Street Fighter: The Movie
Oh yeah… this is the video game version of the flaming pile of monkey poo known as “Street Fighter the Movie”!
Now, let me be fair about this game: it may have worked if the source material (the movie) wasn’t so horrible. Capcom, in an attempt to mimic the digitized actor style of Mortal Kombat, mixed actors and game footage from the movie release of Street Fighter… into a game… based on the movie.
That’s where the downfall of this title rests. The movie is, in a word, bad. Jean Claude Van Damme is a legitimate bad ass martial artist but gets cast in the wrong role. Instead of being cast as Ryu or Ken, the French man is instead cast as American military brawler Guile.
It all goes south from there, with poor casting and more.
The failure of the film is what brings the game down to a thumb “in the middle” for me. I actually like this game. The result may be as corny as the film itself, but it’s a unique “what if” scenario for the Street Fighter series, and one of few games to lift source material from a feature film into a game.
There’s also a great amount of “fun facts” between this game and its arcade counterpart: namely that this game isn’t a port and was developed by Capcom to be a lot closer to that of Street Fighter II Turbo. That move, along with a few interesting additions/alterations to the roster and game play (which you can read more about here) salvage this title from the usual movie-based game trying to make a buck into something worth playing.
Honestly, this isn’t that bad of a game. Sure, it has its faults (the cut scenes are just, well look haha) but I’d definitely say it’s worth checking out if you’re a Street Fighter fan.
Super Mario Bros. Deluxe
Continuing on my quest of playing Mario remakes, this edition of the original game retains the 8-bit style, but also adds a lot of different things to the game. Luigi’s outfit differs from Mario’s, akin to how we know them both know with their red/green costumes.
Various sounds were added to the game, as well as animated water and lava.
An overworld map and the ability to save after each stage were key additions too.
One of the biggest changes is that you can walk backward in the level, so if you pass something up, you can now go back. (Which if I recall, even the All-Stars remakes didn’t allow for that.)
My main gripe with this game is how large items have to be on the screen to fit into the Game Boy environment. If they made it smaller, you wouldn’t be able to see what you’re doing, but making things larger means you often can’t see platforms above or below you, leading to your death (especially if one were not familiar with this game, to begin with).
There are some other cheesy scenes added, and a few would be modes that would appear to be tacked on, but offer replay value (such as You vs. Boo and a hidden red coin mode where you have to locate all of the red coins in each level).
I honestly wouldn’t mind a reboot of this version of the game to fit a traditional screen. As it stands, the extras are fun, and the slight changes modernize the game some, but overall it can be challenging to play with the lack of screen real estate and the added “going backward” mechanic.
Pit-Fighter
One of the first arcade games to digitize actors into its graphics is one of the main reasons I remember Pit Fighter.
The game play is why I forgot it.
The novelty quickly wears off with the “advanced” graphics (which look horrible by today’s standards). You choose one of three fighters and get a set amount of “life” that must last through each subsequent level, with no continues. (You die, you start over.)
The life meter eventually builds back up, but the game can be really tough at times… and it recycles things far too often. The same stage/background is used throughout most of the stages. You will face the same 3-4 fighters including a “grudge match” mirror of the character you selected during each stage.
For some odd reason, when you win, you receive prize money while standing on a pallet which is raised by a forklift as you “ascend” the ranks. You can’t use the earnings to upgrade your fighter at all, and the score is probably a ceremonial type of thing that harkens back to “high scores” of early arcade games like Pac-Man or Space Invaders. (Note: The original Mortal Kombat had a scoring system too, but it went away in the sequels.)
Not sure if this was just a SNES limitation with cartridge size or not, but the same exact music is used for every single part of the game. It gets incredibly repetitive! (And a limitation of the console ports is that the crowd doesn’t interact with the fighters like the arcade version: which was one of the main draws of this game!)
But all of it was worth it for the awesome game ending, shown in my a screen capture in the gallery below.
Sonic the Hedgehog
I want to get this out in front: the Game Gear versions of Sonic the Hedgehog are not the same titles which were originally seen on the Sega Genesis. The confusion lies in the not-so-original naming scheme. For whatever reason, Sega published the titles under the same exact names (in most cases) as their Genesis siblings. Therefore, there are two Sonic the Hedgehog titles, however, they are not the same.
To further muddy the waters, there are also two editions of this same Sonic the Hedgehog “not Genesis” title, which were ported to both the Sega Game Gear and Sega Master System.
Geesh!
Obviously, the game didn’t have the same visuals as the 16-bit Genesis version, but even in the 8-bit world of the Game Gear (and the Master System, which is near identical) this title holds up very well. In fact, to the uneducated, had you handed them the 8-bit Sonic first and then had them play the 16-bit Genesis version, they’d feel like a natural progression in the series.
