Tag Archives: Retro

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

Little Women Review

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It’s time to look at a pretty old film from the 30s. I’m sure just about everyone has heard of this film though because it has gotten several remakes over the years. I can’t say I had high expectations for the film, but it still managed to underwhelm me after watching. It feels like not a lot happens in the movie and you may grow bored by the end. I think a few plots could have been cut out, particularly some of the romance and backstabbing going on.

The film is focused on the 4 main girls who are trying to lead fulfilling lives. Jo is the main character and she’s always been a tom boy much to the embarrassment of her sisters who feel this puts them in an awkward spot at social gatherings. Jo meets up with the next door neighbor Laurie and they hit it off. The thing is, she just wants to be friends while he isn’t looking for that kind of thing. Jo just wants everything to stay the same but gradually her sisters begin to get romantically involved as well. Can she really prolong the status quo?

One thing in life that always rings true is that the status quo can never stay the same forever. Even if you choose to stay single that doesn’t mean everyone else will. You also have to account for World War III, Quarantines, Natural Disasters, and many other events that would make normal life impossible. The best thing to do is enjoy the time you have now and make the most of it so you have no regrets. Jo ends up missing her chance as a result, but at least she wrote a book right? She’s an okay character I guess, but I can’t say that I particularly liked any of the characters in the movie much. Laurie’s grandfather would be the best character for me since he seemed like a nice old man. Jo’s Mom and the maid also seemed like nice characters as well.

Amy is easily the weakest of the sisters though as she helps Laurie rebound from Joe’s rejection pretty quickly. Now, Jo and Laurie were thoroughly done so it’s not cheating, but it’s still pretty iffy to go after someone like that. If you’ve got family who just had a relationship not work out, you’re not going to quickly jump in right? It makes it seem like Amy was waiting for this opportunity and that Laurie must never have been all that serious about Jo. I’ve always got to assume that the romance was not all that real if you can bounce back from it with someone else so soon. So I have to blame both Laurie and Amy here. In particular with Amy it feels like a betrayal. They’re sisters so that makes it especially personal.

Meg doesn’t get nearly as much of a role. She was the first to get into romance I suppose, but that’s about it. The main stories were still mainly about Jo. Unfortunately that did not work in the film’s favor either as her rebound plot wasn’t any good either. She ends up falling for her writing tutor and it’s hard to ignore the fact that there appears to be a significant age gap there. It could just be the actors appearing that way I suppose but since we can only judge from the visuals it is a bit dicey. I don’t think there’s necessarily a problem with an age gap within reasonable limits (both are over 18) but you can’t go too far. Ideally you should be within 2-3 years and maybe at most you can go up to 10 but even that seems a little wide to me. Regardless this romance plot comes about very quickly and nothing about it seems very natural.

The writing is also not that good which is surprising from such an old film. The movie’s never engaging and that’s due in large part to the characters not being interesting. They tend to talk about a lot of things that don’t really matter all that much and certainly don’t hold your attention. You can have a good slice of life film but this movie is missing a key ingredient. It’s missing humor and banter. There is no witty dialogue to be found here or even any scenes that will have you crack a grin. It’s not as if this is a dark or grim film. It’s fairly upbeat and all, but it’s played incredibly serious the whole time and that doesn’t do wonders for the movie. I dare say that humor is absolutely necessary in a film like this. It could be in part due to the age of the film so the humor attempts don’t really resonate but again, I’ve seen plenty of old films with snappy dialogue and solid characters. This one just isn’t one of them.

Overall, Little Women is a movie that has not withstood the test of time. I saw a film similar to this one a while back that was also not very good. The premise just needs something to give it an extra boost that this one didn’t have. If you’re going to check this film out then just be ready for a fairly uneventful experience. If you want a film with a little more excitement then you should check out the original Ghost Rider instead. Of course, that movie is very different right from the start. If you want more of a slice of life adventure then check out the original Odd Couple film. That one’s got a lot more interesting moments to it.

Overall 4/10

Volleyball Review

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Now it’s time to look at the next sport game on the NES. This time it’s good ole Volleyball which is another sport that I haven’t gotten to play a whole lot in video game format. The best one I can think of is the minigame from Mario Party 4 or 5. I think it was 4, but I’m not positive. I thought that one had really good mechanics and I would go as far as to say that it was the definitive volleyball game. This one also does a good job though and can get quite fun by the end of the journey. Once you get the controls down then you’ll be ready to have some fun.

The whole game revolves around the match of course, but for some reason I wasn’t able to move or change the settings in the main menu. It would only let me enter and then I could move which was odd. It’s almost like only part of the game could be licensed but maybe it was just my controller acting up. You can never really tell sometimes but either way I thought it was pretty odd. Well, in the games I lost the first few rounds pretty badly because I just couldn’t rebound the ball. It’s very difficult to determine where it will land as I found the shadow to not be all that reliable. As you play you’ll get a better eye for it though. Eventually I was able to go on the offensive and score points.

