Pictionary (NES) Playthrough - NintendoComplete NintendoComplete 2024-10-21 | Pictionary (NES) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
Nosferatu (SNES) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-10-18 | A playthrough of Seta's 1995 action-platformer for the Super Nintendo, Nosferatu. Played through on the hard setting. I also included a few extras at the end of the video:Regular game over screen 56:07Game over screen after seven deaths 56:23The bad ending 56:39Easy level ending 57:16Normal level ending 57:45When the moon is dyed in blood, a bat departs from a forbidden castle into the night. Having changed from its human form to seek its next victim, his name is whispered in fear. Nosferatu, creature of night. That intro sequence doesn't hold anything back, does it? What a way to kick off a horror game, and one for the SNES, no less! More impressive yet is how, against all odds, the game actually manages to live up to the expectations set by that opening.Coming out near the end of 1995, Nosferatu was a fairly late SNES release that, like so many others at the time, came and went with little fanfare. What a damn shame that was, too, because Seta was punching way, waaaay above their weight when they put this gem together. Nosferatu is a novel chimera of a game, marrying the deliberate controls and rotoscoped animation of a cinematic platformer (think youtu.be/i6hylvkCh-8 or youtu.be/lZbNH1Wp6LE ) with the action of a combo-heavy beat 'em up, and it's all handsomely tied together by its Castlevania-inspired visuals and gothic vibes.It's a tough game, but it plays well, and it offers plenty to sink your teeth into (har har). The game has four distinct endings, most of the stages have multiple paths and secret rooms to find, and the silky smooth combat has a welcome bit of depth to it thanks to the inclusion of timed hits and combos that level up as you get stronger.And the presentation, it has to be said, is top-notch stuff. Between the fluidity of the animation, the quality and detail of the art, and the excellent soundtrack, Nosferatu's graphics, music, and atmosphere pose a credible challenge to the SNES's big boys of horror. It can stand next to Super Castlevania IV and Demon's Crest with its head held high.If you haven't played Nosferatu, you're missing out.(Fun piece of trivia: the credits list one "K. Igarashi" as a graphics designer. Coincidence? Probably not.)(Another fun piece of trivia: the super dramatic intro theme is pretty much a cover of the main theme from Christine, a movie based on a Stephen King novel.)_____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Beetlejuice (NES) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-10-17 | A playthrough of LJN's 1991 license-based platformer for the NES, Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice, the Netherworld's premier bio-exorcist who wears vomit on his face like it's makeup, starred in two games created by Rare for Nintendo platforms. The first was based on the 1988 film and released on the NES in mid-1991, and its follow-up (youtu.be/znqKdSEe8S4), based on the animated series, arrived for the Game Boy in early 1992.Beetlejuice's NES game is a platformer that loosely adapts the movie's story and presents it from the perspective of Beetlejuice himself. "The Ghost with the Most" has been summoned to help out a recently deceased couple whose [after]lives are turned upside down after the Deetzes move into their house.As Beetlejuice, your job is to help rid them of this menace. To start, you'll have to search around town for the Handbook for the Recently Deceased and make your way into the Maitland's house through the sewers. Once inside, you'll have to placate its new inhabitants in order to clear a path to the attic, where you'll find the door to the Afterlife's Waiting Room. From there, all that's left to do is to take a number, meet with Juno for your appointment, and bask in the satisfaction of a job well done.Because Beetlejuice is fairly weak in his natural state, you'll need to boost his abilities with scares. Scares are single-use items that allow Beetlejuice to temporarily transform into a variety of monsters with useful abilities, and they can be purchased from Recently Deceased Information Booths with the beetles you've collected. Need to get past a beehive without being stung? Try becoming a fleshless skeleton! Keep getting eaten by giant sandworms on Titan? Well, as the saying goes, two heads are better than one!Between the shape-shifting mechanic, the feel of the controls, the level layouts, and the use of an alternate dimension to punish slow play, Beetlejuice shares a lot in common with another of Rare's NES movie tie-ins, A Nightmare on Elm Street (youtu.be/rgfgSVauS_g).Like that game, Beetlejuice makes good use of its source material, it handles well, and it has an excellent soundtrack, but it needed a little more time and elbow grease to get it into proper shape. There are items (like the toilet roll) and scares (like the umbrella head) that serve no meaningful purpose, sprite flicker runs rampant (what's up with the HUD?), and since you die instantly when you hit the bottom of the play field, the borked way that the game vertically scrolls the screen often backs you into dead-end corners.Beetlejuice has all the ingredients of a good game, and it has its fun moments, but the lack of polish puts a major ding in the final product._____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Alien³ (SNES) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-10-16 | A playthrough of LJN's 1993 license-based run-and-gun shooter for the Super Nintendo, Alien³.Games based on Alien³ released across eight home platforms between October 1992 and November 1993. Seven were developed by Probe, and most - including those on the Amiga, Commodore 64, Master System, Game Gear, and NES (youtu.be/1KrBx2Faa6c) - were ports and adaptations of the well regarded Sega Genesis game (youtu.be/-8KG1QFPfkQ). The Super Nintendo version, however, was a new game altogether, built from scratch to take full advantage of the machine's capabilities.Like the others, it's a run-and-gunner that transplants the action of Aliens into the Alien³ setting. Ripley's EEV crash lands on Fiorina 161, a remote planetoid hosting an ore processing refinery-cum-maximum security prison, and she unknowingly brought the aliens with her.The SNES game differs in how it approaches the concept. Whereas the Genesis game was an arcade-style collect-a-thon that pitted players against a strict timer, the SNES game opts for a slower, more tense experience. The refinery is divided into six major sections, and to move from one to the next, Ripley has to complete a series of missions that are tracked through the various computer terminals dotting the halls. Every mission sees Ripley making her way to a specific area in order to fix a problem - usually something like clearing rooms of xenomorphs, repairing broken pipes and machinery, or rescuing prisoners - while fending off the hordes with grenades, a flamethrower, and a pulse rifle.The game provides plenty of direction, but it doesn't hold your hand. Each section is its own self-contained, open-ended maze of corridors, air ducts, and rooms. Missions can be tackled in any order you like, and they all require careful planning. Terminals helpfully provide blueprints with objective markers, and you'll want to study these to scout out the best route, as well as any detours you might need to take for supplies if you find yourself running low on ammo or health.Ripley controls well, the weapons feel good to fire, and the challenge follows a satisfying curve through most of the game. (The difficulty spike that comes at the beginning of the fifth stage, though - *so* harsh!) What really made the game for me, though, was its memorable atmosphere. I loved the worn industrial look of the grimy backdrops, the detail in the animation work (like how sparks from the blowtorch light Ripley up, or the way acid sprays when shooting a xenomorph), and the parallax scrolling that lends everything a warped sense of scale. The sound effects are true to the movies, and the dramatic music does a nice job of giving everything a sense of urgency. The presentation really nails the sci-fi horror vibe.Alien³ has a few rough spots, but overall, it's a quality game that spanks the majority of similarly license-based SNES carts. I didn't have the chance to play it back when it was new, unfortunately, but even now, decades later, I still thoroughly enjoyed my time with it. _____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Shadowgate Classic (Game Boy) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-10-12 | A playthrough of Kemco's 1999 graphic adventure for the Nintendo Game Boy, Shadowgate Classic.Six months ahead of the release of Shadowgate 64 (youtu.be/Ic5QiNk3YAA), in a seeming attempt to drum up excitement for the franchise, Kemco put out Shadowgate Classic, an updated port of their 1989 NES version of the original Shadowgate (youtu.be/OcZp3nETUXQ).Shadowgate Classic was sold as a Game Boy Color game, but coming along so early in the system's life, it was designed to be backward compatible with older Game Boy systems. Most of the videos I've seen of the game on YouTube show the game in GBC mode, so I thought I'd show it off in its gloriously monochromatic form. In terms of puzzles, locations, items, etc., the gameplay directly mirrors the NES version, but the interface had to be tweaked to accommodate the Game Boy's lower display resolution. The verb and item menus now sit on a subscreen that can be accessed by moving the cursor to the bottom of the screen.The music sounds nearly identical to the NES game's, and the graphics are similar, though everything was redrawn with more detail (and on the GBC, more colors), and the new font is cleaner and easier to read.On the Game Boy, it's still Shadowgate, it's still great, and its atmosphere wears that chunky yellow-and-green screen like a finely tailored suit.*Recorded with a Retroarch shader to mimic the look the original hardware. _____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Ghostbusters (Genesis) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-10-11 | A playthrough of Sega's 1990 license-based platformer for the Sega Genesis, Ghostbusters.Played on the normal difficulty level as Peter Venkman.The Ghostbusters were well represented in the video game space throughout the 80s and early 90s. The games didn't share the movies' reputation for quality, largely thanks to the botched NES port of Activision's original computer game (youtu.be/QpCERf-3MDs), but there were a few that turned out to be legitimately good games.Chief among them was Sega's Ghostbusters, a run-and-gun platformer that appeared on the Genesis/Mega Drive a year after the theatrical debut of Ghostbusters II. It was developed by Compile, the Japanese studio behind such games as Aleste, Zanac, Blazing Lazers, and The Guardian Legend (youtu.be/ky6CtLVo8nM).Controlling Peter, Ray, or Egon, you begin the game by taking jobs around town, eradicating spooks, spectres, and ghosts from your customers' huge, maze-like homes, and the money you bring in can be spent on weapons and upgrades. Once those jobs are done, your friends are kidnapped and you inadvertently open a portal to Hell, kicking off the final stretch that culminates in a showdown against an ancient god.In true Compile fashion, the gameplay is smooth, the controls are tight, the difficulty is stiff but fair, and heavy emphasis is placed on the game's memorably designed boss fights, each of which demand carefully considered strategies and fast reflexes. (And the StayPuft marshmallow man punching through the walls - how cool is that for a set-piece?) The graphics and sound are very good for such an early Genesis title, neatly rounding out the package. The English translation is a bit of a trainwreck, but it, too, has its charms.Ghostbusters for the Genesis is one of the better movie tie-in games of its time. If you like well-made, fun Japanese platformers, you can't go wrong with this one. _____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Birdcage of Horrors (Dreamcast) Complete Series [English] NintendoComplete 2024-10-10 | This video is a compilation of every episode of Sega's 1999-2000 "internet drama" horror movie, "Birdcage of Horrors" (グラウエンの鳥籠, _Gurauen no torikago_ ).The entire series recently received an excellent fan translation, and since we're in the middle of spooky season, I wanted to share this thoroughly novel bit of Sega history with you all. If you'd like to check out the translation patches yourself, you can find them at github.com/DerekPascarella/BirdcageOfHorrors-EnglishPatchDreamcastTimestamps:Chapter 1, "Contract"(Eps. 1-61) 0:10Bonus clip 1:07:04Chapter 2, "Birdcage" (Eps. 62-123) 1:10:15Bonus clips 2:18:30Chapter 3, "Trap"(Eps. 124-183) 2:26:41Bonus clips 3:32:48Chapter 4, "Encounter"(Eps. 184-244) 3:40:19Bonus clips 4:47:20Chapter 5, "Atonement"(Eps. 245-305) 4:51:43Bonus clips 5:58:45Chapter 6, "Tremor"(Eps. 306-365) 5:59:45Bonus clips 7:14:08If you're wondering just what in the Sam Hill you're looking at here, I imagine you aren't alone. I had no idea what to make of it at first, either. This was quite an exotic media experiment, and I don't think there have been many productions like it since.Gurauen no Torikago is a Sega-produced horror film for the Dreamcast. It initially "aired" between September 1999 and September 2000 as a series of 365 bite-sized daily episodes split across six chapters. Each chapter retailed for 2800円 and shipped on a single GD-ROM, and the discs were sold exclusively through Sega's online store, Dreamcast Direct. Once you had the disc, you would jump online with your Dreamcast to download an update that would unlock that day's episode. It's pretty cool that something like this existed in age of dial-up, but the novelty of it all aside, Birdcage of Horrors is way, way better than I had expected it to be. It's both a murder mystery and a horror film, and I found it entertaining the whole way through. The writing, acting, and production values are decent, the story keeps up a brisk pace, and the special effects are great. Those splatter scenes really go above and beyond. Fun stuff! You probably don't want to watch it with young kids, though. This is not PG material._____________ NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Zombie Nation (NES) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-10-09 | A playthrough of Meldac's 1991 shoot 'em up for the NES, Zombie Nation. Played through on the hard setting.At the turn of the twenty-first century, a malevolent alien being known as Darc Seed crash lands in the Nevada desert. Intent on conquering the United States, he