Tony Hawk's Bro Skater Too‏

I’m pretty sure people still remember the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series, as it was such a big hit back in the day. I had an N64, so due to the size limitations of the N64 cartridge, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 was gimped: songs were cut short,  it ran better with the ram expansion and required a memory card to save (neither of which I owned). Buying the two things isn’t expensive these days, but I found the PS1 version on eBay for $4 shipped. What a steal.

Going back to this game brings back mostly fond memories: It’s super arcadey skateboarding with crazy special tricks that even these pro skaters would have a tough time pulling off. I played Single Player to death, and what’s great is it’s easy to play a couple of minutes here and there, since each skateboarding run you do is 2 minutes. I love how I can fit in 10 minutes for this game, yet still make progress.

Graphics are still great in my opinion. The game doesn’t feel like it’s aged poorly because it still plays very smoothly, including the animations. It might be filled with jaggies, but it’s ignorable due to all other aspects of how the game runs.

You get a multitude of different levels, and all of them feel different. Out of all, my favorite is probably Venice Beach since it’s fairly big and has a good amount of everything, from ramps to roofs. School II is also great fun, but brought some annoyances, even to this day. For example, in School II you have a goal that requires you to Wall Ride over school bells. Seems simple, right? Nope, some of these bells are just annoyingly hard to Wall Ride.

Lastly, the tracklist is great. I think it’s one of my favourite and most memorable tracklists in a game. The N64 version however, only had 6 tracks, compared to the PS1’s 15. Seeing as I never played the PS1 version until now, this tracklist has only become better. I can’t believe I was in love with 6 tracks while PS1 owners had much more to love! Some of my favorite tracks are “Bring the Noise” , “Guerilla Radio” and a new favorite is “B-Boy Document” because it’s got Mos Def!

It was fun going back to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2. If you’ve never played it, get ready for some simple, but great fun. There’s also an HD remake which features levels from the first and second games in the Tony Hawk series, but I heard it’s not that great. Stick to the OG Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2.

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SaGa Frontier 2: A Convoluted, Beautiful RPG

SaGa Frontier 2 perhaps most accurately recaptures my feelings when I first started playing JRPGs, some 13 years ago. Prior to Final Fantasy VII (my first foray into JRPGs), I had been mostly exposed to 2D action titles on the Sega Genesis. FFVII, in contrast, felt decidedly complex: rather than feeling immediately in control of a largely static pool of abilities, I was given control of several different, dynamic characters, and was relatively free to equip them as I wished.

The sheer amount of comparative choice in being able to customize a party of characters, as well as the growing cast, equipment and spells to customize my experiences with all amounted to a learning curve steep enough to entice me into playing more JRPGs. It is this doe-eyed optimism which I again feel playing SaGa Frontier 2.

JRPGs as people and places you want to be

SaGa Frontier 2 is unusual in its approach to gameplay design and storytelling: much of the game itself is composed of discrete chapters, which can be chosen by the player from a list of several ongoing arcs. Each of these arcs represents a period in time during the life of one of two playable protagonists. A central tenant of the game’s design is thus freedom, which appeals greatly to someone like myself who seeks out RPGs in order to become lost in a lively world populated by places and people I wish to learn more about.

It is in this way that SaGa Frontier 2 manages to re-invoke what I first felt when playing FFVII 13 years ago. This is to say that my curiosity has been piqued by the scope of the game’s content, and I am interested to see how the game will unfold itself to me.

JRPGs as interactive novels overlaid with convoluted gameplay mechanics

SaGa Frontier 2 is also by and large one of the more complicated RPGs I’ve played in a long time. The player must keep track of both protagonists’ parties, which are constantly changing due to the shifting time periods that the game’s story covers. Additionally, current objectives are vaguely defined at best; characters don’t level through experience, but rather through player-assigned roles; moves are learned seemingly arbitrarily when using appropriate weapon types; health during combat appears to only refill when using a metric known as life points, but when dropped to 0, makes that character unusable until they rest at an inn; etc.

