rare – NewRetroWave – Stay Retro! | Live The 80's Dream!

The Joys of Scrutiny and Scorn, vol. 1: Double Dragon 3/III and Battletoads & Double Dragon

bryan.eddy@newretrowave.com — Mon, 09 Jul 2018 19:24:57 +0000

Hey, look, we found it!

I put this off until I was ready to be mad about video games on our website again. I suppose now’s a good enough time; I have a minor but very painful sinus infection, it’s making it hard to get good sleep, and the HV/AC ducts in my part of the house are completely out to lunch, leaving me congested, sleep-deprived, in pain, and boiling alive in what equates to a sauna full of antique electronics and D&D books.

Fuck it, let’s slap around Double Dragon 3. While we’re at it, let’s call up its cousin, Battletoads & Double Dragon: the Ultimate Team.

The first two Double Dragon installments, aside from the fact that the arcade versions are virtually alike minus window dressing, kick righteous ass. One of the true milestones in beat-em-up history, the original DD set the pace for a blossoming game-type that became one of video gaming’s staple arrangements – walk, beat the dribbling shit out of anyone who stops you walking, keep walking ,rinse, repeat. On a very much related note, I also have a soft spot in my heart for the ‘Toads, having poured hours and tears into the NES, Genesis, and arcade offerings bearing their name. It’s hard to imagine the Double Dragon franchise shitting the bed, and no one really wants to hate Battletoads. Right?

Double Dragon shit the bed the second it pulled the comforter up towards its neck, and while I don’t hate Battletoads, I do plan on trying, just for their part in this.

Double Dragon III/3: the Rosetta Stone (the Sacred Stones)

East Technology, 1990 (every version but the NES one) Technos Japan, 1991 (The NES one)

“Omae wa mou shindeiru.”
I couldn’t help my self. Look at him.

There are two distinct, separate third installments of Double Dragon III. The arcade game got released first, and it’s actually not dogshit-terrible, which is hilarious to me, considering how Technos didn’t actually make it.They contracted a smaller crew called East Technology to develop the third installment of one of their flagship franchises; the end result is weird as hell and fairly difficult but only slightly inferior to the first two games overall. This version of the game got ported to all the usual suspects in the early home computer lineup, as well as the Sega Genesis. This is how I encountered it. If you’re like me and the first thing you do after turning on the power is screw around in the options menu, you’ll notice something interesting about the Genesis port: You can swap around “starting men” and be some other characters from the “Extra Guys” aspect of the game. I particularly like to be the karate dudes with the 1950s duck-ass hairdos.

Always a lot going on. A lot to take in, and a lot to dish out, if you can manage it.

The story begins in the USA, after a quick audiovisual/text intro that tells you Billy and Jimmy are just home from training. They meet a really gross-looking but altruistic soothsayer named Hiruko. She feels like she just found the lock for a key she’s been carrying arpund, and tells them some sketchy shit about finding three Rosetta Stones and then heading to Egypt to fight “the strongest possible foe.” She keeps the same impassive grin on her face as she drops one last nugget – no one’s tried this and lived.

“Just run of the mill stuff, you know. Nothing worth I don’t know, opening you eyes the whole way or not smiling or something.”

So I guess we could call the Lee brothers either adrenaline junkies or oblivion-seeking masochists, because they don’t even wanna settle in and maybe nap off the jetlag before marching out into the streets to resume The Perpetual Fistfight With Destiny and find those fuckin’ stones.

The big positive for me was that I could play as more than one type of dude. I could be a fat Mandarin dude or a big human wall in a tank top. The big con is (and I can’t speak for the arcade one, only the Genesis one) how merciless and goddamned unforgiving the enemy hitboxes and AI are. Right out of the game, you get dogpiled and they run a train on you.

In that regard, and also for having a slightly lazier version of the same plot, the NES version is faithful to its forebear. This one was actually made by Technos, and it comes off as a much more difficult and annoying take on the prior NES installments. I have revisited it more than once, just to see if I was wrong about it being an exercise in futility for those who don’t obsessively play hard games out of a desire to “defeat” them. I’m not bad at video games overall, and there have been times in the NES DD3 that I’ve been unable to even leave the dojo (the first screen of the game) alive.

