in 1989 the 16-bit generation officially begun with the August release of both
the Sega Genesis in turbo graphics 16 but that same year the Nintendo
Entertainment System was at the peak of its popularity selling just under 10
million consoles here in North America in 1991 the 16-bit generation turned
into the famed 16-bit console wars with the August release of the Super Nintendo
this system launched with only three games but by the time Christmas had
arrived a number of titles were on store shelves that would come to be considered
absolute classics on the system on this episode of classic gaming quarterly
following up on the launch of the Super Nintendo we take a look at the
noteworthy games that would flesh out the system's North American library
through its first holiday season so that's the new Super Nintendo
Entertainment System good about it they say it has 16-bit technology whatever
that means oh I see what else do they say then it has 3d graphics and digital
stereo sound and it's super mario world is included ok ok we'll get it for them
the original Gradius was released into the arcades by Konami in 1985 the game
is a horizontally scrolling shooter that uses a unique upgrade system in which
you collect powerup tokens which can then be used to modify your ship these
upgrades include lasers missiles and options which act as little helper ships
mirroring your movements and providing extra firepower tight controls excellent
music and visuals and fair but challenging difficulty led to grotty us
being a hit in the arcades the game was ported in numerous home platforms and
was one of the very first third-party titles released on the Nintendo
Entertainment System a sequel of sorts called salamander in Japan and lifeforce
in the West was released into the arcades in 1986 it was subsequently
ported to the Famicom and NES in 1987 and is easily one of the best shooters
on the platform
in 1988 a proper sequel karate is to gopher no yabo known as Vulcan venture
in the West was released into the arcades the Famicom version released the
same year as a very respectable port and it's a real shame that the game was
never localized here in the West the 1992 super CD port which was also never
localized here is much closer to arcade perfect and is in my opinion one of the
very best horizontally scrolling shooters on the PC engine in 1989 the
third installment in the main series Gras Deus 3 appeared in Japanese arcades
and it was this game that was interned ported to the Super Famicom and released
on the Super Nintendo about a week after the launch of the system
as garages to is never released here in its day karate as three was for us the
follow-up to the two NES titles
in karate is three you once again pilot the vic viper fighting against the
hordes of the bacteria on Empire in a game that should feel instantly familiar
to veterans of the 8-bit installments while karate is 3 is not a huge
audio-visual leap over karate as to the game still has gorgeous graphics and
tremendous variety between stages which arguably is characteristic of the
franchise series tropes like moai heads and cave levels are joined by variations
on a theme like sand dragons standing in for fire dragons and gigantic bubbles
that break into smaller ones when shot the graphics and grotty is three might
not look as obviously next-gen as the visual effects used in f-zero or pilot
wings but the game does an excellent job of taking advantage of the super
Nintendos expanded color palette to create pixel art that achieves a level
of detail expectedly not yet seen in the series unfortunately
when some of these early Super Nintendo games were being created developers were
for obvious reasons not able to take advantage of the super nintendo 16-bit
processor and as a result some games suffer from severe slowdown as might be
expected this was one of the chief criticisms of karate is three back in
its day as generally speaking shooters were most susceptible to slow down due
to the sheer volume of action happening on the screen at any given time karate
is three's powerup system now has an edit mode which allows you to choose
which power-ups will be available to you during the game the advantage of this is
that it allows you to tailor the upgrade system to suit your style of play as has
been the case with all games in the series
powering up your ship is the key to success and starting again at zero with
a slow ship and a pea shooter when you die can be a serious shock excellent
music composed by the Konami square wave club is a hallmark of practically every
Konami game and grotty as three is no exception using the super Nintendos ken
Kutaragi design sound chip 2x defect
I personally think the game is harder than previous installments but as is the
case with the series as a whole karate as three is a challenging but rewarding
game it simply requires practice to master both the original karate Asst and
life-force are among my favourite games on the NES and as such
slow down aside karate as three would have been well worth purchasing in the
late summer of 1991
raid on bungling bae was created by a video game designer will write and
released on the commodore 64 in 1984 while designing the game right
purportedly felt that he had more fun creating the layouts in his level editor
than he did playing the game itself and his subsequent fascination with level
editors culminated in the development of SimCity the game was designed in 1985
for the Commodore 64 but was not released at the time due to lack of
