Tag Archives: Nintendo

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

Pop’n TwinBee Review

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It’s time to look at a classic SNES game. I say it’s classic but odds are that you may not have heard of this one. I certainly hadn’t, but its aged pretty well. It’s an arcade shooter that actually has a bit of a plot between levels. Don’t expect a huge narrative or anything like that, but just getting images connecting the game is more than I would have assumed prior to playing the game. Some parts of it are a bit more complex than expected, but it ends up being a very enjoyable experience.

The game starts you off in a 3D adventure as you fly through the skies and blast away at the enemies. Aside from your normal energy blasts you can also summon a bunch of bees which cover the sky and destroy all enemies. It’s an incredibly powerful move so use it sparingly because you don’t get to carry a lot of ammo for it. I actually couldn’t tell where you even saw the amount of ammo left so I’d run out and be unsure of when I’d get it back. At the end of each level is a powerful boss to defeat. They’re usually all giant robots like a robotic spider or something of that nature. The bosses are less trouble than the actual levels but don’t underestimate them or you’ll end up paying the price. The rewind feature comes in great handy here.

The graphics are pretty nice. You always feel like you know where you are going and the various enemies have nice designs. The little animations after the levels are fun enough as well. This part has aged quite well. The soundtrack isn’t particularly memorable but it works well enough. It’s got that upbeat arcade kind of feel to it which definitely works for me. You’re also so busy dodging all of the attacks that you’ll quickly find yourself entranced in the gameplay.

TwinBee sees a big difficulty spike around level 4-5. Suddenly you have enemies on the ground blasting you from all sides and a ton of aerial enemies as well so it’s tough to blast them all. For starters you can only hit the ground enemies with your bees and by now you’re probably all out of them. For the aerial enemies they are quite durable so by the time you defeat them they will have probably blasted you to smithereens by now. It’s just hard to deal with opponents who are quite so numerous and even with rewind it’ll be tough to get past them. I made it over halfway through the game but eventually had to raise the white flag. If you want a solid adventure with a good degree of difficulty then this is definitely the game for you.

TwinBee is definitely one of my favorite SNES games thus far. While it’s not quite a match for the main Nintendo games like Super Mario Kart, it can handle most of the other games available at the moment. It’s an arcade game that wouldn’t be out of place on the Eshop right now. That’s the level of quality I like to see. This is definitely a game that was not slapped together as the developers put a good amount of effort into it. The effort certainly paid off quite nicely.

Overall, Pop’n TwinBee is a fun SNES game and one I’d recommend checking out. It’s up for free on the Nintendo Switch Online service so it’s worth a look. As with the rest of the games there I don’t imagine you will be playing them for long, but it’s a nice way to spend an hour or so. The gameplay is quite sound and while it may be difficult to figure out the layout you’ll get the hang of it. I still don’t exactly know how the items work though. That part’s a little confusing as they keep changing colors when you blast them, but it’s an interesting element. It’s a bit of a gimmick but it’s not annoying which is the key part.

Overall 6/10

Smash Tennis Review

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It’s time to look at a SNES game from a while back. I’ve always been a pretty big fan of sport titles because you really get to feel what it’s like to play the actual sport. You feel energy and excitement while scoring points and claiming victory. Really the only way a sport game can go wrong is if the controls aren’t all that good or the sport it is based off of is one that I’m not really a big fan of. This one suffers from the controls.

There aren’t a lot of modes or anything here but as it is an SNES game that should be expected. You really are here to play some good tennis and have fun along the way. You can play against a friend locally or against the computers online. That’s really it so just keep on playing for as long as you’re entertained. The game is free with the Switch Online anyway so that’s always a good benefit. The gameplay is pretty straight forward. Be sure to hit the ball when it gets close to you and the goal is to hit it in a way where the opponent can’t counter it. Furthermore, you can’t hit it too far out of range or it’ll be “out” and the opponent will gain a point.

Typically this is fairly easy to not do, but in this game it is pretty challenging. You’ve got to be very careful in what direction you are tilting the control stick because it’s very easy to hit the ball out of bounds. It seems like holding in any direction will bring some issues with this. At the same time if you just hit the ball straight then the opponent will certainly hit it back at you so as always there has to be some balance here. I played 5-6 games as each match goes by very quickly. Unfortunately I was only able to score a few points at best as the opponent would thoroughly take me apart in each round. He was really not holding anything back here.

You can take solace in the fact that this game is not a walk in the park. You are going to have to play seriously if you want to beat the computer even on a standard setting. They react to the ball very quickly and are totally comfortable with returning the ball even from rather complex angles. The graphics are fun enough. I like the fact that we have background elements in all of the levels which make them pretty unique. You can go from playing inside of a mall to being on the beach to resting at the park. There are a reasonable number of stages and they’re all pretty different so that’s pretty impressive. I can’t say that I was expecting a whole lot of variety here.

