REVIEW - The Addams Family | GB | 1992

GENRE(S): Platformer
RELEASED: January 1992
AVAILABLE ON: GB
DEVELOPER(S): Ocean Software
PUBLISHER(S): Ocean Software

Back to the family - seemingly for the last time - to check out a couple of odd handheld games based on Charles Addams' strange and very macabre, but surprisingly functional comic book family, or more precisely, Barry Sonnenfeld's 1991 film adaptation. Five different versions of the video game license were produced, of which I've already done two. The third and last one I have access to, at least at the moment, is the Game Boy-exclusive iteration, which was among the first, if not THE first Addams Family game directly based on the film. It's very similar to its NES and SNES counterparts, but it has its own quirks. Terrible ones, but the game is not utterly unplayable as a whole. In that sense, it also follows the Addams Family video game code.

Black, white and kooky

The Addams family has been evicted from their mansion by the devious lawyer Tully Alford and goes missing while attempting to re-negotiate with the man - with the exception of the family's eccentric patriarch Gomez, who heads back to the mansion to save his loved ones. The more danger and death awaits him, the better - he was getting bored anyway.

Though I've never had too much fun with any Addams Family-related game, I feel a certain sort of giddiness every time I take on one or two games in a franchise I started dissecting back in the earliest days of this blog. It always bedazzles me when I think how much time has passed and how much everything's changed during that time, in many senses. Can't say I believed or even dared to hope that my fast judgement towards these games would've changed, or that an Addams Family game on a Game Boy would be any better than any of the games I've played on the NES or SNES, but I guess I hoped it to be decent; although mediocre all the way, the Addams Family games I've reviewed this far have been far from the bottom end. The Addams Family on the Game Boy is, as I feared, the worst iteration of the first film's license I've played thus far - but, as I hoped, it's not an utterly unplayable game, just even less playable than the big boys.

Teddy gone bad. Nice shadow.

The game looks the ugliest of 'em all, which is kinda obvious, but really, there's no explaining the emptiness of the backgrounds when gameplay's still compromised with the Game Boy's usual problems. The presentation is so off-key it hurts; the boss design is the most ridiculous out of all the games, and Gomez looks more like Marlon Brando in The Godfather than the sleek Addams patriarch played by Raul Julia. "Kiss the ring." Surprisingly diverse music, though, especially on this platform - I was expecting a maximum of three different tunes. It's nothing special, but I gotta tip my invisible hat to the game having at least one over the bigger releases.

Like the NES and SNES releases, The Addams Family is an open-world platformer - which sounds much cooler than it actually is. There's a certain pattern you must follow to simply be able to beat the game - the open-world schematic is for children that are small enough to not care whether they're able to beat the game or not. To us children who are grown up a little, it's a fuck to hack through a long, repetitive level just to get impaled by the fact that the only weapon in your inventory does not work at all on the boss, and at that point, the only way to exit the situation is to intentionally rally for a Game Over, as you're stuck on the boss you can't beat as long as you have lives left. Well, at least the checkpoint system works, huh? ...No smart-ass comment here, it really does. It's just the wrong time and place for a decent system.

Devil went down to the Boiler
Room.

Every time you beat a boss, you save one of the family members, and gain a new weapon. Jumping on enemies doesn't always work and when it does - it's really quite random, there's no distinction between enemies you can or can't jump on - it merely stuns them and you need a weapon with its own power meter to really dispose of 'em. Generally you should just dodge the enemies and save your weapon meter for the boss fights. The weapons are split up into two categories: shit and shitter, also known as ranged and melee, in that order. Whenever you get hit, you start flashing like in any old platformer - except in boss fights where you take continual damage as long as you remain in contact with the boss - but occasionally the flash stops you from moving, and your weapons stop working. Projectiles can actually disappear into thin air in mid-screen, and melee weapons are just simply useless, their range is less than pathetic. Wait 'til you get to the swimming part to get a true feel of how mediocre the gameplay is. Gomez doesn't actually even swim, he merely floats, and you have to use the digital pad to keep him off instantly lethal hazards. It's even way worse than it sounds.

"These games are hardly spooky, but I guess they're kinda kooky / they're altogether ooky, the Addams family!" This is me finding my inner poet at 5 A.M.. The Addams Family on the Game Boy is indeed thus far the most hopeless case in the surprisingly long line of different games based on the first film, but not from the most unplayable end of the whole franchise. I'd take this one's mediocrity over the utter pile that is Fester's Quest any day. That's the biggest compliment I can give it, and it's not even a very light one in my view.

UPS
+ Hmm... generally harmless?
+ A fair checkpoint system, technically speaking

DOWNS
- Looks the least legit out of the many different games under the same title
- The controls and gameplay, most of all underwater

< 4.9 >

REVIEW - The Punisher: The Ultimate Payback! | GB | 1991

GENRE(S): Rail shooter
RELEASED: 1991
AVAILABLE ON: GB
DEVELOPER(S): Beam Software
PUBLISHER(S): LJN

I guess the NES adaptation of The Punisher was successful enough to drive LJN into publishing another Punisher game for the Game Boy. The Punisher was one of the few rail shooters to be published on the NES, this game called The Punisher: The Ultimate Payback! sure as hell was one of the only to see daylight on the Game Boy. Although many sources claim the game to be a port of the NES game, it virtually has nothing to do with it. How different can it be, though? It's of the same genre, and well, as far as storytelling goes, The Punisher ain't exactly the most multi-dimensional guy around. Like its predecessor, The Punisher: The Ultimate Payback! isn't that bad by LJN's usual "standards" - but it is severely flawed.

Plead insanity

I thought I put a stop to you.

The Punisher's out to punish some fools. Why? Because they're scum. Oh yeah, and Spider-Man makes an appearance. Just to bring the sales up a bit.

Let's get straight to the point: a rail shooter on a Game Boy? Sounds painful, really painful. On the other hand, I was even glad that I got all the rights to shove the old DOS game I originally got lined up on this spot back to the trash bin where it belongs, since I couldn't get it working on my current PC, and was able to skip straight ahead to this game. This couldn't possibly be as bad, and it isn't. It's even got good qualities over the NES version, though its impossible nature overshadows all.

I'll punish you right after I
snap this screenshot.

The graphics are clear enough, you shouldn't have any problems with seeing your enemy in this less detailed environment. However, in this version, Frank doesn't appear in person, so it's impossible to dodge enemy fire - that's the worst problem in the whole game. In turn, the crosshair moves much faster and smoother than in the NES game. It doesn't help you a whole lot once you're surrounded, which you will be, already by the end of the first level.

