Erik Stensaas

Review: Game: Nights into Dreams Console: SEGA Saturn Genre: Action Year: 1996 From SEGA and Sonic Team, the creators of Sonic the Hedgehog comes Nights into Dreams. If anyone was wondering why there was no original Sonic game on the Saturn, this was probably why. The plot is that everyone who dreams at night goes to a place called Nightopia, where everyone's dreams not only become reality, but become connected. However, they can also be subject to the world of nightmares too. One of the rulers of the Nightmare World, Wizeman the Wicked, wants to take over Nightopia with his army of nightmare creatures and potentially go to the real world for conquest there. One of his creations, however, is a jester-like being called Nights. Nights forms a bond with two teenagers, Claris Sinclair and Elliot Edwards to stop Wizeman, despite knowing that doing so severs Nights' connection to Claris and Elliot. The plot is very simple and is mainly there to make sure that you have some level of context over what's going on. In terms of gameplay, it's rather peculiar. Instead of a platformer, we have an action game. The object is that you need to destroy four nightmare generators by collecting 20 Blue Chips a piece. You do this by flying around beautiful scenery. Once you do that, you move on to the boss. Elliot and Claris both have 3 levels, giving you six levels to complete. That may not sound like much, but then the real challenge of Nights into Dreams comes in. In order to access the final boss and levels, you need to earn C ranks or higher on each level, and that's not as easy as the internet makes it look in videos. You need to master the levels as quickly as possible. This includes flying through as many loops as possible and collecting as many stars as possible while finding Blue Chips to destroy the generators. Despite the endgame paywall however, this game is a lot of fun to play. Flying around the levels feels great and there are very few obstacles besides the level design. The bosses are mostly pretty easy except for maybe two. Puffy tends to do whatever she wants even though you got to throw her through scenery and the Jester boss can be a pain because if he hits you once, it becomes pretty hard to hit him consistently because of how this game controls and how much of a grinding halt that Nights comes to if he gets hit by anything in this game. Other than that, though most of the bosses are a joke, even the final boss Wizeman who has some pretty flashy attacks, but they're easily dodged, and he only takes a couple of hits. Music is really good, it's a combination of relaxing yet energetic music that's nice on the ears. It helps that the Saturn is a CD based console to create CD quality music. Graphics are a bit primitive but really colorful and nothing looks really cheap or crude in this game despite the hardware limitations. If you are interested in a game that has since been forgotten by SEGA due to their dwindling resources, give Nights into Dreams a try. There are other ways to play this game now, but if you want to, you can be like me and go the extra mile and get a real SEGA Saturn and a physical copy of Nights into Dreams. This game comes highly recommended. Final Score 9/10, A-

Review Game: Donkey Kong Country Console: SNES Genre: 2D Platformer Year: 1994 From Nintendo and Rareware we have Donkey Kong Country, Nintendo's attempt at bringing the gorilla into the next generation on his own without Mario's help (though DK's games take place in Mario's universe). The plot is simple: Donkey Kong's bananas have been stolen by a group of crocodilians called the Kremling Krew led by King K. Rool. To get his bananas back and to save his tropical island home, Donkey Kong teams with his friend Diddy Kong and several other gorillas and other jungle animals. Simple plots that don't need much explanation. Donkey Kong Country is a 2D Platformer that takes place in a jungle setting but isn't afraid to deviate into other environments like the high mountains, bays, caves, temples, regular forests and even and industrial based world. In terms of control, Donkey Kong is a bit heavier, but can take out most enemies by simply jumping on them. Diddy Kong makes platforming a bit easier since he can jump farther, but he can't jump on all enemies like Donkey Kong can (example: big crocodiles called "Klumps" need to be rolled into as Diddy Kong whereas Donkey Kong can either roll or jump into them). This game is a lot of fun, but it is tough. There will be plenty of sections on your first try that will get you a lot of deaths because you're not totally prepared for it. However, whenever you do mess up, it's almost always your fault and you need to get better at the game, and not because of poor control or the game trolling you, though the latter does happen from time to time with a few instances of cheap enemy placement, but it's more treated as a joke because the game it kind of self-aware. To make things easier, you can find some animal friends that can help you out: Rambi the Rhino, Expresso the Ostrich, Enguarde (pronounced "On Guard") the Swordfish, Winky the Frog, and Squawks the Parrot, each coming with their own strengths and weaknesses. The bosses are only a little bit challenging, at least until you reach the final boss King K. Rool which is actually a pretty fair and justifiable challenge. Graphically it's great but also unique. This was released during a time when 3D graphics were still in their infancy, and this is one of the first 2D-3D games. It accomplishes this by using pre-rendered 3D graphics and putting them into a 2D plane. It looks a bit dated, but it still holds up extremely well even almost thirty years later. Music is excellent, both catchy and ambient. So, if you're looking for an instant classic from the past, give the original Donkey Kong Country a try. It's worthy of its several game of the year awards and I look forward to seeing what makes its sequels tick. This game comes highly recommended. Score 9.5/10 (A)