Overall, Smash Tennis is a fairly standard tennis game for its time, but compared to modern ones it’s pretty lackluster. I don’t really mind the lack of content so much as that is perfectly understandable, but the gameplay could have been a lot tighter. A lot of times you’ll feel like you hit the ball in time and it’ll still get past you. It feels like a losing battle from the start. No game is impossible because they are play tested and all, but a little more refinement would go a long way. As it stands I’d definitely say to check it out because it’s free so you may as well. At the same time I don’t see you spending more than an hour or two here. Not when something like Virtua Tennis exists.

Overall 5/10

Pikmin Review

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Pikmin is a game that I’ve owned for a long time and didn’t actually play through. The reason for this is despite being a big Nintendo game the gameplay never looked all that fun. I had briefly played the game in the past and it just didn’t work out for me. I tried it again now and am still not a fan. The exploration gets old pretty quickly and the mechanics are really hard to use. I’m hoping the sequels tighten things up a bit as that would help quite a bit.

The game starts with Olimar crash landing on a planet. The citizens of this planet are little creatures known as Pikmin and they have various elemental abilities. Olimar must use them to try and locate the broken parts of his rocket so he can get back home. He’s only got 30 days to do this so time is not on his side. There are 30 parts to collect and 30 days to do this which is a pretty perfect blend. If you average 1 part a day then you’re pretty well set. Olimar will have to be careful not to mess with the other aliens wandering this planet though. Those guys mean business.

One thing I will say in Pikmin’s favor is the overall story is pretty good. Every day Olimar updates the journal with his discoveries as things start to piece themselves together. We learn that the Pikmin are actually quite violent so it’s good that he’s on friendly terms with them. The game also gets pretty dark as Pikmin that are left by themselves seemingly get eaten by the monsters. Olimar also can’t breathe in oxygen which makes you wonder where he is actually from. It’s an interesting dynamic for sure.

I also do like the graphics. Those hold up very well to be sure and the levels/world design in Pikmin is very impressive. I only got to play through 2 levels because my Pikmin were not helping me in the slightest but what I saw was quite good. The controls are smooth for moving Olimar around and it makes you think that the gameplay for this could have been quite amazing from the start. If the game had played it straight without the Pikmin angle then I do think this game would have been quite great. The soundtrack is also pretty good. It’s quite peaceful without being dull because you still feel a good amount of energy in it. The soundtrack holds up quite well to this day.

Now lets go into what didn’t work for the game. I have to go right to the Pikmin. How it works is that you lead the Pikmin where you want them to go with slight commands or by running in the direction. The range is quite small so in most cases you’re better off just running over anyway. So you run somewhere and have the Pikmin pick up things or attack enemies and objects. When they find a piece of your rocket you escort them home and hope they don’t get eaten by a monster. It’s not ideal but I can work with this. The problem is that some obstacles require different Pikmin to tackle and they rarely co-operate. For example, you need yellow Pikmin to pick up bombs.

The problem is that getting Yellow Pikmin can be really difficult. Even when you lift up a yellow piece so they can come out the Pikmin will keep bringing it to the red spaceship. I couldn’t figure out how to stop them so what would happen is that I had a ton of Red Pikmin by the end of the game and almost no yellows. That was pretty rough since the Reds can’t really do anything except fight a bit. I do appreciate their tenacity and all but I wanted the Yellows. Then you’ve got the fact that if the Pikmin jumps a little too far even once they will get stuck behind the wall and that’s game over for them. You’ll have to wait til the next day if you’re out of the Yellows.

Pikmin also uses a day system which is not ideal. I haven’t liked that system in any game. Essentially the game has 30 days that pass by and when they’re all over you get to see a happy cutscene or a sad one depending on if you got the parts or not. As I only obtained 3 it was pretty sad to see him launch up and then fall down. It doesn’t actually delete all of your data though as it just re-starts the final day over and over again. I’m not really sure what you can do in one day to be honest, but maybe it still saves so you can eventually win. The problem is the unskippable cutscene you’ll have to sit through each time.

A day system like this just encourages you to rush through the game and that’s why I’ve never liked it. I prefer to play the game at my own pace and some days I may just want to run around. In Pikmin this is especially true because of how long it takes to find where you have to go and all. The game is fun at first when you’re exploring but when you actually try to progress and see that nothing is working then it gets old real fast.

