Level Up: Astal

People talk about underrated games a lot, and I can understand why: uncovering those hidden gems that no one got the chance to appreciate feels like getting that new game you always wanted. However, these underrated gems always seem to come from the most highly rated game systems: it’s easy for someone to talk about Totally Rad on the NES, but when you have a system that no one’s played with a game that no one’s played, you have something no one’s ever played (I think I’m done hyperbolizing for now). So this week I’m looking at Astal for the Sega Saturn.

Astal stars the title character, which has many similarities to Knuckles: he’s a gruff loner who is in charge of protecting a giant green gem of amazing powers that gets stolen to start off our game. He even looks a bit like Knuckles, with a focus on his big hands and the color red. Anyways, the whole back story of Astal is really more complicated than it needs to be, but I supposed they wanted to establish a story arc for Astal where he changes over time to become less jaded. That does happen, thanks to a tiny bird that he saves and befriends him over time. As often with platformers, it’s not something that hasn’t been done before, and in this case the story doesn’t affect the game all that much, but it is cool that they tried to have the events and the journey affect the hero as it goes, instead of just a basically going back to the status quo at the end.

As already mentioned, Astal is pretty much a typical platformer, but it’s so polished and well done. It’s not one of those speed based ones, like a Mario or Sonic though. If I’d have to compare this to another game, I’d have to say it’s more like the original Rayman or Ristar (another failed Sega mascot series). The challenge comes not from wanting to move quickly and figuring out how to avoid obstacles in time, but more from how to deal with what the environment is throwing at you.

Oddly enough, another thing that makes Astal like Ristar is the fact that his main skill is grabbing. Most of the time he’ll just grab baddies and throw them aside for a kill, but there are moment where it gets used for puzzles (though, never really that creatively). However, Astal has other skills, such as a ground pound and super breath. If that’s not good enough for the scenario, the bird that he rescues can lend a hand, either by pin-balling across the screen and attacking all the enemies, or by bringing Astal some health, both of which are more potent depending on when you use them. All this makes for a game that is very intuitive, but still presents enough of a challenge.

As the game revolves around gems and crystals, it’s no surprise that Astal is a beautiful game. Although this game is in 2D, Sega decided to put the extra capabilities of the Sega Saturn to good use. Sure, it’s not enough to warrant a whole new system, but it’s still stunning. The game makers really dedicate themselves to the gem/jewel motif for everything and it really works in the game’s favor.

On the side of audio, it’s ok. The music suits the atmosphere fine in that somewhat mystical sense, but never really gets me pumped or excited. The sound effects kind of have that element to them as well, especially when you toss an enemy to have him break into pieces. However, I think the cut scenes have the most interesting audio since it’s just still images. The music is kind of too soft and the voice acting is really awkward. However, as I said earlier, I don’t think the plot is all that amazing, so it doesn’t take away too much from it.

That’s all I can really say about Astal (once of the few times I’ve managed to talk about story, game play AND esthetics). It’s just a really competently put together platformer video game. The only thing that works against it is that it plays it pretty safe (despite the risk of being on the Saturn- heeeyyyyooo). There’s no moment where it gets really intense or tries for some unexpected twist, and there’s nothing that keeps you coming back for any reason. Other than that, this is a really good game, and if it were on the Genesis, I have no doubt it would be fondly remembered and often talked about. However, this isn’t what’s expected out of a new console. With the cost of the system and the game itself starting online at around 30$, it’s just not worth it for most people, but as someone who tumbled upon it, I was pleasantly surprised. I give Astal for the Sega Saturn 9 levels out 10.

Level Up: RoboCop

RoboCop is kind of a weird phenomenon to me, because despite everyone knowing the name, in my experience only a fraction of those people have ever actually seen the movie. That might have changed now thanks to the remake which comes out on DVD soon, and though my thoughts on the remake are a little complex, the original movie is GLORIOUS and should be seen. RoboCop is easily one of my favorite super heroes, and with his premise you’d think he’d be a great concept for an NES side-scroller, right? Let’s check it out with RoboCop for the NES.

Graphically speaking this game is not great. I get that, back in the NES days, it was hard to make a game look like the movie, but there is still much to be desired. RoboCop himself doesn’t look too bad, but he’s washed out in teal and looks really scrawny for someone who is supposed to be a walking tank. Other people look like brown smudges and other odd color choices. Though, for how bad the graphics are, the animation is what bugs me. The way Alex Murphy walks (especially on stairs) can look like he’s walking backwards, and while he moves slowly, his punch is a really quick animation. There’s even a part where you can only aim upwards while facing one side, making it awkward to set yourself up for the shot you WANT to make. Probably not the worst looking game, but it’s obvious just by looking at it that this was one of those rushed movie tie-ins the NES was infamous for.