Ultimately I didn’t win any of the matches but I gave them a good run for their money. I found the best strategy was to run up to the net and jump to block the shots at times. It only got dicey when they would change up the timing but it worked better than just waiting for their shot to arrive. Once you have possession of the serve it’s also easier to go on a roll and keep the momentum. When they serve it can be difficult since even returning the opening serve can be very difficult. It is always pretty impressive to see how difficult these old games were. Then when you factor in the no save feature part it would really be dicey. I imagine you would usually be playing this with friends though so hopefully that would force you to keep getting better.

The gameplay is executed pretty well even if difficult though. You feel like the developers did understand the crucial elements of Volleyball as they incorporated them into the game. The graphics are also pretty sound. There are a good amount of details added to the backgrounds and in the game. It all looks pretty smooth and deserves a spot as one of the better NES games that I played. I’d definitely be up for more Volleyball games in the future. A Mario Volleyball would probably be a very fun adventure and Nintendo should go back to making more sport games. If they dabbled with new sports that they hadn’t made a full game for I think they would sell quite well. Bring in Volleyball, Basketball, and Football. None of those have had a full home console release before.

Overall, Volleyball is a straight forward game that was executed very well. You’ll be able to jump right into the action and have a blast here. I’d have liked some more stage options and variety but the gameplay is definitely the most important element at the end of the day and it is quite sound. It has more replay value than a lot of the other sport games that I’ve played on the NES. If you’ve got the Switch Online then you should definitely check it out. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how much fun it is.

Overall 6/10

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Review

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It’s time to look at a terrible film from back in the day. When you think of Jekyll and Hyde you already know it was one of the weakest horror classics from back in the day. There’s really just not much to the concept and it’s really just a classic horror slasher with no soul or personality. It ends up faltering pretty early on and there’s no real way to root for the main character. It may not be the longest film out there, but prepare for it to drag on quite a lot.

The film starts with introducing us to Jekyll who is currently engaged to a lady named Muriel. He wants to marry her, but her father believes that they should wait another 10 months so the wedding happens on one of the anniversaries of his wedding. Jekyll isn’t happy about this, but that’s how it’s got to be. He then cheats on Muriel in the meantime with a lady named Ivy and decides to create a serum that will release his evil side. He succeeds and then uses this as an excuse to go around committing murder and other such crimes. Can anyone stop this guy?

There’s no need to feel sympathetic with Jekyll right from the start because nobody was forcing him to do any of this. It was all of his own free will and no amount of whining later on can change that. Even before the whole Hyde plot he was cheating on Muriel with Ivy. When he is called out on it Jekyll gets defensive and tries to pull the “You’d do it too card.” That’s not even a defense as it’s just trying to say that anyone would make the same mistake, but not trying to say that it isn’t wrong. It’s really just a way for him to justify his own actions and he spends the entire film doing this. Nothing is ever his fault and he just blames everyone around it while feeling sorry for himself the whole time. These scenes drag on quite a lot.

Muriel’s father was right about Jekyll from the start and so he ends up being the most reasonable character around. If only Muriel had listened to him. Nothing much would have changed to be honest, but Jekyll had a ton of red flags all around him from day 1. He can’t keep on calling out sick every time there is a big function. After a while enough is just enough with that. Ivy is easily the most tragic character of the lot. True, she did convince Jekyll to cheat despite knowing that he was taken so she isn’t exactly a saint, but it doesn’t mean that she deserved the terror that was to come for the rest of the film. Hyde gets away with way too much in the film and the scenes are all in poor taste. It drags on and on as the film tries to be as gritty as possible.

There’s no real reason for the film to go down this road as we have already established that Hyde was the evil persona of Jekyll. This is where films make their big mistake as they don’t need to keep hitting us over the head with how dark the film can be. Since this is old knowledge it’s just a waste of screen time. Take away the whole Ivy plot and the film would be way better. Instead her scenes just add an extra layer of violence and grit not to mention fanservice that further seals the deal of the movie. Throughout this the character who doesn’t really have to own up to anything for most of the film is Jekyll himself. You’d think he would have had to put up with a little more as payback for all that happened, but he actually gets to mostly enjoy his victories until the very last scene. That doesn’t seem all that balanced.

The police also look pretty bad here. At one point around 20 of them are losing to Jekyll. Why didn’t anyone think to shoot him until the one guy took out his gun? This guy is already a confirmed murderer who is resisting arrest and assaulting other officers. I think that’s more than enough reason to take out your gun at this point. Otherwise you’re really just allowing yourself to become the next victim and at that point you’re really doomed. Jekyll’s one friend also made that mistake. He had the gun, he needed to at least have used it or grabbed the cops earlier. Playing it defensively the way he did didn’t really do anything except let Jekyll cause more terrors in the mean time.