The game itself feels entirely too complicated for its own good. This sentiment is very likely how I felt when I first started playing FFVII. I recall feeling overwhelmed by the game’s mechanics, and stupefied by how ineffective I was at translating my efforts at levelling and building characters into a capable party. The only working analog I can think of is reading a book which you feel is slightly too complex for you (either with respects to wording, syntax, or content).

The result is a surprising disconnect between the player and the world s/he wishes to explore.

Final Thoughts

I will continue to persist with SaGa Frontier 2, if only because of how lovely it has been to re-visit memories linked to a time when I was terrible at (J) RPGs. Taking this idea a step further, I am curious to hear what others think about convoluted RPGs: do you go out of your way to find them in order to hone your abilities as a gamer; or you do you shy away from them, because their often daunting learning curves are off-putting and, perhaps, contrary to why you play games to begin with?

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My Opinion Surrounding The Charms Of Golden Age JRPGs

A few weeks back Ilauded Vagrant Story for itsambiance and storytelling. This week, I’m here to deconstruct that praise by presenting you, the reader, with what I hope is a mostly intelligible rant aimed at some of the major gripes that I have with the game.

Admittedly, the complaints I have with Vagrant Story are largely rooted in how comparatively old the game is. Released back in 2000 for the PS1, Vagrant Story is a product of its time in many ways, and reflects a period when the video game industry was enveloped in a social movement of sorts which encouraged experimental game design, especially in RPGs and their ilk.

They Say The Classics Never Go Out Of Style, But They Do, They Do

Recently I’ve become engulfed by what I would classify as a desire to consume all manner of “golden age JRPGs”. This era, which I consider to have begun during the SNES’ heyday and to have reached full swing during the PS1’s lifecycle, was notable for the enormous amount of diverse, excellent RPGs developed by Japanese development studios.

Many of these exceptional titles presented varied combat mechanics, aesthetics, and/or subject matter. Vagrant Story is no different. Unfortunately, it also shares many issues which plagued games of this golden age, such as convoluted gameplay mechanics and cumbersome UI. In particular, I’d like to address how the game handles its combat.

Pump The Breaks

Combat in Vagrant Story is largely handled in real-time. This is to say that you engage enemies, position yourself actively in the game’s environments and attack as regularly as you like, without restriction. Once you do, you are given the option of chaining your initial attack to additional attack types. Each attack type offers additional bonuses, such as casting silence on the enemy, gaining HP or MP, etc. The intention is for the player to chain an optimal combo against an enemy, providing the player with additional resources while dealing direct damage to said enemy.

When fighting an enemy in Vagrant Story, I’m often reminded of tug-of-war, where the goal is to consistently gain ground on your enemy through the manipulation of momentum. “Momentum” is itself acquired by equipping the right weapon, with the right element, and the right affinity against the particular enemy you are fighting.

In managing to properly prepare for each and every fight (of which there are literally thousands over the course of the game), the player is rewarded with a relatively brief enemy encounter. Oftentimes, a single combo can kill even bosses, assuming that you’ve done enough planning to ensure that your weapon is optimally built to manage this foe. Oftentimes, it is not. Failure to plan effectively usually leads to swift defeat or a long-winded encounter in which the player deals almost literally no damage to the enemy they are fighting.

Usual encounters for me break down to analyzing a foe, equipping the right weapon and accessory, enhancing my weapon’s elemental affinity, and then equipping the right attack chain. Once all of these steps are completed (which takes roughly 30 seconds or so), I begin the actual fight, which occasionally doesn’t last more than 10 seconds.

I’m all for planning, but the ratio of preparation to actual combat is slightly discouraging. Moreover, the game often pairs the player up against several different types of enemies, each of radically different weaknesses. It’s enough to make me want to stop playing at times, though I’ve managed to persist to about 15 or so hours into the game so far (having played through about 60% of the game’s map).