Not only are there too many enemies for you to handle without any sort of chance to dodge or take cover, there are also civilians all over the place. They take one bullet, they die - and so do you. A dead civilian means dead Frank. Some random enemies seem to kill you a lot faster than others, even if they have the same guns. If they're able to keep a line on you for a full second, your health is drained to zero faster than you're able to even properly take aim at the enemy. In the end of the first level, all of the impoliteness of the game strikes you at once. There are enemies all around with one with his hands on a civilian - this ain't no sharpshooting game, so be careful. If you're able to avoid shooting the civilian, Spider-Man shows up and takes 'em to safety. "Yay, thanks friendly neighborhood Spider-Man"... and the web-slinging fucker forgets all about his "friend" with the machine gun...

I used a cheat code to merely
SEE the second level. Which
is "The Docks". Great.

Anyway, you make it through that mayhem, you've already gotten pretty far. Then, the boss appears; he's practically invincible (his rock of a head literally takes hundreds of machine gun bullets), every third bullet from his revolver is deadly, and once again, you cannot dodge. If you're being honest to yourself, your game will end there. Losing five lives means that the game is over; I'll go out on a limb and say this game is simply impossible to beat without using a cheat code for infinite lives. Hell, the first level alone.

Sure, the game is horrible, and horribly designed - I mean, at least some form of self defense would be nice - but with its two minutes of tolerable gameplay, The Punisher: The Ultimate Payback! already surpasses many LJN games in quality. (Just in case this'll be the last review of an LJN game in a long while, I want to enjoy the moment.)

UPS
+ Responsive crosshair
+ Clear-cut, less detailed graphics
+ Luckily there's a cheat code. Because.

DOWNS
- The first level alone is absolutely impossible to beat...
- ...Mostly due to the fact that you cannot defend yourself by any means

< 5.0 >

REVIEW - Iron Man / X-O Manowar in Heavy Metal | GB | 1996

GENRE(S): Action
RELEASED: October 9, 1996 (SAT)
AVAILABLE ON: GB, GG, PC, PS1, SAT
DEVELOPER(S): Realtime Associates
PUBLISHER(S): Acclaim Entertainment

Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man, was created by Stan Lee and made his first Marvel Comics appearance in the Tales of Suspense series in March 1963. Iron Man differed a great deal from all other comic book superheroes, as he was a billionaire playboy who never cared much for the world until he was captured in a war zone and forced to design weapons for Chinese terrorists. He secretly built a huge suit of impenetrable armour to escape his captors and finished the design back home, becoming the colossal problem solver Iron Man - whose identity eventually became well known to the public. Iron Man was never nearly as popular as Marvel's stalwarts Spider-Man and X-Men, perhaps due to the fact that he was created at a time of conflict, inspired by that conflict. X-O Manowar is somewhat of a curiosity from the Marvel archives, created by Jim Shooter, Bob Layton and Jon Hartz and debuted in early 1992. Aric Dacia was an ancient warrior who was captured by aliens back at his time. He stole and used the high-tech X-O Manowar armour to escape the spaceship and travel back to Earth, but having travelled at lightspeed, he found himself trapped in modern times. In 1996, Iron Man and X-O Manowar joined forces in their first - and X-O's only - starring roles in a video game. It was called Iron Man / X-O Manowar in Heavy Metal. The game was first released on Sega Saturn, and then ported to several different consoles, including Sega and Nintendo's handhelds. I'm willing to bet Stan Lee wept.

An iron-clad abomination

Tony Stark and Aric Dacia team up as Iron Man and X-O Manowar to stop a team of terrorists - led by General Krytos - from obtaining and assembling the lost pieces of the Cosmic Cube. The terrorists have in turn teamed up with the aliens from whom Aric stole the X-O Manowar armour.

Yep, it looks abysmal.

I first heard of this game back in 1997, and it was also the first time I heard of the Marvel superhero named Iron Man; apparently, he was never too known or popular back here before the first movie came along to educate as late as 2008, and what a wonderful movie that turned out to be. This game, Iron Man / X-O Manowar in Heavy Metal had the coolest title in the world. Of course I immediately thought of Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" and the band Manowar, and that's what the developers were probably going for, adding the title Heavy Metal to it for good measure. It stuck on me for years, but I never played the game - the review was about the PC version, and I didn't have a PC at the time, nor did I have any of the consoles it was out on. My friends did, but they didn't quite share my enthusiasm with the mere title of the game, and they had equally faint idea about Iron Man as I did. The point here was that I loved the title of the game, and it had a Marvel superhero for a lead character - it didn't matter when they said the game was horrible. I wish it had mattered, so I would've been able to duck this Game Boy port, which is frankly one of the most horrible games I've ever played.

Iron Man / X-O Manowar in Heavy Metal - I've just got to repeat that, over and over again, to somehow lighten up this review - is once again one of those games that does absolutely everything wrong. It looks like ass, it sounds like asser (is that a word?), and it plays out like a limp dick. From what I've heard, the console and PC versions really aren't any better in quality, but I refuse to believe that they would look or sound this ugly, or that at least some of the problems wouldn't be harvested by the introduction of a proper control layout. Both characters have about ten moves or special abilities each; that might sound cool, but just take a moment and you'll realize that managing these moves with a digital pad and two action buttons is fucking hard. Unnecessarily hard, and not comfortable for one passing second. Also, what I don't understand is why B is assigned to throw objects by itself, but to manage a simple punch, you need to press B and A simultaneously, and at a precision that is well beyond extreme. Also, to do a roundhouse kick, which is the easier melee option, you need to press Up on the digital pad instead of a logical option like B or A.

That was Iron Man in the last
one, this is X-O Manowar. But,
I'm sure you spotted the
difference. :P

The enemies take a million hits from anything from your melee attacks to your heavy artillery - both do the exact same amount of damage - before going down, and after one hit, they flash for something like three years, preventing you from following up on a successful hit and very often getting the jump on you. Each step you take in this game is a fucking nightmare, seriously. After just a few levels, I've had enough - this game goes on for far, far, far, far, far too long for its own good. Or the good of any unfortunate schmuck's sanity.

