#175 - Destiny of an Emperor

Believe it or not, the free Mega Man sticker is not the coolest thing about purchasing this game.

                 The battles are faster and just plain better than Final Fantasy.

I felt like I was headed down the barrel of a Koei gun when I glanced at the name of this game. Destiny of an Emperor? More like Destined to Put Me to Sleep! Nothing beats being proved wrong, though, especially when it comes to some of the horrors I've had to face on this quest. Capcom, not Koei, is reponsible for this unique and surprisingly entertaining mix of a traditional RPG with strategic elements. If I can throw down a "phat" hyperbolic beat for a moment, I think Destiny of an Emperor may be one of the most fun games I've yet to play on this quest. I don't "come correct" with high praise very often, so you know I ain't "frontin."

All attempts at sounding like a gangsta from the early 90s aside, Destiny of an Emperor shines like a crazy diamond, no thanks to its remarkable gameplay. While the game is a traditional 8-bit RPG at its core, what with random battles, squatty sprites and the like, the gameplay is like nothing I've ever seen in any NES game. Your party initially consists of three Chinese generals, but as the game progresses, you can recruit other generals. All in all, there are 200 generals to collect, although you can only have 75 of them in your party altogether, and only six in your battling party. Still, this is long before the days of Suikoden or even Pokemon, so I was very impressed by this feature. In the first two towns you find three generals, so the "collecting" begins very early. Certain generals are, obviously, better at fighting, while others are better at Tactics. You should always have one general assigned to be your Tactician. As you level up, your Tactician will learn new tactics for the other generals to use when you battle. Once you enter a battle, one person fights at a time, as per normal, but there is an option called "All-Out" which is basically an all-out brawl. Unlike other RPGs which have useless "Auto Fight" features, "All-Out" is surprisingly useful and can be a quick way to gain experience. Another nice touch: each general's Hit Points is actually the size of their army. To put it another way, when one of your generals – let's say Lui Bei - takes 14 damage, the screen will say that 14 of Lui Bei's men have been killed.

If I had to fault Destiny of an Emperor for anything, it would be how obtuse the direction of the game is at times. It's hard to know whether a general you've recruited is a solid fighter or not until you've taken him out in some battles. This can be tedious, but I highly recommend it. Luckily, you can "fire" generals, so if one guy's not pulling his weight, he's left to fend for himself. Sometimes they'll even come back to fight you, which is awesome! It's also hard to know what items to buy for which general. You especially don't want to buy items for a sucky general if you're just going to kick them out later. These are niggling points that can easily be fixed with an FAQ, though, and besides, what NES RPG wasn'tobtuse at times?

So yeah, I really love this game. The story is essentially Koei-lite and nothing to write home about, but the gameplay will have you glued to your NES for hours at a time. It's a shame Capcom has yet to continue the series because, despite the game's age, it feels very undated and fresh. If you want a one-of-a-kind experience for your NES, you owe it to yourself to play this.

A+

#174 - Destination Earthstar

This is one of those games you get for Christmas as a kid and think is awesome. You spend years trying to conquer it before coming to your senses as an adult and realizing just how horrible it really is.

                     Silly Akklaim, underground bases don't exist in space!

I commented in my review of Defender II that the emptiness of space is captured well in classic games. While I stand by that statement, I should have added an asterisk: all classic games, but one. Destination Earthstar makes space feel boring. Because it's a first-person flight simulator/shooter thing, all you see is dark space in the top half of your screen, along with pixelated stars and the occasional enemy ship. The bottom half of your screen is a mix of important information like the energy of your craft, and less important stats like your "P" meter??? and your SPD-ometer??? Most of the screen readout doesn't make any sense, but the real hoot are the controls. Good luck picking up this baby and knowing exactly what to do. You can enter hyperspace by pressing "Up" and "B," toggle your viewpoint by pressing "Select" and "B." But don't worry, the essentials are the same: "A" is fire and to pause you press... "A" and "B" at the same time?

Alright, in a rare attempt at classic gaming diplomacy, let's give Akklaim the benefit of the doubt. Maybethe controls are a little backward in this game, but no wannabe flight simulator on the NES is going to be easy right? Perhaps the combat and the missions make up for it! On your map (see above screenshot), your enemies are represented by the numbers 1-9 (for difficulty? Not sure), planets are represented by 0, armories by "A," and friendly bases by "B." Your goal is to clear the map of enemies, then enter the enemy base. The game then turns into a ridiculously difficult 2D shooter where you must kill the boss of the enemy base. As I played Destination Earthstar, I decided that it was simply mediocre and a little boring, but nothing too abominable, besides the controls. Then as I was gunning down some enemies in the first-person mode, I ran out of my weapon. It wasn't like I was using any special upgraded weaponry. These were just your run-of-the-mill laser pellets found at the beginning of any space shooter! Needless to say, I died in a fit of frothy rage. Did the game glitch? Was my "perfectly legal" copy messed up? I don't know, but a combination of poor game design, mediocrity, and poor controls leave me cold, much like the shriveled nethers of space. DO YOU SEE WHAT I DID THE-

F

#173 - Desert Commander

                      Patton tries to play God. Based on a true story.

Nintendo saw this game and said, "There's profit to be had." And Advance Wars was born.