An iconic scene from the NES version. It’s the Joke Dojo, where you can straight up die seconds into the game. I know it well.

What disappoints me about both is the prohibitive difficulty presented by heaps of enemies who operate with an aggressive swarm mentality. Not to mention, the further you go in the arcade game, the goofier it gets. Ah hell, I’ll spill it: you fight a mummy at the end.

Way to phone it in, East Technology.

Battletoads & Double Dragon: the Ultimate Team

Rare, 1993

Looks promising, right?

The NES version of Battletoads is a pretty stiff tincture to swallow, right? It can be done, but it’s an undertaking, and you’d better have your shit together. You’d better have your shit so well together that it looks like Ikea shit. The Genesis version is just a smoother, sharper take on the original (yes, the console games existed first, in a rare reversal of process) and I appreciate them leaving the meat of it unchanged. The arcade game is a visual masterpiece and, at least for me, way more approachable for a casual hour or two of play.

B&DD may seem on the surface to be a noble, even sublime endeavor; it combines two very hot franchises from that snapshot of gaming history, and on paper they go together like Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings and crying softly about the abundance of human cruelty in the world (or is that only me).

Well guess what:

Yeop.

I will say the strong points out loud, in a kind tone. First off, the music is solid, right on the level with what Rare had done with other Battletoads shit. Some of it (including the first level theme) is pretty easy-listening for a beat em up. It’s also clear that developing the arcade game gave Rare’s team a taste for visual finery; there’s a ton of detail and some of it (example: character and enemy bios) is intricate. It’s just a shit-show in terms of difficulty and the curve thereof, and it’s just these things mashed together. These two martial artists and these three TMNT pastiches. I won’t even say this one’s as hard as the NES Battletoads, but the enemy cheap-shot and box-in count is always tremendously high. The introductory little space suit people have a move set just about as good as yours, plus they don’t need to constantly guess a safe distance to punch you in the head from.

Okay RetroFiends, I’m done bitching. I’m going to go irrigate my poor sinuses, drink something hot, and settle in with some pseudoephedrine and a good book. I’m not going to drop number ratings on either of these games, both because I hate them like I do and because I know many others love them. I guess I’m not as salty about either one as I suggested up at the top of the article talking shit. I’m just tired, sick, and tired of being sick.

Stay Retro, and stay out of trouble. We’ll meet up again soon.

IronSword: Wizards & Warriors II (Acclaim/Rare/Zippo, 1989)

bryan.eddy@newretrowave.com — Sun, 02 Oct 2016 02:57:41 +0000

Sometime back in 2015 I told you about Wizards & Warriors, a well-remembered but ultimately so-so sword and sorcery title for the NES. The game did well at the retail counter, and was one of the titles that helped Rare establish itself as a name in NES game development. The whole concept of the sequel comes from wanting to cash back in on the original’s success; W&W‘s sequel was definitely a better game, and allowed its developers to make out like bandits. Ironsword: Wizards & Warriors II is what the first one should have been: challenging without being ridiculous, and full of detail.

This time, Rare shook hands with Acclaim (for distribution/publishing) and a fellow UK company called Zippo Games to get the job done. The result is a game that plays very much like its prequel, but in many ways outstrips it. Rare was pretty much hands-off, simply licensing the concept and codebase to Zippo and allowing them to work mostly unsupervised to develop the finished product. Zippo had worked developing games for the C64 and Amiga, and felt the NES was a bit of a step backward; They eventually decided that while it wasn’t as advanced graphically, Nintendo’s console was set up to produce better-playing games than a home computer of the time. The Pickford brothers (the men behind Zippo) paid particular attention to making the game as graphically impressive as possible, transferring black and white sketches into character maps for the game. Many of the larger entities (bosses, etc.) are done by using the whole screen in conjunction with as few moving sprites as possible. This was meant to give the impression that the whole thing was alive.

Here we see the original Pickford sketch of the wind boss, and its translation into the game itself. The bottom image shows all the parts that were sprite-based, while all others were treated as background.

