Phantasy Star Universe -- Into the Hive.

I am now approaching four-hundred hours on my primary character in Phantasy Star Universe. Just another night or two and I'll be there. There have been a few updates to Phantasy Star Universe and it's starting to feel more like Phantasy Star Online. Beyond the new armor, weapons, units, decorations, clothes, and parts, we've also gotten some new missions. They've opened up Tunnel Recapture, which leads to a tease of new areas on Moatoob. They've opened Train Rescue which acts as a great shortcut on Parum to reach the Underwater Plant. They've also opened up Dark Satellite which takes us into the Episode 1 end game levels. The new levels bring with them new rare creatures and sought after drops. They've continued the Episode 2 story missions as there are now four chapters online. The story is heading into some interesting territory and I like what they're doing a lot. It's rather cool.  It's still all very PSO like in story. A cool story is to be found and pieced together through the Japanese space opera drama and text bubbles. They've also unlocked the first bit of Bruce's Dungeon. A simulation where you escort Bruce through a puzzle and trap filled bit of dungeon. It brings with it all the PSO trappings. With the Hive levels being straight out of the PSO Ruins and with Bruce's Dungeon and the Episode 2 story chapters bringing with them all the all the bells and whistles and trickery of PSO it can't help but make PSU feel a little more PSO like. And that's a great thing. We're also starting to get over that hill. We're not quite over it yet, but we're getting there. We're getting closer to being able to hold our own in S-rank missions. The light is at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. Phantasy Star Universe's future is starting to look brighter.

Final Fantasy III -- Final Opinion.

Was Final Fantasy III worth the wait? Sort of. The story itself is the game's biggest flaw. It's just so very by the numbers and predictable. And yes, I am taking into account when it was originally written. We had already seen Phantasy Star II by that point. There were bold and original stories being told. Final Fantasy III follows the four Warriors of Light in their quest to save the world. You know the story, chosen ones and their destiny and all that jazz. It never strays off that very well-worn path. The characters have next to no actual character. They're almost indistinguishable from each other. The villain does nothing original and is entirely paint-by-numbers. The bosses are entirely forgettable. Graphically the game is a mixed bag. It's at times both pretty and ugly. Some of the overworld and towns and dungeons look nice. The battles and creatures are pretty damn ugly in my opinion. I know it's supposed to be impressive that we're getting a 3D Final Fantasy on the Nintendo DS, but it's hard to get excited over sub-PSX level 3D. The textures are sparse and uninspired and muddy. The battle animations for the creatures are decent. There are an awful lot of palette swapped monsters. There are some nice graphic touches in how the characters change their looks based on their jobs and every weapon has its own graphic on your character. The music and sound effects are actually very well done. Uematsu's original Final Fantasy 3 score has been updated with the sound capabilities of the Nintendo DS and it sounds great. I would say Final Fantasy III is probably Uematsu's second best Final Fantasy score, behind Final Fantasy VI. All the sounds are classic Final Fantasy. So the story's not so hot, and the graphics are a mixed bag, and it sounds great, but the gameplay is worth it, right? Unfortunately the gameplay is another hit and miss affair. The job system is cool, but it's rather a grind. You will be grinding every single level. The job system allows you to change the jobs of your four characters. New jobs are made available when you reach one of the four crystals in the game you're seeking. So essentially, once you reach a certain point in the game more jobs are made available. That's a tad disappointing. Of course that was fixed in the Final Fantasy V iteration of the job system. The jobs themselves do add some variety to things. Most of them are entirely forgettable although none of them are outright useless. You can get through the game with any combination of them. It just might not be easy. But it's entirely possible. And that's the core of what's wrong with Final Fantasy 3. It just shows its age. We've already played the superior job system in Final Fantasy V. Final Fantasy III was a critical step in the evolution of the Final Fantasy series. One we weren't originally witness to. We have however already witnessed the next few steps in the evolution. It's very hard to go back. Those keen to video game history will be able to appreciate Final Fantasy III for what it was, but almost everyone else outside the Final Faithful will be hard pressed to be impressed. Final Fantasy III is a game for people looking to add the missing piece to the puzzle and not for the casual RPG fan. I'm giving Final Fantasy III a 7.