interest from game publishers in 1987 Wright co-founded Maxis software
breathing new life into SimCity to increase the amount of creativity a user
could put into the system in 1989 the game finally made its retail
debut on both the Amiga and the original black-and-white 68k Macintosh and the
following year was finally released on the Commodore 64 as well as the DOS PC
where it became were the most beloved games of my adolescence
SimCity is an interesting game and that it has no clear objective you start off
with an empty swath of land and must set up infrastructure in the form of power
lines and roads and set zoning for parcels of land either residential
commercial or industrial you then watch as residents and businesses move in
increasing your population and hopefully your tax revenue giving you the capital
needed to expand you set tax rates manage crime with the strategic
placement of police stations and respond to the needs of your citizens by
building airports stadiums and parks unless you turn them off you also have
to deal with the occasional disaster manifesting itself as a fire tornado or
even an attack by a giant monster other than that the game has no end either
good or bad if you completely run your city into the ground and have no money
to fix it then you have no choice but to restart but there is no official game
over on the other hand for as long as you're having some modicum of success
you can continue to tinker with your city indefinitely
the game also includes a handful of scenarios based on real-world situations
in which you do have specific goals but even if you fail to achieve them you can
still keep playing the game in 1990 under license from Maxis Nintendo's
entertainment analysis and development group famously led by Shigeru Miyamoto
programmed from scratch a version of SimCity 4 release on their 16-bit
platform as with Gradius 3 the game missed the consoles North American
launched by about a week but is erroneously considered by some to be a
launch title while the most popular version of the game at least here was
probably the DOS release this Super Nintendo installment most closely
resembles the more colorful Amiga version
the game plays much the same as every other iteration but with the expected
infusion of some Nintendo magic unlike the original game in this version you're
awarded special structures the first being the mayor's house and after
achieving 500,000 residents you're given a statue of Mario to place where ever
you see fit it also includes some graphical touches like the seasons
changing and Bowser standing in as the monster is one of the possible disasters
while SimCity would have been perfect for use with the super Nintendos Mouse
that peripheral was not released until the following year and is therefore not
compatible with this game that being said I had no problem playing with the
controller and that's coming from someone who spent countless hours
playing this game with a mouse on a computer the soundtrack for SimCity was
composed by soil oka who also Co composed the music for pilotwings along
with koji kondo
and would go on to write the music for Super Mario Kart
she also rearranged Kondos original Super Mario Brothers compositions for
1993 Super Mario all-stars this Super Nintendo version of the game may not be
the ideal way to play SimCity 4 the modern retro gamer but it is an
excellent version of the game and was certainly the most accessible means of
playing SimCity back then for those who weren't fortunate enough to have access
to a home computer
the original r-type was developed for the arcades by Iram and began what is
for most people their most well known franchise the game was released in 1987
and was actually distributed here in the United States by Nintendo although the
game was never ported to the NES ports were however released on a myriad of
other platforms including the PC engine and turbo graphics 16
and the sega master system where it was ported by shooter powerhouse compile
our type has you piloting the r9a Arrowhead fighting against the evil
hordes of the phyto Empire the franchise as a whole is known for its slower pace
but that doesn't make it any easier probably the two most noteworthy aspects
of the gameplay are the ability to charge up your weapon for a more
powerful shot and the helper ship called the forced pod the forced pod is picked
up as a powerup and can attach to either the front or back of your ship
where at both adds extra firepower and acts as a shield of sorts you can also
send it out to act as a remote secondary weapon which is particularly useful when
it's equipped to shoot vertically instead of straight ahead in 1989 Iram
released our type 2 and the game feels and plays like a natural continuation of
the original
as the game is 2 years newer there's the expected bump in graphics and sound with
the only notable change to the gameplay being the ability to doubly charge your
weapon for an even more powerful super shot in 1991
Iram released a reworked version of the game on the Super Famicom as super
r-type and the game appeared on store shelves here in North America and early
September four of the game's stages are brought over from r-type 2 but the other
three including the unimaginative first level of the game are newly designed our
type 2 is already harder than the original but inexplicably the designers
chose to remove mid-level checkpoints from this home version meaning that when
you die even if during a boss battle you have to start the entire level over
