In 1991, EA released Road Rash, the first in a series meant to turn the badass factor up to 11. Initially released on the Sega Genesis, the series saw widespread porting and re-release, mostly because it kicks tons of ass.

Now, there may be a few of you who are unfamiliar, so let me fill you in on the actual meaning of “road rash.” It is the series of broad, ragged wounds left across someone’s body when skin comes into contact with the road at high speed. You know when they name a game after that, they’re not fucking around. And EA wasn’t. This is a series of illegal and VERY dangerous California street races where there really aren’t any rules except that to win you have to cross the finish line first. Dodging traffic, avoiding bike cops, and battling it out with the other contestants all come into play. The road often twists and turns, and you’re playing it by the seat of your ass every moment you’re not slugging it out with one of the other bikers (some of whom even have a little personality of their own).

In anything but a video game that would actually be fucking terrible advice.

The purse money from each race can be used to buy better bikes, each of whose pros and cons are explained at the shop. Obviously it’s important to get the best overall bike you can, but read the descriptions and play to your strengths in the meantime! It bears mentioning that this is a somewhat lengthy game, but there is a password system. Road Rash also takes a little practice to get comfortable with at first…. just like a real motorbike (but obviously not JUST like one).

The graphics are great, comparable to OutRun or other racing games where the environment moves in the same way; the terrains aren’t too detailed but they look nice. The game offers little stills between races that are pretty cool, lending a sort of continuity and supporting the fact that a couple of the other bikers interact with you. The music is weird but good, with really solid rhythm and bass carrying a set of strange high-end choices. I wouldn’t buy this soundtrack on a CD, but it’s not bad.

At the end of the day, I’d give this one 6/10. There’s a lot of fun to be had with Road Rash, it’s aged well, and there’s just something about vehicle-based brutality that does for me. And I know I’m not alone!

“Ugh, here he is on that Disney game BULLSHIT again.”

Well yeah, but listen… you don’t understand. Don’t worry, you will.

I have covered some Disney console titles before, both in video and article formats. Some of them are simply terrible; a few among them are cheery or entertaining, presenting a nice light-hearted break from the norm. One of them – the one I’m prepared to talk about today – is a bona fide semi-epic adventure. Hell, it’s more than that. It’s… well, let’s just get into it.

Released in all three regions (North America, Europe, and Japan) in December of ’91, QuackShot went by the title I Love Donald Duck: Georgia Ou no Hihou in Japanese. Developed and published by Sega exclusively for their own Genesis/Mega Drive console, the game was a continuation of the successful “Illusion series” of licensed Disney games by Sega. Unlike the other entries in that series, QuackShot has a decidedly “action-adventure” flavored theme and style. It’s also pretty damn clever for a 1991 Genesis-era platformer, and a ton of fun to play.

The plot finds Donald on the hunt for a legendary treasure, hinted at by a map that he finds while poking through Uncle Scrooge’s books. Our plucky duck is hounded by Disney’s classic core antagonistic asshole, Petey the god damned good for nothing jerk dog. The race for the loot takes Donald all over the world, from Duckburg to Transylvania to such exotic locales as the South Pole and a Viking ship somewhere in Northern Europe.

Jet-setting with the help of child labor. Classic Disney!

The coolest thing about QuackShot (at least to me, when I played it) is how non-linear it is for a game of its time. The places you explore with Donald usually consist of an above-ground area and an additional “dungeon” region. The catch is, sometimes you have to backtrack a little or get halfway only to find you need something elsewhere. Donald plants little flags when these kinds of things happen, serving as a checkpoint where he can call in a ride from Huey, Duey and Louie. Why the operation of a prop plane is entrusted to three children is beyond me, but we’ll hold onto that suspension of disbelief inherent to the fantastic and insane world of Disney.