As for the sounds, while I do like the chiptune version of the RoboCop theme, the sound effects are really lacking. Though the gun noise is pretty cool, the dog ones are pathetic (both the barking and dying). The punch noise seems to have the same problem as the animation (in that it’s very quick and without the visual, you’d have a hard time knowing that’s what it’s for.

However, the big issue with audio visuals is the mission titles. After some fairly decent animation, they all seem to feature an awkward drawing of RoboCop sometimes with his mouth flapping about, and an annoying beeping as the letters spell out. I don’t need to know the mission, I saw the movie! I just want to go shoot some dudes!

The game play of RoboCop is… not too good either. Yeah, if you didn’t get the hint when talking about the animations, it makes a lot of things really awkward (I’m saying that a lot this review). RoboCop himself plays pretty stiff. I know that he’s not the fastest moving character in the movie, but just doing something simple like trying to dodge someone’s attack feels really slow. Also, there are parts where you need to use stairs and finding the right spot can be a task. Even something as simple as shooting or hitting someone becomes questionable, as your hit box seems be more easily in your opponent’s reach that their hit box is to yours, and because of that weird punching animation, your window of opportunity is so small. Eventually you learn how to time things correctly, but you only get that due to trial and error: it’s not intuitive at all! This is one of those games where you have to do things mostly just the way the makers intended you to. Like, they have to program you to play this one certain way, like some kind of machine or a Robo- WHOA TOO META!

It’s sad to say, but yeah, RoboCop on NES is just one of those games that confirm the stereotype of licenced games not being very good. Granted, this could have been a lot worse, but there are too many simple things that are done wrong; moving, hitting, sounds, the look, etc… it has such an awkward feeling. The game is beatable, that much is true, but it’s not really fun at any point. There are even moments where what you need to do is just a bit too hard to guess for my liking (like a room where you need to punch a wall MULTIPLE times before it gives out despite showing no weakness as you punch it). It’s not a terribly frustrating game, it just really shouldn’t be this much of a chore to get through. I give RoboCop for the NES 4 levels out of 10.

Level Up: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

May the fourth be with you! Haha! Even though it’s a tired joke and I’m about a week late… Anyways, I was a little late in getting “into” Star Wars, and though I’m not sure I’d consider myself among the fans yet (considering how much some people I know are into it) I gotta just say that it’s a fandom that is well deserved. Even as old as I was watching the original trilogy for the first time, I wanted MORE. Luckily, that is not hard to find now a days, with many comic books, TV Shows, books, board games, video games and tons of other media based on it (sorry if I’ve opened that fresh “expanded canon” wound for anyone). Now when it comes to people wanting to be “in” Star Wars, one of the first things I hear (along with light sabers) is how they would use the force. Well here’s a game with a title promising just that: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed for (among many others) the Nintendo Wii.

This game takes place between the original trilogy and the prequels. The game starts with Darth Vader searching the Wookie home world for remaining Jedi and discovering an abandoned child he can sense is strong in the Force. He decides to raise him as his own keeping him a secret from Emperor Palpatine (cause as Episode 3 shows Anakin can “take care” of kids). We learn that Vader’s ultimate goal is to assassinate the Emperor and rule the galaxy with the child called “Starkiller” (a name that would be “trying too hard” in a universe where the main character isn’t named “Skywalker”). Or Vader claims. However when Palpatine orders Vader to kill his apprentice, Starkiller is knocked into space, where two secretly dispatched droids save him. Starkiller meets up with one of the Jedi that he had previously fought with, where he learns of the Jedi way while traveling throughout the galaxy.

What really holds the story is that there is a whole lot of ambiguity to some of the character’s motivations. As previously mentioned, Vader said he wanted Starkiller by his side to rule the universe, but later attempts to kill him. He saves Starkiller, but it’s never clear if he actually intends to share the rule at all. And what about Starkiller? He aligned himself with the Rebellion, but still kept in touch with Vader. Is he seeking revenge, or will he change sides? Even after the game is done, it’s hard to say what the characters wanted. The big disappointment is that there are two endings, and without activating a spoiler alarms, they are the “good” and “less good” endings. I would have liked a few more options.

