Developer: Nintendo R&D1
Publisher: Nintendo
Platforms: GB, 3DS VC, NSO
Version Played: NSO
Nintendo finally announced Game Boy games for Switch last week, but they didn't launch the service with Super Mario Land. How do you launch a GB service without its Mario launch game? Anyway, I played Super Mario Land 2 to check things out instead. It's kind of weird thinking back on this now, but this was the last new 2D Mario game for the 14 years between 1992 and the release of New Super Mario Bros on DS in 2006. This was also the first appearance of Wario and the beginning of the Wario Land series.
Super Mario Land 2 is a very un-Mario-like Mario game. I think the developers (R&D1) really just wanted to make a game with Wario, who was their original character. Not only does everything about this game make Mario look like an egomaniacal bully, but it also plays like it's just a shoulder bash move away from Wario Land. This game barely even carries anything over from the first Mario Land, which R&D1 also made. I think the only Mario game that feels even less like a Mario game is Super Mario Bros 2 USA.
The first thing that stood out to me about this game is how Mario moves. It doesn't feel like Super Mario Land, and while the Super Mario World influence is clear, it doesn’t feel like SMW either. Mario’s running and jumping feel very slow and floaty compared to console Marios. I feel like Mario’s huge sprite should make the game feel faster, but maybe it’s doing the opposite. I guess everything was made bigger and slower to make it easier to see and play on a GB screen, which was very small and had no backlight. Mario can pick up Koopa shells, but he doesn’t carry them in front of him, so he can’t ram them into enemies. Instead, he just puts them on his head, like a hat. He doesn’t even hold them up with his hands. He can then use the Koopa shells to break blocks or attack enemies from underneath, which doesn’t come in handy very often at all. The spin jump from SMW is back, but you can’t do it as small Mario. You couldn't break blocks with it as small Mario in SMW anyway, but it’s just something I noticed.
The Super Mushroom and Fire Flower are both here, and they do the same thing as in other Mario games. The Superball from the first Super Mario Land isn’t here at all, though. I found that kind of weird since that was the coolest thing the first game introduced. The Star is also back, but it works a little differently. It doesn’t bounce around after popping out of a block. You also get a 1-Up if you kill 5 enemies with it, and according to the Wiki, you get another Star if you kill 100 enemies with it. The only real new powerup is the carrot, which gives Mario bunny ears. All they do is let Mario flutter jump to slow fall like Raccoon Mario. That's a bit disappointing after being able to fly in SMB3 and SMW. You can’t even attack enemies with them.
Super Mario Land 2 is also the most open and non-linear 2D Mario game ever. The game has a very Super Mario World-like overworld map, but you don’t have to beat the zones in any specific order. You’re free to go to any zone after you beat the opening level. Each zone's levels have to be completed in order to get to the boss’ level, though. The only zone that’s locked away is Wario’s castle, and that's just one level. You can only go in there after collecting all 6 Golden Coins, which you get after beating each zone's boss. Yeah, there’s only 6 zones, and they only have a handful of levels each, so it’s not a very big game.
The 6 Golden Coins themselves are another very un-Mario-like thing. You see, if you get a Game Over, you lose all the Golden Coins you’ve collected and have to beat all those bosses again. Thankfully, it’s not hard to stock up on lives. It’s also not hard to use save states on NSO! The game has a few other trollish things, like hidden blocks right where you’re probably going to jump and little witches that fly away with 1-Ups, but it’s not exactly Lost Levels levels of trolling.
Super Mario Odyssey has surpassed the level of weirdness in SML2 by now, but back then, this game looked completely different from every other Mario game. This definitely isn't Sarasaland or the Mushroom Kingdom, this is Mario Land. Apparently, while Mario was off in Sarasaland rescuing Daisy, Wario took over Mario's castle and threw away the keys, which are the 6 Golden Coins. So Mario already had this island before the first game. But why does Mario have an island with a castle and a giant statue of himself? I didn't know Mario was so materialistic. This island has a tree zone full of giant bugs, a halloween zone full of Boos and Yokai, and a giant zone seemingly inspired by Jack and the Beanstalk, among others. These zones are weird because all this stuff is kind of generic for Mario, who had a very well defined universe by then, but they're done well enough, and it looks like R&D1 had fun throwing in references to Nintendo's pre-video game toys, like N&B Blocks and the Ultra Hand. Both of which the head of R&D1 and creator of the Game Boy, Gunpey Yokoi, worked on.