Getting around and defending yourself are the two major challenges anywhere in QuackShot; In an interesting deviation from Disney’s usual kid-minded aversion to such things, Donald carries some kind of a gun. However, instead of blowing Petey’s brains out (and ruining THE MAGIC OF DISNEY), Donald fires plungers, popcorn, and bubbles out of his weapon. Once you get the red plungers, these stick to walls and can be used as springboards as well as stunning enemies. Popcorn effectively “kills” most things you shoot with it, fanning out not unlike Contra’s Spread gun. The bubbles – which require a bit of a mini-quest to obtain at first – have the useful function of blasting through certain static obstacles but also harm most enemies.

The coolest way Donald can tear ass is by picking up enough chili peppers to turn all the faces in his “temper” meter angry.

(insert death metal here)

Once this happens, he spends several seconds in what I like to call “ruthless bellowing invincible berserk murder mode.” He plunges forward without stopping, flailing his fists and bitching up a storm. You can still make him jump, thankfully, so his wrath can be visited on anyone in his reach until the anger wears off.

The primary foe Donald encounters time and time again while trotting the globe? Petey and his gang. These miserable pieces of shit lie in wait, toting their own mock firearms, waiting to cut the journey short so they can claim the loot for themselves. The fauna (and sometimes flora) of most locales are actively hostile, and each region usually has a “boss” enemy waiting to give you a hard time. Dracula (or at least his duck analog; Castlevania fans calm down) even makes an appearance!

Not to be confused with Duckula, who is also a straight baller.

The graphics are on par with other higher-caliber Genesis games, with the lush background art standing out in particular. The soundtrack is nothing short of fucking incredible, and I won’t keep talking, just have a listen. The real standouts: Duckburg and Transylvania.

Oh, man. I’m gonna have to give QuackShot a 9 out of 10. I had overlooked it for the most part when I was a kid, but it quickly became one of my favorite titles for the Genesis when I revisited it in this capacity. I highly recommend it if you’re down for a rollicking adventure with charm to spare.

The Sega Genesis. Model citizen; zero discipline.

I’ve no doubt filled these digital pages so far with plenty of nods to the Sega Genesis. As much as I’d love to have been a full-on child of the 1980s, I was born in ’83 and wasn’t really exposed to video games until ’89 or so. While the NES was still alive and kicking by then, that shining era of its emergence and unchallenged primacy was over. I was never that kid who did nothing but play video games, but I won’t pretend it didn’t often take priority over doing homework for me. The Genesis was the system I spent the bulk of my formative years pouring afternoons into, and is perhaps the one I remember best. I loved how you could mute the TV and plug headphones into it if you wanted. I loved, and still love, the distinctive sound of its Yamaha sound rig. The graphics have a unique tone to them as well; it’s as if the SNES’s palette was too garish and bright for some things, and the Genesis’s colors had a slightly muted tone more suited to games like Golden Axe or Altered Beast.

I’ve chosen three more Genesis titles at random (well, I guess I should say just arbitrarily) to discuss for another Grab Bag. All three are ones I remember encountering at least briefly, and I’ve revisited them via the miracle of emulation to refresh (and correct) my memory. Without further ado, let’s start swingin’ at them nuts, shall we?

Gunstar Heroes

Treasure, 1993

Don’t worry. I’m not going to shit on this one. I love it as much as you do. Normally I go with a bad one first. I’m switching it up this time.

Treasure is a company that went on to have modest but memorable success with Sega platforms after the Genesis era; Guardian Heroes for the Saturn and Ikaruga for the Dreamcast stand out as front-and-center games for their respective systems and rank among my favorites to be sure. Gunstar Heroes marks their first effort, and is pretty astounding considering that fact. It makes for an exciting shooter, and is a good example of what made Genesis games stand out.

Don’t be deceived. What you are seeing is an all-out war.

