Tag Archives: NES

Ice Climbers Review

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It’s time for the next NES installment. This one’s actually a pretty big one and I’m sure that thanks to Super Smash Bros everyone knows about the Ice Climbers. Unfortunately I wouldn’t say that this game has aged nearly as well as some of the others. The gameplay isn’t very smooth. Effectively this is like a platformer where the obstacles prevent you from doing any kind of platforming. As a result the game ends up fighting itself most of the time and isn’t nearly as engaging as it could have been. It’s more difficult to play the levels than fun to experience them.

The game seems to go on forever although the last unique level is 32. After that it loops back to the first one so you can effectively say that you made it to the end at that point. Fortunately in this version you can actually select any mountain you want. I beat the first 14 and then skipped over to 32 and conquered that one. You do get a certain sense of pride and accomplishment when beating these levels but adding some kind of reward of cutscene would have made all the difference here. Then you would really feel like you were moving up. Instead when beating the levels you’re just going through the motions.

The gameplay is like a normal platformer instead you’re heading up instead of to the fight. The goal is to jump up to the top of each floor. Each floor has 8 layers to it and every time you jump you will hit the next layer. The main obstacles are moving clouds and little bears that keep patching the holes in the ceiling that you make. By jumping you can break part of the roof and that’s how you get up so you need to go fast or the bear will plug up every hole around. If he does that then you’ve just gotta keep on making more holes. You can also whack the bear with a hammer to beat him if you’re on the same level. One thing that’s easy to forget is you don’t die by running off the screen to the right or left so you should do that if you think the other side of the stage will be easier to manage. You can’t jump very far so running off stage is often the best way to travel.

The graphics are pretty solid and definitely hold up better than lot of the NES counterparts. The character sprites and backgrounds are particularly solid here. There’s only one real theme that I can recall but it’s pretty catchy. It’s not exactly Mario or Metroid but it’ll certainly due. At least it adds a little more depth to climbing up the mountain floors over and over again. The actual gameplay isn’t bad, but it would have been a lot more fun if it was more traditional running to the right. Going up just didn’t work for me after a while and in the final levels you can barely move without falling the wrong way. You gotta go about everything super carefully.

Overall, The Ice Climbers is a reasonable game, but one where the obstacles are just too numerous and intrusive. No matter what you do there is always another cloud or enemy around the corner. What this means is that you just can’t focus on running for very long. You’ve got to stop in your tracks more often than not and that’s what really held the game back in the end. I think this game should get a modern sequel/remake as there are a lot of ways you could make this work with today’s graphics and gameplay mechanics. No reason the Climbers should have to end the franchise with just 1 game in the works. In the meanwhile I’d recommend starting your NES Online game selection with a different title. This isn’t exactly the top one in the market.

Overall 5/10

Punch-Out!! Review

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It’s time to look at the original Punch-Out game. It’s always good to see where these various Super Smash Bros fighters originally came from. I played through the remake version for the Wii a while back so now it’s time to see if the original holds up. I’d definitely say that it does although some of the opponents are pretty crazy. Good luck taking them down without the rewind feature. The special abilities are pretty creative and couple that with the story and you’ve got yourself a pretty fun NES game.

The goal of course is to get Little Mac to the title of World Champion. To do that you will have to battle your way through 3-4 different circuits and really start to take names. Each match has 3 rounds and you need to either beat the opponent with a really solid counter hit or drain all of his health 3 times. Keep in mind that you will need to do this before the 3 minutes are up or else it will go to time and the referee always picks the defending fighter. That means the deck is stacked against Little Mac, but that’s just the way he likes it. When things are at their bleakest is when he steps up and shows the world what’s up.

The controls are pretty simple. You can punch with your left or your fight, you can do a high punch with either, and you can dodge side to side. There’s also an option to block by holding down. Don’t just start punching all crazy like though or you’ll run out of hearts which leaves you stunned for quite a long time. That’s a good way to lose a fight but there aren’t really any other benefits to doing that. You want to keep the opponents honest, but not at the expense of the match. What you want to do is wait for the opponent to launch a move and then counter with one of your own. Sometimes that means attacking right before the opponent connects or dodging and then attacking. You’ll have to find out through trial and error here.

I will say that the toughest super attack to deal with in my opinion is the tornado of doom. The villain spins around in a circle really quickly and attacks you around 5 times or sometimes even more. You have to block each hit by blocking and then letting go real quick. The tough part is that this still deals damage so if you were already pretty low then you will not survive such a combo. Sometimes ironically the best thing to do is let the opponent KO you because it will end their super attack a lot sooner and this way you will still have some time left on the board. The timer is actually your biggest enemy here and you should make sure you don’t forget that.

One thing that helps to make the game feel a lot more thorough than some of the others that have popped up is how your coach gives you little tips and quotes between rounds. The villains also talk a bit which is cool because it gives the game more of a plot beyond the ole “defeat them all” kind of moments. This feels more like a first party Nintendo game and I can see why people loved Nintendo from the start. Their games just did seem to have an extra dimension of effort and content behind them that the rivals just didn’t have. You couldn’t get that Nintendo seal of quality on just about anything. Punch-Out is one game out of many that really benefited from this.