again the graphics and super r-type can best
be described as inconsistent in some levels the bland backgrounds and muted
color schemes make the game appear unimpressive while other levels look
much the opposite and show off with the super Nintendos expanded color palette
brought to the table although perhaps not as severe as grotty as three super
r-type does suffer from some slow down during frenzied periods of on-screen
action on the plus side Iram excellent advantage of the super Nintendos sound
capabilities to make improvements to the game soundtrack
and paired it with excellent sound effects
super r-type was well-received upon release but with the gift of hindsight
the game just falls flat which explains why it's one of the
cheapest big-name titles on the Super Nintendo
I don't enjoy this game as much as the original and as such were I in the
market for a shooter in the fall of 1991 picking grotty as three over this game
would have been an easy decision while the original art type did not
appear on either the famicom or nes super archetype belatedly brought the
franchise to Nintendo's home hardware and set the stage for the outstanding
home exclusive archetype 3 released for the Super Nintendo in 1994
in the mid-to-late 1980s before the era of one-on-one fighters beat'em ups were
among the most popular titles in the arcades the genre naturally lends itself
well to multiplayer play and due to the immersive atmospheres and storylines
combined with greater variety between stages the games were more compelling
when compared to many traditional single screen arcade offerings a pioneer in the
field was Technos Japan whose 1986 release renegade set the stage
stylistically for what we now consider a beat-em-up they would follow this up the
following year with the smash hit Double Dragon and Sega would joined the party
in the spring of 1989 with Golden Axe
predictably Capcom wanted to jump into the mix and tasked Yoshiki Okamoto and
Akira Yasuda with developing the company's first street brawler inspired
by Double Dragon 2 and loosely based on the 1984 film Streets of Fire the game
was at one point written as the sequel to the original Street Fighter even
being demonstrated at trade shows under the title Street Fighter 89 before being
released in 1989 on Capcom's then new cps hardware is final fight in the game
Metro city's mayor x pro wrestler Mike Haggar is on a quest to rescue his
kidnapped daughter from the mad gear gang with the help of martial artists
Cody and gai final fight in my opinion assured in a new generation of beat'em
ups setting a new standard for the genre
the game had by far and away the most detailed graphics and largest sprites
yet seen in a beat him up and introduced a level of control that made the
aforementioned games feel primitive in comparison as we've come to be the norm
the game plays differently depending on which character you choose Mike Haggar
is the slowest that has the weakest special attack but makes up for it with
the strongest normal attack and stoutest defense guy is the exact opposite and
Cody falls somewhere in between
names and appearances of many of the enemies in the game take cues from 80s
pop culture figures most notably on dory who is clearly a ripoff of the great
Andre the Giant much as it had in the early days of the Genesis back in 1989
and 1990 capcom played a major role in the super Nintendos early third party
lineup arriving in stores in late September a port of final fight was the
first of three games that the company would release on the Super Nintendo in
1991 this version is a passable home translation with a few unfortunate
omissions the ability to play cooperatively is of course a hallmark of
the beat'em up genre but the Super Nintendo version of final fight famously
lacks a simultaneous two-player boat guy who has always been my character of
choice has also been omitted as has the industrially themed fourth level in both
cases supposedly due to the limited memory capacity of cartridges in the
early days of the system this version is also noticeably easier than the arcade
original although I'm not sure I'd call that a flaw final fight is often
compared to the Streets of Rage series in much the same way that karate is
seems forever linked to r-type final fight was released on the Super Nintendo
not long after the first Streets of Rage in the Genesis with reviews for the two
games even appearing side-by-side in the August 1991 issue of electronic gaming
monthly final fight would sell nearly 1.5 million copies on the Super Nintendo
and was one of Capcom's most successful games on Nintendo's 16-bit Hardware
while it's far less arcade perfect in the 1993 release on the Sega CD it's
still one of the better beat em ups on the system and was at the very least
worth a rental or two in the early days of the Super Nintendo
another 1989 Capcom CPS release area 88 is an arcade shooter based on the manga
and anime series of the same name centered around a group of young
mercenary fighter pilots based in the Middle East similar to the
aforementioned final fight at the beginning of the game you choose from
three available characters each of whom fly a different plane which draws its
strengths from its real-world counterpart Shin Kazama who is the
protagonist of the original manga series flies the agile f-20 tigershark and is
ostensibly the most balanced of the three characters Micky Simons f-14
tomcat made famous by the 1985 movie Top Gun has a stronger forward weapon with a