And here I thought the GBA/DS franchise Advance Wars were a series of original strategy games from Nintendo. Turns out, Nintendo stole the gameplay from an obscure Kemco game called Desert Commander! In Desert Commander, you are at war with Iraq or Iran or one of those countries that has gas for 29 cents a gallon, I dunno. You have a certain amount of units you can control – bi-planes, trucks, tanks, infantry – and your goal is to meet your enemy head-on. Your enemy has similar units, but in five out of the six campaigns, their numbers will be larger. Each unit can move a limited number of spaces and has a limited amount of ammo, so mind your stats. You must also be aware of the terrain your units move onto. Anything that has wheels or feet are obviously slowed by more mountainous terrain. If you engage your enemy, you'll be treated to a cutscene of bullets, bombs, and explosions. The only real complaint I can think of is how slow your units move. Granted, this was the NES and sprites could only move as fast as they're programmed, but in the current go-go age of 2011, it still feels a bit chunky. I'm not the largest fan of strategy games, as I've expressed earlier on this blog. However, I do have a soft spot for Advance Warsand to play a simpler version of it on the NES, sans anime graphics, is a joy.

B+

#172 - Demon Sword

Your character might resemble Conan on the box, but trust: he's a samurai in the game.

Yup, you can climb bamboo in the game. It's awesome until a couple skeletons fly into you and kill you.

Leave it to a game I've never heard of to defy all my expectations. Demon Sword, a fast-paced, slice-and-dice action game has hints of greatness amidst the bamboo trees, but falls flat in a couple key areas. While the concept is borderline Ninja Gaiden(instead of being a ninja in the city, you're a samurai in the woods – kooky!), your attacks are unique: the "B" button throws a shuriken, while the "A" button throws darts. In order to truly slay your opponents, you have to combine the two attacks, which wouldn't be bad if you didn't have such a short life bar and a penchant for getting hit. To be fair, the enemies fly around all over the place and it's pretty hard not to get hit, even if you're avoiding them as much as possible. The key to this game would seem to be patience, but it's hard when you Sonic shoes on and you can jump 50 feet in the air, simply by pressing "Up." Seriously, this is one of the fastest NES action games I've ever played, but Taito, bless 'em, didn't know how to handle the speed of the character. This is Demon Sword's fatal flaw and a Catch-22: you can walk slowly through the bamboo forests, killing anyone who would fly at your face and acquiring delicious power-ups, or you can feel like a true samurai and run and jump through the environments, but you'll die a lot quicker. You shouldn't have to make that choice, and a pox on Taito for forcing you to!

C

#171 - Deja Vu

                                 Ain't nothin' but a gangsta party

                Give the mugger the ol' one-two and he'll run crying to his mama

The Commodore 64 was my jambox when I was a kid. I used to play almost every Carmen Sandiego game ever made with my grandpa on that thing, along with a couple other random games like Pac-Man. Long after the console had been dead – around about 1994 or so – I purchased some crappy one dollar C64 games at this store called Toy Liquidators. Included in that purchase was a point-and-click noir adventure called Time to Die. I loved Time to Diedespite the game being so broken, you couldn't get past the first few screens without being mugged and shot. It had a mysterious atmosphere combined with creepy music and visuals that (for the first few screens, anyway) entranced me over and over again. Fast forward a few years later and I "acquired" a game for my "Nintendo" entitled Deja Vu. I booted it up, began to play and I realized that Time to Die was trying its best to create – or perhaps blatantly rip off - the Deja Vu vibe. I instantly fell in love with Deja Vu at that moment of clarity, we got married two days later, and we've been joined at the hip ever since.

Part #171 of My Confessions: I love point-and-click adventure games and I love the noir genre, thus my love for Deja Vu. If neither of these things appeal to you, especially the former, you can substitute my eventual grade of "A" for a big fat "F" (well... "F" is a little harsh, perhaps just a "D" for "Dang, this is a good game, but I'm just not matureenough to appreciate it). I write this with confidence because very few people feel neutral about point-and-click games or noir.

But what is Deja Vu about, you ask? Point-and-click games are only as good as their story. I don't want to give too much away because, in my opinion, Deja Vu has some of the best, and most deliberate, pacing of any game on the NES. Here's what I can say: you start off the game not knowing who you are. Obviously, your main goal is to discover your identity, so you're off to hunt for clues. Each clue you find gives you a little bit more information about either who you are or where you should go next. Clues are found by carefully searching through every nook and cranny. See a desk? "Open" it and chances are you'll find something you need. As the mystery of who you are unravels, the story becomes more and more tense, and if you're anything like me, you'll find yourself swept up in the mystery.

The problem with point-and-click games that aren't played on the computer is how slow the cursor can be. Navigating through all of your options on the bottom half of the screen can be a pain with the D-pad, especially if the game doesn't entrance you like it does me. I personally get around this by remembering that, unlike the majority of games I play, Deja Vu requires patience in all ways. If I keep this at the forefront of my mind, I can push past the slight inconvenience of slow controls.

Despite my love for Deja Vu, I still can't help but wonder about Time to Die. I have searched for that game far and wide on the Internet, and have yet to find a single rom or even – fancy that – an actual copy of the game. If anyone knows where I could procure a copy, please leave a comment in the comments section; I would love to embrace some memories on a nostalgic afternoon. Even if I never play Time to Die again, both it and Deja Vucomplement each other in my gaming history. Time to Dieintroduced me to noir and point-and-click at an impressionable age, but Deja Vu blew my teenage mind by enhancing the formula to perfection. Deja Vu is the standard for a classic noir adventure. Some might call it Deja Voodoo, but I just call it timeless.

A