Commando
No doubt you’ve experienced this quarter-sucker of a game in the arcades as a youth, or at least another game which was inspired by it.
Button-smashing was prevalent in a lot of arcade games, but Commando may take the cake for non-stop action. Back when you had to “get gud” at games, this one was fairly unforgiving for an arcade-to-NES translation.
If you didn’t break a controller smashing the fire button, you may have in frustration otherwise as each of the nearly copycat levels ramps up in difficulty through the end.
The game, however, is fun. Part of that frustration would come from perfecting firefights as you would complete each “mission” which is a batch of four levels – and with four missions, there’s a lot of repetitiveness.
The action scrolls from bottom to top, as you avoid bullets and obstacles, finding hidden “underground” rooms along the way. The protagonist, “Super Joe” (great name by the way) can shoot in 8 directions, including diagonally. Grenades and a machine gun power-up round out the weapons at your disposal.
The levels end with a barrage of enemies storming the screen. It’s these showdowns that make the game special, as you duck, dodge, fire back, and fight to win the missions.
You are then rewarded with the usual 80’s cheesy cutscenes, complete with awful English translation.
The game ends, ***SPOILER ALERT*** with one of the worst few-line “thank you” screens you could think of too!
In all, Commando is still a fun game that harkens back to button-smashing shooters of yesteryear. It’s not Call of Duty and by today’s standards, most kids would probably get bored with it quickly.
For those of us who enjoyed mastering titles, however, it’s well worth picking up and playing. (Especially if you enjoyed Contra.)
WWF WrestleMania
It’s not uncommon for an NES game to be rough around the edges or brutally difficult – thus is the case for WWF WrestleMania, the wrestling giant’s first foray into a licensed console game.
It all starts off innocently too.
The opening game menus welcome you to the big event style of the real WrestleManias, before leading you to a name entry field (common in that era) and then your selection of wrestlers to use: a whopping six!
The names are some of the big ones from that era, including Hulk Hogan, “Macho Man” Randy Savage, Andre The Giant, “Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase, Bam Bam Bigelow, and The Honky Tonk Man.
For an NES game, the graphical presentation is fairly sharp, this coming from renowned Rare Studios (of Goldeneye fame, among many other A+ titles). There’s also theme music with each wrestler, which plays near the conclusion of each match or upon victory.
Game modes are “standard” or “tournament” – the former is more of a free play mode, while the latter is the campaign.
And that’s where things get hairy. I mean, playing a game made in 1989 is hard enough to judge, but I can also go back to my childhood and remember how incredibly frustrating this game is. You want to like it if you’re a wrestling fan, because what else is there to play?
However, moving around 360 degrees makes it difficult to line up with your opponent to strike them. Furthermore, the moves aren’t universal throughout each of the six wrestlers – special moves is one thing (of which, finishers don’t really exist in this game).
It’s pinning your opponent that’s a major hassle. Good luck figuring out the key combination, as your opponent either lies prone or pops up off the mat like a reanimated corpse.
The energy bars, which you must deplete to get them into a pinning predicament, also regenerate – so while you chase your opponent around hoping to land a strike (common move) you rarely connect and then you’re stuck attempting to deplete most of their energy bar once again.
You can run in a direction and off of the ropes, though performing any move from running is also clunky. In fact, the only consistent thing you can do is strike: elbows, kicks, punches, and the occasional headbutt. But, your opponent, even when not facing you, will likely intercept your attempt and hit you before you can land one hit!
Combine this with the typical 8-bit gaming timer, three minutes for tournament matches, and you will end up in a draw more often than not, which starts your match over again until there’s a clear decision.
It’s great to look back at what games were like in 1989, but this is one trip down memory lane that can be skipped altogether. This game is simply NOT fun outside of the menu screens, even if you were a major fan of the WWF/E back in its heyday.
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
Welcome to the bastard child of all Zelda games!
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link follows an odd NES pattern of changing up the sequels of Nintendo’s main franchises. Super Mario Bros. 2, for example, was a large departure from the original (at least the United States version was). Yet, SMB2 was just a rehash of another Japanese game with Mario concepts painted over it.
Zelda 2 was… something else.