The game is kind of like Contra, if Contra had a more approachable set of gameplay parameters and more of a plot. The selectable players are two brothers of a family responsible for dusting some robot that threatened humanity, only to have the leader of a dictatorship begin gathering a set of gems necessary for its resurrection. You pursue the elements of this evil army throughout four stages you can play in any order before the end-part of the game becomes traditionally linear. Depending on which brother you choose, you can either fire freely as you run (a la Contra) or have your character stop in place whenever you fire. Powerups improve your gun’s power and grant capabilities like homing bullets, and the nicest aspect (at least for gamers like me who are terrible at avoiding harm) is that instead of insta-death you get a nice vitality counter.

The action is incredible and matches the standard for later Genesis games. You fight on rail carts, against giant mechanized monsters, and through varied environments as you battle to keep the world safe from General Gray and the Empire. The characters and story have a cool cartoony feel without being too silly, something that Treasure would pull off again with Guardian Heroes. Its challenge is comparable to standards in its genre, but I’d call Gunstar Heroes approachable for a shooter.

World of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck

Sega, 1992

“I Love Mickey & Donald: Fushigi na Magic Box” We always have to give things bullshit names. The Japanese? They cut right to the quick of it. Magic Box not pictured.

Fucking Disney games, man. I have a love-hate relationship with them. This one’s no exception. Mickey and Donald find a magical box, and it turns out to belong to that asshole dog Pete. Of course, Pete has to do something horrible to Mickey and Donald, so he sends them to another world. That’s the plot. You can clap now.

This is what made the game really exciting for me, but also made it a butthole-puckering fright-fest. I mean, look at Mickey’s face. Even HE knows he’s in a bad situation. And let me tell you… that carpet barely cooperates.

This is a well-made platformer and I’m not suggesting otherwise. It can be done in one or two player mode, with two players sharing a total number of lives. You start out in a magical forest where everything is intent on murdering you, but fortunately your magician cape functions as a deadly weapon. There’s a lot of that stupid kind of difficult in this game, like tricky distances and cheap little trick moments to force you into getting hurt. On the flipside, it’s got plenty of cool stuff like walking on spider strands and flying a magic carpet. World of Illusion is very fun to play, but like a lot of Disney games from the era, it’s hardly fucking around. This may be a world of illusion, sure, but its ability to beat Mickey and Donald’s asses inside out is very real. Obviously the game appeals to kids, so if you want to really test out your kid’s console chops, put this in front of them. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good game… just don’t think it’s soft-serve just because Mickey’s in it.

Beast Wrestler

Riot/Renovation, 1991

The Japan cover, bearing its domestic title, Beast Warriors. “Look at this shit! This is gonna be awesome!” Eh… not so much.

This was one of those oddballs you’d find at the rental place and take home because it looked cool. On paper, it IS pretty cool; the idea is that you pit monsters against each other in pro wrestling style combat, while occasionally feeding your beast or splicing its DNA to improve it. It comes off kind of like an extremely dark and nasty Pokemon analog.

In practice, Beast Wrestler is sadly mediocre as hell. I’m hardly the first reviewer to point out its horrible hit detection, and the very mechanics of fighting in the electrified monster ring are tricky to master. You have to really want to get good at this game, and it doesn’t make itself easy to like. On the upside, the graphics are wicked cool and I can’t fault the soundtrack either.

Pulling off something like this with the game’s control scheme and hit detection is akin to rowing across the English Channel with a pair of chopsticks. 

I guess I’m not really prepared to put a total thumbs-down on this one, but Beast Wrestler could have been a way cooler game if a little more effort had been put into fine tuning the actual combat. I’m guessing it was either someone’s sophomore day out or it was a rush job, but I’ve always been kind of disappointed by it. I mean, it’s mutant monsters in pro wrestling matches in the year 2020. Don’t set us up with that and then let us down!

FINAL VERDICTS

Gunstar Heroes – 8/10 (This is a great Genesis title and it should be in your collection if it isn’t.)

World of Illusion – 6/10 (Don’t underestimate it, but if you’re into Disney and/or platformers it’s a must have.)

