Take on the NES Library

Become a world-conquering emperor from the comfort of your own home.

To Beat: Reach the ending
To Complete: Get all endings on the highest difficulty
What I Did: Reached one ending on difficulty level 2
Played: 8/15/19 – 9/21/19
Difficulty: 5/10
My Difficulty: 6/10
My Video: Genghis Khan Ending

Here we are at another Koei simulation game. I have written in several places on this website that I have dreaded playing these games and have tried to delay them in various ways over the years. This is now my second Koei completion. The first Koei game I beat was Gemfire, which proved to be the ideal introduction to this style of game. There aren’t too many systems involved and combat was fun and engaging. From what I can tell it has a different feel than some of the other, deeper games. Genghis Khan is one of the earlier NES entries, but is more complex than Gemfire and probably falls in line with the bulk of the historical Koei titles. I can’t say if this game was a good next logical step for attacking these strategy titles, but it did fit the bill.

The game Genghis Khan was originally called Aoki Ookami to Shiroki Mejika: Genghis Khan for its Japanese release. It first came out on the PC-9801 in December 1987. Other versions include the Japanese MSX and X68000 ports in 1988, the North American DOS port in 1989, and the European Amiga port in 1990. The Famicom port released in April 1989. The NES version released in North America only in January 1990. This game is actually the second game of a series but is the only one to appear on the NES.

Genghis Khan is a turn-based tactical strategy game. The ultimate goal of the game is to unify all countries on the map by taking them over and ruling over them all. To that end, there are a couple of ways to get started. The Mongol Conquest mode begins in the year 1175. You play as Temujin, the young ruler who eventually becomes Genghis Khan. This is a single player mode only where you unify Mongolia by controlling 14 tribes. Completing that mode puts you into World Conquest mode, or you can start from World Conquest directly. That mode begins in the year 1206. This mode is multiplayer and you can play up to four players taking alternating turns. Starting off on this mode, you can choose from one of four rulers: Genghis Khan of the Mongols, Richard I of England, Alexicus III of the Byzantine Empire, or Yoritomo of Japan. You win the game if you unify the world with any of these leaders.

Normally, I would defer a lot of the explanation of a game to something I already wrote about if it makes sense. Direct sequels are the best case of this, but Koei games seem like a good fit. Comparing my two experiences of Gemfire and Genghis Khan, I think the two games are different enough to warrant separate explanations. That means this is going to get very detailed and lengthy. I need to say a lot to do this game proper justice. If you like long posts and reviews, you will probably like this one. I just want to be upfront so you know what you are getting into!

First things first, you need to get a leader. Your leader has six abilities statistics: Leadership, Judgment, Planning, Charm, Body, and Battle. You can have points distributed randomly by the game or choose them yourself. You also need to set the stats of your four princes. I just took what the game gave me, but some people opt to keep rerolling random stats until they get strong ones. Once all people are set, then you can pick the skill level from 1 to 5, 1 being Easy and 5 being Hard. While I’m all about beating games on the hardest difficulty, I’m not interested in that on these titles. I went with Level 2 since I have a little Koei experience by beating Gemfire.

This game follows a standard Koei flow. You see a map of the world along with each country numbered. Each territory gets one turn per season, the order of which is randomly generated. Computer players take their turns automatically and you can see some events of theirs such as declaring war. Your leader starts off at his home base and when his turn comes up you get three moves per turn. For other territories under your rule, you can assign a prince to rule them automatically, or you can rule them directly from afar but then you get only get one move from a limited subset of moves.

There are events that regularly or randomly occur each season, taking place before countries take their individual turns. Many things happen every Spring. Taxes are collected, the troops are paid, food is distributed, and everyone ages a year. Sometimes children are born. At the start of Fall, both food and specialty items are collected as taxes. Various natural disasters can occur year-round, damaging affected countries. Sometime a prince may rebel, either attacking his home country, or making his country independent. If that happens to one of your princes, you either deal with the attack or lose that territory.

The main display has a ton of information to show and moves to choose from. At the top of the screen, you see the year, season, country number, name, and ruler’s name. The left-hand side contains all of main orders you can issue. Many orders here link to sub menus where you can choose your specific action. The lower-left corner shows how many orders you have left this turn as well as the current market rate for trading, and also which player is in control in a multiplayer game. The center column contains a picture of the ruler, if it is the home base or a territory under direct control, and a picture of that country’s specialty item. The right side contains a bunch of other statistics for the country. You see the amount of gold and food available, as well as the number of troops. The next section is for this country’s skilled workers. These are townspeople, masons, food producers, and artisans who produce the country’s specialty item. Other country-specific stats at the bottom of the list are morale, economy, defense, arms, and skill. Finally, a descriptive text box rounds out this screen.

Many different events and outcomes are influenced by the country’s statistics. Low morale may cause an uprising in the country or theft of the food supply. The economy stat helps determine how much money is collected during tax time every spring. The defense stat shows the strength of the country’s castle, which is helpful during battle scenes. The higher the arms stat is, the more damage weapons such as arrows from archers do in battle. The skill level of your troops determines how much damage they will deal in a battle. These stats fluctuate all the time in this game due to planned or unplanned events.

Utilizing your commands properly depends on the leader’s individual ability statistics. To issue many commands, you have to spend some of those points in one or many categories, while the success of some actions depend on how many total points in a stat you have at the time. For instance, going to War decreases multiple stats including your leader’s Battle stat, but a higher Battle stat means you will perform better during the war. While some of the ties between commands and leader abilities are obvious, many are not, and you need the manual at your side or some kind of lookup chart to see the cost and effect of every move.

Now let’s look at each command individually, starting with the Tax command. This command lets you set the tax rate as a percentage. You can also collect a special extra tax optionally once per year that is best taken sparingly.

The Assign command allows you to update your mix of people in either the labor force or your army. As mentioned above, there are five types of skilled laborers: townspeople, masons, food producers, artisans, and troops. You can set how many of each laborer you want. This is a useful command for increasing your troops before war time or building up various aspects of your country. You may also decide the distribution of your army. You can have up to 10 units on the battlefield. You select one of the unit slots, choose the unit type from either cavalry, infantry, or archers, and set the percentage of troops assigned to that unit. You can configure the entire army in a single move.

The Give command is a simple command that lets you give some of your country’s assets back to the people. You decide from either gold, food, or the specialty item and how many units you want to give. This command is strictly for increasing morale.

The Train command allows you to train your troops, one of your princes, yourself, or your people. Training the troops increases your country’s skill stat. You can increase one of the abilities of one of your princes in your command. You can also increase one of your own stats, either Leadership, Judgment, Planning, Charm, Body, or Battle. This was one of my most used commands because it doesn’t cost any stat points to raise a stat. Training the people lets you prepare people to be drafted later into the army.

The Trade command lets you buy items, sell items, or hire troops. The way this works is there are three merchants, China, Islam, and Uighur, that run different trade routes throughout the year. First select a merchant to see if they are available for trading. When choosing to buy or sell, you see a list of all the possible specialty items plus food. Weapons appear only on the buy list. A price appears next to the item if it is available. You can choose an item, then select quantity to spend your gold. You can browse the buying and selling options for free without using a turn, but any single transaction counts as a move. You can also select to hire troops to add to your army. All of the prices fluctuate depending on the seller and the overall market rate. Buy low, sell high!

The People command has a ton of options. You can change the leadership of a territory abroad, either by moving princes around, assigning a new prince, or taking direct control. You may choose an outstanding man from your army and promote him to a prince or demote a prince back to a common soldier. You can promote one of your sons to a prince once he reaches a certain age, or you can marry one of your daughters to a prince to gain his loyalty. Princes may betray you at any time unless they are related to you. You can also use this command to draft people into the army.

The View command has many options to view statistics. You can view your own countries without costing a move, but viewing other countries costs a move and requires that you have already sent a spy there. You may look at country data or ruler data. You can pull up a list of every country you have a treaty with and how long the treaty lasts. You can also see your list of available princes, children, and stock of specialty items.

The Move command lets you move different things around between adjacent countries you control. You can move your home base to another country. (A little tip here: If you do this with moves remaining, you will lose them, so always do this on the third move of your turn.) You also have the options to move gold, food, items, troops, or skilled laborers between territories.

The Policy command is a highly detailed command that lets you set many different settings for one of your princes ruling a country abroad, all in one move. You can set internal policies like setting the tax rate, assigning the labor and army, and how to treat your army and citizens. You also get to choose external policies, such as allowing declaration of war, negotiations with foreign countries, and whether or not to send supplies to neighbors. If you don’t set policy, princes will make their own decisions.

The Treaty command lets you make a deal with an adjacent enemy territory. This is where you can ask for and set alliances for five years with neighboring countries. You can also try and strong arm one of your enemy neighbors into paying you in gold, food, and items. Foreign countries are usually resistant unless you are much stronger than them. Also, if an enemy asks this of you and refuse, they may decide to go to war with you immediately.

The Spy command lets you pay some gold to send a spy to a foreign country. You can send a spy to report on a foreign country so that you can view that country’s and ruler’s data. A spy can be sent to damage an enemy’s castle and town or even the ruler himself. This command also lets you search your own country for a spy and eliminate him if found.

The remaining commands are War, Pass, and Other. War lets you declare war against another country. You decide how many troops to send, though you need enough gold to pay them and food to sustain them during the fight. You can fight as your main leader and act the battle yourself, or you can send a prince to battle automatically and you just view results. The Pass command lets you end your turn early, forfeiting any moves remaining. The Other command lets you tweak various game settings, such as setting the text speed, toggling music, sounds, and animations, stuff like that. You can save your progress here to the battery backup, as well as end your game if you are done this session.

The battle screen is a major part of this game. Starting off a battle shows a quick summary of both sides in the combat before moving to the battlefield. Each battlefield consists of a map of squares staggered to resemble a hex map, and each country has its own battle map. There is one town square and one castle square on each map. All other squares are assigned a terrain which influences how you move through that space. There are entry and exit points along the edge tiles of the battlefield labeled by a number. The number indicates which numbered country uses those squares to enter or leave the battlefield. The attacking army first places each unit in one of his numbered entry squares, then the defending side places each unit on any other square in the field. Unit squares display the type of unit, either cavalry, infantry, or archer, the unit number, the number of soldiers represented in groups of 10, and a color, either red for the attacking side or blue for the defending side. The unit number of your leader is either 0 if it is your main ruler or an asterisk if it is a prince. Now the battle can begin, attacking side first.

Since you can only attack enemies in adjacent squares, you will use the Move command to get in position. Each unit has a mobility counter that reduces some for every square you move during your turn. The more difficult the terrain, the more mobility required to move there and the more men you will lose in crossing that space. The Move command can also be used to divide a unit into multiple units or combine units. You may decide how many soldiers to split off and then move that portion to an adjacent square as its own unit. Simply moving one unit onto another unit of the same type combines those units into one.

Use the Attack command to fight another unit. This is where the unit types come into play. Normal attacks by any unit engage an enemy on an adjacent square and cause losses on both sides. Archers can attack with arrows on a unit one square away in any direction. Infantry units can set up an ambush. The unit will go into hiding in a nearby square and become invisible. When an enemy moves onto a square next to the hidden infantry unit, it immediately reveals itself and attacks at higher than normal damage rates. You can also set up a duel against rival leader units, if the other side accepts. The winning ruler of a duel may take the loser captive, ending the battle immediately, or take a portion of the losing troops over to the winning side.

Miscellaneous battle actions are done from the Other command. You can demand the enemy commander to surrender. You can move your leader to one of the exit squares and request reinforcements from a neighboring country you control. The attacking side’s main unit can raid the defending town for food, or any unit can hunt for food in one of the forest tiles.

These are the remaining battle commands. You can Pass a turn for any unit, which increases its mobility by one for the next turn. You can Flee to a neighboring country you control through the exit squares. You can use the View command to see how many units are in each army, the leader data for both leaders, and other detailed stats for each army. The Recon command lets you view the battlefield, either letting you scroll around the map or sending you to a different screen displaying the entire battlefield.

If you win the battle, you take control of the affected country and must make several choices after. First you decide who rules this country, either one of your princes, the defeated ruler, or yourself under direct control. Then you decide the fate of the enemy ruler. You can kill him, set him free, or make him one of your princes. You may also see one of the outstanding men from the enemy’s side and you can choose if you want to recruit him as a prince or not. The enemy gets to decide your fate if you lose a war. If you fight as the main leader and you are killed, you can choose one of your sons to rule in your place. If there are no sons of age to do this, then the game is over. (Fortunately, this doesn’t erase your save or anything.)