Final Thoughts

Vagrant Story is trying in all the right ways thankfully: its art direction, storytelling and design is mostly beautiful, and manages to sell the otherwise sluggish combat. Interestingly and to its credit, every fight manages to give off the impression of an actual fight in many ways, and I often feel as though there is a very strong correlation between the effort I put in to pre-fight planning and the outcome of that skirmish. With all that in mind, I actively find myself wishing that the heaps of innovation didn’t have to come with such a large amount of convoluted mechanics.

What do you think about RPGs from 10-15 years ago? 

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The Dungeon Delver

This week I've been hacking away at another early access game that goes by the name of Delver. Delver is a first person dungeon crawler with randomized dungeons and retro style graphics; it is definitely worth your attention.

The goal of Delver is the definition of simple: get in, get the treasure and get the fuck out. The meat of the game however lies in the dungeons themselves—between the enemies, traps, twists and turns, and the randomly generated maps combined with the permadeath feature, the game is always pretty interesting and challenging. It also has a wide variety of weapons, potions and gear for you to horde and collect with a cornucopia of enemies to keep you interested and on your toes. The overall look and feel of the game reminds me of a medieval doom with cleaned up and wacky sprites and it really has that old school PC gaming feel that I'd put right up there with the original Wolfenstein.

One of the coolest draws to the game is the mod support, which is really awesome. It allows you to create your own items, textures and even enemies which allows for some really interesting and cool community mods that are definitely worth looking into. If you're the artistic type, you can look into creating your own too.

Delver has a lot of trial and error, which you'll end up taking full advantage of due to the permadeath. The fast paced nature of the gameplay is challenging but makes it fun and forces you to think out certain actions and situations to protect your progress and levels so far. The game itself is easily worth the 8 dollar price tag and with the randomly generated maps the game has a lot of replay value to hold your attention.

I will admit that the game could use more content but that is backed up with mod support and the community. That being said however, it’s no excuse for a lack of content that isn’t community created but like I said before the game is still in beta and it’s only an early access copy. Delver is definitely a game to throw on your wishlist and keep tabs on because the official release is certainly something to keep an eye on. In my opinion Delver isn’t game of the year material but it's definitely worth pumping a few hours into now and then and worth every penny.

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Oddworld: Something New 'n' Tasty‏

A game I’ve always taken for granted was Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee. Released in 1997, I was weirded out by the cover art and ignored it like the rest of my friends (back then I had to judge games by their covers since I never checked reviews). What really piqued my interest in the game recently was YouTube user Caddicarus and his video on this game.

Basically, I loved his passion for the series, so I decided to check it out. Oh yeah, it was free on PlayStation Plus, which was a plus. Since it was free.

In total, I only played a couple of hours, but wow was it great. What I loved was its great visuals and creativity. It’s a 2D platformer, with static, pre-rendered backgrounds. Pre-rendered graphics aren’t anything new, but the cutscenes were really well done and I didn’t feel like it had shown much age. I loved the voice acting since it had its funny moments despite feeling a bit grim overall.

It set a darker tone in many ways, which makes me feel that this game was mature for its time (no wonder I was weirded out as a kid). The developer really wanted to stand out from the rest, starting with developing Abe as a character. Abe might be the weirdest-looking protagonist in any game I’ve played, but he has multiple redeeming qualities, like his charm and innocence. He’s kind of dumb, but you can’t help but feel bad for him.

What really set this game apart from the rest was “GameSpeak”. Basically, Abe is a Mudokon who is trying to rescue other Mudokons from their oppressors the Glukkons, who use the Mudokons for slave labor.

You rescue Mudokons by guiding them using GameSpeak: a set of commands allowing you to tell other Mudokons what to do, similar to Lemmings. This system is pretty intelligent and complicated. For its time I imagine it really wasn’t that complex, but seeing as how we’ve been babied so much nowadays, GameSpeak can become a pain if you forget which button does what or if you don’t time your commands properly. There’s even a GameSpeak option in the main menu, which I would assume serves as practice.

