Single Player - Yume Koujou Doki Doki Panic

 In celebration of the 25th anniversary of Super Mario Bros. I thought it might be fitting to discuss one of the biggest oddities to ever exist in the main series.  Mario has had a long, long career of stomping and jumping, but for this one we're going to have to go way back to the beginning of his "Super" days.

 The iconic series began in September of 1985 and immediately became the stuff of legends.  Players were entranced by the faster paced gameplay and scrolling screens.  For the time, the levels were huge and the challenge was solid.  In fact, by most standards, the original Super Mario Bros. remains one of the most difficult games in the series.


 Naturally Nintendo planned to capitalize on the success of this game by creating a sequel and getting it out into stores as quickly as possible.  Less than a year later players were scampering through the Mushroom Kingdom again in Super Mario Bros. 2.  At least, Japanese players were.

 Now your thinking, "I've played Super Mario Bros. 2 and it looked nothing like that!"  Your right, you did play it.  Two years after Mario's sequel released in Japan the American counterpart debuted.  However, the game we received was radically different.  Instead of King Koopa and his Goomba minions we faced the frog-like Wart and his hoard of Shy Guys.  Fire Flowers were no where to be found, replaced instead with vegetables to defeat foes with.  Americans also had the luxury of playing Mario, Luigi, Toad, or the Princess herself, though there was no two player option.  Fans ate it up.

Super Mario Bros 2 was released in the U.S. in September of 1988, but the next month in Japan Super Mario Bros. 3 released, being joined two years later in 1990 by the American version.  This game was more or less identical on both sides of the ocean, and it stands as arguably the greatest title in the series.  It set the precedent for both platforming games as well as quality in a title for generations to come.


 The American version of Super Mario Bros 2 did appear in Japan finally in September of 1992, four years after it released in America.  This however wasn't the first time Japanese gamers played this game, though it was the first time they played it as a Mario title.  So, what in the world were they playing?


 Say hello to Yume Koujou Doki Doki Panic.

 If you want to play this game today, you'll need to either own a Famicom Disk System and the floppy disk of the game, or have an emulator that supports the Famicom BIOS and a rom of the game (the later being the most likely way).  One you start playing you begin to realize that we really got the better end of the deal with this game.  While most of the differences between this game and Super Mario Bros. 2 are graphical, there are two main game play elements that drastically altar the playability we need to discuss.


 The first one is that once you've selected a character in Doki Doki Panic, you must play through all the levels in a World before you can change.  That means if you choose Imajin (Mario styled character) for 1-1, then you must also use him for 1-2 and 1-3 before you can chose another character.  That said, only that character would have that amount of progress.  If you played to 2-1 as Imajin then wanted to play as Lina (Peach styled character) you must begin with her in 1-1.  In order to properly beat this game, you must play every level with every character.  Most of us Americans did that already in Super Mario Bros. 2 and it wasn't so bad, right?  That brings me to the second and biggest problem with Doki Doki Panic...


 Go pick up Super Mario Bros. 2 right now and play the game, but DO NOT use the run button (B).  Now play through every level like that.  For all intents and purposes you are play Doki Doki Panic now.  No character in the game can run!  Once easy jumps here in the States suddenly become nightmarish chasms of which there is no escape!  I'll be honest in saying I only cleared the game with Imajin, and that was a frustrating experience.  


 Other than the interesting novelty of it, I wouldn't recommend this game to any but the hardest core gamers (playing without the aid of save states anyway).  This was not a fun game to play, and not to spoil the ending for you, but it's not rewarding either.  I was always curious about this game, and now that is satisfied.  Time to move on!


 So what is it then that made the U.S. game so fun?  Quite simply, Nintendo and Mario.  Mario games have always been around, and no matter the style of gamer you are everyone loves Mario.  There are few series still around today that can gather people together like Mario can, and not even in platformers.  From soccer to golf to board games to kart racing, where ever Mario can be found so will thousands and thousands of eager gamers.  If video gaming ever had a sole mascot that defined it to the world, it simply is Mario.