As one of the only true sequels to the Zelda storyline, the game introduced now-common elements such as the magic meter and “Shadow Link”, but also introduced something else: shear stupid difficulty and a radically different style of gameplay!
As opposed to the original Legend of Zelda, which had a top-down world map and each screen served as an “area” on the map, Zelda 2 when to a side-scrolling adventure for all of the action sequences, only using the top-down map to get from area to area. Those areas included various towns, palaces, caves and more.
This is where the game becomes the devil. Link’s sword is like this itty bitty thing that can barely inflict damage on anything. Jumping is wonky (putting it kindly) and will lead to many deaths too.
Actually, the only cool aspect of jumping is the downward thrust with the sword, which is hard to believe but was something groundbreaking way back then.
The game also had more RPG-centric elements such as leveling up. In fact, many would say this game felt more like a Castlevania game than Zelda, and that much is true. However, like other Zelda titles, certain items and quests were commonplace in order to progress throughout the world to meet your final goal of awaking a sleeping Princess Zelda who is under a spell.
As you finally make your way to the Great Palace, the game features one of the biggest PITA villains in all of 8-bit lore: Thunderbird.
I can’t tell you how many times I died trying to defeat this thing as a kid. And of course, once you do, you are then in a toe-to-toe fight with a tough “Shadow Link” (or “Dark Link” depending on who you talk to.)
The reward for beating Shadow Link is the third Triforce, the Triforce of Courage, which is also a new element added to Zelda 2. (Its predecessor featured only the Triforce of Wisdom and of Power, the latter wielded by Ganon.)
The three Triforces would become a common theme throughout Zelda game, reinforcing the “tri” part of the name.
While this game is an oddity among all Zelda titles, and it’s a major B**** to beat, its also a must play for hardcore Zelda fans due to being a drastically different game that also introduces many hallmarks of the franchise.
I do recommend it, but also be forewarned: you may need backup controllers as you’ll tend to break at least one in frustration playing this!
Paperboy
I’m going to crush some of your childhood memories of this pointless game… Seriously, even with Wayne’s World, I haven’t put down a game where I’ve said: “What did I just play?”
Even with that weird ass game (Wayne’s World) I knew it was based on a movie and that games based on IP such as movies and comics usually sucked hard.
This game?
It’s based on a job: busy work for little kids looking to make a few pennies, slaving every single day of the week with no breaks.
“Oh, that sounds like fun! Let’s make it into a game!”
No. Just no… Lots of no!
I understand the appeal though, as all games from this generation were impossibly difficult and suffered from lame graphics, poor controls, and zero logic. Furthermore, this NES title was derived from an arcade game designed to extract as much money from your pocket as possible. (With the irony being, kids were probably delivering papers to blow quarters on this in the arcade!)
Along the line somewhere this became a concept and now they had to figure out how to make it into a reality. Naturally, the kid on a bike must have some obstacles to overcome to find the goal, right?
Is that a gap between the road and the car? Yes, it is.
Can you go through it?
Not without crashing into the car!
The road hazards seem like a natural fit, as did some other obstacles. Some make complete sense! An angry homeowner or dogs chasing you? Makes sense!
Even random construction or street workers, or the occasional go kart or motorcyclist make sense.
But a tornado? Tombstones? The Grim Reaper?! Odd looking discs?
Not so much.
Then there’s the “training course”, which should just be code for “this game is Excitebike tilted at 45 degrees” – that just screams “don’t even try playing it”.
Good riddance!
I do get some of the appeal with this game, however, and that’s the satisfying feeling of breaking windows with your newspapers (instead of, you know, delivering them on a porch or mailbox!)
However, this was not the trip down memory lane I was hoping it was. Even with multiple attempts, that trip ended by landing in a storm drain…
I’m sure this has nostalgia for many, but since I wasn’t traumatized by this game as a youth, it was nothing but a frustrating romp. Play at your own risk!
Wrath of the Black Manta
Ever make a big mistake when you were a child?
I did, and this game is that mistake!
Behind a lot of clever marketing which rode the wave of ninjas and karate being cool in the late 80’s and early 90’s, came Wrath of the Blank Manta. More than likely, you never heard of this game and hopefully, this will be the only time you ever have!