Beast Wrestler – 4/10 (Someone shit the bed here, but the smell’s muted a little bit by good presentation.)

Enjoy your holiday and Stay Retro, my friends.

ITS THAT FUCKING BAAAAAAG AGAAAAAAIIIIIN

The entire early to mid 90s period was one of fierce competition. Companies competed to release successful games and dominate genres. A new burst of energy hit arcades as new cabinets and innovative titles went head to head for commercial success. I dare say the most pitched battle was at home; the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo Entertainment System locked horns for years for dominance of your living room TV set.

This often involved titles that were released for both platforms, since game developers and publishers were none too shy about exploiting the rivalry for more sales. Exclusivity was still occasionally a thing, but during the Genesis/SNES war, if you wanted a shot at big returns, it was out there if your game had enough hype behind it; just license it for both consoles and let both sets of partisans enjoy your work.

Today’s grab bag will take a look at a few of these games, some of which may have come down from the arcade palaces in port form, and some of which were developed just for console play. I kept it at 3, like I usually do for these articles, but narrowing it down was hard. Here’s three that stand out to me as typical of the era – colorful, far-flung, and even bizarre.

NBA Jam

Midway/Acclaim

1993 (Arcade),1994 (consoles)

In 1994, the Amusement & Music Operators Association reported that NBA Jam was the highest-earning arcade game of all time. It was a formula based (at least loosely) off of a previous Midway game, Arch Rivals, but utilizing the power and vibrancy of the Arcade Renaissance to give it new life and appeal.

I’m not even that big into basketball (I will sometimes watch UNC or Duke games with my family, but to me the family part far outstrips the hoops), and I love NBA Jam. However, I got familiar with it through the Genesis port. You don’t NEED to care a lick about basketball to enjoy it. It’s an extremely approachable setup, and once you figure out how the game works, it’s pretty damn fun whether you’re winning or losing. Imagine a 2 on 2 game with no ref and minimal rules. Shit gets raw out there.

Double clothesline. Classic basketball move.

My distinct memory of both versions (a neighbor had the SNES port) was unlocking goofy or cool alternate characters using the initials-entry screen as a password of sorts. You could get President Clinton, retired legends, mascots, or you could just do shit like make everyone’s heads big. It was secondary to the action, though; between the shoving, dodging, going hard in the paint, and even risky long-shots, this was some high-octane basketball. Both ports of the game got rave reviews just like their arcade daddy, and for good reason. With digitized speech and faithful graphics, both were excellent translations to home gaming from the arcade floor.

RoboCop vs Terminator

Virgin Games

1993 (SNES/Game Gear), 1994 (Genesis/Game Boy)

The logo looked like it could be on the bottom of a sneaker. Don’t get me wrong. I’d have worn those fucking sneakers. Who wouldn’t?

The idea of it is pure magic. I mean, both of these franchises, on their own, had done amazing in terms of draw and earning power. Why not combine them?

Well, I won’t take a dump on this game (either version) like a lot of its contemporary reviewers did, but I will say this: RoboCop vs Terminator was definitely a mixed bag. On the one hand, everything’s digitized or high-quality in some way. There’s a gruesome but tolerable level of blood and gore. It is pretty cool to play as RoboCop and wield a variety of lasers and flamethrowers against the enemy Terminators and gangsters. At least, while the game is still fresh.

The game has its appeal. It definitely picks up a second wind when you finally get to where you’re fighting T-800s as your main enemy instead of a slew of heterogeneous 90s gang members.

What keeps me from really loving it? Well, let’s start with how RoboCop (naturally) is as agile as a toddler wearing full riot gear, and is constantly assailed by walls of projectiles and other barely-avoidable hazards on a regular (read: constant) basis. For instance, RoboCop can fly up a ladder at a speed that boggles the mind, but walks and jumps as if his entire lower body is weighed down like a full diaper and he’s afraid to smush any of it together. Embarrassing, Murphy.

