Post by soop on Sept 13, 2018 8:38:27 GMT
Dungeon Explorer is exactly what it says on the tin: You explore dungeons. This game succeeds in taking Gauntlet, a top-down arcade dungeon crawler, and rounding it out for home systems. Gone are the brutal timers that sap your energy just for playing (one might argue a good choice for the arcade), and that changes the game from a quarter-munching frenetic dash, to something more refined and thoughtful. It allows the addition of simple puzzles, and bolts on an RPG-lite element, where you can choose different characters with different stats, and talk to villagers between quests.
Graphically, I feel it looks kind of dingy (apt for the theme?) and it's hardly the most impressive sprite work. But sonically, the game is widely held to have among the best chip tunes on the system.
Cotton is certainly in the top 2 witch-based shooters on the system, but unlike Magical Chase, this one sticks to a more Halloween theme. It also plays slightly slower, making it feel more unique. In this game, your options, in fairy form, also serve as extra hit points, for better or worse. Power-ups come in the form of gems dropped by enemies, which provide you experience and magic. They also have the same mechanic as the bells in Twinbee, where you shoot them to make them bounce and change colour, which I always find gets a little distracting. When you finally die (meaning dying with no fairies) you lose all your power-ups, which is usually quite egregious, but especially when it takes so damn long to power up in the first place. This is not an easy game, with the main sprite being huge, and a LOT happening on screen. I think it's a shame, because there's a lot good about this game. The music is excellent, and the cut-scenes are charming, plus I like the theme.
I feel like a different power-up system would do this game a world of good. But the most unforgivable thing about the game is, it does a Ghouls and Ghosts, and upon completion, makes you play the whole game through again on an even harder difficulty. This is one of the laziest ways to try and extend a games playtime, and thankfully something that's a lot less common these days. You also don't get any bonus continues, so if you just barely make it, you're not going to last long. the last thing, is that magic is accessed via a button charge, so you have to choose between not using turbo switches, or basically manipulating the switch whenever you want to use magic.
Graphically, I feel it looks kind of dingy (apt for the theme?) and it's hardly the most impressive sprite work. But sonically, the game is widely held to have among the best chip tunes on the system.
Cotton is certainly in the top 2 witch-based shooters on the system, but unlike Magical Chase, this one sticks to a more Halloween theme. It also plays slightly slower, making it feel more unique. In this game, your options, in fairy form, also serve as extra hit points, for better or worse. Power-ups come in the form of gems dropped by enemies, which provide you experience and magic. They also have the same mechanic as the bells in Twinbee, where you shoot them to make them bounce and change colour, which I always find gets a little distracting. When you finally die (meaning dying with no fairies) you lose all your power-ups, which is usually quite egregious, but especially when it takes so damn long to power up in the first place. This is not an easy game, with the main sprite being huge, and a LOT happening on screen. I think it's a shame, because there's a lot good about this game. The music is excellent, and the cut-scenes are charming, plus I like the theme.
I feel like a different power-up system would do this game a world of good. But the most unforgivable thing about the game is, it does a Ghouls and Ghosts, and upon completion, makes you play the whole game through again on an even harder difficulty. This is one of the laziest ways to try and extend a games playtime, and thankfully something that's a lot less common these days. You also don't get any bonus continues, so if you just barely make it, you're not going to last long. the last thing, is that magic is accessed via a button charge, so you have to choose between not using turbo switches, or basically manipulating the switch whenever you want to use magic.