I wish I had something more substantial to say, but Iron Man / X-O Manowar in Heavy Metal - yup, still love that title - isn't a very substantial game in itself. I knew I wasn't in for a great experience, but I can't believe I waited for years to get served this bowl of urine. It's one of the very few games with Iron Man in the helm, and I'm seriously expecting SOME fashion of attempt from the next, last Iron Man game I have in store.

UPS
+ The title

DOWNS
- Everything else... everything.

< 1.4 >

REVIEW - Spider-Man 3: Invasion of the Spider-Slayers | GB | 1993

GENRE(S): Action / Platform
RELEASED: July 1993
AVAILABLE ON: GB
DEVELOPER(S): B.I.T.S.
PUBLISHER(S): LJN

Nowadays, sequels almost never cease to please those people who were into their preceding titles. They might even outright amaze them. When you make a near-masterpiece of a first game, you observe and take notes of what mainly the media thinks you could've done better - after all, the media in turn affects a lot of casual gamers and their takes on the game, whether they want to admit it or not. Then, you release the second game, and it very often is just the kind of game people wanted the first one to be like. It's all very simple and obvious. Back in the early 90's credible, wide-spread video game reviews hardly existed, and even if they did, very few developers would've taken 'em seriously. That might be the exact reason why a game like Spider-Man 3: Invasion of the Spider-Slayers came to existence - why stop publishing games which basically sell themselves, and why improve the game if there's no one around to tell everyone it sucks before it's too late? The company it's in might not be too impressive in itself, but Spider-Man 3: Invasion of the Spider-Slayers is plain horrible, and one of the worst games I've had to suffer along the Marvel road.

Slay him, slay him dead

During a routine New York City check-up, Spider-Man finds himself face to face with a group of robots of unknown origin, dubbed the Spider-Slayers.

Although many are willing to disagree with me on this one for some doggone reason, Spider-Man 3 has virtually nothing to do with its predecessors. It's not really a typical platformer like the first one, nor is it more like an adventure game like the second one. I'd call this somewhat of a hybrid... of a few different colours of crap. It starts off like a side-scrolling beat 'em up, a generic but not a totally unplayable one - once the platform jumping kicks in somewhere around the second or third level, it takes a dive. Not a gradual one, either - but a straight, head-on dive to hell.

There's a call from a Mr. Giger.

The cutscenes are full of grammatical errors and extremely boring in look, but the in-game graphics are actually quite good, so good that I'm (mostly) willing to disregard how much character designers owe to other people for these designs (whether it's the developers or the comic book artists, I'm not really sure since I'm not acquainted with the serial this game's loosely based on). The soundtrack comprises of about a quarter of a handful of loops, at most.

I wish the curse of bad controls that plagued almost every Marvel game of the era, regardless of the platform, was present, but no, the controls in Spider-Man 3 ain't bad. Instead, they're so horrible that they render the game completely unplayable from a certain point forward. As far as the beat 'em up schtick carries on - not too far - the game's nearly all right. In the first level, you need to identify 20 muggers from an array of constantly spawning sprites in a park and kick their ass. You lose points from attacking civilians. Too bad the difference between a mugger and an innocent bystander can't be figured out until they're something like half an inch away from Spidey, which very easily allows them to land a cheap shot after another at you. Collision detection also sucks ass. Luckily you have a lot of health to spare. The first boss is quite easy to figure out and defeat just by using basic melee attacks, once again thanks to your vast reserves of health.

Let's do this simple, aight?
You open your mouth, I jump
in, level complete. No? This
ain't anything like my youth.

The bird boss is the waterbreaker, who'll most likely leave you with the conclusion that you bought this game for its first five minutes. You're supposed to get on top of this fuckoo-cuckoo instead of attacking him from the ground, and to do that, you must use your web - unlimited this time, but that's far from the point - to first make it to the top of the two buildings on your sides, then climb on his back. First of all, simply jumping in this game requires effort, not to mention clinging onto a wall or ceiling, or sling the web at the absolute correct time, or even make it stick to a surface. Finally, the most impossible task of all: use the web for swinging and jumping. If you thought the controls in the previous games were bad... no. I was going to recommend this game for reference, but I won't even do that. Steer clear from this piece of trash.

Well, that's it for the Spider-Man games for the original Game Boy - finally, after only three games. Two which sucked, but almost had potential, and one which turns out simply unplayable in a matter of minutes. Next up, several Spider-Man console games from three different generations, all from the 90's though. I'm not prepared for greatness, but I'm certainly prepared for some better time than I ever spent with these three.

UPS
+ Sometimes highly impressive in-game graphics
+ The first level shows some faint promise...

DOWNS
- ...Which is immediately flushed down the toilet
- Melee combat suffers greatly from poor collision detection
- "Jump! Jump! In the name of God, jump!"
- Totally unresponsive, confusing web mechanics which render the game unplayable
- Repetitive music and boring "cutscenes", presentation at its absolute worst

< 2.5 >

REVIEW - Spider-Man 2 | GB | 1992

GENRE(S): Action / Adventure
RELEASED: Aug 1992
AVAILABLE ON: GB
DEVELOPER(S): B.I.T.S.
PUBLISHER(S): LJN

Spider-Man still hadn't made his home debut under the Nintendo brand when LJN were already squeezing out a sequel to Game Boy's The Amazing Spider-Man. This game was called Spider-Man 2 in the U.S., but I guess us Europeans had to have the connection to the previous game spelled out for us, as the game was renamed The Amazing Spider-Man 2 upon its European launch. The game's original title makes it the first of three games released on the three most essential Game Boy models through time, named Spider-Man 2. Pretty neat, huh? ...Now for the more important question: did anyone care? No, not even me - I'm desperately trying to come up with something to start with, here. The game certainly doesn't offer up much to go on, despite a nice gameplay concept.

Cranial carnage

Peter Parker wakes up with the worst hangover ever - or so it seems, at least - and upon reading the morning Bugle, discovers that Spider-Man's been framed for a bank robbery. He takes on a band of villains led by Mysterio, believing them responsible for the robbery and his condition.

Mine too.

I've said it before, and though it's kinda hard to believe sometimes, I'm always willing to give the benefit of a doubt to a licensed game - always, especially when they deal with a favourite comic book character of mine, or a few of them. This one has appealing box art on its side - last game had Venom for a final boss, this one's got... well, Mysterio. Carnage, the second-to-last boss is depicted on the front cover - and making him second-to-last doesn't really tingle my senses in any good way. It was a letdown, having the first boss from the last game as the head honcho and probably Spider-Man's most deadliest enemy as a mere right hand man, but I guess my point - it's there, somewhere - is that you can certainly play the game long enough to see this awkward equation transpire. Which isn't long at all, since the game is damn short. The controls are  devastatingly bad, the game doesn't look or sound that awesome - the cutscenes are particularly poor - but the game has somewhat of a neat idea, as it's more of an adventure game than of the standard action-platformer fare.

