NES Games I (and Mayabb) Beat #58: Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom

What can be said about the obscure less common NES games like this one? While there isn’t much information out there its clear some of these games have gained a cult status in the age of retro emulation. Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom, developed and published by Hudson Soft, it released to seemingly mild praise in February of 1991 making it one of the later titles on the console. In terms of genre, its along the lines of a text/point and click adventure. But why has this game garnered a following? What’s so special about it?
The most common thing that draws someone like myself to this game is just how impressive it is for an NES title. PCs at the time had a lot in this genre to offer but NES players had the Kemco trilogy and Nightshade and that was really about it. Also given its kiddy, cutesy style and vegetable/ fruit characters it’s not surprising hardcore gamers passed on this release. Also, this was right around the SNES was looming in the distance so games like this got swept under the rug. Despite this it got a measly two page spread in Nintendo Power Issue #22 with a very vague and unhelpful walkthrough of the first few levels.
The gameplay is that of a text based adventure in that you can use a set number of functions to navigate like move which gives directions the player can move, look to examine the room, check is used to examine objects in a room, talk, take, use for items, give, buy, hit, fight, praise to flatter, dump for getting rid of inventory items, since you can only carry a limited number, item, and Percy to get aid from your sidekick Percy Persimmon. From there it’s pretty much up to the player to use these functions to explore and find items to satisfy requirements and help people out or to make your way through various obstacles. These are essentially the puzzles you have to work through in your mind and solve in order to progress. They all have answers that aren’t too cryptic and for the most part this game isn’t weighed down with bullshit like some cryptic games of this style and era. Also the characters here are lively and filled with useful information, items, and humor making this world feel alive. Each command also can generally lead to some humorous observations and events that the writers cleverly put at every turn to keep even mistakes lively and fun. Even gag items are put into the game with no purpose but to deceive you and Percy tosses them at the end of each level anyway.
Movement of areas will quickly show the massive variety in areas of this game. While the backgrounds are just static images to set the mood and item layout, they’re really very well detailed and the graphical art style is at times happy, cheerful and vibrant as well as other settings being dark, moody, and somber. Looking at this game’s world and it’s plethora of vegetable races and characters is a treat at every moment because of how good the presentation of these elements is. It’s just a really clean, vibrant art style that invokes the feelings of a fantasy world. Not to mention the music and it’s rhythmic, soothing nature ranging into eerie, desolate tones as well that perfectly complements the art to a T. On three instances the game’s world will even shift to a first person dungeon which can make the player feel helpless and lost.
Some enemies do take the player on in a combat setting but all this is is a game of rock, paper, scissors and then a look away game to decide the winner. This is admittedly a cheap combat system but it’s mostly reserved to boss fights and isn’t a huge hindrance on the experience. Though it does lead to the one way to die in this game which in turn leads to having to restart the current level after inputting a password. Luckily the passwords are short the levels won’t take long if you remember how their done. While there are 9 levels total, the game takes over 2 hours if you know it and about 5-7 hours or longer for the uninitiated. Loosely following a walkthrough can also make it a tad less frustrating if you’re not opposed to such things.
The story is pretty basic, the princess is kidnapped, go save her but the underlying themes here actually lead to some pretty dark stuff. There’s an overlying war between the Resistance and the Farmies embedded in nearly all the things you do, you get captured at one point and have to break a bunch of others out, you’re nearly drowned for not talking in torture, you defile a grave to find a giant blender robot to take on the Saladians, and the capture a little peanut girl by a banana lead to you murdering that banana and pulling her out of it piece by piece dismantling its body and carrying it and the girl back to her parents to prove its dead. The way villages feel suppressed and at every turn the enemy seems to have captured more innocent vegetables to kill (especially since some Farmies higher up are humans) reminded me of (and I’m serious here) World War 2 and the Holocaust in terms of theming as through metaphors the game seems to be hinting at this parallel very strongly. I guess that would make the last guy Hitler, in which case we killed Hitler with rock, paper, scissors.
Overall this game is a really gem that has a beautiful world, an excellent art style, an atmospheric and amazing soundtrack, surprisingly deep/dark tones, environments, and story, good humor, memorable characters, fun puzzles, and a charming and cute overall aesthetic. While it can go some weird places and the play style is not for everyone, it’s still highly recommended as a rom download and for collectors. It’s very obtainable today surprisingly through Virtual Console but a really cart is not really easy to come across as it goes for $70+ online.
In the end I really enjoyed this game so I’m going to give it a 9/10. While it’s kind of sad this may be the very last NES game Mayabb and I will ever beat together, this game will always remain even stronger in my soul for this reason and will assuredly become nostalgic for this fact as well some day.