As with all Koei titles, this was my first time both playing and beating Genghis Khan. The Koei games tend to be more uncommon and therefore more expensive, however Genghis Khan is one of the more affordable entries in the series. Loose carts go for around $10. I once picked up a lot on eBay of a few of the cheaper Koei titles complete in box which included Genghis Khan. I have both the thick instruction manual and the special map/poster combo that came with this game only.

These are tough games for me to get into and I struggled quite a lot early on. The proper method for starting something like this is to jump in and try different things without being afraid to fail. Get a feel for the game first. That way you can see what things work and what don’t so that you can develop a game plan. Then you start the game over and go at with your game plan. The problem with that is that you might get a few hours in that first time and then you have to burn all that progress down when starting over. Therefore, even though I know how I should attack this game, I keep pushing forward on my initial save file because I have a fear of wasting all that time. That fear has decided that continuing a game in a less favorable position is better than starting over from more of a neutral position. The next Koei game I play I am making sure to try going about it in the proper way I described, even if it goes against my own impulses.

My first major hurdle in the game was expanding my empire by just one country. I learned battle well enough to win a country, but then both of my territories were vulnerable to further attack. The enemies knew this and took advantage right away, leaving me in a much worse state than I was before. I know I failed in taking advantage of treaties, but I also didn’t build myself up enough to have enough manpower to manage two territories. I went about bulking up my forces through an economic game plan. I kept enough troops available to discourage war and funneled most of my leftover laborers toward making both food and specialty items. Selling specialty items is a given, but selling excess food was a surprise money maker. My wealth went into hiring more troops, which could then be converted into more food and item producers, completing a nice circle of economic growth. Now I could start my conquest, pulling in more countries under my rule. My Gemfire strategy of isolating territories from enemies and then funneling their resources toward countries on the front lines was in full effect.

From here I started cruising to victory. I had the eastern part of the map conquered and had a prince in charge of each territory. I learned the most efficient way to battle was to put all my troops into one cavalry unit and to weaken the enemy enough to win in a duel. (I figured out the single cavalry unit strategy on my own, and found a tip online suggesting that focusing on the leader’s body and battle stats have a positive effect on winning duels.) I really thought I had the game all figured out but then the game presented a new challenge.

The latter part of the game turned into making total game plan adjustments that I never really figured out the best way to handle. What happened was I started losing far away territories to uprisings. I had several of them happen within a year or two in-game time. There weren’t enough loyal princes to have a family member in charge of everything. What I maybe could have done was go all in on save scumming and just reset any time this happened, which was a strategy I was already using partially. With so many countries to take over, how could I be sure I could get through any season without at least one revolt happening?

The strategy I ultimately went with was to go back and re-take the countries I lost and place them all under my direct control. That way I could be sure a leader wouldn’t revolt. While an effective strategy, having to make a choice on every territory each turn meant it took forever to make progress on the overall map. Each turn took several minutes of menuing. It was awful, but it got the job done. The plan I really thought would work better was to drain an isolated country of resources, leaving just enough to sustain the people, then put a prince in charge with policy not to grow troops. If they do revolt, they would be weak and easy to reclaim. I attempted that early on but I couldn’t figure out if it was actually helping. I never got the right laborer mix that avoided morale or economic problems in those distant territories.

I spent a lot of time finishing this game, both in real time and game time. I didn’t keep track of my hours, but I suspect I spent around 25-30 hours beating the game over the course of five weeks. I played a lot the first week or so and then chipped away a little bit at a time until I got it done. As far as in-game time is concerned, I needed 60 years to unite the world under Tegighiz in 1266. In my timeline, Genghis Khan died in 1241 and his son Tegighiz assumed the leader role up to the game’s completion. We are making our own history here, which really is the point of a Koei game when you think about it.

I experienced a couple personal milestones while playing Genghis Khan. My wife and I had a baby of our own during this playthrough. I was off work a lot, but with two kids including a newborn that needed to be fed and changed multiple times during the night, I was very busy all the time. I sacrificed a lot of sleep that I probably shouldn’t have just to have 30 minutes here or an hour there playing Genghis Khan. The other big piece of news is that with this completion I have now finished over 20% of the licensed NES library! It works out that every 67 games completed is just over a new tenth of the library finished. I have a long way to go, but 20% complete with a diverse mix of games finished is no small feat. Expect 30% completion a couple of years from now!

Genghis Khan is a complicated NES strategy game that has a lot of offer if you are into this type of game. The graphics work well for this kind of game. The character portraits are varied and there are some decent animations for some actions. I ended up turning them off only to save time. The music is pretty good overall, though it ended up being an annoyance. Regions of the map have their own theme music, but the music changes all the time if you have multiple provinces under direct control all over the map. The controls for entering in numerical inputs can be a little bit slippery and you pass digits you want, but everything else works well enough. This seems to be another game that only caters to a specific audience. I am no expert on whether or not this is a good Koei game, but from my perspective, I had some fun with it and I think it is a solid title.

It’s gambling that’s wrapped up loosely in an RPG.

To Beat: Reach the ending
Played: 8/6/19 – 8/10/19
Difficulty: 3/10
My Difficulty: 3/10
My Video: Casino Kid Ending

Today we have our first NES gambling game. I’m a little surprised that there aren’t that many of these games on the console. It seems like they would be more plentiful as gambling is quite popular. My guess is that they are too simple to make a full game from, and most people would rather have the thrill of putting money on the line in the hopes of a big payday. From glancing through the short list of gambling games, replicating a huge day at the casino seems to be the common approach. This is what Casino Kid does, using two casino games combined with some light RPG elements. It’s an interesting idea for a game, so let’s take a look and see how it shakes out.

Casino Kid was both developed and published by Sofel. The Famicom release is named $1,000,000 Kid: Maboroshi no Teiou Hen and is based on the manga 100 Man $ Kid which ran from 1986-1988. The game was released in Japan in January 1989. The NES release was localized to Casino Kid in October 1989. It appears the Famicom and NES releases are significantly different. The Famicom version follows the manga, while the NES version has those references removed and contains somewhat simplified gameplay. The NES would later receive an exclusive sequel Casino Kid II in 1993.

In this game, you play the role of the Casino Kid. You step foot inside a prominent casino with only $500. By playing multiple rounds of Blackjack and Poker against several dealers, you earn $1 million dollars and the right to square off against the Casino King. Win against him to become the new Casino King and win the game.

Casino Kid starts off looking like a top down RPG. You need to walk around the casino looking for opponents to play. Use the D-pad to walk and press A to talk to someone. There is only one active blackjack dealer and one active poker player at a time. Blackjack dealers appear behind tables and you have to talk to them from across the table, while poker players are just standing around. Talking to the wrong one gets you brushed off, however, sometimes the person will give you a hint to where you might find the opponent you need to play next. Tourists and casino workers also give you some basic hints about the names and personalities of the different players. While walking around, you can press Select to see how much money you have and your password for later play. Passwords in this game are 30 characters long, all capital A-Z. Lengthy, but not bad.

Walking around the casino for your next matchup is just window dressing for the meat of the gameplay, which are the games of blackjack and poker. The screen layout and basic betting structure is the same for both games. Your cards are on the bottom of the screen and the opponent’s cards are at the top. The middle of the screen contains a picture of your opponent along with a textbox for dialog. Below that is the amount of money your opponent has, the current bet, and your total money. Each matchup has a specific betting range. For instance, the first opponent establishes a betting range of $10-$100. During betting, you press either Left or Right to choose the amount of your chip. In the example case, you can choose from either a $10 chip or a $100 chip. Then you can press Up or Down to either add or remove chips for your bet. You will press A to place your bet.

First, let’s cover blackjack, quick and dirty style. Your goal is to have a higher point value in your hand of cards than the dealer without going over 21. The face value of each card is its point value. Jacks, queens, and kings are worth 10. Aces are worth 11 if the total would be under 21, otherwise it counts as 1. First you place your bet, then the dealer gives you two cards face up, and the dealer gets one card face up and the other face down. Casino Kid shows your total in the corner of your hand of cards. You can decide if you want to Hit and get another card or Stand and go with what you have. If you stand, the dealer plays his or her hand. The dealer always hits on 16 or lower and stands on 17 or higher. Either player loses when going over 21, otherwise the higher value wins and earns the bet. Getting the same total is called a push and no money is exchanged. If you are dealt both an Ace and a 10-point value card, that is considered blackjack and you win automatically. Blackjacks are paid 3 to 2 in this game, meaning you earn your wager plus an additional 50%.

There are some additional choices you can make during blackjack in certain situations. If you are dealt two identical cards, you can decide to Split hands. This lets you play two hands at the same time against the same dealer hand. You must play one hand all the way before playing the second hand. If you split Aces, you are only allowed to draw one additional card. If you win both hands, you effectively double your original wager. I believe you can get the additional payout if you get blackjack on a split hand as well. The double down option lets you double your bet while hitting only one card. A common double down situation is a 11-point hand with a high probability of getting a 10-point card on your extra card. A third option is surrender. Immediately and only after the initial deal, you can surrender your hand and forfeit half of your initial wager. I never used this option but it can be helpful to limit your loss if you have a high probability of losing your hand if you tried to play.

Now let’s talk about Poker. Your goal is to get a better five-card hand than your opponent. There are many variants of Poker, but in Casino Kid you play five-card draw. At the start of every hand, both players put a little bit of money into the pot, called ante. Each player is dealt five cards face down. You get to see your cards. Next is a round of betting. Players alternate first move here every hand. You can either place a bet or fold your hand. The opponent can either call the bet and chip in the same amount, raise the bet by throwing more money in, or folding their hand to quit. If play continues, you choose which cards you want to hold and you are dealt replacement cards for the others. You can see how many cards your opponent chooses to hold. Armed with that knowledge, there’s another round of betting before revealing hands. The best hand wins all the money in the pot.

The ranking of hands in poker, from best to worst, are royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind, full house, flush, straight, three of a kind, two pair, one pair, and high card. You may know what all of these terms mean already. If not, many of these hands are self-explanatory but I’ll review a few of the others just in case. A full house is a three of a kind and a pair together. A straight occurs when all five cards are in ascending rank. For example, a 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 is a straight. The ace can either be the low card or high card but doesn’t wrap around. A flush is when all five cards are the same suit. A straight flush then is when you get both a straight and a flush. A royal flush is a straight flush with an Ace, King, Queen, Jack, and 10. Usually the type of hand determines the winner. Ties are broken using the remaining cards in the hand. For example, if both players have a pair of 5’s, whoever has the next highest card is the winner. While uncommon is it possible to tie outright, in which case each player gets their half of the pot back.

In both blackjack and poker, there is a hidden menu. Press Select during either placing a bet in blackjack or placing your ante in poker. Your options here are to Bet All Money or Final Hand. Bet All Money does just that, up to either your max or your opponent’s max. However, your opponent may not let you bet everything. Final Hand means you play out that last hand and then go back to the casino floor. You get to keep your winnings as well as maintain your opponent’s cash stash. There may be some strategy here in stopping early to have a better shot at winning a different game. A better use of the Final Hand is to get back to the floor so you can get your password for later if you decide to quit mid-game.

This was my first time playing Casino Kid. I do like card games a little bit. I’m pretty sure when I tested my copy at least I found an opponent and played a few hands before switching to something else. This is a common cart that is only worth a few dollars. The sequel, however, was an uncommon, late release and is much more valuable.

My playthrough of the game ended up being more tedious than fun. Once you’ve played a little bit of blackjack and poker, you’ve seen everything the game has to offer. Beating the game became a test of optimization for me. To that end, my efforts started out poorly. Poker ended up being fairly manageable. Even without making max bets all the time, betting twice per round goes a long way toward exchanging money quickly. After several hands, my opponent offered to go all in and bet everything, to which I gladly agreed. In blackjack, this situation never happens. In fact, for some opponents, the max bet is so small that you have to win about 50 more hands than the dealer to empty them of cash. You can try counting cards to help your odds, but the better option in my mind is the Bet All Money option in the Select menu. After playing awhile, the dealer will accept your request and now your fate rests in one or two hands. I was totally fine with that. The sad thing is that I wasn’t aware of that option until roughly halfway through the game, so I wasted a lot of time. I read the manual before playing these games, but I need to revisit them after playing some because I often end up missing these little tips to speed things up. Armed with a better game plan, I made short work of the rest of the game.