Review Game: Luigi's Mansion Platform: Nintendo Gamecube Genre: Survival/Horror From Nintendo it's THE launch title for the Gamecube Luigi's Mansion. I've heard good things about it so let's see what this so-called underrated game has in store. This time, instead of playing as Mario, you play as his brother Luigi, as he has strangely won a contest that he didn't even enter and won a mansion. If that wasn't suspicious enough, the mansion is infested with ghosts led by King Boo. Luigi is understandably terrified at the prospect of having a ton of ghosts (some dangerous some not) infesting this mansion but is convinced by a scientist named Professor Elvin Gadd (or E. Gadd hardy har) to go in the mansion and capture the ghosts using a vacuum called the Poltergust 3000 and to find Mario, who has gone missing in the mansion. Gameplay wise, Luigi must navigate through the various rooms of the mansion in search of Mario and the ghosts of paintings. Sucking in ghosts with the vacuum is pretty responsive but even though the ghosts put up a fight to get out, they're not that hard to capture, unless it's a boss ghost (or a big boss ghost) which will fight back. Luigi can't jump in this adventure, but he does have access to different elemental magic he can shoot out of the vacuum in the forms of fire, water, and ice. They're pretty situational but are still useful. Luigi's movement can feel a bit stiff which is perfectly fine when exploring the mansion since it's designed with the stiff controls in mind. But when you're going up against the bigger bosses like Boolossus it becomes a pain because Luigi moves so slowly it makes it irritating to avoid attacks. The worst was the final boss in King Boo who has a Bowser costume and the vacuum only works when it feels like it when you're trying to expose King Boo. Otherwise the game as a whole is really good. The graphics hold up for a 2001 game and the music, though there's not much of it is really catchy, especially when Luigi is talking to one of the ghosts. Speaking of the bigger ghosts one thing that kind of bothered me was the fact that many of the ghosts you capture and put into portraits don't even try to hurt you, which makes me wonder if they were really worth going after at all. For example, this music ghost doesn't even try to hurt you, it just can't control the sheet music that's in the same area. As a whole, Luigi's Mansion is a good game that shouldn't be overlooked because of its length (it's long enough, believe me). It's a spoopy adventure that anyone should give a try. Grade 8.5/10, B

Review Game: F-Zero X Platform: N64 Genre: Racing Sequel to F-Zero after a seven-year hiatus, we have F-Zero X. This is naturally an evolution of the SNES game. The first game had 4 racers: F-Zero X has 30, including the first four racers. The first game had 3 circuits, the second, 5 circuits (after you unlock them) with 6 tracks a piece leading to a ton of replay value. The first game has no multiplayer, this one does. This game even has ways to alter the abilities of your car, either focusing on acceleration or top speed (I prefer top speed because you can go faster despite the slower start up). The graphics are an improvement, but still has that N64 look, despite the impressive frame rate, which should be expected since this is a racing game. The game as a result runs a lot faster than the original and has a new mechanic to the boost from the last game. While the boost is more brief than before, you move faster anyway since you're now competing against 29 other racers as opposed to three others besides yourself. But don't overuse the boost, because overdoing it now comes at the cost of your car's power and if you run out, you automatically lose, leading to a risk-reward system that is very important to remember. But the speeds you can reach are really impressive for the hardware. The tracks are also for the most part very well designed, with enhancements that show off the N64's capabilities, from racing on or in a tube to racing upside down and corkscrewing through the track. If you love rock n' roll, you'll love F-Zero X's soundtrack, with my favorites being Mute City, Big Blue and Dream Chaser. Game's difficulty is pretty fair all throughout, with it getting rather difficult as you pick your preferred difficulty as it should. Despite that, F-Zero X is an amazing and addicting racing game that everyone who owns an N64 should get. Score: 10/10 A+