Persona 4 Arena Ultimax Review

The follow up to the hit fighting game P4 Arena, Persona 4 Arena Ultimax is actually a sequel with a follow up story line to the cliffhanger of the last game. It was again published by Atlus and developed by Arc Systems and then released in September of 2014. Given that the game play and presentation is very similar to the last game I won’t be diving very deeply into those areas and if you’re looking for more on those my previous review is a nice starting place to jump off from into this review as well. Oh and there will of course be spoilers for the first game, P3, P4, and of course this game here but if you’ve followed me for any amount of time you’ve likely been privy to those anyway.

In terms of story, the continuation is good, adding this time Rise, Junpei, a new character Sho, the Shadows make a return, and even Adachi and Marie make appearances now. The streamlined nature of the way the story is told is this game’s biggest fix of all. If you’ve read my last review, you’ll recall a system to where the player tediously trudges through a variation on the same story upwards of 12 times and a few more with a different story for the P3 characters. This was clunky, uninteresting at times, felt very sloppy, and caused for a lot of confusion. Here, the story is set on one path with branching narratives and two separate stories for P3 and P4, an exceptionally better system as to only make the player slog through a different enough story line for a second time and a small bit for a true ending. This vast improvement fixes nearly everything broken about the previous game’s story telling mechanism.

Since this game is essentially a visual novel with a fighting game sprinkled in, story is very important. The cliffhanger from the first game of who was controlling Labyrs is solved in Sho who is an experiment with the Plumes of Dusk both Aigis and Labyrs posses on a human who then gains a malicious second personality. These experiments were being carried out by Ikustski, the main villain in Persona 3. Sho was thrown out as a child and developed a mistrust towards humans, the only way he knows to communicate being through… fighting. Ok really? It’s kind of silly and video gamey sometimes but overall the plot becomes that Sho makes fake shadows of everyone to fight their Personas for… Persona fragments which are apparently something that his shadows can fight out of everyone’s Personas. The shadows aren’t very well implemented story wise and it seems like a missed opportunity given what they were in the original Persona 4. After basically resurrecting a Tarturus-esque tower atop Yasogami High of Inaba, he then uses it to bring a variation on the Dark Hour which covers Inaba in a red fog and will bring about the end of the world if not stopped in a few hours. Now we have our fighting game I guess… 

Much like in the previous game this leads to a lot of sections of fighting random characters and seeing random groupings of characters and while it generally felt fine there was a lot “humorous” scenes I just kind of blazed though or if a character was explaining something I already knew. This is here in a far less extent thanks to only two or three plotlines happening at once but it could get grating at times. A lot of dialogue with the shadows was really pointless too. So while the execution still leaves a lot to be desired it’s really not that bad. In the end Adachi and Yu, or Labyrs in the P3 story, end up slaying the beast Sho turns into to save the day as always. The final boss itself is a large beast to the right of the screen that shoots fireballs and beams etc. which is a good idea on paper but having to run or jump to him feels clunky and he does a lot of damage which sucks. Also, he has no life bar to indicate all you need to do is dodge his attack and perform a few combos to win. Other than that he’s pretty easy and not that great but I give them points for trying something different. It ends up that Sho got his start from the final boss in Persona 4 so it’s nice to see her threat wasn’t an empty promise. 

Over all the story is a mess but the characters do save it so much. Their interactions and stories are what make everything interesting and some of their resolves were kind of admittedly emotional for me though I am surprised we’ll possibly never see the P4 characters graduate high school or any of that as there is supposedly only one more game in Persona 4: Dancing All Night… Hopefully since Sho got away their actually setting up for him to become the villain of that game? It better be or this plot point is going to be a seriously lame cliffhanger. 

I know I’ve sounded pretty harsh on this game but I did like a lot of the same stuff that inherently comes with this being the sequel to P4 Arena. Basically the things I liked there (characters, storyline, music animation, gamplay) are all present here. My main problem is in Sho though and while he is essentially the literal foil to the bonds and friendship our characters share, he’s just not as interesting as Labyrs and her incredibly emotional, amazingly crafted, and just all around epic storyline from the first game. So that’s actually the downfall here is that it’s a typical sequel story where in it’s just not as memorable as the first but this isn’t a bad thing, what’s here is fine and solid enough for what it is.