Spider-Man 2 is like a very early and compact draft of Batman: Arkham Asylum, with downtown New York serving as Arkham Island. Don't get your slightest hopes up about the game's quality by the notion that I just made, as it was merely the first game to come to my mind when describing the concept on a theoretical level. The game doesn't have clear cuts between levels, and not every level ends in a boss fight. For example, the Hobgoblin's up there from the beginning, hovering on top of Peter's house and dropping bombs on the street. You're supposed to figure out how to get to him and what makes him tick; if I'm not totally mistaken, it's possible to clash with him right when you see him, not recommended though. In some cases, you can get to boss rooms beforehand, but won't be able to meet the boss face to face before finding and registering a clue to the boss' whereabouts from somewhere else. Ironic. And kinda frustrating.

Key items are the most important part of making progress. In the first level, you need a crowbar to bust through a boarded up door - yep, even Spider-Man needs tools sometimes - a key card for another door, and finally, some oil to make Hob's busted hovercraft work after the boss fight and fly you over an electric fence at the end of the street. To have any chance against the Lizard, you need to have a vial of antidote equipped as you fight him, an antidote which is hidden away in his lab, obscured by a puzzle - a real puzzle! Neat. Everything thus far sounds kinda neat, now doesn't it?

It's the heebee-jeebie again.

Well, feel free to cling on to everything that I just said in an effort to be intrigued, 'cause here goes: the game's controls are FUBAR. Seriously. It sounds just as annoying as you'd expect any other Game Boy title of the sort to sound, and due to the tricks to hide the game's ultimate linearity, it can be quite damn cryptic at its worst. When it comes to these particular types of cryptic passages, I'd compare Spider-Man 2 to a much more recent multi-platform title for the current console generation, which I'm actually playing at the moment, but I won't since I haven't reviewed that game just yet. Probably very soon, though. I'll also probably return to this game then. Only verbally, though - I'm not too intrigued in taking this for another spin.

As ironic as it might sound, I'm quite stoked - relatively speaking - about taking on the third game in this series. Nothing about Spider-Man 2 is top-notch, not even relatively, but for once, LJN invested in an interesting game instead of another simple platformer, one that Marvel fans might want to check out for its kinda unique idea alone.

UPS
+ Neat, original concept

DOWNS
- Crappy presentation in comparison to the previous game
- Controls; the web in particular is still a bitch to work with, and still a bitch to replenish if you run out
- Cryptic passages; despite being able to move freely across "levels", you need to find every single clue and location indicator in the game to actually make progress

< 5.8 >

REVIEW - The Amazing Spider-Man | GB | 1990

GENRE(S): Action
RELEASED: July 1990
AVAILABLE ON: GB
DEVELOPER(S): Rare
PUBLISHER(S): LJN, Nintendo

Now that I think of it, the NES had a minimal share of games based on Marvel Comics; a total of six by my count. Even Marvel's most popular stalwart Spider-Man made his Nintendo debut on the Game Boy instead of the NES, on which his first and only lead appearance was still a couple of years away. The first Game Boy game was called The Amazing Spider-Man; it had nothing to do with the home computer game released the same year, it spawned a couple of sequels, and it was brought to us by LJN. I was going to say it sucked, but hey - same difference.

My spider sense tingles - it seems I have to take a dump

One of Spider-Man's large host of arch enemies has figured out his true identity and allied him-/herself with five others to expose and destroy him, by the always sure-fire way of kidnapping Mary Jane Watson.

Oh, so you do work, that's
great. How about working
when I need you to?

Before you start blasting me about how great last year's The Amazing Spider-Man film was, I have to say: I know, all right? But, 'til that film came out, and 'til I saw it - you can't imagine how prejudiced I was, hell, I pretty much went for it 'cause of Denis Leary and a well-placed six-pack of beer - the title always reminded me of the old 70's TV show The Amazing Spider-Man, which was fucking horrible. Not all the way the laughable-kind-of-horrible either, just abysmal. I never liked the title, it sounds so immature - couldn't they just call it "Spider-Man"? Same goes for The Incredible Hulk - just "Hulk" would've sufficed. This went well below, beyond and besides the point, so let's just get to it: The Amazing Spider-Man for the Nintendo Game Boy. Honestly, I have to say it could be worse.

The graphics are quite OK, and just enough to fool kids into believing they'll have a real marvellous time (no pun intended) in the boots of the almighty webslinger here. The boss sprites are well crafted and the presentation in general is very close to the boldest expectations you could have about a Spider-Man game at the time. What most LJN-produced games lacked - among everything else - meaning their countless movie "adaptations", was authenticity and atmosphere. When it came to their other games such as this comic book title, they had a good grip on how to deliver a commercially viable product - it's no wonder, really, since they were a toy company to begin with; not to say their toys were any better than their games, but through the production of boys' toys, they apparently had some sense of what those kids would like to see in a Spider-Man game. This is exactly why I kinda liked the SNES games - but those are still a little far off, and I think time's left a scar or two on 'em. I'm once again missing my target, so let's get on with it...

It's the heebee-jeebie!

I almost choked on my morning joe when I realized David Wise made the music. Of course he did; I mean, how many other composers did Rare have at the time? Correct answer: none. Well, these TWO tunes - the main theme and the boss theme - are credited to Dave, but I'll go out on a limb and claim that he was taking a five-minute break, when some other guy broke into his desk drawer and stole some sheets to give the game a final touch before sending it out. It ain't bad, it especially ain't bad for a Game Boy title, but it's incredibly repetitive even on this scale, and definitely not what you'd come to expect from a guy who went on to become one of the most distinguished and influential video game composers of the early 90's with games like Battletoads and Donkey Kong Country... and whose compositions heavily influenced the Game Boy-exclusive Donkey Kong Land games, at that.