immediately sets about turning the people into zombies, imbuing the Statue of Liberty with life, and stealing the nation's strongest weapon, a legendary samurai sword. As the only force on Earth capable of standing up to such a threat, a samurai's severed head, Namakubi (生首, lit. "living head"), takes off to save America.Zombie Nation is a horizontally scrolling shooter with a heavy focus on destructable terrain. As Namakubi, you blitz your way through four stages, firing a never-ending stream of exploding eyeballs and vomit at whatever stands in your way, and you can boost your firepower by capturing the innocent people who go flying whenever you destroy parts of the environment.The premise alone makes for one of the strangest NES games you could ever hope to play, and the designers at KAZe did their utmost to ensure that the experience lived up to the concept. Every stage is a hellscape with screaming people raining down from the skies. The boss designs are completely unhinged. The graphics impress with their detail and animation, even as the screen becomes an indecipherable jumble of flickering sprites and neon streaks. The music drives a good beat in the rare moments when it isn't being buried beneath a cacophony of explosions and screams, and the heavy use of samples gives the audio a comically brash, lo-fi quality. The bit-crushed orchestra hit sample used for the bass lines was a particularly inspired choice.The gameplay is nothing to write home about, but it's servicable. Namakubi is virtually untouchable as long as he steers clear of the laser beams, lightning bolts, and falling boulders, and when he's fully powered up, his eyeball/puke cannons melt through waves of enemies with ease. All of this comes with a major trade-off, though: the controls are ungainly and quite difficult to come to grips with. Namakubi exaggeratedly picks up momentum as he moves. The faster he goes, the longer it takes him to stop or to change direction - like he's skidding on ice - and whenever he hits a solid object at full speed, he caroms off it like a fleshy pinball. Namakubi is a huge target, and the imprecise controls can be a real source of frustration when you're trying to weave through tight spots. The game becomes pretty easy once you get used to the handling, but getting to that point is a challenge. In my mind, a rough game that takes huge creative swings is worth far more than a polished, innocuous one that merely rehashes genre conventions. Zombie Nation is a wild game that is as ugly, shrill, and clumsy as it is creative, ambitious, and impressive, and I wouldn't want it any other way._____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
♫WICKED CHILD (Castlevania) SNES Arrangement for 2xSPC700 - NintendoComplete NintendoComplete 2024-10-06 | This is an arrangement of "Wicked Child" from Konami's 1986 NES game, Castlevania, for the Super Nintendo. The audio was all captured from a North American launch model SNES deck.I thought it would be neat to see what I could accomplish using two SNES sound processors in the same song, and this was what I came up with. The arrangement is based on the version of the song featured on the Akumajou Dracula Midi Collection soundtrack from 1997, and it was done in two .spc files. One was playing the bass, organs, and pads, while the other was handling the drums and guitars. The setup made it a bit of a nightmare to mix everything properly, but I was pretty happy with how it turned out. It was nice having enough channels to play full chords, and the multisampled guitars really benefitted from the extra memory. (Especially the part at 1:27 - it wouldn't have worked nearly as well with just a single chip!)Thanks for listening! If you'd like to hear any of my other arrangements, I have a playlist of them here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3gSj_kh1fHueSujqQR8xQQ84DWIjrU4F&si=q7yxSFcOnwnaXrBPYou can find my playthrough of the game here: youtu.be/gev1_Qwjze0
Splatterhouse (TurboGrafx-16) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-10-05 | A playthrough of NEC's 1990 action game for the TurboGrafx-16, Splatterhouse. This video shows two runs through the game. The second, beginning at 20:17, is played on the hard mode.Splatterhouse, originally released in arcades in 1988, was the ultimate celebration of 80s horror tropes in video game form. On the edge of town lies an abandoned mansion where Dr. West, a renowned parapsychologist, was rumored to have performed all sorts of hideous experiments long ago. Rick and his girlfriend, Jennifer, parapsychology students at the local university, have gone to the house to do some research, but things go horribly wrong the instant they step inside. Rick wakes up hours later, alone, soaked in blood, and with Dr. West's fabled "terror mask" firmly affixed to his face. Not knowing what else to do, he steels his nerve and begins his search for Jennifer.The game is a platforming beat 'em up that sees Rick carving a bloody path through the house, its grounds, and the beyond. Furniture flies. Demonic fetuses writhe obscenely across the floor. Hanging bodies rupture into plumes of acidic gore. This is not a place for the weak of heart or stomach.The action is simple, fast-paced, challenging 80s arcade action fare. It requires practice and memorization to finish, but the difficulty curve is reasonable, and the parade of memorable set pieces keep things exciting right up to the very end. That's true of both the original game and the TurboGrafx version. Namco did a bang-up job in bringing the Splatterhouse experience home, creating one of the best realized arcade-to-home ports of its era. All of the enemies and stages survived the transition, the controls have been tightened up, and though memory limitations resulted in several cuts being made to the presentation - the arcade version weighed in at 24 megabits, while the TG16 version shipped on a 4 megabit HuCard - it still manages to come to impressively close.Splatterhouse was one of the best reasons to own a TurboGrafx-16 in 1990, and it's still an excellent way to satisfy those feelings of bloodlust brought on by the Halloween season.And don't forget to bring the handy-wipes. This is gonna get messy. _____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
8 Eyes (NES) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-10-04 | A playthrough of Taxan's 1990 action-platformer for the NES, 8 Eyes.This video shows all three loops through the game for the best ending. The second loop begins at 50:08, and the third at 1:36:03.Centuries after a nuclear war brought an abrupt end to civilization, a king seeks to restore humanity to its former glory using the power of the "eight eyes," a set of jewels created by the immense power of the explosions. Eight dukes, however, have staged a coup and stolen the jewels, and the world once again stands on the brink of annihilation. As Orin, a falconer who served as part of the king's royal guard, it's your job to defeat each of the dukes, reclaim the jewels, and return them to their altar. Only then will the king be able to do his thing and usher in a new era of prosperity. 8 Eyes is often called a Castlevania (youtu.be/gev1_Qwjze0) clone, but that descriptor undersells the developers' aims. Sure, the castles are full of skeletons and knights, important items are hidden in random blocks, there's a host of subweapons that allow for ranged attacks, and the graphics follow a similar style, but the folks at Thinking Rabbit clearly wanted to innovate on that foundation.Similar to Mega Man (youtu.be/PxyLui5LdCc), when Orin defeats a duke, he takes their weapon, and each duke is weak to another's weapon. The order in which you tackle the first seven stages is important, especially since energy upgrades and subweapons are wiped out upon clearing the stage they were found in. If you bring the wrong weapon to a boss fight, you're going to lose. Badly.Once you've finished the final stage, you'll have to place the seven stones on the altar in the correct order to end the game. There is a scroll hidden in each stage that provides a hint (eg. "Black is next to red," or, "Between black and white, there is no yellow,") for what amounts to a logic puzzle. There's no penalty for a wrong guess, but with seven objects and seven slots to place them, there are 5,040 possible solutions. If you haven't figured it out, you won't likely be seeing the ending, but since the solution never changes, once you know it, you can safely ignore the scrolls in any subsequent playthroughs. The last major way in which 8 Eyes distinguishes itself from Castlevania is that Orin is accompanied by Cutrus, his trusty falcon. In the single-player game, you can release Cutrus by tapping up+B at any time, and while he's in the air, you can command him to attack (down+B) or to return to your shoulder (up+B). With two players, player two controls Cutrus directly. Cutrus can defeat enemies that Orin cannot, break secret-hiding blocks, and collect items, but you have to be careful to not get him killed, and to avoid having him snag power-ups that would be better used keeping Orin alive. A second player makes things more manageable, but no matter how you play it, 8 Eyes is difficult. The short range of your sword, the questionable hit detection, and the sometimes impossible-to-avoid enemies are major sources of frustration. The second and third loops, added by Taxan for the North American version of the game, boost the enemies' speed and damage output, and this only exacerbates the problems. It's not impossible, but the game feels less and less fair the further you progress. And since they'd already changed the story and added two extra "quests," would it have killed the localization team to correct the in-game title? Maybe it's just the English teacher in me that makes this such a sticking point, but "8Eye's" makes no sense. Who or what is 8Eye, and what thing of theirs are we supposed to care about? I see that, and in my head, I'm all like, "Hello? Punctuation isn't meaningless decoration!" Did no one ever teach these guys the difference between "Let's eat grandma" and "Let's eat, grandma"?It's also surprising that so much religious iconography made it past Nintendo's censors. Castlevania had to change the cross into a boomerang, but you see them everywhere in 8 Eyes.8 Eyes doesn't match Castlevania's level of quality, but it's moody, it looks good, it has some catchy music, and it might be worth a try if you're in the mood for something that attempts to be a bit different.Now, can I interest anyone in a cup of tea?_____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Eternal Darkness: Sanitys Requiem (GameCube) Playthrough [2 of 2] NintendoComplete 2024-10-03 | A playthrough of Nintendo's 2002 horror/adventure game for the Nintendo Gamecube, Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem. This is the second part of a two-part playthrough, showing the Ulyaoth and Chattur'gha paths through the game. You can find part one at youtu.be/LNIgsfcH6CMThe game remains mostly the same on the second and third runs, but several of the cutscenes and the boss fights change to reflect the elder god Pious Augustus chooses at the beginning. The final cutscene only plays at the end of the third round. Ulyaoth playthroughA Death in the Family 0:27The Chosen One 7:55The Binding of the Corpse God 15:46Suspicions of Conspiracy 32:58The Gift of Forever 51:35The Lurking Horror 1:15:08A Journey into Darkness 1:32:52Heresy! 2:13:21The Forbidden City 2:53:50A War to End All Wars 3:21:33A Legacy of Darkness 3:54:25Ashes to Ashes 4:46:49Alex Roivas 5:12:36Finale 5:39:09Chattur'gha playthrough Start 5:55:47A Death in the Family 5:56:13The Chosen One 6:03:07The Binding of the Corpse God 6:10:29Suspicions of Conspiracy 6:26:47The Gift of Forever 6:44:38The Lurking Horror 7:07:39A Journey into Darkness 7:26:40Heresy! 8:07:14The Forbidden City 8:45:58A War to End All Wars 9:08:56A Legacy of Darkness 9:43:52Ashes to Ashes 10:28:42Alex Roivas 10:53:51Finale 11:19:41True Ending 11:30:08_____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Eternal Darkness: Sanitys Requiem (GameCube) Playthrough [1 of 2] NintendoComplete 2024-10-02 | A playthrough of Nintendo's 2002 horror adventure game for the Nintendo Gamecube, Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem. This is the first part of a two-part playthrough that shows all three paths and the best ending. In this part, I play through the game with Pious Augustus aligned with Xel'lotath. Part 2 shows the Ulyaoth and Chattur'gha paths: youtu.be/_Darna4qoT8Chapter timecodes:A Death in the Family 3:06The Chosen One 15:25The Binding of the Corpse God 27:08Suspicions of Conspiracy 51:10The Gift of Forever 1:21:52The Lurking Horror 1:52:58A Journey into Darkness 2:22:35Heresy! 3:15:09The Forbidden City 4:09:12A War to End All Wars 4:42:05A Legacy of Darkness 5:32:31Ashes to Ashes 6:44:30Alex Roivas 7:24:10 Finale 7:56:14I bought this game the day it came out, and I was so excited to play it. Horror has always been one of my favorite genres, the game was developed by Silicon Knights (who I had come to adore after playing their Dos game Dark Legions), and Eternal Darkness was the first M-rated game ever published by Nintendo.And I wasn't left disappointed. Kicking off with the reading of a Poe quote and the Nintendo logo turning blood red, you knew from the start that you were in for something special. The game follows Alex Roivas, a young woman whose grandfather has just been found murdered in the library of her family's ancestral home in Rhode Island. The police haven't been able to make any headway in their investigation, and when Alex begins looking into her grandfather's personal business, she quickly finds herself confronted by the stuff nightmares are made of.Eternal Darkness is split into chapters, each taking place at a different point in history, told from the perspective of someone who played a pivotal role in a battle that has been waged over the course of millennia, and the game develops all of them well enough to evoke a sense of empathy and dread as you guide them to their grisly ends. The story plays out in just a few key locations, but the circumstances in which you revisit them give each scenario its own unique - and often thoroughly unnerving - vibe that contributes color and weight to the overarching story.The excellent writing mimics the literary pretensions of 19th century gothic horror novels without coming across as hokey, the mindf**k moments are consistently unnerving, the visuals and sound design strike the perfect tone to keep you on edge the entire time, and it all still feels remarkably fresh and modern for a game that's now over twenty years old. It's one of the best horror games I've played, and it's one of my favorite titles in the GameCube library. Unfortunately, it remains a GC exclusive to this day, which begs the question: why haven't you ever seen fit to rerelease this on a more contemporary platform, Nintendo?(I recorded a playthrough of the game seven years ago, and with that video, I promised a follow-up that would show the different paths through the game and the true ending. For reasons I can no longer recall, I never followed through on that promise. It felt wrong to leave things like that, so this new playthrough is a peace offering. My apologies to anyone who watched that first video and got left hanging.)_____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
♫JUNGLE (Contra) NES Arrangement - NintendoComplete NintendoComplete 2024-10-01 | This is an arrangement of Kazuki Muraoka's Jungle stage theme from Konami's Contra. It has been arranged for native playback on NES hardware and is playable from a flash cart.I based the arrangement on Jake Kaufman's remix of the song from Contra 4 on the DS (youtu.be/qFIOvNl7G24) that was used as the alternate theme for the first stage when playing on the hard difficulty. The arrangement uses the VRC6 mapper, and the drums and orchestra hits are all 7-bit PCM samples being mixed down for playback at 12Khz.I'd love to hear what you think, and thanks for listening!If you'd like to check out any of my other arrangements, you can find the playlist at youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3gSj_kh1fHueSujqQR8xQQ84DWIjrU4FMy playthrough of the NES version of Contra can be found at youtu.be/CewtWdK4aI4
Mario Party (Nintendo 64) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-09-28 | A playthrough of Nintendo's 1999 party game for the Nintendo 64, Mario Party.All of the boards were played in 20-turn games against three CPU players:Tutorial 4:24Mario's Rainbow Castle 11:38Peach's Birthday Cake 1:14:18Yoshi's Tropical Island 2:16:50Wario's Battle Canyon 3:15:40Luigi's Engine Room 4:31:51DK's Jungle Adventure 5:35:10Bowser's Magma Mountain 6:31:13I had earned 57 stars by this point in the game, so from 7:37:54-8:57:26 I let the CPU play against itself to grind out the remaining 43 needed. The footage in this segment was sped up to 4X to keep the video's runtime under Youtube's twelve-hour cap.Eternal Star 8:58:40Ending 10:09:21Mini-Game Island 10:16:46Mini-Game House 11:18:36Mini-Game Stadium 11:26:00The Mario Party series has never enjoyed the level of prestige or the superstar critical reception that Nintendo's _other_ multiplayer heavy-hitters (Mario Kart and Smash Brothers) have seen over the years, but that hasn't stopped it from becoming a fan-favorite Nintendo staple. Of the eighteen Mario Party games, all but three have individually sold over a million copies. The series has shifted nearly eighty-million total units and raked in over $4,000,000,000 USD in revenue for Nintendo over the past twenty-six years. No matter how you slice it, those numbers are incredible, and it all started here, with the original Mario Party developed by Hudson, initially released in Japan in late 1998 and the rest of the world in early 1999.The series has evolved a fair amount over the years, but all of the major pieces were set firmly in place from the beginning. The concept - a board game celebrating all things Mario, packed with frantically paced mini-games that anyone could pick up and enjoy regardless of skill or experience - has proven its timeless appeal again and again over the years, and I expect it will continue to do so far into the future. Blisters heal and broken controllers get replaced, but Mario Party? Mario Party is forever. Who else is looking forward to Super Mario Party Jamboree?_____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Pictionary (NES) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-09-27 | A playthrough of LJN's 1990 license-based board game for the NES, Pictionary.2:29 Regular game19:55 Alternative gamePictionary, a video game adaptation of the popular 80s board game, plays a lot like Nintendo and Rare's Anticipation sans the Trivial Pursuit bits. "The game of video quick draw," as the box calls it, provides two ways to play. In the regular game, a team's turn begins with a timed minigame, and each point they earn reveals part of a picture. When the minigame ends, players guess at what the picture is, and if they guys correctly, they can roll the dice and move toward the goal. The alternative game, meant for two or more players, plays more like the board game. One player draws a picture, and their teammate has to correctly guess what it is before time runs out.As an adaptation of a board game, Pictionary is hum-drum. The handful of barebones minigames do little but stretch out the playtime, and the Logo-style drawing controls are cumbersome. Alone or with friends, it's not much fun, and there are plenty of better options if you want a party game for the NES.Unless you're a Tim Follin fan, that is. As was the case with so many other Software Creations games, the soundtrack single-handedly saves Pictionary from the trash bin. Whatever you think of the gameplay, it's hard to deny the lasting impression left by the sugar-infused, PSG-driven prog rock odyssey that greets players on the title screen. All of the music is excellent, but I'm especially fond of the almost-a-cover of Queen's Another One Bites the Dust.But if you want a good game of Pictionary, you're better off buying the board game._____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Ys V: Kefin, Lost Kingdom of Sand (SNES) Playthrough [English] NintendoComplete 2024-09-26 | A playthrough of Falcom's 1995 action-adventure game for the Nintendo Super Famicom, Ys V: Kefin, Lost City of Sand (イースV: 失われた砂の都ケフィン).Since the game was never released outside of Japan, I used a fan translation patch for this recording. You can find the patch at aeongenesis.net/projects/ys5Released exclusively for the Super Famicom in December of 1995, Ys V was the last entry in the Ys series to hit the 16-bit consoles, and for a time, it seemed like it would be the last we'd see of Adol Christin. Ys I-V came out over a span of eight years, but following Ys V, another eight would pass before the red-headed swordsman would return in Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim.A year has passed since the events of Ys III: Wanderers from Ys (youtu.be/f-ZEdTDWslQ), and Adol has recently arrived in the Xandria region of Afroca, the world of Ys' analog for the northern reaches of the African Sahara. Before long, he finds himself wrapped up in the mysteries surrounding a city swallowed by the desert five centuries ago. Kefin was home to an advanced society that had seemingly tamed incredible forces, only to be wiped from the face of the earth. No one knows if they brought about their own downfall, but tales of their strength have attracted those who would unearth and exploit the source of this power.Falcom brought development back in-house for Ys V, but most of the folks responsible for Ys 1-3 had long since left the company, and the game clearly reflects the turnover. Ys III is typically referred to as the black sheep of the series, but Ys V marks a far sharper deviation from the series' norms. The fast-paced, Hydlide-inspired bump combat was traded out for Zelda-style sword play. Magic has to be crafted, junctioned to weapons, and leveled up through use. And the storytelling and presentation lack any sense of the series' signature flair and personality. It's a good game, but it doesn't feel like an Ys game. I get the impression that Falcom's new development staff didn't know what to do with the series, and that they were drawing inspiration from games the series' creators had worked on since leaving Falcom. Many of those ex-Falcom employees went on to form Quintet, the company behind Soul Blazer (youtu.be/clPT-KSffOw), Illusion of Gaia (youtu.be/obmIQsY07gY), and Terranigma, and the influence is obvious once you see the connecting thread. All three games carry Ys' DNA.Ys V, however, does not. It's an amalgamation of mechanics, tropes, and motifs that come together to form a perfectly servicable action game, cozily plated with the lovely-yet-dull veneer of a late-gen SNES RPG. The graphics are pretty, the music has its soaring moments, and the story is interesting despite being half-baked, but the game tends to be remembered more for its utter lack of balance (magic is largely useless and there's no challenge to speak of) and polish - it's very buggy. The game's problems were so significant that an updated version - Ys V Expert - ended up being released by Koei a mere three months later. That was not a move that sat well with the people who had already paid full price for the original release version.Falcom doesn't appear eager to revisit Ys V - it's the only Ys game that hasn't been released outside of Japan, and it's the only 2D game in the series that hasn't received Falcom's 3D remake treatment - and I think that's pretty telling. It's not my intention to tear it down, but lofty expectations have always come part-and-parcel with the Ys name, and at the end of the day, Ys V is a thoroughly average action-RPG that utterly failed to uphold the series' standards._____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds (3DS) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-09-24 | A playthrough of Nintendo's 2013 action-adventure game for the Nintendo 3DS, The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. Timestamps:1:28:07 Eastern Palace3:17:23 Tower or Hera3:27:07 House of Gales3:51:53 The Master Sword3:55:44 Hyrule Castle4:04:03 Lorule5:42:51 Thieves' Hideout6:14:11 Desert Palace6:54:08 Skull Woods7:08:21 Dark Palace7:29:18 Swamp Palace7:44:16 Turtle Rock8:03:16 Ice Ruins9:00:40 Lorule Castle9:17:20 Final battleWhen The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom releases tomorrow, it will be the first original, single-player, 2D-style Zelda game we've seen from Nintendo in over a decade. On such a solemn and momentous occasion - as much as the launch of a video game can be, at least - I thought it would be fun to take a look back at the game that preceeded it. The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, a 2013 3DS-exclusive, is a follow-up to A Link to the Past (youtu.be/T8HXzrY3bO0), but it's neither a traditional sequel nor a remake. Rather, it's a brand new game created in the image of the original. It's set in the same world and borrows several NPCs, items, and its basic structure from the SNES game, but the story, dungeons, and puzzles are all original.Some of the game mechanics have been overhauled, too. Link's newfound ability to merge with walls not only opens up brand new avenues for exploration, but it also lays the groundwork for some of the best dungeons in the series. And since you now rent or buy your items from a shop instead of finding them in dungeons, most of the world is open to you from the beginning. The near complete lack of linearity gives the game quite a different feel from ALttP, but I'd argue that the experience it provides is just as compelling. The new setup flattens the difficulty curve a bit, but the freedom it provides does wonders for the sense of ownership over the adventure.A Link to the Past is incredible, and I'd argue that this 3DS game is just as good. While it is very different, it strikes an excellent balance between the old and the new. It manages to feel both nostalgic and modern.If you're feeling bold, you might even call it... a link between worlds! Funny how things come full circle like that, huh?_____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Pokémon Tetris (Pokémon Mini) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-09-21 | A playthrough of Nintendo's 2002 puzzle game for the Nintendo Pokémon Mini, Pokémon Tetris. In this video, I captured every Pokémon to complete the Pokédex and see the end credits. You can see the completed Pokédex at 6:43:55.It blows my mind that Nintendo's Pokémon Tetris might well be one of the most obscure versions of Tetris ever released under an official license, and that it was released for a platform that I had never heard of until just a few years ago.Pokémon Tetris was the last of the half-dozen games released in Europe for the Pokémon Mini, a low-cost handheld that's shaped like a bit like a McNugget. It features a monochrome LCD screen that displays a 96x64 image, it's powered by a single AAA battery, and its games came on cartridges roughly the size of a fingernail.The goal of the game is to complete the Pokédex, which covers all 251 Pokémon from Gen 1+2, by playing Tetris. As you play, you'll see the silhouette of a Pokémon hanging to the right of the playfield, and you can capture it by getting a "Tetris" (clearing 4+ lines with a single piece).The game offers several nifty twists beyond that, though. You can rotate your pieces like you'd do in standard Tetris, but you can also flip your pieces by shaking the Mini, and on the harder difficulty levels, 5-block pieces are tossed into the mix. And since the game type and difficulty level determine which Pokémon show up, you'll be thoroughly familiar with all its permutations of the standard Tetris formula by the time you've caught 'em all.With the amount of content packed into this 512K cartridge, I'm surprised that Pokémon Tetris was never remade for a more capable system. Had the graphics and music been reworked, this would've felt right at home on the GBA or as WiiWare. But as it stands, Pokémon Tetris remains a Pokémon Mini exclusive, and it's one that was never sold in North America.I'm not a big Pokémon fan, but this was cool. I'm glad I gave it chance, because I had a lot of fun with it. (The sound, though! Yeowch! It's like a PC speaker that's trying way too hard.)_____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (Game Boy Advance) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-09-20 | A playthrough of Nintendo's 2005 action-adventure game for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance, The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap.The Minish Cap was the fourth and final Zelda game produced for Nintendo by Flagship, the Capcom studio that had previously worked on Oracle of Ages (youtu.be/AClyoG0NDC0), Oracle of Seasons (youtu.be/UCArStVFpgE), and A Link to the Past and Four Swords (youtu.be/gJQX01tVPSo). It was also the only game in the series to see Keiji Inafune in the role of producer. That's a fun piece of Zelda trivia.Set as a prequel to the Four Swords games, The Minish Cap begins with Vaati, an extraordinarily flamboyant villain-type who is searching for the "light force," turning Princess Zelda to stone and shattering the legendary Picori Blade. The king then sends Link off on a mission to seek out the Minish, a race of tiny creatures who know how to reforge the sword, in order to take down Vaati and save the princess.The game plays like a traditional 2D, top-down Zelda game, and it introduces several new gameplay mechanics to the series. The most meaningful of these, the minish cap, allows Link to shrink down and explore the world from the perspective of the Minish, paving the way for all sorts of cool puzzles that bridge the gap between parallel worlds. Also new to The Minish Cap is the gust jar, an item that acts like a high-powered vacuum cleaner, and the cane of Pacci, a wand that can flip stuff upside-down.The densely packed world is impressively well realized, the puzzle design is on par with the best 2D Zelda games, the graphics look like a storybook brought to life, and the sound quality puts most of the GBA's library to shame. It's an excellent package, overall...But there were two things about it that really bugged me. First, the kinstone pieces and the lottery prizes are random, and it's absolutely infuriating when you miss out on things like heart container pieces because the game has decided that it doesn't want to hand them out. Basing such things in RNG goes against the spirit of the Zelda games, and I hated its implementation in The Minish Cap. And second - oh my God, this game does not know how to shut the hell up and to get out of its own way. Every NPC shovels paragraphs of text at you, and most of the time, they aren't saying anything meaningful. They grind the action to a halt to mercilessly paraphrase things you've already been told half-a-dozen times.So, the Minish Cap is an excellent game, and it's a good Zelda game, but did the experience set a new standard for the series? I didn't think so.*Recorded with a Retroarch shader to mimic the look of the original hardware. _____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Bugs Bunny Rabbit Rampage (SNES) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-09-19 | A playthrough of Sunsoft's 1994 license-based platformer for the Super Nintendo, Bugs Bunny Rabbit Rampage.Bugs Bunny Rabbit Rampage is a hop-and-bop platformer featuring everybody's favorite wascally wabbit as he undertakes a quest to find (and end) the animator who has turned his life into an never-ending string of life-threatening situations. Bugs' adventure spans nine stages, each based on a Looney Tunes episode, that pit him against a line-up of classic WB cartoon figures, including the likes of Yosemite Sam, Marvin the Martian, Taz, and Elmer Fudd.The concept faithfully sticks to the slapstick humor of the shows that the scenarios were plucked from, as do the game's striking graphics, which manage to perfectly capture the essence of these animated pop culture icons. The quality of the spritework, animation, and background illustrations is beyond reproach.The Sunsoft of the 16-bit era clearly understood that these were key elements to nail down when creating games based on popular media properties. There was one guiding design principle, however, that they seemingly abandoned as they pivoted away from 8-bit gaming, and it was one that they failed to instill in the companies to which they were outsourcing development duties. That is, they had forgotten that in video games, gameplay is king.Generally speaking, Viacom's Rabbit Rampage is a better game than Sunsoft's previous licensed platformer, Road Runner's Death Valley Rally (youtu.be/4Y7WLHsycv8), which was developed by ICOM and released in 1992. The controls are more responsive, the level design is less punishing, and there's better variety in the challenges it presents.But the game ultimately falls prey to the same core flaw that buried Road Runner: the presentation comes at too great a cost to the gameplay. The view is zoomed in too close, blind jumps abound, Bugs falls through the edges of badly defined platforms and is constantly pegged by projectiles thrown by off-screen enemies, and his attacks regularly phase through enemies without registering contact.The game's slow pace mitigates the impact of these issues to some extent - it's not nearly as infuriating to play as Death Valley Rally was - but Rabbit Rampage is yet another lesson in what happens when style takes priority over substance. It looks phenomenal, but with gameplay like this, you're better off just watching the show._____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (Game Boy Advance) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-09-18 | A playthrough of Nintendo's 2002 action-adventure game for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.Ten years after its initial SNES release, Nintendo brought The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (youtu.be/T8HXzrY3bO0) out of retirement and gave it a second shot at the spotlight. And this time, the entire adventure could fit in the palm of your hand. The game was part of "The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Four Swords," a collaborative effort between Nintendo and Capcom that paired an updated port of ALttP and a brand new multiplayer-based Zelda title together on a single GBA cartridge. They're both standalone titles, though a few crossover features - most notably, a new dungeon that appears in ALttP's overworld once you've finished both games - show up in a seeming nod to the link feature that bridged Capcom's pair of GBC Zelda titles, Oracle of Ages (youtu.be/AClyoG0NDC0) and Oracle of Seasons (youtu.be/UCArStVFpgE).But what I find interesting about this port of A Link to the Past is the ways in which it differs from the original Super Nintendo game. The core game remains essentially unchanged, but there are several minor differences that lend the GBA port its own unique zing. Among the changes made:-Link now yells when he swings his sword or falls from a ledge-The sword can now destroy pots and signs, the mallet can be used to smash rocks and shrubs, and grass and shrubs can be cut with the upgraded boomerang-A death only counts toward the end tally if you save the game after dying-The text has been heavily edited and revised, and some locations have new names (e.g. "Blind's Hideout" is now "Thieves' Town")-There's a new type of Like Like in the Dark World that can eat Link's shield and escape with it -A few enemy and warp portal placements have been changed-Some of the character and enemy sprites have been altered-Some rocks can now be smacked for rupies-Trees only spit bombs at you after you talk to themThere are plenty of other differences, but those are the ones that stuck out to me the most, changes resulting from hardware differences (aspect ratio, color palettes, audio quality, etc.) notwithstanding.Which version of the game do you guys prefer? And is your preference based on anything specific, or is it because you're more familiar with one over the other, or...? (I gotta admit, in this case, the nostalgia is far too strong for me to resist.)*Recorded with a Retroarch shader to mimic the look of the original hardware. _____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Heavy Barrel (NES) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-09-14 | A playthrough of Data East's 1990 run-and-gun shooter for the NES, Heavy Barrel. Glomming on to the success that SNK had enjoyed in 1986 with the Rambo-inspired Ikari Warriors, Data East followed suit in 1987 with their similarly testosterone-infused action game, Heavy Barrel.Like Ikari Warriors, Heavy Barrel saw players using dual rotary joysticks to mow down droves of terrorists from a top-down perspective, but it offered a few improvements over SNK's game. There was more variety in the stage backdrops, it had a killer soundtrack, and it had a unique powerup system. You could open chests scattered about the levels with keys collected from downed enemies, and these chests held a fun assortment of guns and grenades, as well as pieces of the title gimmick: once you'd found all six parts, you could temporarily take possession of the "Heavy Barrel," an enormously powerful hand cannon that would shred even the most powerful of bosses in the blink of an eye. Heavy Barrel eventually made its way to the NES in early 1990, and it served up a good facsimile of the arcade original. The controls were changed to accommodate the NES's gamepad and the graphics were pared back, but it was still a whole lot of fun to play, and it absolutely crushed SNK and Micronic's miserable NES conversion of Ikari Warriors (youtu.be/ysh16tya7nY).It doesn't get a lot of recognition these days, but Heavy Barrel is one of the NES's better top-down shooters, and it's worth dumping some time into._____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-09-13 | A playthrough of Nintendo's 1992 action-adventure game for the Super Nintendo, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.The third entry in the Zelda series is, in my opinion, not just one of the best games in the SNES library, but one of the best games Nintendo has ever made. It marked a triumphant return to the style pioneered by the original NES game (youtu.be/vyW3BngIKJE) after Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (youtu.be/pvse1JSiz9A) went rogue with its (excellent) platforming action, and it brought with it a boat load of improvements made possible by the power of Nintendo's shiny new 16-bit system. I was lucky enough to get a copy for my tenth birthday, and I beat it over, and over, and over again. Of course, that was only after I'd spent countless hours exploring every single nook and cranny of the game world. Don't be fooled by the runtime of the video - this meaty game will take a first-timer a couple dozen hours to get through without a strategy guide, and that's really the best way to approach it. A big part of the Zelda magic comes from the sheer joy of exploring the world, experimenting with your inventory, and bombing every flat surface in sight, and Zelda 3 packs a more engaging and memorable experience into a single megabyte than most modern games can manage in 50+ gigabytes. To nobody's surprise, it was instantly hailed as a classic when it was released in early 1992. The open-ended gameplay, the tough puzzles, and the parallel structure of its two worlds managed to recapture the magic of everything that people loved about the first game, and it offered several important innovations of its own. Toss in a ridiculously memorable soundtrack, a thoroughly next-gen graphical presentation, and a much improved control scheme, and you've got the perfect recipe for a fan-favorite with serious staying power.A Link to the Past is also one of the few Zelda games that served as a jumping off point for a glut of spin-offs, sequels, and rereleases. It was followed up by both the "Ancient Stone Tablets" series (youtu.be/B49NZISlrhQ) for the Satellaview and "A Link Between Worlds" (youtu.be/11oBHvX3Sn8) for the 3DS, it was ported to the GBA (youtu.be/gJQX01tVPSo), it has been reissued on several platforms through Nintendo's eShops, and the Game Boy games were all built from the template established with A Link to the Past. I was also a big fan of the game's official comic that first ran in Nintendo Power and was later compiled into a dedicated volume.Clearly, I find it difficult to not gush about A Link to the Past. I've loved it from the first time I played it thirty-two years ago, and I think that it has stood the test of time remarkably well. I still count it among the best in the series.____No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!Visit for the latest updates!http://www.facebook.com/pages/NintendoComplete/540091756006560twitter.com/nes_complete
Double Dragon II: The Revenge (NES) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-09-12 | A playthrough of Acclaim's 1990 NES game, Double Dragon II: The Revenge.Played through on the Shadow Master difficulty level.A year after Billy Lee saved his girlfriend from The Shadow Warriors, the underworld organization strikes back. Marian has been murdered, and the city finds itself once again under siege. Billy teams up with his twin brother, Jimmy, and together, they set out on a quest for revenge. Like they did with the NES adaptation of the first Double Dragon (youtu.be/3AyMj9-J1WM), Technōs took a liberal approach to "porting" its arcade sequel to Nintendo's 8-bit console.The NES version of Double Dragon II supports 2P co-op play and ditches the experience system used in the first game, but the level and enemy designs have been thoroughly revamped, and a new final boss was introduced to replace the generic machine gun-toting bub that capped off the arcade game. Having all of your moves available from the outset gives you more flexibility in how you handle the trash mobs in the earlier stages, and the ability to play with a friend gives a huge bump to the game's replayability. The graphics and the controls are sharp, the platforming-based segments give the action some much needed variety, and the cutscenes do a good job of pushing the plot along. It offers all the improvements and innovations you'd expect from a sequel.The NES version is often considered superior to the arcade game, a view that is rather nicely underscored by Naxat's phenomenal CD-based remake for the PC Engine (youtu.be/OSfpiwXNqG0) that thoroughly trounced the mediocre Mega Drive port of the coin-op original (youtu.be/Nx2_pjyUoNE).Double Dragon was a classic, but the series hit its peak on the NES with this top-notch follow-up. _____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Wheres Waldo? (NES) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-09-11 | A playthrough of THQ's 1991 license-based puzzle/hidden object game for the NES, Where's Waldo?This video shows the game completed on all three difficulty levels:0:12 Easy3:56 Medium9:06 HardWhere’s Waldo?, the beloved series of children’s books by British illustrator Martin Handford, challenges adventurous readers to find the eponymous traveler - a guy who has the bad habit of getting lost amongst giant throngs of people - in a multitude of (often hilarious) situations, each depicted in a lavishly detailed, two-page spread. The NES game, made by Bethesda and published by THQ, attempts to recreate that experience as an 8-bit video game, and I'm of two minds when it comes to judging the end product.On the one hand, the idea is patently absurd. Compacting a Waldo book down into a 256K game that's designed to run on a machine that displays twenty-five colors simultaneously works out about as well as you'd expect.On the other hand, I actually liked it. My parents grabbed it as a Christmas Eve gift for my sister and I in 1991, and we had a lot of fun with it. It looks awful and it can be finished in under five minutes, but it's far from being the worst NES game I've ever played. The map screen, the minigames, and the trip to the moon are nifty in a quaint sort of way, the scene layouts change every time you play, the music is catchy, and it's over before you can get bored with it. It certainly isn't a replacement for the real McCoy, but for an NES game that sold for about the same price as one of the books did, I didn't think it was nearly as bad as the magazine reviews made it out to be. (I don't remember Nintendo Power ever giving another game ratings as low as the ones they slapped on this one!) For whatever it's worth, between the two games Bethesda developed for the NES, Where's Waldo? is the clear winner in my book. Then again, even a microwaved mug of vomit is more appealing than the Home Alone NES game (youtu.be/mgHr_vkJGVQ), so that's probably not a great point of comparison. Whatever. I like Where's Waldo, and I really, really hate Home Alone. That's all I'm saying. _____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (NES) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-09-07 | A playthough of Nintendo's 1988 action-adventure game for the NES, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. Zelda II, much like Super Mario Bros. 2, was a bit of an odd duck. Both titles were follow-ups to some of Nintendo's most successful games, but instead of adhering to the styles established in originals, they offered brand new gameplay experiences. Going this route was a risky gambit, but it paid off handsomely in both cases, as did the hype generated by the short supply stock of both titles on North America retail shelves throughout the 1988 holiday season. Zelda II still revolves around Link's adventures in Hyrule, but this time, Zelda is playing the part of Sleeping Beauty, and she can only be wakened by the power of the Triforce. Instead of reusing the top-down perspective seen in The Legend of Zelda (youtu.be/vyW3BngIKJE), Zelda II is presented as a side-scrolling platformer. There are now towns full of people to talk to and quest objectives to fulfill, and though it still retains many of the exploration aspects of the first Zelda's gameplay, the sequel is more focused on dungeon-crawling and combat. As anyone who has played it can attest to, Zelda II pulls no punches in its difficulty. The platforming is tricky, and the enemies are merciless. A few whiffed sword strikes can quickly bring about your end, complete with Ganon laughing at you on the game over screen. The enemy attack patterns are predictable, but the game doesn't tolerate sloppy play, and you will pay dearly for flubbing the timing of your hits. It's not unfair, but it can certainly be rage-inducing at times. I've always found it to be one of Nintendo's hardest games. But it is fun, and it is a worthy follow-up to the original. The graphics and sound were terrific upgrades despite the game's age - Zelda II was released in Japan well before America ever got Zelda 1! - and the towns lend Hyrule a much-needed sense of being lived in. It's amazing that Nintendo managed to create such a successful sequel out of a game that defied expectation in so many fundamental ways, but there is no denying that Zelda II was a smashing success and a damned good game._____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
The Legend of Zelda (NES) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-09-06 | A playthrough of Nintendo's 1987 action-adventure game for the NES, The Legend of Zelda. The second quest begins at 1:58:21.Shigeru Miyamoto, the legendary producer and designer of many of Nintendo’s biggest hits, is inarguably one of the most important and influential creative forces the industry has ever seen. After playing an instrumental role in Nintendo's rise to prominence with Donkey Kong and Super Mario Bros., he soon went on to create the inaugural entry in yet another iconic franchise that would help to shape the video gaming landscape for generations to come, as well as Nintendo’s first million-seller. That game was, of course, The Legend of Zelda.As he explores the lands of Hyrule, Link must defeat monsters, solve puzzles, and conquer the masters of Hyrule’s fabled eight underground mazes in order to obtain the pieces of the Triforce of Wisdom in hopes of saving Princess Zelda. Spanning one-hundred and twenty-eight screens, Hyrule’s expansive countryside is full of secrets to uncover. Caves house caches of useful items, hint-giving NPCs, shops, gambling halls, and more. The Legend of Zelda's gameplay was defined by its lack of linearity and the scope of its world. In an era dominated by unidirectional platforming and shooting games, Zelda offered players an unprecedented level of freedom. It rewarded those who exhaustively searched every nook and cranny, and it allowed the adventure to progress, or stall, based on the whims of the person holding the controller. And even once Link had succeeded in his mission, the game still wasn't over. A brand new, harder quest awaited anyone who took down Ganon and yet still wanted more.It is difficult to overstate the importance of The Legend of Zelda, both for Nintendo and the gaming industry as a whole. With so many innovations packed into such a singularly well-realized world, it has earned every shred of praise that has been heaped upon it over the decades, and it's still a must-play for all gamers, modern and retro.And that gold cartridge was so damned cool!_____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Tetris (Famicom) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-09-05 | A playthrough of Bullet-Proof Software's 1988 puzzle game for the Nintendo Famicom, Tetris.The year prior to Nintendo's jumping on the Tetris bandwagon with the release of their classic NES (youtu.be/gE_JhntX3Bc) and Game Boy (youtu.be/BQwohHgrk2s) versions of the Soviet-themed puzzler, BPS published a port of their own Tetris computer game for Nintendo's Famicom.Nintendo's Tetris was actually based on BPS's version, but you'd never know it from playing the two side-by-side. They're both Tetris, sure, but they're remarkably different games, and with the upcoming Tetris Forever collection featuring this version of the game, I thought it would be fun to give this one a look.So what's different? Well...-There is no endless mode. BPS Tetris has six rounds made up of nine levels each. A level ends once you've cleared twenty-five lines, and the ending is shown upon clearing Round 5, Stage 9. (It's basically the B-Type, before it was called B-Type.)-Cutscenes (of Russian dancers, similar to the scenes in Tengen's NES Tetris) play at the end of each round-Pieces can only be rotated in one direction-Pieces can be hard-dropped, but there's no way to speed up the rate a piece falls at-The A-button hard drops a piece, and down on the d-pad rotates it-The backdrop and color scheme remains the same throughout the entire game-The game runs on a "lives" system, so failure doesn't result in an instant game overEven on the NES, BPS Tetris feels like an 80s PC game. The archaic design makes it seem much older than Nintendo and Tengen's games, but it's still Tetris, and it's still pretty good.(So long as you can rewire your brain for the controls and block out the music, that is.)_____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Double Dragon (NES) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-09-04 | A playthrough of Tradewest's 1988 beat 'em up for the NES, Double Dragon. This video shows both game modes. Mode B begins at 19:06.Building off of the successful innovations of Technos Japan’s previous beat ’em up, Renegade (youtu.be/5NWByyxT9ak), Double Dragon for the NES is an adaptation of the first game in a successful trilogy of arcade brawlers. When Billy Lee’s girlfriend, Marian, is brutally assaulted and kidnapped, he vows track down the one responsible for her abduction - the leader of the Shadow Warriors - known only as the Shadow Boss.Fighting across the city slums, an industrial area, a forest, and the lair of the Black Warriors, Billy takes on the entire gang in his efforts to save Marian. Each stage has been heavily altered from its arcade counterpart and now features different enemies and new platforming-based challenges. The majority of the game still plays from the 2.5D perspective seen in the arcade original, but the NES game switches to a straight-on side view for sequences that require precise-timed jumps. Building on the combo system first established in Renegade, Double Dragon features a far deeper fighting system than most of its contemporaries, and in a unique RPG-flavored twist exclusive to the NES version, Billy learns more powerful moves as he earns experience and gains levels.Though the graphics had to be scaled down from the arcade game, NES Double Dragon still looks fantastic for a game released in 1988. The enemies' sprites, though smaller and simpler, are still completely recognizable, and since there are only ever two enemies on screen at a time, the awful slowdown that plagued the coin-op version is gone, significantly improving the flow of gameplay. The music, especially the title theme and first level themes, are some of the most recognizable in 80s gaming, and they sound excellent on the NES.Double Dragon is a challenging game, but having only two enemies to deal with at once tends to keep things manageable, as it is now virtually impossible for Billy to get hopelessly surrounded. The lack of two-player cooperative play is unfortunate, though, and the superfluous versus mode doesn't do much to make up for the loss.Overall, though it's not particularly faithful to the arcade game, Double Dragon on the NES does an excellent job of adapting the experience for the home market. Given its quality, it's hardly a surprise that it became one of console's biggest third-party hits of 1988._____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Waynes World (NES) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-08-31 | A playthrough of THQ's 1993 license-based action game for the NES, Wayne's World. Wayne's World for the NES! Party Time! Excellent!...?Not!! When Wayne said, "I once thought I had mono for an entire year. It turned out I was just really bored," he left out one key detail: he had actually been playing Wayne's World for the NES.Wayne's World is one of those NES games that you would've rented, played for a half hour, and then left on the coffee table to collect dust until the time came to return it to the video store. It wasn't bad enough to actively resent, nor was it good enough to warrant any further attention. Like so many late-gen NES games - especially the media tie-ins - it's technically proficient and utterly soulless. The controls are sufficiently responsive, the difficulty level is reasonable, and the graphics and sound get the job done, but Wayne's World feels like a product designed solely to take your money. It does nothing to give the sense that it was made people who cared to do more than the bare minimum, with one exception: the manual does an excellent job at channeling the humor and spirit of the movie. I actually laughed a couple of times while reading it. If the idea of kicking light bulbs and collecting doughnuts excites you, then schwing! You'll dig this.For everyone else, it's not worthy._____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Tetris (NES) Playthrough [Nintendo version] NintendoComplete 2024-08-30 | A playthrough of Nintendo's 1989 puzzle game for the NES, Tetris.This video shows both game types and all of their endings. The A-Type games begin at 0:17, and the B-Type games begin at 21:56.(The final B-Type ending at 41:28 is especially great with its cameo appearances of all of Nintendo's major mascot characters! I never would've pegged Samus as a cello player, nor Bowser as an accordion man.)I don't think I need to regale anyone with the complete history of Tetris, but the NES version is notable for a couple of different reasons. It is one of the few NES games that launched after its handheld counterpart (youtu.be/BQwohHgrk2s), and it wasn't the first NES Tetris game to be released in America. Tengen had already produced an arguably superior version, but their cart was pulled from shelves about a month after its release. Nintendo had officially acquired the rights that Tengen *thought* were theirs to produce the game for the US console market, and Tengen's rendition of the game was quickly sidelined.You can find my video of the Tengen version here: youtu.be/lUJbiLJrkgoBut while Nintendo's port of the game is, ironically enough, not as good as Atari's, it is still an excellent cart that managed to hook millions of players. The fun music, the simple yet addictive gameplay, and a boatload of cameos by classic Nintendo characters all made it the perfect game to chill with, and its vibe resonated with everybody, elementary school boys and technophobic grandmothers alike. And does anyone else remember those crazy commercials Nintendo ran nonstop during the 1989 holiday season? Like the ones with the Russian cartoon bears and the opera singer? Hahaha, man, how times have changed._____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Fade to Black (PlayStation) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-08-29 | A playthrough of Electronic Arts' 1996 action game for the Sony PlayStation, Fade to Black.Played through on the medium skill level.I included a few extras after the ending. You can find a compilation of the FMV death scenes at 2:16:41, and the bad ending is shown at 2:18:07.Fade to Black, originally released for Dos PCs in 1995, is the direct sequel to Delphine Software's 1992 best-seller, Flashback: The Quest for Identity (youtu.be/-4d2vsyo79c).Following the destruction of the Morph's homeworld at the end of Flashback, -Ellen Ripley- Conrad Hart sets his shuttle adrift and places himself in cryostasis, hoping to evade his pursuers. However, fifty years later, he awakens to find himself surrounded by a Morph boarding party. Conrad is taken to their penal colony on the moon, New Alcatraz, but soon after he arrives, he is contacted by members of a resistance faction. They explain that the Morphs have attacked Earth and are now in possession of a potent mind control weapon. It looks like it's up to Conrad to once again take out the trash in the name of humanity!Like Flashback, Fade to Black is a "cinematic platformer" chock full of gunfire, computer terminals, and references to 80s action movies, and conceptually, the two games are very similar. But in practice, the shift from 2D to 3D was a complete game changer. The game looked amazing - arguably even more so than Flashback had three years prior - and the use of 3D gave everything a heightened sense of weight and scale. Given that Fade to Black comes from a time when 3D accelerators were not yet commonplace, and that it predates the first Tomb Raider by more than a year, I think it would be fair to say that it was ahead of its time.Fade to Black was an ambitious pioneer that provided a tantalizing glimpse at the future of 3D games, but that was also its greatest weakness. There was no genre blueprint to work from, and that's made plain by the inherent clunkiness of the controls, the uncooperative camera, and the design of some of its puzzles, all of which were points of criticism leveled at the game when it first released.Suffice it to say, Fade to Black has not aged well, but it's still quite playable, and even fun, if you can avoid judging it by the standards that you'd apply to a modern game. The PlayStation port is pretty solid, too, and it runs better than the game did on an average PC of the time. I, for one, prefer it to Flashback. (Except for the flying vehicle sections. Those are truly, truly terrible.)Does anyone else remember how the Dos version could bring even a mighty Pentium 75 or 90 to its knees in SVGA mode? _____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Nobunagas Ambition (NES) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-08-28 | A playthrough of Koei's 1989 historical war simulation game for the NES, Nobunaga's Ambition. This video shows two playthroughs. The first is a 17-fief game played as Uesugi. The second, beginning at 2:27:44, is a 50-fief game played as Kakizaki.Koei's first ever strategy game, Nobunaga's Ambition (信長の野望), was a huge hit when it first appeared on Japanese computers in 1983, and it played an prominent role in establishing the military war sim genre. Its 1986 sequel, Nobunaga's Ambition: Zenkokuban (信長の野望 全国版), was the first game in the series to see an international release, and it was the basis for this Famicom/NES conversion.Set in the Sengoku era of Japanese history, Nobunaga's Ambition challenges you to do what even the mighty Nobunaga Oda himself could not: to become shogun and to unite all of Japan under your banner. Japan is split into fifty fiefdoms, each led by a powermongering daimyo, and the game begins by asking you to choose who among them will act as your proxy.The campaign kicks off in the spring of 1560, and you are given total freedom to do as you see fit. You can hire assassins or declare war on your neighbors, but you'll generally want to start by establishing a solid economy in your home territory and growing your forces. The more self-sufficient you become, the better off you'll be when the time comes to expand.The first few years are arguably the most difficult, but when - and if - you survive the opening salvos and claim a few neighboring fiefs as your own, the keel starts to even out. You'll fall into a rhythm as you go about building up your towns, training your troops, scaling up food production, and hiring ninja to spy on (and occasionally sabotage or assassinate) your opponents, and once you've grown strong enough, you take a few more fiefs and repeat the process. The cycle ends only once you've won it all or died trying.Koei's war sims are infamous for the barriers they pose to newcomers. They ask you to juggle a ton of factors at once, their clunky interfaces are dominated by text menus and data tables, and their mechanics become increasingly complex as you make progress. However, if you invest the time to pierce the seemingly impenetrable veil that shrouds any of these games, you'll see how they've earned such loyal fanbases over the years. They're basically the video game equivalent of crack. They won't turn you into a toothless psychotic, but they will leave you hopelessly addicted. Nobunaga's Ambition probably won't sit well with people who demand things like animated graphics and action from their NES games, but if you like to think, you couldn't ask for a better game. Or a better gateway drug.(And after a careful read of the manual and a few false starts, things will begin to make sense, I promise. It's not nearly as complicated as it first seems.)_____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Sword of Mana (Game Boy Advance) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-08-24 | A playthrough of Nintendo's 2003 action-RPG for the Game Boy Advance, Sword of Mana.Played as the hero. Neither he nor the heroine have preset names, so I used the names they were given in Adventures of Mana.Sword of Mana is a reimagining of Final Fantasy Adventure (youtu.be/dTUYbI1pkf4), the first game in the Seiken Densetsu series that originally released for the Game Boy in 1991. It was created by Brownie Brown, a studio largely staffed by ex-Square employees who had previously worked on Legend of Mana (youtu.be/qHHOPJVixp8), and it incorporates several elements from that game, along with various mechanics first seen in Secret of Mana (youtu.be/dSwf9DJz_dA) and Trials of Mana (youtu.be/kMgzQI-A-Yc).In Sword of Mana, a mysterious and cruel figure known as Dark Lord is hunting down members of the Mana tribe in hopes of exploiting the power of the fabled Mana Tree. Unlike Final Fantasy Adventure, Sword of Mana begins by asking whether you'd like to play as "the hero," a slave who is forced to fight in gladtorial arena battles for Dark Lord's entertainment, or "the heroine," one of the last surviving members of the Mana tribe. Your choice determines how you'll experience certain specific story events, and it influences how battles play out. The boy is primarily a brawler, while the girl is more adept at magic.The game follows the basic blueprint set down by FFA, but it goes to great lengths to expand on every facet of the original's gameplay. Nameless NPCs have been fleshed out with dramatic backstories that come to light as you complete multi-step sidequests. Weapons now carry elemental affinities and can be forged and upgraded through an intricate crafting system. Magic spells and weapon types can all be leveled up individually. Different enemies types and quest-specific characters can be encountered at different times of day. If you've played Final Fantasy VII Remake, you'll notice a lot of the same ideas at play in Sword of Mana. It tortuously wrings dry every element of the source material, it shoehorns in checklists of grind-heavy objectives, and it overcomplicates the bejezus out of simple gameplay mechanics, all while giving the visuals a welcome overhaul.That list doesn't paint the game in a flattering light, I know, but I didn't think it was a bad game. It wants to remain faithful to the original while also trying to be something new, and though it ends up being neither, I could easily imagine someone who is new to the series enjoying it. But to me, someone who was already very familiar with FFA, it felt like the butter had been scraped bit too thin across the toast. The remixed soundtrack is also uncharacteristically weak for a Mana game, but man, constant screen-tearing aside, this sure does look amazing for a Game Boy Advance game.*Recorded with a Retroarch shader to mimic the look of the original hardware._____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Shadow of the Ninja (NES) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-08-23 | A playthrough of Natsume's 1990 action game for the NES, Shadow of the Ninja. In 2029, the evil demon Garuda takes over New York City, and two ninja have appeared to put a stop to his nefarious ways. So begins Shadow of the Ninja (renamed Blue Shadow for PAL territories), a Natsume-developed action-platformer that was released in late 1990.Unlike Ninja Gaiden (youtu.be/V822oMzJQSg) and Wrath of the Black Manta (youtu.be/aiMK97bemmc), Shadow of the Ninja doesn't have any cinematic aspirations. The plot doesn't make one lick of sense - why is Vishnu's horse-bird attacking, and why are ninja the last line of defense for a major American city? - but that hardly matters when you're talking about an 8-bit action game, and especially one of this caliber. Shadow of the Ninja's five stages balance hack-and-slash combat with platforming challenges. Hayate and Kaede can arm themselves with upgradable katana and kusarigama (a weighted chain sickle), shuriken, and grenades, and to facilitate smooth movement through each area, they can freely flip between platforms, hang from ledges, and move hand-over-hand across ceilings. They also have a special power move that calls down a bolt of lightning to hit everything on screen, but since it consumes half your life gauge, it has to be used sparingly.The flow of the stage layouts and the enemy behavior patterns keep the action moving at a good pace. It's not a particularly difficult game - it doesn't embrace the obnoxious knock-back traps that Ninja Gaiden is famous for - but it will test your reflexes and your knowledge of the game mechanics, and some of the boss encounters can be pretty tricky. The game is also a total blast to play in its novel simultaneous 2P co-op mode. (I wonder if the people who made Run Saber took inspiration from Shadow of the Ninja... they have a fair amount in common.)The soundtrack is pretty killer, too.Shadow of the Ninja is an excellent NES action game, and it's a good show of the quality that Natsume would become known for in the years that followed. Who else is looking forward to the remake?_____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Third World War (Sega CD) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-08-22 | A playthrough of Extreme Entertainment Group's 1994 strategy game for the Sega CD, Third World War. In this video, I play through "The Third World War" scenario as the United States. Third World War, created by Japanese developer Micronet, is a tactical strategy game that places you in control of one of sixteen nations engaged in an all-out race for global domination.Victory can be achieved in one of two ways:If you opt for military conquest, you'll need to build up your armed forces, invest in developing new technologies, broker strategic alliances, and invade vulnerable territories in order to expand your influence and gain access to valuable resources, all while protecting your interests at home.Or, if you prefer a less bloody path, you can rule the world through economic might by investing in foreign markets, forming trade agreements, and funding activities that cultivate civil unrest in order to undermine your competitors' ability to compete on a global scale.The game feels a lot like Koei's strategy sims - it involves a lot of micromanagement and wading through screens filled with abstract statistics - but it's more streamlined and easily digestible than Koei's games tend to be. The consequences of your decisions are immediate and their impacts are made clear, and even though there are a lot of things to juggle at once, the game doesn't leave you feeling like you're spinning your wheels. As someone who generally avoids this sort of game, I thought Third World War struck a good balance between complexity and playability, and I appreciated its comparatively gentle learning curve.The game's real-time battle scenes are a novel and engaging standout, too. The awkward cursor movement, the stupid AI, and the excruciatingly slow pace of combat aren't ideal, but each territory has its own charmingly rendered, SimCity 2000-like isometric map, and having direct control over battles means that success isn't entirely dependent on invisible RNG-based factors.Third World War isn't a game that'll scratch an itchy trigger finger, but I loved its sense of scale, use of real-world settings, and approachability. If the premise appeals to you, this niche Sega CD exclusive would be worth pouring some time into._____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Desert Commander (NES) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-08-21 | A playthrough of Kemco's 1989 strategy game for the NES, Desert Commander. This video shows all five scenarios:First Battle 0:33 Way to Victory 28:10 Offense & Defense 51:35 Bloody Battle 1:13:04 North African Front 1:49:36Kemco's Sensha Senryaku: Sabaku no Kitune (「 戦車戦略 砂漠の狐」, lit. "Tank Strategy: Desert Fox"), a 1988 turn-based strategy war game, was a fairly early example of its particular subgenre on the Famicom. It predates even Nintendo's Famicom Wars by nearly four months.Playing as General Erwin "Desert Fox" Rommel, star strategist of the Nazi's North African campaign in World War II, it's your job to repel the advances of the British forces over the course of five increasingly difficult scenarios.Desert Fox officially made its way westward the following year under the name Desert Commander, though as you might've already guessed, it underwent a few alterations during the localization process. The Famicom game's box art, which featured a painting of Rommel posing with a fox and a Nazi flag behind some tanks, was changed to something more -generic- culturally sensitive. Desert Commander pointedly avoids making any direct references to World War II and its participants, but if you're familiar with the history, the parallels are clear.The gameplay is somewhat less spicy than what the subject matter might suggest, but it's solid. For each scenario, you pick which units to deploy, and you maneuver them around the battlefield - with some sense of strategy, ideally - in order to bring down the enemy's HQ unit.There are several things to consider as you plan your attack. The distance a unit can travel depends on how well suited it is to the terrain. You're a mobile-but-easy target if you stick to the open roads, and you lose range on rugged ground, but the stat boosts granted by fighting from certain terrain types is often well worth the sacrifice. You also have to be careful about how you group units - boxing units in can leave them sitting ducks, but you don't want to leave the flanks wide open, and you can't afford to ignore managing your resources. AA guns aren't much help if they run out of ammo, and forgetting to refuel your bombers and having them fall into the sea is rarely a sound strategy.The gameplay is straightforward, and a few annoyances with the interface aside, battles move along smoothly and at a reasonable pace. It's also a good challenge... the first few times you play. Before long you'll realize that the AI always makes a beeline for anyone in range, and this makes it so that every battle can be won the same way. Just throw a few sacrificial pawns out in front to draw the enemies away from their base, and once they're distracted, fly your bombers over to their HQ and blow it to kingdom come. Easy peasy. The versus mode gives the game a ton of replayability, though, as does the ability to customize your units for each scenario.It looks a bit crunchy and old, but it's still a good console-style strategy game that's easy to learn and fun to get into. And if you liked Advance Wars, I'd recommend giving Desert Commander a shot. It offers a very similar experience. _____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Legend of Mana (PlayStation) Playthrough [2 of 2] NintendoComplete 2024-08-21 | A playthrough of Square's 2000 action-RPG for the Sony PlayStation, Legend of Mana.This is the second part of a two-part video. You can find part one here: youtu.be/qHHOPJVixp8If you want to see the end, the Mana Tree area begins at 7:37:15, and the last boss battle begins at 7:44:36.Some of these late game bosses are so bad ass in their designs, aren't they?_____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Sewer Shark (Sega CD) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-08-17 | A playthrough of Sony Imagesoft's 1992 FMV rail-shooter for the Sega CD, Sewer Shark.Originally created in 1987 for the later canceled Hasbro NEMO (a machine that provided FMV playback via VHS tapes), Sewer Shark was Digital Pictures' second major production, building on the foundation they'd established with their previous NEMO title, Night Trap (youtu.be/YBaW40NUCTU). When the plug was pulled on the NEMO project, Night Trap and Sewer Shark were both shelved, and its creators were left waiting for the day when consumer-level technology would finally catch up to their vision. That day finally came with the launch of the Sega CD in the fall of 1992. Night Trap released side-by-side with the Sega CD, and Sewer Shark followed a few weeks later. Being among the first home games to rely on FMV for gameplay, Digital Pictures' NEMO conversions were major showcase titles for the Sega CD. They received rave reviews from most media outlets on release, and they both went on to become some of the system's best-selling titles.Sewer Shark is an on-rails shooter that tasks you, a novice "sewer jockey," with navigating a ship through the monster-infested tunnels that run beneath Solar City. If you live long enough to escape, you'll get to live out the rest of your days in a tropical paradise. If you fail, someone will have to clean you off a wall with a sponge.The gameplay is simple, arcade-style fare, but it's engaging. You have two primary responsibilities:One, you need to safely pilot your ship by listening to the navigator and choosing the correct direction at each junction point. It's a bit like a game of Simon, just with mutant rats and explosions.And two, you need to shoot at the enemies with the on-screen crosshairs. Accuracy is important, as each shot drains power from your ship, and even though most enemies won't actively attack, you can't afford to sit back and do nothing. If you let too many go and thus fail to hit the required minimum score at a checkpoint, the baddies will come together to take down your ship, resulting in an instant game over.These elements make for a good combination of flash and challenge, and since the correct route changes game-to-game, you can't rely on mere memorization to see things through to the end. The gameplay isn't groundbreaking, but it's solid, and it avoids the playability pitfalls that many interactive movies (including Night Trap) fell prey to.It was the novelty and quality of the presentation that really sold this one, though. Stores used Sewer Shark to wow customers with the potential of the Sega CD. I remember seeing crowds drawn to the game counter at the local Circuit City, oohing and ahhing in front of a TV running the game's intro demo on an endless loop. Interactive, full motion video in a video game was a huge deal, and it impressed people to no end. It certainly did me.Finally, there's one important thing to note when looking at retro games, and it holds especially true for early FMV titles: they were designed to be played on consumer-grade CRT televisions. On modern high-resolution, fixed pixel displays, every shortcoming is laid bare. Fancy transparency effects become unsightly checkboards of pixels, color gradations are rendered as starkly posterized bands, and motion often reveals obvious signs of judder and compression artifacts.While this video does accurately reflect the graphics produced by a Sega CD, it doesn't show how the game would've appeared to people's eyes in 1992. On a CRT, the video quality was on par with what you would've expected from well-worn VHS tape. You wouldn't have mistaken it as a LaserDisc image, but it was perfectly acceptable in its time. That being said, if you'd like a more authentic representation of the intended experience from this video, and if you happen to have an old tube TV kicking around, try routing your computer's display through a signal converter to the TV's RF or composite input. If you're not quite that hardcore, watching it with a good CRT shader will get you 99% of the way there._____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Flashback: The Quest for Identity (SNES) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-08-16 | A playthrough of U.S. Gold's 1994 cinematic action-platformer for the Super Nintendo, Flashback: The Quest for Identity.Played on the normal difficulty level. Conrad Hart, a secret agent who has lost his memory, has just awoken to find himself being hunted by the police on a foreign world. Following the trail of clues, Hart discovers that he has stumbled into the crosshairs of the "Morphs," a shape-shifting race of beings who plan to infiltrate and ultimately take over human society. As Hart, it's your job to find out what's going on and to make it back to Earth to warn everyone before it's too late.Flashback is often likened to Out of this World/Another World (youtu.be/lZbNH1Wp6LE), and it's easy to see why. Both games were initially released for the Amiga by French publisher Delphine Software, and both are sci-fi themed platformers that feature smoothly rotoscoped animation, vector-based 3D cutscenes, and Prince of Persia-like (youtu.be/i6hylvkCh-8) control schemes.The games are not related, however, and they're not nearly as similar as they first appear to be. Out of this World is a character-centered adventure that's shaped by its evocative set-pieces, a grounded sense of place, and its otherworldly vibes. Flashback, on the other hand, feels more like an action film moonlighting as a video game. It's not interested in subtlety, nuance, or character arcs. Like the movies it draws upon for inspiration - namely Schwarzenegger classics like Total Recall and The Running Man - Flashback is all about high energy violence. The North American release's manual even went so far as to include a fourteen-page Marvel mini-comic to set the stage.Hart has a full stuntman's complement of moves at his disposal. He leaps, rolls, climbs, and shoots like a pro, and much of Flashback's fun comes from learning how to choreograph his moves fluidly and effectively in combat. The controls pose a steep learning curve, and the game is overall quite difficult, but if you have the requisite patience, it's a satisfying challenge to overcome.I can't say as I'm a fan of the presentation - the art style doesn't appeal to me at all - but I can certainly understand why people heap praise on it. It's a handsome game.It took me a long time to warm up to Flashback, but I'm glad I finally gave it a chance. I didn't love it, but I enjoyed it more than I thought I would._____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six (NES) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-08-15 | A playthrough of LJN's 1992 license-based platformer for the NES, Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six.Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six is a game that was given every opportunity to be absolutely terrible. It's based on a Marvel property, it was developed by Bits, and it was published by LJN. In the NES era, that seemed like a perfect recipe for disaster, but seemingly as if to prove that miracles do exist, this action-platformer turned out to be not half-bad. (Too bad the same can't be said for the Master System port!)For an NES game, it looks fairly good. The character sprites are all tiny, but everything is clear and has solid detail. The animations are fairly smooth, and some of the backgrounds look nice. The music isn't annoying, and though it would've been nice to have unique songs play for each stage, the ones that are here drone on pleasantly without drawing too much attention to themselves. The controls are easily the weakest part of the game. The hit detection feels off when trying to hit an enemy, since unless you place Spidey a couple of pixels off to the side of the enemy, your attacks will generally go right through them. Climbing things, especially while jumping, is a hit-or-miss affair - sometimes you'll grab onto a ladder or a pole, but more times than not you just end up plummeting to the ground, but everything works well enough that you can get around these issues with practice.The cinematic scenes look pretty nice, though, and I did like the overall look of the game. It also tries to change things up a bit from the standard platformer-style with occasional item-based objectives, switching between left-to-right and multi-directional scrolling stages, and by giving each boss a unique lair that's been catered to their attack style.I do seem to recall that it was one of the nominations for Nintendo Power's Game of the Year awards back in 1992, and I remember being really surprised to see it there. Of course, thinking back on it now, NES releases were pretty slim from 1992 onward. I can't help but think it was only chosen for a lack of better options. Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six is not a game without problems, but for the short time that it lasts, it's fun. It's not something you'll play constantly for weeks on end - if you're reasonably good at this style of game, it can be finished easily within a half-dozen plays or so - but in short bursts, it's fine. _No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Legend of Mana (PlayStation) Playthrough [1 of 2] NintendoComplete 2024-08-14 | A playthrough of Square's 2000 action-RPG for the Sony PlayStation, Legend of Mana.This is the first part of a two-part video. You can find part two here: youtu.be/TmR64mcAMtYI complete all sixty-eight story events over the course of this playthrough, and I unlock the secret stuff that's made available when you have save data from other Square games (Chocobo Racing, Saga Frontier 2, and Final Fantasy VIII) on the memory card.Legend of Mana was the first spin-off in the Mana (Seiken Densetsu) series. It was also the first Mana game to see a stateside release since 1993 when Secret of Mana (youtu.be/dSwf9DJz_dA) hit the SNES. I remember there being a fair amount of hype surrounding its launch in the summer of 2000 - I was certainly excited for it - but I also remember it drawing a lot of raised eyebrows from the gaming press.At first glance, Legend of Mana could be mistaken as a traditionally-styled entry in the mainline series. Just like Secret/Trials of Mana, it's a 2D action-RPG with storybook-like visuals, experience-based leveling systems for weapons and magic, and it supports drop-in co-op play.But once you dig beneath the surface, you're met with something that's far more exotic and experimental in nature. You can build the world however you like with artifacts that you find, and instead an overarching story, the game plays out over a loosely connected, semi-linear series of chapter-like "events." You are free to decide the path you'll take through the game, and the decisions you make dictate which events you'll see in any given playthrough.The game's underlying mechanics also mark a huge departure from the series' roots. The sheer complexity and depth of some of its systems is absolutely staggering. You could sink dozens of hours into experimenting with equipment crafting, robot building, pet raising, and vegetable planting, only to find that what you've seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg.My dad bought this for me when it first came out. At first, I loved it, but the more I played, the more I felt like I had no idea what I was doing. I really tried to understand it - I even had the strategy guide - but the game doesn't explain itself well at all. It overwhelmed me, and I eventually gave up. It was years before I went back to it, and once I'd given up on trying to understand everything, I came to like it a lot. Legend of Mana is a game with a lot of meat on the bone, but a lot of it feels like complexity for complexity's sake. You can ignore most of those systems and still enjoy the game just fine. (Many of the people involved in this game had previously worked on the Saga games, and boy, does it show!)But the rest of the game is excellent. The writing is good, the combat system flows nicely, the graphics are top notch, and the Yoko Shimomura soundtrack is a masterpiece. (Ever notice how much it sounds like her work from Super Mario RPG? The Domina town theme has always reminded me of SMRPG's forest maze tune, right down to the samples.)If you're the type who loves (or loves to avoid) obsessing over small the stuff, Legend of Mana could make for a good time. And for everyone else, there're a few genuinely funny dick jokes peppered throughout. That's something, right?_____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
International Track & Field 2000 (Nintendo 64) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-08-10 | A playthrough of Konami's 2000 sports game for the Nintendo 64, International Track & Field 2000.The video begins with the Trial mode (1:20). Earning gold medals in Trial mode opens up the events that are initially locked. The Championship mode begins at 52:43. International Track & Field 2000, known in Japan as Ganbare Nippon! Olympic 2000 and in Europe as International Track & Field 2, was released on a wide range of machines (including PS1, PS2, N64, and Dreamcast), and it was the last major console release in the Track & Field series. New entries have since only appeared on mobile devices and the Nintendo DS.This was the only Track & Field game for the N64, and it was a good one, even if the controller's awkward shape isn't ideal for heavy button mashing. The graphics and sound are excellent, the gameplay is smooth, and it's all as fun as ever. The scream the guy lets out during the hammer throw is pretty epic, too.After all of the Olympics games I've done over the past few weeks, I've about run out of things to say about them, so I'll leave it at this: if you love Track & Field, you'll love International Track & Field 2000. If you don't, you won't. I thought it was great. _____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
International Track & Field (PlayStation) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-08-09 | A playthrough of Konami's 1996 sports game for the Sony PlayStation, International Track & Field.Played on the normal difficulty level. At 24:17, you can see a couple of nifty secret things, like the mole, the dinosaur, and swimming in bikinis.International Track & Field, a port of the arcade game Hyper Athlete, was the first 3D Track & Field game, and it was the sequel to Konami's '88 Games (youtu.be/hx_dr_f8vqk).The gameplay doesn't deviate much from the template established by the older games in the series, but it does a great job of updating the presentation for a new generation. The graphics are sharp, the stadium is loud and full of life, and the quick camera cuts, voiceovers, and the distinct lack of loading screens all give the presentation a convincing broadcast-like quality.Beyond that, there's not much to say. It's classic Track & Field with a fresh coat of paint, and it's excellent. _____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Olympic Summer Games: Atlanta 1996 (PlayStation) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-08-08 | A playthrough of Eidos's 1996 license-based sports game for the Sony PlayStation, Olympic Summer Games: Atlanta 1996.In this video, I play through the Olympic mode on the medium difficulty level. The 16-bit versions of Olympic Summer Games: Atlanta 1996 (youtu.be/gPTEyypsNaE) were boring, lifeless games that gave the impression that they were made on a rushed schedule with a shoestring budget. Given how lackluster the cartridge-based versions were, it stood to reason that the (presumably) flagship next-gen version, released in mid-1996 for the 3DO and PlayStation, was a parasitic twin that had sucked up the lion's share of the resources allocated to the project. That's probably true to some extent - it is a fully 3D game with hyper-gaudy CG FMV cutscenes and a Redbook soundtrack, after all - but anyone who had been anticipating a world-class, multimedia-laden, multiplayer extravaganza would have been left sorely wanting. International Track & Field (youtu.be/tokWoTPgFcM) or DecAthlete(youtu.be/YtEx93fmZFw), this is not.Instead, you get the gameplay of the 16-bit versions (with a couple more events tossed in) slathered in some of the worst 3D graphics to be seen on a 32-bit console. The Playstation game appears to be little more than a direct port of the 3DO one, and even by 3DO standards, it's rough. The stick-figure character models are comically low-poly (they remind me of the cow in Race Drivin' on the SNES! youtu.be/CKfkZCvdqqY), the background details constantly break up and distort (look at the lines on the track whenever the camera moves), the camera quickly spins in circles and often obscures things that you need to see, and the player animations are somehow stiffer and choppier than they were in the 2D versions (check out how the guy freezes on the mat in the fetal position during the high jump).I did like 90s dance music used for the intro and the menus, though. That was easily my favorite part of the game.Overall, it's playable, and if you can find a copy for a buck or two, it's worth grabbing for the laughs. And hey, who knows? Had the PlayStation seen more games of this caliber, I daresay the Jaguar might've stood a fighting chance._____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Crash n the Boys: Street Challenge (NES) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-08-07 | A playthrough of American Technōs' 1992 competitive sports game for the NES, Crash 'n' the Boys: Street Challenge. Though they were never labeled as installments in a unified series for their international releases, a total of five games in Technōs' multi-genre Nekketsu series were released on the NES in North America between 1988 and 1992. Crash 'n' the Boys: Street Challenge was the last of them, following Renegade (youtu.be/5NWByyxT9ak), Super Dodge Ball (youtu.be/-XQUq2uL7hA), River City Ransom (youtu.be/g7xeGpoCScs), and Nintendo World Cup.Crash 'n' the Boys: Street Challenge is a Track and Field style game in which teams from four high schools come together for a no holds barred intramural sporting spectacle made up of five events, including the 400m hurdles, hammer throw, rooftop jumping, swimming, and fighting scene (a 1v1 street fight).Before each event, you can spend the medals you've won on health refills, stat boosters, abilities, specialized equipment, and even words of encouragement, most of which will provide huge advantages against your opponents. The events are fun, fast-paced, and in a welcome shift from the usual Olympic-style button mashing fare, they feature controls akin to standard action games. I only wish that there were more of them. The ones that are here are great, but the game is too lean on content to keep it interesting in the long-term. But that doesn't stop Crash 'n' the Boys: Street Challenge from being a worthwhile play. It looks and sounds great, it's full of character, and it's a riot to play with a group of friends._____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Secret of Mana (SNES) Playthrough [2 of 2] NintendoComplete 2024-08-07 | A playthrough of Square's 1993 action-RPG for the Super Nintendo, Secret of Mana.This is the second part of a two-part video, showing from the sunken continent through the end. You can find the first part here: youtu.be/dSwf9DJz_dA_____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Secret of Mana (SNES) Playthrough [1 of 2] NintendoComplete 2024-08-03 | A playthrough of Square's 1993 action-RPG for the Super Nintendo, Secret of Mana.This is the first part of a two-part video, showing from the beginning of the game through to the party's leaving for the sunken continent. You can find part two at youtu.be/0EBBd6kNTqISecret of Mana, or Seiken Densetsu 2 as it was called in Japan, is the direct sequel to the 1991 Game Boy game Final Fantasy Adventure (youtu.be/dTUYbI1pkf4). It's a top-down action-RPG that was hailed for its graphics, music, and its three-player co-op game play, and it's still regarded as one of the SNES's best in its genre.While at first glance it does look a lot like a stylized Zelda-style game, Secret of Mana does several things to differentiate itself. Using the multi-tap peripheral that was originally packed in with Super Bomberman, three players can play at the same time once the entire party has been assembled. It was a massive amount of fun to play this way, and coordinating attack strategies with a couple of buddies really gave the game a unique flavor compared to the usual single-player fare that RPGs typically offer. Of course, you can play alone or with one friend, and the remaining character(s) will be taken care of by the AI. It's not always intelligent - the computer-controlled guys tend to get stuck behind walls and trees - but it works well enough most of the time. Better than you'd expect for a game from 1993, at least.Even though the story takes some pretty dark turns later on, Secret of Mana manages to maintain a cheerful, upbeat presentation through the majority of the adventure. The graphics are impressively detailed, and there are a lot of little background animations that make the world come alive, like the way the wind blows around the flowers and grass in the opening area. It might not seem like much now, but such attention to detail was something that you didn't see often in the early years of the 16-bit generation. The enemies are extremely memorable, imaginative, and often quite goofy - I always liked the waddling "mushbooms" that spray spores at you, and the little teddy bears that dress up like Robin Hood to shoot arrows at you. The bosses are usually impressive and huge, and the spell effects become progressively flashier throughout the game.The music is one of my favorite parts of Secret of Mana. The soundtrack has been praised time-and-time again over the years, and it has held up well. It's generally orchestral in nature, but it sounds very different than what'd you get with Uematsu's Final Fantasy scores, especially in how many genres the soundtrack spans. The composer, Hiroki Kikuta, deserves major props for how well he managed to nail so many styles. Apparently, he sampled the instruments himself as he was composing to ensure that the in-game tracks would sound the way he intended, and the effort shows. The quality of the samples is a substantial jump over what you'll find in most cart-based titles, and it does an awful lot within the confines of eight sound channels. (Sometimes a bit too much given how often instruments drop out in battle.)The gameplay holds up well, too. Granted, the game was always fairly glitchy, but after you figure out the game's quirks, it usually works just fine. The battle system is an interesting hybrid of old and new - though it's all played out in real-time, the accuracy and power of your hits relies more on your stats than it does on making sure that your character's weapon visibly connects with the enemy. It can lead to a few annoying whiffs, but it does make sense once you've acclimated to it.I absolutely love Secret of Mana. I always have, and it's hard to imagine that I'd ever feel otherwise about it. From the story to the gameplay to the aesthetics, this sequel improves in just about every way humanly possible over Final Fantasy Adventure.It might not be perfect, nor is it even among Square's best on the SNES, but Secret of Mana is an amazing adventure, and it's one that you'll never forget once you've played it. There's a good reason that Nintendo included it with the SNES Classic. It is a classic. With Visions of Mana due out at the end of the month, I thought this would be a great time to roll out this brand new Secret of Mana playthrough in razor sharp 4k60. Hope you enjoy the ride as much as I did!___No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Caveman Games (NES) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-08-02 | A playthrough of Data East's 1990 sports game for the NES, Caveman Games.We know that the modern Olympics were based on the ancient Greek Olympic games, but what if the Greeks drew inspiration from something even older? Dynamix posed this very question in establishing the premise of Caveman Ugh-lympics, a 1988 Commodore 64 multi-event, competitive sports game set in the Stone Age that was ported to Dos in 1989 and to the NES, as Caveman Games, in 1990.In Caveman Games, you compete in a series of six events as one of six competitors (five cavemen and one cavelady), each with their own specific strengths and weaknesses. The games include clubbing (a 1v1 fight with clubs), the mate toss (like the hammer throw, but your spouse is the ball-and-chain), the dino vault (pole vaulting over a hungry dinosaur), fire making (rubbing two sticks together), dino racing (hurdles, but done while riding on a dinosaur), and saber racing (fleeing from a sabertooth tiger).The prehistoric reimaginings of modern games are entertaining, and the controls are good, but it's the humor that gives Caveman Games its spark. Everything about it is firmly tongue-in-cheek in its tone, and most of it is legitimately funny. You can distract your opponent by pointing at something imaginary behind him before cracking him in the head. You can give yourself a leg up in a race by feeding the other guy to a hungry sabertooth tiger. Or you can even challenge yourself by playing as Vincent, a nerdy Neanderthal whose smarts fail to provide any meaningful advantage. The NES version's presentation has been cut back from what was seen on the C64 and PC, but it still looks great and makes for a fun time between a friends._____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
World Class Track Meet (NES) Playthrough NintendoComplete 2024-08-01 | A playthrough of Nintendo's 1988 Power Pad-based sports game for the NES, World Class Track Meet.This video shows both of the game's primary modes. Tournament mode begins at 0:17, and The Olympics mode begins at 7:56.World Class Track Meet is an Olympic-style, multi-event competitive sports game, but it was unlike anything that had been seen before on the NES. Instead of asking you to manically bash buttons on a gamepad à la Konami's Track and Field (youtu.be/tIjDpOFensY), World Class Track Meet forced you to get off the couch and work up a sweat. It was one of the first games to require the Power Pad, a sensor-filled floor mat that plugs into the NES's second controller port. The vinyl mat is covered in blue and red circles that show you where to place your feet, and when you run on it, your on-screen avatar will mirror your body's movements and speed.It didn't drop button presses, and there was no perceptable input lag. It was a simple and intuitive design that worked exactly as intended, completely free of jank. In fact, it worked so well that Konami ended up reusing the design for their PlayStation DDR dance mats a full decade later.World Class Track Meet features four separate events: the 100m dash, 110m hurdles, the long jump, and the triple jump. In tournament mode, you compete against six CPU-controlled opponents (including the notorious Cheetah, a guy who 110% lives up to his name) in the 100m dash and the 110m hurdles. The Olympics mode features all four events played back-to-back, supports up to six players (two simultaneously) per session, and the player with the most points at the end of the game wins the gold.It was pretty popular when it was new - several of my friends had Power Pads - but funnily enough, this was the only game that any of them had for it. There were a few Power Pad games, but World Class Track Meet was by far the most popular one. You could buy it as a standalone game, and it was also included as a pack-in title with the "NES Power Set," a console bundle that included two control pads, a Zapper, a Power Pad, and a multi-cart that included Super Mario Bros., Duck Hunt, and World Class Track Meet.In the modern day, World Class Track Meet is perhaps best known under the name Stadium Games. Bandai initially released Stadium Games and the Family Fun Fitness pad in North America in the summer of 1987, but it was immediately recalled and pulled from store shelves after Nintendo struck a deal with Bandai to release the pad and games as first-party Nintendo products. The few copies that were sold before the recall went into effect are highly sought after by collectors, so the game sells for astronomical sums. A loose cartridge alone will set you back $15,000-20,000 USD, and if you want a complete-in-box copy in decent condition, expect to pay 2-3x that amount.There are only two notable in-game differences between the two versions. The title screen is different, and the Bandai advertisement on the back wall of the stadium was turned into a scoreboard display for World Class Track Meet.Still, they are considered separate releases, so I went ahead and recorded both. You can find Stadium Events here: youtu.be/E0ZQohv-BWc_____________ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