 While Yume Koujou Doki Doki Panic isn't seeminly available anywhere except the Famicom Disk System and emulators, the classic Mario games have made many, many appearances on lots of consoles.  The original Super Mario Bros 1-3 as well as Japan's Super Mario Bros. 2 are all available on the Wii's Virtual Console.  In December of 2010 Nintendo will rerelease Super Mario All Stars as a special edition disk for the 25th Anniversary.  Whichever way you can, definitely do yourself a huge favor and give the plumber 15 minutes out of your day today.  I promise you'll have fun!

Single Player - Batman (NES)

  Tim Burton's Batman was released to theaters in June of 1989, and almost immediately became a box office hit. As a result all kinds of tie-ins began to crop up, like toys and cartoons, to keep kids hooked on the newly budded movie franchise.

  The late 80's also was the prime of the original Nintendo Entertainment System. Naturally, marketing turned to this medium to further the tie-ins to the popular movie and licensed out to software developer Sunsoft, who you may know from such games as Fester's Quest (NES) and Blaster Master (Various Systems) as well as the GameBoy Final Fantasy titles (in conjunction with Square).

  One common reality when it comes to movie licensed games is that they are usually terrible and most comic based games suffer this fate as well. That said, Batman for the NES is a great game. It's one of the few occasions where gameplay took priority over plot or gimmicks. This is an example of what made a great game back in the old days and one of the reasons Sunsoft was a software development powerhouse in early gaming.

  It plays as a standard side-scroller with you in control of Batman. The goal is to traverse each stage, defeating enemies and avoiding hazards as you go, ending each stage in a boss battle. If you have ever played games like Castlevania or Ninja Gaiden then you'll feel familiar with the gameplay in Batman. After gaining an ammo powerup you have access to three weapons, the boomerang, the rocket gun, and the dirk with each weapon taking 1, 2, or 3 ammo respectively. Batman also has a health bar that depletes when attacked or harmed by hazards. You start with three lives and are provided with two continues to complete the five stages in the game, and you will definitely use your continues.

  The challenge is hard in this game.  Enemies get gradually stronger as the game goes on, and many times you are faced with difficult wall jumps that require pre-planning.  On top of that the boss battles become absurdly difficult starting in the third level and if you make it to the Joker you will likely never win, or have the resources to even harm him.  Life can be farmed at points with the help of dispenser enemies that drop drones regularly so you can punch them, but health doesn't last long and you'll find yourself with a blinking life gauge more often than not.

  Another problem with this game is that your ammo runs out fast when using the rocket gun or the dirk in boss battles, leaving you with no option but to try and defeat the enemy with your fists alone.  Items will not appear during the battle either, and if you die you start the fight over with whatever ammo you have left.  As a result, it's very likely you will completely exhaust all of your ammo and be left with no choice but to try and defeat the boss with your fists alone.  This puts you deeper into harm's way, and usually results in you using one of your limited continues.

  Batman isn't all bad though.  In actuality it's an amazing game for it's age as it comes with a stellar soundtrack and cinema scenes to get you into playing as the Dark Knight.  You have good control for the platforming and there are no jumps that are too out of the question.  In fairness the only real problem with this game is the lack of infinite continues.  If you could always continue again from the beginning of your current stage after you run out of lives, this game would suddenly become very beatable.  As it stands though it's a grueling task to even make it to the last level, and the Joker is almost impossible to bring down.  I've never done it, and I don't think I ever will as long as I live.
   This game isn't for everyone though.  Casual gamers may want to skip this due to it's difficulty.  Hardcore gamers though will find this title very engaging and a considerable challenge to beat, and I very much recommend it as it's one of my favorite NES games.  It's only available if you have an NES console and a cartridge copy of the game and it's unlikely it will ever turn up on the Wii's Virtual Console due to being a movie license.  However, if you are a collector and are up to the challenge, seek this one out!

