President_Leever

This was kind of interesting back in the day, but for me the fascination of movement in mode 7 wore off pretty quick. Comes off as a crude tech demo today.

shooter and mode 7 segments didn't age too well, but at its core its a fine action game. Oh and when is user ratings coming back?

Loved the concept and the music in this game and I still do. It is damn repetitive, simple, and the controls are pretty bad. Not a good game today, never has been, but I still find it entertaining in 2-player mode.

This is brilliant, really. Game mechanics are easy to learn, hard to master and the whole game is extremely addictive.

Pretty solid game that really shows its age with clunky controls, some generic looking sprites and a tedious sim interface. The soundtrack is a timeless classic though

I do like Contra (Hard Corps of course) better, but this game is at the very least a huge technical accomplishment, and it does a much better job than Contra at easing you into its mechanics. The game gets even better when you've mastered normal difficulty as boss patterns and health change when played on hard, and on expert every boss is pretty much impossible (for me anyway). The only thing that I really don't like about GH is the Dice game. It's just so tedious.

@Qwikman: You'll get used to the control man, give it another shot. I had the same initial impression as you (except for the bubbles, zelda/mana has bubbles as well IIRC and there are many other enemy types) but I stuck with it and ended up loving it. The story, characters and dungeons are areas where this game really shines. It offers a much more vivid, and well scripted world than Zelda or Mana. The voice samples are pretty hilarious though, every single enemy makes that damn scream when killed.

Here's my wishlist:

VCArcade:
Golden Axe: Revenge of Death Adder
After Burner
Virtua Fighter 3
Sega Rally 2
Crazy Taxi
Virtua Cop
House of the Dead

Saturn:
Burning Rangers
Dragon Force

Mega Drive/Genesis:
Rocket Knight Adventures
Monster World IV
Panorama Cotton
Langrisser II
Yu Yu Hakusho: Makyou Toitsusen
Bare Knuckle 3
Micro Machines '96
Herzog Zwei
Contra: Hard Corps
Wiz 'n Liz
Castlevania: Bloodlines
Ranger X
Eliminate Down
Alisia Dragoon
General Chaos
Thunder Force II, III & IV

SMS:
Power Strike 2
Golvellius
Zillion
Golden Axe Warrior
Kenseiden
Wonder Boy III: Dragon's Trap
Penguin Land
Ninja Gaiden

Sega CD:
Shining Force CD
Lunar: Eternal Blue
Snatcher
Android Assault: Bari-Arm
Lords of Thunder
Popful Mail
Mansion of Hidden Souls
Road Avenger

This game has just as much trial & error as sonic 1 MD (or Maro 1-3 for that matter) if not more. Especially in Jungle & Labyrinth zone.

Wow, a 7? You guys sure like to hate on the puzzle games.

Columns III: 4/10
Lolo 1 & 2: 7/10

I mean, there's not even any text discussing why the game got the score, just a basic description of gameplay. You also acknowledge it as "classic" and "fine", so where's the 9/10 or 10/10 even? Personally I think the snes version has a slight advantage but they're both amazing games.

While it's certainly fun to play, I found the overall presentation to be extremely bland and the music is just cheesy and grating to the ears. Much prefer Lords to this.

Agreed with Adamant, lots of fun to be had here if you want a shooter to really sink your teeth into and one that plays more like R-Type or Gradius rather than Thunder Force. Lords/Gate of Thunder are more intense games, but also shorter.

I'd give it a weak 6 personally. The gameplay is pretty unbalanced, it's too short and the audio quality is poor.

This game is trippy as hell and the main theme is, well, legendary.

ah, the fun half of sonic 3 & knuckles

While the other games in the series had better flow, art direction, and music (especially the music), this one has a smoother difficulty curve and because of the warp system it doesn't take 15 min to beat. One of the best shooters for the system, yes, but no match for Power strike 2.

no mention of the 32x or snes versions?

I hate how this review keeps dissing the game just for being 8-bit, even associating the era with slow controls (ridiculous!). Have you all started judging these games by today's standards now? And where's my user rating feature? :/

Why didn't they just skip this port for the arcade original? 2-player mode, better challenge, better sound. 'tis redundant!

This review is awful. You're not basing the low score on anything but a lack of challenge (there are dfficulty options), a 'goofy looking' character sprite and apparently the lack of skateboards (the game has a medieval fantasy theme, and how would that work in 2-player anyway?). The game is at least a small improvement over the original Wonder Boy, and it certainly is a challenge played on a higher difficulty than the default setting, even if it is a trial & error-based challenge. My only real gripe with it is that the shooter levels are all exactly the same, they all play like the first level of gradius with enemies coming at you in a wave pattern before you enter a boss battle. Also I loved the music - very melodic and cheerful, very old school.. but the soundtrack doesn't come close to taking full advantage of the MD sound chip and it sounds awful in certain parts. I'd give this port a 6/10.

50 points would be a more reasonable sum. Not a bad game, but you could play something similar or better for free on the internet or on your cellphone.

Finally Although it's hard to go back to the sluggish controls after playing the sequels, the Ninja vibe is very strong with this one.

What's important is that the score reflects what is being said in the review. I don't like that you removed the user ratings, that was probably the best thing about the site.