The story for this second installment of Wizards & Warriors pits the same protagonist against the same antagonist; Again we’re shown a nearly nude Kuros on the cover, this time depicted by the now-famous 90s model Fabio. True to form, Kuros puts on some clothes to battle Malkil a second time.

Dinner tray for a belt, looks like he’s gonna hit you with the flat part of the sword… Fabio at his absolute finest.

It’s not made perfectly clear what Malkil’s up to this time, but he’s pitted the elements themselves (air, fire, earth, water) against the bold warrior. Kuros must assemble the pieces of the legendary IronSword in order to battle Malkil on IceFire Mountain. To make it there, he must move through the domains of each element, presenting a golden object to each domain’s animal king to progress further. As the game goes on, Kuros will have to learn spells, get better equipment, and also do his best not to get his ass turned inside out by pretty much every living thing that isn’t an innkeeper. Thankfully, you’re not quite as much of a wet end as in the first game, and the hitmapping seems to be a bit better. You still flip and flop and fall like a ragdoll, but you’re a bit more in control of what you do when that’s not happening.

You’ll do a lot of falling, sometimes great distances, as you get used to the game… but this time you get to see Kuros’s dumb face while he suffers, at least until you find the helmet.

Speaking of innkeepers, that’s one of the novel concepts added to the game. Each level has an inn where you can buy food, keys, and sometimes a spell or other item. Food plays its time-honored digital role of replenishing your health, while keys do… well, what keys do. Usually the other item for sale is one you need to move forward, so there is a small element of “grinding” present in IronSword. Lastly, you can also gamble in the inn, winning or losing money in a game where you predict which cup a tiny skull will fall into. One of my favorite little details of this game is that when you walk into an inn with no money, the innkeeper grabs you by the seat of your pants and throws you out. It’s a nice touch of realism.

“THAT’S RIGHT, A LITTLE TASTE OF VEGAS, RIGHT HERE ON ICEFIRE MOUNTAIN. STEP RIGHT UP AND LOSE YOUR MONEY.”

Magic plays a strong role in the game. Some spells are purely utilitarian, like a waterspout that lifts you to high places. Others have use in combat, like the Asp’s Tongue spell that slows down enemies. Four of the spells are necessary to harm the four elemental bosses, and these must be found (usually in the second half of a given domain). You’ll also find things like helmets, better weapons (including, eventually, the titular IronSword), and treasure.

Like, have a nice day, man.

As much as the animal lords would like to help you, they do nothing to keep their subjects from constantly assaulting you at every angle. The very first level is full of eagles/hawks/whatever that seem to hate you for no reason, and the list of enemies just gets worse from there. The bosses are huge affairs that are mostly background imagery, but the effect is appreciable. Each boss seems incredibly large and intimidating.

As stated before, Zippo sought to push the limits with graphics on the NES; it’s arguable that they succeeded. Their experience with Amiga and C64 titles shows in this product. The music, composed by notable video game composer David Wise, is incredibly cool. It has a great thickness to it, and there’s a few tracks that really make you want to bop your head. I particularly like “Stage Theme 2.” You could rap over that. Well, I couldn’t, but you might be able to.

I grant Ironsword: Wizards & Warriors II 9 out of 10. It’s a huge improvement on its prequel, a visually and musically impressive title, and one of the games worth adding to any NES enthusiast’s collection.

See you mid-month, and I’ve got a special article coming in late October about one of my favorite classic TV shows.

Retro GOLD – Part 1

NewRetroWave — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 21:53:40 +0000

This Retro GOLD feature is none other than…

Debbie Harry

Photo by Chris Stein

Wonderful!

😉

Battletoads (Rare, 1991)

bryan.eddy@newretrowave.com — Wed, 06 Jan 2016 22:13:53 +0000

Certain games are famous not only because they are memorable, but because they defy the player to conquer them. They stare back at you while the continue screen counts down and they say, “try again, sucker.” We’ve pumped hours and (in the case of arcade games) dollars into these titles, and they have nonetheless defeated all but the most hardcore of us.

I guarantee that Battletoads has crossed your mind at least once. If not, you’re some kind of super-being who has thumbs of steel.