Unfortunately, I never went back to the game, but my few hours with the game were memorable. More importantly, Abe’s Oddysee is getting an HD remake titled Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty! and I feel like this is the perfect opportunity for me to properly re-acquaint myself with the series, and give it the love I think it deserves.

At the time of writing this post I haven’t yet played the HD remake, so I’m not sure if it will have the same qualities as the original, but I can safely say that the charm of Abe and the creative gameplay will remain and shine through.

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More Like Neo Geo F

Hello all. Today I wanted to tell you a story about the worst purchase of my life: the Neo Geo X.

As a kid, my buddy introduced me to emulators and ROMs. With our slow internet connections, we’d download our games, which were all usually Japanese SNES games. I fondly recall playing Gundam and Dragon Ball Z fighters, previously only available in Japan.

A few months later, my friend told me about the Neo Geo. Our quest to play Neo Geo games was slow because the ROMs' file size were so huge back then. Luckily, a friend burned me a couple of CDs loaded with basically every Neo Geo game, and thus began my love for this arcade machine/console. Samurai Shodown and Metal Slug were my jam.

Fast-forward to the end of 2012: I hear that the Neo Geo X will be an affordable way to play Neo Geo games on your TV—at about $200. Compare this to the price of some Neo Geo cartridges—hundreds of dollars—and this is a steal. I started reading about it, which only hyped myself up. A handheld, preloaded with 20 games, and a way to play it on your TV? I was sold. The only thing was it was hard to find in my neck of the woods, or so I thought.

Then on one unfortunate, rainy afternoon, Sean and I headed into EB Games and I spotted the monstrosity and purchased it. The clerk even had a tough time ringing it up—a sign I should’ve taken into consideration. Sean voiced his opinion and was hesitant to express any happiness about the new purchase. He clearly was the smarter one that day (he also pawned his copy of Assassin’s Creed 3 on me a few minutes prior).

I get back home and open up the packaging, and let the handheld charge for a bit. Once I booted the sucker up I noticed something—the handheld is super light. There was literally no heft to it. It felt like a kid’s toy—the front of the device was made with 1 piece of cheap plastic that would flex with the slightest push. This is when you realize why Nintendo is the king of handhelds—they build solid devices.

Moreover, the screen was piss-poor. Yes, I understand the games don’t run in high definition, but the screen was a cheap LCD that didn’t reproduce the colours all that well. It was a 16:9 display, but the games are all 4:3. They give you the option to stretch the game to 16:9, but it truly looked ugly. Another real half-assed attempt.

Look at those amazing black levels!

The buttons on the handheld were alright. The USB controller was really good. The ability to output to your TV was cool too, but some people say that it’s not perfect.

Here’s the kicker—the handheld itself is just an emulator, preloaded with ROMs. There’s nothing special about it: it’s loaded with Linux, an emulator and 20 games. Who in their right mind wants to pay $200 for an emulator?!? I can get the same experience on any computer, and output it to my TV!

Minus the USB controller, the Neo Geo X was a big waste of money for me. The handheld’s LCD screen was iffy and the material quality was poor. What I could’ve done was buy the USB controller and simply play it on any computer. The picture quality would’ve been perfect and the cost would’ve been minimal.

Overall, I got to pay $200 + tax for an experience very similar to the one I had as a kid (a free experience back then, mind you). If my math is correct, I believe this purchase was based on the fact that I was 99% stupid when I entered EB Games that awful day.

In the end, I sold my Neo Geo X on Craigslist at a loss. A kind man was happy to take it off my hands for about $150. I hear that it’s out of production now, so it’s probably worth more nowadays, but I truly couldn’t give a damn. Good riddance to that pile of junk.

