Neither Street Fighter nor Final Fight.

The real 2010 wasn’t this exciting.

To Beat: Reach the ending
Played: 10/15/20 – 10/18/20
Difficulty: 7/10
My Difficulty: 7/10
My Video: Street Fighter 2010: The Final Fight Longplay

Knowing what we know now about video games of the past, if you were to see the name Street Fighter 2010: The Final Fight without knowing anything about it, you might get pretty excited.  Street Fighter II and Final Fight are both among the greatest arcade games of their generation, so even under NES limitations, you would be right to expect something great.  Plus, it’s made by Capcom, the same developer for all three!  Well, we didn’t get some glorious NES adaptation of Street Fighter or Final Fight.  What we did get is a futuristic, sci-fi action platformer that ends up one of the more interesting NES titles, for better or worse.

Street Fighter 2010: The Final Fight was both developed and published by Capcom.  It first appeared on the Famicom in August 1990 under the slightly different name 2010 Street Fighter.  The game released on the NES just a month later in September 1990.  Of note, this game released after both Street Fighter and Final Fight in arcades, but before Street Fighter II, when the series exploded.  This game also released on 3DS Virtual Console in all regions in 2014 and also on Wii U Virtual Console in Japan and PAL regions in 2014, with an early 2015 release in North America.

In this game, you play the role of Ken, the greatest Street Fighter in the world.  Defeating all the best fighters in the world doesn’t leave Ken satisfied, so he pursues university studies in the field of Cybotics.  Along the way he befriends Troy, and the two of them invent something called cyboplasm.  In proper doses, this makes men very strong, even helping them stay alive long beyond their normal life span.  At the same time, others in society have perfected travel to distant worlds, though Ken has no interest in all that.  Except now he has to, for one day back at the lab, his cyboplasm was stolen and Troy was murdered.  Ken will avenge the death of his partner, having to defeat many super creatures along the way that have taken too much cyboplasm, which causes them to lose their minds.  This journey takes you across five planets with multiple levels each.  Clear all the levels to see the ending and beat this game.

This first fight is pretty tough just starting out.

This is a side-scrolling platformer game with rather complex movement and controls.  Ken can perform standard platformer movements.  Use the D-pad to walk around, jump with A, and attack with B.  Ken can cling to walls by moving into them while holding A, then he can press Up or Down to climb the walls.  Press away from the wall and jump to jump away.  He can jump down through certain floors by holding Down and pressing A.  When falling through a floor, if you hold Up you can grab onto the underside of the floor.  Continue to hold Up to pull yourself back up onto the ledge, or you may let go of the D-pad and just hang there.  Later you may press A to jump down from the hanging position.  Ken can perform all sorts of punches and kicks with the B button that throw out some sort of energy for a short distance.  Press B rapidly to do a flurry of quick punches, either facing left or right, or while holding Up.  If you hold either Left or Right, you can mash the B button to perform some longer distance attacks.  These always come in a combo, some of them curve downward or upward slightly.  Eventually they turn into kicks that attack at an upward diagonal before cycling back around to the punches again.  If you hold Down and mash B, you’ll perform the diagonal kick attacks first, then start throwing punches in the same cycle as above.  You definitely want to play around with it to get the feel for how it works and how the attacks move.  One more thing.  If you do a neutral jump straight up, then hold the opposite direction you’re facing, you’ll backflip.  When you are upside down in the backflip, you can attack to fire straight down, which is the only way to do so.

Each planet has multiple stages that are framed as one-on-one combat matches.  You’ll get a screen that say “Target vs. Ken” with an image of the enemy you need to take out in this stage.  The levels themselves can take many different forms.  There are single screen levels, scrolling levels, and autoscrolling levels.  Some areas are simply boss fights, some involve infinitely spawning enemies, and others are stages with a boss fight at the end.  Sometimes the target is just one enemy you need to defeat, and sometimes you have to defeat multiple target enemies to proceed.  The goal of each stage is to open up a portal to the next one.  Defeating the target produces some glowing energy that you touch to collect.  This fills up the Open bar at the bottom of the screen, and when it is completely filled up, the portal to the next level appears.  There is a normal stage timer during regular play that sets itself to 10 seconds whenever the portal is open, so you must move quickly to find the portal and enter in time to proceed.