Top 5 - Best Zelda Moments

The Legend of Zelda is an all time favorite series of mine.  I can't ever seem to get enough of adventuring through Hyrule, stabbing baddies and finding treasures.  Naturally I have some very fond memories of the games and so decided to create a list of five things I really loved from my time with the games.  Take note this is just pertaining to the games that appeared on a console.  There are so many Zelda games out there and I haven't even come close to playing them all.


#5 - The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES) - Finding the Golden Sword.


This seems to be something everyone knew about, but I had played and beaten the game hundreds of times before I ever discovered it.  In the Dark World there is a fairy fountain on the side of the Pyramid of Power that can be blasted open with a super bomb.  This is the place where you get the Silver Arrows you need to whoop Ganon's piggy butt.  I had never, ever considered throwing in the Lv.3 Tempered Sword as well to see what the fairy would do about it.  Sure, I knew all about the Magic Boomerang and the Red Shield that you can receive from the fairy fountain just outside Zora's Domain in the Light World.  Why didn't it ever occured to me that you might get two new items from the Dark World fairy as well?


One day it DID occur to me, and I was rewarded with the Lv.4 Golden Sword.  Whoa nelly this is a beast of a weapon.  Most everything dies in a few hits and even Ganon doesn't hold up long under it's awesome power.  It immediately validated another playthrough so I could try and obtain this sword as early on in the  quest as I could (Which is after Dungeon 6 unless you perform one of those nifty walk through walls tricks... but we'll talk about that another time).


#4 - The Legend of Zelda (NES) - Actually Beating the Game.


The first Zelda game was by far one of the hardest games I've ever played, though it always made you want more.  However, my first experience with this game wasn't my own, but my brother's.  As a kid I watched him battle his way through the monster hordes, conquering dungeon after dungeon, and grow more powerful with every new item obtained.  Then he found Dungeon 9 which was the lair of Ganon himself, a maze that took you through room after room of the hardest enemies.  Time and time again he ventured in only to be defeated before he could find the secret path that would put him face to face with the Dark Lord himself.  In the end he never figured it out and the game was left to legend in and of itself.


Many years later I was going through a heavy Zelda phase and decided to have a go at the classic.  I started in the morning, working my way through the dungeons and eventually found myself at the door to Dungeon 9.  I prepared myself with full supplies of bombs and potions, and launched a determined offensive.  Several times the dungeon spit me back out to lick my wounds and buy more gear before taking another crack at it.  Then, after hours of struggling, I finally uncovered the hidden path.  I was nervous as I ventured into territory I'd never seen before.  There he was, Ganon... and then he vanished!  Holy crap, he's invisible?!  I ran all around the room trying to dodge fireballs, all the while trying to devise a strategy against him.  Finally I began to work out a method of attack.  Run toward the fireballs and stab at the area it came from.  Once I had worked out the timing he was easy to beat and soon turned to a pile of ash.


From there I proceeded onto the room with Zelda in it, and made my way past the fire (which I never knew you could kill with your sword...) and finally finished the game, only to discover the second quest which I have never even come close to beating.


#3 - The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (GameCube) - Discovering Hyrule


The Wind Waker puts Link on the Great Sea, a vast ocean only dotted with a few islands.  As you travel around this ocean you discover that it has very little to do with the Hyrule you remember from Ocarina of Time (The Wind Waker is around one hundred years after Ocarina of Time, storyline wise).  While there are two villages to see in this game, neither of them are Kakariko, though Windfall Island has a variation on the Kakariko musical theme.  So, where in the world is Hyrule?  Does this game have nothing to do with the legendary land we've quested upon so many times?


Your first hint comes when you meet the Great Deku Tree.  It knows ancient Hylian and mistakes you for the Hero of Time.  Hmm... only the Deku Sprout could know of the Hero of Time, and yet this is a massive tree inside another tree...?  Next you meet Jabun, which you might say is Lord Jabu-Jabu from Ocarina of Time (or as you might call him, the "fish dungeon").  He too knows ancient Hylian and has a brief conversation with your boat in it (yup, the boat talks).  The shoe finally drops after you finish the Tower of the Gods and unlock the path to the power to repel evil.  Outside the Tower appears a ring in the water, into which Link and the boat sink.


Turns out Hyrule is actually underwater!  Not underwater though in a sense that it's all flooded however, but in the sense that it exists as it was sealed underwater.  That means the Great Sea has a bubble inside it that contains all of Hyrule.  You descend into a castle courtyard and locate the Master Sword, and return color to the world below (black and white means frozen, you know).  You're treated to a muted version of the Hyrule Castle music, which hasn't been heard since A Link to the Past, and honestly this was a huge nostalgia moment for me and one I'll always remember.


#2 - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64) - The Forest Temple


Holy crap, your a freakin' adult now!  You've got this sweet new Master Sword to whoop up things with, and a shield that not only can block decently but doesn't burn up when fire is applied.  Life is good, right?  Wrong!  You've been missing from Hyrule for seven years and while you were napping in the Sacred Realm Gannondorf had his way with the Triforce of Power and has turned Hyrule into a wasteland of monsters.  The castle town is trashed, ghosts are everywhere, Lon Lon Ranch is run by Ingo, Zora's are frozen, Gorons are about to be dragon food, the Kokiri are monster besieged, and generally everything sucks!  On top of this you can't use most of the items you had as a kid, including your newly acquired boomerang.  That means you are more or less starting over.  So what can you do about it?


After gaining the hookshot from Dampe's ghost (yeah, he's dead also... good job) you have to begin the process of actually doing something about Hyrule's sad state.  This begins with the Forest Temple, which is my favorite Temple of any Zelda to date.  This Temple is also infested with ghosts, and has a very haunted feel to it.  Everything is dark and foggy, the design is reminiscent of haunted woods overgrowing a haunted castle, and it even has a couple corridors that twist, which messes with your directional perception.  What sells it though is the music.  Right from the start the music sets a mystical and enchanting tone to the whole dungeon and gives you the feeling that you really are someplace special and unique, untouched and forgotten by the world.


The boss battle too is quite fun as it's Phantom Ganon and fighting him in his second form is like a 3D version of Agahnim from A Link to the Past.  I was sad to actually finish the dungeon, but excited to see what else the adult side dungeons had in store for me.  Sadly, not a single dungeon came close to the look and feel of The Forest Temple in Ocarina of Time, let alone any other Zelda yet.  (Temple of Time in Twilight Princess was close though, trust me.)


#1 - The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (GameCube/Wii) - Horseback Battles


One of the things that was missing from Ocarina of Time was a reason for the horse to even exist.  There was so much potential in having Link riding around Hyrule with his trusty steed.  The only weapon you could even use from Epona's back was the Fairy Bow, and while shooting arrows while moving was a good challenge, why was having Link stab things from horseback such a problem?  In fact, you can easily finish everything there is to do in Ocarina of Time without even bothering with the horse, save maybe getting the Biggoron Sword, which you don't need either.


The Wind Waker didn't even have a horse in it whatsoever, giving you a boat to ride about instead.  That makes sense, as the world is an ocean.  It would be silly to have Link riding the back of a horse as it struggled to paddle from isle to isle.  While on your boat you had access to different items like your boomerang and your hookshot, as well as boat specific things like bombs becoming a cannon.  Fighting from the boat was actually a neat and fun experience given these options.  