Then there’s Tommy Tallarico’s really strange techno-industrial-hip-hop score, which sounds to me like it belongs in some terrifying HR Giger porno film about virtual reality drug dealers or something. Some tracks are even downright grating, not even like Gnaw Their Tongues or other bands in that vein; this music is trying to be music but becomes harsh noise because it’s so smashed into itself.

So like I said, the game’s extremely half-and-half for me. I can’t seem to hate it, but there’s only so much to love. I reluctantly assert that the Genesis version has slightly “cleaner” sound, but that only helps so much.

Earthworm Jim

Shiny Entertainment

1994

Don’t worry. I love this one as much as you do. I have no plans to rip it up in front of you.

The game started out as an idea at Playmates Toys. They’d made so much money selling TMNT toys that they figured starting their own franchise could make them even more. Out the business-end comes a game that not only beautifully parodies its own genre, but innovates in ways that have become standard in platformers since.

This was exactly when I knew I was dealing with a legendary game.

Earthworm Jim is creativity set loose. It is quality on the level of late Apogee PC games for me: irreverent, loose, funny, dynamic, and outside-the-box. Jim has a cool set of moves and tricks at his disposal as an earthworm in an experimental suit, and he can use them to solve the often compounded problems you face on each level. Many of the tropes of formulaic video games are both utilized and mocked, but the focus is the gameplay. The race minigame is intense enough to be its own game, and no two levels present you with the same challenge. In 1994 it was a delight not to know what to expect at all from this game when we sat down to play it. And Tallarico even made up for some other work with a score that didn’t confuse and terrify me. At least, not in a bad way.

I tried to think of negatives to balance out this appraisal, but had trouble. I guess I could say that the game can be a bit unreasonably rudderless at times, but even I was able to get myself back on track again when I’d lose my way. This game is still exemplary of its type, 23 years later.

Ratings

NBA Jam – 7/10

RoboCop vs Terminator – 4/10

Earthworm Jim – 9/10

In cultural terms, and in the narrower scope of console gaming, the early 1990s represented both change and stagnation. We can’t fault the entirety of this era, nor can we fully embrace it… the 1990s are what I often see as the awkward “teen years” of contemporary pop culture. There was an open, airy sense of freedom, but since different aspects of our world move at such varying paces, a great deal of ideas fell onto the scene half-baked or far too early… either “ahead of their time” or just “unbelievably fucking stupid.”

In this Grab Bag, I’m examining three of the console/arcade titles from this wild and woolly era, the soft-lens period of new Coke, MC Hammer, and the undaunted pursuit of something – anything – consumers would buy.

“I saw a Kabuki Quantum Fighter drinking a piña colada at Trader Vic’s… and his hair was perfect.”

Kabuki: Quantum Fighter

HAL/Human Entertainment, 1990

I’m about to tear this shit up, so if you’re one of the surprising number of people who like it, I apologize in advance if you find my opinion objectionable.

The premise is ridiculous, but that’s not even the bad part. You play as a 25-year-old colonel (yeah, you really moved and shook your way through the ranks I guess) who has uploaded his mind into a defense computer to defeat a malevolent program intent on destroying it. Apparently, computer code (in its pseudo-magical 1990s form) is able to sense your ancestry and bloodline, so the colonel spawns inside the system as a kabuki actor.

“Just add what you think looks like computery stuff. Just… I don’t know, just type some shit. Slap the keyboard around. They’ll all be admiring his bangs anyway.”

Let’s leave that aspect of the game alone… it’ll be fine over there, and I don’t think it’ll hurt anybody. Odd premises are nothing new to Japanese-developed games. In fact, we’ve come to love them. I know I do.

