Mike’s Gameboy Game of the Week: Monster Rancher Explorer

So while I was out with my friends this weekend past we were having a discussion on the Monster Rancher series and a friend of mine pointed out that there was a number of moderately unsuccessful Gameboy games. Naturally upon being told this I made it my immediate mission to play all of these games in order based upon how badly they were reviewed, so I hit up some of my local used game stores and found Monster Rancher Explorer for $3. Upon first glance the game seemed oddly familiar as if I had played it before, then while looking into the game I found that it is palette swapped port of another game called Solomon's Key (which apparently is one of the most copied games games if this fan site is to be believed.) Solomon's Key and Monster Rancher Explorer have differing stories and plots but both are the exact same gameplay-wise, they each contain around 60 levels with an addition 6 or so additional bonus levels and you place and remove blocks to reach keys which you use to open doors.

Seems Legit.

So powering the game up I am greeted with a decently animated opening telling me that this game takes place before the Monster Rancher games, it also tells me that the main character has decided to climb a monster infested tower just to write his college thesis.

I found the story to be a tad convoluted as apparently all of the worlds Monsters originated from a giant tower which you are exploring and climbing in order to find the legendary Phoenix which you apparently want to raise. Every 10 stages you are treated to a boss fight preceded by a short cut scene of a nameless elf dude who states that his favorite kind of fun is the fun that involves murder. Strewn throughout several stages are bonus stages/items which can help you though they aren’t apparent as you have to place a block in a specific spot and then remove it to reveal it. Honestly my first go through I knew nothing about these bonus stages and it wasn’t until I looked into the game that I found out about them.

I’m sure they just want to play some baseball or something.

Like I stated earlier the game involves the placement of blocks in order to reach a key to open a door. This isn’t nearly as easy as it sounds as each stage is typically filled with monsters that can destroy your blocks by touching them, the only way to deal with them is to shoot them with fireworks (which you have to actually find before using) or make them fall by placing a block beneath them and quickly removing it. A lot of the stages require a good deal of creativity when it comes to dealing with the monsters and reaching the key, but overall nothing is to difficult and the trial and error approach works just as well as even if you lose all your lives on a stage you are allowed to continue from the stage you left off on.

Ayup, I died on the first level. That is just how hardcore of a gamer I am.

Aside from just climbing the tower and completing the main story there is a stage editor which you can use to make your own levels that you can either play by yourself or have your friend play through a link cable connection. I couldn’t test this feature out first hand as I only had one copy of the game. The game also has a save feature so it isn’t a really long gauntlet where you have to beat it in one play through. Monster Rancher Explorer is a decent little puzzle game which can easily be picked up and dropped at a moments notice as there aren’t any advanced mechanics you have to learn to play the game and you can start back at whatever floor you last died on. For those who love plat forming puzzle games or are die hard fans of the Monster Rancher series I would highly recommend Monster Rancher Explorer as it is both inexpensive and can provide a great deal of enjoyment.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF-

Wendy Every Witch Way (GBC)

Wendy Every Witch Way is a slightly obscure gem by Wayforward Technology which along with another slightly less obscure game called Xtreme Sports both pushed the limits of the Gameboy Color with vibrant visuals and for the most part decent soundtracks. These two games took the regular conventions of a typical Gameboy Game (a basic sports game, or shooter) and polished those themes till they no longer looked anything like their predecessors. Now here is a link to some gameplay footage, you may be thinking, “Well that looks like any other skating game for the handheld!” You would be right in saying that instance made the game look like it was just a run of the mill Tony Hawk impersonator, but let me tell you this friend. Xtreme Sports had story. Yes dear reader you read that correctly the game had a viable story complete with cutscenes and an over world that could be explored.

I’d compare Xtreme Sports to Mario Tennis, only more anime styled.

