The Ratings: September

Sequel to sequel month is over, like sequel month before it. It'll probably be a while before we do another theme month, and after Animal Crossing we'll get back to business as usual, which probably means games I'm excited to play but don't actually like. However, while I'm still in a good mood from all the great games we've played recently, lets take a look at how they stack up!

Super Smash Bros. 10/10
Super Smash Bros. isn't a perfect game, but it has a lot going for it. Simple game play with a lot of depth if you want to delve in, interesting and new (for the time) mechanics. Not to mention a bunch of characters that most people are pre disposed to liking, and multiplayer you can play for days. It's honestly a little bit hard to imagine a virtual console game better than Super Smash Bros. I'm sure there's one somewhere on it, but its the swan song of the Nintendo 64, the most advanced console on the VC.

Mega Man X 9/10
Mega Man X is the game that I expected to throne Castlevainia before we played Smash Bros. I've talked a lot about it, both on that episode and many previous, so I don't know how much more I can say here. The graphics still look good today, the platforming is just as tight as previous Mega Man games, the weapons are all unique and interesting, even if it's usually easier to just use the buster, the bosses are all imaginative and cool, and wall jumping is awesome. Go play it.

Castlevainia Symphony of the Night 9/10
Choosing between Symphone of the Night and Super Metroid was really hard for me. They're both great games. Super Metroid is a little more pure, with a minamalist story, better pacing, and a very strong theme that it never breaks. Symphony of the Night just has more. More isn't always better, I think the terrible voice acting actually hurts the story they're trying to tell quite a bit, and the RPG elements some times make the game feel less focused. But at the end of the day, which is more fun? Leveling up in SotN is awesome. Finding new sweet swords when you kill Skeletons is awesome. Street Fighter spells and Pokemon are awesome. They're very similar games, but SotN takes everything from Super Metroid and adds to it. Sure, they don't quite do the things Super Metorid did quite as well, but there's so much new stuff that it's a marvel it works at all, and I have to give it the edge.

Super Metroid 9/10
Super Metroid is still a fantastic game though. It takes everything Metroid did and improves it, stream lining the obscure bits and adding things like a map to smooth out all the bumps that game had. Then it adds in all sorts of cool new mechanics, like the grappling beam and wall jumping. The game has dark graphics with a sort of washed color pallet, but that really works for it, and it manages to feel like a slow, solitary decent into hell. Plus you have laser gun that you can charge up to shoot your enemies with! Super Metroid is a fantastic game, and if you aren't frustrated by a somewhat slow pace, I give it a hearty recommendation.

Castlevania 9/10
Oh how the mighty have fallen. The NES was a great machine, and some great, simple games were on it, but the more games from newer consoles we play, the more even the best of the NES library looks a bit old and busted. That's not to say Castlevania is a bad game, it's super well designed, and quite the challenge with good themeing. If my previous praise of the game hasn't gotten you to play it, I can't imagine this will, but just in case, play it!

Mega Man 2 8/10
Mega Man is a great game. Mega Man 2 doesn't innovate very much on the original, but its longer and has some what more interesting powers, so it just barely gets the edge on the original.

Mega Man 8/10
The original is still pretty good though, iconic design and tight platforming, with a variety of different challenges, both are good, and if you like Mega Man 2, going back for the first one is probably a good idea.

The Legend of Zelda 8/10
Zelda marks the point in the scores where I stop thinking the games are universally great, and more just that the good outweighs the bad. Since Zelda is at the top of that point, I think it has the most good, and its clearly had more influence on modern games than almost any other NES game. It does a somewhat poor job of guiding you, but like Super Metroid, I think the slow pace adds a little bit to the fun.

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars 8/10
Super Mario RPG also has a lot of good, its simple and fun, and does a good job blending the Mario iconography into an RPG. However, the pacing is sort of all over the place, at some points you're getting one of the titular seven stars one after another, at other times progress slows almost completely, and there's a frustrating difficulty spike at the end. Still, it's a pretty good game.

