Forum > Blogs > Does It Hold Up? - NES Edition
Does It Hold Up? - NES Edition
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Sat, 13 Jun 2015 01:53:22

#7. Wacky Races: Quick Verdict - Yes, but you still probably won't care enough to play it

This game genuinally confuses me. Wacky Races was a popular cartoon in the late 1960's. The show would occasionally run in reruns throughout the years characters from the show would sporatically appear in other Hanna-Barbera cartoons, but that was really it. Then in 1991 Atlus released this game. Why? Anyone old enough to remember them would likely have been too old to have been interested in video games. That's just bizarre. To make things stranger, the show was about racing, but the game was a platformer where you controlled Muttley the dog. This makes no sense at all.

Anyway it's a well enough made NES game. A late gen game, so it's about as polished as an NES platformer gets. It controls pretty well and has a nice power-up system to allow for some variations on how Muttley attacks. The boss fights are a little tough (you fight the other racers in their cars so at least someone is driving). The real issue is basically the game is boring as hell. It's pretty easy. Even later levels don't offer up too much challenge. It just has a very bland feeling. Even if you're familiar with the series (and I am), there's not much to really make you go "oh wow I remember those guys!!!"  So it does hold since all the fundamentals are strong, but that doesn't make it fun.

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Sat, 13 Jun 2015 02:04:36
robio said:

#7. Wacky Races: Quick Verdict - Yes, but you still probably won't care enough to play it

This game genuinally confuses me. Wacky Races was a popular cartoon in the late 1960's. The show would occasionally run in reruns throughout the years characters from the show would sporatically appear in other Hanna-Barbera cartoons, but that was really it. Then in 1991 Atlus released this game. Why? Anyone old enough to remember them would likely have been too old to have been interested in video games. That's just bizarre. To make things stranger, the show was about racing, but the game was a platformer where you controlled Muttley the dog. This makes no sense at all.

Anyway it's a well enough made NES game. A late gen game, so it's about as polished as an NES platformer gets. It controls pretty well and has a nice power-up system to allow for some variations on how Muttley attacks. The boss fights are a little tough (you fight the other racers in their cars so at least someone is driving). The real issue is basically the game is boring as hell. It's pretty easy. Even later levels don't offer up too much challenge. It just has a very bland feeling. Even if you're familiar with the series (and I am), there's not much to really make you go "oh wow I remember those guys!!!"  So it does hold since all the fundamentals are strong, but that doesn't make it fun.

Then you'd be realy confused by the 2000 Wacky Racers game released for the Dreamcast. It was actually fairly decent.  I always make a point to call the IP "Wacky Racists". In a way the simplified characters are the perfect cast for a kart racer typep game, then you have a big audio resource you acn pull from (the TV show) to bring the game alive.

It was in heavt re-run rotation here in the 80's.

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Sat, 13 Jun 2015 02:14:18
robio said:

All right, I'm going to have to step this up. Unfortunately I now have about 3 weeks to do this in, as opposed to the entire summer as I initially planned. Due to the home/roof repairs I'm taking a weekend job at Best Buy selling computers. Not the worst job in the world, but it's going to suck up a big chunk of my weekend once July starts. Oh well, let's see what I can get done.

No videos, then? Sad

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Sat, 13 Jun 2015 02:33:46
+1
Foolz said:

No videos, then? Sad

I'm still going to try, but my week has been insanely busy. And tomorrow I have some friends opening a comic book shop and it's going to be an all day event (it will be the third biggest in the country). Hopefully I'll figure it out a good way to record myself on Sunday. I have all the in-game footage I need, but I can't do a real good job of recording myself.

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Sat, 13 Jun 2015 02:35:37
aspro said:

Then you'd be realy confused by the 2000 Wacky Racers game released for the Dreamcast. It was actually fairly decent.  I always make a point to call the IP "Wacky Racists". In a way the simplified characters are the perfect cast for a kart racer typep game, then you have a big audio resource you acn pull from (the TV show) to bring the game alive.

It was in heavt re-run rotation here in the 80's.

I saw that not long ago, and that's sort of what encouraged me to try this one. I can only assume Hannah-Barbera occasionally dusts off the idea of bringing the series back from time to time and always stop just short, but not before they get some licensing deals done.

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Sun, 14 Jun 2015 15:33:40

#8. Ninja Kid: Quick Verdict - Nope.

Boy, we sure did love ninjas in the 80's didn't we? Ninja Gaiden, Kid Niki Radical Ninja, TMNT, Shadow of the Ninja.... and even if you didn't play as a ninja in the game you probably were killing ninjas. Fun fact: 90% of all NES games had a ninja in it. Anyway, towards the bottom of the ninja game ladder of fame was Ninja Kid. In it you play as a kid who is a ninja, and you run around throwing ninja stars at things (occasionally other ninjas).

Despite being generic as hell, Ninja Kid wasn't a bad game by NES standards. The graphics are decent and the controls are a little loose and the character moves pretty quickly, but he's not completely unwieldly to control. Boss fights aren't horrible either. Unfortunately the game is really hard to navigate which is remarkable since each level is so short. The levels are wrap around, and you just try to kill everything until a door opens up, and then you climb a tower to end the level. I think... it's not real self explanitory, and since it's not much fun it's tough to be interested enough to look up any other details. So, it was an average game 30 years ago, and now it's just boring junk. Doesn't hold up.

Edited: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 20:29:48
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Sun, 14 Jun 2015 16:38:36
aspro said:
robio said:

#7. Wacky Races: Quick Verdict - Yes, but you still probably won't care enough to play it

This game genuinally confuses me. Wacky Races was a popular cartoon in the late 1960's. The show would occasionally run in reruns throughout the years characters from the show would sporatically appear in other Hanna-Barbera cartoons, but that was really it. Then in 1991 Atlus released this game. Why? Anyone old enough to remember them would likely have been too old to have been interested in video games. That's just bizarre. To make things stranger, the show was about racing, but the game was a platformer where you controlled Muttley the dog. This makes no sense at all.

Anyway it's a well enough made NES game. A late gen game, so it's about as polished as an NES platformer gets. It controls pretty well and has a nice power-up system to allow for some variations on how Muttley attacks. The boss fights are a little tough (you fight the other racers in their cars so at least someone is driving). The real issue is basically the game is boring as hell. It's pretty easy. Even later levels don't offer up too much challenge. It just has a very bland feeling. Even if you're familiar with the series (and I am), there's not much to really make you go "oh wow I remember those guys!!!"  So it does hold since all the fundamentals are strong, but that doesn't make it fun.

Then you'd be realy confused by the 2000 Wacky Racers game released for the Dreamcast. It was actually fairly decent.  I always make a point to call the IP "Wacky Racists". In a way the simplified characters are the perfect cast for a kart racer typep game, then you have a big audio resource you acn pull from (the TV show) to bring the game alive.

It was in heavt re-run rotation here in the 80's.


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Sun, 14 Jun 2015 20:27:27

#9. Batman: Quick verdict - Still good

I wonder what it is about Batman that translates so well into video games. Whether he's starring in his own game, or playing a supporting role in a fighting game he generally comes out pretty well. Sure he's had his share of stinkers, but Batman has appeared in over 50 games. I'm talking out of my ass here, but outside of the Nintendo universe, I doubt there's a character who has appeared in more games. Whatever the reason, he's been in a lot of quality games, and the original Batman title for the NES was probably the first to get really high level acclaim.

Is it still good today though? Yes, it really is. The game is hard. Really hard. But for the most part, I wouldn't consider it to be unfairly hard (though there's a few boss battles that are pretty insane). Just about everything the game throws at you can be overcome with a couple attempts. The soundtrack is really well done, and the graphics are good too. The character sprites are a little small, but they are still pretty detailed. The action is good too. There are multiple attack weapons that allow you to do more than just walk up to and enemy and punch. And remarkably, the game nailed the wall-jump, a feature that so many other games of the time couldn't do.  So, this is one to go back and play again folks. Enjoy.