slightly slower rate of fire but is still the best character for air-to-air
combat finally Greg Gates who is in the manga
and anime a fairly minor character but a fan favorite flies the a-10 Thunderbolt
whose weapon lacks punch but shoots both straight ahead and at a downward angle
making it a jack of all trades but master of none unlike more traditional
games like Gradius and our type area 88 issues the ubiquitous space shooter
paradigm instead taking place right here on planet earth while Capcom already had
experience creating shooters in the pseudo realistic realm with the
vertically scrolling 1942 series area 88 is a side-scrolling affair perhaps it
carry over from 1943 this game features a health bar instead of one-hit kills
but as a result you have just one life like fellow CP s release forgotten
worlds area 88 features an inter stage shop as a mercenary defeating enemies
earns you money which can then be used to purchase secondary weapons including
a variety of missiles and bombs
as well as defensive power-ups including shields and maximum health increases
each airplane is tied to its primary weapon which can be upgraded over the
course of the game by picking up power-ups dropped by enemies differently
color tokens are worth different denominations of POW points and once you
accumulate enough of them your weapon levels up area 88 was brought to Western
arcades as un squadron an odd choice since by that time the original manga
series had been localized here the game was ported to the Super Nintendo in 1991
and was shipped out to stores in late September alongside final fight while
the game was the third horizontally scrolling shooter to be released in the
span of about a month un squadron was unique enough to be worthy of
consideration having undergone a number of changes while being remade for the
Super Nintendo in the arcade the game uses a standard linear level progression
but this Home version features a map screen that to a certain extent allows
you to choose the order in which you play the game and also add some bonus
levels giving you further opportunity to earn some extra cash this is
particularly helpful because the game no longer ties each character to a
particular aircraft instead allowing you to purchase pricey new airplanes in the
shop naturally un squadron gets progressively
harder as you advance and does require a certain amount of memorization but like
any good shooter it never feels cheap
while both bra ds3 and super r-type primarily took place in the cold
starkness of space the terrestrial settings of un squadron give it a visual
warmth that the other two games lack expectedly the graphics took a hit
coming home from the arcade but the game still looks great and like super r-type
doesn't suffer from too much slowdown the soundtrack on the other hand is
fairly unremarkable and while the explosions sound cool
much as it did in the arcade your plane's primary weapon sounds like an
old man blowing his nose
the arcade game of course allowed for two-player simultaneous play but once
again Capcom has removed this feature in the Home version although I don't think
it's as big a deal in a shooter as it is in a beat'em up overall this is a great
game that really did something a little bit different with the genre and would
have been for me alongside grotty is three a must-buy shooter in the fall of
1991 easily the most unique game in the super Nintendos early lineup actraiser
is a combination god game and side-scrolling action platformer the
game was the first developed by tokyo-based quintet who would go on to
design soul blazer an illusion of gaia and was published by Enix of
dragonwarrior fame appearing on North American store shelves in the last week
of October in the original Japanese version you play the role of God
battling Satan for control of the earth but for the Super Nintendo release in
order to cater to Western sensibilities God was changed to the master and Satan
to tonzura so as not to ruffle the wrong feathers in any case the evil deity and
his minions have taken over the land and it's up to you as the good deity to
clean some house and make the land again safe for habitation act Razors world
features six unique lands in which the simulation mode is sandwiched in between
two action based stages once you set your game up in the sky palace you begin
the first stint of action platforming after a sweet mode-7 transition
here both the ambience and the manner in which your character handles reminds me
of wizards and warriors on the NES at the beginning of the game your character
has no magic so your only offensive weapon is your sword the first stage
acts as sort of an initial house spinning to make the land hospitable for
your people so that after the boss battle you can transition into your
first simulation stint and help your people establish themselves
as the simulation mode begins your first task is to direct your people to build
toward the monster layers from the newly constructed temple allowing for them to
be sealed by the locals until they do so you'll have to use your cherub who acts
as both consultant and your boots on the ground proxy to dispatch the various
enemies still wandering free including bats imps and what look like baby
dragons you also listen to the prayers of your people and respond accordingly
doing things like burning bushes
in accepting offerings which help you progress through the game once all of
the monster layers are sealed you can trigger the second action platforming