I’m really dogging this title, because as a kid, I had very high hopes for it… such hopes, that I do believe I got this title instead of Super Mario Bros. 3 at the time.
I would eventually get SMB3 in due time, but choosing this game (with allowance or whatever money/perks my parents were giving me at that age) was a colossal blunder. The only cool thing about it is the very large boss from the end of the first level, “Tiny”, who is pictured above.
Large enemies like this weren’t commonplace yet in video games due to memory limitations. But having replayed this game, you can also sense that Tiny doesn’t do a whole lot other than jump back and forth.
In fact, that’s all the more you really do in this game too. The levels are designed with constricting spaces which are hard to maneuver through, often leading to ill-timed deaths or loss of life: both of which are crucial to getting to the end of a game in an era where video games were unforgiving.
Granted, this title was unforgiving too, but unlike successful games within the same or similar genres, such as Ninja Gaiden, bad controls and lackluster powerups made it a chore to labor through the title’s five levels: all of which are ported from a Japanese game known a Ninja Cop Saizou.
That should be the first sign that something’s wrong, though I didn’t know it back in 1990. Levels were redesigned, sprites were altered, cutscenes removed and other items totally butchered to convert this game into Black Manta. Heck, the Japanese version even has six levels!
Regardless, playing through this game’s storyline, you are supposed to rescue kidnapped children. Doing so has no bearing on if you win and has little impact other than making sure you die, as you receive no bonus whatsoever for rescuing them.
You’re probably thinking then, what’s the point? And that’s what I was thinking as a young kid as I attempted to get through all five stages, the final of which is harder than beejesus and not because it’s challenging like Gaiden or Double Dragon. Oh no, the difficulty is just cheap, with the computer practically cheating to make you start your journey all over again from the beginning.
It’s enough to make me want to take this cartridge and run over it a million times with a steamroller. But I wouldn’t do that, because it cost a lot of bones in 1990 dollars and still has some sentimental value, if only for that marketing that made me choose it over Mario!
DuckTales
Ever play a game that was so great when you were a child only to come back to it and not have as fond of a memory of it years later?
Well, that’s not the case with DuckTales, an NES title which should’ve easily been the usual “slap the license on the box and sell it” game that was anything but. In fact, this particular game even saw a high definition remake years later, but for now, I’ll concentrate on the original… as this game was so successful it not only spawned a sequel, but was also ported to the Nintendo Game Boy and became Capcom’s bestselling title on both consoles!
The premise follows a key element of the cartoon series: Scrooge McDuck has lots of money and is the richest person on Earth. He wants to expand his fortunes and thus you travel around the world to exotic locations such as the Amazon, Transylvania, and the Moon in search of loot. Along the way he faces obstacles, such as rescuing his nephews or the random boss (some of which are or aren’t lifted from the cartoon series).
What made this game a classic is Scrooge’s “pogo stick” jump from his cane, which added a unique jumping element to the game, along with non-linear (think not side-to-side, like Super Mario Bros) levels. Throw in text (speech) lines and cameos which remained faithful to the already immensely popular TV program, and its not difficult to see why this game was a winner.
Even the opening screen hums an 8-bit instrumental rendition of cartoon’s opening song, sending nostalgic goosebumps along one’s skin!
If you’ve never had the pleasure of playing this game and were a fan of the cartoon growing up, I would drop everything and check this out. You won’t be disappointed!
Double Dragon II: The Revenge
Beat’em up games were all of the rage growing up, but for the life of me I don’t know how I not only avoided the Double Dragon series, but how it was ever popular either!
Honestly, these games are for the birds. I understand the palette swap, repeating the same enemy over deal (due to limitations of the hardware at the time) but someone decided a few things were “good ideas” for this sequel of an already difficult game:
1. Punching/Kicking
Let’s make the A and B buttons for punching and kicking work in the direction you’re currently facing. That means in the B/A layout (where the B button is on the left) B will punch if you’re facing the enemy but will be reversed and be a kick if you’re back is to them.
Considering the kick is weak and practically useless due to collision detection in the game, punching and constantly keeping enemies in front of you is a must.
2. Weapons
Cool you can use weapons!
