The Guardian Legend - NES Review

 

Do you like Zelda style adventure games?  Do you like shoot em ups?  How about both combined into one?!  The Guardian Legend combines both genres into a masterpiece of an 8 bit era game.  This has remained one of my favorite NES games since I was a child.  I have replayed though the game at least 20 times.  I just got through with another play through that took about 4 hours.  You control a spaceship when you first start the game.  After you beat the first shoot 'em up stage, your ship transforms into a person.  Once transformed, you can walk around and explore the surface of the "star" you are on called Naju.  The premise of the game is to find the self destruct mechanism and blow up the "star." You will run into mini bosses along the way that will drop power ups and special weapons when they are defeated. There are tons of bosses in this game! There are shops that you can buy weapons / power ups at.  The game also has a feature whereas when your score increases, you power up the width of your normal shot.  There are a lot of special weapons and you will find yourself only using about 1/3 of them ever.  Be careful using power ups however because they consume "Chips" and your normal shot will decrease in width. The graphics are pretty decent for the time on the NES.  The sound and music are above average with some catchy music along the way.  The game play is outstanding, especially if you like shoot 'em ups, and top down adventure games with RPG elements.  Replay-ability with this game is high up on the scale.  If you don't want to do the adventure part of the game and just want the shoot 'em up levels, enter TGL for the password.  Overall, I give this game a perfect 10 out of 10.  This game for sure is one of my favorite games of all time and has stood the test of time.  The only thing that I could think of that is a negative thing is that there is no battery in the cart for saving the game.  It unfortunately uses a password system that really sucks (I hate all password systems though to be fair).  I highly recommend that you pick this game up and play it now! 

Flipper Slipper - ColecoVision Review

 

This game is advertised as a pinball game.  It is more of a breakout style game really.  There are two "flippers" that you can move left and right.  The "flippers" are also tilt-able to the left and right.  The goal of the game is to get the highest score possible.  You can hit the forest area at the top and cut down the trees.  You can hit the ten links of chain fence in the top center of the screen to break away the fence and let the dog escape for bonus score.  When you hit 10000 points, the floating beach house in the center turns into a bumper increasing the difficulty.  Graphics and sound are on par with the ColecoVision in 1983.  Game play is ok, I guess.  The game gets repetitive and boring pretty fast.  It is plagued with the problem that most early brick breaker games had; you are left with one or two things to break but the ball never reaches them.  Overall, I give this game a 4 out of 10.  Not a horrible game, but there are far better games on the ColecoVision.

Urban Champion - NES Review

 

This is an original launch title, one of the 30 "black box" games that were released at the NES launch.  There is not much to the game.  You work from left to right, street fighting your opponent.  The B button is your "hard" punch, and the A button is your jab.  You can punch in the stomach or the head.  You also have a stamina meter and a time meter.  When the time meter runs out, if nobody has won, the game is over.  When the stamina meter runs out, you no longer have your "hard" punch at your disposal.  You also have to watch out for people dropping flower pots from the buildings' second floor windows.  If you get hit with a flower pot, you will be stunned for a few seconds.  The graphics and sound are mediocre as with most early NES games.  The game play is not very good, no real strategy involved, just button mashing really.  This is not a game I would play regularly.  Overall, I give it a 4 out of 10.  It is not really worth the time to play.

Override - PC Engine Review

 

Another PC Engine Shoot Em Up.  There are quite a few aren't there?  This one is pretty decent.  It starts off slow and easy on the first stage but gets progressively harder as you go on.  The power ups are abundant and come out in pods that you shoot.  The speed at which you level up is also pretty fast.  I do appreciate the distinct sound that is made you you get hit.  I however do not like the fact that there is no cool down or "grace period" when you get hit.  This means that you can get hit 3 times very fast and lose a ship.  Energy comes out in power up pods every so often, but it is rare.  It doesn't appear that you can really get anything different than you main shot.  You can get power ups to make it wider, but it doesn't really change.   The secondary weapon could be chase pods that shoot lasers or side shot pods.  Nothing really too special in the weapons dept.  The "mega bomb" or entire screen killer is a bunch of wide fast shots that take up the whole screen for about 3 seconds.  You have unlimited use of this feature, however you have to remain still for 3 seconds without shooting to charge it.  This sounds easy but in reality you will probably only ever use it on boss fights.  This game does have the feature where you can slow down and speed up on the fly by pressing button II.  This feature does come in handy at times.  The game play in this game is fun and challenging after the first stage.  The graphics and sound are good and on par with a PC Engine huCard.  Overall, I give this game a 6 out of 10.  It's just a small notch above average.

Jumping Flash - PS1 Review

This is a first person shooter / 3D puzzle game for the PS1.  My first impression was that the game was absolute garbage.  Once I got the hang of the controls and the weird jumping perspective, I found my self having fun and trying to beat every level.  The point of the game is to collect 3 Jetpod items per level and then go to the exit.  Sound easy in theory, but the game is actually really challenging.  There are moving platforms floating in the sky and lots of little ledges to jump onto.  It gets really frustrating at times trying to figure out how to get up to the super high platforms.  You can fire lasers at the different "bug" type enemies that are roaming around the level.  When you kill an enemy, they will drop coins and sometimes an occasional power up.  Power ups are Acorn bombs, Roman Candles, Snakes, and missiles.  After 2 stages, you get to fight a boss.  The first boss is a giant dragon that shoots fire.  The boss fight is not too tough if you pay attention to what you are doing.  The game play of the game is pretty fun once you get the hang of it.  The graphics and sound are alright and on par with the PS1 for the time.  Overall, I give this game a 6 out of 10.  A fun game to pick up and play from time to time.   

Astro Robo Sasa - Famicom Review

Very basic game for the Famicom.  You are a robot that shoots out energy balls.  The way that you move, is to shoot an energy ball in the opposite direction you want to go.  It is hard to get the hang of it, but after awhile it gets pretty easy.  This is an arcade style game where you clear one screen at a time by getting all the energy pods on the level.  You do have to avoid cows and helicopters, etc.  Graphics are alright for the time period and sound is as well.  Every time you shoot, you use energy.  If your energy gets to zero, you die.  Overall, I give this game a 4 out of 10 stars.  Not exactly a game I would play all the time.  

Sigma Star Saga - Game Boy Advance Review

This is a unique game.  It's a shoot 'em up, adventure, and RPG combined.  There is a story tied to the game that is actually pretty good.  When you are walking around exploring, you will get random battles where you go into shoot 'em up mode and have to eliminate a certain number of enemies to win the battle.  There are plenty of upgrades for weapons that you will find while adventuring.  Graphics are decent and on par with the GBA and sound is pretty good.  Some of the music gets repetitive after awhile.  The game play is pretty good, but you will find the game to play really slow at times.  Sometimes you have to play a level 5 or 6 times to learn it before you can beat it and move on to the next stage.  There are experience points in the game and you can level up to make your ship stronger and more powerful.  Overall, I give this game a 7 out of 10 stars.  I recommend that you pick it up and play it.  You can get a loose copy on ebay for about $10.