However, the Genesis version released six months earlier, making it the first in the series.
According to WikiPedia:
A version of Sonic the Hedgehog was developed by Ancient and released in late 1991 for Sega’s 8-bit consoles, the Master System and Game Gear. Its plot and gameplay mechanics are similar to the 16-bit version, though some level themes and digital assets are different and Chaos Emeralds are scattered throughout levels rather than special stages.
Gameplay as a whole is simplified; the level design is flatter and has a larger focus on exploration, with no vertical loops, and Sonic cannot re-collect his rings after being hit. The game has a different soundtrack composed by Yuzo Koshiro, which includes adaptations of music from the original version.
It was the final game released for the Master System in North America.
While this may seem like an oddity, it’s definitely worth playing. The content isn’t a ripped-off version from the Genesis. The two games share similarities, just like Mario games have over different platforms throughout the years. It also has enough original content to make it feel fresh, even though it’s a short game.
This first version is an excellent 8-bit rendition that feels like a prequel to the Sonic series and therefore, one I recommend any retro game puts on their bucket list.
Sonic CD
Another one off the bucket list… Sonic CD!
Never owning any Sega consoles growing up, I had an itch to finally sit down and play through all of the Sonic games starting with the first four on the Genesis and then their Game Gear counterparts.
I can see now why this game had to be re-released on other consoles later, because it was so far ahead of its time. Graphically it was superior to every other Sonic game. It built on mechanics introduced in the others while adding a high replay value “time travel” element to it.
It also has a pretty killer 90’s inspired soundtrack that, while sounding dated at times, still holds up in other ways.
My favorite of the Sonic series thus far… that and the final board of Sonic & Knuckles!
Final Fantasy II
Talk about the game that never ends… So many times I thought I was finally completing the last objective only to have something else happen. It has its drawbacks, but overall a game that feels like an epic journey and leaves you with a sense of accomplishment at the very end… which, the credits roll for longer than some blockbuster movies too!
Perfect Dark
Easily one of my favorite games of all time. This took Goldeneye to a whole new level and pushed the limits of what was possible on the N64. Heck, replaying this, there are things I stopped and went “whoa” over that were done back in 2000. A lot of those concepts are still carried over to modern games. (I’d bet this game was a huge influence on Halo as well.)
Among the features include the various external tools, such as scanners and portable cameras. The ability to dual wield guns returns along with secondary options for every weapon. There were night vision and IR scanners, X-ray tracking guns (Farsight), sniper rifles, heat-seeking and manually guided missiles, plus so much more than I could possibly list here (or remember!)
This game is so great I may just play through it yet again! (I’ve beaten it several times in my lifetime.)
Note: the graphics are crude, but I discovered halfway through playing that I could increase the emulator settings as well as the actual game having a widescreen mode built-in. Therefore, you’ll notice a huge difference in the graphics when viewing my screenshots.
Ninja Gaiden
Holy cow! Yes, this game is very difficult, but I never really remembered much of it due to not being able to progress very far (because, really, a timer?)
The story line and game play were likely second to none way back when. It even pulled me in here in 2018 (the time of this writing).
If I forgot to mention, the game is crazy hard, but I really enjoyed it. I highly recommend it for you classic gamers out there.
Ghostbusters
Raise your hand if you hated this game!
There was nothing worse than the impossible ending (26 flights of stairs where 3x touching ghosts would kill you) or actually trying to beat Zuul… or running out of gas and have to push your ECTO-1 as you mindlessly chase ghosts to acquire cash for useless upgrades.
I had somehow beat this with a Game Genie ages ago on the actual console, but this was a bugger to even beat with cheats this time around. WTF?! Possibly the worst movie/cartoon video game translation aside from TMNT!
Mega Man 6
Admittedly, this game just feels like a direct phone-in attempt by Capcom, replacing MM5 with new characters. There is a really cool “suit/armor” mechanic, which gives Mega Man a “big suit” that can break boulders, etc.
Overall, the music and everything really is MM5 with a new coat of polish. This was the final MM NES game and you can tell they were pushing the console to it’s limits. A small change in the storyline as usual keeps it a bit fresh, and if you’re like me and played through the others, you have to complete this one too.
In order of my favorites on the NES: MM3, MM2, MM4-6, MM1… MM1 is really awful by comparison and incredibly difficult. You also can’t fully enjoy MM3 without playing MM2, but that’s the reason why MM3 is much more fulfilling (storywise). That’s why it’s my favorite.
Onward to more games, including (gasp) the Game Boy versions of Mega Man!