Final Fantasy III -- Initial Opinion.

There are few games that fall under the Holy Grail category. They're the great lost games. The games that never get localized and brought to your particular shore. You know them. Shining Force III Scenario B & C, Mother and Mother 3, Radical Dreamers, and so on. Final Fantasy III was a Holy Grail title. There were a few missing links in the Final Fantasy series that the Final Faithful were eternally clamoring for. Final Fantasy V was the first to come over on the PSX. And then we finally got a chance at Final Fantasy II. All that remained was Final Fantasy III and they'd have the full series. Square-Enix has finally brought them all home with the release of Final Fantasy III on the Nintendo DS. Final Fantasy III was originally released only on the Famicom in Japan in April of 1990. The game introduced the job system. It allows you to train your characters in jobs you see fit. It's an early attempt at letting you play the characters as you saw fit. The NDS version of the game is a remake with updated 3D graphics and better sound. The content of the game has been left unchanged as far as events and the story are concerned. The dialog has been rewritten beyond the new translation. The job system has been balanced. In the original you needed very specific jobs at key situations in the game. The game now allows for a more play it your way approach than before. In other words, you'll be able to scrape by what was once impossible. The game has added touch controls and the like. And they've added a zoom feature to treasure hunting. My initial impression of the game is a graphical mixed bag. It seems to be equal parts pretty and ugly at the same time. The sound rings true and lets you know more than anything that you're indeed playing a Final Fantasy title. The themes you all know are all where they're supposed to be. It gives it an at home feeling to series regulars. The story is another crystal story. It's hard to fault it as this really is a game from 1990 as far as story and character are concerned. One thing that's readily apparent is that the game is hard and you'll be grinding out levels the entire way. You take one step off the path and you're likely to find yourself dead and fast. Will this new looking old-school RPG prove worth the very long wait? Only one way to find out...

Yoshi's Island DS -- Final Opinion.

The pursuit of perfection is at the heart of Yoshi's Island DS. The game employs a scoring system. One could play through the game's forty main stages and ten secret stages without a concern for the score, but that would sort of missing the whole point in my opinion. In each level there are items to collect which add toward your point total for said level. A perfect score is one-hundred points. There are twenty red coins in each level to be found. Each red coin is worth one point. These coins also contribute to your standard coin count where one-hundred earns you an extra man. You'll also need to find thirty stars in each level. One again the stars are worth one point each. The stars also add to a timer that determines how long a baby can stay separated from the back of a Yoshi before the enemies will take it away and the player loses a life. When you start each level that timer is set at ten stars. As you go through the level you'll find stars hidden here and there and as you collect them you can get the timer to its maximum of thirty. A baby is thrown from a Yoshi's back whenever you take damage and the timers starts counting down. The stars aren't replaced beyond the initial ten of them. That means to earn the perfect score you'll have to be able to complete the level without taking damage to manage to get the timer to thirty. And then you'll have to be able to clear the rest of the level without taking damage to keep the timer at the thirty stars. There are also five flowers hidden throughout each level. The flowers are worth ten points each. Ten flowers at five points each plus the thirty stars and twenty red coins adds up to give you the perfect one-hundred points per level. This is easier said than done as the developers have been outright fiendish in their design of the levels and their use of action puzzles. Someone could play through the game without caring for the score and not have much to face in the way of challenge until world five. But for those pursuing perfection, the challenge ramps up much earlier. Yoshi's Island DS is one of the hardest games I've ever played. Completionists need be warned, this game might drive you insane. The game reaches the upper levels of challenge. It's up there with the like of the Ghosts 'n Goblins series as far as pure action challenge is concerned. Yoshi's Island DS is the best looking Nintendo DS game I've seen. I just love the art style. The graphics are bright and colorful and gorgeous. The game's sound effects are all crisp and clear and fit with the action. The game's music sounds great on a technical level. It sounds good through the speakers. The composition is a bit more vanilla. It's good, it just plays it safe and doesn't reach greatness. The game will provide more than enough challenge for anyone. The controls are perfectly responsive. This is the best Mario game I've played in years, which is saying something considering New Super Mario Bros. shares the same release year. I'm giving Yoshi's Island DS a 9.

