Sega Genesis Look - Crack Down

It's the 21st century. Doctor K. has seized control of Artificial Life Systems. It's a frightening technology capable of an endless supply of Replicants. Not content with his super soldier army, the maniacal scientist intends to bring about a new age, one that would require the creation of a God. An artificial deity whose construction is being led by a Baphomet-worshipper probably won't have mankind's best interests in mind. Out of options, the federal government sends their two special service agents. Take control of saboteurs Ben & Andy, sneak through Replicant-infested facilities, and bomb everything to Hell. 

As you know, during the Mega Drive's early days, Sega programmed many of the third-party games that appeared on the platform. It seems they were so busy with other company's works that Crack Down's home release had to be handed off to Hot-B. The results are... pretty exceptional. Both the arcade original and its port are tactical espionage action games. Place them side-by-side and you'll see innumerable similarities. The instant you start playing them; however, you'll realize that they couldn't be further apart.

In the arcades, Crack Down is a mechanically rich game that demands constant adaptation. Through each of the 16 stages, your task is to get from one side of the area to the other, planting bombs while avoiding or blasting everyone who gets in your way. The replicants that stalk the halls are not to be underestimated. Yes, you have both the agency to get the drop on them, as well as the advantage of being able to attack them from a diagonal position, but all they need is to strike you once. While you have tools for stealthily evading detection (and bullets), they can't be relied on overmuch. If a replicant notices you sidling against a wall, they'll use their left hand to fire a gun instead of their right, guaranteeing the demise of anyone who didn't catch this subtle yet essential detail. Naturally, this doesn't apply to replicants who are using a weapon that requires both hands, but if that weapon is a flame-thrower, then you'd better just stay well out of their way. 

If you're the type of player who relies on quick-thinking and quick-reflexes to get out of a bad situation, then you'll find a lot to like here. Friendly fire is enabled, which means several headaches can be avoided by just allowing replicants to shoot each other. The map helpfully points out every adversary, so you've got ample opportunity to prepare for whatever's ahead. Also, even if it's a fairly rare occurrence, you can score a lot of bonus points by destroying multiple enemies with a single rocket. Oh, and hey, bring a friend if you have one. Cooperative play is encouraged and damn awesome. 

Instead of trying - and most likely failing - to deliver a straight port, Hot-B created what's essentially an Arrange mode. The biggest distinction is the emphasis on can't in replicant. Artificial soldiers can't switch which hand is firing their side arms. You'll have a much easier time avoiding their bullets, especially when pressed against walls. Those huge guys that carry flamethrowers can't fire diagonally, giving you additional methods for taking them down. 

One of the other big differences is the resources available to the player. In the arcades, lives were as rare and precious as your own. This was changed dramatically. Now, depending on the difficulty, you can bring the fight to Doctor K's establishment with as few as 4 or as many as 10 lives. Additional lives are doled out at a very generous rate. It's also not particularly difficult to stock up on screen-clearing super bombs. Hang onto them for long enough and those satellites with their annoying lasers won't be any trouble whatsoever. However, I must avail upon you to refrain from throwing body after body away. When the mission is successfully completed, any spare lives and ammunition are added to the score. Even if it's "just points", it's a real incentive to play just as skillfully and strategically as you would back when extra lives were improbable to come by. 

If you're seeking an additional challenge, or just want to have an extra enjoyable time, then go to the option menu and set the starting ammunition to zero. Crack Down's home port hands players 10,000 points whenever they finish a stage without firing a weapon. Relying almost entirely on quick-thinking and martial arts to survive is... actually kind of astonishing. This is what makes Arrange mode such a treat to play. Instead of merely getting into position to take enemies out from afar, you can devote all your maneuverability to squiggling between them and their bullets. Sliding on and off of walls to evade detection or destruction is really satisfying. 

I'm not 100% sure what killed me here, but I don't like it.

The 16 stages are all pretty unique, and their routes can change depending on what difficulty you're playing on. Some also feature cool mechanics like replicant-shattering doors. The few instances of moving platforms though... I would've been quite all right without them. Pits tend to be slightly too large, rather annoying in such an intricate and finesse-driven game. Megamera, as well as any other flying enemy, can also be really obnoxious. Getting sniped by their laser while riding a conveyor belt is some nonsense. I advise breaking the "no-shooting" rule to keep them out of the air. Other than those nuisances, each stage tends to be really inventive and replayable. 