After playing eight rounds of blackjack and eight rounds of poker, you finally earn the million dollars and get to face off against the king of the casino in poker. This is a long, drawn out match to the bitter end for a couple of reasons. You are unable to bet everything you have, no matter what the situation. This is what sped up the other poker matches. Early poker opponents wore their emotions on their sleeve to where you can figure out if they have a good hand or not. Even later opponents sometimes have a tell in that they can show opposite emotion in trying to bluff you. You don’t get that with the king. You need to make smart bets, fold when hands are bad, and go for broke when you get something good. It took me over 30 minutes to finally overcome the king and beat the game. While it started looking bad at times, I did have a little unexpected help. I ended up getting a royal flush one time, dealt straight up. The odds of that are so low that I felt the game was taking pity on me and did it on purpose. I caught it on video so I have proof it happened. If only I could have that luck for real!

Casino Kid is a fine gambling simulation to play for fun, but offers little beyond that. The graphics are pretty good. Character portraits are a nice touch, and the playing cards are clear to read. One little thing I noticed was that some people in the casino are purely background elements and you have to get an eye for them so you don’t wait around hoping they will walk out of your way. The music is pretty good, in step with the presentation. Controls are accurate, though betting can be cumbersome since you need to switch chip size to place a precise bet. The core gameplay is solid. Betting rounds are done well in poker and there are all the different options in blackjack. The major issue I had with beating the game is that it drags on a long time. I finished the game in maybe 6-8 hours but it’s a lot of repetition. I would have liked pick up and play options to jump straight into the cards. These are fun poker and blackjack games but there’s some rigamarole just to get to playing. This game tries to be something of a gambling RPG, but history would prove that gambling works better as a mini-game in an RPG, making Casino Kid feel quite outdated. You can’t blame them for trying something different though.

The game with the hair whip.

To Beat: Reach the ending
Played: 8/5/19
Difficulty: 5/10
My Difficulty: 2/10
My Video: Kabuki Quantum Fighter Longplay

There aren’t many NES games that have a more interesting title than Kabuki Quantum Fighter. Once you know a little more about the background of the game and a bit of history, the title makes perfect sense. Your main character resembles an ancient Kabuki dancer, complete with elaborate makeup and clothing. The game takes places inside of a large, probably quantum computer. And, of course, in a game you will be doing some fighting. There you have it: Kabuki Quantum Fighter. Beyond the surprisingly accurate name, this is a real gem of a game that I enjoy playing quite a lot.

Kabuki Quantum Fighter was first released on the Famicom under the title Jigoku Gokurakumaru. The game was developed by Human Entertainment. The Japanese release was published by Pack-In Video and came out in December 1990. The NES release shortly followed in North America in January 1991, published by HAL America. The European NES release was in February 1992, published by HAL Laboratory. Sadly, this game has not been re-released digitally and is only available on these older platforms.

The game’s story takes place in a futuristic Earth. The planet has a main defense computer that has been affected by a nasty virus. The only way to combat the virus is to go inside the computer and take it out from within. You play the role of the brave Colonel Scott O’Connor who has volunteered to neutralize the threat. To do this, he has to be converted into raw binary data through the untested Image Transfer System in order to fight the virus. The transfer works, but his appearance is altered to that of one of his ancestors who was a Kabuki dancer. To beat the game, just clear the game’s six stages.

Kabuki Quantum Fighter is a platformer with a standard control scheme. You use the D-pad to walk around left or right. The A button jumps and you can control the height of your jump with how long the button is held. The B button attacks, only this game uses Scott’s flowing red locks as a whip to damage enemies. You can crouch down by holding Down. Your attack in the crouched position is a short-range punch. There are hooks scattered throughout the stages than you can hang from by jumping into them from below. While hanging, the B button performs a sweeping kick. You can drop down from hanging by pressing Down or you can jump with A, allowing you to flip up to a higher ledge or to another nearby hook. You can attach to some walls and you can climb them by pressing Up or Down. The Select button switches your weapon, and the Start button pauses the action. You can switch weapons while paused.

Your status bar is at the bottom of the screen. On the left, you see your life bar, your chip meter, and the boss’s health bar. Below that is your score, the number of lives remaining, and the stage timer. The far right contains an icon indicating your currently equipped weapon. Nice and straightforward.

Normal attacks are all short range, so to compensate you can use special weapons. (Of random note: The names in game don’t line up with the ones in the manual, so I’m going with the in-game descriptions for these.) You begin the game with one special weapon and earn others by completing stages, using memory chips for ammo. The first attack is the energy gun, which is a tiny projectile attack. In level 2, you get a larger, upgraded version of the energy gun. In level 3, you get the fusion gun which is a three-way spread attack. Starting in level 4 you can use quantum bombs. These are sticks of dynamite thrown forward in an arc and they have a wide attack splash. Finally, in level 5 you earn the remote control bolo. This is a set of three star-shaped weapons that home in on and wrap around enemies, dealing small damage for as long as they last. Naturally, the better weapons use up more of your chip stash.

Enemies in this game sometimes drop basic items. Hearts refill a segment of your health meter, and flashing hearts refill several segments at once. You can also grab chips as ammo for your special weapons. Flashing chips give you several rounds of ammo. Occasionally, enemies will drop clearly labeled 1up items. There’s enough versatility in the move set that these pickups are enough for this game.

Kabuki Quantum Fighter plays out similarly to Ninja Gaiden but has a few significant differences. Each level is a long scrolling stage. Some levels have more than one of these segments. At the end of each one, you get some bonus points for each bar of health and each chip you have remaining. Then the bars refill back out along with some extra health and ammo. Every level ends in a boss fight. There is a neat mechanic that appears only during these boss encounters. When you pause the game and press either Up or Down, you can exchange your health for chips and vice versa. This gives you some choice during fights. Do you want to sacrifice health so that you can do more long range attacks with your special weapons, or you do you want to give up your special weapons and try to fight close quarters with extra health points? You can mix and match as much as you want as long as you have enough health and ammo to swap. After beating the bosses, you can view cutscenes that progress the story and show you which new weapon you have acquired.

The enemies are quite varied from what you would expect fighting inside of a computer. Sure, there are tiny tanks and some robot-esque enemies. There are also flamethrowing heads, jumping dogs, hovering mouths, and gremlins that throw boomerangs, among others. The designs definitely make the game more interesting. There are also different kinds of traps you contend with. These are things like spike pits, conveyor belts, flowing water, and spike balls. A devious little device you’ll see sometimes is a hanging hook with a tiny conveyor belt on top. I give the designers credit for combining things in interesting ways, even if it’s a little mean in that case.

Kabuki Quantum Fighter is a game I have owned since childhood and have plenty of experience in playing. I’m pretty sure this game was a bargain pickup for brand new back in the 90s. Unfortunately, I don’t think I kept the box and manual for this one unless it somehow turns up at my mom’s house. This is a reasonably affordable game, so I’m not too upset about it. Carts copies sell for around $15 today.

This is a game I have gone back and played many times over the years, so I breezed through it again for this playthrough. I completed the game without dying and I only used special weapons once or twice. I always use weapons on the final boss, but with a little practice I’m sure I could beat it without. (That’s an idea for a future challenge run, deathless and no special weapons!) My longplay video of the game was solid, however there was one omission I’m minorly annoyed about. After you beat the game and get through the credits, you can press B to see the sound test. You see a unique animation of our hero along with some text indicating another future adventure that never came to be. I cut the video before that only to see it come up when I was messing with the controller afterward. Oh well.

It is tough for me to pin a difficulty on a game like this that I know so well, but I decided on average difficulty. For the most part, the action is straightforward enough. There are plenty of item drops and even some places to grind them if necessary. Special weapons help for tricky spots. Being able to trade up for more health on the bosses also makes battling them easier. You also get two continues for when you run out of lives. That’s all the good stuff. Now what really makes this game difficult are the vertical levels. There are a couple of these in the game that you have to climb all the way to the top. By this point, you should have experience with the hanging hooks, and now your skills are put to the test. It is really easy to fall down. So not only do you have to manage your health for longer if you fall and enemies respawn, but also the timer becomes your biggest enemy. You do have plenty of time to complete the level since I can do it with a lot of time left over. These stages are difficulty spikes the first time through.

I played Kabuki Quantum Fighter for high score as part of a weekly contest several years ago, and that gave me with a new way to play the game that I appreciated. The rules were one life only, scoring as many points as possible. It turned the game into a bit of a puzzle. I paid attention to the enemies and how many points I could earn from each one. Then I needed to grind the most lucrative enemies by scrolling back and forth to keep spawning them. I needed to know how much time it took to get from the grind point to the end of the level so that I had as much time to grind points as possible. The other thing I strived for was beating the bosses with normal moves. After I beat the boss, I would swap for as many chips as possible, hopefully up to the max. You trade chips for health at a two for one rate, so more chips mean more bonus points at the end of the level. That also means you might not have that much health for the next stage. I also wanted every extra life I could find since those go for big points at the end of the game. I must have enjoyed doing all that because I know I won the contest that week.

I really like Kabuki Quantum Fighter and I think it is a great platformer on the system. The graphics are well drawn with some good animation, particularly on the player character and the bosses. I think the music in the game is great with several good tunes. The controls work well, giving you many options with the short range standard attacks, long range special weapons, hanging from hooks, and climbing walls. Swinging around is a lot of fun and you have pretty good precision to jump from one hook to the next. The boss encounters are all varied and are pretty good fights in general. Personally, I wish the game were a little bit longer. I think they could have done more with the mechanics to make some additional challenges in the stages. I am a big fan of Kabuki Quantum Fighter and I encourage you to check this game out if you haven’t tried it.

Ripping straight out of your NES!

To Beat: Reach the ending
Played: 7/25/19 – 8/1/19
Difficulty: 8/10
My Difficulty: 8/10
My Video: Werewolf: The Last Warrior Longplay

I’m just going to say this right away.  I think Werewolf: The Last Warrior is gonna be my favorite NES Box Art of 2019. The obvious element is the giant werewolf ripping out of the cover, but look closely and you will see that he bursts right out of an NES cart.  You can make out the gray lines and the chips on the green circuit board inside.  At this time, very few people took the carts apart to see what was inside because new carts didn’t need to have the pins cleaned. I bet this aspect of the cover was underappreciated.  Some other parts of the cover I like are the red text on yellow background for contrast and the huge claws on the werewolf.  With a box cover so awesome, the game inside has to be equally good, right?

Werewolf: The Last Warrior debuted on the NES in November 1990.  The game was developed and published by Data East, with development credit given to Sakata SAS.  The Famicom release came later in June 1991, published by Takara.  There the game was called Cho Jinro Senki Wourufu, translating to Super Werewolf Chronicle Warwolf.  Europe also saw an NES release in September 1991.

In this game, you play as Chief WarWolf.  The evil Dr. Faryan has created a bunch of bio-monsters that have imprisoned nearly everyone in the world.  Guess who is the only hope for civilization?  With the help and powers of the Great Spirit, you can become Werewolf which will give you the abilities needed to defeat Faryan and save humanity from his evil schemes.  There are five stages in the game, culminating in the final battle with Faryan. Beat all the levels to beat this game.

This is your typical platforming game with a mostly familiar control scheme. An obvious downside right off the bat is that you attack with A and jump with B.  I have no idea why developers did this as the convention of using A to jump and B to attack was the de facto standard.  I’ve played games long enough to be able to handle it no problem, but otherwise there is this artificial learning curve added for no real reason other than to be different.  The rest of the controls are fine.  Press the D-pad directions to move around.  You can duck with Down and climb ladders with Up.  The A button does a simple punch and you can punch high while standing or punch low while ducking.  You also wield a Power Ray as a charge attack by holding A to charge and letting go to unleash the attack.  Pressing B jumps normally, but you can do a higher jump if you hold Up while pressing B.  Start pauses the game.  While paused, you can press Select to show your score and number of lives remaining. 

At the start of the game, you meet the Great Spirit.  The game switches over to a brief cutscene where the Great Spirit gives you some advice.  Immediately after this you are thrown into a fight with one of Faryan’s death slaves. This enemy has a health bar displayed at the bottom and is a recurring mini-boss throughout the game.  Defeat him and he will leave behind a red W.  Collecting this item turns you into Werewolf.  Then you get another cutscene where you see his transformation.  Don’t worry, this scene only happens the first time you transform.