SOCOM: Combined Assault -- Fun and Frustration Go Hand in Hand?

When it works, the co-op game in SOCOM: Combined Assault is great fun. There are moments where you make the great improvised save, or where you pull off some plan to the letter with perfect execution and teamwork. It's still fun to use the real world weaponry and stealth to take out some generic terrorist wrapped up in an equally generic political scenario. But for all the fun that's still there in the game it seems the problems of the series remain. The AI still sucks. They can see you before you can see them. Now, don't get me wrong here. It's not like they're somehow augmented beyond normal. A terrorist with an AK-47 without a scope can somehow see me in the dark as I'm prone in some bushes over a hundred meters away. This terrorist's gun doesn't have a scope. He doesn't have any sort of night, thermal, or motion sensing vision equipment. He's able to see me with the naked eye from a distance that's beyond my character's range of vision. When you're seen, the enemy either yells or fires his weapon. Either way it normally sets off all the other enemies on the whole map in a glitched sort of way. You'll see enemies just running around on high alert when they shouldn't have been alerted at all. Enemies will come from elsewhere on the map at full speed locked on to your character as if guided by some sort of second sight. Enemies will spawn in areas where they weren't before. Enemies will be running into walls. There are other issues beyond the incredibly stupid AI like your line of site being untrue. You can be prone on the ground with a slight slope to it and aiming at someone on their feet fifty meters away and the bullet will be somehow blocked by a pebble or something on the ground.  For example there are fences with huge spaces between the boards or whatever makes up the fence that for some magic reason you're unable to shoot through. It wouldn't be so bad if the enemies were bound in the same way. Often times they have no issues shooting you through whatever it might be. It's an incredibly frustrating situation in my opinion. New issues have arisen from the offline game being made online co-op. You no longer have to deal with stupid team members, but now you have to deal with real people who bring with them their own sorts of issues. Everyone plays differently and that causes issues in and of itself. Magus would seemingly prefer a by the book and as stealthy and slowed down approach as possible with full communication. ZBo is seemingly more action orientated and would rather act on impulse. Riddel seemingly doesn't like stealth and would rather kill them all and let God sort it all out. And I have my preferred style of playing. But that means four approaches to the game. How does that work exactly in a harmonious way? It means some people have to change their natural styles. Someone has to play unnaturally, and that isn't always fun. Given my age I'd imagine, and that I'm the one making the games, I'm the default team leader. It's up to me to assign tasks to everyone else. Nobody wants to sit back and watch others get the kills. There is a natural sort of jockeying for position that goes on. People steal kills for a lack of better word. Sometimes they might not like my idea or plan of attack and they're sort of stuck going along for the ride. There is sort of a sense of stepping on people's toes in the co-op gameplay. It's not really an intentional deal, it's just more the natural result of the design. Tolerance issues come into play like I haven't seen before in online gaming. I have to say it leaves an aftertaste that I do not like at all...

Yoshi's Island DS -- The Mechanics of Colorful Dinosaurs.