Gradius 7/10
Gradius is difficult arcade action at its finest, with cool power ups, interesting decisions and a whole lot of challenge. A little less challenge probably would have gotten it a higher rating in my eyes, but if that sounds like your thing give Gradius a look.

Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber 7/10
Ogre Battle 64 is the first game we've played that I enjoyed in my childhood, but that doesn't quite hold up. It's still a pretty good game, and I played through it just 3 years ago when it first hit the virtual console, but playing it again the cracks in it really show. The story is slow paced, and while not exactly cliche I've certainly seen everything going on there before. The characters aren't very fleshed out either, for the N64 they've got surprising detail, they all have at least one personality trait, but it just doesn't measure up story wise today. And while it's a different sort of tactical game play, games like X-Com and Fire Emblem are just more fun. If Zach's gushing in our episode won you over check it out, if you want a ridiculous amount of game for 10 dollars check it out, but otherwise, skip it.

Castlevainia II: Simon's Quest 7/10
I'm still surprised that I rate Simon's Quest so high, but the game gets a bad rap. It's bad at telling you where you need to go, and many of the obstacles are annoying to overcome rather than entertaining, but the majority of it is whipping demons werewolves and zombies, which is always fun. Anyone who has any interest in game design should play it to completion, see what works about it, what doesn't, and come to their own conclusions.

Doom 7/10
Doom, one of the First First Person Shooters, gets almost everything right about the genre. It's fast and drops you right into the game, the weapons are unique and useful, the enemies clearly need to die, and most of all its fun. The graphics aren't great, and the levels are maze like enough that its easy to get lost, but its still a fun little title.

Metroid 7/10
Metroid isn't nearly the game Super Metroid is, it's more confusing, the graphics don't do a good job of cluing you on where to go, and the Boss Fights aren't satisfying. It's still a good game, with a lot of depth for an NES title, but pay the two extra bucks and play Super Metroid instead.

Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels 6/10
Another very hard game, Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels is still satisfying, do to incredibly tight controls and good level design. So why isn't it as high up as Gradius or Castlevainia? Well... simply put Mario isn't quite as engaging. There's really only one verb, jump, and while its still fun, its not quite as satisfying as those other games. Still, if you like Mario but think it's usually too easy, this is a game for you.

Super Mario Bros. 6/10
A classic. Super Mario Bros. is perhaps the most important game of the entire 1980s and anyone with an interest in videogames should play it to completion. Is it perfect? Far from it, but its still good to this day.

Super Mario Bros. 2 6/10
The black sheep of the Mario NES games is probably my least favorite. It's still fairly solid though, with nice graphics and each character having unique powers adds a lot to the game. If you're a big Mario or platformer fan it might be worth a look, but here's the point where games become difficult to recommend for one reason or another.

Gunstar Heroes 6/10
Gunstar Heroes is very pretty, and like most Genesis games looks like a vibrant arcade experience a console would have trouble producing. The game play is fun too, but really its about all the colors and explosions, which makes it easy to loose track of what you're doing. It's not a half bad co-op experience, but it's not a game I can strongly recommend either.

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link 5/10
The Adventure of Link is a huge departure from the previous game, and talking simply, it's too hard. The challenge is overwhelming, and failure makes you start over at the beginning, which means you just spend time getting to the spot you're stuck at over and over again. The biggest Zelda fan boys might want to give it a try, but as a Zelda fan boy myself I say skip it.

Super Dodge Ball 5/10
Super Dodge Ball is hard to talk about, because its fun and quirky but very short.  If you're interested in old NES games it's worth a look.  If you like quirky humerous video games, it's worth a look.  If you're looking for depth, skip it.

Final Fantasy 5/10
I really want to give Final Fantasy another try some time, but I don't think I'm ever going to. The game simply processes too slowly, the gap between making your choices and seeing the outcome is too long for the game to be fun. It's easy to see why with improvements, they were able to make another dozen of the things, but the original needed a little more love.

