#205 - DuckTales

                                      Scrooge McDuck: the original gangsta?

                               His pimp cane will find you. Even on the moon.

I don't know a single Nintendo-raised child that hates on DuckTalesor even finds it mediocre. It and its sequel are hailed as simple, classic platformers that also happen to be licensed games. How many times in the history of gaming has that sentence been written? Personally, having revisited it for the first time in years, I'm a little less enthused, but more on me crushing your nostalgic remembrances later.

DuckTales has you playing Scrooge McDuck, the lovable old, miserly uncle of Huey, Dewey, and Louie. You travel across five levels to increase your fortune and encounter random mischief along the way, SUCH AS: child ducknappings, insane gorillas, friggin' annoying ghosts, surprisingly non-linear (for a platformer) gameplay. Choose your stage, like in Mega Man? Don't mind if I do, Capcom. Each stage was a unique, exotic locale, like Transylvania, African Mines, or the Moon (?). Scrooge hits enemies by bouncing on them with his cane, which is a little more awesome than it sounds. The cane mechanic controls surprisingly well, although it can be a nuisance when you're in a small space and the only way to kill an enemy is to bounce on them. At least give the option to use a straightforward cane jab, con sarn it! Hit detection was also an issue. If you don't bounce directly on an enemies' head or back, you will get hurt. It takes time and practice to get good and gives the game some replay value if you're looking to perfect it a la Mega Man.

While I acknowledge that this game raised the bar for licensed games and is technically an excellent game, I can't help but feel that the platforming itself is incredibly subpar. I had no desire to continue my quest once I had played through a couple stages. The stages themselves aren't that interesting either, until the later ones like the Himalayas. The hit detection really bothered me, as I didn't remember it being a problem at all years ago. True, there are several different paths one can take to the boss, but if the gameplay isn't that interesting, why bother? I'm truly disappointed that I couldn't find the same joy that I found as a kid in DuckTales. The rose-colored lenses have fallen to the floor, like so many obnoxious Webbigail quotes.

C+

#204 - Duck Hunt

               Expect some snarky comments from your dog for that missed shot.

                                                               Told ya.

Well, Duck Hunt, eh? Many people remember this as the second game they ever played, after Super Mario Bros. For those that grew up with the combo cartridge, Duck Hunt was seen as the game you played when Super Mario Bros. became too difficult. It introduced the Zapper peripheral which, along with the ROB Robot, started the proud tradition of quirky, but useless Nintendo peripherals (Donkey Konga Bongos anyone?). The game itself inspired all the Cabela's Hunting crap we see today, but Duck Huntactually contains charm. The duck's expressions when you shoot them are fantastic, as are the flying and falling animations. Who can forget the dog that laughs at you when you miss a shot and the anger you feel when you realize you can't shoot your dog for laughing at you? The clay pigeon mode is more straightforward, but is also more challenging – if you're actually trying to play fair and shoot them from a distance. Despite the game's iconic art style and ability to inspire nostalgic memories in Generation Y, it's very much an early NES game. You can play it for ten minutes and get the full Duck Hunt experience. It's worth revisiting if you want to initiate your own child in the ways of the hunt, or if you yourself need to forget the bleakness of life and become a kid again. Just don't expect to linger here.

C

#203 - Dragon's Lair

Imagine a child, who loved the arcade version, getting this for Christmas. Then imagine the dragon on the cover eating said child.

                                   The first screen. Welcome to your doom.