Why then would a horse be a problem when no one had ever considered Link in "boat-back" battles?  People used to fight from horses all the time and did so with more than a bow.  Why couldn't Link use his hookshot, or Deku Nuts, or jeez, I don't know... his sword?!  (I know in version 1.0 games usually meaning the gold cartridge games you could enact a glitch where you could actually use items from Epona, so it was all there all be it glitchy as crap)  Even Majora's Mask didn't allow for much activity on horseback, though having Epona was actually needed to get to certain locations in that game.


Imagine my delight then when I first played Twilight Princess.  Epona is introduced to you early on in the game, and while you only really have a wooden sword you can use it from your horse!  Finally!  Then you lose your horse, and most everything else and have to struggle along as a wolf for a bit.  Once you clean the twilight from Eldin Province you are reunited with Epona, this time with gear you can use and a large field of enemies to use it on.  Everything works great, and it's very satisfying to finally get to do all the things you wanted to do in Ocarina of Time.  After messing around you eventually proceed on with the story, where little do you know you are about to be treated to a real horseback battle.


After returning to Kakariko you discover the kids are in mid peril thanks to a bunch of Bokoblins on hog monsters.  You chase them out into the open expanse of Hyrule Field and engage them in battle from Epona's saddle!  You are chasing one target in particular, but all the while you are being mobbed by Bokoblins on hogs who are shooting arrows at you and swinging their clubs.  In return you can retaliate with sword swings to the left or right, or go for the spin attack and clear out everyone.  Once you do enough damage to the Bokoblin King you are chasing he dashes onto the Bridge of Eldin, Link staying in hot persuit.  It's here you engage in a straight on joust with the monster and it's one of the coolest things I've ever seen in a Zelda.


Later in the game you'll also defend a carriage while on Epona and at the end engage in battle with Gannondorf himself.  That battle is unique as Zelda is riding with you trying to tag Gannondorf with Light Arrows so you can stab him with the Master Sword.  Basically everything you wanted to have happen in Ocarina of Time finally comes to bear in Twilight Princess, and it has a huge effect on the game and the intensity of the story.


There are many other wonderful memories from the games as well.  No doubt everyone has their own favorite Zelda moments, and I could sit here for hours going on about each and every single fun experience the games have left me with.  I just wanted to highlight five of them though as the one's I really remember and would site as reasons why the games are worth playing.  Memories that anyone who played the game would certainly enjoy and share.

Random Encounter - Zombie Nation

    Ok, I got one for you.  How would you like to play a game where you are a severed head of an ancient samurai who's on a mission to save the United States from the evil alien Darc Seed who's used his magnetic rays to turn  the citizens into zombies?  Well that and reclaim the sword Asura, which according to this game is the most powerful weapon ever (more so than nuclear bombs anyway).  To top it all off, Darc Seed has animated the Statue of Liberty, turning our national treasure into a symbol of evil.  That sounds like a block buster if I ever heard one!

    Actually, it wasn't, but strangely this game does exist!  Zombie Nation for the NES, released in 1990, is a side scrolling shooter along the lines of games like Gradius or R-Type, except it's bad.  It's the kind of bad that makes you wonder who in their right mind would actually make this game and think they were going to make money with it.

You can pick amongst 4 stages and change their difficulties from easy to hard, though easy is almost impossible as this is one of those games where you have to play it a thousand times to memorize where everything is going to be.  Enemies and objects come at you from all sides, and if you touch anything that looks like electricity you'll be reduced to one hit point.  If you die your head smashes into the ground and a text bubble with japanese characters pops up.  Awesome.

    Should you find yourself curious enough to try it, be ready to play the same things over again and again.  Also don't expect anything to ever make sense.

Equipment - Consoles: Old Vs. New

    I just wanted to take a moment to talk about the durability of video game consoles.  You no doubt are familiar with the issues the PS2, PS3, and XBox 360 faced.  Disk read errors, red rings of death… Even the Wii had it's issues with it's System Menu 4.0 update rendering your sleek little Nintendo console a white, slanted brick.  High technology sure has it's price.

