Mike’s Gameboy Game of the Week: Tailspin

Let it be known throughout all of the internet that I was a child of the late 90’s and I watched many an awful cartoon show, one of which was Disneys “Tailspin” which is a show in which Baloo from The Jungle Book is an airplane pilot where he clearly isn’t paid enough for the trouble he routinely deals with. Some other recurring characters were Shere Khan who is a big business dude and Louie who is… the owner of a bar? This show apparently garnered enough popularity to merit several games two of which are by Capcom for the Gameboy and NES and the others are by both Sega and NEC for the Genesis, GameGear and Turbografx-16 respectively.

This is the greatest marketing decision by Disney ever.

So my first impression of this game when I picked it up at my local gamestore for a dollar was that it would most likely be an awful game due to it being based off a television show and it being on the Gameboy which was notorious for it’s massive amount of mediocre and bad games. I spied on the cart that it was developed by Capcom which honestly gave me mixed feelings as Capcom did produce Darkwing Duck, Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers, and Ducktales games that were all amazing. Upon getting home I popped the game into my Super Gameboy and started it up and much to my surprise it was a port of the NES Tailspin game.

Even on the Gameboy people don’t know how to use inside voices.

Playing the game was a different story, the controls weren’t as responsive as they were on the NES but once I adjusted to them (took about 20 minutes at most) I didn’t have much of a problem. If you have not played the NES version of this game then let me explain what the point of it is:

You are Baloo the cargo pilot for “Higher for Hire” and you are being sent to deliver cargo to nondescript destinations.

Pretty simple right? Well for a game with only six levels you can bet your boots that it works just fine for the game as a premise. The game plays like a space shooter where you pilot the “Sea Duck” which can only fire one round at a time and cannot fire again until the shot either leaves the screen or connects with something (you can increase the amount of shots with upgrades later on). Shot direction is also determined by up and down movement as the plane tilts in each direction respectively when you are moving. Firing shots can be awkward at first and in my opinion is incredibly annoying but you can get used to it after a while. Aside from just shooting things you can grab up cargo crates which according to the intro are remnants of other cargo planes which have been shot down, also you can flip the plane upside down and head backwards same rules apply with all movement and shooting.

Seems legit. :/

Something unique to the game is the addition of bonus stages hidden in each level where you switch from playing as Baloo to playing as Kit Cloudkicker his spunky sidekick where you pop balloons while surfing on clouds. The balloons give out a decent amount of points and generally can give you the push you need for an extra life.

COOLEST. THING. EVER.

At the end of each stage is a boss fight, the boss fights weren’t exactly challenging but were interesting. The designs for each boss are neat and if the battles didn’t shoot by so quickly I would have liked to have seen them do more then their two or three standard attacks. Once you’ve beaten the boss you get a brief reprieve where you can buy power-ups for the plane with the money you earned by collecting cargo strewn throughout the level, this I didn’t know my first time through as I avoided many pieces of cargo and lost some easy money.

I swear this had best be the best engine I’ve ever invested my blood money in.

In my opinion this game is worth a look if you can’t get ahold of the NES version the animations are not nearly as nice as they are on the NES, the only reason I would recommend this game is if you want a portable version of the game or if you want to give the bonus stages a try. Tailspin for the Gameboy isn’t spectacular but for the price I paid I’d say it was more then worth it, if you can get this game for a couple of bucks I’d recommend you get it.

You can’t argue with a tagline like that.

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.

Axelay

They forgot to add “Hardest shooter in the universe” as the subtitle.

Axelay is just one of Konami’s plethora of shooters, though not as notable as Gradius was Axelay still held up fairly well during the SNES’s lifetime. One of the most inventive aspects of the game was its head on perspective as you play the game perpetually moving forward as if driving a race car. At certain points though the game reverts to a side scrolling view, but for the most part it is done using the head on view.

As you move forward the scenery below your ship constantly moves this was a fairly unique type of graphic as during this games time the Super Nintendo was the only system with the capacity to do this. The Super Nintendo has eight modes of graphical ability each of which correlates to a certain kind of background movement and overlay. Mode 7 was a mode that took an image and gave it a horizon effect making it so that it looked like you were traveling quickly through the air. This mode was underused up until Axelay came about, once the game was released several other games popped up using this same type of mode. (Lawnmower man anyone?)

Now the overall purpose behind Axelay is that the earth is being invaded and you are a pilot (the last pilot alive actually) who is trying to stop the Aliens. The plot gets no deeper then that. To its credit it is a space shooter, a genre which commonly has no story whatsoever.

So I guess he won’t be getting a pension?

Sure the story may not exist but the gameplay is where it really seems to shine. Unlike most shooters where your weapon upgrades and changes based on items you pick up, Axelay at the start of every level lets you change your weapons out with ones you unlock as you progress through the game. In Axelay you are given three different weapons to use which you can alternate through with the L and R buttons at any given time. These weapons can later be changed out with ones you unlock. The weapons also count as a pseudo hit gauge as every time you are hit you loose access to one weapon until you have none and explode.

All the weapons in Axelay are unique and have their own respective features and attack power. For example the straight laser is a slightly stronger version of the regular laser your ship has if it loses all its weapons the straight laser is only capable of firing straight ahead but fires very rapidly. The Spread is about as strong as the regular laser but is capable of shooting all around your ship. Finally the Macro Missile is the strongest of the three starting weapons but pauses for a second between firing. All weapons aside from Bay weapons have a secondary missile which can be fired constantly, Bay weapons are better versions of the regular missile so they fire using the missile button.

Generally every level contains hazards just as much as it contains enemies that wish to kill you by crashing into you. These hazards vary from level to level and range from flying rocks to closing doors to lava. At times the hazards may seem like no problem but when you have several thrown at once while the levels pace increases You’ll want to check your reflexes.

What is this, how is this even possible?

In most of the levels you will encounter both a mini-boss and a end of the stage boss, this will not happen on all levels but will happen on most. The mini-bosses usually aren’t to much of a challenge as they tend to keep to a pattern, but the end stage bosses tend to mix it up. The bosses are usually themed around the stage you are play for example. . .

The mini boss for the first stage is a crazy giant harrier jet thing which launches missiles and lasers at you.

As you can see from the screenshots the game has some very well designed sprites, this carries through the entire game. The sprite work, backgrounds, and music all had a lot of care and effort put into them and they are all quite good in their own right. Despite this though while playing you generally will not have much time to bask in the games aesthetic beauty as you will most likely be trying to not die. . . a lot.

Now this game is difficult, and I mean really difficult. I’ve played most of the Gradius games and they pale in comparison to this game. What adds to the difficulty is the lack of the Konami Code in this game so that you can increase your amount of lives or continues. Instead you are given four continues and three lives per continue. Now at first you may be thinking “surely that must be enough to complete a simple space shooter game?” Well that my friends is where you are wrong. For a first play through where you have no idea what to expect the hazards will absolutely slaughter you, later so will the enemies. However this is a game where you get better by playing it over and over, as you learn what to expect you can avoid the hazards and know how to react to certain enemies. So despite its difficulty if you give it enough time you will eventually plow through it.

This is an example of one of those games that are so hard that when you beat it you gain a feeling of satisfaction at triumphing over it. I’d place up with Ninja Gaiden for the rewarding feeling you get over beating it. This is a game I would recommend to those seeking a challenge or to general fans of space shooters. It may be hard, but who doesn’t like a little challenge now and then?

Gahahahahahahahaha!