All in all, Crack Down is damn good. There's some less-than-perfect finickiness, particularly when it involves pits or using melee on enemies that are too close, but it doesn't take that long to adjust. Hot-B's decision to give the console port its own identity was a brilliant one. The changes to enemy behavior and scoring make for a more accessible game. You've got plenty of room to make mistakes, as well as plenty of incentives to aim higher. 

Sega Genesis Look - Shining in the Darkness

Four hours of sleep. Eyes, nose, and lungs thoroughly wracked by allergies. I'm in peak condition for game-review writing. Shining in the Darkness is a humble DRPG experience for your favorite 16-bit console. I won't call it the perfect introduction to the genre, because we're all individuals and perfection is just mediocrity that hasn't settled in yet. No, what gives this game its sauce is how it calmly and effortlessly communicates its expectations to the player, then gives them enough friction to make their eventual success all the sweeter. If your spirit is willing, and you don't mind a quirk or three, then you're sure to have a good time. 

... I have to point out that this one of those games that's harder to write about than it is to play. My past however many minutes have been spent trying to cleverly explain how this Climax Entertainment product blends the familiar with the unfamiliar to create something fresh, yet every single attempt has failed catastrophically. Have you ever played Dragon Quest? If so, then you should've heard the starting pistol and are already racing for the finish line. Everything that follows from here on out is a test. You don't have to memorize complex formulas or comply with absurd demands, but you will be expected to adapt.

Shining in the Darkness frontloads a lot of its friction. You'll explore the bulk of the Labyrinth's first floor without so much as a reasonable objective. "Rescue the Princess from Dark Sol? I'm a level 1 goon wearing scraps and swinging an oversized bread cutter. Where do I even- oh god. I'm already dying to snails." Not only are you expected to grind to survive; the game gives you ample opportunities to do so. The encounter rate isn't quite Sword of Vermilion but consider yourself lucky if only two of your last five steps led to battles. Bizarrely, those urges to climb walls and vomit onto the ceiling are kept in check thanks to some smart game design.

The constant fighting is counterbalanced by enemies being as squishy as warm tomatoes. If a monster takes more than two hits to kill, then either you're fighting a boss or are underequipped. Battles are snappy and to the point. You'll sail through most of them just holding down the C button. I mean, you'll have to, because it's not as if the hero can do anything besides attack. This doesn't really change even after he recruits his friends Milo and Pyra. Due to the tiny inventory space, you'll be relying on the Cleric (and Mage to a lesser extent) for their healing prowess. The joys of wasting groups of foes with powerful spells quickly dissipates when you can't explore half a dungeon floor before Pyra is completely tapped out. The only time I used Milo's offensive spells is for extremely specific circumstances. Give him an axe, her a whip, and let the C button handle 80% of whatever ambushes the party. 

If an enemy drops down from above, scuttles in from the side, or comes out of the ground, then you're about to face a boss. Since facing a group of adventurers wouldn't be fair, bosses tend to have perks like an extremely high critical hit rate and a chance of acting twice in one round. Shining in the Darkness has a level of difficulty that fluctuates wildly depending on where you're at in the game. Kaiser Krab is a tough hurdle for starting heroes but becomes significantly less threatening shortly afterwards. Oh, yes indeed, boss refights are a common occurrence. This is again balanced out by them being slightly more durable than a frozen tomato. Also, the hold C strategy is adjusted to "Cast Quick, cast Boost on the hero, and then Heal when necessary." Just because it's a boss doesn't mean you can afford to go all out. What happens when you walk a few steps only to bump into them again? 

Still, the most lackadaisical strategy remains effective for nearly half the game's runtime. Before you can challenge the Labyrinth's upper floors, you must complete four trials. Monsters, barring a few exceptions, aren't going to be causing much stress with the 1-2 damage they dish out per turn. Your attention will instead be focused on navigating these trials and the obstacles contained within. Basically, each floor is a test of endurance. Escaping to the safety of town is as painless as an Egress spell - or as painful as an entire party wipe - but either way you have countless chances to dust yourself off and try again. 