This nearly impossible action game was conceived by Rare in the early 90s to cash in on the Ninja Turtle craze. While this is undoubtedly just a ham-handed example of capitalism at work, it ended up being something almost as memorable. The game got ported to other systems (notably the Genesis) and spawned some sequels. There was even a team-up with Double Dragon! The most memorable of the franchise would have to be the original, trumpeted far and wide as both a great game and a devastatingly hard one.

Into the breach. Poor Rash has no idea what fresh hell awaits him below.

In Battletoads, you play one of two characters: Rash or Zitz. You and your buddy Pimple, along with Professor T. Bird, were escorting the princess across the galaxy in your awesome spaceship when the Dark Queen got the drop on you during leisure time and did a snatch-and-grab. She took both Pimple and the princess, so now you two have to go get them back. Thankfully, you know just where they went: Ragnarok’s World, a hellish place filled with all the Dark Queen’s best death traps and goons.

She may be hot, but she’s an unbearable bitch for building a place like Ragnarok’s World.

Things start off pretty easy in the first level or two. You walk the surface of the planet, pounding a few baddies before playing catch with a clumsy giant robot. No big deal. Even the second chunk of action, a vertical spelunking trip through a crow-infested chasm, isn’t that tough once you get the hang of it.

After that, things get spicy as hell.

Welcome to the Thunderdome, bitch. Start your engines and take your diazepam.

Most of us never made it past the latter half of level 2. It was almost as if the first level was easy as a joke, to loosen you up and make you think you were in for a cakewalk. As it turns out, you’re in for a turbo-charged spanking. After a little bit of beat-em-up with some chubby rockabilly rats, you mount a sort of speederbike and get put through an obstacle course I’ve heard described as “ridiculous,” “unfair,” “gratuitous,” and a list of swear words as long as my arm. As I said before, this is as far as most of us got.

I’ve got great news for you: the rest of the game is harder. Progressively harder. You ride giant snakes, progress through frustrating platform parkour levels, and fight some pretty insane bosses. There are also some more fast-paced obstacle courses, just like the one that kept most of us in level 2 forever. In the world of classic gaming, saying you beat Battletoads is like saying you survived in space without a suit or fistfought a bear and won by KO.

It bears mentioning, however, that the sound effects and music are masterful. A lot of the tracks are a sort of futuristic funk-rock. Nice and busy, really professionally done. No level has music that makes you think “oh, they just wanted to get this done.”

You’ve probably heard me use the term “difficulty curve” before. It’s a term meant to describe how a game becomes harder as you progress further within it. Battletoads has more of a geometric angle than a curve, and that angle forms a steep incline after the middle of level 2. Revisiting it as an adult, I’ve gotten slightly further with the help of FAQs and guides, but I still don’t have the chops to take this game down. I’m far from alone in that. I’ve talked to some folks who’ve beaten it, but they are the real “hard men” of our hobby, the Charles Bronsons of video gaming. It’s hard to give Battletoads a rating out of 10; I’d say that in terms of its fun factor it’s a 3, but in terms of its raw impact on gaming, I’d give it a 7.

Catch you later, RetroFans. More classic console goodness coming later this month!

A Nightmare on Elm Street (Rare/LJN, 1990)

bryan.eddy@newretrowave.com — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 15:48:43 +0000

To kick off this month’s series of game reviews, we’re headed back the NES to look at one of my personal favorites. It’s a game I consider to be underrated, and it stars one of horror’s contemporary icons… Freddy Krueger.

Released in October 1990, Nightmare on Elm Street was one of the first notable titles for the NES to take advantage of its blossoming 4-player capability, using the Four Score or Satellite peripheral devices to connect four controllers to the console and allow up to four separate players to enjoy the action. While this aspect of the game has its ups and downs, Nightmare is actually a pretty solid platform style title. It gets a bad rap because it was published by LJN, who were notorious for squirting out turd after turd for the NES. However, the actual game itself was developed by Rare, the same company that went on to make Battletoads and other incredible games for the NES and other systems. When played with 1 or 2 players, Nightmare isn’t too different from what you’d expect… but remember, in the dream world, nothing is exactly as it seems.

An ad, I believe from a comic book. The photo here is actually from promo material for the fourth film, which is one of the shittiest, written during a Screenwriter’s Guild strike. A little trivia for you.