Yoshi's Island DS essentially controls just as its predecessor did. Artoon has provided four control schemes. I use what's referred to as ABXY Patient. The D-pad controls Yoshi's movement left and right.  With a press of the Y button Yoshi is able to flick out his tongue a considerable distance and latch on to enemies and pull them into his mouth. With an enemy inside his mouth you have two options. You can either press down on the D-pad to convert the enemy to an egg or you can press the Y button again to spit the enemy out as a projectile weapon. Yoshi is able to store six of the eggs he makes at one time as they travel behind him in a line. Why would Yoshi need to do that? Because he can throw eggs at enemies and items. Pressing the A button brings up Yoshi's egg cursor. In the control scheme I use just one press is needed and the egg cursor moves through its arc of potential throwing angles. Pressing the A button again throws the egg. You can move Yoshi while the egg cursor is out. And you have various means of controlling the egg cursor. Yoshi's movement for one. You can also press and hold up on the D-pad while the egg cursor is out to lock it directly up over Yoshi. Throwing eggs at items like coins and flowers will collect those items. Winged Clouds are triggers that can be triggered with the eggs. And of course the eggs are a weapon against enemies and bosses. There are three types of eggs based on their color. Green eggs are the standard egg. Yellow eggs are the next level and if you successfully strike an enemy with one you'll get two coins. The red eggs are the final level and they'll produce two stars if you successfully hit the enemy. You can also lock the egg cursor in place with the X button. You can close the egg cursor without throwing an egg by pressing down on the D-pad. The B button is used to make Yoshi jump. Yoshi still does what Nintendo calls the flutter jump. Yoshi jumps up and if the button is still being held he sort of struggles for extra height. It's a very floaty jump that comes into play heavily in the nature of the stage design. Pressing down on the D-pad while in mid jump causes Yoshi to do his ground pound maneuver. It will nail posts into the ground, stun some enemies, or break certain types of terrain or boxes. In the original Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island the Yoshi in the game only had to deal with baby Mario. The Yoshi this time around have to deal with multiple babies. The cast includes Baby Mario, Baby Peach, Baby DK, Baby Wario, and Baby Bowser. The Yoshi's abilities vary depending which baby they're currently escorting. With Baby Mario you're able to press and hold the Y button to run faster than the others. This faster run allows for further jumping. With Baby Peach you're able to flutter jump longer than the others. You're also able to use her parasol to float and fly further than the others. You can also fly up drafts of wind.  With Baby DK, you're granted a charge attack. Pressing down on the D-pad and the Y button makes Yoshi and Baby DK charge into enemies as an attack and it allows for some types of obstacles to be destroyed. Baby DK is also able to grab on to vines which enables him to be able to climb and swing to places the others can't reach. Baby Wario carries a magnet. It allows for coins within range to be attracted to Yoshi and it enables you to pull metal boxes and platforms. With Baby Bowser on Yoshi's back, pressing the Y button causes a fireball to be shot out. It's an attack that not only defeats enemies, but also has the ability to melt ice. You can see how the inclusion off the different babies ups the action and puzzle potential. Because of the babies, they've added what's called the Stork Stop. In the game Yoshi can only carry one baby on his back at a time and the stork is carrying the rest of them. When Yoshi stands at a Stork Stop the stork comes down and allows you to switch out the babies so you can get the one you need for whatever the situation might be. There have been complaints of the dead zone between the screens. I'm playing on a Nintendo DS as opposed to the Nintendo DS Lite. The dead zone between the screen on the Nintendo DS is greater than that of the NDSL. I have no problems with the dead zone at all. The angles are true. You only need to be able to draw a line between two points in your mind. I can only guess that those people having problems with the dead zone have no spatial relationship understanding. On the force scrolling levels, of which there don't seem to be many, you can alleviate any dead zone issues by proper placement of Yoshi on the screen. Don't be in the dead zone during the forced scrolling levels. It's as simple as that. The controls in Yoshi's Island DS are flawless. They perform perfectly. Everything feels intuitive and responsive. There will be a learning curve for players new to Yoshi's Island. The learning curve will take a while. More than an hour. But you'll definitely get to perfect. Next time will cover the scoring and collection aspects of Yoshi's Island DS...

Off Goes the X360, Microsoft Steps Up.

Around ten days or so ago my Xbox 360 froze. The on screen image wasn't a still of the game I was playing at the time. A checkerboard pattern of pastel colors had replaced the imagery of Viva Pinata. I didn't think much of it at the time. All disc based systems are going to experience a hiccup every once in a blue moon. I rebooted the system and played on the rest of the day without issue. The next day it froze in the same way again. And then again a few hours later. I thought maybe it was Viva Pinata. Phantasy Star Universe worked fine. The freezing in Viva Pinata started to pick up speed. It got to the point where I can't play it longer than thirty seconds without it freezing up with this same pastel colored checkerboard pattern. Then it happened in Phantasy Star Universe. And it started picking up speed there too. So it's clearly the X360. My system is a launch unit. It's great that Microsoft had just extended the warranty for all X360's to one year, but my system was thirteen months old and out of warranty. Needless to say I was less than pleased at the prospect of having to send my system in for the $140 repair to the GPU, my system's particular issue. So I call Microsoft via Delhi to arrange my service contract. To my delight and surprise, Microsoft steps up and tells me they're going to cover the cost of the repairs or replacement and even cover the shipping on my out of warranty system. That's pretty damn cool. They informed me that they would be shipping a box in which to ship my system to their repair center. That box arrived today. I've packaged up my system and have taken it to the local UPS center. It's on its way. Hopefully I'll get the replacement soon, as there is a big update in Phantasy Star Universe this week. Riddel's system has gone back to Microsoft for different reasons. That means two of the three in the PSU group are out of commission for the time being. It's the reason we've moved our online focus to SOCOM: Combined Assault...