Bottom line is this, if you liked the first game, you’re going to enjoy what’s here. It’s more of the same and is a step up in multiplayer as you have more characters and the shadow dynamic wherein you can choose between shadow or normal for each character for a high attack or defense build that also lowers the other stat. The story is just about on par with the previous regardless of its flawed nature because of the characters and their interactions. If you’re a fan of the series, this’ll be pretty good for you. 

I’m giving it a 7.4/10 for being a pretty solid all around experience for fans of these game.

The funniest part about this game for me is actually how I got it though. I was looking for the original P4 Arena and at the time this game was still brand new at $60 as it had come out only a month or so before. I had seen the original at Disc Replay for $20 no manual with a weird sticker on the front and passed on it. Later at the Moline VGE I found it for $12 with manual, my lucky day! Unfortunately they informed me the “disc wasn’t there” (likely story) but then he offered me a disc of P4 Arena Ultimax instead for $12. Of course I couldn’t pass that up but now I’ve got two of the same case as I purchased the original I mentioned earlier when it got down to $16.

NES Games I Beat #57: Super Mario Bros. 2

After the classic Super Mario Bros., which revitalized the video game industry as well as began the boom around the platforming genre and brought the NES to the forefront of entire entertainment, there was a lot of hype for the sequel. Nintendo, not wanting to saturate our market with the same game, spared us from what we now call the Lost Levels which to Japan is the true successor to the original game by giving us a reskin of a game called Doki Doki Panic. Unfortunately, like Zelda 2, the different style of gameplay turned off a lot of fans and thus there’s a negative stigma by some that consider this game to not be a true Mario game. This is mostly wrong however as originally this game was developed as a Mario title but later shelved and reskined for that IP for a festival in Japan. Aside from that, Super Mario Bros. 2 is a superb title that deserves to be seen on its own merit and on its merit as a sequel.
While I don’t usually start on this, it is a beautiful looking and sounding game for 1987 NES and it holds up very well today. As a marked improvement to its predecessor definitely shows aesthetically how far development had come in that time. All the 7 worlds now feel unique as there are actual environments like deserts, mountains, waterfalls, night levels, caves, etc. This gives an advancement to the theming in a significant way. The music also made a huge leap and all the new tracks are incredibly memorable from title to the last screen. The characters and all of the enemies look vastly more defined through this clean, crisp style of graphics and overall it’s just a well done upgrade to the presentation in general. In terms of story, it’s bare bones. It’s all a dream though so there’s that.
The gameplay is a vast step up too taking on a different direction. No longer will you be jumping on enemies to kill them rather you’ll just stand on top of them at which point you can pick them up and throw them at other things. There are also radishes everywhere that can be picked out of the ground to be used for this same purpose though this can also lead to picking up bob bombs, 1 Ups, etc. One of these items, the potion, allows travel into a world called the Subcon which if done in the right area can reveal mushrooms that permanently increase your two hit health bar for the rest of the level or warps which can be useful in skipping worlds. The tricky part is finding these spots as often their a bit of a ways from where the potion is discovered.
Also the radish spots can be picked for coins which get used in a minigame that is the main way of getting lives through chance. This is kind of a flawed system as there’s barely skill to getting them and the difficulty ramps up in a lot of spots so not being able to get lives can lead to death. While you have two continues, anytime you have to continue you go back to the beginning of world you’re on. The continue function is a marked improvement but I often felt the three life standard you then are set with was often not fair to counteract the amount of areas and deaths the player would then need to take on again. This is relevant to players who want to experience every level and beat the game in chunks like I did but it also affects places like the final world wherein if you die its almost impossible to make it back to and through Wart’s castle due to how deadly it is.
That’s pretty much my biggest complaint though as the rest of the game, while difficult, is a very enjoyable experience. Through the platforming and unique puzzles based around your abilities to pick things up, the charge jump, and the mechanic of standing on enemies it is clear that there’s enough solid, fun, and interesting things going on here to keep a player engrossed. The variety is nice too given that there is another improvement in that you can choose one of four characters at the beginning of a stage with separate play styles and speeds each. Mario is well balanced and a bit faster than Luigi who has an elongated jump. Toad is extremely nimble and picks things up faster while Peach is slower but has an essential temporary floating ability that comes in handy for some of the trickier platforming. Another neat aspect is the vertical platforming that was similar to Kid Icarus in design and even would introduce vines and ladders with enemies to keep you on your toes. While it is a cool feature especially in its time, I always chose Peach because of her maneuverability.
While the platforming brings a lot of unique elements to the table, the boss battles are what stood out to me as they were always designed in such a way that you had to think about how to get the weapon (be it a mushroom stool or and egg) to the enemy and hit them at the right time as to not be hit. The pacing of these bosses and their stages was brilliant too as we start with a standard Birdo fight that will evolve based on the environment as the levels go on as well as Birdo himself becoming faster and later shooting fireballs instead of eggs. Mouser takes this to the next level by throwing bombs that can only be caught and must be timed perfectly when thrown back making for a sense of tension and panic constantly. Tryclyde isn’t to challenging but plays with the concept of a still boss that has massive fire breath wherein the timing of dodging that and the ability to block his fire breath by building a barrier of mushroom blocks make for even more interactivity. Clawgrip is devilish as the player must dodge and then jump onto thrown rocks which is rather challenging. Finally, Wart is a culmination of these concepts and a reverse Birdo wherein the player has to dodge his screen filling bubbles and still catch falling vegetables then throwing them into Wart’s mouth as he attempts another bubble attack. All of these bosses are memorable and follow a natural progression in difficulty and concepts which is excellent game design a deserves its fair share of praise.
In conclusion, this is a very fun game to just play with a very inviting and vibrant, colorful world. The presentation and music is really good, the gameplay mechanics are well realized and implemented, and the bosses are epic and memorable. The continue system can be a pain but at least it’s there and incentivizes getting better at levels. This is an absolute gem of a game and is thus far my favorite of the Mario NES trilogy as in my opinion it just has so much to love and experience here. Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3 are benchmark titles and paved the way for so many games to come but all the innovation here also seems to be often vastly underlooked which is a shame as those games garner unreal but somewhat deserved praise leaving this on in the dust. All the unique flair and charm this game has and its ambitious attitude for an earlier NES title is admirable and shows how this game is leagues beyond just being some game with a Mario reskin.
For these reasons I’m proud to award it a 9/10 as its not only one of the great underlooked Mario games but also a very underrated NES platformer.

Today's NES Finds: June 3, 2015

The shitty but rare Color A Dinosaur! Paid less than retail by far so thanks Disc Replay! Also picked up Parasite Eve complete for $10! Just glad to have that piece of shit behind me and to have a game I've been actively seeking.

June 1, 2015

The rare and elusive Sharp NES TV, considered by most to be a holy grail Nintendo item! The clearest NES picture around! It's something special to have a piece of history like this in my collection!

Demon Souls Review

Demon Souls is an often over looked gem usually being over shadowed by its little brother and progeny through a spiritual successor of Dark Souls. While it was well received in its inception, it’s odd this is less talked about just because most people played Dark Souls first. Now, having never played that game, this is a fully unbiased review from somebody who hasn’t been spoiled to what most claim to be the superior title.
Demon Souls was released in February 2009, exclusively to the PS3, and was developed by From Software and published/ localized by my boys at Atlus. It’s very weird to think Persona 4, a PS2 title and one of Atlus’s best, was released only a few months prior to this but that’s hardly relevant. What we have is a freedom induced action role playing title. How hard is this game? So hard it killed my original PS3!
The first thing a player is tasked to do is create their character and it’s all framed around a very depth set of choices and sliders for so many minute details that it’s actually very impressive just how many things a player can mess with to get their appearance just right. I have a tendency in this sort of games to create a cutish lady versus the macho guy character for one of a few reasons. Firstly, girls kicking ass is excellent and underutilized in games. When there’s a choice for memorable female in gaming that the player can control it’s far more satisfying and unique in my opinion. Secondly, the aesthetic persona of a player’s vision of their ideal character is vastly important here as the option is presented. As I said the customization here is super in depth for appearance and you’ll get a standard choice for classes which is sort of a basic mould for what kind of build of a character you want to play. I chose knight because I like a heavy built character that can take a lot of damage and swings hard.
Once a character has been completed and you proceed into the only open level, you’ll begin to notice the token difficulty most players seem to build this game up with, it’s almost legendary for it at this point. The enemies are smart but also predictable so once you get their patterns down it’s no problem getting through them but prior to then it’s likely you’ll die many times figuring out how and where their placed. This is ok though as this entire game is cleverly built around this in not only level design but enemy placement as well. See, the pacing of the first level sets you up for most things you’ll encounter later, a hole where you fall and don’t get your souls back, enemies that progressively get smarter, unlocking areas through exploration and switches, firebombs, dragons, tough areas you can go to… or not! You, the player is in control… after the first boss.
It’ll take a while to make it through the first part of level 1 for beginners more than likely but all of that will teach you the mechanics of exploration and combat, attacking, blocking, watching for ins and outs to strike, rolling, parrying, etc. There’s a lot of nuances and variations to this formula. If you’re a conservative player like me you’ll grind this game’s currency, the souls, to death and upgrade weapons only to find once you’ve made it through the challenging first level that the boss is a joke. Use fire, he goes down insanely easily. After this though, the game opens up entirely.
At this point you are introduced to a blind witch who can level any skill you’d like with varying affects to your build as a player and this is the brilliance and lastabilty to these games as no two runs will ever be the same due to the myriad of choices the player is given. Say you just want to level up endurance so that you can hit/run harder/longer or you just want to diversify into all skill sets, the choice is up to you! Hell, you don’t even have to level up if you don’t want to, people have beaten the game level 1 with a basic slave shield! That’s the beauty here. No restrictions. You go to whichever level you feel like and do it at your own pace. There are very few gates, other than the player’s skill, to stop someone from reaching the end of any of the 5 levels as soon as they want to.