Game Boy games are tough to review, 'cause by far the only thing that matters about original, black and white Game Boy games is their playability - and playability sure seems to be a foreign concept in this case. Not totally odd, though - the authenticity of the game alone makes it interesting on some level, and seeing who's pulling the strings in the next level raises the bar of wanting to try just a little. If you're a Spidey fan, you might even enjoy the game once you get used to its less responsive controls, and learn to accept the fact that your each step is one of trial and error. Spider-Man moves as stiff as RoboCop, there are huge gaps to cross and the game itself often decides whether or not it's a proper spot to let Spidey sling the vertical web to get across (which he slings to nothingness, by the way; strange) or execute the high/wide jump, which is supposed to be a running jump, but doesn't register nearly all of the time, or just simply fall down to his death. Why I didn't call that high/wide jump a running jump is because Spidey sure as shit cannot run.

There's a human rhino running
amok in Central Park. Nothing
out of the ordinary.

Well, Spidey's slow movement has its privileges, such as sometimes being able to spot enemies more than from a virtual inch away - they seriously can fall straight on top of you, from the very same nothingness you sling your web to - and perhaps to avoid damage. The latter part's the true bitch. Your health bar looks reasonable at first sight, but be warned that every single slight bump drains nearly a quarter of it. It's continual damage, as if you were on fire in any other game, and it makes one dastardly sound effect, too. After discovering out of the purest blue that you have a limited amount of continues, you might think of the game as utterly unbeatable, but it's not. It's very short - you'll be done in less than half an hour if you're quick and lucky about it - you always respawn at the same spot, whether it's just a loss of life or a solid continue, and everything's tied to a pattern, discovered through trial and error. Of course, combination of these two words is always a red cloth in itself.

One more thing I despise about the game is the limitation to the use of webbing, since you absolutely need that shit to simply get forward, and certain types of enemies are nearly impossible to defeat with close-range attacks. Usually, when these types of enemies appear, you are given a chance to pick up some web power-ups, but very often that chance is once again one of trial and error, mostly of the latter half of that Satanic equation. The Amazing Spider-Man might not be that hard, but it can be very frustrating.

After blowing off some light steam in the beginning of this review, I decided to focus on the game's less negative qualities and give it a little credit for at least being - capacity noted - "cooler" and more playable than 90% of LJN-produced games I've ever played. That's not much, and it still sucks pretty bad, but at least Spider-Man fans have a decent presentation to gawk at. By the way, Venom's the final boss - that's always a plus.

UPS
+ Venom
+ A somewhat authentic atmosphere that reflects on vintage, family friendly Spider-Man, complete with bone-dry verbal humour and a good rogues gallery (Mysterio, Hobgoblin, Scorpion, Rhino, Doctor Octopus, and once again, Venom)
+ The graphics are quite good

DOWNS
- Slow, shitty, only semi-responsive controls
- The enemies' attack patterns are easily tracked, the patterns in their appearances are not
- Damage control, or lack thereof
- Limited webbing
- All of the above result in a whole game full of trial and error by some degree

< 5.2 >

REVIEW - Mario's Picross | GB | 1995

GENRE(S): Puzzle
RELEASED: March 13, 1995
AVAILABLE ON: GB, 3DS Virtual Console
DEVELOPER(S): Jupiter
PUBLISHER(S): Nintendo

On to drag some more serious waters... Mario's Picross is one of Mario's less known puzzle games in Western territories, whereas in Japan it was really popular and even spawned a couple of sequels which never made it this far - Picross 2 for the Game Boy, and Mario's Super Picross for the Super Famicom. It's a collection of nonogram picture puzzles, which were kind of the hottest thing in Japan before the invention of sudoku puzzles, and a precursor of sorts. What sounds like my kind of a puzzle game is exactly that, but unfortunately Mario's Picross has the downside of falling into the puzzle game subcategory of once beaten, forever - or at least a long time - done.

Work that chisel

Oops, perhaps I bit off more
than I could chew.

If you're familiar with nonogram puzzles, or at least one of the dozens of different names/variants they're known by, you are able to dodge my surely crappy explanation of how they work. You have a grid - the size varies depending on the difficulty level - and you must paint (in this case, chisel) up cells which you believe to be parts of the grid-wide picture you're attempting to uncover. There are numbers on both the horizontal and vertical sides, indicating how many cells within that respective column must be chiseled in succession to clear the column and make it one step closer to the completion of the puzzle. You can use checkmarks to cross out the cells you don't believe to be parts of the picture. I believe those screenshots are worth a lot more than my verbal complication of the simplest things...

Yeah. Let's just draw some
lines first.

Mario's Picross is a very simple game to get an initial hang of, but it can get really, really difficult. Regardless of the difficulty level, you have 30 minutes per puzzle. If you cannot solve the puzzle within that time frame, it's game over. I know what you're thinking - 30 minutes is a long time for a small, handheld puzzle with such a simple idea - but the more of the tiniest mistakes you make, the more severe time penalties you get. It starts with two minutes, and climbs up to eight minutes at a time really fast, if you're pushing your luck with the chisel a little too much. This is a fine solution to adapt the challenge of real nonograms, which are really hard to fix if you make just one mistake, just like sudokus are. There's a hint system you can opt not to use, but there's no real punishment if you do (just an "H" ticked next to the puzzle in your completion chart - how insulting), and I really recommend it for the higher difficulty levels. The hint reveals two whole columns, one horizontal and one vertical, at the start of each puzzle, making it a bit easier to get started, but not guaranteeing victory, especially when it comes to the more challenging puzzles.

It's-a-me! Or Dr. Phil in a
baseball cap. Good thing
this isn't Anticipation.

The only thing guaranteeing victory is beating the whole game once. There are a lot of puzzles in this game - four "courses" with 64 puzzles each, which makes up for a total of 256 - but since the game lacks a random generator (or alternatively, a level editor), they're exactly the same each time you play, and some courses even hang on to kind of loose themes which are easy to figure out after just a couple of puzzles. Letters, card faces, common symbols, and such. Half a course offers up a challenge, but once you've figured out the theme, the challenge pretty much lies in how a certain solution you already know is achieved with the numbers you're given. Since the puzzles are always the same, conquering Mario's Picross is a one-time deal. It seems there's some sort of a time trial tied to each puzzle, but do one puzzle enough times... I guess there's no need to explain. Still, I think that one time is a time to cherish. Mario's Picross is most of all a different puzzle game, and an entertaining one as long as it lasts. Couldn't imagine having too fun with a version exclusive to the big screen, though - this is one game that we Westerners were glad to know just as a handheld. That being said, this is the Super Game Boy version, as you probably figured out from the screenshots.