Excitebike 5/10
Excitebike is a simple little game that's surprisingly fun, you race a dirt bike, you go off jumps, and you try not to crash.  Simple but fun.  Unfortunately five dollars seems a little steep for what seems like a flash or phone game.

Kirby's Adventure 4/10
Speaking of simple, Kirby's Adventure really feels like baby's first platformer.  It's colorful and it has a lot of cool power ups, but it's so easy it becomes boring quickly, despite all that color.  I recommend you skip it.

Doom 2 4/10
Doom 2 takes all the good of Doom, adds a few new weapons, and keeps all the frustration.  It honestly feels more like an expansion pack than a sequel.  If you finish Doom and can't wait for more, pick up Doom 2, but I was quite satisfied with what the first one offered.

Zombies Ate My Neighbors 4/10
Zombies Ate my Neighbors is another simple little game that feels like it should be a phone game... only with a whole lot of progress blocking.  While the theme is good, it feels way too simple for the Super Nintendo, and I have to say pass on it.

Harvest Moon 4/10
Harvest Moon suffers from this weird problem that plagues few other games.  It's only fun for about a third of the length of the game.  That third is still long enough to justify the price of the game... but when that clashes with the desire to complete a game, it just becomes frustrating.  It's not a bad game, it just overstays its welcome.  And has a dozen sequels that have improved on the formula, I recommend you take your pick of those instead.

Sonic the Hedgehog 3/10
I'm surprised that I still have Sonic so low on the totem pole with all the bad games we've played, since Sonic isn't strictly speaking bad.  It's just really frustrating, the mechanics and visuals are all centered around speed, something the game punishes you for.  Metroid, a game about isolation, does more to encourage speed.  And that's terrible.

The Legend of the Mystical Ninja 3/10
Like Sonic, I feel Mystical Ninja probably deserves more than a 3.  It's not a bad game, it just didn't offer anything special, other than some Japanese humor, though I don't think a video game is the best medium for that.  The co-op makes the game fun, but there are definitely better games out there.

F-Zero 3/10
The last of the games that just isn't flat out bad, F-Zero is a racing game, not all that different than racing games today, other than having HP and lives.  I don't know that that really adds anything to the game, and I don't really think I recommend it, but it's not offensive.
 
Act Raiser 3/10
Act Raiser is a worthy experiment, and it has a lot of potential.  I'd actually love to see a sequel to the game, although Act Raiser 2 isn't on the virtual console, and I've heard it's not very good.  If you like genre mixing, it's an interesting example, but the platforming that makes up most of the game isn't very fun, so don't go in expecting much.

Bases Loaded 3/10
Bases Loaded is an impressive Base Ball simulation for the NES.  It's also not much fun, since hitting the ball is almost as difficult as in real life, but with none of the physical feed back.  Unless you're a sports video game nut, I suggest you skip it.

Ogre Battle 2/10
Ogre Battle is kind of terrible.  There are some good ideas there, but most of them were retained for Ogre Battle 64, which fixes all the major issues.  Play that instead.

Comix Zone 2/10
Comix Zone is visually striking, but short, artificially difficult, and uses cheap game play techniques.  Just skip it.

Double Dragon II The Revenge 2/10
Double Dragon II is ok, the "story" is pretty "great", and it has co-op which always makes a game more fun.  The controls are incredibly shaky however, which sort of ruins the whole thing.

Double Dragon 2/10
Double Dragon has all the problems of its sequel, but ear piercing terrible music and no co-op.  Double skip it.

Ghosts and Goblins 2/10
Ghosts and Goblins is a hard game, but not in a fun way like Lost Levels or Castlevainia, where you always know you're at fault for your mistakes.  Instead, the difficulty feels nearly random at times, and unless you feel you have something to prove skip it.

Phantasy Star 1/1
I can at least understand the person who tortures themself with Ghosts n' Goblins.  Phantasy Star is terrible on so many levels... just play any other RPG instead.