Alphabest: Mega Drive – K

Alphabest: Mega Drive – K

Erugh. It’s pretty slim on the K front. Let’s hope there’s quality where there isn’t quantity, eh?

K

You know what block dropping puzzle games are good? Tetris. And Columns. And especially Puyo Puyo. And most of all an un-named game I pitched to Codemasters (on paper) when I was 14 that they lolled at and returned to me. You know what was never good but some people wrongly suggest is? Klax. Sure, being able to flick blocks back up for later is a great idea, but the game is boring.

King of the Monsters and it’s cleverly named sequel King of the Monsters 2 were ports of a not very good pair of Neo Geo games where giant Japanese B-movie monsters fight each other in slow motion while the surrounding area is levelled. They’re dire, so they’re binned off.

Kick Off 3 loses out because, once again, it’s a football game that isn’t Sensible Soccer, and Kawasaki SuperBike Challenge is yawn motorbikes. It’s basically the same game as F1, only with sprite changes.

That leaves… oh, just these two then:

Krusty's Super Fun HouseKrusty’s Super Fun House is an excellent reverse-Lemmings platform puzzle game. The aim is to pick up blocks, fans and bits of pipe to direct rats into the waiting death machine operated by one of the Simpsons family. Although not a Simpsons licence to begin with, and licenced games (especially platformers) often coming under the “godawful” tag, having the cartoon plastered on the game did it no harm and it turned out just great. It’s still one of my favourite Mega Drive games.

Kid ChameleonKid Chameleon is a massive platformer where the “hook” is different hats you find that give you different abilities. They let you fly, have a sword, smash blocks, fire lasers, jump higher, and so on. Some of the levels are a bit puzzley, others filled with pixel perfect jumps, and some have tricky foes or obstacles. I can’t stress how big it is though, as without warp cheats it’s hours long, with no passwords or save points. And it’s hard.

And the Alphabest?

Although K was a little short of games, both those I’ve shortlisted are truly excellent titles. However, the better of the two is Krusty’s Super Fun House. The only real negative for Kid Chameleon is the length of the game with no way of saving progress (not an issue for emulators now, of course), and although Krusty’s Super Fun House is also pretty big, it has a password system.

Next time! The letter known as L.

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