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Link-ing My Worlds

Hello, my name is Alex. I am actually the younger brother of Adam and long time friend of everyone on the Basement Gamer. A little bit about me: I've been playing games from a very young age, as long as I can remember, really. The NES we had was hooked up in my parents' bedroom, so my brother and I couldn't play it 100% of the time. Then we got a SNES and I was only a 5 year old little kid or so, without the dexterity to complete any game on my own.

2 Years later when N64 was made available, I remember the day we got that from our local store, I think we bought it from Blockbuster at the time. I couldn't even tell you honestly. But oh! It wasa glorious day when we went home and popped in Super Smash Brothers. Holy hell did we pump hours upon hours into that console, much like everybody else in the late '90s. Not to mention Mario Kart and then... The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and 007 Goldeneye. Fast forward over 15 years of gaming and here we are today.

But I'm not here to talk about the good ol' days. No no! Not today. Today I'm here to talk to you about The Legend of Zelda, but not Ocarina...sadly. On this day I'll talk about the most recent addition to the franchise. Nintendo originally started developing it as a remake for one of the most iconic Super NES games of all time, A Link to the Past, which was later decided to be made into a completely new game, with fresh mechanics never before seen in the franchise, labeled "A Link Between Worlds".

My first thoughts while playing this game were, "Alright, so they're mixing A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time". That is to say they took the best aspects of the bird's eye view Zelda games and the Third Person Zelda games, both of which have been blended absolutely amazingly. Where the other DS Zelda titles had you doing these gimmicky touch screen commands—such as drawing the path of the boomerang, etc—the developers instead made the touch screen your User Interface, where you change your items, look at your map, so on and so forth. All of which can be done in real time or by pausing the game as is customary in Zelda games. Then we come to the actual gameplay which is executed as you'd expect: everything is smooth and fantastic.

A couple of things I welcomed with open arms, much to my eventual dismay. Firstly, being that they added the possibility to play on a harder difficulty. This is where my frustration began. The first 8 hours of playtime was just me dying over and over again in every single situation. Previously, I very rarely died playing any Zelda game. Most of my deaths in previous titles were attributed to not paying any attention to my health or simply dying strictly during boss fights. This is no longer the case on the harder difficulty, and it's not because of smarter enemies, more difficult enemies, or even just more enemies. No; the harder difficulty was simply Link taking more damage. But not just more damage, no, thatwould be too simple. It is a ridiculous amount of damage. Simply put, a basic octorok deals about 4 hearts of damage, something a little bit stronger like a Crab would do about 8 hearts of damage. So any dungeon monster deals about 8 hearts of damage give or take 4. The only time you can ever take less than 4 hearts of damage is when you accidentally hurt yourself. So until you're 4 or 5 dungeons in, when you get 9 hearts, everything kills you in one hit. This wouldn't be such an awful and frustrating thing if the other new mechanic introduced didn't exist.

The other mechanic is the fact that you no longer get important items in the dungeon and therefore keep your items after you acquire them. No, this installment introduces a merchant who basically steals your home and turns it into his store, then allows you to rent any item of your choosing. You choose whichever items are your favorite and run with those until you die and the merchant takes them back. So couple that with dying at every corner, and you get the time consuming and annoying lap race that is: Rent your items at your house, walk to a dungeon trying not to die along the way, enter the dungeon and try to progress to the boss, try to defeat the boss, but probably die along the way, respawn at your house and repeat.

Luckily this isn't actually as bad as I'm making it out to be for one reason. That being said, you meet a witch early on in the game who allows you to fast travel to certain statues that you can activate, which also act as save points. These statues are excellently placed directly in front of almost every single dungeon as well as all over the world map. This made my trips back to the dungeons much faster after dying. However, once you unlock the ability to purchase and keep items even beyond death, the entire problem dissipates and the game becomes even more amazing.