Overall, Pikmin is a Nintendo game that has not aged well. The mechanics just aren’t very fun and I don’t believe that they are explained very well either. You’re left to your own devices which isn’t a bad thing if you have all the time in the world but with the days flying by that just isn’t the case. You’ll quickly be hit with the feeling that the end is near and you’ll even start jumping through days when you realize that no progress has been made. I already own Pikmin 3 so I’ll need to buy 2 at some point but I can definitely tell you that it is not very high on my list. Pikmin is probably the only Nintendo franchise I can think of that I actually dislike. I suppose even Nintendo had to have at least one series that didn’t work out for me.

Overall 3/10

Pokemon Black Review

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It’s time to take a look at one of the most iconic Pokemon games of all time. Pokemon Black/White got a whole lot of hype and recognition when it first came out. It had one of the biggest stories back in the day and a massive postgame. Well, it’s all deserved. After playing the game I can definitely see why it is known as one of the all time greats. This game really had everything you could ask for and then some. The main campaign does feel a bit short though. In terms of play time it is the shortest Pokemon game I ever played with only 14 hours before being completed. Yes, that’s even counting Pokemon Ranger and Mystery Dungeon.

The game starts with Terry getting ready to be a Pokemon Trainer. He has two rivals in this game, Bianca and Cheren. Both of them want to be the best as well but of course the best they can hope for is second place at this point. Terry won’t let go of the 1st spot. One obstacle in his path though is Team Plasma. They are an organization that believes Pokemon battling is wrong and intends to separate all of the Pokemon from their trainers. While most of the members are radical and downright evil, it is a very interesting premise. The idea of Pokemon battling in any setting other than the Utopia Pokemon exists in would be quite sinister. I’d actually be on Team Plasma’s team to an extent but of course in this game they are the villains so don’t expect them to be too reasonable.

The most neutral character within the team is N. He really believes in the cause and tries to do things the right way. He takes down the Pokemon League including the Champion just to prove that he is the best. He’s not running around committing crimes or anything like that. At the same time he is helping Plasma though so you do have to acknowledge that he is at least complicit in what is going on. He’s effectively acting as an accomplice the whole time. He’s one of the best villains that I’ve seen in a Pokemon game though. The whole climax of the story is also great with a lot of difficult battles and they’re all back to back. I can’t think of another time where I actually felt such a sense of danger and tension while playing through a Pokemon game. It was really quite impressive.

I actually lost to the first few gym leaders a few times. Then when I hit the Elite Four I got slammed by the first member. Granted in part it’s because it takes forever and a day to get the two EXP shares in this game though. Once I obtained them grinding was a lot more efficient. It was fun to actually see wild Pokemon who were stronger than all of my characters except for the main one though. Even when I finally got Reshiram he was stronger than 5 of my Pokemon which was pretty crazy. The game doesn’t hold back in the difficulty and I rather enjoyed that. It made things fresh and kept you on the edge the whole time.

The gameplay is basically the same as always. It’s a classic turn based combat system where you assemble a team of 6 and work to defeat all of the other trainers. There are also caves and such to navigate around as you try to get to the end. Most of the HMs are gone in this game but you will still need Cut at some point. None of the others are mandatory for beating the game which is pretty cool. It’s always sad when you have to throw these moves on a Pokemon because they could have used the spots for something better. I do recommend using Fly once you get it though. It saves you a lot of the legwork. The game follows the usual formula for the most part as you obtain the 8 badges and then fight the Elite Four. The main difference is how you get to skip the Champion and having a real final showdown in the castle at the end. I don’t think Pokemon’s ever really changed things up at the last second like this before so it was pretty awesome.

The graphics look great as always. The sprites are on point and we do get a few cutscenes here. The scene of Zekrom shattering the windows and showing up was pretty cool. It’s always nice to see Legendary Pokemon actually looking legendary. This guy got a lot of hype and it was all pretty deserved. Meanwhile the soundtrack is one of the best that I’ve seen. Pretty much every theme is amazing and I even liked the Team Plasma jingle for whenever you fight one of their minions. This game felt really high budget and was probably around GameFreak’s peak. It takes the best out of the past Pokemon elements while ditching the unnecessary ones. Mix that in with a bigger plot than usual as well as extra rivals and you have a winning formula.

As I mentioned the story is only around 14 hours but when you mix in the post game and catching all of the Pokemon I’m sure you will be here for at least 30 hours. There is a lot to explore and based on the difficulty for the main game I’m guessing that the postgame will be quite challenging as well. It’ll take a while to get your team geared up to deal with all of the threats left. Especially since all of the limited edition Gamestop Pokemon are long gone by now. You won’t be able to rely on them to win you the day.