SOCOM: Combined Assault -- Initial Impression.

I spent hundreds of hours playing SOCOM and SOCOM 2 online. The online versus gameplay was great for the PlayStation 2. It was the best thing the system had going as far as online was concerned. The offline game was decent fun, but filled with glitchy artificial intelligence. SOCOM three came along and made the offline game the most playable and fun it had been, and attempted to minimize the retarded AI. It couldn't hide all the retardation but it was a vast improvement over the previous titles. The strange thing was, the people I played the series with and myself didn't really care for the online game of SOCOM 3. We might have spent twenty hours with it in total. It was just off-putting. So here we are with SOCOM: Combined Assault. The game isn't truly the next game in the series, it isn't SOCOM 4. That's reserved for the PlayStation 3 debut. It's more of a stand alone expansion pack than anything. It has an offline mode, and it has the online versus of SOCOM 3, but they've added a new wrinkle that should help make the old new again. They've finally allowed for online co-op gameplay through the normally offline single-player campaign. Instead of having to deal with your shitty AI teammates against the glitchy AI enemies, you now get to take them on with real people. Magus and I went on last night just to sort of get our feet wet and fiddle around. We won't really begin playing until later on tonight when ZBo can join the fun. We played through the first two missions. A few things were initially apparent. It's SOCOM ugly. SOCOM has never been a pretty game, and Combined Assault isn't going to change that. Now that next generation is finally and officially current generation, the last generation PS2 games are looking especially dire. Secondly, the enemy AI is still retarded. However, the game is clearly going to be fun. It does work. And the co-op aspect does indeed breathe new life into what was old. Another thing is still very clear, and that is Sony's unstructured online format sucks. Zipper Interactive's online front end is miserable. The game forces you to patch before you can sign on. No problem. It asks if you want to download the patch without telling you how much space you'll need on the actual card. So you go through the download and find out you don't have enough space because you need three-thousand freaking blocks free. So you have to go out of the game to delete all those hard earned saves withunlockables opened from your card. You get back on, you trudge through all the damn screens they won't let you skip. You get through their crappy DNAS system. You patch. You restart, you trudge through it all again. You get on and you finally get to play. Granted, you only have to do it once, but it's truly a pain in the ass. I am not looking forward to playing games online with the PlayStation 3.

Yoshi's Island DS -- Initial Impression.

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island is the best game in the Mario series. It was an absolutely perfect game. It was released in 1995 on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It suffered the same fate as Ristar, although not as bad. It was lost in the waning of the generation as everyone eagerly looked ahead to the looming 32-Bit systems. The game featured an absolutely beautiful graphic style of a game seemingly drawn by a child with a Crayon. It had great music from Koji Kondo. It controlled like a dream. It was deep for a Mario game. Much more so than Super Mario World before it. And the challenge was set higher. Much higher for the completionists. It oozed that old Nintendo charm. It was Nintendo at its best on a system where they had been forced to rise to the occasion. At first I was thrilled with the announcement of Yoshi's Island 2 as it was originally known. It was on the Nintendo DS, and there wasn't even going to be any touch aspects in there to potentially mess it all up! Then it became known that it wasn't actually being developed by Nintendo, but by Artoon of Blinx: The Time Sweeper fame. At first my heart sank. They're going to ruin it! But then I got to thinking. It's Nintendo. They're still iron-fisted and protective of their intellectual properties aren't they? They won't let it out if it's not worthy, right? And Blinx wasn't even a bad game. It was actually decent enough. And wait, isn't Artoon run by Naoto Ohshima? Yes, it is. He created Sonic didn't he? Yes, he did. And Yoshi's Island DS isn't a 3D game like Blinx, it's 2D. None of the problems with Blinx should even come into play here. He should know what he's doing with 2D shouldn't he? I mean he was instrumental in the creation of some of the best 2D platforming games around. So here I am hopeful all over again. I have played through the first world of Yoshi's Island DS. That's eight stages and two bosses. I can tell right away that the game is gorgeous, using the same artistic style of the Super Nintendo original. The game initially sounds great. The music is as bright and cheerful as the graphics. The controls are dead solid perfect. The initial stages have some decent challenge in getting a perfect score. There have been complaints by some people that the space between the screen is a distraction and a blind spot. I haven't had any issues dealing with it thus far. We'll have to see how that plays out. Right now it seems as though I'm in for a great game.