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Sun, 14 Jun 2015 20:42:34

#10. 8-Eyes: Quick Verdict - Ughhhh hell no

I still don't get what the thinking was behind this game. It seems like someone wanted to make Castlevania, but without a whip. And a lot harder. Basically in this game you travel to different castles (not just one) and fight with a sword (that has no range). To make up for your weapon's lack of range, you have a falcon. The falcon can be controlled by a second player, and supposed that makes the game quite a bit easier. However, when you have to control both with as a single player, it's insanely difficult. And the game really does look like Castlevania. I have to believe the developers bought the code off of Konami, because each level looks like it came directly out of Castlevania and the only different between Simon Belmont and 8-Eyes' main character is the damned bird.

Without playing it two-player I can't give a definitive answer whether or not it holds up, but on a single-player level I can absolutely say no. The whole thing just feels like a bad knock-off Castlevania clone (since I'm pretty sure that's what they were going for). The developers tried to do some different things to their credit to make it feel a little more robust than Castlevania, but none of it worked. They tried puzzles with the bird, but he even controls worse than the main character, as well as a variety of special items to expand the combat, but just accessing them is difficult, let alone effectively using them.  The game is not fun. It's hard, difficult to control, and really has no reason to exist. Bad then, even worse now.

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Thu, 18 Jun 2015 17:11:50

ORIN AND CUTRUS! I PLAYED THAT! IT SUCKED! Grinning

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Fri, 19 Jun 2015 01:03:57
SteelAttack said:

ORIN AND CUTRUS! I PLAYED THAT! IT SUCKED! Grinning

Steel I think you're the only other person on earth who did. I've tried to explain this game to people for years and no on knows what I'm talking about.

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Sat, 20 Jun 2015 04:35:52

Oh man I remember that Batman game soooo good, at least from what I recall from way back then. The graphics looked quite good too.

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Thu, 09 Jul 2015 03:36:04

Is Journey to Silius in the list of games to be played? I just recently heard a clip of the first level soundtrack and it sure brought back some memories, pretty cool tune. Whatever happened to Sunsoft?

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Sun, 12 Jul 2015 13:53:50
Archangel3371 said:

Is Journey to Silius in the list of games to be played? I just recently heard a clip of the first level soundtrack and it sure brought back some memories, pretty cool tune. Whatever happened to Sunsoft?

1. Technically Sunsoft is still around. They released a few games on VC on the Wii U and 3DS. I suspect they're just out of the software business.

2. Journey to Silius isn't on it, but I could add it. It's not set in stone. Hell I've only gone through 10% of it so far.

3. And this is kind of a reminder that I need to get back on this. Earthbound Beginnings kind of burned me out on 8-bit gaming for a while since I spent about 20 hours on completing that.

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Mon, 27 Jul 2015 10:01:24
Ravenprose said:
Hmm, I should install that as well on my Wii. I bought a red one a while back; all I use it for are GameCube games.

Sweet. I wanted that one so bad. They did not sell them here.

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Wed, 04 Nov 2015 14:40:34
I'm going to have to go back and try to finish this list. Damn thing got derailed by Earthbound Beginnings (and real life). Still, I think I need to give it a second go.
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Thu, 05 Nov 2015 20:06:30

I'd certainly like to read more, that is whenever you have the time or inclination to do so.

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Mon, 09 Nov 2015 02:52:10
+1
robio said:
aspro said:

Then you'd be realy confused by the 2000 Wacky Racers game released for the Dreamcast. It was actually fairly decent.  I always make a point to call the IP "Wacky Racists". In a way the simplified characters are the perfect cast for a kart racer typep game, then you have a big audio resource you acn pull from (the TV show) to bring the game alive.

It was in heavt re-run rotation here in the 80's.

I saw that not long ago, and that's sort of what encouraged me to try this one. I can only assume Hannah-Barbera occasionally dusts off the idea of bringing the series back from time to time and always stop just short, but not before they get some licensing deals done.

I used to watch the reruns in the 90s on Cartoon Network.

They are supposedly doing a reboot in 2016.

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