This game understands the importance of landmarking, but in a lot of cases all that means is that there's an occasional hall of torches or a puddle. Still, unlike a LOT of the games that inspired it, the floors never get too mazelike. There's a path. It might be fraught with dead-ends or pitfalls, but there's a path. Pyra has a cheap View spell for getting a small glimpse of the current floor's layout. If you want something more convenient, than break out the graph paper or look up the maps online. As with any smart DRPG, each floor is uniform in size (30 x 30). View also gives the party's coordinates, which is another boon for cartographers. 

Once the trials are completed and you enter the Labyrinth's second floor; that's when the real DRPG experience begins. If you bump into a group of Grim Reapers and one of them lays Milo to rest with a Desoul, then that's just how it goes. The Hero got ambushed and beheaded? Tough luck. Those crowds of monsters that could only hope to plink away at the party are now hitting hard enough to kill. Getting from the end of the second floor to the end of the third floor is especially brutal. There aren't any clever tricks here, just long-winded passages and fiends that are nasty enough to ruin anyone's day. 

It might sound like a lot but believe me when I say that it gets easier every time. This game dances awfully close, but its friction never becomes frustration. Those level-ups you accumulate during failed attempts at a floor are a massive help. Also, having a goal helps to hide the grind. You'll no doubt need the levels to survive the hardest battles. The only difference is that you're moving with purpose and not just bouncing against the walls. Oh, and it's worth repeating that the average monster is still dying in 1 or 2 hits. They might be tomato cannons, but they're still tomatoes... or something. Trying to write this a review a piece at a time over the past few days hasn't been working for me.

In spite of the genre having grown exponentially over the past number of years, I think there's still plenty of reason to give this classic a playthrough. Shining in the Darkness sits in the juicy middle between fluffy adventure and unforgiving dungeon crawl. The setbacks that you'll suffer are all part of the game, yet still within reason. This isn't old school Wizardry where you have to swap floppies to keep from losing an entire party to permadeath, nor is it new school Etrian Odyssey where some FOE unleashes all 542 flavors of whoopass on your crew. 

Give it a go. 

Sega Genesis Look - Alien Storm

In the alternate timeline where we actually got flying cars, New York City is invaded by aliens. These aren't the stubby grey guys with the ray guns and probing devices either. I'm talking about disgusting monsters formed out of the countless unluckily victims of previous invasion. Who should you call when you're under attack by extraterrestrial abominations? The Alien Busters of course! For them, blasting all things cosmic into goo is a welcome reprieve from their daily hell in the food service industry. Give them a ring for six to eight missions of bustin' goodness. 

After 35 years of brainstorming, I have come up with the perfect description for Alien Storm. It's... a faster-paced Golden Axe. Utilizing a lot of the same fundamentals, but unique in so many others, this belt-scroller provides an excellent blend of action and moment-to-moment strategizing. A surprising amount of complexity is buried in here. Every wrong move causes the walls to close in, with your chosen protag getting chewed up, swallowed, and absorbed in the many being the eventual conclusion. In order to avoid a fate only slightly worse than working food service, you'll have to master the controls, find the right balance between aggression and focus, and know the enemy better than yourself.

Now I could pretend to have a lot to say, or I could fixate on what gives this game its magic. Let's start with what butters our bread; the dash-attack. Double-tapping the d-pad causes your man, woman, or robot to break out into a run. Pressing the jump button causes them to perform a stylish acrobatic maneuver, but we're not interested in that just yet. Press the attack button while running and they'll swing a melee weapon. You shouldn't be surprised by my hyperbolic tendencies anymore, but the dash-attack's understated brilliance deserves at least half as many youtuber videos as Mario's jump. 

Unlike its predecessor, Alien Storm opts for a dash-attack that doesn't require the player to give up their momentum or control. Instead of stopping the instant they make contact, Karla (or her coworkers) will strike while running. The enemy is momentarily stunned, allowing players enough time to turn around and repeat the process. If you've got the speed and the execution, you can trap one or more aliens in a vortex, shredding them to pieces without any chance of being countered. Naturally, the developers were aware of the weapon they created. In order to blunt it, or at least keep it from carving the game apart, they made enemies that can be just as fast and aggressiveness. Their numerical superiority can't be discounted either. Pay too much attention to those vortexes, and you'll quickly lose sight of the bigger picture.