What’s horrible are the controls and gameplay elements. My main gripe about this piece of shit is how they decided to combine awkward movement-based challenges with incredibly annoying enemy behavior. The game’s not hard in a way I can respect… it’s hard in a way that possibly communicates spite towards the consumer. Do you like jumping puzzles? You know, the kind that either require you to start all over from the beginning or just gravely injure you? You’ll encounter those regularly in Kabuki: Quantum Fighter, and lots of them will involve a brand of bullshit jungle gym that requires laser-precise control manipulation to do right. This would be fine if the overall controls weren’t staggering-drunk clumsy. I guess I should add that your crouching attack, which you’ll find yourself instinctively wanting to use, is about as useful as Air Duster to a man drowning in a river. Its reach is nil, its delay is ridiculous, and you WILL be hit by what you’re trying to hit. That will be the end result. Get used to that.

Did you like the monkey bars when you were a kid? Do you also like doing things over and over because you screwed up the D-Pad timing by like 1 millisecond? Have I got the game for you. Buckle up, pardner.

I’m done being Mr. Shits about Kabuki: Quantum Fighter. Other than what I mention above, the game isn’t that bad. The graphics are really stylish and the audio is equally well-crafted. In the main, I’d say try this one out if you like hurting yourself but your insurance has stopped covering the incidents where you shake hands with red-hot curling irons.

If it weren’t for all the colorful visuals, this game would actually be grim as fuck. I guess they thought they were doing us a favor.

Phantasm/Avenging Spirit

C.P. Brain/Jaleco, 1991

Okay, here’s another bizarre premise, but it starts off with an all-too-familiar twist. You play as a young man whose girlfriend was kidnapped during… your murder. Fortunately, her dad “researches ghost energy,” so he’s given you a chance to rescue her and stop the mysterious criminal group who have taken her. You can do this by possessing the bodies of the living and using their abilities to fight your way to the hideout.

“This is my ghost smock, so I don’t get ghost-shit all over me. Don’t touch me.”

I’ll admit that I started off with a dubious feeling about this one, but damned if it isn’t easily one of the most underrated titles of the era. This is essentially an action platformer where you can pluck your character from among the array of enemies at will. You can play as gunmen, super-girls, floating mystics, and even dragon-men.

Avenging Spirit (called Phantasm in Japan, not to be confused with the cult horror film with the flying murder balls) packs a considerable challenge, but for once the gamer is given some genuinely formidable tools to tackle it with. There are areas in some stages where you need to be able to do a certain thing to bypass an obstacle or defeat a boss, and all you need to do is watch what your foes are doing… and borrow their bodies.

A dragon-man is you. If you want it to be.

The American and Japanese Game Boy box art. Needless to say, BIG difference in tone. They know how to sell to their audience.

Avenging Spirit is ahead of the curve with its multiple endings as well; there’s three keys in the game, and if you find all three, you can rescue the girl to get the good ending. If not, you have to fight the syndicate kingpin yourself and she dies when the hideout explodes. Why don’t you just get the good ending, huh, Boo Berry?

The game was originally developed and released for the arcade, but a Game Boy version was released as well, and it holds up like a champ as far as GB ports go. Very little is lost except the obvious hit to graphical depth.

Dungeons & Dragons: Warriors of the Eternal Sun

Westwood Studios/SSI, 1992

Yeah. I snuck some D&D in here. You know I get away with that as often as possible.

Here’s the reason this is a notable game: 1992 was during the onset of TSR’s steep decline (TSR being the company that originally owned/published D&D products). In the mid 1990s, Random House and Wizards of the Coast (the current owners of the franchise) would both pick the hobby apart and raise it from near death, but 1992 was smack in the middle of a slew of intra-company problems for TSR that don’t fit into the scope of this article. Nonetheless, here we see one of the most playable attempts at translating D&D to an early-gen console. Perhaps it was SSI working alongside Westwood Studios (who had also churned out a pretty decent Nightmare on Elm Street game for computers) instead of on its own that made the difference. SSI had always met a certain standard of overall quality, but they had struggled before with porting their games from DOS, etc. to things like the NES. Perhaps it was because the Genesis kicks so much ass? That’s up for debate, and forgive me if I don’t dive into that blood-pool today.

