Tag Archives: NES

Solomon’s Key Review

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It’s time to look at a pretty big puzzle game for the NES. Solomon’s Key is one of the titles that looked pretty fun and I saved it for the end of my NES run. Outside of the more RPG type titles the NES collection is now done. Solomon’s Key is a pretty fun way to end off. There are a lot of puzzles here and it’s pretty fun to figure out a way to clear the level. Due to the nature of the game there are many different ways to clear the stages although I imagine that near the end of the game you’ll have to follow more of a set strategy. The game certainly does start to get pretty difficult towards the end.

The idea of each level is to make it to the key and then to go through the door. Both of these items are strategically placed somewhere in the level. Usually to taunt you the exit door will be right near the entrance so you know it’s super close but it doesn’t matter until you get the key. The way you navigate the level is by jumping and summoning boxes. You can make a box appear which you can then jump on and make more boxes appear. There does seem to be a limit to how many boxes you can create at a time, but it’s fairly high up and shouldn’t matter. Either way the enemies eat your boxes very quickly. In a lot of the levels you have to go very quickly but also try to take into account the fact that the enemies will definitely not let up as they try to take you down.

It’s a lot of fun trying to outwit the computers. You have to predict what they will do ahead of time. It’s a great brain teaser and I made it pretty far through the game. I didn’t quite beat all of the levels as I stopped around halfway but it would be a great conquest for someone to beat them all. The dificulty noticeably spikes as you go through the game. While the first few you could just power through with experienced platforming that just won’t cut it later on. One thing I would try to do is box the enemies in but that only works on the first kind of enemies. The rest of them slice through your blocks like butter so it’s almost pointless to even try. It can at least slow them down though.

The toughest level for me was one where a lot of statues are constantly shooting fireballs at you. It’s a straight forward level design wise as you just have to climb up around 12 stories without a ladder. Naturally this means you will be using your blocks but as they are getting destroyed right as you are creating them you have to keep using others as a shield. The difficult part is as you go up you can only make a shield on your level so they can shoot out the ground from under you. Ultimately what I did to get around this was to always create in sets of 2 and 3 so there would be enough ground for me to keep climbing up. It took a ton of tries along with different variations of the plan but ultimately I made it through. The game definitely feels very rewarding after pulling that off.

The graphics are definitely fun and pleasant. This is a game that has aged rather well. Part of this is because there aren’t a lot of assets or characters on the screen so the developers could really focus on the ones they did have. The core gameplay is also timeless since this is a logic puzzle game that anyone can get behind. The music is also decent although I dare say a little too peaceful. Throw in some electronic music or something a little more rock based and that would really help you begin to crack the code. If you ask me that would be the perfect way to give the game a little extra boost that it could use.

Overall, Solomon’s Key is pretty fun. It’s also longer than the average NES game with how many levels it has. You can really test your puzzle abilities and with the NES Access States so you can always save your progress and try more the next day. That’s something I’ve always really enjoyed about the online state. I look forward to more games being added at some point. I’m guessing we already have most of the games available but certainly there are some more out there right?

Overall 6/10

Clu Clu Land Review

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It’s time to take a look at an old NES game that I actually wasn’t really a fan of. The gameplay is unique so that is always nice to see. I haven’t played a game quite like this one. The closest would probably be DK King of Swing which has a similar concept just with a completely different gameplay style. That one succeeds a lot more than this one though. Clu Clu Land is ultimately okay in a small batch but beyond that you need to really enjoy the gameplay to stick with it. Considering all the other games on the NES I wouldn’t really be spending much time with it.

So here’s how the levels go. You play as a creature that automatically flies through the stage. The goal is to turn the stage into an image or something. As such, there are hidden coins around many of the turns. You have to bump into them all to complete the picture. Since you don’t know what the picture even looks like at first your opening strategy is really to bump into as many corners as possible. Once you’ve got the general idea of the shape then you can target the gates that you want to pass. You turn by sticking your hand out and grabbing a pole and use that momentum to go in a new direction. You can only reach out one hand at a time so try to plan your movements a few steps ahead of time. After all, each action will need another one.