Overall, Pokemon Black is an excellent game. If you like RPGs at all then I highly recommend checking it out. Pokemon Ruby is ultimately still my favorite Pokemon main game of all time but I would certainly put this in 2nd place. It’s just a ton of fun and delivers a complete experience. I’m definitely pretty hyped to get the sequel at some point. Black 2 and Heartgold are now the only two big Pokemon games that I don’t have yet. Once I have them then I will have finally gone through the entire series which is pretty cool. I do aim to play some more Pokemon games in the near future though so it’s going to be time to dust off the spinoffs.

ARMS Review

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It’s time to look at a fighting game Nintendo churned out a while back. It was one of the big titles for the Switch since it utilized the Joy Con features a lot. That being said, it got quiet very quickly after it came out. It was seen as pretty gimicky but those who stuck around with it did enjoy the game a lot. Well, now it is currently free on the Nintendo Eshop for a few days so I decided to check it out. This way I’ll save myself 60 bucks from actually buying it. It is a great fighting game and there’s a lot of fun to be had here.

When you boot the game up you will notice one thing missing from the start. There is no Story Mode. I was pretty surprised to see that there wasn’t even an Arcade Mode to play through with unique openings and endings. There is 0 story in this game and I think that’s pretty inexcusable for a modern day fighting game. You have to at least do the bare minimum which is have some still images while there is some dialogue about the character. We don’t actually know anything about these characters as a result which is pretty iffy. We’re literally just fighting for kicks now.

So the main modes here are the offline tournament mode and battling people online. The former is fun enough for learning the controls of the game. You get to face off with the computer in traditional fights as well as some minigames like basketball and punching through the rings. The basketball game is very fun and it’s something people have made stages for in Super Smash Bros all the time. The fact that it’s an official mode here it pretty awesome. I can see people having a lot of fun with it here. The shooting though the rings is not quite as fun. It’s basically just a normal fight since the rings barely seem to matter. Landing hits on the opponent is still the best way to win.

As for the main gameplay, it’s a 3D brawler with a similar setup to Pokken. All of your attacks are long range though. You can punch from one side of the stage to the other. You can also try to grab an opponent which will go through the guard. It’s a pretty straight forward fighting game so you’ll get the hang of it quickly. Once you store up enough energy you can use a final smash as well. You’re also given the option to switch your punching equipment between every round. It affects the range of your punch and how strong they are. Test out each weapon until you find one that you really like.

With the points you earn you can then head to the shop and buy some new weapons. It’s a little different than most traditional shops though. You don’t actually pick the equipment that you want. You’re put into a level where you punch at boxes and such. Occasionally a big box will show up containing a random equipment. You have to punch it to obtain this piece. Based on the length of time you chose for this minigame will determine how many items you get. It’s a bit of a roundabout way of unlocking things but it’s fun enough. I’m fine with it as long as duplicates don’t show up. It’d be annoying to play through the whole thing and find out that you just got an old piece.

The character roster isn’t amazing, but it’s decent. It’s big enough where you can’t call it small, but at the same time it could have benefited from a few more characters. I can see how people would like using motion controls for this, but I definitely like traditional for the best. It’s still pretty interesting to use the mechanics since punching with one arm at a time isn’t something you usually do in fighting games. It helps to keep the game a little more fresh and that’s never a bad thing. Particularly since the gameplay is all you will be here for.

The graphics are top notch. It looks and feels a lot like Pokken to me. I wonder if some of the same people were behind this one. It’s all very vibrant and that’s a good thing. The soundtrack is also very lively although a little less memorable. It works well enough while you’re fighting which is the important part. You always want some fast themes to fight to since it helps you keep your speed and tempo up. A slow theme would absolutely defeat the purpose if you ask me.

Really the only thing holding this title back from being better is the lack of content. It really feels like there is nothing to do here beyond fight people online. While fighting people is the main draw in the first place you should really have something else to do as well. I’ve mentioned this a lot in the review but a quick arcade mode would have done wonders. The replay value here is technically limitless but it’s very narrow and as I result I can’t imagine spending 60 bucks on it. I would have felt quite ripped off. You just can’t make a game without any kind of story and sell it for 60 bucks. Even all of the sport games have stories and franchise modes nowadays.

Overall, ARMS is pretty fun. It’s the kind of fighting game that has a lot of potential and automatic replay value. You can keep on busting people online and have fun learning new tricks and strategies. It can be a bit bare bones in terms of offline content though which keeps it from being further up on the list. If you don’t have the Nintendo Switch Online then you need to avoid this game. There is almost literally no reason to buy it if you can’t go online. Still, I do love fighting games and on a technical level this one succeeds quite well. Hopefully when we get a sequel Nintendo remembers to add online this time.

Overall 7/10