In the old school rules set, “elf,” “halfling,” etc. were their own character classes. As in, you weren’t an elf wizard, you were just an elf, and it was assumed that all elves were this weird hybrid of fighter and wizard. Halflings were just mostly useless. Not much has changed.

Warriors of the Eternal Sun is set in the Hollow World D&D setting, part of the “original” D&D setting known as Mystara. The game’s mechanic works closely off of the D&D “BECMI” pen-and-paper rule set, from combat to spells to exploring the wilderness. It’s not unusual for RPGs of this style to come off as dry or unapproachable, but the game handles well and is surprisingly accessible. Menus are easily navigable, fighting the monsters is exciting (although it is still frustrating when you party-wipe against lizard people or a dragon), and the graphics far outweigh previous attempts at this formula by the parties involved. Sound and music are very good too, but nothing in that department is truly out-of-this-world.

Lady, I couldn’t agree more.

In closing, I realize this article doesn’t even begin to cover everything from the early 90s that deserves to be covered, and I may in fact revisit this in a future Grab Bag or other article. Until then, pop in that New Kids on the Block CD and make sure you put your shoulder pads in.

FINAL VERDICT:

KABUKI: QUANTUM FIGHTER – 5/10

AVENGING SPIRIT – 8/10

D&D: WARRIORS OF THE ETERNAL SUN – 7/10

Not too long ago, I took three NES titles I’d never seen before and played each one for a minimum of one hour. Then I shared my experiences with you folks via a lovingly crafted article on our internet computer website. As we put a stake through 2016’s black heart and decapitate it to make sure it won’t rise again in the sequel, I thought it’d be fun to repeat my “grab bag” routine by dipping thrice into the game library of another well-loved classic console.

The Genesis/Mega Drive has an astounding number of arcade ports, and also boasts a bounty of left-field games straight from its Japanese homeland. I did my best to choose three I’d never messed with or even read about before, which meant picking three titles that run the gamut of genre and style. “Eye-opening” is a gentle word to describe this little journey; let’s just say that while some relics should be studied and shared, others should perhaps never be found.

Make sure your straitjackets are securely fastened… here we go.

El Viento (Wolf Team, 1991)

Allow me to give you my guess at what seems to be going on in this game BEFORE having looked at any official literature: You are a beautiful and agile elf creature, one who love boomerangs and hates 1930s gangsters. You have a little bit of magic at your disposal (which is to be expected, since you are clearly some kind of fairy warrior), but you have a little trouble with stairs sometimes – especially when several men on motorcycles are trying to kill you.

Well, according to several sources, I was close on the time period; the game is set in the late 1920s. I was way off with my appraisal of the main character, though… apparently you’re a Peruvian sorceress descended from the bloodline of Hastur. You know, the Cthulhu Mythos entity also referred to as the King in Yellow. Apparently his cult has teamed up with a Chicago gang (the gang leader is named DeMarco in the US localization, but source material names none other than Al Capone) to bring about some heavy end-times shit.

Let’s put that one back up on the billboard for a moment. You’re a Peruvian sorceress descended from the King in Yellow himself who runs around killing Al Capone’s boys with razor boomerangs in 1928.

The artwork for the US localization makes her look a lot more Latina. I guess it’s because they washed off all the anime.

All that aside, the game plays really well. Once I got the hang of how the boomerangs functioned, I was moving through at a pretty quick pace. “El Viento” means “the wind” in Spanish, and the name is fitting; the character is very fast and agile. This got me hurt a couple of times as I accidentally bulldozed my way into trouble or dropped into a hail of bullets from above, but it also let me pick and choose my battles to some degree once I got used to things. I found myself surprised at not only how many purple cars Capone had on hand for me to destroy, but also how many shirtless men carrying machetes he had on his payroll.

Hey, maybe Wold War 2 is shorter in this timeline if we have shit like this in 1928.