Whereas Extreme Sports was a unique sports game, Wendy Every Witch Way is part Space Shooter and part Plaformer. The game stars Wendy the Good Witch a character from a comic series of the same name owned by Harvey Comics. Contemporary Gamers may know her better from her guest appearance in the second Casper movie, Casper Meets Wendy. It is worth noting that both intellectual properties belong to Harvey Entertainment. Wendy Every Witch Way is essentially about Wendy finding an odd chest in her home, and being of the curious sorts she opens it releasing many large green orbs (which are moonstones if the manual is to be believed) which cause a Castle floating above her home to collapse due to these gems reversing gravity. Wendy possesses a standard attack from her wand which can be upgraded by collecting the numerous stars strewn about each level, she also has the capacity to reverse gravity as she pleases moving from the floor to the ceiling with ease. Gravity can be a cruel mistress as changing gravity will also have an impact on the environment as certain enemies and hazards will move with the change of gravity.

They are jealous of your mad Fred Astaire skills!

The game itself is broken up into 4 levels with 3 stages each, there are also 3 bonus space shooter mini-levels in between where you shoot enemies and collect stars. If you happen to beat the game with enough stars you are able to play through an additional series of stages through a rather crazy space stage. Each level of the game introduces a new concept you will have to overcome, the first level has you learning how to jump from the ceiling to the floor by altering gravity, the second has you dealing with stage hazards, and the third has you dealing with hazards and enemies that switch from the ceiling and floor, etc. You are eased into these over the course of the three stages so difficulty is never much of a problem even if you choose to be extra ballsy and selected hard mode at the start screen.

I’m not enough of a badass to even consider doing hard mode.

Control-wise Wendy Every Witch Way is a pinnacle for what any platformer should be as everything is responsive, the gravity altering is incredibly responsive as if you are quick enough you can continuously alter gravity in mid-air over and over keeping Wendy perpetually in one spot. The Attack is quick and can be upgraded by grabbing stars (Stars are also representative of your life as when you have stars you lose one of them instead of dying if hit). The space shooter mini-stages are interesting and control just like Gradius where you can move all over the screen and shoot forward. Just like in the regular stages grabbing stars upgrade your attack and you can’t alter gravity but you can flip Wendy over which makes moving up or down slightly faster depending on whether you are right-side up or upside down.

And she’s so damn happy about it!

The game’s graphics are very nice and the stages all have a great deal of detail, especially for a Gameboy Color game. If you have a minute (as I’m sure you do if you are reading this) then give this video a look. Did you watch it? Did you notice the detail put into the moving background, how about the little explosions when enemies are destroyed, or just Wendy’s movement? Don’t just take that little gameplay video as an example…

That’s a Screen from the transition screen before the first stage, just like Extreme Sports Wendy Every Witch Way pushes the limits of the Gameboy Color with it’s colorful and vibrant visuals. The sound for the game is also very nice with moderately catchy level tunes and even a simplistic voice for Wendy limited mostly to yelps from being hit and what not. Wendy Every Witch Way is a great game for the Gameboy Color and is a simplistic platformer that is insanely fun and has a good deal of replay value I highly recommend this game or any game by Wayforward Technology.

Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle (NES)

The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle (Grammar fail?) is a palette swap of a game based on the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit created by Kemco. The exact reasoning for this game and it’s subsequent sequels existence is purely due to a rights dispute in which Kemco lost the rights to Who Framed Roger Rabbit and had to find a way of sending a game overseas somehow. Just as all seemed bleak for them they attained the rights to the Looney Tunes and swapped all of the characters from the movie with lookalike characters from the Looney Tunes, they would keep this trend going into this games many sequels and more or less every subsequent game they would ever make. The first of this series of games I ever played was the second one and not the first so imagine my surprise to realize that the sequel was much better then the original, though this is more likely due to them both being palette swaps of different games, though that’s a story for another day.

Who Framed Bugs Bunny?

The premise of the game is that you are Bugs Bunny and you are attempting to traverse the Crazy Castle and reach you’re girlfriend Honey Bunny.

Why is it that we don't remember her?

I digress though, you go through many seemingly identical levels in the game while being inessentially pursued by other iconic characters from the Looney Tunes like Sylvester, Foghorn Leghorn, and Yosemite Sam, all of which may be partially retarded as at certain points they kind of spaz out and instead of flat out murdering the hell out of you they just decide to walk away instead allowing you to complete the level. On any given level there may be multiple’s of these characters and very often they will each be a different color which I assume is due to the game wanting you to have a better grasp of the location of where each of these guys who are trying to kill you are located. The objective of any given level is to collect all of the carrots which are placed all over the levels seemingly at random, and once you have grabbed all of the carrots you win the level and Bugs does a really weird dance involving waving his arms.

