Bits of Eight

Brain Lord

So, a Brain Lord update.  First off, I have an alternate title to suggest for this game: “PYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”  Aka, the sound effect of falling.

I hope you enjoy falling.  A lot.  Because you will spend a large portion of your time in this game falling into pits and being put back at the last door you walked through.   The game designers really went to the well big time on the pit gimmick.  Every single dungeon in this game is just a long series of different pit-traps you have to avoid (either vanishing floors, moving tiles over pits, crumbling floors, conveyor belts dumping you into pits, or god knows what else), and button-switch doors.  You know, quasi-Adventures of Lolo-style rooms where there are a bunch of switches on the floor and you have to weigh them down with blocks or push them in the correct order to open the door.

Enemies in this game are almost filler, or an afterthought.  None of the bosses are that difficult.  The rest of the game is just bastardized from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Crystalis.  Mostly Link to the Past, though.

Overall I wouldn’t say it’s a bad game…it does have it’s rough spots and flaws (and some serious slowdown issues in parts), but I am still playing it, and am close to finishing it.  I just wish the story was more creative/engaging and the characters were more, well…characterized.  Nothing in the storyline of this game is really unique or memorable.  It’s a decent, playable Zelda ripoff that goes to the well a few too many times on the same two dungeon gimmicks.  When you beat certain rooms of this game, you don’t really feel satisfied in your achievement…you instead feel relief at having finally gotten through “the annoying part.”  Except there are more annoying parts to come.

Taking a short breather from the world of 8-bit to reminisce with 16-bit.  I picked up four SNES games: World Heroes 2, Magic Sword, Cybernator, and…Brainlord.   I had never heard of Brainlord before but it is freaking awesome.  Not exactly 4-stars in the “originality” department, but most ripoffs/derivatives in life are usually forgiven if they turn out to be awesome.  Let me break this game down for you: Crystalis + Zelda: Link to the Past = Brainlord.   The main original thing this game does that the other two don’t, so far, is the use of “fairies.”   Basically you acquire more and more of these fairies with different abilities, and you can have any two of them following you around at any given time (while you keep the rest stored in pieces of jade, basically like they are corked up in jars).  One might raise your defense stats, another might act as a candle for dark rooms, another shoots fireballs…etc etc.  And you can level them up, so they get more powerful. Great feature. Still scratching the surface of this game but I am really liking it so far.  

Taking a short breather from the world of 8-bit to reminisce with 16-bit.  I picked up four SNES games: World Heroes 2, Magic Sword, Cybernator, and…Brainlord.  

I had never heard of Brainlord before but it is freaking awesome.  Not exactly 4-stars in the “originality” department, but most ripoffs/derivatives in life are usually forgiven if they turn out to be awesome.  Let me break this game down for you: Crystalis + Zelda: Link to the Past = Brainlord.   The main original thing this game does that the other two don’t, so far, is the use of “fairies.”   Basically you acquire more and more of these fairies with different abilities, and you can have any two of them following you around at any given time (while you keep the rest stored in pieces of jade, basically like they are corked up in jars).  One might raise your defense stats, another might act as a candle for dark rooms, another shoots fireballs…etc etc.  And you can level them up, so they get more powerful. Great feature.

Still scratching the surface of this game but I am really liking it so far.  

Aren’t we all, in some way, ascending or descending the clocktower of life, ceaselessly contending with the floating medusa heads of misfortune?

Aren’t we all, in some way, ascending or descending the clocktower of life, ceaselessly contending with the floating medusa heads of misfortune?

BITS OF EIGHT RETURNS!!  Sorry kids, I moved over the holidays, so over the course of getting settled into my new digs and busy times at work and general holiday madness, I couldn’t really summon the focus to sit down with my Nintendo and come up with inspiration for this blog.  

BUT I’m back now, and I’ve picked up a few new games since we last talked, so hopefully I’ll be back to clogging your Tumblr with useless NES thoughts as usual!  