Mario's Picross has some minor flaws in addition to its one-off nature, detailed below, but all in all, it's a comfy, addictive puzzle game that will most definitely work as a good, interesting alternative if you're into sudokus. A late Game Boy treat, you could call it.

UPS
+ Unique, addictive gameplay
+ The challenge and appeal of real nonogram puzzles is well and innovatively adapted

DOWNS
- Horrible, repetitive music, as in most genre games
- No lasting value, which on the other hand is moderately unusual for the genre
- The small screen of the Game Boy results in some very strange views on certain objects

< 8.2 >

REVIEW - Mega Man V | GB | 1994

GENRE(S): Action / Platform
RELEASED: July 22, 1994
AVAILABLE ON: GB
DEVELOPER(S): Capcom
PUBLISHER(S): Capcom, Laguna Video Games

We've reached the end of this chapter in the Mega Man saga, and it has been one rollercoaster ride. At first, I didn't rightly know what to expect of this game. Capcom never doubted their desire to have their third party make it, although the idea of uniting two NES games into one Game Boy title had ran its course, and Mega Man 6 wasn't such great source material for adaptation anyway. That's why they took a surprise turn and had them make a completely original game, the first and last for the Game Boy. With its originality alone, Mega Man V has got a lot going for it. It's not quite the punch in skeptics' faces as the last game, but a good, unique experience for sworn fans to have.

The planets align

Months after seemingly putting an end to Dr. Wily's struggle for world domination once and for all, Mega Man is attacked by Terra, leader of Stardroids, a group of renegade robots from outer space. After being nearly destroyed in the short fight, Mega Man is saved by Dr. Light and fitted with a new arm cannon, the Mega Arm. Accompanied by Rush and his new robot cat Tango, Mega Man takes on the Stardroids and their powerful leader before travelling the solar system to investigate their ultimate cause.

This screen is cool, although
I have to wonder about the
presence of the Mega Buster.

Apart from some interesting twists in the Mega Man X franchise, the story has never been a strong point or an eligible focus point in the Mega Man franchise, but I must admit Mega Man V has got a good plot, and even I wasn't able to see from a mile or two how it was going to turn out in the end. I still wish they'd just had Mega Man shut up, but him talking is the least of your distractions when heading into this game. It's so similar, yet so different - finally, they got rid of the "Man" schtick for a spell and gave the bosses cool names taken from the planets of the solar system, and designed them in accordance to what they represent in Roman mythology. The end result of that design is not perfect, but at least it's diverse. Actually, the Stardroids and their behaviour's much closer to that of the Mavericks in the Mega Man X series than the Robot Masters in any previous title in the Game Boy and NES franchises. They climb walls and ceilings, have some crazy poses and combat schemes. For example, Uranus (lol) keeps changing the structure of the very room you face him in, and pulls bricks off the walls to throw at you. All things happening between level sets and within the final levels is quite surprising. So, lest we pick apart the whole game in this one paragraph, the bottom line is that while every other series within the Mega Man franchise got worse towards the end, the Game Boy series actually got better; again, Mega Man V isn't quite as good as Mega Man IV, but it's not a huge drop and it's definitely memorable due to the final huge problem harvested, which was the lack of originality.

Bubbles, this game's version
of the springs in Mega Man 6.

Mega Man V is actually the first game to have Super Game Boy enhancements I've ever seen in motion. If recollection of history's evading you right now, the Super Game Boy was actually a SNES cartridge/adaptor instead of a successor to the Game Boy, which you could use to play most of Game Boy's library on the SNES. It was kind of a silly idea, but due to its fair price it sold quite well and encouraged game developers to really work on Game Boy games, I guess, because now people could play them on their TV's, using SNES controllers, which means they demanded more of them. What was the coolest thing about the Super Game Boy in the eye of the child was that the games were in colours - a whole damn total of 12 in-game colours. Seriously, the Super Game Boy games didn't look that good, and the border graphics (which supported 64 colours) made them look even crappier. I guess they were supposed to create some sort of arcade feel, I don't know - either way, today the same sort of border graphics are used in most ports of Konami's arcade classics available on Xbox LIVE Arcade.

OK, I'm playing on an emulator so I don't have to worry about the borders, they've been snuffed out from this particular version of the file, and I guess it's cool to have the game in at least something else than the usual black and white. But, it still doesn't look good, never did - then again, if we think of the game not as a Super Game Boy game, but rather any Game Boy game, it looks quite damn good. The design is good all around, the cinematics and animation are quite impressive on the scale, and although the lag STILL persists, the game looks and feels the most fluid out of all the titles on the Game Boy. Pissing on the atmosphere a little is the soundtrack, which goes from one extreme to another, mostly digging the bottom. The music is not very good. It's all new stuff, of course, which is a plus, but either it's just OK, or just bottom deep crap - and it just so happens that the latter kind seems to play in all the longest levels. It sounds like leftover stuff from a really bad Disney game or a casino simulator.

Although music is an important part of the Mega Man experience, jumbling it up isn't reason enough for me to start deep-criticizing the game. That's where the influence of Mega Man 6 comes into the picture. Once again, if your memory's not on the mark or if you just haven't followed me that long, I hated Mega Man 6. Not only did it suffer from the obvious - repetition - it had the goofiest enemy design ever seen in the series. EVER. It also had the stupidest and most badly disguised plot ever, and to top all the cracks on the surface off, it had terrible ideas in store for the "benefit" and "fresh feel" of the gameplay. "Optional" upgrades to your basic weaponry which you actually couldn't do without, and at the same time the elimination of Rush, and terrains filled with springs or other materials/elements to make Mega Man jump around like a bunny on dope. Like I said back then, despite the similarities, Mega Man was never DuckTales - adding physical elements like this in a Mega Man game was not a good idea. And it still isn't.

Your new weapon, the Mega Arm, is quite neat - Mega Man's still wearing the Mega Buster in the weapon gain screens, though... - it's your arm, and it comes off. Duh. It's also upgradeable by two different upgrades, which seem perfectly optional. Yet, if you want to survive, they're far from optional, and they cost a lot of P-Chips. The most essential upgrade is the Magnet Hand, which can be used to pick up items inside walls or otherwise out of your reach. At first, there seems to be no use for it. You do the natural thing and spend your P-Chips on Energy Tanks and other Tanks between levels. Then, the game suddenly slaps you across the face with a huge dick and produces about 37 instances of "fuck yous" within one single level, level after level. Energy Tanks, extra lives, crystals (I'll tell you about 'em soon)... don't have the Magnet Hand? Well, fuck you! Have a nice day! In all seriousness, the Magnet Hand is not that expensive, but after you realize how much use you'd have for it, it'll take a while to gather the necessary sum of P-Chips, and during that while, you're going to see a lot of essential stuff just pass you by. Besides, in the final levels you don't have much direct use for it, anyway, as much as you'll have for the other, more expensive upgrade.