The controls are basic, you have the ability to ascend stairs and ramps, and if you pick up a fist get the ability to use that to kill one of the enemies who are trying to murder you, there are other less common items like the ink bottle which makes you invincible for a brief period of time but the fist will be the weapon you will see the most often. The only other way of killing any enemy is to drop one of the many objects strewn throughout the stage, to actually drop the objects you have to push it off a ledge onto an enemy below you. The actual task of knocking an object on the enemy can be difficult or hard depending on how fast you are moving and the item in which you are trying to drop, I’ve noticed that when you run at an item and hit it the item will usually move 2-3 spaces instead of 1, I’ve also noticed that some lighter objects like the bucket will usually move 2 spaces instead of 1. One thing I must mention is the players ability to ascend and descend from stairs is kinda bad, it’s reminiscent of the stair climbing problems the first Castlevannia had in which once you were on those stairs you were dedicated to going up or down.

I can’t say much for the graphics/animations of the game but for a relatively simplistic platformer with no real story or true premise aside from being something quickly slapped together by Kemco in order to get a game Stateside. The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle is an alright game, it by no means is perfect. Honestly though I would not really recommend this game unless you truly are a collector or you want to experience a game with no content. This game may be fairly solid mechanics-wise but it isn’t something the average gamer would really want to play unless they are into collecting or really want to play a Bugs Bunny game. I bought this game a long time ago and I go back to play it once in a while… yet I never really feel fulfilled playing it; I attribute all it’s problems to the fact that the game is obviously a rushed job of a poorly palette swapped game.

TL;DR : Buy this only if you are a collector or like Bugs Bunny.

Santa Claus is Coming to Town (DS)

Santa Claus is Coming’ to town is a video game adaption of the Rankin Bass Holiday special, if you have not heard of the film nor Rankin Bass (which is doubtful I hope) you should stop reading this and go watch the special. The special can probably be viewed on Netflix or if you go to any superstore you can probably pick up the DVD. Now you go and watch that, I won’t go anywhere, promise, okay I’ll see you when you are done.

Alright, you all set? Good. Santa Claus is Coming to Town for the DS is essentially nothing more then a plethora of mini-games, these mini-games can be played as stand alone little games or you are presented the option of playing an “Adventure” mode which essentially is broken down into short talking sequences with mini-games laced between them. Now I know what you are thinking at this point, “Well Mike there is no possible way this game could be any good or accurate right?” Well dear readers I can assure you that this game is far from bad, at worst the game is mediocre which is still a far cry from Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde.

Seriously, fuck this game I rather dislike this game.

I think it’s prudent that before I move on I make it known to everyone that over the course of this game you will hear “Santa Claus is coming to Town” playing constantly in the background. Seriously. I’ll admit it plays at a low enough volume that it doesn’t feel to obtrusive, though it gives the game a similar feel to walking through a super market during the holidays at first, eventually though it just becomes white noise. An alternative to listening to the music in the background is shutting it off through the options menu, but in my opinion it isn’t worth it as you won’t notice it after a while of playing.

The game’s story is identical to that of the holiday special sans Fred Astaire (due to a legal matter of course). You start the game off as Special Delivery Man Kluger who opens up by telling you the story of Santa’s origins from there you get to more or less experience the film entirely through text and mini-games. You also get to play the game from two alternative perspective’s which I guess adds more depth to the story(?).

Please Meister of all Burgers, rear this child to be so good with burgers that one day he may become a Burger Meister.

Mini-game wise the good ones are all platformers while the others are really shallow coloring games or “singing” games. Platforming wise there are three games in total and all of which are very straight forward and don’t require much to beat as all you do in each game is jump and it’s impossible to die or time out. All of the other games are incredibly shallow but for the age demographic (5-8 year olds?) the game is tailored to the mini-games are probably appealing as they consist of coloring games, a game where you get to dress-up and take care of topper (Santa’s pet penguin), seek and find games, mazes, and a memory match game among others. Ultimately the games are nothing to shake a stick at but for what they are the mini-games are solid in their own rights and aren’t blighted by poor controls or glitches.