The storyline is actually a bare-bones version of the plot for NoES 3: Dream Warriors, which is maybe the best of the original run of films. Freddy is killing teens in their dreams, and no one can stop him but you. To put the razor-fingered maniac in Hell where he belongs, you must gather all of his bones (which, in a startling attempt at realism, look exactly like cartoon dog bones) and burn them in his boiler room in the high school. The undead murderer doesn’t plan on making this easy for you, even when you’re wide awake; he’s somehow recruited zombies, wolves, and all manner of other baddies to head you off at the pass. You can drift into the dream world during gameplay, however, and that’s got its own pros and cons. On the upside, when you’re dreaming, you can use tokens you found while awake to transform into one of three forms: a wizard, acrobat, or ninja. Unfortunately, Freddy can do all kinds of crazy shit to give you a headache in the dream world, including paying you a personal visit. Not to mention that all the normal bad guys mutate and become much tougher, making getting around a little more challenging than it already was. If you want to stay awake and just use your fists, picking up coffee will help you keep going. While in the dream world, you can also find a boom box that jars you awake and returns things to normal. This whole duality adds an interesting element to the game by allowing you a little bit of choice: do you engage Freddy Krueger on his terms or yours, going for a pitched-up fight or a slower, more cautious approach?

Just like on TV, dream sequences are accompanied by wavy gravy time.

NES enthusiasts have mixed feelings on Nightmare’s gameplay experience. I find the controls to be responsive and the difficulty to be somewhere around “moderate.” It’s got a lot of things like spikes and falling rocks (Freddy’s obviously called in a lot of weird favors here), but with patience and a good sense of timing, any competent player can eventually make it through the hard parts. Your basic punch, to be frank, kind of sucks; it’s often better to let yourself fall asleep, turn into the acrobat, and take advantage of his ranged javelin and superior mobility. Most of the enemies just move in set patterns, jumping or shambling in a predictable way. The enemies are goofy as hell, not just because they have nothing to do with the franchise being represented, but because they basically look like stuff you’d see on a cartoon about Dracula. Still, if you can detach yourself from how murdered the authenticity is, the game’s worth playing. Every boss is some interpretation of Freddy, and he can also show up out of nowhere (to some pretty kickass music) if you stay in the dream world too long. The “1, 2, Freddy’s coming for you” music will start to play as a warning, and then this screen pops up to let you know it’s party time:

This form of Freddy isn’t actually that bad, jumping from side to side and taking a good hearty swipe at anyone nearby. If you do get hit by him though, he really lays it in. After all, he IS Freddy.

What really falls short is the multiplayer experience. Because it’s a side-scroller, having four players onscreen can really gum up your progress. It requires a lot of teamwork to keep from screwing each other constantly, getting stuck, or having to backtrack. You also have to remember to pick up every bone. You can blaze right through a whole stage, and then have to go back and look for the one bone you missed… it won’t let you go forward until you do.

The graphics are just okay. I’m not going to spend much time talking about them. It’s pretty easy to tell what’s what, and the background visuals at least match where you are (junkyards, houses, etc.). The title screen looks pretty good, but even that isn’t anything to write love poems about. The music is pretty good, or at least more memorable. Some of it’s a bit meandering and trite, but Freddy’s music and this level theme are examples of where the soundtrack really shines.

One interesting thing I learned while reading up on this one: the game was originally meant to be very different. The original plot had you controlling Freddy himself, killing those very same kids trying to burn his bones. A similar approach had failed with the Atari 2600’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre game, and so the idea was revamped before work begun. It is likely there would have been some controversy; killing kids is a shaky foundation for the premise of a video game… that will likely be played by kids.

Promo material for the original game concept. Hell, I’d have played it… but it would have driven my parents crazy.

Overall, I’d give Nightmare on Elm Street 6 out of 10. It’s better than a lot of critics may say, and while the 4 player thing doesn’t fly too well, the game plays no worse than a lot of prominent titles of the time period. Plus, I’ve always loved Freddy. I have the 7 DVD set, t shirts, even the action figure and other collectibles. Krueger is a big part of 80s horror, and if you bought or rented a lot of games, it’s likely you tried this one at least once. I, for one, always thought it was pretty good.