How many times must we
go over this? MEGA... MAN.
MEGA MAN. Not MEGAMAN.

That's it for the upgrades and their unfair importance, but the most annoying thing about this game is that Rush is once again absent for the longest time - the excuse being that Light needs to prepare him for space travel. He's done that in every fucking game in this particular series thus far - I don't know how much more preparation he needs. Instead, you get a cat that has absolutely no use at all in my opinion. Once again, of course partly depending of the order you do the levels in, you might bump into essential items that are reachable only by using the Rush Coil. Just to gain this very vintage and basic tool to your arsenal takes time - a lot of it. Rush Jet is once again the only other obtainable upgrade, but before the final levels, Dr. Light PREPARES RUSH FOR SPACE TRAVEL - God fucking damn it!!! - and you can then use a spaceship version of Rush in a surprising and fairly entertaining, but somewhat hollow and linear space shooter level.

Also, Mega Man 6 had very faceless bosses (remember Yamato Man?!), only a few of which had an obvious theme. Here, they have bosses who have obvious themes; Neptune's level has many water-related hazards, of course, and Mars' level is like a crazy army depot with all kinds of heavy artillery set on destroying Mega Man. But, it doesn't carry all the way through. Waterfalls, for just one example, end up disrupting your progress in a lot of different levels, which renders Neptune's level less unique. Also, some of the bosses don't seem to have any sort of themes to their levels at all, although they could've come up with all sorts of neat level designs for 'em, if they'd worked on the game just a while longer. They ended up just repeating things in different order and fashion, even before the final levels in which that's expected.

I guess Rush is FINALLY
prepared for space travel.

This time, I don't want to break the game's structure down in detail. It's different than ever before, and there are two different boss survivals, one obvious one and one less obvious one, nothing really high-end difficult though. Replacing the Wily letters which enabled you to advance in the last game - and which were therefore absolutely mandatory to obtain - are four crystals, of different shapes, scattered across the latter Stardroid levels (yeah, its 4 and 4, of course it is). The crystals are truly completely optional game - I managed fine without them. I couldn't get them since I didn't have the Magnet Hand, and I didn't have the time or the interest to replay the levels just because of them. Surprisingly, I didn't have to. When combined, the four crystals cut your weapon energy consumption in half, nothing else. It's useful, of course, but not essential to anyone who doesn't use the extra weapons all of the time.

"W"? Could it be? Well, of
course it could. And it is. But
it's not as obvious as usual.

When it comes to difficulty, Mega Man V gracefully takes us down the same middle road as Mega Man IV did - apart from the upgrades, Dr. Light's Lab has pretty much the same variety of stuff on sale, and the most difficult spots are the levels themselves, especially since there are so many variables of a small, annoying flying bastard. It's funny how the smallest ones are usually the worst. The bosses really aren't difficult once you figure out the right path - be warned that some bosses are simply impossible to kill without the luck of having the right weapon - and in contrast to the last game, the final multi-phase fight is extremely easy, uncomfortably easy... then you realize it's not the final one. You're facing off with one more enemy after all you've been through in the final levels, who's just about as frustrating as Zero in Mega Man X2, the main difference being that you fight this guy AFTER the supposed "final boss" and there's probably a checkpoint (thank the Lord I had Energy Tanks so I avoided checking this), while you fought Zero just before the final boss and if you happened to die in the final boss, you had to fight him again. Unless you got all the Zero parts, of course. Luckily the upgrades and all that ain't quite THAT essential in this game. They're just annoying not to have.

Mega Man V is a good game, and definitely one Mega Man fans should seek out for the sake of novelty. It slaps the player around a little for the sake of mischief, in addition to already being difficult in the traditional Mega Man style, and I don't like that. It also draws influence from the wrong place and it sounds horrible most of the time, but... it's good.

UPS
+ Another all-around fresh take on a classic formula, and a totally original Game Boy exclusive
+ The plot, as irrelevant as it is
+ Surprising intermissions such as a space shooter level
+ The bosses all have different behaviour like in Mega Man X
+ In terms of artificial design, the bosses are a refreshing turn away from the "Man" gimmick...

DOWNS
- ...However, as strong as some of their themes are, there are a few unmemorable and less unique levels, like investment in them suddenly stopped halfway through development
- The music is awful
- Physical elements like the "nightmare springs" in Mega Man 6 are reprised, and they still simply SUCK... luckily there's only one level with anything of the sort
- The "optional" upgrades, or rather lack thereof, is shoved in your face
- Rush takes the longest time to appear, 'til that you'll have to deal with the useless Tango
- Mega Man is still the one protagonist I prefer silent
- The lag still rears a few times despite otherwise fluid gameplay

< 8.1 >

REVIEW - Mega Man IV | GB | 1993

GENRE(S): Action / Platform
RELEASED: October 29, 1993
AVAILABLE ON: GB
DEVELOPER(S): Capcom
PUBLISHER(S): Capcom, Laguna Video Games

Let's place the NES game Mega Man 4 and the Game Boy game Mega Man IV in a face-off. Mega Man 4 was a good game, but it was a notably weaker, less inspired and less memorable performance in every way than its two predecessors. Not to mention a very easy game to everyone who had suffered Mega Man 3's torture to the end; a bit too soft of a landing, so to speak. Well, Mega Man 4 followed two extremely grand installments... unlike Mega Man IV. Mega Man IV does not have any great expectations on its side. Mega Man X for the SNES had just been released in the United States to great acclaim, and the Japanese release of Mega Man 6 for the NES was just days away. It's no wonder people didn't believe that this sequel to a decent, but lukewarm and flawed series of handheld games would make any difference whatsoever. Oh, but it did - it turned out the most inspired game in its own series. In contrast to my low expectations, Mega Man IV is one fresh, solid take on the tired old formula(s) - and way better than the NES game that came out a while later.

The feeling you get when it all falls into place

Guess where we're at.

