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.

Golgo-13: Top Secret Episode (NES)

It’s a secret to everybody.

It is not every day I discover a gem while I’m derping around a mall attempting to avoid the hassle of actually clothes shopping for the incoming winter; it was however ordained that the game trader would carry one of the greatest NES games it has ever been my pleasure to play, this game was Golgo-13. Golgo-13 is an action RPG that consistently switches between multiple modes as you journey to clear your name before the KGB manages to kill you. From my research into this game prior to playing it I noted that this particular game went largely unnoticed upon its release, one of the many gems of the console that never truly received the recognition it deserved.

Golgo-13: Top Secret Episode is based upon the manga of the same name, which at the time of the release of the American Localization had never reached North American soil so for the most part the average player of this game would be unawares of many of the references in the game, most notably the main characters moniker “Golgo-13”. American localization and censorship heavily took a toll on this particular game as many of it’s original sexual, and violent references were removed to spare the western audience from such horrors, as such many cut scenes come off as a tad awkward and several sprites were edited in order to remove anything deemed sexual.

It certainly is a beautiful evening.

The gameplay controls are very tight for an early nes title, and the game itself is very solid as there are different modes of play you will go through as you advance throughout the game. Though despite all these modes of play there is one constant, at certain intervals during any given stage you will either see a gun or the like which would startup a first person shooting scene where you must turn around and shoot at your adversaries as they dodge around attempt to kill you.

By the way, he’s shooting all of these with a handgun, that shoots missiles.

Most vidya game use a lives system where when you die you lose a life and after you run out you are treated to a game over screen and forced to restart, Golgo-13: Top Secret Episode takes this differently, instead of lives you have “Episodes” in total you have 52 “episodes” and when you run out you are immediately taken back to the start menu and forced to start the game over again. These episodes do not start at 52 and go down like a normal lives system would, these instead count up as if each attempt were part of a series with the last life being the ultimate conclusion. This game has been well noted for its interesting life system and in my opinion it makes the game more interesting for it, however these lives come at a cost, there is no save or password feature so you are forced to tough out the entire game in one sitting. The game isn’t to long and can be beaten in an hour or so if you know what your doing.

I personally think this is the coolest title screen in the world, oh and the #2 is the life county thing I mentioned.

The stages you traverse through will change as you will go from walking through a town one second and be flying around in a helicopter the next second, later you may even be swimming in the ocean or exploring unending mazes. Throughout all these stages your actions remain largely the same, you move forward and shoot, the only time in which this changes is when you are on foot in which you have the option of jumping and delivering a kick which causes things to explode. An interesting aspect of the game is that your HP consistently counts down but whenever you kill an enemy you gain both HP and ammo, which in my expert opinion is absolutely ballin.

All Green Shirts exist purely to feed your life force.

Remember how I mentioned multiple modes of play? Well there are quite a few of them; they are the standard side-scrolling stages where you are Golgo-13 and you kick and shoot your way across whatever part of the world you are in, the next is the stage where you fly a helicopter and shoot other planes (like in any side-scrolling space shooter), there is an underwater stage where you swim around which controls like a combination of the Helicopter and Walking stages, another mode of play that will honestly be frustrating are the first person maze stages which I will discuss later.

Yes, even these flying contraptions with spinning circlie-doo’s exist to feed your life force.

Before I talk about the maze stages I will mention one of the more interesting facets of Golgo-13: Top Secret Episode, the game has some cut-scenes but what really stands out is the NPC interactions Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode has lots of interactions, whenever you enter a building or station there is an NPC which will engage you in conversation and at certain instances you will be able to talk to NPC’s which happen to be walking by.

 

The NPC’s will commonly give plot related info, or advice for how to move on in the game; sometimes people will just complain to you about how they hate communists.

There aren’t really that many cut-scenes as opposed to the NPC interactions what more the cut-scenes are limited in content.

They are pretty much this, but for about a minute or two.