Anticipate spending a lot of time climbing this.

There are items you can collect to help you power up.  Many stages have rocks that you can destroy, some of them hide powerups.  The most common one looks like a circle with a C in the middle.  This increases your power level half a segment.  Each segment of the power bar makes your attacks go a longer distance, but I’m not sure if attacks are more powerful or not.  I never got to full power at any time, but apparently your stronger shots look like spinning disks at full power.  There are some rare powerups that only appear in certain stages.   One is an orb that attaches to your back and deals damage to enemies that touch it.  Another gives you some sort of slash kick.  When you perform a backflip, your feet do damage to enemies on contact.  There are also some items that enemies drop.  Glowing orbs restore half a bar of health, and large glowing orbs restore two bars of health.  You can also get 1ups but they are uncommon.

Structurally, each planet has some sort of theme.  Planet 1 is mostly cityscapes, Planet 2 is jungle-like with lots of vines, Planet 3 is the desert planet, Planet 4 is the water planet, and Planet 5 is pretty much a space station.  Not all levels in each planet strictly follow the theme, but for the most part they make sense.  In between each planet are cutscenes that advance the story, showing where Ken is off to next, that sort of thing.

This is a pretty challenging game for a variety of reasons.  Most enemies and traps take one bar of damage out of the starting five.  Your health carries over from stage to stage, so you’ll often lose lives just from having low health to start a new area.  Health pickups from enemies seem to happen every four kills, which doesn’t help any in pure one-on-one fights.  When you die, you lose your entire power bar.  This is the main reason why I never was able to see what full power was like.  There are no mid-stage checkpoints in the game, and that includes the gauntlet in the final level.  The only aspects in your favor are that you get a health refill at the start of each planet, sub areas stay cleared when you move through the portals, and you get infinite continues.  

A … sanderfall?

This was my first time clearing this game, though I have played it before.  This was a rental way back in the day, and it is the only time I remember playing it up to now.  I seem to remember the final stage, though I’m probably getting my memories crossed up as that would be quite a feat for me as a rental.  I saw the AVGN review of the game a few years back, that’s probably the most of what I remember about this game.  I would consider this game a tad obscure, but it is relatively common from a collector perspective.  This was a $5-$10 game for quite a long time, and I see now it has crept up to around $15 for a loose cart.

This is the type of game that I can sit and grind out a victory in a few hours, depending on length and difficulty.  Street Fighter 2010 took me close to four hours to beat, over two nights.  The first night I worked on it for a couple of hours and got to the final planet before turning it off for the night.  I beat the game the next stream.  It took me about an hour to reach the final stage, then a full hour just to finish off the game.  That last area is no joke.  You have to clear three past bosses, one of those a double fight, and then the final boss, all on one life.  This is the only level where the timer is a major issue as well.  Thankfully I managed it.  As of this writing, it has been over 9 months since I beat the game for this blog.  I ended up replaying the game last week just to refresh myself, and I beat the game in about an hour and a half this time.  I’m honestly surprised I didn’t lose much skill on this.  It’s pretty hard to go back and beat old games that I haven’t touched in some time.  Maybe now I’ll be serious about getting caught up on these writings!