For a pre-Game Boy Color game, this game looks pretty nice. It's certainly much better looking than SML1, which looked more like a Game & Watch game than an NES game. SML2 looks closer to SMW than SMB3. The line art definitely looks more like SMW than the NES games. The colors definitely do not, of course. If you use the GBC mode on the NSO version, it uses the GBC palette, which used 6 colors instead of the default 4 shades of green, so that's pretty nice. The game does have a bit of slowdown here and there, but nothing major.
I don't think the music in SML2 is bad, I think it's pretty good for a GB game, but it is also very un-Mario-like. It sounds more like it's inspired by Classical and music from cartoons rather than anything Koji Kondo did. The composer for this game was Kazumi Totaka, and this was his second game at Nintendo. You might have heard Totaka's music in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening and every Luigi's Mansion and Animal Crossing game. He is the real K.K. Slider. He's kind of a big deal.
I had fun playing this game. I think it's definitely worth checking out if you've never played it, especially if you do some research on the developers while you're at it. R&D1 is incredibly fascinating to me since their lineage goes back to the days before Nintendo even made video games. The experience on NSO is pretty good. I like having save states and rewind, and the color options are better than what we had on 3DS, which was jack squat. I would love to be able to use all the GBC color palettes, but I guess I should be thankful they gave us any color options at all. Now, when does Wario Land 1 come out? I don't want to go straight to Wario Land 3.
Developer: JoyMasher
Publisher: The Arcade Crew
Platforms: NS, PS4, PS5, PC
Price: $16.99
Version Played: PC
Vengeful Guardian Moonrider is the new game from JoyMasher, the developer of Odallus, Oniken, and one of my favorite games of 2019, Blazing Chrome. I saw a lot of names in the credits, but as I understand it, one person does most of the work on JoyMasher's games, and that's Danilo Dias, so keep that in mind. Moonrider continues JoyMasher's legacy of retro 2D action with an interesting mix of Shinobi III and Mega Man X.
The Shinobi III part comes with Moonrider's controls. Moonrider's main weapon is a sword and not kunai, but he definitely has Joe Musashi's moves. He's got the dash, running slash, wall jump, rope climbing, and dive kick. He even bounces off enemies after dive kicking their heads, just like in Shinobi III. Moonrider's other sword attacks are like a mix of Zero and Strider's. You have a 3 slash combo, you can walk while slashing, they have a wide arc, long reach, and their animations leave a trail of neon light behind, just like Capcom's Ninjas. You can also deflect many enemy projectiles by slashing them. Moonrider's controls feel a bit tighter than those classics, though. This game feels fast and responsive, and the hits feel like they have more impact, just like you'd expect from a game made by someone who has studied classic Ninja games.
The structure of Moonrider is all Mega Man X. You start out in an intro level, you choose the order you play the rest of the levels in, and you can replay any level to look for hidden items with upgrades acquired in other levels. There's also a multi-part final level that unlocks after you beat all the robot masters. So, yeah, big Mega Man X vibes. You can equip 2 of these upgrades at a time to get abilities like a double jump, HP regen, and an ability that marks where the hidden items are in a level. You also get new special weapons after defeating the bosses, just like in Mega Man. I definitely found some of those weapons very useful against other bosses, but I'm not sure if there's some kind of Mega Man-like boss order you can follow. I guess the community will come up with one later.
There's also a couple of Hang-On-like motorcycle sections in the game. Well, Hang-On with a gun, so maybe it's more like Space Harrier on a bike. Anyway, they're pretty cool. You shoot enemies in front of you while driving and jumping over the occasional obstacle. There's even a few bosses. The pseudo 3D graphics also nail the look of that type of game on the Genesis.
Moonrider’s level designs feel like a mix of Shinobi III and Mega Man. There's lots of enemies, places to wall jump, and plenty of hazards, like electrified floors, flamethrower turrets, spikes, and moving platforms. There's definitely a lot of platforming, but I never felt like it was the focus of the game. I think the game has a good balance between platforming and combat. I also never felt like it was the hardest part of the game, or as difficult as in a lot of Mega Man games. I think the part I had the toughest time with was the bosses and minibosses. They're very well designed and will force you to learn their patterns to defeat them, especially before you get some of the more powerful weapons in the game.
I love the art style in this game. Yes, just like in Blazing Chrome, the graphics do a great job in mimicking the look of a Genesis game, but it's the 80s influenced style that makes the game look so cool. I love the design of all the enemy machines and vehicles. Everything has to have a skull or some kind of face on it. It reminds me of He-Man. All the robot masters look like a cross between Shredder and a Gundam, with robotic samurai armor and menacing looks on their metal faces. The backgrounds are also very well done. I especially liked the forest, sky stage, and the cave that looks like it's made of Xenomorphs. It reminds me of levels like that in Ninja Gaiden 2 and Devil May Cry 5. There's also a CRT effect filter complete with curved corners, if that's your sort of thing.
