Another of the Play Asia package today. This one is actually one half of the “Gauntlet and Rampart” double game cartridge (which, at the time of typing, you can get for a bargainous £5 from here). And? It is, as it always was, ace. I remember I was on holiday with a friend one summer and we walked three miles to the nearest arcade just to play this. It loses a little with just one player, but still plays fantastically …
This arrived in the post today, along with some other stuff, from Play Asia. And, since ugvm Retro Week has been extended into this week, it was ideal for playing! Or so I thought. It turns out that in the process of simply porting the original Megadrive Sonic game to the GBA, Sega couldn’t help but rape my childhood memories by making it worse than those shoddy “fan-made” Flash-based Sonic games. It has more issues than a journal library. Par …
World 11 was, in fact, the final world. Dark Castle and all! As expected of the final world, many of the levels sort of repeated some of the puzzles and routines of previous levels, although obviously mixed up a bit. Thankfully, there was no SuckySuck(TM) bit either. The end boss, however, did do the usual trick of dying, only to change form and regain all his energy – twice. I wasn’t too bothered though, as each form was very different, …
It seems that World 8 (my next “most likely last level”) wasn’t the final world either, even though it was a castle. It was actually the castle of goodies, not baddies, so clearly there was more to do. I’ve got a few more power-ups now too – a double jump (finally!), and a more powerful, and faster, dash-spin-kill attack thing. Of course, the game fights back to negate some of these when it can with stronger water currents, wind, and …
Didn’t play this for that long today, although I did manage to get as far as World 6-3. It’s still not getting very difficult, but it’s slowly getting more complicated, if you see what I mean. The puzzles (and most levels have at least one) are getting more involved, and I’ve had to solve a couple with trial-and-error simply because I can’t understand what it is I’m supposed to be doing. I was under the impression (although I don’t know …
This really is a most excellent platformer, you know, even though I fear I’m missing out on some totally riveting storyline with the amount of Japanese dialogue going on. Progressed past World 4, killing the Ice/Fire Dragon boss at the end that was somewhat heat bi-polar, and now I’m into Tree Tops World (World 5). Yes, a starfish in the trees, which are conveniently full of water and stuff. I’ve gained the ability to double-jump now too. I did have …
After playing Hide and Seek with some small turtles (or whatever they are), it was time to move on to killing the boss at the end of World 3. It was a thing riding a giant moth. Like the previous bosses, it was pretty easy, and I was soon onto World 4, which is Ice World. So lots of falling ice spikes and slippy floors.
You know, this is a deceptively deep platformer. In between the platforming and swimming, there are puzzles, spikes (and stars to collect) trapped in blocks you destroy, and a pretty large array of moves. Who knew a starfish could be so agile? I’m up to 3-3 now, and I seem to be hopping around the back of a giant turtle. You know, as you do.
I already have, and have played a little of, the 4th game in this series. I was hoping to start with the first game, but can’t get it for under a million pounds, and this was about 9p on Play Asia a while ago so I picked it up. It’s a cute platformer with some puzzley elements and collection, and many of the levels involve some sort of quest. So far, I’m on level 2-2, having just collected some furniture …
So I went rummaging around for three books that Mina suggested I might need. I actually had one already, and the other two were found pretty easily once I’d taken a good look at the map. I found another boss (Legion) who was alarmingly easy to kill, and then got another soul or three. After all that, I had the books required, and the three souls it was suggested I equip (Flame Armour, Succabus, and Giant Bat – all traits …
Bossaroo! Did the third boss-room-that-isn’t-a-boss first of all today, and then moved on to the actual next boss. At first, it seemed like it was going to be a giant bat, but then a huge hand came out of nowhere and squashed the bat, killing it. Instead, I had to kill the two hands and two eyes of a, uh, thing. Balgone? Something like that anyway. It was actually pretty easy once I’d sussed the fact you could jump on …
Death = DEAD! Well, sort of. He got sucked into some sort of whirlpool thing. I’d got the lightning doll soul, which really helps, and gone up a couple of levels. In the room just past Death was a soul giving me the power to swim (I guess Soma never got his bronze swimming certificate), so off I went into the waterways in the bottom of the map. Found lots of new baddies, souls, weapons (I now have an ice …
Well. It looks like Death is the next boss after all. I spent ages exploring every single part of the map that I could get to, and found some more weapons, potions and armour (and collected a few souls along the way), but found no other bosses. Now I have to traipse half-way around the castle again to get back to him! Bah.
I’m lost. I think. I killed another boss, and got a power-up to do the Jesus thing and walk on water, which let me access a couple of new areas. However, I then stumbled into some kind of garden filled with giant chickens, and then into some strange castles in the sky that are linked together in a strange way with really difficult wear-jaguars (or something) and devils in. Then I appeared to be in a clock tower, and it …
I’m 35% through this already! Lawks. Killed the Manticore easily this time, as I found that if you stand in the doorway, you can’t be hit. Grenade-tastic! After that, it was STOP! Hammertime! As in, I met Hammer. And he told me he was going to set up a shop by the castle entrance. As you do. I then collected a soul that gave me a double-jump (finally!) and had a bit of an explore some more, heading vaguely to …