See you mid-month, RetroFiends! *maniacal laughter*

Wizards & Warriors (Rare Ltd., 1987)

bryan.eddy@newretrowave.com — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 17:52:30 +0000

The classic story recurs throughout mythology, folklore, legends, and even more modern tales: the brave champion defeats the evil wizard and rescues the princess. Hell, even Super Mario Brothers follows the theme loosely! Along the way, the hero battles baddies, finds goodies, and maybe even learns some kind of moral lesson. Or not.

Released in 1987 by the British software firm Rare, Ltd., Wizards & Warriors fits into that mould neatly. It was another of my formative experiences with console games; it and its sequel, IronSword, were among the first cluster of NES titles I acquired. The original, however, is the one I’ll be focusing on today. The follow-up to Rare’s first NES title, Slalom, Wizards & Warriors chronicles the struggle of the brave knight Kuros against the wizard Malkil. You see, Malkil has pulled a typical “evil wizard” move: he’s kidnapped the poor princess. He’s absconded to his tower deep in the forest with her, and Kuros has to go the long way round to reach them.

Kuros eschews his armor and dresses a bit more casually for the box art.

Wizards & Warriors got stellar reviews when it was released, but I’ll be up front with you: this game can be hard to love. Kuros has all the agility and poise of a wet gym sock, and his feet/head are more effective at dispatching enemies than his sword is sometimes. Thankfully, if you poke around a bit, you can find things like wands and daggers that increase your lethality in combat. The dagger is indispensable, as it behaves like a boomerang and obviates your need to get super close to anything. Later, you can swap this out for a more damaging axe. You can also find other magical items, like a feather that makes you fall more slowly, a shield that helps reduce the damage you take, and specific items you’ll need to more easily handle the bosses. If you get hurt (which you definitely will), there’s food lying around like in so many of these games.

I’m not even going to attempt to quantify or classify the enemies in this game. The variety is staggering. While some of them may look stupid, all of the monsters can hurt you pretty badly if you’re not careful. The first level is particularly insulting, as bird after bird assaults you simply for being there. As you progress, things get more appropriate, featuring the typical fantasy goblins, gargoyles and spooks. The difficulty curve is insane, but once you get the hang of how you’re supposed to play, the challenge scales well. As you progress underground and then up to the tower, both the terrain and the horde of baddies get gradually harder to cope with. The tower gets especially hectic, with a bunch of things that are halfway between monster and trap barring your way. A lot of the bosses behave in a similar fashion to one another, with a few differences or improvements in strategy. Basically, if you can “follow the bouncing ball” during a sing-along, you can defeat the bosses in this game. After each boss, Kuros finds a maiden bound to the ceiling and cuts her down. He then just sort of walks off, something I’ve always found kind of funny.

Stone cold.

“Listen, lady, I got no time for this.”

None of the graphics are terribly complicated, but you can’t count that against Wizards & Warriors too badly; no NES graphics were too spectacular just yet. I mentioned some of the enemies looking goofy as hell, and they certainly do, but you can at least tell what they’re supposed to be. Where the visuals slack off, the sound picks up; the music is minimalist at times, but will stick in your head. The sound effects are standard for an NES game in 1987, but they’re bright and purposeful without being annoying.

The game spawned two sequels for the NES. The first one, IronSword, is absolutely amazing, at least when compared to its predecessor. Gameplay is the same at its core, but the music, sound, and graphics are much improved. The third game, Kuros: Visions of Power, seems like it was rushed and slapped together. There was also an entry into the series for the Game Boy, Wizards & Warriors X: Fortress of Fear. (I’m not sure how we skipped right to “X,” because there aren’t any I’m missing. If I’m wrong about that, you readers are welcome to email me and I’ll gladly stand corrected.)

As much as I’ve talked this game down, it’s a pretty significant title in terms of historical value. The gaming publications of the time gave it favorable reviews, and I won’t pretend there’s nothing good about it; Wizards & Warriors can seem at first like an overly-saturated crapfest, but hiding in there is a solid, challenging game that requires a little problem-solving on top of a good virtual sword-arm.

Tune in next time, RetroManiacs!