OK, so here we are on to two of the more obscure, less-played platformers on the NES, each with some fun to offer.  FELIX THE CAT by Hudson Soft and M.C. KIDS by Virgin Games.

Felix the Cat is in a similar vein to Kirby’s Adventure, although not as large in scale.  The graphics are an absolute A+ in this game, I am a sucker for the colorful, bright and cartoony 8-bit graphics and this is cartoony NES graphics at their best.   It’s Kirby-esque nature comes from the fact that the game gives you a multitude of different weapons/vehicles that you can power yourself up with, reminiscent of the way Kirby can transform in all different ways.  In this game you get cars, tanks, biplanes, submarines, hot air balloons, sea turtles, dolphins…Felix is pretty much loaded for bear in this one.  Another big plus in this game, one that a lot of Nintendo developers should have followed, is that the programmers appear to have deliberately chosen “flickering” rather than “slowdown” as the game’s way of dealing with the heavy processing load.  Similarly, in GUN-NAC, you are able to choose on the options screen whether you want speed or graphics to get the priority (i.e., either flicker or slowdowns)…WHY DIDN’T EVERY GAME DO THIS!? 

Drawbacks to Felix are that it is really not that difficult, but it is pretty lengthy for a game that you’re expected to finish in one sitting (no password/save feature), so you may tire of just breezing through it.  Also, some of the levels are pretty much just stock platformer levels.  The grass level, the Egypt level, the underwater level, the ice level…yawn.  Seen it a million times.  Also, the play control is somewhat difficult.  It’s not bad play control, per se, or poorly designed, it’s just…fast.  The only way I could think of to describe it is that it’s like playing Super Mario Bros. with the B-Button on your controller permanently taped down.  Lots of accidentally falling off of ledges and accidentally sliding into enemies in this game.  Thank god the extra lives in this game are plentiful, you can get into ruts where you die quite a lot!!

As for M.C. Kids, I have to say that overall I was seriously impressed by this game.  My expectations for this game were pretty low, considering that a) the game was created as a freaking McDonald’s tie-in, and b) it was made by Virgin, a developer without much of a reputation on the NES (Spot? Caesar’s Palace? Golf Power?), but what I ended up with was a surprisingly playable “poor man’s Super Mario World.”  I was impressed by how much they were able to cram into this game.  Hidden areas in every level, the ability to walk upside down to explore new sections of a level, hidden items, the ability to switch between two characters (only for aesthetic value but still a nice detail)…surprisingly you actually have to think while playing this game.  AVGN gave it a pretty bad review in one of his videos, but this game really is worth playing.

The two major flaws of M.C. Kids, for me, are a) the color palette.  The colors in the game are a bit flat and drab.  If you play through Felix, the colors practically explode off the screen at you.  When you play M.C. Kids, you think maybe somebody screwed with the Hue/Picture settings on your TV and set it too far on one end of the meter.  I don’t know why my brain fixated on this issue but I couldn’t help thinking the colors in the game should have been way more vibrant.  And, b) NO SAVE/PASSWORD FEATURE.  Felix I can forgive on this because if you really have 2-3 hours to kill with nothing else to do, and you really want to beat this game, you can just pound your way through it.   Meanwhile, M.C. Kids really needs it.  The depth of this game is on par with Kirby’s Adventure, Super Mario Bros. 3, and Super Mario World.  All three of those games have warp zones and/or save features. This one does not.  I can’t believe you’re supposed to get through this whole game in one sitting.   An overworld map?  Hidden items and areas you have to find & collect in order to advance?  Backtracking?  Numerous game worlds with numerous levels in each world?   Come on, Virgin.  This is one of those games where you just look at it on the shelf and think, ‘Urrrrrgh I don’t wanna have to go through all that from the BEGINNING right now.’   

Anyway, in spite of the flaws, Felix The Cat and M.C. Kids still get thumbs-up.  Overlooked and very enjoyable platformers.  Enjoy!