stage
the completion of which will finally rid the land of evil and allow you to move
on to the next area the action portions of actraiser easily have some of the
best graphics among the super Nintendos 1991 line up with awesome sprite design
paired with excellent background detail the game's bosses in particular are
gorgeous to look at and a reminiscent of those found in the Castlevania series
actraiser sim sections look understandably less impressive as
developers necessarily sacrificed graphical detail in favor of a larger
viewable area the soundtrack for actraiser was written by the great Yuzo
Koshiro better known for his work on the Sega Genesis with revenge of shinobi and
the Streets of Rage series the church like organ music in the sky palace and
the classically inspired theme of the overworld sound great and her setting
appropriate but perhaps predictably as she rose talent really shines through
during the game's action sequences
while on their own neither of act razors gamemodes would make the game a standout
title it's their seamless integration that makes the game so engrossing in
1993 the critically panned actraiser 2 was released and did away with the
overhead sim style gameplay even advertising on the front of the box that
it was 100% pure action and excitement but in doing so got rid of what made the
original so memorable actraiser does let you play straight through the 12 action
stages of the game using the professional mode unlocked once you've
beaten the game and so named because the enemies are harder to kill and you have
no magic actraiser is an excellent game that unfortunately suffers from being
both too short and too easy which back in 1991 would have for me relegated it
to weekend rental territory the game is still a solid must play however and is
absolutely worth tracking down today
bases-loaded was released by jaleco in the summer of 1988 with its TV style
behind the pitcher perspective likely influenced by the popular 80's home
computer game hardball although not licensed by the MLB or MLBPA the option
to play a complete season clear digitized speech
and reasonably good music and visuals made it one of the most popular baseball
games of the 8-bit era
in early November of 1991 Jellico brought the franchise to the
Super Nintendo with super bases loaded right around the same time that bases
loaded three was being released on the NES for both games Jellico paid for a
celebrity endorsement from future hall of fame second baseman Ryan Sandberg
then playing for the Chicago Cubs but he does not appear in the game super bases
loaded maintains the same TV style presentation ostensibly intended to make
the game more immersive and while the graphics are nothing special
the game does sprinkle in a little bit of mode 7
the digitized speech is again crystal clear but the audio as a whole makes it
sound like you're playing the game in a bathroom the removal of the pennant race
mode cuts down on the games replay value and overall there's really nothing here
that would make me want to upgrade from any number of baseball games on the NES
those would include culture brains baseball simulator 1000 which while not
as well-known as heavy hitters like RBI Baseball or bases-loaded was one of the
better baseball games on the system the game allows you to both create your own
teams and play full seasons which already sets it apart from the majority
of baseball games on the NES although you can play a game of straight baseball
the use of the word simulator in the title is a bit ironic since what really
makes baseball simulator 1,000 stick out from the crowd is the over-the-top
arcade style play of the ultra league
here you have access to what the game calls ultra plays which include a number
of trick hits and pitches
adding a whole new layer of fun to the game of baseball
making it out sometime before Christmas in 1991 culture brain released super
baseball 1000 on the Super Nintendo
the game retains the features of the 8-bit original while adding a bevy of
new ultra plays as one would expect the game's visuals have improved but super
baseball simulator 1000 the 16-bit envelope and I wish they had chosen a
brighter color palette the first game had an excellent soundtrack and that
continues to be the case with this iteration which features organ based
music that fits right in with the genre
were you hoping for a baseball game for your Super Nintendo under the tree on
Christmas morning you'd have much preferred it to be this one
the most famous football franchise in the history of video games got its start
on the Apple 2 home computer with the 1988 release of John Madden football
you
hey this series continued on the Sega Genesis with a game that revolutionized
sports gaming on home consoles John Madden football came closer to
simulating the game of football than any video game released prior with the full
11 players per side on the field
penalties a proper play clock and perhaps most importantly the signature
Madden playbook
although it was far from perfect upon its release in the fall of 1990 John
Madden football was in terms of immersion and realism the greatest
football video game ever created
in the fall of 1991 John Madden football 92 appear in the Genesis at about the
same time as the series made its debut on the Super Nintendo this installment
of the franchise was highly anticipated by sports gamers who thought that the
super Nintendos advanced scaling and rotation effects were gonna take the