Of all the important things I'm thankful for – family, food, friends, a job - I'm also thankful that I have stuck with this quest for as long as I have. Were I a weaker man, I would have turned back several times by now. Today would be a prime example. Dragon's Lair may not be the worst game I've ever played, but its atrocities against humanity certainly propel it into the upper echelon. First off: every child of the 80s and 90s remembers the original Dragon's Lair, right? It was an arcade point-and-click cartoon adventure directed by Don Bluth a.k.a. The "American Tail" guy. It was well-received for its time because no other game resembled it, but the better technology has become, the more obsolete and uninteresting Dragon's Lair has become. Whether you recall Dirk the Dashing's adventures fondly or not, the NES, uh, "adaptation" isn't even worth picking up. I can't recall whether I've ever had a game kill me so much on the first screen (yes, the Angry Video Game Nerd once again gets it right). Instead of a point-and-click adventure, NES Dragon's Lair is a side-scrolling exercise in madness. It begs you to wonder what will and won't kill you. For example, on the first screen, there is a drawbridge that will only open after you kill a dragon that pops out from under the bridge. Should you try and jump into the drawbridge, you will disintegrate into a pile of bones. Yes, wooden doors really are that powerful. Should you trip on the bridge due to a disappearing piece of the bridge, you will once again become a pile of bones. Don't worry, though: bats can hit you over and over, and you're good. In order to kill the dragon, you have to crouch down and throw your weapon before the dragon crouches completely under the bridge. The dragon is so savvy and Dirk's movements are so slow that I couldn't kill the dragon. Thus, I couldn't get past the first screen and my experience with Dragon's Lair came to an end. If a game doesn't want you to play it, I say, why enrage it any further? Who knows what other horrors await me within the actual castle?

F

#202 - Dragon Warrior IV

The final ill-conceived Dragon Warrior cover for the NES. Could Enix and Nintendo have mishandled this awesome series any worse?

                        Why would a fierce warrior wear pink armor? I ask you!!!

For those NES owners that loved RPGs of any flavor, the Dragon Warrior series must have felt like a Godsend. Where else could you spend tens of hours grinding away and building up your character (s)? Where else could you search for hidden treasure within tucked away caves? Epic quests rarely felt as epic as the Dragon Warriors. RPGs, while not lacking on the NES, didn't have much of a presence until the early 90s and Dragon Warrior is arguably to thank for that, despite the general lack of mainstream appeal. Enix released one Dragon Warrior a year from 1989 to 1992, despite the sales declines they saw with each successive game. They must have hoped that each entry would win the heart of the mainstream gamer, much like the original Legend of Zelda had twenty-five years ago. It's a shame, then, that Dragon Warrior 4 was released in 1992, when many players (myself included) had moved on to the 16-bit pastures of the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis. Dragon Warrior 4 is a fresh start to the series, and had it been marketed properly, could have lured gamers away from Final Fantasy II.

The heart of Dragon Warrior 4 is its story. No other Dragon Warrior had made story such a key element to the game, and while none of the previous entries really suffered for it, Enix made the right decision to go gung-ho with this one. The game is divided into five different chapters. With each chapter, you control a different character, each with a different set of skills than the previous. The following are not spoilers, as you can find summaries of these characters within the manual of the game.

Chapter 1: You control Ragnar the warrior, who's put in charge of rescuing some missing children. Along the way, you meet Healie, a healslime that has a strange yearning to be human. He joins your party, and thus begins the longstanding Dragon Quest tradition of having monsters join your party.

Chapter 2: Alena is a princess who longs to be free of her castle and have adventures. She escapes from her bedroom and is joined by her two guardians, Cristo (?!) and Brey.

Chapter 3: Torneko Taloon is a merchant who wants to found his own shop. He abandons his family and heads to the Big City, where he hopes to find fame and fortune. Interestingly, Torneko is a weak character so it would be prudent not to engage in many fights. He can hire mercenaries to protect him, though. While he is a pseudo-joke character, he is charming, and his chapter defies RPG conventions even today.

Chapter 4: Mona and Nara are magic-using sisters who are trying to avenge their father's murderer. They are joined by the warrior Orin.

Chapter 5: Finally, after many hours of playing as other admittedly cool characters, Chapter 5 sees you playing the Hero. After the Hero's village is destroyed by monsters, his powers are revealed to him, thus sending him on a quest to rid the world of the evil Necrosaro. Along his way, he encounters all of the previous characters and they join forces to destroy Necrosaro for good.

For a series that began with the simplest of stories – go kill the evil Dragonlord – it's astonishing that Enix was able to craft such a multi-faceted tale, and bring the characters together so wonderfully. As expected, the gameplay basically remains the same, though with a couple new interesting additions, like casinos and the ability to save your game at churches. You can also search for Medals in the world and trade them in to get stronger, rarer weapons. Little perks like this add beef to an already meaty and expansive game.