The music and sound effects are also spot on. The music is a mix of chiptune electronic stuff mixed with some more traditional Japanese sounding stuff in certain spots for that authentic Ninja anime sound. The bosses also have a bunch of voice clips, which are just the right amount of crunchy and distorted. They're like Street Fighter 1 quality voice clips and they're perfect.
Sega isn't making any new Shinobi games, and Capcom isn't making any Mega Man X games either, so this game is scratching 2 itches at the same time. I had a lot of fun playing through the levels and then going back in looking for the hidden items, the boss battles are very well designed, and I just love how the game looks. The game is fairly short, but it's very replayable, and the price is right. If you're a fan of Shinobi, Mega Man, or just a fan of retro Ninja games, you really can't go wrong with this.
10. Radiant Silvergun - This game is a trip. I went from thinking it was impossible to turning up the difficulty for a second playthrough. Its complex controls seemed nonsensical at first and then became second nature. The story is also all kinds of wacky. If you care about Treasure's legacy, you should probably pick this up because it's super interesting. It's also rarely re-released, so being able to get it on a modern system is great.
9. Spidersaurs - Do you remember ProStars? The cartoon with Michael Jordan, Bo Jackson, and Wayne Gretzky playing superheroes? How about Jem and the Holograms? Well, some of us do. WayForward took a bunch of those old cartoons that aren’t and mashed them all together into Spidersaurs. Look, I know the IP isn’t going to hit with everyone, but this is an awesome Contra-like Run ‘n Gun shooter. If you’re jonesing for a new Contra, give this a look.
8. Capcom Fighting Collection - This is the only place you can get the full DarkStalkers collection. That alone is worth the price of admission. The online was always dead, but if you're buying something like this, it's because you're a hardcore Capcom fan. It's the games, art collection, and music that are really important.
7. Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course - I thought Delicious Last Course was just a clever way of saying DLC, but it's actually a very fitting name. Cuphead DLC is like dessert after the main course. I really wanted it to be an all you can eat buffet after the 5 year wait, but what's there is still awesome.
6. Pokemon Legends Arceus - Pokemon SV took all of this game’s thunder, but it’s still a really good game I think Pokemon fans would enjoy. I think it’s the best spinoff they’ve ever done. I loved the Japanese setting, story, and the new designs for old Pokemon. But honestly, I just kept wishing it was more like the mainline games. I’m not into the Pokemon Go thing where you catch tons of the same Pokemon and then release them, I didn’t like the Strong and Agile Style battle mechanic, the human VS Pokemon battles were terrible and very weird, and the way trainers make you battle 2 or 3 Pokemon at the same time was just cheating. I could go on. I had issues with this game, but I want them to make another one and keep experimenting with this style of Pokemon game.
5. River City Girls 2 - It's that game I just reviewed! What more can I say? It's better than RCH1 in every way. It has awesome combat, great graphics, a killer soundtrack, and funny dialogue. Beat 'em Up fans can't go wrong with this one.
4. Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak - Any other year, this might have been my GOTY. This expansion did just about everything better than the original. It has tons of more content, awesome new features, like the NPC partner missions, and a lot more post launch support. I fell off after they introduced the real endgame, though. I’m just not into grinding for mats to get randomized upgrades.
3. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet - Technical issues aside, this is the best Pokemon game of all time. You heard me! They did it. We finally have a seamless, 3rd person, open world that feels like a modern RPG. This isn't Monster Hunter or a dressed up 8-bit RPG that's constantly blocking off paths and funneling you through. This is the Pokemon game I've been wanting since the GameCube days.
2. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge - I expected this game to be awesome and it far exceeded my expectations. They did everything I wanted and then some. It's got April, Splinter AND Casey Jones! They didn’t just throw in Bebop and Rocksteady, they threw in villains I didn't even remember. Even Vernon is in it. Every background, Foot Soldier, and move feels like it’s something from the cartoons, comics, or old games. The combat system is one of the best in any BEU from any era, it has beautiful 2D graphics, and a great soundtrack. This is one of my favorite arcade style BEUs of all time.
1. Tunic - This game is special. Last time I saw my brother, I told him about how everything in the game is written in a runic language you can't understand and you have to piece clues together by looking at the pictures in the manual. He said "So, like how we played Zelda when we were kids?". Yes, exactly! Tunic isn't just a game that plays like Zelda, it's a game that plays like the experience of playing Zelda for the first time. I doubt Nintendo themselves would ever make a Zelda game like this. It would probably be too 4th wall breaking and self referential for them.