Well, there are weapons but they’re scarce. That’s a great concept when they do more damage. (Sense my sarcasm yet?)
Why would you want to allow someone an advantage in a game they purchased?
3. Jumping
The absolute worst.
Pressing B and A at the same time to jump: the jumps in this game are stupid. Flat out cheap and stupid.
Why even have them other than to add cheap deaths to an already difficult game?
There are areas where you jump THROUGH the platforms due to the goofy mechanics of it. Other times trying to reach a platform you’ll perform a special move (cyclone kick) instead, miss the platform and fall to your death.
Note: That’s why I included so many screen captures of the one room with the gears. Even with save states it took me close to two hours to get across one part of the level, which leads me to believe this is a bugged portion of the game akin to TMNT’s horrid jumping from platform to platform.
Furthmore, what a great idea all of this iswhen the default option starts you with 3 lives.
Conclusion
Also, the hand icon with the doorbell ringing to tell you to proceed through the game is annoying. Trust me, I want to keep moving through these stages but you won’t allow me until I defeat every iteration of the same enemy… over and over… it gets repetitive to say the least.
The ending is incredibly underwhelming too, but that’s typical of many 80’s NES titles. (See below, and you’ll see what I mean.)
Other than having Kung Fu, I could pass on this series so far. I’m going to continue with the other sequels and see how they are, but I’m totally disillusioned with the Double Dragon games when there are better ones in the same genre from this era.
Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos
The box art doesn’t lie: “Hard to Beat” is legit!
The original Ninja Gaiden was stupid hard. So naturally, the developers at Tecmo must’ve called the Mega Man design team to ask for tips on how to make the game even more difficult!
Their suggestions: add more fire, spikes, a wind/rain element (that moves your character left/right on the screen) and snow/ice (that makes you slip to your doom).
Oh, and let’s add a storm act, where lightning flashes intermittently allowing you to see an otherwise completely dark board. Throw in some ancient relics which obstruct your view of enemies and other threats too, and you now have Ninja Gaiden on a cocktail of steroids and crack.
Otherwise, the game is fun. Graphically it’s ahead of its time, and the cut scenes add a dimension rarely seen in Nintendo games. (They’re straight out of the action films of that era and cheesy!)
Definitely, recommend playing this unless you’re on blood pressure pills.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project
Well color me stupid. I never knew about this game, despite it being a pseudo-sequel to one of my favorite games of all time.
I used to play the heck out of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game. As noted in a previous review, I had the NES port of this game, TMNT 2: The Arcade game, near the end of that console’s life cycle. It’s why I likely overlooked and/or missed this title years ago.
Don’t get me wrong, I knew there was a third TMNT game released, as the second arcade game was released for the SNES as TMNT 4: Turtles in Time. The problem is, I never knew this played near identical to the NES port!
Here’s why.
Turtles in Time actually released in the arcades before TMNT 3 came out on the NES. The SNES came out in August 1991, with Turtles in Time ported to the console a year later, in 1992.
TMNT 3 came out in February of 1992, as the NES started to be phased out. And seeing as it wasn’t the sequel we saw in the arcades, myself (and likely others) dismissed this as another cheap port/title much like TMNT 1.
However, that’s anything but the case. It does get repeptitve and a lot of the same concepts are reused from the NES arcade port, but it’s a brand-new game and worthy of being played. Basically, the devs took the arcade port engine from TMNT 2 and created new stages and bosses, plus added a few tweaks with moves and different style foot clan ninjas.
The result is TMNT 2.5 so to speak.
That doesn’t make the game a cheap imitation. In fact, you can tell that the developers cranked as much out of the Nintendo hardware as possible with this game. The graphics are sharp, the sound is great and if not for Turtles in Time, this may be the gold standard for the Konami beat’em up games such as TMNT, X-Men, and The Simpsons.
The only place where this game does go wrong is the same faults of TMNT 2: an endless barrage of ninjas sometimes makes you feel you’re stuck on the same “screen” for long periods of time rather than the arcade’s natural flow/progression. The idea, as I surmise, was to get more value out of playing the game longer. It was easier to continue adding ninjas to the screen as you beat them than have you walk through the level.