In Werewolf form, you have several new options available.  You maintain this form until you are at about a quarter of health remaining.  By default, your attacks are twice as strong as normal.  Your Power Ray now attacks everything on screen via a shock wave, but this deals you a lot of damage just to perform the move.  You also get four new movement abilities.  You can crawl into tunnels too big for you to enter normally. Simply walk into the tunnel to start crawling.  You can perform a backflip that makes you invincible to all attacks by pressing both A and B together.  You can climb walls in Werewolf form.  Simply jump into a wall to cling to it.  Now you can climb the wall by pressing either Up or Down.  To get off, you press the direction opposite the wall and press B to jump off.  Lastly, you can cling and hand-walk along ceilings with your claws.  Jump up to the ceiling, then hold Up and press A to dig your claws in.  Then you can use Left or Right to move across the ceiling and press Down to disembark. Getting hooked is tough.  You have to connect just as you are falling from the top of your jump so that you touch the ceiling with the tip of your claws.

There is an anger meter at the bottom of the screen.  You collect these tiny, white bubbles that add a notch to your anger meter.  When the meter hits five bubbles, then you transform into Super Werewolf.  In this mode, you have all the same powers and abilities as Werewolf, but your attacks double in strength, you move faster, and you jump incredibly high.  The downside is that this mode is temporary as the bubbles gradually decrease.  (I guess they pop?)  Once you run out of bubbles, you switch back to Werewolf mode until you collect enough bubbles for another transformation.

There are several other items you can collect in this game.  Finding items is weird.  Some of them are dropped by enemies, and others you find by striking objects in the levels.  Sometimes these locations are obvious, like posts or boxes.  Other times you find items by hitting ledges or other places you might not expect.  It doesn’t hurt to attack random things just in case.  Anyway, here are the other items to look out for.  Small hearts heal one health point while large hearts are full health refills.  Little red bubbles defeat all enemies onscreen.  Big red bubbles make you invincible for a little while.  Why bubbles are so powerful in this game, I have no idea.  Hourglasses give you more time, dollar signs add points, and 1ups are obvious. Some enemies drop a bullet behind that gives you a single shot attack of your own with A.

The final item you need to watch out for are the blue W’s.  While red W’s upgrade you to Werewolf, the blue ones downgrade you.  They take you from Super Werewolf back to Werewolf, or from Werewolf back to plain War Wolf form.  If you grab one as War Wolf, it deals a significant amount of damage.  Therefore, you want to avoid these at all costs.  The game puts you in some situations where if you reveal a blue W, you are forced to pick it up to proceed.  Just be careful.  The manual suggests there is a way to somehow use both a blue W and a red W to go directly to Super Werewolf.  I have no idea how or if that works, and I didn’t find any information about that mechanic.

The levels in this game are usually laid out a specific way.  Stages move from Left to Right with a few exceptions. Stages also typically have a high section and a low section.  You can find ladders to climb between sections and sometimes you can choose between the upper path or lower path all the way through the stage.  This can add some replay value if you want to try a different path and it lets you experiment to find the best way through a level.  All levels end in a boss fight with one of Faryan’s stronger creatures.

This game treats lives as continues.  When you fall into a pit or run out of health, it is Game Over.  If you have any lives remaining, then you can Continue from the Game Over screen or select End to start over.  When you run out of lives, the game puts you at the same screen only you are forced to choose End.  You start the game with three lives.  You can earn more by collecting 1up items or for every 50,000 points earned.  Every time you die your score goes back to 0, so you are incentivized to play well enough early to earn more lives for later.

This was my first time beating Werewolf: The Last Warrior.  I sort of remember testing this game out one time and playing until I died, which didn’t take too long that time.   I might have went further if I knew the controls.  I bought my cart copy of the game at a game store about an hour away from home that I have only visited one time.  I think I paid either $7 or $8 for it.  The game sells now for around $10 which I believe is the same as the going rate was when I bought mine.

Beating this game was yet another installment in the series of “making incremental progress each playthrough.”  The first stage has at least a couple of spots that are tough to pass until you get a grip of the controls and all the moves you have available. The worst stopping point was the waterfall stage.  This is one of those two-tiered horizontal levels where the lower section is all water. Evidently, in this universe, werewolves cannot swim, so once you fall in you have to watch yourself drown.  There are leaping fish that can easily knock you in the drink, in part because you have a tough time hitting enemies in the air. Their placements are not quite consistent either.  It makes for a tough section and you can bleed your remaining lives away in a flash. Some other parts of the game aren’t much easier, but the waterfall was the worst I experienced.  I could have knocked the difficulty down a point or two if that stage were easier.  Still, completing the game in a week isn’t all that bad and it was a straightforward game to boot.

What I will remember most about Werewolf: The Last Warrior is how janky the game is.  I’ve already mentioned a few of these instances of jankiness, such as B button jumping, tricky ceiling clinging, and the seemingly random locations of hidden items. There are plenty more.  The backflip maneuver is very helpful in crossing some parts where taking damage is eminent, since you are invincible during the flip.  One downside of that is that there are two forced jumps associated with the move, and if you didn’t plan carefully, you could leap right into a pit.  Another quirk is that during a backflip, the screen does not scroll ahead.  You can backflip all the way to the right and then walk against the right side of the screen, leaving you completely defenseless to the dangers right in front of you.  Bosses soak up a lot of damage before going down and end up being very repetitive as a result.  Super Werewolf status makes them pretty manageable, but you may only build up to that state once or twice in the whole game.  If you are plain War Wolf, forget even trying to fight a boss.  Your attacks have one-fourth the power of Super Werewolf, and even if you play the fight perfectly you will probably run out of time before winning anyway.  There are still other minor nuisances that don’t even make a blip compared to these issues.

Werewolf: The Last Warrior is a game that falls short of most other NES platformers. I would say the graphics are just average.  Most of the sprites are large and detailed.  The Werewolf character has a lot of different poses and such for all the moves available. The music is pretty decent.  My favorite song is the one that plays when you are normal War Wolf, but unfortunately the more you hear that song the worse you are playing.  The controls take some getting used to with the B button jumping and handling specific moves like backflips and wall climbing.  The gameplay has some notable flaws.  The jumping is rather stiff and favors more vertical leaping than horizontal, which is tough considering most of the game is horizontal scrolling. Bosses and some enemies take way too many hits to defeat, leaving the timer as more of a threat here than in other games. You can tell that Ninja Gaiden was an inspiration for this game with things like its interstitial cutscenes and wall climbing moves.  Those are some huge shoes to fill, and in my opinion, Werewolf isn’t half as good as Ninja Gaiden.  It’s not terrible and there are sure to be some people that will go to bat for the game, but I’d rather play something else.

Here’s another accurately named game.

To Beat: Reach the ending
My Goal: Beat the game with the Power Glove
What I Did: Beat the game
Played: 7/2/19 – 7/21/19
Difficulty: 8/10
My Difficulty: 8/10
My Video: Bad Street Brawler Longplay

This is another one of those milestone posts. There aren’t too many of them left, so let’s enjoy them while we can! Not only am I going to cover Bad Street Brawler, but we are also going to talk about the Power Glove. While maybe an odd choice for a compatible title, it does bear the label “Power Glove Gaming Series” on the cart. Sadly, it doesn’t play very well as one, leading me to believe this was just tacked on and not specifically designed to work with the peripheral. Still, I made it a point to play this game with the glove and try to make sense of it for you.

Bad Street Brawler was originally named Bop’n Rumble when it released on the Commodore 64 and MS-DOS in 1987. In Australia, the game was renamed Street Hassle. This game was developed by Beam Software and published by Mindscape. The NES version was renamed to Bad Street Brawler when it released as a Power Glove compatible title in September 1989. This port was also developed by Beam Software but published by Mattel, the manufacturer of the Power Glove accessory.

The Power Glove was an officially licensed peripheral for the NES that was made by Mattel, releasing in October 1989, a month after Bad Street Brawler. The Power Glove was heavily inspired by the Dataglove originally created by Thomas Zimmerman. VGL, Zimmerman and Jaron Lanier’s company, partnered with Abrams/Gentile Entertainment to possibly adapt the glove for video games. They pitched the idea to Mattel, who eventually pitched the idea to Nintendo, making it a reality for the holiday season in 1989. The Power Glove ended up selling well but didn’t work very well with Nintendo’s back catalog of games. There were only two NES games released for it before the glove was discontinued the following year. Still, it remains one of the most recognizable gaming peripherals of all time. You could say it laid the framework for motion controls in more modern gaming, such as the Wii and today’s VR headsets. There is a very good documentary from The Gaming Historian that will give you much more information about the glove’s history.

The Power Glove is a right-handed controller that you wear on your arm attached by Velcro. A wire from the Power Glove connects to a box that has a second wire going to the NES and the third to a set of three sensors that are positioned around the TV screen. The glove contains two ultrasonic speakers that interface with the three ultrasonic microphones on the sensors by the TV. This triangulates the glove’s position so that it can detect both roll and yaw. Conductive ink in the fingers allows the glove to detect finger bends from all fingers aside from the pinky. All these inputs translate into button presses on the NES. A set of lights on the corner TV sensor translates which directions and buttons are held down. The glove comes with 14 built-in programs that you can set with number buttons on the glove. These programs map movements and gestures to NES button presses. Bad Street Brawler comes with its own program along with some special programs that can be used in other NES games. First you initialize the program on Bad Street Brawler, then you turn the game off and quickly insert a new cartridge while the glove briefly “remembers” the program during power down. The Power Glove also has the same buttons as an NES controller so that you can use the glove as a controller itself or get direct inputs while using the glove. Finally, the Center button on the glove resets the positioning in relation to the sensors during a game. The Power Glove came with a couple of detailed manuals that show how the glove can be used and which programs might work best for some games.

Bad Street Brawler doesn’t have much of a story. You play as Duke Davis, a definitive 1980s Cool Guy. He wears big sunglasses with a yellow vest and green shorts. Basically, the streets are filled with criminals and Duke wants to clean up the streets. He will beat up the bad guys and take their weapons, throwing them away in the dumpster after each stage. In this game there are 15 levels and you must clear them all to beat the game.

The controls in this game are simple enough … with a controller that is. Use the D-pad to move around Left or Right. Press Down to duck and press Up to jump. You have three different attacks at your disposal in each stage called Force Moves. One is triggered with A, the second with B, and the third with both A and B pressed together. You can also press Start to pause the game. Controlling the game with the Power Glove is more cumbersome. Your steady arm movements control Duke’s movements. Move the glove up, down, left, or right to move Duke in that direction. The A button move is performed by rotating your wrist left or right. This action both moves Duke in the turned direction while rapidly pressing A. Bend your thumb to do the B button move. Bend the middle finger to perform the A and B button move. (I bend all my fingers aside from the thumb for this.) If you push the glove forward toward the screen, you do a special move once per stage called the Glove Zap. This automatically defeats one enemy. From watching the lights on the sensor, I learned the Glove Zap is actually performed by pressing both Left and Right together, which makes this move impossible to perform on a standard controller and making it ”exclusive” to the Power Glove.

Each level flows the same way. You begin on the left and need to make your way to the right. Enemies will appear two at a time on screen. You can fight them or you can simply run all the way to the right. Each level has three points where the scrolling stops and you are forced to fight a couple of bad guys before continuing. At the bottom of the screen you see your health bar, the active enemy’s health bar, your score, and lives remaining. The top of the screen displays some buildings that indicate how far along you are in the stage. Every three levels there is a stronger encounter, often with a unique enemy, at the end of the stage. The music changes to signal the event. Upon victory, you are rewarded with an extra scene of Duke celebrating his win or chatting with the local media.

At the beginning of each stage, you are placed on a special screen. You can read some encouraging words from Duke as well as practice your moves against a punching bag. The Force Moves change between levels and each stage has its own set of three moves. This gives the game some variety since you can’t get comfortable with any one move. It is helpful to see what moves you get in a safe space before tackling the level itself.

There are fifteen Force Moves in the game broken up in the manual into three groups. The first group is called the Fast-Footwork Force Moves. The Drop Kick is a standard kick. A Sweep Kick is a low kick that knocks the enemy into the air and stuns him briefly. Trip just knocks a guy down by pulling his legs out from under him. While attacking, you duck down and can avoid some attacks. The Roundhouse Kick is a powerful move with a very long windup that leaves you vulnerable. The High Kick is similar to the Drop Kick, only Duke does a tiny hop during this kick. I like this move a lot because the hop also dodges enemy bullets.

The next set of moves are the Fist-To-Fist Force Moves. Punch is just a standard attack. The Pile Driver lifts an enemy over your head before slamming him literally into the ground, stunning him briefly. The Stooge Hit is analogous to the Roundhouse Kick. It has a significant windup but is pretty strong. The Ear Twist is such a goofy move. You grab the guy by his ears and pull on them. You can hold the move down for a little while and increase the damage. The Arm Spin acts similar to the Ear Twist. You grab an attacker by the arm and spin them around. You can hold the move for more damage, then toss the enemy behind you. It’s a nice move for avoiding combat.

The final set is Fancy Force Moves. In the Aeroplane Spin, you lift an enemy overhead, spin him around a while, and then throw him to the ground. The Body Fling is another attack that doubles as a dodge. You jump into the air and slam on top of an enemy, sending him into the ground with a brief stun. The Gut Knee is an amazing move. You grab the enemy slamming your knee into his gut. This knocks the bad guy into the air, putting you in the best position to grab him again while on the way down to land another Gut Knee. The Head Butt causes the enemy to recoil a bit on attack. Lastly, the Bull Ram does a brief dash forward and you toss the enemy into the air.

There are a few items in the game. An orange spy often appears after forced encounters. Sometimes he will drop a bomb that hurts you if on screen when it blows up. You need to either move forward quickly or hit the bomb with a low attack to disable it. The spy also can drop a heart with wings. Grab it to restore all your health. Some fallen enemies also drop a weapon. You just collect these for points later. At the end of each stage, you see a cutscene where Duke throws each item into a dumpster and gets points for each one.

You start the game with two extra lives. You can earn more lives every 10,000 points. However, you cap off at five lives and any earned beyond that are forfeited. Every death starts the stage over. You can continue twice with a fresh set of lives from the same stage you died. Your score resets to 0, but you do get a chance to enter your initials on the high score list!

This was my first time beating Bad Street Brawler. I first played the game a few years ago for the Nintendo Age contests and reached the final level, only to fail pretty hard when I got there. This is a relatively common game though I do not know if it sold as well as the Power Glove did the first year. I have had a few copies of the game through buying lots. It will only cost you around $5-$7 if you are looking for one.

If you were paying attention, I sort of gave this away already. Unfortunately, I did not complete this game with the Power Glove. Not even close. I spent about three weeks with this game with the intent of beating it with the Power Glove but the results were too inconsistent. The furthest I reached was Stage 8, which is honestly an achievement in and of itself. Most of my runs ended in Stage 3. The mix of enemies, the available Force Moves, and no healing item until the 2/3 point of the level caused me to crumble up a lot. The first time I cleared Level 3, the game locked up on me and I was forced to reset. Perhaps I should have taken that as a sign to move on, but I kept at it. I had a few runs to Stage 5 and one or two to Stage 6 or 7. There wasn’t even any sign of continual improvement because good attempts were scattered among multiple Stage 3 failures. I do think if I kept at it for a long time, maybe things would have clicked and I would have figured it out. Ultimately, I did not want another Ikari Warriors situation where I spent four months on the same game. Settling on a controller clear for this game sounded just as good. I bought a Power Glove with the intent to use it for both this game and Super Glove Ball, so when I reach that game I will have to make good on clearing it with the glove.

This game is still difficult even on controller. Many of the enemies in this game are borderline unfair. A baseball bat wielding punk is a common enemy that normally isn’t hard to deal with. If I let him get close enough to hit me, I normally get whacked a few times before I can counter or escape. Skateboarders telegraph their attacks somewhat, but if you get hit it drops 40% of your health bar in one shot. Good luck if you have to fight two of them at once. Knife-wielding women are hard to approach when they start throwing blades. The worst enemy in the game is the break dancer guy. When he rolls around, he is invincible. You have to get close enough to get him to stand up but stay far enough away to hit him. Then you only get one hit in before his routine loops. Normally I try and jump over him but sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. I will say most stages are pretty easy. You can run past most of the level and get at least one health refill in the stage. Some Force Moves let you dodge attacks and some let you stun lock enemies where you hit them over and over before they can recover. The levels without these helpful moves are much harder to clear.

My winning run of the game was one of those magical, miracle runs. It started off well enough. Stage 12 is one of those tough levels that typically costs me several lives, but I coasted through everything else. I reached the final stage with 3 lives and both continues but then it all went downhill. The last stage is very hard. It starts off with two break dancers, and then the first forced fight is between a break dancer and a knife thrower. Most of the time I didn’t get past that part. Then you have to pass the next third of the level before you can get a health refill. On one life I scrolled away the health pickup and died shortly thereafter. It was starting to look like a failed run. On my last life of my last continue, I finally broke through. I just barely survived the first section with only two health points left, and I got down to one just before I got the health refill. I had a solid final boss fight to put this game in the books.

I would go as far to say that playing with the Power Glove worked out better than I expected. After all, I’ve heard plenty of tales over the years that the Power Glove is unplayable garbage and what have you. Some facets of the Glove worked out better than others. The directional movements were pretty much spot on. The first thing to figure out is how to position your arm in the sweet spot. For me, it was about 5-6 feet away from the TV screen in the center of the three sensors. You will have to center the glove a ton with the Center button, but Bad Street Brawler provides enough opportunities to do that without pausing. Twisting my wrist to the right worked out okay, but to twist left far enough I had to lift my elbow which was very uncomfortable. The finger bends were by far the most inconsistent, or at worst not working at all. The instructions say to make a fist a few times to calibrate the glove. Maybe I wasn’t doing it right, but I had wildly varying results that often changed mid-game. Grabbing with my four fingers worked much of the time, but bending my thumb rarely worked. Losing the thumb control cost me one entire move unless I used the B button on the glove. I only got it to work well once or twice.

I know I have not made a case for the Power Glove being feasible as a controller, but perhaps I am still optimistic. The trick seems to be finding the optimal conditions. Unfortunately, the documentation around this feels incomplete. This is my best guess at what you need to do to set it up properly, at least for Bad Street Brawler. Get your arm into that sweet spot I mentioned above: In the center of the sensor zone about 5-6 feet away from the TV screen. Press Start to get to the menu, hold your glove in position, center it, make 2-3 gentle fists, center it again, then start the game. On the intro screen, test out all your moves. Make more fists and re-center as often as needed. Now, I couldn’t get it to work consistently well so this is still not optimal. I would say, at best, I was operating about 80% as efficiently as I would with a controller. The Glove Zap is quite helpful when used strategically, closing that control gap a tiny amount. If I could get the calibration routine right, really homed in my Power Glove dexterity, and keep the glove from going out of whack randomly in the middle of a level, I could definitely see me beating the game this way. But that’s just too many factors that have to line up to make it happen, in any sensible timeframe at least.

I understand why Bad Street Brawler was selected as the first of the Power Glove Gaming Series. It is an inherently simple game. Simply walk left to right and beat up a few bad guys using rotating move sets. It’s not a great game though. The graphics are okay, but the color choices are garish are unappealing. The music is just okay. It’s a little bit catchy at times but the tunes are short loops that may become grating. The controls work well with a standard controller and poorly with the Power Glove. The gameplay, despite trying to vary things, is essentially repeating the same things. Some of the enemies, even the early ones, can cheap shot you unfairly. While it is fun and encouraged to stun lock enemies, getting stun locked yourself is frustrating. Overall, this is a below average game. It has kind of grown on me though and I do like it a little bit.

More dragons, more warriors.

To Beat: Reach the ending
Played: 5/24/19 – 6/30/19
Difficulty: 4/10
My Difficulty: 4/10
My Video: Dragon Warrior III Final Area and Ending

Exactly 50 games later, I’m back with another Dragon Warrior game. The NES does have a few JRPGs of this style, yet the only ones I’ve played so far are all Dragon Warrior games. Actually, I haven’t played many RPGs on this project yet period. The only games remotely close in style I’ve beaten already were AD&D Heroes of the Lance and Gemfire. It’s just a curiosity of the randomized list. I am not complaining though since I thoroughly enjoyed playing through Dragon Warrior III over the course of several weeks.

Dragon Quest III: And thus into Legend… was released in February 1988 on the Famicom in Japan. Just like the other games in the series, the NES version wasn’t released until way later and it was renamed to match the others. Dragon Warrior III appeared on the NES in March 1992, over four years later! The game was developed by Chunsoft and published by Enix. There were many ports and remakes of this game. A Super Famicom remake released in 1996, and the Game Boy Color port appeared in 2001. The game was also ported to mobile phones as well as the Wii. The English Android/iOS release in 2014 added the subtitle The Seeds of Salvation.

For more information on the series, check out my previous posts of Dragon Warrior and Dragon Warrior II. For this review, I will be focusing on things new to this installment in the series.

The story for this game is simple. Our hero awakes on his 16th birthday at home in the kingdom of Aliahan. He is now of age to begin a great adventure, and that first step begins with visiting the king. When you meet with him, he tells you of the archfield Baramos and gives you the task to defeat him. From here, you will travel the world in search of Baramos.

One of the first things you will do before you leave the castle is build your party. On the west end of town is Luisa’s Place and you can do a few special things here. The first counter you will see is for the Vault. You can leave items and gold here and retrieve them later. There is a cost associated with retrieving stored items, but since you will hit full item capacity on your journey this is a great place to stash things for later. Saving your gold here protects it from being lost if your party is wiped out in battle. Past the Vault is the counter where you can add new members to your party. In Dragon Warrior III you can have a party of four people. The default characters available for your party right now are a Soldier, a Pilgrim, and a Wizard. This is the recommended party for starting out and the group I went with. These members are pre-assigned a name and a gender. My party was all men. I had Ragnar the Soldier, Petrus the Pilgrim, and Mathias the Wizard.

If you go upstairs, you can register brand new party members. You can choose the name, the sex, and the class. There are eight characters classes in Dragon Warrior III. Your main character is the Hero class which is an exclusive class with strong stats all around as well as some unique spells. The Soldier is a very strong warrior that can equip most weapons and armor. Soldiers level up quickly but cannot cast spells. Pilgrims are average strength characters with a set of healing and effect spells. Wizards are more fragile but can cast powerful attack spells. More or less, Pilgrims have white magic and Wizards have black magic. Fighters have very high agility, leading them to attack quickly in battle and they have a high critical hit rate. The tradeoff is that the Fighter cannot equip most things and is more effective fighting with bare hands than with most weapons. The Merchant is an average character with a couple of unique capabilities. Merchants can obtain more gold from defeated enemies in battle and they have the ability to appraise items. Select an item held by a Merchant and choose the Appraise option to see who can use the item or how much it might be sold for in a store. The Goof-Off does not offer much in battle. They do have a very high luck stat which helps in getting rare item drops from enemies. Finally, the Sage is a strong class with average battle capabilities but can cast both Pilgrim and Wizard spells. Unfortunately, you cannot start off with a Sage and have to wait to add one to your party until later in the adventure.

With a full party, you are now ready to leave town and begin your adventure, just in time to see the next major development of Dragon Warrior III. This game has a day and night cycle which can impact your journey. The longer you walk outside, time passes and the color palette changes to indicate the time of day. Stronger monsters may appear at nighttime. Shops are closed at night, though inns are always open. Towns are often different at night as far as the townspeople and what they tell you. Several events in the game occur only at day or night. There are a few things you can do to influence the cycle, aside from wandering the overworld. For instance, staying at an inn always brings you back to the start of the day when you wake up. Later in the game, you have more direct options to change to either day or night.

Some towns or castles in the game contain a battle arena. This is like a gambling mini-game where you can watch a fight and bet on which monster will win. You can get the odds of victory or see what other spectators think might happen in a match. You can then place your bet, pick your fighter, and watch a battle play out automatically among the monsters. This is something I only did one time just for kicks. I would rather spend time continuing the journey, but who knows, maybe this is a good way to earn cash quickly if you can game the system somehow.

Speaking of combat, random battles in this game are just like in Dragon Warrior II. Enemies can appear in groups and you decide which group you attack. There is still the problem of wasting an attack on an enemy group that no longer exists. However, I figured out over the course of many battles that your party members do attack somewhat intelligently. When attacking a group, the attacker tends to target the monster with the most HP remaining that they can take out in one hit. In Dragon Warrior II, it sure seemed random which player hit which monster. This is quite helpful for the speed of the game because combat is already plentiful in these games. One issue with this I found was that the AI tends to spread hits around evenly in a group if all the monsters have high HP, meaning those baddies tend to stick around longer. A more intelligent system might opt to gang up on one monster in a group in those situations. As it stands, I do like this hidden system and I’m glad it’s something I paid attention to.

There is one new status ailment in the game. In addition to becoming poisoned, confused, put to sleep, or cursed, now you can become numbed by paralysis. In this state, you cannot do anything except wait it out. It will eventually go away by walking on the world map, or you can use an item or spell to remove the status. Should all your party members become numbed, you lose the fight. I had this happen to me one time and I made sure it didn’t happen again.

The spell list is more expansive in this game. Three character classes, Hero, Pilgrim, and Wizard, all get spells and some are unique to that class. Many of them are various attack spells that are elemental in nature and can target individuals, groups, or entire enemy parties. Rather than go over every spell, I want to draw attention to a few interesting ones. There are two revive spells. Vivify only works half the time to bring back a party member with half HP, while Revive works nearly every time and gives full HP. X-Ray is used to examine treasure chests before opening. Some treasure chests are enemies and this spell lets you know if the chest is safe or not. The DayNight spell lets you switch between day or night. You can turn invisible with the Invisible spell, which can be useful for encounters both good and bad. Bounce can be cast on an ally to have all magic spells bounced back to the caster. BeDragon lets you turn into a dragon and breathe flames every turn for the duration of a battle. Transform lets the caster turn into another party member for the entire fight. The last two related spells I want to mention are Expel and Limbo. This lets you knock enemies out of fights with no gold or experience gained. Expel works on a full party while Limbo only targets one enemy but is much more successful. Sometimes a enemy will cast Limbo on you, and if it works that member is removed from the party entirely. Don’t worry, you can get your ally back but you have to look for him somewhere in the world.

A good part of the way through the game, you can find a place that lets you change your character classes. There are a few rules around this. First off, you cannot change your Hero at all, since he is one of a kind. A character must reach at least level 20 before changing class. After class change, that character goes back to level 1 with half of his current stats. He keeps any spells learned to that point. This is also the only way you can become a Sage if you meet the criteria. Since each class has some better stats than others, you can shape your party any way you want, given enough time grinding for levels.

The overall flow of the game is similar to the previous one. Roughly halfway through the game or so you get a ship that opens up the entire world. This time instead of collecting five crests, you are searching for six orbs. The map is just as large as in Dragon Warrior II, maybe even larger. Since early on you move around through travel doors between some destinations, it can be a little tricky to piece together the entire map. This game came with an insert containing the world map and charts for monsters, spells, weapons, armor, and items. The manual is a tall, 80-page book that even contains a partial walkthrough and tips for some more difficult sections. While not essential to beating the game, it does help. I did not need the walkthrough but I did refer to the map once or twice.

I beat Dragon Warrior III one time before about 10 years ago. I remember spending a lot of time sitting on the couch in my apartment just grinding away at the game on an emulator. I had picked up all four Dragon Warrior loose carts many years before but I was not able to beat the game on a real cart until now. I had tried several times. It always happened after playing for a few hours where the console got bumped, the game locked up, and I was forced to reset to an empty save file. This was long before I knew how to take games apart and clean the pins. I have owned at least a couple of copies of this game before, including my current CIB copy with the map in decent shape. Just to be sure, I know I let my old cart go in favor of a different one with a confirmed good save battery. Now that I clean carts and consoles I didn’t have any issues holding a save the entire time playing. Dragon Warrior III has always retained value. Loose carts sell around $50-$60 with CIB copies at $150+.

It had been long enough since my first playthrough that I didn’t remember all that much about the finer details of this game, including where most of the quest items were. I knew enough though to have a solid attack plan, particularly around class changes. I changed Ragnar from a Soldier to a Fighter and converted Mathias from a Wizard to a Sage. Switching to a Fighter was a bit experimental. I thought it might be useful to have a decent fighter with high agility. That worked out for a couple of reasons. Fighters are better at getting critical hits and his attack stayed high enough that I could deal out some heavy damage early in a turn. The other thing is that Fighters only benefit from a few cheap pieces of equipment, versus Soldiers that can equip many expensive items. Extra gold in my pocket freed me up to spend on my other characters earlier. Having a Wizard become a Sage gave me two good characters with healing spells, since Sages learn two sets of magic. I always opt for having good healing options in my RPGs whenever I get a choice.

There were a few interesting notes concerning this playthrough. I spent over five weeks beating the game, and one of those weeks I was away on business. I was able to take my game with me in an unexpected way. The AVS can connect to a computer and it has the capability to both apply and back up save files from an emulator. Before my trip, I dumped my save file to the computer, then I continued that file on my laptop that I brought with me. When I got home, I put my updated save file back to the cart and completed the game from there on normal hardware. I’m really glad I tried out that feature. I’ll be using that again to back up save files on longer games. This time I kept better track of my hours spent on the game. I beat the game in a little over 36 hours, right in line with the 30-40 hour estimate I had in mind. I feel like I did very well in solving issues and finding items as they came up throughout the game. Perhaps I had some of those events stuffed into my subconscious from my previous playthrough. Lastly, I am a tiny bit disappointed that I remembered a twist that occurs in the endgame. It would have been nice to have experienced that anew.

If you like these kinds of games, you will find a lot to like about Dragon Warrior III. In some ways it doesn’t feel all that different from Dragon Warrior II. It certainly is less of a leap from the second to the third as it was from the original to the sequel. Most of the main beats are the same. There’s a linear start, then the world opens up with a ship, then you explore the world looking for items, then that opens up the end of the game which is quite challenging. Then again, this game is quite different. The map is new, the enemies are almost completely different, there are more spells to learn, more items to buy, and more places to visit. Changing classes has a huge effect on the way the game is played, making it easier if you can find the right tweaks to make and put in the time to build up your characters. The difficulty curve is gentler than the second game which I found a welcome improvement. The graphics, music, and gameplay are all very good. I imagine the NES version is not the definitive version of Dragon Quest III, but the game does stand up as one of the best RPGs on the console.

It’s the Ricky Fighters versus the Strong Bads … over and over again.

To Beat: Win 35 matches to become Super Champion
Played: 5/18/19 – 5/23/19
Difficulty: 6/10
My Difficulty: 6/10
My Video: Tag Team Wrestling Longplay

Well, I was wrong. Here is yet another NES wrestling game. I am starting to wonder if these games ever end. I mean, I know they do of course, but I have been receiving what feels like a steady diet of these titles for a little while. As soon as I get a bit of a breather, bam, another NES wrestling game. Tag Team Wrestling naturally turned out to be a real grind of a game too.

Tag Team Wrestling was first an arcade game that released in late 1983/early 1984. It was developed by Technos Japan and published by Data East. The game was ported to a few different home computers, as well as to the NES and Famicom. The Famicom version came first in April 1986. There it was called Tag Team Pro Wrestling and it was published by Namco. The NES version released in October 1986, published by Data East and developed by both Data East and Sakata SAS. The NES port was only released in North America. Tag Team Wrestling is very likely the first third-party title released on the NES in North America.

Tag Team Wrestling is just what it sounds like. You play as the team Ricky Fighters against the bad guy team the Strong Bads. You can also play a two-player game where each player controls one of the teams. To win a match, you either need to pin your opponent, have them tap out by submission, or have them lose by countout when out of the ring. As you win matches, you rise in rank and eventually earn some titles. You beat the game by rising all the way to the top by becoming Super Champions, but you need to win a whopping 35 matches to be the very best.

The controls in this game are different from other wrestling games I’ve played. You move around the ring with the D-pad. You use the A button to punch and grab the opponent. Grab your opponent and initiate the grapple. Now you must select your move with the B button via a pop up menu. Tap B quickly to cycle through the moves and then press A on the one you want. There are eight different moves for each wrestler but there’s only a three second timer to enter your move before the opponent does a counter move himself. I learned pretty quickly to rhythmically tap out the button to get the move I wanted. Once the opponent is low enough on health and knocked to the ground, close in on him and press A to pin.

Seeing as this is Tag Team Wrestling, you can call on your partner to pitch in. Simply walk over to the lower left corner and press B to tag him in. Each wrestler has his own health bar displayed when he is activated. Naturally your opponents can do this too, so try and finish the job quickly when he is at low health. Your partner can also step in and break up a submission hold by pressing A when you are stuck. He will run in and smash the other guy so you can get back in the action. This is the only way I found to get out of the move.

You can also fight outside of the ring. This happens automatically if someone is hit with a move into the rope, typically by being either flipped or slammed toward either side. The referee begins a 20 count and you fight as normal with a few changes. First, you are locked on the same plane so you can’t run circles around each other. Instead of eight moves, there are only three moves available on the outside. You still need to tap B seven times to get to the last move. Sometimes there is a chair lying on the ground that you can pick up and slam into your opponent. Press Up to get back into the ring before the ref finishes the 20 count or you automatically lose the match. If you leave your opponent out there and get back in in time, then you win by disqualification.

The Strong Bads have a special anger mechanic that you will contend with all the time. After some time, one of the opponents will turn red. When this happens, you will always be grappled and attacked no matter what you do. A lot of the strategy in the game revolves around managing the opponent’s anger. One little trick I learned is that if the opponent becomes angry while laying on the mat, you can pin him and that mellows him out somehow. He also never gets angry while outside of the ring. That may not be realistic, but sure, whatever. As play continues and you win more matches, the time between angriness decreases, making those matches much harder to win.

There are a couple of special instances that occasionally come into play. Each wrestler has an original super move. This move is the last in the move list, and you can only do the move against the opposite wrestler from the start of the match. The Strong Bads also have super moves in that same manner. The Ricky Fighters have an occasional, unique ability of their own that goes against the Strong Bad anger. During certain rounds, if you tag your partner in a number of consecutive times, you will flash for the duration of the match. I believe this makes your attacks more powerful. It’s too bad this can only be done a few times a game.

Beating the game requires winning 35 matches. Along the way you will obtain smaller titles on the road to Super Champion. After each victory, you see a screen showing the next title you are going after and how many wins you need to get there. The listing of titles in the game manual is incorrect. Clear Round 3 to become Regional Champion, Round 8 for American Champion, Round 15 for European Champion, Round 25 for World Champion, and Round 35 for Super Champion. Winning a title serves as a checkpoint and you don’t lose rank. For example, winning the first three matches earns you the Regional Champion title. If you lose a match while gunning for American Champion, you go back to Round 4 at the start of the American Champion ladder. You have unlimited continues, making the quest for Super Champion a little easier.

This was my first time playing through Tag Team Wrestling. I am not much a fan of wrestling anymore and I never cared for wrestling games at all. This is a common cart that can be found for a few bucks. I have had several copies of this game on my journey to own them all.

The exploit for winning this game became evident after a while. Early on I play the matches straight up. I got a feel for the right amount of opponent’s health to shoot for. You need it low enough to successfully pin but not too low so that he doesn’t go back to tag his partner in with a full health bar. This works for several rounds but eventually the anger kicks in faster and you need a new strategy. Knowing that the opponent never gets angry on the outside, the goal becomes to shift play out there as soon as possible. I can get him out there in two moves. The first knocks him down to set up the suplex that throws him out. From there, do a post smash to move him into the corner. With good timing when he gets up, you can always win the grapple for another attack. Then I establish a cadence of moves to set up the timing so that I can knock him down as close to a 19 count as possible. That gives me enough time left to get back into the ring so that I win by disqualification. This is not an easy setup, but I was able to do it enough through repetition that it became easy.

I had a few struggles and close calls. I am not a perfect player so mistakes will happen in my routine. Normally this isn’t an issue until the final matches. The Strong Bad anger becomes constant only a few grapples into a match. Should that happen, either I get lucky and get knocked out of the ring to stage a comeback or I’m toast. This came into play on my final attempt one night. After almost two hours of grinding, I finally reach Round 35. Right away it turns into disaster when I miss the suplex that would throw him outside. The anger loop happens, and I’m done for. After kicking out of a pin, miraculously I get knocked out of the ring. I start working my outside strategy, but my cadence is off. At the end of the count, I panic and fire off a move only to struggle getting back into the ring. I get called out as my feet are hovering above the mat. Game Over. I’m pretty sure after my shock wore off, I threw the controller, turned the game off, and went to bed. Two nights later, I’m back at Round 35 after almost 90 minutes of attempts. It starts off well enough, however somehow I miss a grapple on the outside and get beat up for a little bit before we both head back into the ring. This time I kept my composure enough to grapple him just before he tags his partner. Lucky for me, Strong Bads aren’t in anger mode when attempting to tag in their partner. I attack and get the win by pinfall. It wasn’t how I drew it up, but it works just the same. I ended up playing a couple more matches. You always get the Super Champion message past this point, and naturally I didn’t have any issues winning the extra matches. Looking back, I’m glad the ending was a little bit exciting since it’s a better story.

Tag Team Wrestling is more notable for its influence than for its gameplay. Not only was it probably the first third party NES game, but it also directly inspired the Strong Bad character from Homestar Runner. Aside from that, this is a lackluster game. The graphics and music are simplistic, though that’s not too unusual considering it is such an early effort on the NES. The menu-based move system is a novelty at first that soon becomes tedious. Matches are quick but the road to Super Champion seems to go on forever with very few opportunities to spice things up. The Strong Bad anger is absolutely unfair by the endgame. I don’t think it would be entertaining for a two-player game beyond a match or two. Tag Team Wrestling, while completely playable, is not fun to play. There are far better wrestling games on the NES.

A Zapper game with a strangely accurate title.

To Beat: Beat the Normal Game
To Complete: Get the best ending in both the Normal Game and Party Game
What I Did: Completed the game
Played: 5/17/19
Difficulty: 4/10
My Difficulty: 4/10
My Video: Shooting Range Longplay

Now that I’ve come upon yet another Zapper game already, I decided to do a little digging trying to piece together my own list of Zapper-compatible licensed NES games for tracking purposes. The unlicensed list is easy, just Baby Boomer and Chiller. For licensed games, most lists I’ve found are incomplete. Complicating things are a few games that use the Zapper partially, or worse, at one random spot in the game. Putting everything together, it looks like there are 16 licensed games that utilize the Zapper with most of them being Zapper only. Shooting Range is already the 5th Zapper game played for this blog.

Shooting Range was developed by TOSE and published by Bandai. It was released in June 1989 in North America only and is an NES exclusive. Really, that’s all the information there is on Shooting Range.

There’s no story to be found here but there are a couple of different modes to play. The Normal Game takes place over four stages where you fire at targets that appear in themed scenes. This is the main mode of the game. The other mode is called Party Game and you try and shoot as many targets as you can within the time limit. In both modes, up to four players can play alternating to see who can get the biggest score. To beat this game, you need to clear all stages in the Normal Game. There are also different ending screens depending on how many points you score in the Party Game.

I think Shooting Range has a double meaning here. Sure, it’s a shooting range where you fire at targets. The primary mechanic in the game is that you use both the D-pad and the Zapper at the same time, using Left and Right to “range” across a wide view while you also aim and shoot at targets. This is a cumbersome setup for me since I prefer to hold the Zapper with both hands to keep it steady. You will need to constantly pan back and forth looking for targets to shoot so you really need to play this with both Zapper and controller in hand simultaneously.

The goal of the Normal Game is simple enough. Various targets will appear on screen holding up a red and white pinwheel which is what you shoot to earn points. The bottom of the screen shows your level score and total score on the right and the level timer and energy bar on the left. You lose energy when you shoot and miss. You lose the game if you run out of time or energy, so you must be both quick and accurate. Each stage has different criteria to finish the stage and move on to the next. Upon completing each level, you earn some bonus points for any leftover time or energy.

When starting up a new Normal Game, first you select either Level 1, 2, or 3. These are not the stages themselves but more like a difficulty level. To my knowledge, the only change is how much time you have to start each stage. Levels 1, 2, and 3 give you 300, 250, and 200 seconds respectively. Next up is the scoring screen. This shows your scoring breakdown per stage, as well as any bonus points that roll up into your total score. The Stage Clearing Point area is what the point threshold is for certain stages. I confused this for actual points on my score at first. Then you go to a screen displaying all the stages in the game. Shoot anywhere to start playing a level.

During the Normal Game, shooting some targets also reveals an item. The same characters tend to drop the same things. Most of the items are just circles with letters in them. Simply shoot it to collect it. The little E boosts your energy by two bars, while the large E gives you four. A reverse E deducts a couple of energy points, so avoid them. The C gives you 100 points, while the W gives you 1000. The W is different in that it doesn’t get dropped by anyone and you will sometimes just find it. There is also an hourglass item that gives you 50 more seconds on the clock.

The first level in the game is Western themed. The goal here is to earn 5000 points, at which point the level ends abruptly. There are Native Americans, gun-slinging criminals, and flying birds for targets. Some of the birds are worth 500 points, while others are worth much fewer, depending on how they fly around. The second level is pretty similar to the first. Here you need 7000 points to clear it, but this time it is ghost house themed. There are monsters such as witches, vampires, and ghosts. One monster flips his pinwheel back and forth rapidly and it is hard to hit.

The next level is the bonus game. This one is just a single screen with no controller required. There are two rows of bottles on the wall and random ones will flash all white. Shoot them while they are all white to break them. This level ends when either all bottles are broken or you run out of time. You always get sent to the next level no matter how well you do.

The final stage takes place on the moon. There are various types of aliens to shoot at here. Instead of meeting a point threshold, as soon as the timer hits 100 seconds remaining, a large brain alien appears. It’s a boss battle! The brain floats around the whole screen in a wave-like pattern and only fully reveals its pinwheel every so often. This is a tough fight with the limited time left, but if you can beat it then you win Normal Game. If you fail here or in any other stage, you can continue, but you lose all your points in doing so. I think continues are supposed to be unlimited, but I didn’t always see it happen so I’m not sure how the continue system works. This is a short game, so once you get the last boss down you can play through the game again trying for a high score. You can enter your initials on the high score screen and see your accuracy too.

The Party Game is a much simpler mode than the Normal Game. This is just a single screen with some targets to hit. There are no items or energy, just you and the timer. Lights in the background appear and shooting them causes the pinwheel to pop up along the bottom. Shoot as many of these as you can. If you miss a pinwheel, then you need to shoot another light to restart the sequence. It’s too bad you can’t play this simultaneously with another player because it would be fun to compete for targets. Either way, try to score as high as you can before the timer runs out.

This was my first time playing Shooting Range. I can’t recall if I played any of the game during cart testing. Usually with the peripheral games I boot them up to see if they run without glitches and then I put them away without trying the gameplay. I know that I watched TMR beat this game for NESMania and it was one of the last games he completed for his project. I had some familiarity with the game though I forgot most of it. This cart isn’t too hard to find and sells for around $8-$10.

This was a short game that I cleared within a couple of hours. I needed more than a few attempts to clear the final boss, but that was all. If you score high enough at the end, you earn a medal. The bronze medal is at 30,000 points, a silver is at 35,000 points, and you need 40,000 to get the gold. Now your score for the first two levels is pretty well set since those stages end by point thresholds. One tactic is to stockpile energy and cash them in for bonus points at the end, but that doesn’t always pan out and doesn’t give you near enough points anyway. The other thing you can do is play on the easiest difficulty since more time means more points at the end of the stage, even if that only adds just a tiny amount to your total. The secret to getting the gold is to earn the bonus points as shown on the scoring screen, and the only way to get them is to play the bonus level perfectly without missing. Doing so is challenging. My strategy was to go at the top row first left to right, then the bottom row. After a few bottles gone, the next ones seem to line up well and you can take them all out quickly. On my run I ended up with over 50,000 points which was above and beyond what I needed. In Party Mode, the score you want to aim for is 35,000, which I accomplished on my second try. All those attempts at To The Earth not long ago sure paid dividends!

Shooting Range is a brief Zapper experience that ultimately doesn’t add up to much. It is interesting that it has different themes for each level. Even the Party Game has a different feel than the Normal Game’s levels. The music is mostly forgettable but not bad. The controls are a little wonky for a Zapper game. They aren’t difficult to comprehend by any means, but I simply didn’t find it that comfortable to have to use both the controller for scrolling and the Zapper for firing at the same time. Thankfully the game was easy and short enough that it wasn’t a huge issue until the end boss. However, the controls combined with the short play time makes Shooting Range not that great of a game.

Not nearly as menacing as it looks.

To Beat: Beat Level 8
Played: 5/12/19 – 5/15/19
Difficulty: 3/10
My Difficulty: 3/10
My Video: Xenophobe Longplay

Appearances can be deceiving. In the case of Xenophobe, I assumed that this game would be challenging to beat. In what little I’ve tinkered with the game before, I got beat up pretty badly. Navigating the levels are confusing and there are strong enemies everywhere I turn. I know the game is a two-player game, so I figured maybe it was just harder for a single player to manage. Well, after spending a little more time on the game, it turns out it is not that tough at all. I’ll keep saying this: I always appreciate when an easy game comes up on my list. Let’s take a closer look at Xenophobe.

Xenophobe was first released in arcades in 1987. The game was published and developed by Bally Midway. It was designed by both Brian Colin and Howard Shere, and the music was written by Michael Bartlow. There were many ports of the game to home computers, Atari systems, and the NES. The NES port was developed and published by Sunsoft and was released in December 1988 in North America only.

There isn’t much of a story in this game. You are tasked with clearing out various starships, bases, and cities from aliens known as Xenos. They have invaded these locations and you must destroy as many as you can. You also try and recover various artifacts from these areas and bring them back with you. There are eight areas in the game and you beat the game once you finish them all.

The main draw of Xenophobe is that is has two-player cooperative play. The screen is split in half horizontally. Each player occupying one half of the screen with shared information appearing in the center. Each player can explore the base separately or meet up and tackle the enemies together. You can play the game single player as well, in which case the bottom part of the screen does nothing but display the name Xenophobe. I’ve seen a similar setup before in Spy vs. Spy. At the start of the game, you get to pick from one of three characters: Dr. Kwack, Mr. Fogg, and Dr. Zordirz. All characters play exactly the same, but they have very distinctive and interesting designs and so they are easy to tell apart in a two-player game.

The controls for the game are a little bit wonky. It starts off simple enough. Use the D-pad to walk around either Left or Right. The B button fires a short-range gun with infinite ammo. The A button is primarily used for jumping, however there are many other operations that also require pressing A. You can crouch by pressing A when Down is held. You can fire low and do a slow crouch walk in this state. Press A to stand back up. If you hold Down and press A while already crouched, you will throw a grenade if you have one. You can pick up items by pressing A while on top of them. Sometimes a small critter enemy will latch on to you and you can get them off by pressing A. You can also interact with some of your surroundings with A. Small buttons on the wall will warp you if you stand by them and press A. You can also take an elevator appearing in the middle of certain rooms. Press A to initiate the elevator, then press either Up or Down to take the elevator whichever direction you are permitted.

The layout of each level is similar. Each floor of the base you are on is eight rooms across. The rooms on the end are blocked off by waves of electricity that hurt you and are impossible to cross. There are warp buttons that transport you to a different room. There are also elevators to take you between floors. Each level has a different number of floors to explore. The first level has only one floor but others can have as many as four floors. Each room contains one or two enemies specific to that room. As enemies are defeated, other ones will appear to take their place. Fresh enemies can show up in any room.

You begin the game with 1000 health points, and naturally, enemies and traps reduce your health. There are only five types of enemies here. Critters are tiny creatures that crawl and you have to duck to shoot them. If they touch you, they latch on to you and you have to press A to throw them off. Snotterpiller is the biggest, toughest enemy in the game. It makes large jumps back and forth across the screen, occasionally stopping to spit acidic slime. Laser balls are floating orbs with a tiny turret on them. They fly in small bursts around the room and occasionally fire. Slimes are low, slow-moving enemies that don’t post much of a threat. Finally, Spiderion is a tall enemy that hangs from the ceiling and tosses bombs when you get close. Other traps include dripping slime from the ceiling and the electric bars that prohibit you from passing through.

There are a bunch of pickups for you that the enemies drop. Perhaps the most important are the weapon pickups. The standard phaser is a slow, single shot, so any upgrades improve on that. Laser pistols fire at a very high rate. The lightning gun has reduced range and speed but deals more damage. The smoke gun is the strongest gun by far, but it has such a short range that it almost functions more like a melee weapon than a gun. These guns all have unlimited firepower and are retained until the end of the level. You can also pick up grenades which deal the most damage when tossed. Weapons aside, there are about a dozen other objects to grab. Some of them like the medicine or coffee cup add health, while the rest are just for points.

The way to clear each level is to defeat as many enemies as possible. You explore to look for weapons, items, and enemies to defeat. After killing enough enemies in the level, an orb appears that you grab to get beamed out of the space station and finish the level. There is a hidden timer going that helps keep track of one of two outcomes at the end of the stage. If you beat enough enemies fast enough, the space station is declared “cleared of Xenos” and you are awarde and end-of-level point bonus. Otherwise, the station is “overrun by Xenos” and you get no bonus. The bonus is both points and some additional health, so it is something you want to strive for. You also get bonus points for each item recovered during your run. The bonus points for items increase between levels as you acquire more items because the game keeps track of all past items collected, so your bonuses scale quickly once you have cleared multiple levels successfully.

This was my first time playing Xenophobe. As mentioned in the intro, I’ve tinkered with the game in testing but that’s all. I didn’t play the arcade version because I don’t think I ever saw a cabinet for it. This is a common, cheap cart that I have owned at least a few copies of while collecting.

This seems at first to be a difficult game for a few reasons. You only get one life in this game and there are no continues. The big Snotterpillers can overrun you in a hurry and they constantly respawn. The levels are confusing to navigate. It seems much worse than it is. Here is my strategy and secret for dealing with this game. I guess this is the spoiler warning if you want to try and figure it out for yourself. Since the goal of the game is to defeat enemies, you don’t have to explore much at all if you don’t want to. Each room can only hold two enemies at once, including the dripping slime. Only the first two or three enemies in a room drop items, so you might want to explore a little bit, but otherwise you can stick around in the same room and keep defeating enemies as they spawn. I like to explore until I find a better blaster, but it’s not strictly necessary. The trick to fighting Snotterpillers is to jump over them as they land, then you can follow them to the wall and blast them from behind. You can do this with the normal gun with slow, rhythmic firing; a better gun simply makes it easier. If you get a bad spawn point or start to get overwhelmed, just leave the room and try from a fresh one. If I get a room emptied out, I can usually take out a new Snotterpiller before the next one spawns. From there, it’s just repeating that consistently until you get the orb to finish the stage. It might be dull playing this way, but it is effective.

While Xenophobe is probably a challenging, more engaging game in the arcade, I found the NES port to be a bit underwhelming. The graphics in the game are decent. I like the character designs a lot. I think the backgrounds can get a little too busy at times, but there are some interesting looking rooms if you search around. Sunsoft doesn’t really do wrong in the music department, but here there’s only the title music and end-of-level music. During gameplay there are only ambient sounds of the space station along with standard sound effects. The controls are sometimes cumbersome to use. The floaty jumping is both a benefit for aiming at airborne targets and a hindrance for delaying your next shot if you miss. The gameplay would have been more fun if I had more of an objective than just defeating enemies over and over. It didn’t take long for me to figure out how to effectively kill enemies, and the game became a drag once I reached that point. Xenophobe is definitely not a bad game, but it’s not an essential game either.

Get ready to continue the adventure of your lifetime.

To Beat: Reach the ending
Played: 5/7/19 – 5/12/19
Difficulty: 4/10
My Difficulty: 4/10
My Video: Wall Street Kid Ending

Sometimes I wonder how a game gets greenlit as a concept and makes its way to store shelves. Wall Street Kid is pretty much exactly what it sounds like – a stock trading game. How did this game ever come to fruition? Why did someone think this was a good idea? Who is the target audience for this game? Kids probably aren’t interested in stock trading, and why would an adult play a game about a kid getting into the stock market? I don’t think I’ll ever understand how this game was made and put on an NES cartridge, but here we are. It’s a real game, I’ve played and beaten it, so now I get to share it with you.

The history of Wall Street Kid begins with The Money Game, an August 1988 Famicom title published and developed by SOFEL. It must have performed well because a sequel came out the following year. Money Game II: Kabutochou no Kiseki was released in Japan in December 1989. This game was localized in North America as Wall Street Kid. It was released on NES in June 1990. The game was also both developed and published by SOFEL.

You play the role of the Wall Street Kid in this game. Of course. You are set to inherit billions of dollars under the condition that you prove you know how to manage wealth and uphold the family’s standard of living. You start off with half a million dollars in seed money that you must invest in order to spend it on certain expensive items over the course of four months. Basically, you buy and sell stocks strategically to make a profit. There is an overarching story you follow that guides you through the purchases you are required to make and the life events you experience over those four months. If you meet all the requirements through that time frame, then you inherit the big money and win the game.

This game is set up as a point-and-click adventure game. The game begins on a Monday of the first week of April as shown as you sit at your desk. Just by sitting there, time slowly advances 15 minutes at a time. Your business day is from 9am-5pm. You can perform various interactions by moving a cursor around your desk and clicking on objects to do different things. Just move the D-pad around and press A to interact. At the top of the screen you see how much cash you have on hand as well as how much money your stock portfolio is worth. The lower part of the screen is for dialog that occurs when you receive phone calls or do some reading. Each interaction and event eat into a little bit of your allotted time. As soon as 5pm hits, you go straight to the next day.

Every day starts with reading the newspaper. You will want to pay close attention to the news as it gives you clues on how the stock market might perform. The paper tells you about where interest rates are moving, which types of stocks are poised to grow, which specific stocks have been hot lately, and other news about what is going on in the community. All this information is needed to help you make good decisions during your business day.

Most of the icons on your desk let you perform an action. I’ll start with the pink icons on the screen. The dollar icon lets you visit the bank. Ruth, the banker, lets you make loans or pay off loans. This option is not helpful right away because you cannot take out a loan without having collateral and you don’t have any because you haven’t made any big purchases yet. The question mark icon sends you over to the consultant Stanley. For a small fee, he will give you generic advice about stocks, how to purchase them, how to make decisions, etc. This might be nice to do once just to get a feel for how to play the game. The exclamation mark connects you to your advisor, Connie. If she has a hot stock tip for you this day, you can pay her some money to hear it. This tip may or may not be helpful to you and you may have to read into it a little bit to figure out if it is for real or not. Finally, the pink clock at the top lets you finish your day immediately.

There are two other factors you have to consider while playing the game. First, you have to keep up communication and go out on dates with your girlfriend, Prisila. Click the flower pot icon to choose between going on a picnic, going shopping, or going to the carnival. Each event takes up a few hours of your time. Secondly, you have to keep yourself in good physical shape by exercising. The icon you need looks like a small computer or cell phone, but evidently it is a barometer. Click the barometer to choose between swimming, hitting the gym, or going hiking. You have to keep up with both your girlfriend and your health regularly during the game, otherwise you may lose the game outright due to neglect. It’s not enough in this world just to earn money. You also need to consider what you read in the news to decide which activity to do.

The meat of the game is in stock trading which you can do from your desktop computer. From here you can buy or sell stocks, view your portfolio, and look up information on each available stock. Your portfolio view shows which stocks you own, their current price, starting price from when you purchased it, and how many lots of 1000 you own of that stock. You can only have up to five stocks in your portfolio, including multiple records of the same stock if you purchased them at different times. Selling stocks uses the same portfolio view so you can select which stock and how many lots you wish to sell.

When choosing to buy stocks or view stocks, you bring up a separate screen listing all twenty stocks available to purchase. Here you can see the company name, the current value, and the percentage change of the value of the stock since yesterday. You can tell the development team was really creative with their fictitious companies. Buying stocks is just like selling stocks where you choose the one you want and how many lots you want to buy. The game will calculate the maximum number you can purchase with your current cash. The information screen shows data about the company, the current stock value compared with its initial value from the very start of the game, and the category of stock. There are four stock categories: Blue chip, cyclical, growth, and speculative. There are five stocks in each category.

Very early in the game, you receive a phone call from a real estate agent that has the perfect house for you costing a million dollars. He will first call you to let you know the house is getting prepped for sale, then he calls you every week asking if you are ready to buy the house on Saturday. You can choose to accept early or you can keep putting it off a week at a time for a month until you get your last chance to buy. Use the business days Monday through Friday to do your stock trading so that you can earn money toward your big purchase. Sometimes you will get a call from Prisila asking you to buy her something on Saturday. There is no business on Saturday so that is the only thing you will do. For whatever you are buying, you get two different options in price and a third option to not buy at all. I always made sure to buy the most expensive thing. I imagine you can get away with not buying anything a couple of times but that it eventually affects your relationship, so you should try and give her the best as often as possible.

Sunday is reserved for giving you a password. I’m giving this special recognition here because this is a candidate for the worst password in any game I’ve ever played. Passwords are at least 40 characters long, usually mine were 42-43 characters long. The character set is awful. You have numbers 0-9, capital letters A-Z, and capital letters again from A-Z but in reverse colors. Normal letters are white text on black background while the others are white squares with black character text. There are also a couple of punctuation marks in that reverse color. It is truly terrible. Nowadays, since I use my camera to take a picture of the screen to save passwords, it is not that bad. Imagine trying to write that down on paper, though. There is a lot of room here to make a mistake with the password, both in writing it down and entering it in on the screen. You can hold Select and press either A or B to move the password cursor around in case you make a mistake, which will probably happen. On top of everything else, once you get the correct password entered, there is a long loading time for the game to start up. I get that there is a lot of data involved that needs to be parsed out of the password, but still this is a bad, error-prone system that could have been made a bit better with some better characters.

Once you get to where you are forced to decide on buying the house, one of two things will happen. If you don’t earn enough money or forget to cash in enough money to buy the house on that Saturday, you are scolded and scorned by family, and you get Game Over. The screen is locked here and you have to physically reset or power off. If you do have the money, then you get to buy the house and enjoy a little cutscene about your accomplishment. The game continues from here with another big purchase you have to make. Now you can go to the bank and get a loan against your new house, providing you with extra cash that you can invest smartly for the next thing. The game continues like this the rest of the way, though there are some special events like holidays and such that help break up the monotony a little bit.

This was my first time playing through Wall Street Kid. Point and click games like this are not my style and so I barely even tested this cart out when I bought it. I think this game was a $3 purchase from my local game store several years back. It is still a cheap cart and readily available online.

I did not get the hang of this game at first. I understand the concept of the stock market, that part is fine, but I had difficulty earning enough money for the house that initial month. First, I messed up by trying to buy the house one week earlier than was necessary. The way the game is written they make it seem like you need to buy the house before you miss your chance. I fell for that. Really you get four weeks no matter what. The other issue was that I was just not profitable enough. You need a million dollars but I always ended up in the $800,000-$900,000 range. I picked decent stocks and made some money but not the right ones to earn big. It took me several tries but eventually I figured out the trick. I had no trouble after that. One weird part later on is the auction scene. The way the auction is run and how you bid is not that clear. I ended up bidding against myself most of the time. Once I realized what I was doing, I put the password back in and tried again, only to end up with a higher winning bid once I played the auction straight. Maybe that part is random and I got unlucky the second time. I pushed forward and ended up winning the game from there anyway.

Here’s the big trick to beating this game without any trouble. Consider yourself warned in case you are spoiler sensitive. I am not completely sure if what I’m about to say is true, but it worked out this way for me. The stock market appears to be completely scripted. Stocks seem to rise and fall the same way on the same days. With this knowledge combined with the password system, it is easy to take advantage of the market. Run the game for a week and take note of the best stock, either by the stock tables or the newspaper’s hot stocks. If you already put all your money into the best stock already, great! Otherwise once you get to Sunday, reload your game from your old password and invest everything you can into the stock you noted was the best. In every case, that stock performed the same way and I maxed out on what I could possibly earn. If you take it one week at a time like this, you will make it. You can try and save yourself some time and make an educated guess on which stock will be the best earner that week. The newspaper tells you the two stock categories that should do well that week. I looked up all stocks and sorted them into categories. The cheapest stock of those categories is often the best earner, especially since you can buy more of them with your money.

I have a few more minor tips. Always take the bank loan when you can. The more cash you have on hand, the more you can earn! Just don’t forget to pay it back on time or you lose. You can pay off the loan and immediately get a new one too, no problem. Don’t forget to exercise and date your girlfriend every week. It might be a good idea to always buy the best item for Prisila on shopping Saturdays. I didn’t want to leave anything to chance, and I always had enough money for my big purchase anyway.

Wall Street Kid was a pretty interesting game, but I’m more happy now that it’s over than I was when I was playing it. The graphics are pretty good, even if most of the game is the same static screen and menus. The music was alright. The game controls very well. Everything is responsive and the simple controls almost always make sense. The gameplay is just simple point-and-click activity with menus. In this case, the game doesn’t do enough to vary the experience so the whole game kind of drags along. It’s not a lengthy game, but it is tedious to work through, especially entering in those awful passwords. Wall Street Kid is definitely a weird game to have on the NES. I’ll file it away as more of a curiosity than something that’s worth playing.