Review Game: Sonic Adventure Genre: 3D Platformer Platform: SEGA Dreamcast, Nintendo Gamecube etc. From SEGA and Sonic Team, we have Sonic Adventure, Sonic the Hedgehog's first true attempt at making a jump into 3D. And from my perspective, it was a roaring success. The plot is that Dr. Robotnik (now called by his Japanese name Dr. Eggman) has returned with a new ally: a liquid lifeform named Chaos. It's now up to Sonic and friends to stop him while going on their own adventures while they (the player really) learn about Chaos's origins while completing their individual stories. Since Sonic Adventure was originally meant to be an RPG, the story takes much more involvement, in my opinion for the better. One would think that story like this would get in the way, but from my perspective it helps the characters grow as we come to understand them better. For example, Tails' story revolves around him learning to be useful on his own rather than simply being Sonic's sidekick. Gameplay wise, Sonic Adventure experiments with a number of different gameplay elements. Sonic has the high-speed platforming that you'd expect him to have, but now in 3D and it couldn't have been executed better. Tails has the same thing except this time you're racing Sonic. Knuckles has high speed platforming of his own but his is based more around exploration. In fact, his levels are the more open areas of Sonic's levels. Amy is more a chase sequence as you try to outsmart and outmaneuver one of Eggman's robots. Then there are two new characters: Big the Cat and E-102 Gamma. Gamma is 3D platforming mixed with 3rd person shooting and it works really well, especially since you have a time limit. Big's gameplay is simple fishing, which does kill the flow but anyone could figure it out with enough patience. An interesting thing to note is that all of the characters have different level amounts. Sonic has 10 levels, Tails, Knuckles, and Gamma have 5 levels, Big has 4 levels and Amy has 3 levels. There are also sub-game levels that experiment with different ideas like on-rails shooting with Sky Chase, Whack-a-Mole with Hedgehog Hammer (yes really) and racing with Twinkle Circuit. The variety here has something for everyone and I think it works out, especially since this is easily the Sonic game with the best control. Graphically speaking it's a bit dated but really colorful and that's to be expected since this was released in 1998. And even though it looks dated, the characters look like they belong in that world unlike its remasters on Gamecube and especially beyond where the characters often look plastic. Not saying the DX version on Gamecube is bad, it's really good too, but the differences are really noticeable when you play the games back-to-back. The soundtrack is amazing, with it covering basically every genre of music imaginable, from rock and roll to jazz and funk, to pop and a few beautiful, orchestrated pieces. There are even vocal tracks that are really good. Bosses are simple and easy but not too easy, to a point. Sonic Adventure is an amazing game, and is my favorite game of its kind. Nothing is for everyone, but I think everyone should give this game a try. The best way to play it is on a Dreamcast, but if you need an accommodation, there are plenty of other versions available. Rating: 10/10 A+

Review Game: Super Mario 64 Console: Nintendo 64 Genre: 3D Platformer From Nintendo themselves we have Super Mario 64. The classic game that started the 3D platformers revolution that swarmed the mid to late 1990s. The plot is simple: Bowser has kidnapped Princess Peach again only this time within the confines of her own castle and it's up to Mario to save her by traveling to the different lands in the Mushroom Kingdom by using the paintings within Peach's castle (which is incredibly creative). Mario has a lot of tricks this time to make sure that he can achieve this: a triple jump, a wall jump, a backflip, a long jump and a somersault. Because of his new jumping abilities, he is able to do things without the need of power-ups like the fire flower. That said, he has three new power-ups in the form of the Wing Cap (which makes him fly with questionable at best controls), the Vanish Cap which makes him invisible and invincible and the Metal Cap which makes him invincible and heavy. There are 15 worlds to explore and with the exception of a few worlds, keeps it simple with the worlds that you can explore, with some themes even being repeated. For example, there are two snow worlds and two water themed worlds. To progress, you need to collect power stars which will grant you access to different areas when you collect them. You can access the final level and fight Bowser once you collect 70, out of the 120 Power Stars which I think is a plus because going after all of them is an enormous chore given some of the missions they make you do. However, you are able to go after any star in any order you want, meaning if there's a mission you don't like, you can skip it and move on to the next mission. Also you can do the missions without having to do them the way they were intended, making this game incredibly open-ended. Bosses are pretty pathetic even the big ones. Bowser is pretty irritating though since you need to time a throw, but he can't hurt you that much. Music is catchy and jolly unless you're in "Big Boo's Haunt" which is spookier sounding. Memorability is a great factor as well with things being very memorable, some for the wrong reasons. I know plenty of people that were scared to death of the Mad Piano (I won't spoil it if you haven't seen it). Some people can see this as a tech demo but I think this was needed so that way people could make 3D platformers properly since they were mostly pretty when this game came out and changed everything. This game is a clear example of how to make a great 3D platformer. I don't necessarily think this game is the best Mario game, but it was definitely one of the most important. I highly recommend it. Score 9.5/10 (A)