Star Wars: the Force Unleashed can really only be put under the vague category of “action adventure game”. Starkiller is sent to various planets in order to walk around and destroy so and so. However, you’re just waiting for me to talk about the light saber and the Force, aren’t you? This game has an upgrading system and with each new ability you unlock, you might find a new power you enjoy more. The bad thing is that the Force makes combat kind of dull and repetitive for the this reason: you might as well stick to what works, and what works is grabbing one person and slamming them into the others like curling rocks over and over. Yeah, it’s cool to be able to use the Force and the destructible stages do give you some freedom of creativity (anything that reminds me of Freedom Force is cool), but it can get dull. Later on in the game, they’ll try to overwhelm you with enemies to maybe even things out, but then it becomes infuriating as you’re so used to playing a certain way, it feels unfair when you can’t do it.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed isn’t a great game, but it functions well enough and does what needed to be done. The Wii version has some control issues with forced motion controls, but at the same time doing a motion for a force push and having it knock a room full of guys on their ass is so satisfying. There are also God of War inspired quick time events with cut scenes, and they’re cool for what they were, but there are FAR too many here. The game play has some issues, but given what they wanted you to be able to do in this game, Lucasarts might have painted themselves in a corner. The story is good to me in its mysterious character motivations, but I can see how other might think it’s more like they just aren’t fully realized. However, at the end of the day, I just can’t say that there is anything terribly flawed about this game, and it does have a few cool aspects that really won me over. Its story is placed between the original Star Wars trilogy and the prequel films, and that’s kind of where its level of quality is placed too: mediocre, but nothing insulting. I give Star Wars the Force Unleashed 7 levels out of 10.

Level Up: Super Mario Sunshine

It’s no secret that I am a fan of Mario video games. It the only series so far to get multiple perfect scores and most of the ones that weren’t perfect still got pretty high. It’s a series almost without equal when it comes to both overall quality and recognisability. However, there is one game in the main Mario series that I consider not up to level. I am talking about Super Mario Sunshine for the Nintendo Game Cube.

Now, normally at this point a sound effect would play and I dissect the games, talking about graphics and audio, story and/or game play. However, this is a special case and I have to approach it in a slightly different manner, so bear with me.

First off I have to point out my biases. I can say that this was the first time that I felt disappointed to the level of anger with a game, and that leaves a big impact. This is the game that made fear hype and consider not buying new games anymore, something I still haven’t quite recovered from (though the straw that broke the camel’s back will come another day). The fact that I had paid so much for a new game I thought was going to be amazing (it was MARIO, it was a safe bet!) and I later ended up hating has left a deep scar at an age where it really mattered.

However, none of this answers the question “WHY do I hate this game?” I had forgotten the reasons for a long time, but playing it again makes it all come back to me, so it’s not just my bad memories. The first thing I have to put the blame on is the poor controls. For those of you that don’t know, Mario gets a water shooting backpack called the FLUDD in this game. You can use it take down sludge based monsters or use the water to propel yourself in interesting ways. Unfortunately this relies on the camera being great, which the ones in Mario games have never been. The game mechanics in this game makes the camera inexcusable. It becomes much more difficult than it should be to squirt water in the direction you want, or to make yourself fly a target.

It doesn’t help that you don’t really feel directly in control of the FLUDD either. This game feels like you’re trying to control Mario trying to control the FLUDD, which gives you an extra degree of separation that gets in the way. It also feels too different from the standard Mario game play, so it doesn’t mix well with it (much like the use of guns in Shadow the Hedgehog).

The FLUDD is an icon of another problem with the game though, and that is the theme. The reason why it suits the game is because it was part of the whole “island/beach” motif the game has. I have to ask though, is this theme strong enough to carry the game? I may be spoiled by the games surrounding it: Super Mario 64 was in a castle where every weird world was possible, and Super Mario Galaxy was a grand space adventure. An Island getaway seems tame in between those. It doesn’t scream “adventure” at all, and you kind of have limitations on your surroundings.  Furthermore, the theme just doesn’t work well for a game. When I think of an island resort, I’d like to think relaxing, taking naps, soaking in the sun and other stress free activities, not a full wacky, constant go-go adventure. Bottom line, the island stuff might be good for a world, but using it as the full Mario game is really stretching it.