It reminds me so much of Pitfall.

Santa Claus is Coming to Town isn’t (in my opinion) a game in the traditional sense, if anything it’s an accompaniment to the special where it contains some games based on the film and a mode which contains little descriptions of the characters  (which solidifies my point). The game is entirely Christmas themed and as such it is by no merit a game which will pull you to play it during any other time then the winter months, though I think this is the games biggest selling point and the main defining reason to actually play it. Santa Claus is Coming to Town is the kind of game where when you are feeling in a particularly festive mood it provides one with an outlet for that festivity in the form of its simple mini-games and Christmas soundtrack, it also helps that it is designed after the Rankin Bass film which has become a regular holiday special.

Santa Claus is Coming to Town is by no means a game worth investing in unless you have either children or you personally feel the need for a video game themed outlet for any overburdening Christmas spirit you may have; my biggest gripe about the game is that Fred Astaire’s puppet isn’t present and they instead replaced him with a puppet which looks nothing like him, this is a personal issue and by no means should it impact your feelings on the game unless you are a purist when it comes to adaptions of movies. Santa Claus is Coming to Town is a decent little Christmas game which you can pick up and play during the holidays, if you aren’t interested in mini-games you can pick up the Wii version which is a platformer where you collect snowflakes and deliver presents (it also features voice-acting :o ).

Also there’s Flute Hero.

Fun Fact: Fred Astaire isn’t in either game because upon his death he placed it in his will that he didn’t want any person or entity to use his personage as he was sure they would misinterpret his character or some other nonsense.

Have a Happy Holidays/Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanza/etc.

 

The Lost Vikings (SNES, Genesis)

Interplay's "Lost Vikings" is one of those games that I heard about for YEARS before finally playing it. I'm serious. From 9th grade until I finally played it in senior year of high school I had my best friend, classmates, neighbors, Blockbuster employees, mail carriers, garbage men, and CPAs all tell me that I absolutely had to play this game. With all of that ridiculous hype, you would think I would either praise this game as God's gift to gamers or cast it into the fiery pits of gamer hell along with "Shaq-Fu" and "Dudes with Attitude."

Truth be told, it belongs in neither category - which is a good thing and a bad thing.

Let's start off with all of my personal, nitpicky complaints first - that way we can try and be objective about this whole thing. I have a love/hate relationship with these type of puzzle-formers. "Lemmings" is probably in my top 30 games of all time list - but after about an hour or so of watching those little green boogers explode into a pixelly mess or splat like raindrops from a tall platform - I want to throw my controller through the flatscreen. That being said, I have a lot of experience with these types of games. I have walked many a "Lemming", "Troddler", "Human", or even Krusty's very own "rats" to their early gaming graves - so sad to say, a game like Lost Vikings no longer has the fresh coat of originality it may have had back in '92. So is that a fault of developers Silicon & Synapse - the company who would later become the behemoth known as Blizzard? Well, no. Out of Troddlers, Humans, Lemmings, and Krusty's Fun House - only Lemmings predates Lost Vikings, so it isn't like this had become a glutted market yet. However, all of the other puzzle-formers came out the same year - so it's hard to compete when so many similar games come out at the same time.

Booooing! Hey, that block is supposed to be up here!

Out of that batch of games, Lost Vikings plays closest to "Humans" in that you switch between a handful of characters and combine their strengths to reach the goal, rather than controlling a few out of a much larger pack and just arranging the talents of a select few to get the whole tribe out of the exit. I know that sounded like the same thing twice, but anyone who's played these might know what I'm talking about. In easier terms - 3 Vikings enter, and if you did it right, 3 Vikings leave. In Lemmings, 40 Lemmings enter, you make a handful parachute down and create a bridge so that hopefully, 29 or better will leave.

Crispy fried Viking. I'm NO GOOD at this game...