Then I got killed by a very futuristic tank, apparently the boss of the first set of levels. Bullshit. But then, things ARE pretty anime up in this game.

Curse (1989, Micronet)

I’ve had this in the MD/Genesis ROM folder for a while, and its incredibly generic name had inspired me to save it as a surprise sometime in the future.

Holy shit is this game a nightmare within a dream.

I powered on and was pretty delighted to find a shoot-em-up. Not only that, a side-scrolling one instead of overhead view. Not to brag, but I am better at shoot-em-ups than almost any other genre of classic game, so I set to seeing just how far I could make it. The difficulty was pretty tough, but I never felt like like I was being hardcore spammed or cheap-dicked. The difficulty climbed as I reached the third and fourth levels, but I noticed something rare in a shooter: as the heinous crowds of enemies and huge fuckoff minibosses continued to intensify, the powerups and goodies kept up. The game is pretty generous even as it challenges me.

I took a brief break to make a cursory Google search about this game. It has interesting artwork… maybe even a little ominous. Nothing I’d seen yet seemed to correlate with this box art:

I also found out the game has a built-in stage select, so like a dumb-ass Icarus soaring full-tilt toward the Sun, I went to the fourth stage again and tried to beat the game. The fifth stage is pretty hardcore, and I found myself barely squeaking by. I was eventually confronted with a near-spitting image of the box art, which both fascinated and bothered me.

Then, in a span of moments now woodburned into my grey matter, as a 16-bit video game legitimately frightened me for the first time in memory:

I did not defeat whatever that thing was, and I’m not sure I want to try again. This was a Japan-only title; apparently an American company showed interest in publishing it but that never panned out. Maybe the saw the shit-your-pants horrifying final boss and reconsidered.

Sword of Sodan (1993, Innerprise)

I just realized this screenshot snapped a second before the dithering effect finished. Her face is doing some Cronenberg shit.

A long time ago I had read a review of this game completely trashing it. I figured I’d give ti a try; after all, it was sword-and-sorcery theme, so it couldn’t be all too bad. Its overall reviews were mixed, and the small handful of screenshots I looked at made me want to try it.

I chose the female warrior for my first try, and headed out into some kind of wilderness. A steady stream of armed men tried to murder me, and some succeeded in injuring me through sheer attrition. I was pleased to discover that I could swing my sword a couple of different ways by manipulating the D-pad while attacking. After a while, I made it into a walled city whose entryway included gratuitous spike traps. I’m not sure how that’s conducive to foot traffic for any of the citizens, let alone merchant wagons or caravans, but I braved the obstacle in order to make it into the city…with very poor results.

Battered and bloodied, I randomly drank some of the potions I’d been picking up. I finally found the one that replenished health and moved on… straight into my own doom.

There’s a lot of them, and they all do the same thing: murder you.

Things quickly went from militiamen and soldiers to tandem giants and huge metallic monsters. A pair of the giants slowly wore me down with repeated clubbings until I was hopelessly dead. Sword of Sodan had just told me, “that first bit was a good warm-up, but we’re through fucking around here.”

I tried with the male character and achieved similar results. The movement controls are strange, requiring you to sort of tap the Jump button to turn around yet allowing you to leap roughly five times higher than any real human. As far as I know, there is no way to block; you just have to murder someone fast or play the reach game with them. Obviously, that’s not going to work on a lot of the non-human monsters you eventually encounter… especially not the ones that dwarf you in size.

Abort. Cancel. Fuck this. I have a sword with pitiful reach and exactly four little potions. Bye.

I quickly lost interest in Sword of Sodan, because games that use a difficulty curve as a “members only” door are like public toilets that don’t flush; they’re full of shit and it’s best not to be near them.

THE AXE COMETH DOWN:

El Viento – 7/10

Curse – 8/10 except for the visceral and haunting finale

Sword of Sodan – 4/10

See you in 2017. So, you know… in a couple days. Stay Retro!