There is some challenge in the fact that souls are currency and experience to level up with all at once but it works rather well. It’s a bit devious that you lose all your souls every time you die but if you’re truly good enough it’s a simple as getting back to the point where you lost them to retrieve them. This incentivizes the mastering of enemies and levels so that the same mistakes are not repeated and the player gets better because of it. This is a clever piece of design.
Gushing about all of the details of the levels and world and how fucking beautiful and excellent some of the visuals are would be useless as the atmosphere here is beyond explanation. Simply put it’s very dark, moody, but in more of a somber way that doesn’t depress and rather captivates the player. The sound design is also really excellent from the voice work to the swinging of swords to telegraph an attack is all fine. It just feels like a very engrossing world by the design and characters that each serve a unique purpose and you can save or kill along your journey. Some can craft you spells or even special weapons out of the boss souls as well or they just sell you stuff. Also while there is a story and characterization, it’s all completely optional as well which is a great touch.
There’s very few complaints I have but a few would be the inability to sell stuff for souls as I ended up with some much junk stockpiled given I stuck with the same shield and axe the whole way and just powered those up so all the extra stuff I found around was useless to me even though I kept it all. The other thing is the bosses were generally not even that challenging. While unique, they certainly went down pretty easy with the exception of the last guy in level 1, the False King who has an ability that actually steals you’re last level which is utterly bullshit. While the levels each felt very unique from one another, the design of the ones with narrow paths often pissed me off as they served to make me fall due to targeting the enemy and I see that as a weak challenge.
Also, the amount of grinding for a conservative player like me was pretty insane. Now I’m down for a good grind and generally it was not too tedious for me as the game is fun enough to grind in but I’m guessing I spent around 30 of my 80 hour adventure grinding so it’s notable, though I was never bored which is vastly important. The other stupid thing was the Soul/Human forms. Okay so I lose a ¼ (a ½ without the cling ring) of my health and can’t have that just because I died once in a game designed around dying and retrying? It’s an arbitrary but unnecessary challenge and I know it can be circumvented via beating a boss or using a stone but what’s the point? It’s just a worthless mechanic.
Anyways there’s probably a lot I missed given it’s 9:30 in the morning but the bottom line is this is a great depthy, lengthy, balanced, and excellent adventure. It’s fun to talk about with other’s who know it like my friend John because of all the little subtleties that make it so excellent and discuss the different playing styles and parts of the game. The complaints are minor ones and don’t detract much from the experience much.
In the end this is about a 9/10 game. I enjoyed it a lot, so much so that I found myself constantly wanting to play it, thinking up strategies to get past the next part or a boss I was stuck on. It’s an engrossing experience I would highly recommend.

May 28, 2015

I did again! 100% completed my favorite game of all time, Tomba! The best part is I got a full playthrough of footage now as well! It was actually really close to failing as there are some infamous missions that can be messed up but I worked the system and pulled through! And all the emotions of joy and that nostalgic glow of my younger days playing this rushed back with every step. But nostalgia alone can't carry a game thus the fun I have every time I run through this is something beyond all that. It's just a masterful game altogether. So happy I was able to do this again. It's funny how hopelessly in love I am with this game and the feels it gives me.