Now I feel that it is imperative that I talk about the maze stages, as these very stages are the bane of any person who has had to play through this game. These mazes are difficult, if anything they are the most difficult part of this game as they lack any kind maps to help you find your way to the end, and they are typically filled with soldiers and traps trying to kill you. To make matters worse to the unseasoned player there is a maze in this game which was put in specifically to kill the player, this particular maze has no ending and goes on into infinity. Aside from the dick move that is the infinity maze the other mazes require patience, a good hand at mapmaking(or a Google search for online maps), and a quick trigger finger for killing the soldiers before they can hit you. Though I think it’s best that I let you glean a better understanding of what horrors these mazes are, so below I shall include a brief video highlighting the mazes.

Surprisingly enough I found this game while thrift store shopping and was honestly astonished by what a great game this is, I find that it holds a good deal of replayability in it as the game has lost of little odds and ends in it (i.e. the thermal goggles, and NPC interactions) that are easy to miss. This game is hard to pin into any given category such as “Platformer” or “FPS” as the game combines elements of an RPG, with side-scrolling occasional platforming, with beat-em up action with interspersed first person shooter segments. So if you are a fan of any of those things it’s probably a good bet you will enjoy this game. This game has become a personal favorite of mine and I believe that if you (the reader) were to give it a chance it would occupy a special place in your heart as well.

Long story short: This is a good game that is relatively inexpensive so you should get a copy.

Fun Fact: This game has a sequel, so if you enjoyed this you would most likely enjoy the sequel which is an aesthetically pleasing prettier and more finely tuned sibling to this diamond. It is called, Golgo-13: The Mafat Conspiracy.

Tiger-Heli (Nes)

I bet PETA was enraged at this title.

Tiger-Heli is the first game developed by the now defunct Toaplan (and published by Taito), and originally was an arcade game with a great deal of popularity in Japan. Acclaim later published a port of the game onto the NES. Surprisingly the NES port is incredibly faithful to the arcade game, though this is because the arcade version lacked any sort of story so all they had to do was redo the levels for playability on the NES. I personally have a fondness for this game as it was one of the games I played in my younger years that I thoroughly mastered, and yet I can’t seem to get the knack for it now. (╮°-°)╮┳━┳ ( ╯°□°)╯ ┻━┻

At first glance they look pretty similar, non?

Anyhow The game is fairly simple an straight forward, you play as a helicopter pilot who is tasked with destroying the opposing enemy forces who for some reason lack any air support. Tiger-Heli consists of only 4 stages and upon completion…

(*!Spoilers!*)

The game repeats only harder. That’s right this game theoretically never ends until you run out of lives. This game is a pick up and drop shooter, you can come to it at any time and you can even play other games instead of it; Tiger-Heli will never get jealous.

The controls are simple, you can move in eight directions to any point on the screen, you also have at your disposal an unlimited supply of missiles and a limited supply of bombs. The missiles are your standard weapon thoroughfare that can be upgraded by grabbing floating you receives periodically so that’s pretty normal; it’s the bombs where things get fun, the bombs will destroy everything on screen (including enemy shots!) so if you use them right you can get through stages pretty easily. Another weapon you can find are these tiny helicopters which come in two flavors Grey, which shoot forward with the same attack power of your current missile attack, and Red which fire sideways with the same attack power of your current missile attack. Both mini-helicopters can take a hit for you serving as both an additional weapon and insanely enough, body armor.

They will totally die for you, that’s FRIENDSHIP!

The enemies in the game are tanks, artillery and battleships peculiarly enough the enemy forces have no planes or jets or anything. Don’t let this lack of aerial attackers fool you, the enemy tanks will give you more trouble then anything else, as they don’t play games. Enemy tanks will fire on you the moment you are in their sights and will not rest until they are off screen or destroyed, the same goes for the Artillery and Battleships though unlike tanks they cannot move.

They will not hesitate to murder you.

The game is incredibly simplistic and as such doesn’t require to much investment, it’s a play and put away game, which is for the most part one of its most endearing traits. Tiger-Heli is in my humble opinion one of the best top-down shooters for the NES I’d say its only possible rivals are that of 1942 and Skyshark. For those who like shooters, and people who especially like games that can be picked up and played without an assault of story this game is definitely for you. The best part has to be that the game is relatively inexpensive, so grab a copy!

I love the smell of 8-bit explosions in the morning.