Additionally you need to avoid the enemies. A single hit will take down your life so you want to live for as long as possible. The lives aren’t exactly easy to come by after all. I liked seeing the various shapes that would form. Clu Clu Land definitely has really nice visuals that have aged well. I can definitely appreciate the difficulty of making so many images using only coins. The stages remind me a bit of Pac Man with how they’re set up. It looks like a very similar style at least even if the gameplay is different. The music is less memorable, but fast enough where it’s pretty fitting while going through the levels.

So in the end the reason the gameplay didn’t click with me is that it just didn’t feel like enough was going on. Ultimately all you’re doing it turning. While you can probably break many games’ core gameplay down into a simple structure like that, you still feel like a lot is going on. This game doesn’t disguise that quite as well to me. I think a lot of the appeal will be from seeing the pictures that you create which are nice to look at, but I need more. Throwing in some physical movement would have been nice. Maybe allowing you to move the character back and forth and then you only need to use the hand feature when you want to turn. Ultimately that would still be very similar though so maybe that wouldn’t change very much at all.

In terms of replay value this game technically has quite a lot. You can keep on playing the levels over and over again to improve your score and move on to the next. I assume the game basically has unlimited levels although I imagine there will be a point where they start to loop. At that point you can really say that you conquered the experience and it really would be pretty impressive. These games were definitely not a walk in the park back when they came out and certainly not today either.

Overall, Clu Clu Land is the weakest NES game I’ve played in a bit. I definitely wouldn’t go as far as to say it’s the weakest NES game or anything like that but it just didn’t work out for me. If you like the general concept then I believe you’ll enjoy the execution. The gameplay is pretty smooth and I certainly didn’t notice any lag or anything like that. The gameplay’s also a bit familiar so I believe I probably played a demo at some point like in NES Remix or something. I think this game would be more enjoyable as a minigame.

Overall 4/10

Journey to Silius Review

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It’s time to look at an old fashioned shooting video game. This one brings in a nice sci-fi feel to it as you go through the campaign. I appreciate the fact that this game has a real intro so it’s definitely got more of a budget than the average title. The gameplay is definitely on point. Don’t expect a walk in the park though. This is easily one of the toughest games that I’ve played in a long while. Each level throws quite a lot of challenges and projectiles at you so dodging them all is not easy. There are only 5 levels but they should take you a good amount of time to conquer. I expect the campaign is about 40-50 minutes depending on how often you die of course.

You have your standard gun which has unlimited ammo. The pellets it fires are similar to the Mega buster in the Mega Man games. I didn’t realize I had other guns for most of the game so I relied on this one. It’s reasonably powerful so you can definitely use it to conquer the game. The controls are pretty simple here. You can run and fire as you go through the game. Ducking is also highly recommended and even essential in some parts of the game. You gotta think quickly because once the enemies come running in it’ll be too late to do anything. Expect a lot of rewinds using the Switch Online feature because without it you may be in a pickle.

The other weapons you have include a machine gun, pocket rockets, a shotgun, and more. I mostly liked the rockets. These things did a ton of damage and would help me clutch out a win against all of the big boss in the end. I think the last two bosses in particular would have been pretty difficult to defeat without this. They just deal so much more damage than the normal gun after all and you can fire them just as quickly. They do use up your gun energy though so you can’t just spam them during the level. Personally I recommend saving them entirely for the bosses. Otherwise you just won’t have enough to go around.

Silius has great graphics throughout its run. The level designs are on point and it definitely gets that nice Sci-Fi feel to it. The enemies also look pretty impressive. It’s all aged really well visually and I can say the same for the soundtrack. It’s pretty ominous but also has a bit of hope like some of the classic Mega Man games. I’d draw a lot of similarities between the two. This game just works really well and the gameplay is also quite smooth which is also very important. At most it can just be a bit hard to jump if you’ve been running so I recommend stopping before switching actions. The rewinds can make you lose your tempo at times so keep an eye out for that.

Overall, Journey to Silius is a pretty fun game. It’s definitely one of the better NES titles and so I was glad to be able to check it out. While only having 5 levels may sound short, the incredible difficulty levels of the game prevent you from beating it in an instant. You’ll have plenty of time to try and work out some strategies for dealing with the villains. Additionally, it’s a pretty fun game so even when you have to replay sections multiple times it never feels like a drag. That’s definitely the beauty of good game design. There are no levels where I felt that it was just unfair. With practice you can just go through the whole thing very smoothly. I’d recommend definitely checking this game out.

Overall 6/10