SEGA Genesis Collection -- The Three from Sonic Team.

I have played through the three titles from Sonic Team that are present on SEGA Genesis Collection. SEGA wanted a killer application. The Genesis had some momentum in the market from the hardcore gamer. They wanted a title to help push them over the edge. They wanted something that would sell the system to the masses. They were even specifically looking for a mascot character. Imagine the pressure this put on the team charged with making this all happen. That team was AM-8. Luckily SEGA had a wealth of talent at the time they could draw from. Noteworthy members of the twelve person team were Naoto Ohshima, the man who created Sonic and Dr. Ivo Robotnik. Reiko Kodama of Shinobi and Phantasy Star fame handled the background art.  Yuji Naka was considered the wizkid within the company at the time for his programming skills and he coded the game. And Masato Nakamura for his amazing music. Nakamura happened to be a member of a famous band in Japan called Dreams Come True. Sonic the Hedgehog was released on June 23, 1991. AM-8 not only succeeded in making a great game, but they did in fact create the new mascot for the company and made the game that sold the system to the masses and pushed the Genesis over the edge into the mainstream. To the point that Sonic the Hedgehog replaced Altered Beast as the pack-in game sold with the Genesis. AM-8 changed its name to Sonic Team after the success of the game. So what did they do? They created a game that was simple to pick up and play yet provided enough challenge for the hardcore while never frustrating the casual player. The made what was at the time the most impressive visual presentation for any console game with the graphics. They filled the game with great music and sound. They filled the game with speed. A level of speed also never seen before in video games. Sonic was the fastest thing around. They filled the game with character by giving Sonic character. He would have reactions to being too close to the edge. He would become annoyed if you let him idle. Action games didn't have that level of personality before Sonic came along. Now every game has idle animations. They're not even expected anymore, they're almost required. It was a small thing at the time but it did a lot to add some charm and really helped endear the character to the players. They put Sonic up against a cool villain in the form of Robotnik and his different machines as bosses. The boss battles were all fun and varied. They included the Chaos Emeralds and bonus stages. The bonus stages were clearly a shot at the rotation capabilities of the Mode-7 built into the SNES. Naka was able to pull off amazing rotation in the bonus stages all from within the software programming and not having to rely on hardware tricks. If you were able to hold fifty rings until the end of act one or two of any of the game's five zones you would see a giant golden ring at the goal. If you jumped into this giant golden ring you would be taken to the bonus round. In the bonus round a maze like area would be rotating around and you had to maneuver Sonic who was spinning like a pinball through the course to the Chaos Emerald. Along the way there were exits to be avoided and bumpers to knock you around and triggers that would slow or speed up the rotation of the maze. You had to collect all six Chaos Emeralds to be able to see the true ending. The bonus rounds were absolutely brilliant. Some of the most tension filled moments in my gaming history come from trying to avoid those damn exit pits. Playing through the game today I'm amazed by how visually impressive the title remains. The music also comes off as impressive as it was then. It's still as fun as it ever was. It's truly classic stuff that will remain timeless.

