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Players: 1-2
Genre: Platform
Developer: Rare, Nintendo
Platform: SNES
Year: 1995 (USA), 1995 (PAL)
Donkey Kong 2 continues where the first game left off, this time with a new character. Diddy Kong and Dixie Kong team up to defeat K. Rool and save their friend, Donkey Kong ("Thank you Diddy. But our gorilla is in another castle!" anyone?).
Which is the better character? Diddy Kong can cartwheel around as well as move faster and jump higher. However, Dixie Kong can do a helicopter spin which allows a bit of a safety net when jumping around.
Controls are similar to the original Donkey Kong, with various changes being made to the game. Stages are more varied, and instead of just riding on animal friends the characters can transform into them. Obviously secrets in the ground are lost (without Donkey Kong, who's going to slap the ground?), but there are new secret and bonus areas to be found.
Other than that, it's more platformer action. I'd rate it a 6, but I rather liked playing two speedy characters as opposed to having one character being rather slow (Donkey Kong).
Score: 7.5/10
Players: 1-2
Genre: Platform
Developer: Rare, Nintendo
Platform: SNES
Year: 1994 (USA), 1994 (PAL)
Yet another platform game from Nintendo, Donkey Kong Country has a similarly simple story. Donkey Kong, with the help of his best friend Diddy Kong are setting out to recover his stolen hoard of bananas from King K. Rool on Donkey Kong Island.
The standard platformer abilities are all here (jumping on enemies, throwing items at enemies) though something new is the tag system. Although you can only play one Kong on screen at one time, the other Kong is still there and playable upon tagging the other player.
Donkey Kong is larger and stronger than Diddy, allowing him to slap the ground to reveal secrets as well as defeat stronger enemies. Diddy is quicker and generally more manoeuvrable. Each Kong can sustain one hit, and if both are gone then a life is lost.
The Kongs are not alone in their adventure and have the help of various animal friends. I found the animal friends the most fun aspect in the Donkey Kong games: Rambi is a rhino who can charge enemies and destroy hidden walls. Expresso (a favourite of mine) is an ostrich who can hover in the air and run faster than everyone else, but had a limitation of not being able to jump on enemies. Enguarde (my other favourite) a swordfish available in underwater levels, who can skewer enemies with a charge. There are other animals that help you in your travels as well as NPCs.
After playing Mario games, I found Donkey Kong more fun to play multiplayer: after all, two players could co-operatively play the same stage at the same time.
Score: 7/10
Trivia: Donkey Kong was the first game on a mainstream home console system to use pre-rendered 3D graphics.
Players: 1
Genre: RPG
Developer: Squaresoft
Platform: SNES
Year: 1996 (USA), No PAL Release
Now this was a big surprise (well probably not as big a surprise as Square partnering with Disney for Kingdom Hearts when it was first announced) when I first picked it up. Up until this game, I'd only ever played Nintendo's platformers such as Super Mario Bros and Donkey Kong. Needless to say, I was getting a bit tired of the platformer genre since its style just isn't what attracts me to gaming. I had reservations about Super Mario RPG since I view character and story paramount to a good RPG, and Nintendo's stories had been rather lacking to say the least.
However, like the reservations I had about Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon: Another Story, these were debunked after getting into the game and noticing how well the game was put together. Or well, all the new stuff the game brought to the table.
Story: Princess Peach is kidnapped by Bowser, and Mario needs to go and save her. That's the basic story (yet again). However you'll find an interesting choice of characters to accompany Mario in his quest, and the playable selection consists of some old favourites (that may or may not have been playable *hint hint*) and some new characters brought in solely for Super Mario RPG.
Battle System: The most surprising and enjoyable aspect. Think of the traditional turn-based RPG battle system. Then think about making it more interactive to break the monotony of selecting something with the D-pad and then pressing the Confirm button. Super Mario RPG does this.
After choosing your action in battle, a timed button press (or presses) can increase the damage on an attack (for example, choosing Mario's Jump speciality will cause him to do a double jump for extra damage and for Peach's standard attack, she slaps twice instead of once)
Battle motion is smooth and crisp, as well as the pace of battle. Rarely do you feel like battle's dragging on longer than it has to.
Innovation: The battle system takes the cake here, though the other more minor (small things add up though) innovations include the integration of the simplistic platformer Mario world turned into a somewhat more complex RPG world. It's interesting seeing how small things you find on stages in Super Mario Bros are included in the layout and plot of the RPG version.
Graphics: Bright and crisp as you'd expect from Mario, though in this version, the simplistic style is also more detailed and fleshed out in an isometric-3D view.
Sound: Most of your familiar Mario tunes with a few new ones. There are a few annoying sound effects, but nothing major.
Replayability: About what you'd expect from an RPG. It's a longer game to play, so replayability is a bit lower. However, if you miss stuff the first time around there's opportunity to explore the world further again in a second replay without it feeling too old.
Overall: Considering I 'grew out of' Mario near the end of the SNES days, this game was good enough for me to enjoy it despite the usual weaker story/character depth element of Mario games. It was just fun (and smooth) to play and occupied many of my nights until I finished the game. Oh and the cameos. Many Nintendo cameos can be found in the game.
Score: 9/10
I'll be going to Melbourne for Christmas this year, leaving Friday the 22nd and returning Saturday the 30th. I'll try to queue up some posts before leaving for my flight, but there may be less updates (if any) for the next week or so.
Merry Christmas everyone, and I hope you all have a good time this festive season!
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Comments (25)
Comment by Sword Serenity
on "The Departed" Film Review
A Female Gamer
Actually, the title is "Infernal Affairs", not Internal (though I thought Infernal may have been a typo/translation error at one point.
I haven't seen The Departed, though I have seen Infernal Affairs. Let me know what you think of the latter. From reading about The Departed and hearing all about it (including ending) from someone who's seen it, it seems like they've kept some things pretty similar, but changed some major things -- particularly near the end. I quite liked the intrigue present in the movie and the way the character interaction played out.