series to the next level the game has the same options found on the Genesis
meaning that while you can't play a full season you can at least play through a
complete playoff tournament the game lacks NFL and NFL PA licenses a feature
that wouldn't be seen in the franchise until Madden 94 unfortunately starting a
game it becomes evident that John Madden football wasn't able to live up to the
pre-release hype with a choppy framerate that makes the game almost unplayable on
the plus side this Super Nintendo release has better color and therefore
more detail than the Genesis games and although both games share many of the
same sound samples they sound much clearer on the Super Nintendo than on
the Genesis although that's to be expected as both are strengths of the
former system and weaknesses of the latter
earthbound overall the first installment of John Madden football on the Super
Nintendo was a disappointment for gamers who had no other choice if they insisted
on playing football in Nintendo's 16-bit platform in 1991
with apologies to Darius Rucker aka Hootie the most famous Darius was
probably Darius the Great who ruled the Persian Empire at the peak of its power
from 5:22 to 486 BC the Darius video game franchise on the other hand got it
starred almost 2500 years later when Taito released the ichthyological ii
themed original in 1987 the game was housed in a unique arcade cabinet that
used three CRTs to create an ultra widescreen display the game and the
franchise as a whole is known for its choose your own adventure style of level
progression and it's a form mentioned pseudo aquatic themed pitting you as the
pilot of the Silver Hawk against the mechanized marine life of the Bell SAR
Empire at the outset your ship is equipped with both the standard Cannon
and bombs with enemies dropping color-coded power-ups that upgrade
either your gun bombs or shields Darius is eye-popping ly colorful and has a
great soundtrack but the Silverhawks slow rate of fire and enemies that take
multiple hits to kill prevent the game from providing as much fun as its
contemporaries permutations of the arcade original made appearances on a
variety of home gaming platforms but obviously there is no practical way to
preserve the three screen format after releasing an arcade sequel in 1989 Taito
developed a game specifically designed for the single screen format of home
consoles on a system not really known for shooters darius twin was the fourth
released on the Super Nintendo in a three-month window and was so named
because it was the only of the four shooters to feature simultaneous
two-player play while the arcade titles are known for their unique widescreen
display here Darius makes a successful transition to home TV screens as is in
my opinion a cornerstone of the series Darius twin features impressive sprite
artwork though this game does recycle elements from previous titles some of
Darius twins diverse locales are absolutely gorgeous if somewhat from
earlier and in many ways the game's graphics rival those of karate is 3 the
gameplay is buttery smooth and amazingly suffers from no slowdown again you have
both your primary forward-facing cannon and a secondary weapon that initially
drops bombs but can be upgraded to shoot in all four diagonal directions making
it an effective means of protecting your flanks as was the case with previous
entries in the series most enemies in the game require multiple shots to kill
which I guess is just a pet peeve of mine although the game allows you to
adjust your number of lives in the options menu it gives you no continues
on the other hand the difficulty of the gameplay itself has been scaled back
from the arcade titles with darius twin allowing you to keep your power-ups when
you die with a fully powered-up ship the game can become almost too easy as by
using both weapons at the same time you can knock out enemies all over the
screen the level progression is less branched but still nonlinear and
features fewer levels overall than previous entries in the series
dharia swin can be beaten in about 30 minutes though multiple playthroughs are
required in order to see every stage in the game enhancing its replay value
having looked at all four shooters released on the Super Nintendo in 1991 I
think I would rank them thusly slowed down aside karate as 3 stands out as the
best un squadron comes in second thanks to its personality and replayability and
Darius twin sneaks onto the final podium spot ahead of the disappointing super
r-type
when the original Final Fantasy was released on the Famicom in 1987 its
success was both a surprise and Savior with the professional fate of its
creator Hironobu Sakaguchi hanging in the balance
Sakaguchi had dropped out of a university engineering program four
years earlier to design games for the newly formed Square Company limited but
had become disillusioned after creating both the 3d battles of World Runner and
highway star released in the West as rad racer inspired by games like Ultima and
wizardry Sakaguchi set out to design a role-playing game as his farewell
performance before leaving square and returning to school to finish his degree
programmed by Nasir jebel II who was already a household name to Apple to
gamers and scored by the legendary Nobuo Uematsu Final Fantasy was an epic
undertaking requiring a 15 person team to complete along with the iconic Dragon
Quest series Final Fantasy is the game most closely associated with the
Japanese sub-genre of role-playing games known acronymic Lee as JRPGs and