On "Sonic 2sday" in November of 1992 SEGA released Sonic the Hedgehog 2 on the Genesis. Sonic Team was expanded and split into two different teams following the completion of the original title. Sonic Team stayed in Japan and began working on Sonic CD while the other team became SEGA Technical Institute and set up shop in San Francisco at SEGA of America. All of the key players returned for Sonic 2. Naka, Kodama, Nakamura and the rest were back. Sonic 2 was everything you wanted in a sequel. They offered up everything great about the first one and more. It was a little over a year on from the original which meant that they had gotten a better handle on making the Genesis kick and it shows. You have improved visuals and better sound quality. You have Sonic being able to do the spindash, so he could get up to full speed standing still. That greatly improved the gameplay and added a little depth. You have the addition of a new character in the form of Miles 'Tails' Prower, a two-tailed fox. This allowed for a versus mode to be added to the game. You could race a friend through split-screen versions of some of the levels. They increased the size of the acts to almost double that of the previous game. They did remove the third act from each zone and had Robotnik at the end of the second act of each zone. They increased the number of zones from five to eleven. It all resulted in a game that was roughly twice as large as the original title. They increased the number of Chaos Emeralds to seven. They changed the bonus rounds. You still had to carry fifty rings on you to access them, but there wasn't a giant ring at the end of the act. You could access the bonus rounds from the checkpoint markers in the acts. Some acts had as many as three checkpoints which meant you could collect all the Chaos Emeralds by the first checkpoint of act one in zone two. The bonus rounds this time around were winding courses where Sonic would run into the screen. You had to collect enough rings while avoiding the obstacles to reach a checkpoint. There were three checkpoints and if you didn't have enough rings you'd fail at the checkpoint. Having enough rings at the final checkpoint allowed you to reach the Chaos Emerald. Collecting all the Chaos Emeralds this time around enabled you to turn into Super Sonic. Super Sonic is invincible to everything except bottomless pits. The invincibility lasts as long as you had rings. While Super Sonic, your ring total steadily ticks down to zero, so you have to keep collecting rings to keep it going. They added in great new boss battles with Robotnik. Even more varied and inventive than the originals. They stepped the challenge up, especially in the final two battles. The challenge of the overall game was tougher than the original. The enemies where more difficult to avoid. It's a bigger, better, prettier version of the original with enough new to be another perfect game.

In 1995 SEGA released Ristar the Shooting Star on the Genesis. This game was produced by SEGA Technical Institute. When they were first creating the original Sonic the Hedgehog they were initially moving forward with a rabbit character who could reach out and grab things with its ears. As the game became more and more about speed, they had to morph the character into what became Sonic and dropped the grabbing gameplay aspect. When it came time for them to make another game that wasn't Sonic, they decided to return to that original gameplay aspect. They ditched therabbit character and created Ristar. Ristar is a character that is literally a star with arms and legs. He's able to reach out and grab enemies and items. He can reach in eight directions. When he grabs on to an enemy he holds them and then headbutts them. SEGA Technical Institute wanted to get away from Sonic and his speed so they kept things deliberately slow with Ristar. There isn't a timer and the gameplay is more about rewarding exploration. The game is structured like a Sonic game though. You get two large acts per zone and then a boss battle. The boss battles are all very different and interesting. There are hidden bonus rounds in each zone to be found. The bonus rounds are gauntlets that must be cleared. You have to figure out how to make it to the treasure within the time limit. Ristar represents a development team pushing the Genesis to the utmost. Ristar is a beautiful game. It's even more bright and colorful than the Sonic series. It sounds great and features heavy use of voice samples. The gameplay is fun standard action platform fare. Jump, swim, attack. Ristar is a surprisingly maneuverable character. The later half of the game really shows that off with what they make you do. By the time Ristar was released, everyone was looking at 32-bit systems. The game was lost in the waning days of the generation. It's nice to see it available within SEGA Genesis Collection, and on the Wii's Virtual Console. It's a great title that plays wonderfully, has impressive visuals, and provided good challenge.

SEGA Genesis Collection -- A Couple of 8-Bit Holdouts in 16-Bit.

Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle was released in 1990 for the Genesis and it marks Alex's one-and-only 16-bit appearance. The title was the fifth entry in the Alex Kidd series that started in the arcades and saw six entries, four of them on the SEGA Master System. This incarnation of Alex Kidd stuck close to its platform roots. In fact it plays just like Alex Kidd in Miracle World for the SMS. It features Alex Kidd looking for his supposedly kidnapped father in the world of Paperock. The game is the standard platform game of the 8-bit era with 16-bit graphics. All of the tools made available to Alex within the Miracle World game are present in Enchanted Castle. That means the scopaco cycle, pedicopter, power bracelet, wizard's cane, and the invincibility cape are all there. They've also introduced the pogo stick. You still have to buy these items in the shops, but this time you're going to have to janken a gorilla for them. Janken is what the Japanese call the game Rock-Paper-Scissors. Some of the items are of one-time use and others have multiple uses. Some of them will also vanish should you die. It's pretty much the exact same game as Miracle World as far as the mechanics go. Alex can jump and punch and swim. With the power bracelet equipped he's able to shoot out a wave of energy across the screen as a weapon. The scopaco cycle still allows you to motor through the levels. The pedicopter allows you to fly through the levels granting you a projectile attack. The invincibility cape gives you a limited period of invincibility but won't save you from lava. The wizard's cane allows you to walk on air for a limited time and the pogo stick allows for you to jump higher. All of these items are still turned on and off via the menu. Your only goal is to clear the levels, collecting money along the way so you can buy items in the shops should you be able to beat the gorilla at Janken. All of the bosses except the final one have been toned down in Enchanted Castle. They are just defeated by Janken and you don't have to then defeat them in battle. Alex Kidd comes off as simple fun until the last few levels when the difficulty ramps up. The Air Castle level is a wonderful gauntlet that should present some challenge. Everything about this game is a holdover from the 8-bit Alex Kidd titles. The graphics were decent at the time and come off as less than these days. The music is a mixed bag. The reused themesfrom previous Alex Kidd games all sound great. The new tracks are a little less inspired. They've made the power bracelet jump attack tied to the jump button itself which takes some getting used to. Beyond that, the controls work fine. It's just jump and attack after all. I think the game holds up well for Alex Kidd fans. I have no idea what someone new to the series might make of Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle but somehow I don't think it would be all that positive. I still find the whole of the Alex Kidd series as charming as it ever was.

The other 8-Bit holdout in the SEGA Genesis Collection is Decap Attack: Starring Chuck D. Head. Decap Attack really is an 8-Bit game. You see, there was this SEGA Master System game called Psycho Fox that was released in 1989. It was an action platform game where you controlled a fox out to stop annother fox who happened to be evil and stuff. It was standard hop and bop gameplay, except you had a friend in the form of a bird that you could throw out as an attack. If you took a hit the bird vanished and you would only have a punch attack. You could get the bird back by finding the correct icon in the game. SEGA decided to remake this game on the Mega Drive in Japan, only this time they built the same game around some anime and released it as Magical Hat's Flying Turbo Adventure. SEGA couldn't very well release the game as is around an anime nobody outside of Japan had ever heard of and with a title like that. So they kept the same Psycho Fox core gameplay just as they had in making Magical Hat's Flying Turbo Adventure and made Decap Attack: Starring Chuck D. Head for Europe and North America. So what changed? They added a comic horror theme to the graphics and music. Instead of the original fox throwing his bird friend as a weapon, and instead of some guy wearing a magic hat he threw at enemies, they made a mummy that threw his skull. Chuck D. Head, heh, get it? The character is one of the weirdest in the whole of gaming. Not just because it's a mummy that throws its own head as a weapon, but because he also has a set of eyes in his chest and he has a mouth at the end of some intestines that shoots out of his stomach for what would be the punch attack. In all versions of the game the object is to find a certain item in each level and defeat the bosses. You can't advance without finding the specific item in each level. If you defeat the boss without having it, you'll still have to backtrack through the level and find it. In all versions of the game there is menu screen that allows you to use various items. All potions in Decap Attack. They have various uses ranging from faster movement and higher jumping to stronger punches and magic attacks to limited invincibility. The game has seven levels with multiple stages per level and seven bosses. The game has a strange art style that keeps things interesting. The music is good. The humor is bizarre. They seemingly didn't alter many of the bosses to fit the comic horror theme as they did the level and character graphics. So the bosses seem somewhat out of place. They're still different enough for the standard avoidance and pattern recognition style gameplay they represent. The game is made to be played in one sitting as was the norm of the time and as such it will provide a decent enough challenge. It's a rather cool little game that has a place in the strange and obscure section of gaming history. It truly is an 8-Bit game pretending to be 16-Bit just like Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle.