Gaming off the Beaten Path

Come on, you knew this was coming.   I telegraphed this a mile away last week, but we are going to talk about the other forgotten member of the X series, Mega Man X6. I mean it can’t be all bad.  Its predecessor was a solid, if underwhelming entry into the franchise, with some fun boss fights making up for less inspired level design.  So maybe X6 was the one that put it all together?  Did it combine the great level design and soundtrack of X4 with the outstanding boss fights and more polished graphics of X5?  In a word, no. Despite not necessarily being a “bad” game, X6 is among the worst in the entire Mega Man franchise (both old school and X games).  I would certainly say its the worst X title and if you were to bring the older games into the fray, the only one I disliked more was probably Mega Man and Bass.  Again, this isn’t some jank franchise that has been around for five years, so its a different set of standards, but if you are going to try to jump

I wanted to start this review by waxing nostalgic about the Mega Man franchise, but I realize I already went that route in the “Command Mission” review, so there goes that.   For such a mainstream series, Mega Man sure goes off on its share of tangents.  We already discussed one of those tangents, but there were so, so many others.  But perhaps the most forgotten games are the middle entries in the X series. Look, I think most gamers agree the first two Mega Man X games were classic.  The third is considered a solid effort and the original cart is a SNES collector’s item, while the fourth received middling reviews in its day but has since been recognized for the quality game it is.  Mega Man X7 is pretty much universally hated (though not by me, I could probably write an entire post on it) and X8 is thought of as a return to form.  It’s weird, even though the latter two games have a reputation, its almost as if non mega fans don’t even know X5 and X6 exist

Lets talk about video game crossovers. Nowadays, they are common.  You have Marvel Vs. Capcom, Mortal Kombat vs D.C., Mario and Sonic’s Olympic Games and dozens of others.  That’s to say nothing of Super Smash Brothers, which is arguably the greatest crossover game of all time.  Just look at all the characters in the latest version. They weren’t always as common as they are now, but gaming crossovers have always had a place in the medium.  For all the things developers mess up, they are also something that is usually done right.  In 1993, Tradewest probably figured “hey, our two biggest IPs are among the gaming world’s most popular beat em ups, lets mix them together!”  So, we got Battle Toads/Double Dragon on SNES/Genesis.  Anyone who owned an NES is probably very familiar with these two franchises (this game also came out on the NES, by the way). Both were two player co-op beat em’ ups where you moved to the right and put the boots to anyone in your way

Last week I discussed some of the broader points of Dark Cloud, but there is a ton going on with this game (and I spent too much time on it) for me not to do a second post.  So lets get right to it. The first thing I commented on was the graphics and I don’t think I quite gave them enough credit.  Yes, they are incredibly boring but they are very well done.  There was a huge graphical jump between the N64/PS1/Saturn and the PS2/XBox/GameCube and it really shows here.  Every thing is super clean and well animated.  All of the areas look unique and feel lived in once you release all the residents.  The dungeons are okay as well and fit their areas appropriately. I also have to give credit to the sound. There aren’t any grand, epic tracks but the minimalist sound design really fits here.  Each track adds to its respective dungeon or town.  The sound effects are okay too.  The characters voices aren’t annoying and the weapon effects are fine.

It’s no secret at this point that I’m a huge RPG fan.  That said, I have always found action RPGs to be hit or miss.   I find a lot of them to be very unbalanced, filled with difficulty spikes and generally inconsistent.  So naturally, I wasn’t all that excited when Dark Cloud was released back in 2001.  There were just too many other games out there that were more interesting and it got fairly middling reviews, so it was easy to ignore.  However, it also garnered something of a cult following and it has been one of the longest standing classic games available for download on Sony’s PlayStation store.  I figured now was as good a time as any to try it. Right off the bat, I noticed a bevy of themes that are prevalent in modern games: randomly generated dungeons, ‘town building and other mini-games and an almost singular focus on item collecting and upgrading.  This stuff existed in games back then, but it wasn’t nearly as prevalent as it is now.  These elements c

I wasn’t entirely thrilled with having to review another Mickey Mouse game, but, well, we can’t possibly go any lower than we did last week. This is yet another game starring everyone’s favorite mouse (well, almost everyone’s favorite, I personally would rank the Mickster behind Rizzo from the Muppets and Speedy Gonzalez) by Capcom.  This time we have moved up to 16 bits, as this game was exclusive to the Super Nintendo. Those of us that were gaming back in the day can vouch for how big a jump that was. Looking at Mickey Mousecapade, which I reviewed a few weeks ago, it was pretty clear to see it was a typical licensed game, a cheap cash in designed to sell copies to unsuspecting kids or parents who didn’t know any better.  That was pretty common back in the pre-internet, pre-streaming era.  There really wasn’t any way to know if a game was good without buying it, subscribing to a magazine or finding it at your local video store.  It still happens today,

So this week, the plan was going to be to go back to reviewing “kid friendly games.”   I mean, Rocky and Bullwinkle certainly qualify as a kid friendly IP.  Their original run was well before my time (think 1960s), but thanks to “Nick at Night,” they were a major part of my childhood.  I couldn’t tell you what a single episode was about, I just know I loved tuning in every night for the antics of a flying squirrel, dopey moose and their Russian Nemeses (because remember, communists are bad and all Russians were communists before 1991) Boris and Natasha. I am just going to cut to the chase here, this “game” barely qualifies as a game.  This is a instrument of torture.  “Days of Thunder” is a bad game.  “Rise of the Robots” is a horrible game.  This puts them to shame.  I can honestly say playing this is one of the worst things that happened to me this year.  I would put it just below the stomach virus I got in February.  Appropriate, because both made me vomit unc