. Did I mention the architecture in this game is awesome?

Super Metroid helped introduce the concept of exploring a large, 2D world, where gaining new abilities allows the player to explore heretofore inaccessible portions of the map. The map, which is accesible at all times, shows visited areas as pink, and unvisited as blue. The blue portions will tantalize all but the least curious gamers. Opening more and more of the map is incredibly satisfying--it's nuts that Nintendo was able to perfect this concept on the first try. While some other 2-D games following suit have been excellent, particularly those in the Castlevania series, they're all pretenders to Super Metroid. The map layout is incredible, and the terrain is so varied and full of well-designed, sometimes dastardly life, it's always a joy to explore. Samus' isolation (she doesn't run into a single other speaking character throughout the game) gives Super Metroid a meditative quality, an incredible feat given the game's high-octane action.

Teach me your ways, oh wise bird!

Samus can run at blazing fast speeds, and is given an ever more destructive arsenal to destroy aggressive alien life, as well as parts of her surroundings. The game encourages running and firing at the same time, and maps the weapons and Samus' expanding gamut of abilities to the controller with precision and excellence. Samus also has several inborn abilities that the game only shows to the player when Samus runs into some of Zebes' less antagonistic lifeforms. There's a section where the player learns how to high jump by watching a native bird-like creature do it, which is so fluid and intuitive, it is miraculous that at no point does the game actually spell out how to do it. There are even some abilities, like wall jumping, that take mastery to consistently pull-off, and yet aren't actually needed to complete the game. They're just welcome augmentations on perfection. The same goes for the game's dozens of hidden areas, which don't have to be found, but hold upgrades that give Samus a larger life meter, and more ammo capacity for missiles and bombs.

I'm coming for you, Ridley, you freaking pansy.

Boss battles are especially satisfying in their epic, cinematic qualities, with some bosses filling, or larger than the entire screen, and often having death animations or scripted moments that only make Super Metroid feel like the greatest 16-bit movie ever made even more. The greatest part is that these moments are only accessible because of your efforts. Indeed, Super Metroid never holds the player's hand and offers quite a challenge, in all of its alien-battling, lava-pit-jumping glory. Save points are generously placed around Zebes (the game offers three save slots), but not to the degree that the game is coddling the player. The aforementioned exploration isn't only encouraged, but also necessary. Sometimes, rolling into Samus' tradmark "morph-ball" form, and finding a tiny, bomb-able crevice, might be the only way to progress.

I'm gonna shove that tail down your throat, bitch. Er...sorry, my video game trash-talk isn't appropriate here. This is a family review site. I'm gonna shove that tail down your throat...sir?

Super Metroid features a very cohesive, beautiful, minimalist art style. The animations, particularly of Samus herself, as well as the game's mammoth bosses, are excellent. Gameplay is never negatively affected by performance issues, no matter how many of those trademark SNES explosions are filling the screen. The soundtrack is immersive and diverse, creepily ambient when it needs to be, and high-energy and melodious in its livelier moments. It's just perfect. It i's essentially, like the SNES-sharing The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, the archetypal perfect game. While the latter is THE isometric action-RPG game, Super Metroid is THE 2-D explorative action game.

Eh, now you do eventually plan to have Metroids in your Metroid game, right? *Five minutes later* Get them away! Get them away!!!

So if you've avoided Super Metroid to this point because you're too young, you're too old, you just missed it, or your save file got erased right before the end, and you're still angry, just play it. It's one of the greatest games of all time. The main mission may only take you 15-20 hours to complete, but it's a perfect 15-20 hours. There are seemingly hundreds of hidden items strewn around Zebes that you can collect afterward, and doing so will increase your completion percentage...which leads to a better ending. For completionists, or those who simply don't want to leave the orbit of FS-176, this essentially doubles the gameplay. I can't overstate it: Super Metroid is gaming perfection.


Graphics: 10.0/10.0

Sound: 10.0/10.0

Gameplay: 10.0/10.0

Lasting Value: 10.0/10.0


Overall: 10.0/10.0

Final Fight

Final Fight is a 2D beat-em-up, released by Capcom for the Super Nintendo in 1991.

Lately, I've been getting really miffed at the description "lovingly crafted." That phrase seems like the go-to compliment in 2018 reviews, but isn't everything lovingly crafted? Does that description really mean anything? When I play Final Fight for the SNES, I am reminded that not everything is lovingly crafted. Some things are crafted under an overwhelmingly pervasive "meh."
Final Fight for SNES is a 2D, two-button beat-em-up game. Choose between bulky, slow Haggar, whose daughter has been kidnapped, and the more ability-balanced Cody, the boyfriend of the kidnapped girl. Punch with "Y" and jump with "B." Push them at the same time to perform a supermove that drains your life meter. Jump, then press "Y," and you can do a flying kick. Use the directional-pad to traverse a 2D corridor, and pummel all the bad guys. That's it.

What could possibly go wrong?

Final Fight got its start in the arcades. This SNES version is a port of the original arcade game. Some ports are "lovingly crafted," even though they're only ports. It's very obvious even from the opening menu that the SNES port of Final Fight is not. That's because there is no main menu. If the game featured a two-player cooperative mode like its original arcade version, you'd need a menu to select between one and two player mode. Since the SNES version only features solo play, no main menu is needed. You just press start and choose one of the two characters available. Something feels strange, though, because Cody's controls feel really balanced, and Haggar feels extremely slow, yet overpowered. Shouldn't there be a faster, weaker character, too? Oh, wait, the arcade version did have a faster, weaker character, named Guy. If you want to use him on the SNES, you have to play Final Fight Guy, which is literally the same game as this, but with Guy in the place of Cody. I guess they could have just put all three in one game, but that would have taken just a little more effort than Capcom wanted to give here.

Hey, lady, you dropped your necklace. Oh, wait, Nintendo edited all of the ladies out of this game.

The good news is that the game does look good. Sprites are huge, with Haggar and Cody both seeming to take up the entire screen. Backgrounds are colorful and detailed. However, even this comes with several catches. The first is that the framerate slows down when there is too much happening onscreen. The second is that only three bad guys can be on screen at once, in an effort to mitigate the slowdown. How slow would the game have been if they'd let a normal amount of bad guys in?

Hey, Capcom, give me your lunch money!

You'd think less bad guys onscreen at a time would make the game easier, but instead, it is mystifyingly difficult. Your character never seems to quite move fast enough, with bad guys often getting a surprising jump on them, or surrounding them without the player having a chance to react. Certain villains like Andore (who looks suspiciously like a wrestler with a similar name) have ridiculously cheap moves, like an unavoidable body slam after the player has already been hit by him. It's infuriating. This, coupled with the slowness of the characters just makes Final Fight for SNES feel off. The anonymous soundtrack, none of which sticks in memory for more than a few seconds doesn't help matters. This game just isn't very fun.
You know what is a "lovingly crafted" 16-bit beat-em-up from 1991? Streets of Rage. Go play that instead.

1991 Capcom

Graphics: 7.0/10.0

Sound: 6.0/10.0

Gameplay: 6.0/10.0

Lasting Value: 5.0/10.0


Overall: 6.0/10.0

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest

Released on November 20, 1995 by Nintendo, and developed by Rare, Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest follows the original with more challenging 2D platforming action.

Donkey Kong Country changed what seemed possible. The Super Nintendo, three-years into its American lifespan, could suddenly pump out 3D graphics and CD-quality sound like your home computer. The Super Nintendo had already given its owners a seemingly infinite amount of awesome games: Super Mario World, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Mario Kart, Star Fox, Earthbound, Super Metroid, Final Fantasy VI...the list could go on for pages. Now, what were these new wonders? Would the Super Nintendo continue delivering new joys forever?

It should actually be full of Super Nintendo games!

Actually, yes, it would, though Rare's Donkey Kong Country games serve as a sort of victory lap, featuring some of the greatest graphics and music of the Super Nintendo's original lifespan (Obviously, I only mean"forever" in the sense that, with the amount of incredible Super Nintendo games, a retro-gamer can find joy in the system for an entire lifetime).
A year after Donkey Kong Country's release, Rare returned with the 1995 sequel, Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest.  Some people accused the original Donkey Kong Country of having less than stellar gameplay, and of not being challenging enough. Those people are both wrong and crazy, but Rare took their words to heart and created a tighter, more difficult game for the sequel.

Literally everything in this picture can kill you, including the token and bananas, which are just siren's songs.

The first Donkey Kong Country game features 2D platforming action, giving the player control of Donkey and Diddy Kong as they traverse diverse environments, collecting bananas like Mario does coins (100 bananas equals an extra life), among other items, and progressing through levels on world maps in order to reach and defeat a final boss, in that case, K Rool the crocodile. The original features challenging jumps, timing challenges where the player must launch from moving barrel to moving barrel, animal transformations, and boss fights. If you get hit once, you die. Thankfully, the game features a tag-team element, where the player can smash a liberally-scattered DK Barrel, freeing whichever Kong they aren't using. That Kong follows whichever one the player is using, and the player can switch between the Kongs at will. Get hit and your Kong still dies, but you immediately take control of the unused Kong...of course, if you then get hit with that Kong, your life is over, just like when your middle school girlfriend/boyfriend broke up with you for a cheerleader/jock/cheerleader jock.
Every level features a save barrel at the mid-point, and the letters "K," "O," "N," and "G," hidden across the level in order--get all four letters, and the player is rewarded with an extra life.

Then lands on the weird porcupine and dies.

Donkey Kong Country 2 follows, but adds several wrinkles to this formula. The first is that Donkey Kong is out. The first game featured a banana-pilfering K Rool...this one features a Donkey Kong-pilfering K Rool. This time around, Diddy Kong takes center stage with his girlfriend Dixie Kong--I am assuming, no relation--in order to save the titular ape.  I don't like how that previous sentence contained both references to incest and the phrase "titular ape." I really need to clean this blog up.
Like its predecessor, Diddy's Kong Quest features animal enemies that can be vanquished by jumping, or by each Kong's basic attack, in Diddy's case cartwheeling, in Dixie's spinning. Diddy also runs faster and jumps higher than Dixie, but Dixie can use her hair to glide after she jumps. Dixie's gliding is beneficial for not only long jumps, but jumps where precision is more valued. The player will need this precision, because--second wrinkle--with more difficult jumps, and more spikey, lava-coated, stingy, death-bringing objects and enemies to avoid, DKC 2 is indeed more difficult than its predecessor.

Wait, is there anything in this game that doesn't kill you?

Those "touch me and you die" enemies, like bees, can only be avoided, or felled by other means.
For instance, as in the original, Diddy and Dixie (well, Donkey, in the original) can toss barrels they find at enemies, and at select moments, can either ride or turn into an animal helper. There's Rambi the rhino, who can charge and ram through enemies, Enguarde the sword fish, who can swim swiftly and skewer enemies, Bocephus the flying squirrel, who can bite enemies and give them rabies, Squawks the parrot, who can fly and spit Kola nuts at enemies, and Squitter the web-spitting spider, among several others. I made one of those up.
Just like in the first game, using these Kong friends is a blast, particularly the hard-charging Rambi.

That rat's gonna feel it in the morning.

Each level also contains a very-well hidden "DK Coin," and several bonus barrels featuring short challenges, in order for the Kongs to earn bonus coins. These are needed to access the game's final world.
Each of the game's seven worlds feature five + levels, and a respective space for four other, deservedly less-beloved Kong's who Diddy and Dixie can meet for various ends. There's Wrinkly Kong, who can save the player's progress (for a price) and give gameplay tips, Cranky, who gives level secrets (also for a price), Swanky, who charges the Kong's to play a quiz game to earn extra lives, Beatrice Kong, who berates the Kongs for their shockingly subpar skills at karaoke, and Funky, who can fly the player to previously played worlds (yep, that costs, too!). Not all of those are real.
These Kongs must be paid in tokens for their services. These tokens can be collected from all of the game's levels (and they "respawn" every time the player dies, making it not entirely difficult to acquire them).
This leads to the one patch of scabies in Diddy's Kong Quest's fur: at very select moments, the saving system feels a little mean.

I wish I only had one patch of scabies in my fur.

Say you've been struggling to beat one of the game's bosses, because, like Bocephus the flying squirrel, Donkey Kong Country 2 doesn't play around. Finally, you beat that boss and move on to the next world. You only have one life left, and zero tokens (there's none to find in a boss battle). You make it to the next world, but there's no save point in sight (you can only see up to the level you've progressed to). Hands shaking, you fight through this challenging first level, and somehow, miraculously, do not die. However, when you move on to the next level, horror of horrors, one of Wrinkly Kong's Kong Kolleges are nowhere in sight. You can't yet save. You've got to beat another level. Somehow, you make it near the end of this level, and you haven't died once. You even get to the letter "G." Surely, the end is at hand. The level's final jump is incredibly challenging, and yet somehow you make it. Up pops the Kong Kollege. You enter to save your game. That's when you realize it: you only have one token. Wrinkly charges two to save. You cannot save your game. You re-enter the previous level to find a token. You die. Game over. Now you get to start back on the previous world, at the spot before you had beaten the boss. Crap.

I'll juggle for a save!

Donkey Kong Country 2 exists in a strange realm between two very different gaming eras. The first featured games that had to be exceedingly difficult to stretch out gameplay, because technological limitations meant they could neither be lengthly nor saved. The latter, current era, mostly features less challenging, longer games that allow the player to save at any moment. Donkey Kong Country 2 is difficult, fairly long, and makes saving in the earlier portions of each world a challenge. As much as all that dying and starting over at a boss in the previous world is a remnant of the previous era to increase gameplay time, DKC 2 embraces second era game-stretching techniques, as well. If you haven't guessed, that technique is forcing you to find all those DK and bonus coins in order to truly finish the game. You will most likely only undertake this quest at the end of the game, because by then it has become a necessity. All of the save points have been opened by then, the game informs you of which levels still have unfound items, and world-to-world travel is free, making this portion of the game thoroughly modern. While Donkey Kong Country 2 is incredibly fun and features brilliantly designed levels, once the player reaches the latter half of the coin quest, just a bit of fatigue sets in, just like with all of the Youtube-conditioned readers skimming through this right now.

Here, look at the pretty picture.

Thankfully, there are factors to offset this fatigue, namely, that the game looks absolutely incredible, and sounds phenomenal (and in the case of you reading, that the vending machine in the break room has Doritos). The graphics were made by the same Silicon Graphics workstations as the original DKC, but here they are even more highly refined and detailed. For instance, the Kong Letters, once a static item on the screen, are now fully three-dimensional spinning objects. Colors are bright and beautiful, the palette a little more yellow, orange, blue, and purple, than the heavy green, white, and red of the original. Diddy and Dixie are fantastically rendered, as are their animal sidekicks and enemies. The backgrounds are evocative and imaginative, as are environmental details like fog, clouds,wind, rain, lava, and water. However, one thing outshines the game's graphics: David Wise's incredible soundtrack.

"Hot Head Bop" in your head right now, along with your usual thoughts of desperation and loneliness.

Donkey Kong Country 2's music has likely been covered by more artists than any other video game's soundtrack. Wise's high-quality samples and sounds, put to work on his incredible compositions, are a feast for the ears. It's nearly impossible, even years after playing the game, to look at one of the stages and not have its specific music pop into your head. This music is highly atmospheric, percussion heavy, with a strange naturism unique to the DKC game series. "Hot Head Bop," "Stickerbush Symphony,""Forest Interlude," these titles are now legendary, even eclipsing the first DKC's "Aquatic Ambiance." If Donkey Kong Country 2 was an otherwise terrible game, the soundtrack would still make it worth playing.

Glad they let you use Enguarde in this level, instead of Bocephus.

Thankfully, Donkey Kong Country 2 is not a terrible game. It is an excellent, near perfect one, featuring only the minor flaws I described above. Any fan of 2D platforming games who hasn't yet played it should take a deep look at their priorities...gaming priorities, I mean, not like, neglecting your family priorities. Also, you should bring a friend along for the experience (playing the game, not neglecting your family). Like the original, DKC 2 features a two-player cooperative mode, with each player controlling one of the two respective Kongs. The players can tag each other in, or take over the gameplay once the first player has perished. Just like in the first game, this mode is awesome. The whole game is awesome. With the slightly higher production values, the greater challenge in not only collecting more items, but navigating greater obstacles, and the incredible replay value due to all of the above, Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest is a can't miss title.

Yes, I'm bragging. No, that game clock doesn't count the 20 extra hours I spent dying.

November 20, 1995 Nintendo/Rare

Graphics: 10.0/10.0

Sound: 10.0/10.0

Gameplay: 9.5/10.0

Lasting Value: 9.5/10.0


Overall: 9.8/10.0

Earthbound

Released on June 5, 1995 by Nintendo, and developed by Ape and HAL Laboratory, Earthbound is an RPG featuring a 13-year old boy's and his friends' epic battle against the unimaginable evil of Giygas.

So does that mean, like, you are headed to Earth, or you are trapped by Earth, or the Earth is trapped? I'm so confused!

"Are you sure you don't want to get this instead?"
I remember this moment in Baton Rouge's now demolished Video Game Exchange (VGX) as if it just happened. I had visited with my two best buddies to find a used copy of Soul Caliber for my Dreamcast, George W Bush would be elected president just three months later, and I was soon to start my first semester of college.
"Get what?" I asked Daniel, the clerk at VGX. All these years later, I still remember his name.
"Someone just brought in this complete copy of Earthbound with the strategy guide and everything. I'm selling it for just $50. It's in almost perfect condition. This thing is going to be worth serious money someday. I already have my own copy."
I looked at the box, featuring a kid riding around in a goofy looking star. I remembered the magazine ads for this game from five years before, the weird "This Game Stinks" marketing tag, and the nasty scratch-n-sniffs that went with it. If you want people to associate good memories with your yet-to-be-released game, don't make their first connection to it an olfactory assault.
"Nah," I said. "I really want to get Soul Caliber."
Soul Caliber is an excellent game, one of the best fighting games of its generation. I bought my mint-condition used copy for $20. It goes for about $15 now. A complete copy of Earthbound...goes for significantly more than that.

Pictured: Me and my buddies headed to VGX. Not pictured: the pile of money I'm not currently rolling in.

Many years passed, and I never played Earthbound. While I cut my teeth on the Atari 2600, the Super Nintendo is my favorite system, and its RPG's my favorite games. You would think I would have played one of its most heralded role-playing games, but the truth of the matter is, upon its release, Earthbound's reputation was not what it is now. Earthbound originally came saddled with the afore-mentioned marketing campaign, a hefty price tag, and a majority of reviews that praised the game as "okay" at best.
But then, something strange happened. Years after its release, people started praising Earthbound. Daniel, the VGX guy, is some kind of crazed-but-accurate video-game prophet. Fansites for Earthbound suddenly sprang up everywhere. In the blink of an eye, publications that weren't so high on Earthbound were praising it as not just one of the best RPG's, but best games of its generation. Suddenly, I was faced with the prospect that one of the most well-regarded games in my favorite genre on my favorite system was a game I never even played. And thus, with a chip on my shoulder, and a seven-year old at my side, I finally entered the world of Earthbound.

Hey, "finally" is better than "never!"

The first thing any connoisseur of SNES RPG's will notice a couple of minutes into Earthbound is that Earthbound does not look as good as most top tier SNES RPG's...at least, it's the first thing I noticed. The graphics are extremely simple and childlike, with simple designs and animations for the characters, and very stripped-down artwork for the game's world. However, some later areas are a bit more graphically complex, and the game never skimps on color. Also, considering Earthbound's themes, and the emotions it explores, this graphical design may be a considered choice.

Nine times out of ten, I consider monkeys.

Themes aren't often the first thing one thinks of in regard to video games. As I began Earthbound, it certainly wasn't on my mind. The aesthetics of the game and its basic structure were the first elements to reveal themselves, and those helped form my first impression. "Wait, you can't even see your attacks on enemies? The graphics look like this? The battle system is this simple?"
WARNING: The following paragraph is entitled "RPG's for Dummies." If you already know what an RPG is, skip it, unless you are a completionist, which, paradoxically, means you are probably already well-aware of what an RPG is. I just want to warn that the upcoming paragraph (and even the one after) is as dry as a Mississippi county.
An RPG is a game where the protagonist (in Earthbound, Ness) generally meets new characters who may join him as a party; the party members then get into generally turn-based battles with foes; when/if those enemies are defeated, the party members gain experience points; when the party members gain enough experience points, they reach a new level where their stats, such as offense, defense, and hit points(a number which is depleted when a character takes damage) and magic points (in Earthbound, called PSI, and used for magic-based moves) are increased--this is called leveling up, and may also result in the respective party members learning new magic-based moves (for attack, healing, protection, etc.).

That thing to their left is called a "building."

Earthbound doesn't do anything to shake up the basic RPG gameplay formula, though it does add its quirks to the system. For instance, Earthbound contains a rolling hit-point counter. This means that when a character is hit, instead of the damage coming off in one chunk (let's say 100 hit points), it rolls down over a short period of time. If the player can win the fight or heal the respective character before the hit-point counter rolls down to take account of the damage, the damage isn't fully done. This comes in extremely handy when a character should be fatally wounded by a powerful attack, but the player has to react quickly in order to counter the damage. Another innovation is how the player initiates battle with the enemy. While several other 16-bit RPG's allow the player to choose when they want to battle an enemy (as opposed to random battles, where fights begin without the player's consent, as they are attacked by a foe that was before-then invisible), Earthbound also allows the player a chance to get a jump on the enemy. If Ness and his crew can sneak up behind a foe, they get to attack first. However, if the enemy gets the jump on them, the bad guys get the pre-emptive strike. If the fight begins head-on, the first attacks are more simultaneous. This is a cool little wrinkle. Also cool: the trippy, swirly, ever-changing backgrounds behind every one of the game's fights. They're really cool. These elements certainly stand out, but even after experiencing them, I still did not understand Earthbound's enduring appeal. After all, there are even some gameplay elements handled poorly, like the game's clunky inventory system, an annoying hassle which actually had me dreading discovering new items and having to figure out where to put them.

Have you ever just tried not being annoying?

I had heard several people brag about Earthbound's contemporary American setting as something that sets it apart.  The game's main protagonist, Ness, is presented as a Japanese stereotype (this game was made in Japan) of a typical small-town American boy, who loves baseball, his mom, and the family dog. A baseball bat-wielding 13-year old boy protagonist is certainly a major change for players used to a sword-swinging muscle-bound lead. Also, most of the game's early settings--featuring several small towns, a larger metropolis, a snowy countryside full of tourists, and a beach--are certainly not fantastical. The kids even go to the mall to shop, visit the library for information, and Ness can ride a bike when he's alone to travel faster. But this isn't just some game where you go around fighting bad guys and having adventures in a normal, modern world. Earthbound is weird.

Except for this bridge.

From the meteorite that crashes into a hill next to Ness' house to begin the game, to the talking bee who informs Ness of his "chosen one" destiny, to a burping foe that is essentially a pile of vomit (and essentially any of the weird foes the party squares off against), Earthbound abounds with strangeness. Strange Ness. Huh...sorry. Anyway, Earthbound is weird. It places the four party members, who are on the verge of leaving childhood, into an abnormal, stressful situation they should not be able to handle. This leads directly into the game's themes.

Anti-commercialism and the death of the bourgeoise. 

Actually, I can frame Earthbound's themes by a comment from my 7-year old, as he watched me play through this game.
"Where is Ness' daddy, daddy?'
Ness' home is occupied by his mother, sister, and dog. He can call his dad from any of the many phones (including pay-phones!) throughout the game, in order to save his progress. While Ness' dad sometimes mentions coming home, he never makes a physical appearance in Earthbound. There are times during the game where Ness starts to struggle in battle. Sometimes, the message "Ness misses his mother" comes up when the player attempts to command Ness to attack. The player must then find a phone, so that Ness can call his mother for encouragement. Another party member, Jeff, has a work-focused father he hasn't seen in a decade. Jeff longs for his father's approval. Midway through the game, when he and Jeff are reunited, his father barely acknowledges him.

Almost as much as I long to run away and join the circus.

None of these elements are handled with a heavy-hand. They just are. That's what makes Earthbound special. It's the way that it eventually got to me and will stick with me forever: understated, yet incredibly powerfully emotion. There is a sense, that despite the sometimes steep difficulty level (some of the boss fights in this game kicked my butt), this game is for children. Earthbound seems designed to help prepare them for the difficulties and unpredictability of the real world. While the game is quite dark at moments (more on that later!), it features a certain gentleness, such as how enemies "return to normal" when they are defeated, and party members are rendered unconscious instead of dead. This is a slight cushion from the other horrors in the game, a check to make sure children aren't pushed too far, yet still witness the difficulties that life will bring. At the same time, the game evokes a certain nostalgia that will connect with adults. There is a certain psychological subtext of leaving childhood implicit throughout the game that becomes more explicit in its later portions, particularly when Ness alone has to make a very personal journey to prepare for the upcoming battle against Giygas.