characterized by random battle encounters and turn-based fighting
unlike Dragon Quest Final Fantasy allows the player to create their own party at
the game's outset choosing the class of each character for a more customized
gameplay experience the game also has a more compelling storyline and superior
artwork thanks in part to the work of character designer yoshitaka amano the
Japanese public whose appetite for RPGs had been wet by the first installment in
the aforementioned Dragon Quest series in 1986 scooped up hundreds of thousands
of copies of Final Fantasy giving Sakaguchi's career a new lease on life
and propelling Square from near anonymity to marquee third-party
developer in the coming years based on its success in Japan in the spring of
1990 Nintendo of America localized and published final fantasy releasing it
here to moderate success two more games released on the Famicom but due to the
delay in releasing the original in North America Square and Nintendo chose to
skip localizing the 8-bit sequels in favor of Final Fantasy 4 which was
released on the Super Famicom in the summer of 1991 as it was the second
entry in the series to be released in the West the name was changed to Final
Fantasy 2 and the game was in stores in the middle of November just in time to
take advantage of the Christmas shopping season
Final Fantasy 2 initially sold for $69.99 and while the high price of RPGs
on the Super Nintendo is often blamed on the price of ROM chips final fantasy 2
was just 8 megabits as was the majority of the consoles 1991 lineup as the
series moved from the anonymous heroes of the first game to characters with
defined personality and backstory you can no longer create custom parties but
that simply comes as a trade off for the more complex storylines and deeper
character development that this game has to offer the plot centers around the
dark knight cecil who at the outset of the game serves as captain of the Red
Wings an airship based fighting force
but is demoted for challenging the Kings motives for stealing elemental crystals
from neighboring kingdoms as it turns out a sinister forces behind the
thievery and it's up to Cecil and as a revolving cast of supporting characters
to save the world designed by Takashi Tokita with
Sakaguchi serving as director the gameplay is more like an interactive
epic and really helped set the stage for subsequent Japanese role-playing games
Final Fantasy 2 also marked the first Western appearance of series mainstays
including CID chocobos
and active time battles which put a unique spin on turn-based fighting
japanese-style role-playing games are fairly polarizing in the Western gaming
community either people love them or hate them and usually this hinges on how
one feels about the random battle encounters the frequency of which in
Final Fantasy 2 is elevated to say the least
Final Fantasy 2 makes excellent use of the super Nintendos mode 7 on the
overworld and the game's graphics as a whole are
serviceable if unremarkable once again written by Nobuo Uematsu the game's
soundtrack really makes the system sound chip sync and as would be a defining
feature of the franchise the music serves as the primary driver of the mood
in any given scene
final fantasy 2 is a great game in its own right and raised the bar for 16-bit
JRPGs setting the stage for subsequent square releases like Final Fantasy 3
which is considered by some to be the best game in the franchise and the
universally acclaimed Chrono Trigger even at $69.99 the tens of hours of
entertainment value this game had to offer would have made it an easy must
buy upon its release and I suspect that it found itself on countless Christmas
wish lists
makai mara or demon world village was created by video game designer Tokyo
Fujiwara released by Capcom in 1985 and brought west as ghosts and goblins
princess prin prin has been kidnapped by Satan himself and it's up to you playing
his Sir Arthur to rescue her from the demonic horde
ghosts and goblins is an action-platformer best known for its
engaging ly spooky atmosphere variety of weapons and enemies and crushing
difficulty along with neat graphical touches like Arthur rocking a pair of
boxer shorts if he loses his armor
a substandard port was released on the Famicom and NES but still managed to be
one of the more popular games on the platform selling just under 1.7 million
copies in 1988 its sequel die maquiladora
or great demon world village debuted on Capcom cps hardware and was released in
the West as ghouls and ghosts a Yugi naka programmed home port was one of the
first games released on the Sega Genesis and retains both its signature
atmosphere and challenging gameplay
notable additions include the ability to shoot straight up and down and the
appearance of treasure chests which contain either a weapon an evil magician
who transforms you into one of two hapless forms if you don't kill him fast
enough or a gold armor upgrades which allows you to charge your weapon for a
more powerful shot in 1991 Capcom released chomik I'm lira or ultra demon
world village on the Super Famicom rather than being developed for the
arcades the game was purposed designed for Nintendo's 16-bit Hardware in late
November the game became Capcom's last release of the year on the Super
Nintendo when it hit store shelves as Super ghouls and ghosts series
protagonist Sir Arthur has made some bad decisions regarding dating venues in the
past but to be fair has a reasonable expectation of safety keeping Princess