Dr. Wily interrupts a robot exhibition with a reprogramming signal, that causes the subjects to go on a rampage. He then unleashes four of his earlier creations to wreak havoc in the city, and retreats to his fortress with another set of four robots, and his newest pet project, Ballade. Mega Man, who along with some of his friends is able to resist the signal, vows to take the mad scientist down in his toughest and longest black and white adventure yet.

Well, I'll be damned. For real. When I first started reaping through these Game Boy exclusives in the Mega Man series, before I even got started with Dr. Wily's Revenge, I didn't believe I'd bump into anything truly special. There were good games on the Game Boy for sure, but rarely anything that would truly stand out in the big picture. Wario Land - the first one - is the only game to come to mind right at this moment that was a truly unique and memorable title, with all Mario games taken into account. Dr. Wily's Revenge didn't really make an impression since the level design was a bitch, Mega Man II was an entertaining but extremely easy game, Mega Man III was once again a frustratingly hard game with most of its difficulty stemming from the awkward level design and the total lack of slack. The structure of all of these games was near-identical, and all of them suffered from several different issues. Issues most of which are harvested in Mega Man IV. Some technical ones remain, though.

Mega Man stays silent as
he should... for now.

All in all, the game is way more polished than any of the preceding games. Maybe even all of them combined, considering all that it's got in store, which I will spill out soon enough. The graphics are great, the level design is fantastic - no more spaces cramped to the hilt, no extra challenge involved - and the music, both the ported music and the new tunes sound as excellent as you can possibly expect from the Game Boy. On the downside, the deadly lag is still very much present, in fact it's worse than ever, as you might expect from a game that absorbs the Game Boy's capacity by such force.

From the very beginning, Mega Man IV feels like taking an idea, placing it on a slab and hacking it to just the correct amount of bloody pieces to make it feel fresh, yet not alien. First up, it introduces Dr. Light's Lab - which is interestingly mistranslated to Right Lab. This is the first appearance of a store, and unlike in Mega Man 7 where the store was practically under a rock and I didn't even know of its existence before entering one of the final stages, you are clearly given the opportunity to visit the store after the completion of each level, and the acquisition of each password. It's still extremely hard to find any health items or long-term aid such as Energy Tanks in the game, but now you can buy them yourself, by using P-Chips that are scattered all across the levels, and yielded by most enemies at a 70-80% certainty. You being able to buy Energy Tanks, Weapon Tanks and Special Tanks - which replenish both your health and weapon energy - does not make the game too easy. The level design is very diverse (even the lengths of the levels vary), there are some tough-ass enemies to deal with, and finally, you have to enter the very final series of stages with the knowledge you'll never be able to use the store's services again once you cross that final threshold. Believe me, what awaits beyond that threshold is not a comforting sight. What relieves us a little, is that Mega Man IV is far from a near-impossible game to complete. It's the middle road that's been long paved.

Robot Chicken's early days.

Even the Stage Select screen is different. Instead of the usual boss grid, it's a 3D design with a big portrait of the boss and the level's general outlook revealed once you highlight one of the bastards. First, you have to deal with four bosses from Mega Man 4 - Toad Man, Ring Man, Pharaoh Man and Bright Man. Not only that, you might want to go on a little hunt for secrets and collect the Beat letters from these levels to gain the assistance of your bird buddy Beat - who I found no use for, though. After you're done with all you're willing to do here, the next order of business is disabling Dr. Wily's tank. Here, you'll face off with two bosses, including the new Mega Man Killer who is another  pushover in the vein of Enker and Quint if you figure out the right tactics.

After this, you enter Dr. Wily's castle, which is a bit different since it features the rest of the four main bosses - meaning your weapon energy won't be restored between levels. Charge Man, Napalm Man, Stone Man and Crystal Man from Mega Man 5 make up for the bosses in the castle. Instead of Beat letters, you are absolutely mandated to find each and every Wily letter to open the gate in the level that unlocks after you've beaten the four levels. If you haven't figured it out before this point, you can replay the levels. After opening the gate, you're going to find yourself pitted against the Killer again. He's a bit harder than before, but still pretty much a pushover in comparison to his predecessor Punk. What follows is a gauntlet run in which the weapon you got from the Killer turns out essential.

Hey, bro. Fancy meeting you
here.

If you played any of the earlier games, you might fool yourself into thinking you're pretty close to the end at this point, but you certainly aren't. First, you're cut off from Dr. Light's Lab for the rest of the game. You have to deal with the bosses on the deck of Wily's giant spaceship, then with a couple of more bosses in the interior area, and finally... a BOSS SURVIVAL. For the first time in the Game Boy series, you have to beat each one of the first eight bosses again, in succession, and it just so happens that two of them are weakest against the very same weapon. Luckily most of the bosses are quite easy to kill with the right weaponry, and your health is kept in check by the orbs they yield.

If Wily has the resources to
pay for this sort of stuff over
and over again, why doesn't
he just BUY the world?

One who is not easy to kill is Dr. Wily. Seriously, this is the toughest confrontation I've had with the son of a bitch yet. He's not impossible to kill, and there's at least one checkpoint placed somewhere in the three-phase fight, but he's still an extremely frustrating boss. Yet, the feeling you get from finally seeing him drop to his knees to the very same pose he's taken upon losing the game for ages, and then taking to the sky just to be blown up as always, and seeing "Thank you for playing - Capcom" on the screen is extremely rewarding. Mega Man IV was a long and hard game - and hard for all the right reasons.

There's an exact amount of two major problems I have with this game - the selection of bosses (which really can't be helped without any exclusive Robot Masters, the source material just ain't that good), and the graphical lag. Nothing else. It's a fresh game with a few neat surprises that immediately make it stand out from the array of Game Boy exclusives in this franchise - hell, the WHOLE franchise. It's almost as good as Mega Man 2 and Mega Man 3 on the NES, and a positive surprise if there ever was one. A definite must for Game Boy cultists.

UPS
+ Good, not to mention FAIR level design
+ The same structure is enhanced and enforced with a few surprise levels, such as the gauntlet run after the second Ballade fight
+ Good graphics and music
+ The store is a wonderful addition and a fine excuse for the lack of helpful items
+ It's long
+ It's hard, and for a lot of more right than wrong reasons

DOWNS
- The lag is one persistent issue as it was on the NES
- The selection of bosses isn't from the strongest end
- The ability to shop is removed perhaps a tad too early 
- Once again I find myself bothered by dialogue in a vintage Mega Man game

< 8.8 >

REVIEW - Mega Man III | GB | 1992

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