Street Fighter 2010 is a difficult, complex action game that’s not for everyone, but it is a technical showpiece for the console for sure.  The graphics in this game are really good looking.  There’s lots of detail in the backgrounds and enemy sprites, and good animations too.  There’s plenty of variety here as well.  Some levels scroll fluidly in all directions, and there is some split scrolling in some of the boss fights that can be tricky to pull off well on the console.  One autoscroller level drifts in an unorthodox pattern, similar to the airships in Super Mario Bros. 3.  The music is top notch, certainly with some of Capcom’s best composers hard at work.  The controls, while they let you accomplish a lot of moves, can get in the way of the action sometimes.  Clinging to walls, hanging off ledges, and swinging around pillars takes a fine touch, while those same obstacles can get in the way of you trying to avoid enemy attacks.  This is a game that is just as much about mastery of the player character as mastery of the levels and boss designs.  This game is often overlooked as far as Capcom games go, and I think in part that is because it is not as accessible as other games of this style.  And let’s be honest, naming it Street Fighter 2010: The Final Fight was not the best choice.  This game is derided just off the name, but there’s a quality experience here if you can wrap your head around it.

#168 – Street Fighter 2010: The Final Fight

It’s an outdated version of the long running TV quiz show!

Includes the iconic theme song!

To Beat: Win a single round
To Complete: Win a single round on the highest difficulty
What I Did: Completed the game
Played: 12/1/17 – 12/2/17
Difficulty: 2/10
My Difficulty: 2/10
Video: Jeopardy! Longplay

This is another one of these project milestones, as today I am covering the first game show game on the NES. Well, that’s only true if you don’t count American Gladiators, I suppose. Even at the time of the NES game release, Jeopardy! was already a popular, long-running TV game show. It is still going strong today and I doubt there is an end in sight. This NES game suffers solely because of its age as the questions and answers are now nearly 30 years old, but it holds true to the Jeopardy! formula we are familiar with.

Jeopardy! first appeared on NBC in 1964 as a daytime show. Merv Griffin is the show’s creator. The original version ran until early 1975, which slightly overlapped a brief nighttime syndicated version airing from 1974 to 1975. A new version called The All-New Jeopardy! aired on NBC for a few months during 1978 and 1979. The show would return for good in daily syndication beginning in September 1984. This is the version of the show that is still running today. Art Fleming hosted the first three runs of Jeopardy! with Don Pardo as the announcer for the first two runs and John Harlan for The All-New Jeopardy! The current run of Jeopardy! is hosted by Alex Trebek and announced by Johnny Gilbert. It has won 33 daytime Emmy Awards and is now in its 34th season.

There have been many video game adaptations of the show, ranging from the mid-1980s up to 2017. The first version was the 1987 release on Apple II, Commodore 64, and DOS. The NES has four distinct versions of Jeopardy! with the original release coming in September 1988. Jeopardy! Junior Edition released in October 1989 and Jeopardy! 25th Anniversary Edition followed in June 1990. Super Jeopardy! was the final NES release in September 1991. Rare developed and GameTek published all versions of Jeopardy! on the NES, and all were US exclusives. GameTek published most video game versions of the game show until they filed for bankruptcy in 1998.

The developers got the look and feel right.

Since the NES game follows the same flow as the TV show, it makes sense to cover a basic overview of how Jeopardy! is played. Three contestants play three rounds aiming to earn the most money to win. Clues are given as answers and the contestant must respond with the appropriate question to earn money. The winner, or champion, of the prior game of Jeopardy! returns to play again and can accumulate winnings over multiple shows for as long as he or she keeps winning. The returning champion sits on the left and begins each game by choosing the first clue.

In the first round, the main game board is filled with six categories of five clue each. Each clue is assigned a dollar amount representing a wager. The original run of Jeopardy! had values ranging from $10 to $50, and the current show ranges from $200 to $1000. Typically, the higher the value, the more difficult the clue. One contestant chooses the category and a dollar amount on the board, and the host reads the full answer. Then, contestants can buzz in and provide the question. Correct responses add the dollar amount to that person’s total, while incorrect responses take away the amount. Totals can dip into the negative. The contestant with the correct response may choose the next clue from the board, or if no one answers correctly then the original contestant may choose again. The round ends when all thirty clues have been given.

One clue hides a Daily Double. When a contestant chooses that clue, the Daily Double is announced and only that contestant may give a response. The player must provide a wager of his or her own choosing, ranging from $5 up to their current winnings. If a player doesn’t have any accrued winnings, he or she can choose from any wager remaining on the board. