Coolness Bears Posted July 29, 2011 Posted July 29, 2011 CoolNES Bears: A Retrospective overview. I have been delving my delicious and delectable digits (also known as my fingers) into the ,metaphorical, buttons of the NES. As a relatively young gamer, I missed out on those older experiences. Since the first console I owned was a Gameboy Colour. I thought I'd share those experiences is with YOU! The NES looked at with fresh eyes. Obviously I've played the classic NES games such as Mario, Ice Climbers, Balloon Fight, Zelda etc. but I've never really explored the NES in terms of other games including the good, mediocre and plain out BAD and sometimes infuriating games. I want to look at the console as a whole and perhaps find a new little gem of a game. Even the classic ones such as Zelda I've played but never really got that far. I will be sort of doing a live blog as I play them as in I will write my thoughts as I go along and then post them up here afterwards for some form of discussion. Eve if its one you've played or want to play or just agree/disagree with me. I hope you will find this interesting in some way. Discuss all things NES here, if you have any recommendations as well that will also be appreciated.
Fused King Posted July 29, 2011 Posted July 29, 2011 You sir, have got quite some fancy schmansy time on your hands Good luck out there!
Jonnas Posted July 29, 2011 Posted July 29, 2011 I'm looking forward to this. Do the Megaman series! At least Megaman 2 is a must!
Shorty Posted July 29, 2011 Posted July 29, 2011 Thought of offering this up as a feature for the main site?
Coolness Bears Posted July 29, 2011 Author Posted July 29, 2011 (edited) Ooh, yay! You sir, have got quite some fancy schmansy time on your hands I have too much time. :p I'm looking forward to this. Do the Megaman series! At least Megaman 2 is a must! Yes! I will eventually get to these. Maybe warm up my console brain first because I'm not good at them. Thought of offering this up as a feature for the main site? No, I've pretty much just thought of this about an hour ago. It's very much in its early stages. ___________________ ...and so it begins! My first foray into the NES back Catalogue. I thought it would be appropriate to have my first game begin with A to pretend i’m doing this alphabetically. I just want to say for many of these games I will not have played them before. i'm just playing around with this first one as a sort of template. Arkista’s Ring THE FACTS: Developer: American Sammy Publisher: American Sammy Released: 1990 Genre: Action-adventure My commentary: It has loaded up its standard NES style menu screen. Woops, had the menu screen on loop, the menu theme is already getting stuck in my head. Ok, you are playing as this sexy female pixel elf at least I hope she is a woman. You just leap straight into the first stage, no actual story. LOL BONER ARROWS. So your main weapon is this arrow which act as projectiles to hit your enemies. So far weird tentacle plants, moblins and scorpions block my path. In fact it has a very Zelda feeling to it accept its not really an adventure as such but a much more linear experience. It's got more of the action than adventure. Killed the enemies no wait: DISEMBOWLED THEM! ooh a key, that gets me to the next stage! Argggh! the grumpy dogs are raping me. (re: Stage 2) THERE ARE TOO MANY! *coughs* I died. They dropped a pouch of something, there are power ups? HOW DO I USE THEM? okay I’ve got it. Oh crap I died. FUMBLE FUMBLE FUMBLE. STAGE 3: Ooh underground zombies. Okay there is like an arrow power up which kills all on screen. Magic wand which kills the stuff that gets in your way and health potions and WOAH! Fire balls greatest weapon goes through everything. SO POWERFUL. New enemies: Vibrating worms. wiggle wiggle. They are lame. Skeletons as well. So essentially this game is kill all/majority of the enemies progress to next room. Doesn't appear too difficult. *after playing more stages* I can see the appeal particularly back in 1990, although simplistic in its design it offers great fun as on the first play through you do not know the enemies patterns so its all a bit chaotic. Plus the quick short stages means that you just keep on playing. Graphically it is decent as well. Lost my first continue, it gives you a pleasant 10. That's good its annoying on some old games when you lose you go right back to the start! The stages are getting more cheeky now, up to stage 28 or something and Ninjas have started to appear. OH GOD THEY ARE TOO FAST. STAY AWAY FROM ME. SO MANY OF THEM. They got me. Their are green ninjas, Blue Ninjas, Red Ninjas and Grey Ninjas all of them running at me with malicious intent. Ooh a power up can stop them in their traps. Up to Stage 30 now and it is destroying me, even with my extra armour/Ninja stopping weapon! Blahhh! Used my second continue. Wait a second, lame. lamelamelamelamelamelamelamelamelamelame. I ACCIDENTLY PRESSED GAME START AND NOT CONTINUE. *black screen* Stage 1. ______________ Okay so firstly that is kind of the style I will be displaying my thoughts in as I am playing it and discovering new things but then I'll give more coherent thoughts afterwards as well. Equally this won't always be about my victory over the games but also my failures. I feel the main draw here is the music, it has hypnotic undertones that keep you wanting to play the game. There are like 3 different styles of song. The one where you are on land which is a mellowed out theme that just puts you in the zone, the one underground that gets you PUMPED. Then this manic tune which terrifies me. :p I really enjoy the music. I just love 8 bit sounds. I will start this up again after a break its one of those games where you have a big go at it and then leave it for awhile if you get far like Tetris or Wirehead. Right so there are apparently 125 stages until completion. After 30 stages they loop four times getting harder until the final stage. That sounds long but do able I got to 30 stages pretty quickly and in a second play through I will no what those rooms are like so not get hit as much or at least that is the plan. Christine is the name of the elf takes me out of the fantasy element a bit. The gameplay is very solid, you hit the enemy it dies, no messing its not like the weapons do not work. For me sometimes I found myself turning to get an enemy and they got me or for a stationary enemy I turned to shoot it and that means you end up on it and lose a bit of life. They are very generous with the life they give you. Health potions come up a lot and restore you to full health at one time I had like 5 in my inventory plus you find armour that gets added to you so you can take plenty of hits before kicking the bucket. The power ups are fun, particularly the fire ball and the Ninja stopper looks like a walkman. In some rooms I was lucky to get the fire ball and blast through it particularly ones with the Ninjas but in others I didn't and it is a bit more of a chore because some enemies appear behind you and you keep having to move back and fourth. A good mixture of enemies to keep things from getting stale, skeletons, bubbles, fire things and flying gimps other enemies I was really unsure what the hell they were meant to be. :p Since you have to go through many stages although the general lay out is the same the fact that it switches from woods/castle/underground and swaps out the colours keeps things fresh and interesting. CoolNES Bears score: I've not decided whether this is a feature yet. Should I go more/less in depth with the commentary? Should I go further with my thoughts afterwards? or is that too much? Should I rate them? Let me know what you think you guys? Edited July 29, 2011 by Coolness Bears
S.C.G Posted July 29, 2011 Posted July 29, 2011 Coolness! as a fellow Retro Reviewer I salute your enthusiasm towards NES games and quite honestly if you were thinking of turning this into a feature - which we might be able to use on the site, creditting you of course - then all I would say is just summarise what you already have, keep it more readable - six to eight decent size paragraphs per game - and then just have some kind of last line so sum up the game... For instance, I use 'Verdicts' for VC Weekly but that would be a tad too formal perhaps for your article so maybe have something like 'CoolNES Bears Bottom Line' which sounds a bit more fun but gives you space to sum up your thoughts in a short, snappy manner. Also kudos to you for finding a NES game that not only have I not reviewed for VC Weekly but not even heard of until now, it seems like a genuinely interesting yet obscure title so thank you for bringing it to my attention.
Coolness Bears Posted July 29, 2011 Author Posted July 29, 2011 Coolness! as a fellow Retro Reviewer I salute your enthusiasm towards NES games and quite honestly if you were thinking of turning this into a feature - which we might be able to use on the site, creditting you of course - then all I would say is just summarise what you already have, keep it more readable - six to eight decent size paragraphs per game - and then just have some kind of last line so sum up the game... For instance, I use 'Verdicts' for VC Weekly but that would be a tad too formal perhaps for your article so maybe have something like 'CoolNES Bears Bottom Line' which sounds a bit more fun but gives you space to sum up your thoughts in a short, snappy manner. Also kudos to you for finding a NES game that not only have I not reviewed for VC Weekly but not even heard of until now, it seems like a genuinely interesting yet obscure title so thank you for bringing it to my attention. Thanks for the feedback and advise, I'll put some revisions into my next installment. I enjoy your VC Weekly/Reviews. Yeah you should definitely give it a try. I'm glad that I've already brought a "new" game to someones attention. I just feel when people focus on older consoles we only play the greats when there must of been some half decent games as well. I just love the feel of old games as well. Here is what the gameplay looks like if you are interested: Its defintely more fun than it looks.
Jonnas Posted July 30, 2011 Posted July 30, 2011 I'd say a score isn't necessary, a simple phrase summing up the game would do fine. Not that it is necessary, your "reviewing" style works pretty well, typing your thoughts as you play.
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