Now this is a score I can agree with. Overhyped pile of crap that was all about the graphics. Even those haven't aged well (especially not the MD version which was way overdithered).

Beau Skunk for Critic!

so I read your review thoroughly, and the only reason you give this a 2/5 is a lack of challenge? I guess you'd be extremely harsh to any game with a save feature then? You didn't even mention the music. I'm definitely no hardcore fan of sonic, but I do realize this is a better game than its awful prequel. This is worth playing Especially for newer gamers who can't get into older games because of their difficulty.

Adamant:
What port is that then?
I'd rather have a unique game than an inferior arcade port anyway.

This game could've used a 2-player mode. I don't think it's very similar to excitebike though except for the fact that they're both motocross racing games. This has more variety, different controls and it's isometric.

Wow, that's some crappy AI! Actually made me laugh. Fights look kinda tedious as well. Anyway the presentation and overall atmosphere is impressive, haven't seen anything like it on C64.

Not a bad game at all but they should've released the japanese version which had more tracks and was a better challenge.

Except this was a multi-platform title and not very controversial at all.

Ok this is easily the worst of the 8-bit titles, it was very poorly coded and the level design is full of wtf moments like leaps of faith, hangliders you can barely control, and tubes that lead to instant death. The first game was great but they really messed up with this one. I'd go as far as to say it is the worst 2D sonic I've played if it weren't for some of the spinoff titles and that horrible GBA port of the first genesis game.

Putting the presentation aside for a sec, what we have here is a very repetitive game with the usual oldschool flaws like floaty control and trial & error level design.

Wow, do you actually like Do-Re-Mi that much? It's good, yeah definitely but also very derivative and slow paced. Overall a fine list and a nice read, especially for CVII which rock rocks roooocks.

I could never get into this one but I liked the spinoff title Secret of Evermore, which I played first. SoMs story felt really cookiecutter jRPG with poor focus and silly dialogue (I've read somewhere that it was poorly translated though). I didn't even know where to be going at times and walking around aimlessly got boring after a while because there just isn't that much going on in the gameworld. Furthermore the AI was poor and you could easily abuse the magic system, making the game way too easy. The dungeons, compared to Zelda or Landstalker, were nothing special. I loved the battle system at its core though and the menu interface seemed really modern at the time. Oh and the music was damn good!

Excellent game that probably would've been more popular had it been easier and not set in a puppet show.

deggs: I beg to differ; 5 and 6 (6 esp) are worse than the early titles because they completely changed the pacing with the chargeable mega buster and they are Much easier games. Furthermore they were just rehashing the previous games in most other aspects. MM5 did have some interesting level designs like the scooter part in one level or the reversed gravity in another.. but at the same time had other problems like leaps of faith into spikes (this is a game released in the 90s!), and instead of givng you energy enemies drop more 1ups instead - completely redundant.
MM6 was just dull, uninspired crap and I couldn't stand more than a couple levels of it. I did like the soundtrack though, quite an improvement over 4-5.

"If you couldn’t get on with the original then there’s nothing here that will entice you back into the fold"

Except for much better AI, and improved graphics/sound obviously.

Excellent sequel. Its only real flaws are a very limited inventory (makes battles longer) and a cookiecutter story (which is also qute poorly translated), but it's the battles that matter in games like these anyway and this one is extremely addictive!

Is the camera this loose on the VC? Because the gamegear game had sonic in the middle of the screen while running, which helped a lot with the trial & error.

Anyway it's a nice port considering the hardware but I missed the innovative bonus level and those autoscrolling levels had no place in a sonic game.

lol, what was the cause of the "seizure" at the end of the vid?

A very challenging game that introduced some of the series staples like shopping for equipment and treasure hunting. It's a shame it didn't get rid of some older mechanics in the process though, because searching for secrets and doing shopping is pretty hard to do when your life keeps draining away and there are NO continues to fall back on. And you still get point giving loot from enemies when all you really want is gold because it's so damn rare and everything is so damn expensive! The game ends up being as much about resource management as it is about platforming and fighting monsters.
Get the sequel, Wonder Boy III /Dragons Curse first. This isn't even the best version, as it plays extremely slow.
Btw, I wonder if the arcade game inspired Nintendo to make Zelda 2 the way it was or if it was the other way around?

I'm surprised you didn't mention the extremely tight camera for the platform segments. Makes some of the jumps impossible to judge and just feels akward compared to other games in the genre (contra, mega man) where you could "see the whole playfield" so to speak..

Is there a term for B-games like with B-movies? This game has that sort of quality to it. Very fun though.

This was great. On the Master System.

Now that's what I call quite good!

Fun character, but the game gets boring once the novelty of tossing boogers and farting wears off. The graphics hurt my eyes, but I did like the quirky soundtrack.

Excellent game, and a lot more forgiving than the first one. I actually like the music better in the MD version, doesn't have that awful reverb on some instruments. If you could skip the mini-game, I would've given it 5/5.

Well, Earthworm Jim is the only one still worth playing but it's great to see more third party dev games making it to the VC.

Good news. Toki Tori was one of the few GBC games that I really liked.

Didn't most of these games get better versions on other platforms? Paradrioid '90 for example is much better than Paradroid.

Looks generic and easy.