All this being said, what made me decide to make this review in this different format was when a question was posed to me concerning Super Mario Sunshine: Would I consider it a bad game? The answer to that question has to be no. Let me be clear, I don’t like Super Mario Sunshine at all, but I’ve pointed out before what I consider to be a bad game, and Super Mario Sunshine does not meet that definition. It isn’t a flawed game by execution, but I just don’t like any of the choices. I’m not a fan of the theme, but Nintendo decided to go with it. I think FLUDD was a terrible idea for a game mechanic, but Nintendo decided to go with it. I think the level missions are very frustrating, but Nintendo decided to go with them. Really the only thing I can complain about without it being much a matter of taste is the camera and controls, and Super Mario Sunshine is far from the only Mario game with this problem. It doesn’t get a recommendation from me since there are still obviously problems, but it’s the type of game that I can understand that people still like. It’s still a Mario game which means there are many good things about it, but I still don’t like it. Sorry Nintendo, I know you can do much better. I give Super Mario Sunshine 6.5 levels out of 10.

Level Up: Mummies Alive

I’ve talked about a fair bit of games that would have been forgotten (or at the very least not as popular) if not attached to the name of a famous movie or TV show (the NES Batman comes to mind). I’m also certain that there are several almost forgotten TV shows that can be remembered due to a great video game. Today, I have a video game based on a TV show and the popularity of neither helped the other. Was the subject just to obscure for some people, or was the game just not noteworthy? Let’s find out as we review Mummies Alive, originally for the Arcade, but I’ll be playing it on the Wii Virtual Console.

As most of you probably DON’T know, Mummies Alive was a TV show by DIC in which a boy named Presley finds out that he is the incarnated spirit of a pharaoh. He has 4 guardian mummies that guard him from danger, the biggest danger being the main antagonist of the series Scarab, an ancient Sorcerer who wishes to use the pharaoh spirit to, you guess it, take over the world *of course*. When things got rough, the Mummies could power up with their catch phrase *with the strength of Ra!*. It was kind of like a mix between Batman and the Power Rangers, but lamer than that mix sounds.

The story in the video game is probably deeper than the show deserves really. There are 4 stages and all 4 are their own little “episode” (like Batman the Brave and the Bold, but not as repetitious). I expected to just chase Scarab who kidnapped Presley for the whole game, but that’s only the last level. Before him, you’ll have to stop Nuhn and his water minions from taking over the city, calm down Geb’s temper tantrum before he levels everything around and prevent Set and Anubis from their chaotic plan before you get to the last level. The stories aren’t much, mostly just “something bad will happen, punch this guy to stop it”, but it reflects the show well enough and like I said, it’s nice that the effort was put into 4 episodes.

The game play itself is nothing too new or exciting for the most parts, but it has some small nice touches. For example, like with SNES Power Rangers game, the Mummies transform part ways in the level. Not something that wasn’t already done by this point and doesn’t even effect the game play, but the cut scene is still cool enough I had to mention it. As a whole, the game play seems pretty simple; move, jump and hit. You can also hold the attack button down to do a projectile attack (and you can even move around SLOWLY while it’s charging in this game) and pressing the jump and attack buttons at the same time does one of those health draining super moves. You can pull off slide attacks, grabs, air attacks, spin moves and pretty much any directional attack you can think of, nice to see a game not limit itself to only attacking directly in front. You can also apparently do team attacks like in the arcade Simpsons game, but I haven’t had the chance to play this game two players to try them out.

Honestly though, having a second person might make this experience worse, as it is really easy.  While arcade beat ‘em ups were known to be quarter suckers, and even some home ports were amazingly hard (like the SNES Final Fight), I beat this game using a minimum of continues the first time. Maybe this is why the game never saw much success, as people were not even close to filling it with quarters. Still, the hit detection is pretty solid and the button response is great. And sections where you just take down crumbling Shabti after Shabti do have a very satisfying feeling to it.

While Mummies Alive was developed and produced by Bandai, the same people that made a couple of the Super Famicom Sailor Moon games, it’s clear that this game would never be as popular. While the two games have similar feels to them (though Mummies also feels a little “heavier” in movement despite the free directional attacks), Sailor Moon has such a strong backing that, even though the games were Japan only, Mummies Alive would never come close to it. The music is pretty good, and while the SFX does sometimes sound stock, the good ones are really good. The Graphics could use a little work (for example the mummy form look way too puny compared to the warrior mummy forms, even though it’s the same people just wearing armor) but since you’ll be fighting Shabti for the most of the game and they look perfect for the world and play style, I can’t complain too much. On the video game side of things, beat ‘em up fanatics might want to play this once just to say they played it. But if you’re one of those people like me who actually remembers Mummies Alive, than you can take this as your little reward for getting the reference. I give Mummies Alive on the Wii Virtual Console April Fools levels out of 10.

*Beat, followed, by party streamer.*