That adds a new dynamic where you are “pulled to the left” as you clear a “screen”. I love the idea and it helps you to know when to continue moving.
The turtles still retain their moves as well as a throw and a special move that depletes your life bar. The ninjas are also a bit harder to beat, with the jump-kick move being practically neutered in this game. (It’s an essential, higher-power move to pull of in the arcade versions.)
Yet, the result is a fun game featuring TMNT bosses not seen in other iterations of the game such as Dirtbag and Groundchuck. Movie enemies Tokka and Rahzar, as well as Super Shredder and cartoon/toy enemies Leatherhead and Slash all appear in this game as well as Turtles in Time.
In all it’s a fun addition to the series, bridging the demand for a TMNT 2 NES sequel with that of its big brother sequel Turtles in Time. I really enjoyed it and think any fan of the series would too.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game
The NES port of one of, if not my favorite all-time arcade game is this one.
Now for the surprising news: I didn’t own this game until the NES was practically collecting dust. I received a handful of NES games well after I owned my SNES, probably because the games were cheap then. A near pristine version of this cartridge now sits in storage and honestly that’s where it was for awhile even after acquiring it.
I had played this game so much in the arcades that my desire to play it at home was practically nil. Imagine my surprise that many years later I would return to it and thoroughly enjoy the home console 8-bit translation.
First the basics: this is a beat’em up game, which in the arcades, was designed to make you blow through quarters rather quickly. Some of the cheap death stuff was altered for the home version, with a life bar at the bottom. The controls feature a jump and an attack button. You can combine the jump into a jumping diagonal kick that is fairly useful throughout the game and appears to do more damage than your regular attack.
The game is fairly straightforward. It was named TMNT 2 due to the original TMNT produced prior for the NES: a turd of a game that was missing many of the main characters and the charm of this cult classic. While the graphics are altered and more cartoonish in this 8-bit translation, I found that most of the concessions to work with the NES hardware weren’t just slapped onto the box. Sprits that were reduced in size, including the turtles themselves, just simply “work” within the environment.
Just about everything is redrawn, however, giving the game a bit of a different feel than the arcade version. However, the controls are tight and the gameplay is nearly spot-on. Even the timing of some events throughout the levels is identical or felt like it as to the game I came to play quarter-by-dollar-sucking-quarter.
Only a few things changed for the NES version. Baxter Stockman, a villain in human form only in the arcade, appears as “The Fly” in the home version replacing end bosses Beebop and Rocksteady: you still play against each of Shredder’s henchmen, but individually in earlier stages. Where The Fly is the boss now, you would’ve instead played against both henchmen in the arcade as it had a four-player co-op mode.
One stage is extended with a snow level in the city and one of the game’s two original bosses made only for this NES port. Another is like a Japanese-dojo level with a Samurai boss who has a levitating head.
I’m still unsure whether I like these additions. They give the NES game lasting appeal by not being as short of a game, which occurs as the difficulty and cheapness of dying are toned down compared with the arcade. Even the final encounter with Shredder, where he clones himself, is pared down from “3 Shredders” to 2 on NES: his insta-kill ray gun was also a no-show.
Yet one thing that’s really important is that the game is faithful to source material. That was my issue with the first TMNT. All of the bosses, including your never-ending run of minions in arcade version, and even The Fly for that matter, were (mostly) cartoon episode staples. From the Foot Clan ninjas to the mousers, it sure beat the first game’s “frog man” or “fire man” that were sorely out of place.
However, in this game, the polar bear or whatever ice creature boss and the samurai boss take away from that: reminding you of all of the awful and fake creations for the terrible TMNT 1 game… which lacks foot soldiers whatsoever, while this game has palette swap ninjas out the wazoo! That’s unacceptable considering how much source material is available from the cartoons, movies, and comic books, as well as the huge toy line.
I’d even venture to guess that the sound and graphics were fairly cutting edge for its time. This game even features heavy “Pizza Hut” advertising too. Packaged with the ability to actually play “the cartoon” with a game true in both feel and concept, this game lives on in re-releases even to this day as one of the greatest of all-time.
In all this is a port of a great game which is pared down in ways that it enhanced it for the home. I highly recommend it for anyone looking for an hour or two to burn one evening.