Okay, "war" against Giygas.

"What even is Giygas?" my son asked of the game's primary antagonist.
Giygas is an incomprehensible, ancient, formless evil that corrupts everything near it, including adults, children, animals, and even entire towns. Ness must collect melodies from eight sanctuaries throughout the game in order to more fully connect himself to the Earth, and to know himself more deeply, so that he can defeat Giygas. This is all at once very nebulous, and yet very personal and emotional, as Ness experiences a very lucid memory of his childhood upon hearing each melody. Also, going back to the psychological subtext I mentioned above, there's a sanctuary location called "Milky Well"....

Which then inspired a strange desire in Ness to go to the beach to "scope out babes."

This all leads to what might be one of the most strangely emotional boss fights in RPG history, as Ness and his crew find themselves battling against a foe they can't understand, in a location they can't comprehend, by methods their minds can't make sense of, in a location as isolating and alienating as possible. The discovery of the actual means to defeat this final boss, when my son and I finally realized we were out of all other options, led me to tears, and I am glad my son was so engrossed in what was happening onscreen that he didn't look back and see his old man blubbering like an idiot.
Yes, Earthbound got me. The game I left on the shelf for so many years, with graphics that look hand-drawn by kids as old as the protagonists, still had the power to emotionally wreck me. This leads me to the final component of what makes this game so great.

"Is it me, the Annoying Reveler?"

Earthbound has a great soundtrack. The diversity of the music is excellent, and while the majority is lightweight, the latter, more emotional tracks are incredibly evocative. Even the airier tracks are quality, with my favorites utilizing reggae and dub. Other themes, like the one that plays at Ness' home, or the one that lilts by in the morning after a hotel stay (which recovers the party's hit and PSI points) are greatly comforting, which goes along with the game's "Mother" theme (the Earthbound series' actual Japanese title). At select moments, the soundtrack also samples bits from classic rock tracks (for example, check out the snippet of "All You Need Is Love" in "The Cave that Time Forgot"), which also creates a strange, subconscious nostalgia.
My son has an MP3 player full of his favorite video game music, including the Earthbound soundtrack, and he confided to me the other day that he was listening to some of the game's final battle music in his bed one night, got scared, and deleted it. Again, it's incredible how resonant this game is for something that looks like it does. Also, up to this point, nothing my son has seen in a film or video game has ever scared him (I mean, I'm not showing him The Exorcist or anything, but I'm not exactly sheltering him, either), but the climactic fight in Earthbound did. This is an affecting game, and one I already feel like I may play through again. My "favorite SNES RPG's" list just got a little longer.

Alright, dude, it's time for you to go.

A FINAL NOTE: Wait, how did you finally play this? you might be asking. I thought this game cost about a million dollars? It's true that it costs too much to buy an authentic Earthbound cartridge--but there are other options. Wii U owners can download the game for a low price on the Nintendo e-Store. If you don't have a Wii U, you could emulate Earthbound online for free, which, while not quite legal, is a lot cheaper than a million dollars, or even the price of a Wii U. Neither of these options, however, gives the authentic experience of playing Earthbound on a Super Nintendo console, with a Super Nintendo controller. Thankfully, you don't have to pay a million dollars for that experience, either. It is possible to find reprogrammed Earthbound cartridges for under $30 bucks. This is an emulated copy of the game placed in an authentic SNES cartridge, with full save capabilities, and zero glitches. It will work flawlessly on your SNES, and give the same experience as actually playing the same million-dollar original cartridge of Earthbound. While the legality of this is also nebulous, I'll leave it to the reader to decide their best option. Regardless of the player's choice, an Earthbound experience doesn't have to cost the price of a presidential assassination. Then again, if you can hunt down Daniel from the long-defunct VGX, maybe he will loan you his copy.

1995 Nintendo/Ape/HAL Labaratory

Graphics: 6.5/10.0

Sound: 9.5/10.0

Gameplay: 9.0/10.0

Lasting Value: 9.0/10.0


Overall: 9.0/10.0