All in all, A Link Between Worlds is fantastic and I am enjoying every minute of it . I'm finding myself unable to put down my 3DS, even as I write this I have my trusty Link Between Worlds box in my pocket ready to be taken out and continue my quest. Like a good book, it is always at my side. 

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Dysentery For All

Oregon Trail was a classic game played by countless youths all over the world and was even the first video game many people experienced. Too bad it's absolute crap when you compare it to Organ Trail!

Organ Trail is a zombie survival game that came out as a mobile game in 2012 and was eventually greenlit by Steam users and released in 2013. I picked it up for cheap during one of the countless steam sales that have plagued my wallet and when I finally got around to playing it, I was surprised at how much fun it was and how much depth was in the game.

If you have played Oregon Trail before, there are a lot of similarities and the game is basically a homage to it; that and the Walking Dead series (take your pick: comic or show). When you start the game it gives you the option to name your party members—I usually named them after my friends to see how long me and my buddies could last in a theoretical zombie apocalypse—but if it's taught me anything they're all a bunch of filthy liars. I can't even remember how many times Adam has killed someone because he would get bitten and lie about it right to my digital face and then later on he'd turn and take someone down with him.

The game revolves around you and your fellow survivors piling into a station wagon and traveling across the U.S, collecting food, fuel, and other various supplies you need to survive in a hostile zombie wasteland. The game reminds me a lot of FTL because, as in FTL, random encounters will happen as you travel and give you the option to swap supplies with traders, or fight bandits/other survivors... Which brings me to the combat.

The combat is really fun. It uses a cover based system, so you spend a lot of time learning your opponent's movement patterns and then pick them off one by one.It really has a survival feel and with limited ammunition you really have to pick your battles and shots.

Every so often you'll reach a settlement. Settlements have merchants and bounty boards. You can fulfill bounties for cash and other necessary items as you pass through. They all vary in difficulty, so be sure you're ready, because you only have one life and when you die it's game over and you have to start right back at the beginning.

Overall, the game itself is solid. It's addictive as hell, has a ton of replay value and once you get the hang of it, you really start wanting to keep taking cracks at it, seeing the various outcomes and routs the game can take. The random encounters along the way really add depth to the game whether someone "turns" or dies from some disease or dysentery or is taken hostage by bandits and left to die.

This game is entirely worth your time and with a five dollar price tag it's worth every penny. Whether you're a fan of zombies or just survival games in general (the graphics make it literally playable on any pc out there). All in all, this is definitely a game any and every Steam gamer should have in his or her library.

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TBT - Keen On Keen

This week I figured I'd throwback to one of the games I played a metric fuck ton when I was a kid and is definitely a classic for any DOS gamer, that's right, we're talking about Commander Keen. Now for the people out there who have no clue what I'm talking about, Commander Keen was developed by an unknown known company at the time: Id Software. You know, the guys who made Quake and Doom and pretty much invented the first person shooter genre.

Back in the day when I was gaming on my grandparents' computer, I used to flip through boxes upon boxes of floppy disks searching for floppys that might be games. Thing is, most of them were either someone's old book report or some boring office program with a cool sounding name. I can't even count how many times I'd find what I thought was a game just to have it be some anagram for tax software or some office retreat itinerary. Once I rounded up all the games, what I found was: Battle Chess, Duke Nukem, some top-down space shooter called Wolverine and a stack of Commander Keen games. To be honest I couldn't tell you much about the other games because from day one I was pretty hooked on the Keen as the kids would say.

Keen was one of the first solid side scrolling and platforming DOS game of its time and it was touted because of its amazing controls, even playing it today on Steam the game feels solid; you never feel out of control or screwed over because of crappy controls which is impressive for a game that came out the year I was born. My favourite, and the one I'll be talking about mostly, is the fourth installment Commander Keen in Goodbye, Galaxy! It's definitely my favourite game in the series and it brought back the pogo stick which they removed in the third game in the series: Keen Dreams.