Maneuverability is everything in this game, and it's welcome to see that dashing isn't the only way to get around quickly. Thanks to the how fast everyone walks, you can quite literally walk circles around some enemies. Pressing the C button performs an escape roll. During a roll, you can attack with a tackle or a dive. They're handy moves depending on the situation, but the trade-off is a longer recovery. When you're dealing with three to six aliens at a time, every move requires careful consideration, even if you only have fractions of a second to consider them. A lot of battles are only going to end in your favor if you practice restraint. Absorbing the brains of innumerable humans hasn't made your enemies particularly smart, but they still have agency of their own. All it takes is for them to move slightly out of the way to throw you off your rhythm. If the situation is starting to unravel and you still decide to commit to the attack, then don't blame the game when everything goes wrong. Again, this is a faster-paced Golden Axe. 

Adding long-term problems to your short-term struggles is the energy system. The gist of it is that energy powers your weapons. Cans of the stuff are dispersed throughout each mission, so you'll be fine as long as you never use the screen-clearing super attack. Now this, this is where Alien Storm becomes something akin to a shmup. If you're feeling overwhelmed, you can use a "bomb" to eradicate all of the weaker foes. However, just like anything Cave put out during their best days, the bomb can't be relied on. Without energy, that plasma cannon or flamethrower you're carrying is a worthless stick. I can't tell you what's the best time to use a bomb, because ultimately, it's psychological weapon. Even if its effects aren't immediate, using this weapon at the wrong time is only going to hurt you. Learning each encounter and mastering the rest of your arsenal is key to getting anywhere. Although, I certainly won't judge if you decide to bomb through the final mission. Those two-headed aliens are pretty obnoxious.

Unlike... every other belt-scroller imaginable, each mission ends with a light-gun shootout. Zap the aliens that pop up, destroy the scenery for E-tanks. Don't underestimate these sections, because every instance of damage is costly. You might also want to refrain from holding down the fire button, especially if you're playing the arcade version. The cursor moves faster when you're not blasting. Shorter, more controlled bursts are necessary for the many instances when multiple aliens attack simultaneously. This is something you won't have to worry about if you're playing the Mega Drive port.

While I really enjoy the arcade version of Alien Storm, it's clearly designed to bully players into submission. It's a game designed to be the answer to veterans who mastered Golden Axe by making every attempt to knock them down a peg. There's no respite to be found here. Aliens are mean and quick to punish every little misstep. The singular boss battle is actually a mini rush where you battle a three-phase monster, all of which require different strategies. Topping all this off is what I presume to be the total elimination of anything that constitutes healing. Energy isn't too hard to come by, but life is more fleeting than ever. If you want a fun game that's meaner than a drunken rattlesnake, then take a shot at this. 

For everyone else, I highly recommend starting with the console port. Sega did a really good job here. They managed to tone down the difficulty without sacrificing the core gameplay loop. You're still required to learn enemy behaviors and manage limited energy. Med-kits can be found in multiple missions, which are handy for undoing the past couple mistakes. A few enemies and a boss-phase were cut, though I can't imagine anyone missing them. You're in for a great time whether you treat this port as standalone or as a stepping-stone towards the arcade original. 

Alien Storm is one of those games that doesn't get recommended enough. It's a spicy take on the Golden Axe formula that has both a lower barrier of entry and a higher skill ceiling. Each alien encounter is packed with moving parts. The game really comes alive as you effortlessly weave through wave after wave of monsters. Easy recommendation.

2026 Special - Ex-Mutants

The year is 2055 and Earth has been decimated by World War III. If that wasn't enough, radiation and some sort of weird virus have mutated the remaining humans. Mankind's only hope lies in the hands of cyborg scientist Kildare and his Ex-Mutants. Utilizing highly advanced regenerative processes, Kildare is able to transform mutants back into their former selves. Unsurprisingly, he's made a lot of enemies in the mutant community. One particularly rude individual by the name of Sluggo has kidnapped four of the six Ex-Mutants. As Ackroyd or Shannon, it's your job to rescue the team, land a decisive blow on the mutant empire, and recover enough power cells to keep Kildare's laboratory running.

"Oh my God!"

Regardless of how I feel about Ex-Mutants, any game that pulls half as much shit as I'm about to discuss deserves to be flung down an empty corridor and stomped until it's dust. This action-platformer is - and I don't use this this description lightly - a crime against nature. A group of people woke up one morning with the desire to create a video game that inflicts pain. Look. I don't even have to share my opinion. If the rest of the review was just an objective list of everything that occurs in a typical play-through, you'd say "This sounds fucking horrifying." while dramatically falling out of your chair. 