Dragon Warrior IV remains an expensive and sought after purchase for the NES. Thankfully, about three years back, Square Enix ported it over to the DS with better graphics and an additional chapter focusing on the villain. The DS version will only set you back twenty bucks or so on Amazon, while the NES version costs about forty to fifty dollars. If you've held out from the Dragon Warrior/Quest series because of the extensive grinding, you have no excuse with this entry. While there are still random battles and some grinding, the story more than makes up for any tedium you would experience. Dragon Warrior IV is truly a one-of-a-kind cinematic experience for your NES.

A+

                                      A Dragon Warrior medley for your ears

From now on, one review a day...

Starting today, I will be uploading one review per day, so that within a couple of years, I too can grow a beard, lay on the sand and have someone write "Done" above my head.

When I first started this endeavor back in June of 2010, my goal was to write one review a day. I was so harsh on myself that, if I skipped a day or two, I would write two to three reviews just to keep up. As I grew more long-winded in my reviews, this became more time-consuming. I didn't mind, really, except that the blog started keeping me from other writing projects. I took a few months off, then came back in January of 2011, revitalized and ready to finish. I continued the one-page review format, but was more lax on myself if I skipped a day (or a week...).

Now that I'm generally only doing one-to-two paragraph reviews, with the occasional longer review for flavor, I feel I will be able to keep up with the one-a-day pace. Besides, for those who are semi-regular readers, it's nice to have a site you frequent updated on a daily basis.

That's enough for now. Back to the reviews!

 - DC

#201 - Dragon Warrior III

  Look at all that loot! Incidentally, the game itself is worth a pretty penny now.

                                                     Um...

Dragon Warrior III is the last entry in the so-called "Erdrick" trilogy, and it is by far the best and most essential Dragon Warrioryet (until the fourth one). As I've repeated ad nauseum, what I appreciate most about the Dragon Warriorgames are their consistency and their willingness to take on only one or two new features at a time and do them really well, instead of changing the series structure time and time again with mixed results. Dragon Warrior IIIadheres to that formula by adding classes such as fighters, soldiers (warriors), pilgrims (healers), wizards (mages), among others (including a "goof-off" class, if you're feeling lucky). Interestingly, once one of your secondary party members hits level 20, you have the option to change classes. This knocks them down to level 1, but they retain their skills and stats learned in their previous class. You could make supermen with the crippling attacks of a soldier and the spells of a wizard. It's a neat twist and gives you a reason to grind some more (as if you needed any). Sick of having half your gold taken away if you die in battle, like in the first two Dragon Warriors? Store some of it in a bank. Little touches like that pepper the game and acknowledge the few grievances from the previous entries. I could go on: the day/night cycle when you're out on the battlefield is really cool, as are the story's links to the original Dragon Warrior. Since thie game came out towards the end of the NES' lifecycle, it's rare and hard to find. I recommend tracking down the Game Boy Color remake, as it adds some new features and just looks better. Either way, if you're an old-school RPG fan, make sure to put Dragon Warrior IIIin your itinerary.

A

#200 - Dragon Warrior II

It's amusing that Enix would put such ridiculous American box art on a blatantly Japanese RPG.

               This is not my screenshot. I would never name a character "Gwen."

One reason I appreciate the Dragon Quest/Warrior series more than the Final Fantasy series is the consistency of the games. Each Dragon Quest contains the same type of gameplay and mechanics, albeit refined for each new addition. Even when they add new elements to the series, like the trading system from Dragon Quest IX, the game never feels like a completely new beast.

That being said, if you were not a fan of the first Dragon Warrior due to the ridiculous amount of grinding, you might find Dragon Warrior II to be more to your liking. While there is still grinding (it's an RPG on the NES, for cryin'), the whole affair feels a lot less tedious. You acquire two additional party members, which makes for a less lonely journey. The basic principles of the first Dragon Warrior have been brought over: fight, level up, buy better weapons and armor, move to different towns, etc. But the graphics are more colorful, the story more cinematic (you play as the ancestor of the warrior Erdrick from the first game), and, most importantly, the fighting is a lot more enjoyable. The one negative I could give this game isn't really the game's fault at all. Nintendo was too darn slow in bringing it out to America. Within a year of this game's release, Final Fantasy II (one of the few entries worth playing) was already blowing minds on the Super Nintendo with its Mode 7 graphics and such. Still, like an old, but comfortable hat, Dragon Warrior II may not be pretty, but it has plenty of well-worn charm.

A-