print print inside the walls of the castle
the demons of course have other ideas and away we go
super ghouls and ghosts does little to reinvent the wheel predictably dropping
you off in a zombie infested graveyard armed with the familiar Lance you now
however have the ability to double jump which can immediately be used to uncover
the first treasure chest again along with the returning evil magician
they contain armor upgrades and a host of new weapons
the double jumps also allowed the designers to get more creative with the
platforming requiring the maneuver in order to progress through certain parts
of the game with the aforementioned armor upgrades comes an upgrade to your
offensive abilities the bronze armor enchants your weapon with magical
abilities and as was the case with ghouls and ghosts the gold armor allows
you to charge up a magic attack the specifics of which depend on which
weapon you have you can also pick up a shield which will allow you to absorb at
least one additional frontal attack while the game does suffer from the
familiar slowdown as expected the graphics are the most colorful the
series had seen up to that point
and Capcom even snuck in some well executed mode seven rotation super
ghouls and ghosts also has in my opinion the best atmosphere and variety of
levels among any game in the series mari Yamaguchi who also wrote the music for
mega man 5 and rearranged the Street Fighter 2 soundtrack for its 1993
release on the PC engine wrote the entire soundtrack for this game with the
exception of the map screen music in the first level track as both our series
standards common among many multi-platform franchises during the
16-bit era here the Super Nintendo installment has by far and away the best
music in the series
as stated the franchise has a reputation for being brutally difficult and super
ghouls and ghosts gives no quarter in that regard
oddly Capcom chose to remove the ability to attack above or below your character
which obviously doesn't make the game any easier however just like the
previous entries in the series the challenge is part of what makes the game
compelling and the game was no doubt under many a Christmas tree in 1991 the
last game released for the Super Nintendo in 1991 hit store shelves just
before Christmas super Castlevania 4 was actually the ninth game not the fourth
released and Konami signature franchise between 1987 and 1991 it was preceded by
in order of release the original game on the NES vampire killer on the MSX
Simon's quest the lesser-known haunted castle in the arcade Castlevania The
Adventure on the Gameboy Dracula's curse beaucoup dracula kun on the famicom if
you want to count that one and belmonts revenge the japanese version of super
Castlevania 4 is a reimagining of the original Castlevania as it retails an
alternate version of the same story it's 1691 evil forces have resurrected
dracula and it's up to simon belmont and his trusty vampire killer whip to well
kill him for its North American localization however the story was
altered in a way that doesn't really make sense so the game is not considered
to be part of the official Castlevania timeline while I'm a huge fan of at
least two of the games on the NES fairly unforgiving controls were a defining
feature of the franchise up to this point super Castlevania 4 on the other
hand gives you much more control over your character you can adjust your
movement midair after a jump can whip in any direction and can jump onto
staircases rather than starting only at the top or bottom while these features
do make the game easier than its predecessors they also make the game
more fun to play speaking of difficult d this game is in my opinion the easiest
Castlevania game of the 8 and 16-bit eras the boss battles in particular are
generally a cakewalk and I usually find myself dying through more mundane means
one of the hallmarks of the Castlevania franchise is the atmosphere in each game
created from a combination of the visual art style level layouts and music this
game uses the super Nintendos expanded color palette to create a level of
detail not seen in previous entries in the franchise and the use of the
consoles mode 7 scaling and rotation while at times nausea-inducing
added to super Castlevania is impressive visual chops no conversation about super
Castlevania 4 would be complete without talking about the game's amazing
soundtrack the game was scored by taro kudo and Masanori Adachi who were both
newcomers to the series but who delivered one of the best soundtracks
that the franchise has seen to date
sadly the only other Castlevania game to make an appearance on the Super Nintendo
was 1995 s Dracula X a reworked but heavily altered version of Rondo of
blood on the PC engine that largely fell flat super Castlevania 4 is one of my
all-time favorite Super Nintendo games making it an obvious must buy back in
December of 1991 and is still a must play game to this day
the following additional titles were released on the Super Nintendo in 1991
populous by bullfrog productions the chess master by software tool works
drokken by CEM Kousaka ultraman by nova games limited
hole-in-one golf by Hal laboratories
bill lamb beers combat basketball by Hudson soft super tennis by tose
true golf classics Waialae Country Club by T&E soft
Hyper zone by Hal laboratories rpm racing by silicon & synapse
and home alone by Imagineering incorporated
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