The first stage begins much like any other. Shannon runs, jumps, climbs ladders, and bashes mutants with her nunchaku. Navigating a labyrinth of wall-mounted lasers and secret rooms placed behind destructible walls, she'll inevitably trip over the standard array of power-ups. Logs and shuriken add projectiles to the melee attack while bombs provide some explosive effect. Unfortunate souls who decide to stick with this game should keep both eyes out for rarities, such as 1ups, power cells, and the health extending "E". 

Almost every subsequent stage follows the same format. Shannon performs the same actions, dodges the same array of traps, and even bashes the same mutants. Instead of wall-mounted lasers, a cave features wall-mounted statues that spit fire. In the jungle, pipes embedded in the wall fire bolts at bored Ex-Mutants. The further you get in this game, the blander and more predictable it becomes. Average mutants can't escape it either. Even if their shapes change, their powers hardly ever deviate from "stretchy limbs" or "throws rocks". I hate to say it, but there is comfort in repetition. At least I don't have to worry about encountering something new. Who knows what emotional damage can occur when that happens.

Sewer stage... jfc

...This game suffers from Taz-Mania syndrome. I seriously never imagined such a thing could happen, yet here we are. Taz-Mania syndrome is when a video game manages to have both a mine-cart stage and a floating-log stage. That's two unforgivable sins in one sandwich. Unsurprisingly, both stages have mechanics explicitly purposed to wrong players and ruin their weekends. Due to the speed and momentum of being propelled by a platform on wheels, a mistimed jump is enough to send Shannon flying to her doom. Getting shot at by catapults, pelted by birds, blasted by large fish, and badgered by men with large fists. These are all incidents made exponentially more annoying due to an inexplicable fog that has blanketed the river. And you know damn well that there aren't any checkpoints in these obnoxious stages. Amusingly, Shannon will give players a little pep talk if they lose several lives to the cart or log. She'll even congratulate the few who persevere. 

What's most damning of all is that as much as I hate them, I have to admit that these two stages probably wouldn't even make the top ten of a "Worst mine-cart and/or log-ride" list. They might as well be Donkey Kong Country next to the likes of Cut-Throat Island or Taz-Mania. Still, a lot of work went into something inherently awful, while the meat of the game suffers from repetition and asset reskins. That's not even the worst of it either, because we've just arrived at the part of the review where I complain about bosses.

In the second jungle stage, you'll have to fight a bat. Do you see him? He's in the picture directly above. Oh, my bad. I should've mentioned that there isn't an honest method for defeating this winged prick. He's too fast and durable for an Ex-Mutant. The only strategy - which I stumbled upon by accident - is to trick his dumb ass into flying off-screen and then mash the attack button until he's mashed into paste. Funny thing about the protagonists is that they don't have any invulnerability after taking damage. Yep. It's another unforgivable sin on a sandwich that no sane person would even dare to nibble. 

I shouldn't have to tell you that getting pricked and prodded into oblivion by damn near everything turns an unremarkable slog into an unbearable slog. However, we're still not quite done yet. Sluggo is a serious asshole that buries the screen in projectiles, sometimes creating scenarios where it's impossible to avoid damage. Neither him nor any of the bosses have a rhythm, so all you really can do is run, strike the sluggish fuck 2 or 3 times, then try to dodge all the trash that rains from the sky. I'd tell you that this finale isn't any fun, but anything resembling fun hasn't occurred in the entire rest of the game, so... idk. 

What really damns Ex-Mutants is its brutal mundanity. The worst moments almost feel quaint, which makes me hate them even more. I needed something catastrophically awful in order to feel whole again. Instead, I was treated to something that commits every game-design crime imaginable, but in ways that made me think it wasn't THAT bad. No! It is THAT bad! Gabriel, my dude, what are you doing here? Have you spent so long in the bowels of hell that the flames don't feel warm anymore? You swallowed the triple-decker unforgettable sin sandwich and didn't even flinch? Yuko, don't just stand there saying "Oh my god!" tell Gabe that somebody loves him. Tell him that... oh what's the use... Man's just going to dig up something even worse in the future.   

"Oh my god!"

Sega Genesis Look - Ys III: Wanderers of Ys

In today's episode of Curse of The Blinking Cursor, I sit at my desk, dumbfounded and drooling, trying to imagine a word salad that'd explain why I keep replaying a game I'm indifferent to. My first Ys III: Wanderers of Ys experience was renting the Super Nintendo port. After hearing about how big of a deal the duology was for the Turbografx-16, I went into the third Ys entry expecting something special. What I got was Adol losing fights to bees and ants, as well as bosses that required ugly grinding just to do more than 1 point of damage. It wasn't all bad though. I'd even go so far as to call the game a valuable learning experience. It taught me how to save scum. Actually, that might've been Lagoon. I can't remember which I played first. In all seriousness, Ys III SNES left such a bad first impression that I ignored every other port. The Oath in Felghana though, you're damn right I enjoyed it on both the PSP and PC. 

- Hang on a second. I'm reading the review I wrote for the PSP version. It seems that I didn't love it all that much. Jeeze...  Okay well, forget about the remake. It's irrelevant anyway. Let's mash the start button and skip through the next dozen plus years. 2025 was when I finally played the Turbografx-16 CD version of Ys III. It was exactly what I expected; Mediocre as ever but lifted into the stratosphere by Ryo Yonemitsu's incredible arrangements. Skip ahead one last time to today. I'm trapped in the latest hell I built for myself. Besides recency bias, what does the Sega Genesis port offer that makes me value the time I spent with it? 

It has a down-stab that's freaking decent! You'd be surprised just how much one aspect that works can lift almost an entire game out of the muck. If there's a monster that walks, crawls, or is stuck to the ground, I'm down-stabbing the life out of it. I mean, it's definitely not Zelda II tier, but Adol having something to do besides face-tanking or striking from a safe spot gives the combat a little more dimension. Now I'm left wishing that there were more bosses that could be attacked from above. There'd be something else to do for the 5 to 30 seconds an average boss-battle lasts. 

If you've played any version of Ys 3 (even Oath!) then you understand the importance of a little grinding. The Genesis port makes the early game a little less grimy. Provided Adol is at level 3, both of the Tigre Mine bosses can be easily defeated. Level 7 or 8 is more than enough to finish the Alciano Ruins and clear out Tigre's third boss. You'll hit the cap not long afterwards, likely squishing flies in caves near the mountain cabin. If there's an incentive to try and keep Adol's level on the lower side, then I'll never see it. Destroying bosses in an instant is a sensation too pleasurable to give up. For what it's worth, hitboxes and hurtboxes are actually quite solid. Avoiding attacks on reaction is simple, creating a little satisfaction where there was once none. 

In the end however, there's not a whole lot that can be done with the final series of bosses. That tall wizard you face at the end of Valestine Castle is quickly undone by the fact that the one spot where his lightning won't strike is directly in front of him. A couple of knights are shredded by buzzsaw Adol running at them with a power ring on his finger. All Demanicus has going for him is the immense damage he does if the hero makes any physical contact. He'll take a few tries, but only because tapping the jump button just enough to land hits without getting melted is made extra wonky by the floor that won't stop shifting. 

I don't have too much to nitpick. Probably the biggest annoyance is that enemies are sometimes placed in the worst possible locations, so Adol will get bashed the moment he enters. There's a spot in Alciano Ruins just outside of the second building where killer millipedes will eat the red-haired warrior alive, so keep it in mind. Otherwise, I guess the blind jumps in the second half of Tigre Mine are a pain. Well, they're not so much jumps as they are drops, and if you drop right next to one of those tentacle-pod thingies... It won't be pretty. 

After several years and multiple ports, the only score I can give Ys III: Wanderers of Ys is a "Eh... well..." This game being part of a legendary series and receiving a brilliant remake keeps leading me to believe that there's significance to it, and I should be more respectful. Honestly, I can't recall a single time in my life that I thought this was ever a good side-scrolling Action RPG. Even by 1992 standards I thought it was lacking. The Genesis port being a little better still doesn't merit it a place next to Zelda II, Faxanadu, Battle of Olympus, etc.

... I better quit while I'm behind. Last thing I need is to build another Hell for myself, with the only way out being a stack of classic NES game reviews taller than the Tower of Babel.

Sega Genesis Look - Risky Woods

The nicest thing that I can say about Risky Woods is that it's a sick joke. 

You've likely been following this blog enough to tell when I have especially negative feelings about a particular game. I skip past the halfhearted introduction, the explanation of gameplay systems, all the other rigmarole. Whatever breathed life into this piece of trash couldn't have been of this planet. Actually, I take that back. Seeing the depths of mankind's cruelty over the course of several millennia is evidence enough. A person, or perhaps even an entire team created something that only they can derive pleasure from. The letters received from players expressing intense anger, sadness, and regret after purchasing their game likely tasted as sweet as the blood of an aristocrat would to a vampire. 

The goal of each stage is to either rescue all of the sealed wisemen or destroy a boss. This is accomplished via a series of mechanics more annoying than the last, all the while getting hounded by an endless deluge of fiends. Destroying the walking or flying jerks will drop coins, which might as well not serve any purpose because the hero has to crouch just to collect them. This is intentional, as there are a handful of items you won't want to pick up. Thing is, why must this apply to something as common as the coin? They're everywhere, but nobody is going to stop what they're doing to collect them, especially with the clock ticking away. Adding to the annoyance is that all coins are dropped on death, which happens far more often than you'd think. 

Risky Wood's idea of health sounds like it should be cool, but the implementation is butt. Basically, your health doesn't have a max. If you obtain enough restoratives, you'll be awarded an extra life. The catch is that you might only have 1 or 2 blocks of health on that new life. If you take a couple of hits, you don't merely go back to your previous life but with a full bar of health. You just die and accept all the penalties that come with shuffling off the mortal coil. That means not only do you lose a bunch of useless coins, but also your weapon loses some of its power, and you're pushed back to a previous checkpoint. This "previous checkpoint" can mean restarting a boss if you died during the fight. However, dying doesn't restart the clock, which creates even more problems for your miserable ass.

Running out of time doesn't mean death. Instead, you get kicked back to the beginning of the stage, minus some of your health. Well, it can also mean death if your health is low, but whatever. Anyone who manages to get this far is already neck deep in the shit. The typical stage allows players 4 minutes to complete their task. Quite a lot can go wrong. You could waste time on the "Simon Says" puzzles, eat an apple that puts the hero to sleep, forget to grab a key and get sent flying backwards, or any number of little dumb situations. Basically, this game is explicitly designed to punish you for playing it. Everything you do feels like a mistake, destroying your confidence as well as any hope for a better tomorrow. 

It should come as no surprise that this thing isn't any fun to play. Our hero has a criminally large hurtbox. He can't go anywhere without getting bombarded. Attempting to evade anything feels fruitless. Also, the sad sack is cursed to live in a realm where platforms are ever so slightly narrower than they appear to be. Don't ever blame yourself when he walks over a ledge to the Grim Reaper's embrace. He made his bed. He can fall off of it. Perhaps most disturbing is that Risky Woods has an insidious side to it. There will be those rare times where the dots actually connect, you get some decent power-ups, and you might even start to feel like you're playing a functional game. I'm telling you this, because I fell for it. Then when things went right back to being terrible, I thought it was all my fault. Swear on my everything, it's starting to feel like I'm describing a sociopath. 

Now here's some bullshit. One of the statues contains a wiseman. The other? A fire spell that wrecks our loser dumbass protagonist. It's impossible to tell them apart. The game eventually requires you to shatter fake statues to find keys anyway, so.... I don't even know what to say. It's stupid. I hate it. I don't want to talk about it for another second.

Fuck Risky Woods. It's nothing more than Ghouls 'n Ghosts meets a bag full of middle fingers and kicks to the groin. Apologies to anyone who could ever be a fan of such filth.

Sega Genesis Look - Golden Axe 2

Looking back with a more critical eye, Golden Axe 2 is one of those sequels that probably shouldn't have happened. My reasoning is simple, put both this and its predecessor side-by-side; point out everything that they have in common. I'm not trying to be rude here, but let's break it down a little. The first Golden Axe took place in a fantastical world with giant turtles and hawks, but the enemies were mere humans who thrived on the suffering of the innocent. Drakes and Chicken Legs were tools used to serve their horrific purpose. Death=Adder being the descendant of titans, a hundred snakes taking the form of a human, or the restless embodiment of evil is really just a smokescreen. Ultimately, he's a man with no empathy who obtained endless power. 

I don't want to assign too much gravitas to a game that ends with its villains breaking out of an arcade and wreaking havoc on the real world, but it's clear that the developers got the appeal of Conan the Barbarian, something that so many fantasy movies failed to capture even a fraction of. As much as I'd prefer to avoid comparing Golden Axe 2 to Conan the Destroyer, it's hard to ignore all the ways it feels like a cheap cash-in designed to reach a younger audience. The Strongmen were replaced by Minotaurs. Instead of heavily armored guys with swords & shields, you face headless suits of armor. You'll square off with a couple dozen Lizardmen. The villain this time around is Emperor Guld. He might be a necromancer, but unlike Death=Adder, he doesn't have a fetish for murdering the families of random people in the hopes that they'll seek revenge upon him.

Sad sight. Some people just can't hold their soda.

Look directly above and tell me you don't see a man who's passed out after partying a little too hard the night before. Seriously though, I have an unserious theory that Sega wanted to sell Golden Axe again, but with less references to Conan the Barbarian. Let's call it "futureproofing", a means to ensure their fantasy hack & slashers don't eventually get them into legal trouble. Perhaps these fears were unfounded, or maybe Sega actually didn't give a damn. I mean, around the same time they were lifting samples from Prince songs for some obscure beatemup. This was not a game company that ever seemed worried about litigation (especially considering how poorly their employees were treated in the 80s & 90s).

I know I just spent like three paragraphs shitting on Golden Axe 2, but the honest truth is that I think it kicks ass. The developer took everything that worked in the original and made some tweaks. This refined take on the formula is just as easy to pick up yet feels more satisfying to play. A lot of the refinement is in the mechanical sense. Attacks lead into each other with more fluidity. One surprisingly common incident in the original game - or at least the Mega Drive port - is that pommel attacks will sometimes strike thin air instead of someone's skull, leaving the heroes open to a pummeling. This nuisance was fixed. Stunned enemies can not only be picked up and tossed, but their bodies will collide with other foes, adding depth where there was originally none. Actually, let me amend that by saying it's possible to throw an enemy who isn't stunned, provided they're close enough to whomever is. It's fun and gives players extra frame advantage, so I have no complaints. Strikes are faster in general, feeling less like everyone is swinging while underwater.

Enemies have also become noticeably more adept at fighting. Almost all of them have the advantage when it comes to range, so you can't stand idly and hope they'll walk into your outstretched blade. Maybe this was always the case before, but it feels more pronounced here. Extra care must be taken when trying to distance yourself from adversaries, because they'll immediately respond with a dash-attack when you're far enough away. Dash-attacks are still powerful but don't rely too heavily on them. Someone will punish the heroes while they're recovering; it's just a matter of when. Still, there's a ton of value in spacing and positioning. Case in point, when facing two Minotaurs, I find that it's best to keep them on opposite sides of the screen while keeping the main character closer to one or the other. This makes it easier to keep both fiends down with repeat dashes. If one tries this while standing in the center, eventually they'll get knocked down by the Minotaur's running shoulder bash. 

Also, while the bad guys tend to be quicker and more aggressive, they're also not as cheap. I recall an instance in the first game where a Strongman could knock someone to the ground, then kick them the instant they got up. I'm fairly sure there's a way out of this loop, but it isn't immediately obvious. Now, enemies don't immediately attack the instant the hero gets up after a knockdown. Players are given just enough time to land a couple of hits or retreat and reassess. More importantly, they don't feel cheated out of a life because they got caught in a trap. It's also worth mentioning that unlike Death=Adder, Emperor Guld isn't constantly flanked by allies and spamming inescapable spells. That miserable fight - and the platforming sections - are things that I never look forward to when replaying Golden Axe.

What really brings everything in this sequel together is how entertaining it is to use a warrior's entire repertoire. Every move has value to it, and being able to commit to the attack or employ hit & run tactics contributes a lot to every encounter. There is this swell of pride that comes from watching the enemy swing at air while my chosen champion is about to end them with a powerful down-stab. I never get tired of that. Destroying four foes in a single encounter without ever taking damage is also an incredible rush, even when it's exponentially less flashy than something from the modern era. 

I could chide Golden Axe 2 endlessly for being a repeat of the first game, but that'd mean ignoring all of the changes that make it such a well-rounded and enjoyable hack & slash.