So to start I should talk about Keen himself, Commander Keen is the space fighting alter ego of eight year-old Billy Blaze. I immediately related to Billy, because as a kid I loved the Spaceman Spiff stories in Calvin and Hobbes: spaceships, rayguns, I loved it. The story in the game follows a Legend of Zelda style story. You travel between stages, searching for the eight Keepers of the Oracle who have been taken captive by the Shikadi, a race of weird electric ghost-men bent on destroying the galaxy.

The game takes place on the planet Gnosticus IV, which isn't a super important detail; I just wanted to fill you in on that amazingly ridiculous name. The gameplay is your typical side scrolling platformer. They added a wider variety of stages and hordes of new enemies in this installment, and like I said earlier, they brought the pogo stick back, which allows you to jump higher and move around the stage faster.

The game has its fair share of collectibles between ray guns and color coded keys. It's not surprising these are the same guys who brought you Doom, another game with ray guns and color coded keys and doors.

Until I started playing WoW this was easily the game I had devoted way too much of my life to and I don't regret a minute of it. Playing these games was a formative experience in my gaming career. Playing it back when you couldn't just read a walkthrough or watch someone speed run it on YouTube, Commander Keen taught me to search all the venues in a game and to really explore to find as many secrets as possible. If you ever get the chance to play it or see it on a Steam sale, I highly recommend it, at least to see a portion of video game history.

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Illusions Are For Kids, Right?

Free for Playstation Plus users this month is Castle of Illusion—both the old 1990s version on Sega Genesis and the HD remake. I have fond memories of renting this game for the Genesis, and I also happen to own World of Illusion, which came out a little later in 1992.

Both the Genesis and HD remake follow the same general storyline: a witch called Mizrabel captures Minnie Mouse and, of course, Mickey is tasked to rescue her.

So I began playing the Genesis version, if only for a brief moment. My memory is hazy, but within the first few minutes, I realized you couldn’t simply jump on top of enemies to attack them (like most 2D platformers of this era). I found some jumps would register a kill, but 95% of the time, Mickey would get hurt. A few minutes later, I realized you needed to hit down on the d-pad before landing on an enemy to get the kill. This mechanic felt odd at first, but I continued playing and realized how jumping on some enemies would result in an even higher jump; a pretty smart game mechanic.

Move over New York, this is the real Big Apple

Just like games of its era, you learn from your mistakes as you go, so you generally feel some sense of accomplishment. There are a few cheap moments. For instance, I died at the first boss, which cost me all my throwable items (apples). As such, I had nothing to throw at the boss, which was kind of annoying, since my only option was to use a jump attack.  Also, from what I can tell, you can’t jump and throw your items at the same time.

What I really loved about this game was that I learned everything as I played. At first, I thought you couldn’t jump on your enemies, which made me think that I could only throw projectiles at them. You truly feel some sense of accomplishment, and this is coming from a 24 year-old game meant for children.

On the other hand, the HD remake makes life easier: you can jump on top of any enemy without any problems. No need to hit down on the d-pad, because you automatically bounce off enemies. The gameplay feels very gimped, and frankly too easy. I found it simple to bypass most enemies by jumping over them, which was much less possible in the Genesis version. The controls felt loose, and I found Mickey would slide everywhere. This made me feel less in control of Mickey and less satisfied overall.

What it does do well is re-introduce this game to a new generation of children. The game looks great, and I love how the soundtrack is updated yet remains faithful to the original.  It adds voice acting and a narrator, which adds some charm. It also allows you to jump and throw at the same time, which is a welcomed addition.

Final Thoughts
I highly recommend playing the original over the new version. It’s really great once you learn the controls, and you’re bound to sink a few hours into this game. The HD remake is somewhat forgettable because it sticks to the tried and true, offering very little to differentiate it from similar games. The remake works well, but the original allows you to learn as you play. I truly had a ton of fun, and I hope you will too.

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