Now that I've explained my personal bias against puzzle/platformers - let's discuss the myriad of things that Lost Vikings gets right. First, this is the kind of game that benefits greatly from having a partner or two. Vikings lets you have up to three players control Erik, Olaf, and Baleog through these spaceships, pyramids, etc. It is a game that controls pretty easily with one player - you hit the L & R buttons to switch between Vikings and move them into position. However, having two or three players cuts the time down tremendously and makes chores that require; for instance, Olaf to make his shield into a platform for Erik to jump upon, much easier. You still have to coordinate the strategy with your real life friends and keep them from jumping down pits or getting zapped by lasers, thus negating all of the planning you guys did - but that's all on you, buddy! It's nice every once in a while to find a game that allows you to have more than two players at a given time (provided you have a multi-tap.)

For the most part the graphics are pretty well done. Your Vikings are fun, colorful and expressive. Jump down a long pit and watch your the facial expressions your Vikings make! Hi - larious. Their hair flips through the air, they have clean and fluid animations whenever they are running, jumping, shooting arrows, and more. The backgrounds and level designs are a bit of another story. For the most part, levels are fairly bland and repetitive with the same few sprites repeating constantly. I'll admit though, it's very hard to make a spaceship look exciting and many other games have lamer level design and background graphics. The music is nice and funky. It has that early 90's hip-hop stank all over it, and you half expect M.C. Hammer to bust out or Vanilla Ice to bring his "Ninja Rap." While not quite as funky as a game like Toejam and Earl, the soundtrack is fun and works well. The sound effects leave something to be desired as there really aren't too many to speak of. That being said, the presentation of Lost Vikings is better than average.

An example of some of the sassy Viking humor you'll see!

Side Note: The screenshots provided are from the Super NES version. There is a slight difference between the SNES and Genesis versions graphically speaking (I would argue the Super NES one is more detailed) as is usually the case when games are ported across both systems.

The difficulty level is exactly as you would expect from a Puzzle/Platformer and is pretty typical of the genre. If you can get 100% of your Lemmings out alive in at least 25% of the levels in that game - you will probably smoke through Lost Vikings in a short weekend. Folks like me who are clumsy at these games will have considerably more trouble - especially once you have to rely on multiple Vikings simultaneously and you don't have a partner to back you up. You will die - constantly. Rumor has it that the Genesis version has more levels than the SNES version - which is good for you guys and gals who want even more of a challenge. The box boasts "over 40 rip-roaring levels." I can give you a guess as to how many I completed successfully in all of the times I've played this game, but let's just say I never saw my way out of that friggin' space ship.

A Viking's Funeral. Get used to seeing this cutscene...

Lost Vikings is an above average puzzleformer in a sea of similar games. The animations are smooth, the gameplay is top-notch among this genre of game, and there is plenty of challenge to be had here. It's a real treat to find 3 player games and this would definitely make for a fun party game (until one of your friends calls you a dirty name because you guys had to see the "Viking funeral" animation for the 400th time.) It's difficult, it's generally a fun time, and it's available for both the SNES and Genesis over at Lukie Games right freakin' now! Get over there!

Psychonauts (Xbox/PS2)

Tim Schafer is an underrated genius.

I know, I know. "Genius" is a big word. A word weighty enough to crush a cruise-liner and as misused, abused, altogether overused as an NES zappergun. However, if one were to hit pause and look at the catalog of games that have spilled from his mind and fingertips; it's truly an awesome sight. Writing, programming and/or designing such amazing games as The Monkey Island games, Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango, Brütal Legend, and more. The world of adventure games owes a huge debt to him and the work he pulled off at LucasArts as well as his own Double Fine Productions.

Official Seal of Awesomeness

Sadly, adventure games are more or less a dead genre nowadays. They turned Leisure Suit Larry into a goofy, clunky, unfunny platformer (Box Office Bust,) King Graham is nowhere to be found (Though I read that Telltale Games might reboot Kings Quest) and games like Schafer's own Full Throttle and Grim Fandango should have done way better than they did financially. These are hilarious, well-written, well-designed games. So guys and gals who love a funny, quirky script and an emphasis on plot and puzzles over "bang-bang, shoot 'em ups" jump all over these games when they can find them. Or at least, they should. That's where Psychonauts comes in.