Overall, Punch-Out!! is a really fun game. As with most of the other titles here at the time there isn’t a lot to do, but the gameplay is fun which is what counts. You can probably clear all of the levels in under 2 hours but it’ll have been a fun two hours. Factor in that you can play this game for free on the Nintendo Switch Online and you are in for a pretty great time. I’m definitely up for a new installment on the Switch someday.

Overall 6/10

Super Dodge Ball Review

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It’s time for another retro NES game and I have to give this one major props for actually going above and beyond the game. You actually get to travel to another dimension in the final levels and the game gets a bit supernatural. I mean, you’re probably not playing a Dodge Ball game for that, but it’s still a nice addition if you ask me. You get to fight all of the other countries during the Arcade Mode and the final boss takes you into space. Then there is an extra bonus challenge where you fight zombie versions of your characters. It’s like looking into a mirror and fighting your distortions which I was not expecting in a game called Super Dodge Ball.

In a way the retro sprite style helps to build the atmosphere. It’s like how Undertale changed the game for most people with what you could do with sprites because of the atmosphere. It’s possible that if this game was more polished it wouldn’t look quite as intriguing with the backdrops because maybe it’s not meant to be space or your shadows in the final level. It’s all in how you interpret it, but I was definitely impressed. The gameplay took a little time to get used to though. I had to look up the controls online but after that I was ready to dominate. It’s actually a lot of fun and I always thought Dodge Ball looked pretty fun in real life as well.

The goal is of course to tag your opponent with a dodge ball at top speed which will take some of their health away. You win when you’ve tagged all 3 of your opponents enough times for them to be knocked out. When they throw the ball your two options are to catch the ball or dodge. Catching is the best way to counter though because dodging usually lets the ball get back to the opponent on a convenient bounce. Also in this ruleset catching the ball doesn’t tag out the guy who threw it, but it does give you possession back which is very helpful. The controls are also pretty in depth with each character having several super moves.

You can use a running start to throw a softball at the opponent or you can jump and fire a spiral shot. There are quite a few moves but my favorite is the running jump super charge. If you land that you can deal around 30 damage compared to 2-3 for standard shots. It’s also hard for the opponent to dodge. If someone tries it on you I recommend trying to jump out of the way. You can jump really hard in this game but the catch is that you can’t move after jumping so if they pretend to throw but don’t then you could be in quite a bit of trouble there. It gives the game extra depth.

I think you can already see why this is one of the better NES sport games. For sure I can say that it has more personality than a lot of the others and you can really feel the care and passion behind this one. The gameplay is actually a lot of fun once you really get the hang of it so I recommend looking up the controls to make sure you enjoy this one. If you don’t know how to play then there is definitely the chance that you will give it a thumbs down and that would be unfortunate.

Overall, Super Dodge Ball is a fun title. The length and amount of content are naturally quite limited, but even if you just play it for a quick playthrough it’s worth the experience. There aren’t a lot of dodge ball games out there so it’s also pretty unique which is a plus as well. Throw in the fact that there is virtually a story mode and you’ve got yourself a winner here. This is definitely one NES game that I won’t be forgetting anytime soon.

Overall 6/10

Soccer Review

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It’s time to go further back in time to the NES. Now that I’ve played through all of the non story based SNES games it’s time to do the same for the NES. I’ve got over 30 titles to work on for this console so I imagine this will take some time to wrap up. What better way to start than with Soccer since I played Super Soccer pretty recently? I actually preferred this one to the super version. It may be less intricate but sometimes less is more. I felt like this version was just a lot more fun. It was very entertaining and that’s what counts.

The only real mode here is playing Soccer of course although you can play it single player or multiplayer. The goal is to kick the ball into the other team’s net of course. You can run, pass, and kick the ball. That’s it so the rest is up to your skills. Try to run in front of the opponent and you’ll be able to steal their shot. I played on the various difficulties and wrecked the opponent twice on 1, but lost on the higher levels. The game can be quite challenging but it’s very fast paced which I like. You can keep on running up and down the field until you manage to score.

One tactic that worked to me was shooting the ball at the opponent even when I was way too far. This allowed me to run in and get the ball again where I now had a better shot. The opponents usually wouldn’t try for the ball once I had shot it which I found interesting. That may be an exploit or something, I’m not sure but it was effective. On higher difficulties it was less useful since the computers would steal the ball as soon as I obtained it anyway. They were quite relentless and it was just hard to keep up with them at all. It’s almost like they had super speed although I don’t think the computer was cheating or anything. They just had the controls totally mastered.

The graphics aren’t very good or anything, but this is a very old game. All of the sprites have minimal details on them but you can always tell what is happening on screen which is the important part. The backgrounds for the stage is interesting but I would have liked more of a variety. I only saw one stage but maybe there is a way to switch it somewhere. There really isn’t much of a soundtrack so don’t count on that. This isn’t that kind of game.

Overall, Soccer is a fun game. If I had to explain why I preferred it to the sequel, I’d say it’s because I felt like I was more in control here. The fundamental gameplay here was on point and I took quite a lot of shots until I got the goals in. It’s all about try, try again until you make it. You can keep running in front of the ball when the goalie throws it out so effectively you can take unlimited shots. It was pretty satisfying to launch this but it is tricky to get the timing just right. I can see myself having a good amount of fun here and if you like Soccer then I definitely recommend giving it a spin. You may be surprised at how good such an old game can be.

Overall 6/10