    Rewind twenty years, it's the age of the original Nintendo Entertainment System.  The old gray box wasn't without it's own issues.  Stick a game in, shut the lid, click in the power button and… nothing.  What did you do?  Power off, slide out your game, blow on it, blow on the console, wiggle things, press down something, insert another game maybe.  Everyone had a trick that got the bugger to work eventually.

    How about the Wii?  If I put a disk in and nothing happens, what do I do?  Blow on it?  Push the disk in firmly?  In this day and age of next gen consoles there is one thing for certain, if it won't work you are more or less screwed.  Unless you are the savviest of tech geeks you're either on the phone with Nintendo's Help or in the market for a new console.

    I understand that these consoles are much needier devices than the older systems.  High end graphics, bluetooth, wifi, and internal hard drives all provide a number of things that could go wrong at any time, whereas the Atari 2600 - 7800, Sega, and Nintendo only had a motherboard and a cartridge slot for the most part, not to mention just simple RF or AV ports and your trust controller ports.  Very simple in this age that now lacks RF and controller ports (favoring HDMI, Component, Optical, and USB).

    There exists though another reason why consoles have become more fragile, a reason now long forgotten.  In the 1980's there was a video game crash of sorts.  Customers were't interested in consoles anymore and stores were quickly replacing displays of Ataris, Intellevisions, and Colecovisions with board games and card decks.  When Nintendo emerged on the scene here in the States they had a steep hill to climb.  There was no room for error as even the slightest slip up would forever doom the market to obscurity.  This resulted in the NES becoming a massively popular system, as well as the creation of the current video game era.

    Today games are a corner stone of companies like Sony and Microsoft.  Major games have productions that rival major motion pictures and release dates that the later schedule around.  E.T. on Atari had a six week development time from inception to release, Final Fantasy XIII was in development for over four years, both were highly anticipated titles for their times (ignoring the fact that E.T.'s flop lead to the 80's video game crash).  The industry is so huge now there really is little fear of it ever coming to an end, unlike the early days of Nintendo.  There is no razor's edge these days, just ups and downs.

    The consequence of this is that the same care and attention that went into the NES has been traded for mass production and lowered development costs.  What used to take only six weeks to three months takes years now, and in some cases more money than any single Atari or NES game grossed in it's time.  Naturally cuts have to be made where they can in order to curb time and lower prices for the consumer.  Unfortunately that sometimes means we're left staring at red rings and empty wallets.

    It's no wonder that old games are seeing a second life.  People are dusting off their old consoles for another go, even in this age of HD and 3D.  I think the new innovation in systems need to be reliability, not motion controls.  I'm confident that ten years from now I'll be able to hook up my NES and play The Legend of Zelda with a little tweaking.  I don't think my PS3 will survive that long.  My PS2 is showing it's age already, being unable to remember the date if the power is out even a moment.  And my PS2 is a slim, so it's not even as old as some of the others that exist out there.

    In conclusion while todays games are very gorgeous and tons of fun, the consoles are definitely letting us down, and I think it's high time we start remembering what it was about games that attracted us all in the first place; Reliability and simplicity.  Fun isn't determined by how it looks, but how it's played.

Random Encounter - Crystalis

    One of my favorite games of all time is The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.  Swinging a sword, exploring a world, finding items in chests, whooping monster baddies, it was the ultimate action RPG.  In fact, I usually gravitate towards any game like it, but few games prove themselves to be a worth while endeavor.

    Imagine my surprise when I found a game from the old 8-bit era that actually gave me the fun and excitement of a Zelda game without actually being one.

    Crystalis is a game released for the NES back in 1991 by SNK (You know, the guys who do The King of Fighters).  I won't say it really brought anything new to the table as far as action RPGs go, but honestly the experience with the game was solid even though I have yet to actually finish it.

    I totally recommend giving this one a try if you can find it.  I also would recommend finding a walkthrough online for it too as it can be confusing to figure out where you are supposed to go.