While not an adventure game according to the strictest definitions, Majesco's 2005 game Psychonauts is an action/adventure platformer that (not unlike most of the games I review here,) deserved to sell far more copies than it did. In Psychonauts, the player controls Raz, a gifted young boy training to be a Psychonaut at a psychic summer camp. Training to be a super-secret, ultra-awesome psychic agent. The camp is run by a Patton-esque general gone mad coach Oleander, groovy disco chick Milla Vodello, and cold hard scientist Sasha Nein. Raz makes friends with various other Psychodets all training at the camp and also gets training from Ford Cruller, a batty old man who walks around in various disguises throughout the game and teaches Raz his various psychic abilities.

Ford Cruller droppin' pure gaming science on you

The first thing that you'll notice about Psychonauts are the tremendous and lengthy cutscenes. Those who don't dig humorous banter, plot-crucial cinematics, and a little bit of character development need not apply. For everyone else, this game is a breath of fresh air. In some games, the cinematics take you out of the action - but not in Psychnonauts. It's like watching a really funny Saturday morning cartoon (remember, the ones that used to actually make you laugh?) and then being able to control the action at crucial times. It's not unlike the cinematic nature of Rockstar games such as Bully, The Warriors, or Red Dead Redemption if they were full of quirky, acid-trip-esque characters and hilarious back-and-forth banter.

No Psychonaut ever won a war by dying for his psychic abilities...

Controlling Raz is a piece of cake. Anyone who has played a modern 3d platformer should get the hang of the controls really quickly. Once you start progressing through the game and developing your Psychic abilities, walking around and completing tasks gets easier with things such as the levitation ball to help Raz reach otherwise tough spots. The only real downside with the controls is getting used to mapping out your psychic abilities to the controller (something that was easier to manage on the PC version.) That being said, there are many other games that require you to pick-n-choose which actions you want hot-keyed to your button layout so this should also not be too challenging for folks who are used to this sort of control scheme.

As far as difficulty is concerned, I would rank this game as easy. Like nearly all platform games, there are a couple of spots where you'll get frustrated for dying over a "stupid mistake." Should have jumped sooner, should have jumped later, etc. The game is also packed full of fun if you are the kind of cat who likes to chase down things like "psychic baggage" and other little collectables to raise your psychic ranking. The gameplay is not unlike Conker's Bad Fur Day, which also has a similar difficulty - However, Psychonauts seems to control a little smoother which helps to limit the amount of annoying pitfalls.

The graphics are colorful and the characters designs are definitely original. The various characters in Psychonauts from the camp counselors all the way to the psychodets look like they would fit in nicely in one of those animated Tim Burton flicks ala "Nightmare Before Christmas" or "Corpse Bride." Everyone's got wacky sharp angles and everything from level design to character sprites feels skewed in the most deliberate and wonderful way. As mentioned before, it feels like a wacky version of the best Saturday morning cartoons from your childhood. While the graphics may not have pushed the upper limits of the Xbox or Playstation 2's capabilities, they are more than appropriate for a game as sideways and crazy as this one.

The way with the giant lava pit. That's the ticket!

As well as crisp and game-appropriate graphics, the music is awesome and the voice acting is one of the main highlights of the game. Throughout most of the early stretch of the game, you'll be controlling Raz around the camp - accompanied by some fun, droopy country-esque music with wailing harmonicas and drunken sounding guitar licks. The score shifts into Danny Elfman territory whenever Raz slips into one of the psychic realms. Horns, orchestral stings, etc.

The adventure game genre is more or less a thing of the past. However, once in a while games like Psychonauts will come along that may have the physics of a platform game, but have the humor, heart, and soul of a true adventure game. This game was woefully ignored by the public, so here's your chance to right that mistake! At the time of this article, Lukie Games has a copy for the Xbox right NOW! It's a wonderful game for anyone who likes a fast, funny adventure-style platformer. I also recommend it to anyone who loves games like Conker's Bad Fur Day - it's a very similar game with a slightly more family-friendly shine to it.