Overall, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a terrible film. There are no real redeeming qualities about it and it just continues to sink further and further as the film goes on. You’re just hoping it’ll reach a speedy conclusion before long. The writing was poor, the characters were bad, and at that point there really isn’t much that can save it. If you’re going to watch an old horror film then you’re better off watching just about anything else. Check out the original Godzilla film or perhaps the Werewolf titles with Lon Chaney. Those films certainly have a lot more heart to them than this one.

Overall 0/10

The Super Inframan Review

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It’s time to look at an old school Power Rangers type film. I have always been a big fan of the Rangers, but never really got around to checking out any of their shows. Well, this is the next closest thing and it does reassure me that this type of series is definitely up my ally. The Super Inframan is a great film that is a lot of fun from start to finish. It’s hard to go wrong with a nice array of monsters and hand to hand fights like we have here. The film may not be all that long, but they fit in a ton of action and quality scenes. There is never a dull moment to be found here.

The film starts with the Dragon Mom returning from her long slumber and she decides to destroy the world. She has amassed an army of powerful monsters ranging from spellcasters to more traditional creatures. Her second in command is a normal humanoid though and while she may sound out of her depth this character is actually a good fighter. The heroes realize that they need some power to counter this so a scientist gives Lei a shot that transforms him into the Super Inframan. In this form there is nothing that he can’t do. Lei decides to stop the villain group no matter what. It looks like this time he will actually have to try.

It’s hard to know where to start here since the film is really good on a lot of levels. I guess we should do the obvious first and that is the fight scenes. They are all really well done with a lot of excellent choreography. One of the standout fights is when one of Lei’s friends attacks the villains on his own. He actually does a great job of taking down dozens of them before he is eventually defeated by one of the monsters using a net ability. All of the other fights are good too though like the climax where it is a big battle royale or the various fights as Inframan. Aside from one match that was just beam spamming from side to side all of his fights were hand to hand as well.

Inframan also has a good array of powers which served him well during the matches as well. He can turn giant, fire off his fists, use laser blasts, etc. It’s really hard to defeat someone like this and Inframan is definitely shown as the strongest fighter except for possibly the Dragon Mom who was dominating him in the fight. Granted, Inframan was a little weakened from his other battles. Lei is a solid lead and I dare say that his dynamic as Lei and Inframan was more enjoyable than Hayata and Ultraman. This is due in part to the fact that Lei has more personality and is just a likable guy. He’s pretty quick on the uptake and always ready to help out. He also doesn’t hesitate to transform and take on the villains at any time.

Then you’ve also got the soundtrack which is pretty fun. Inframan’s main theme is suitably heroic and gives you an extra jolt of energy whenever he is getting ready to join the fray. Now there is one technical level where the film falters and that is the fact that it uses a lot of recycled footage whenever Inframan transforms. This is likely intentional as part of the camp factor, but it’s still got to be noted. Recycled footage is something you really don’t want to use as it feels like stalling for time. I also question why the footage was the triple flip. It’s not like that’s something that Inframan does a lot furing the movie.

The villains are also very solid which speaks to the solid writing and character cast of the movie. The Dragon Mom is definitely one of the best ones. I like her confidence and she is quite merciless. I was not expecting her to actually murder one of the heroes so that definitely surprised me. It’s not every day that you see a villain make a move like that. Whoever did her English voice did a solid job. Then you’ve got her fighting abilities which were sound. Her minions had a cool uniform and the other monsters at her disposal all put up valiant fights. While you aren’t likely going to remember their names you’ll remember the designs and their determination. The human also put up a great fight against Inframan and it was brave to even attempt to fight him. The villains were surprisingly loyal and I also liked how upbeat they were. You’d see them dancing in the background whenever the Dragon Mom was talking.

The heroes are solid as well. There’s less to say about most of them since they stay on the sidelines, but as I mentioned one of Lei’s main friends did a good job holding off the enemies by himself. The other members can also fight even if they never got a big moment to shine. They were still able to contribute and that’s the important thing. There are no annoying characters here. There’s nothing even remotely negative to say about the film. The pacing is on point, the writing is great, the fight scenes are amazing, this is just a very well rounded film and one that I could easily re-watch. There’s a lot of fun to be had here and it’s a shame that they just don’t make movies like this anymore.

Overall, The Super Inframan is one of those super obscure films that deserves to be more well known than it actually is. You’d have a lot of fun watching this movie for sure. On one hand it plays on your nostalgia as you remember what great fun this era was and on the other hand you get to see a new superhero taking down legions of monsters. I liked the suit they used for the Super Inframan and the ones for the monsters as well. It feels like this was probably a pretty big budget film back in its day. Hopefully the Inframan gets revived in some form or another at some point because this franchise still has a ton of potential left in it.

Overall 8/10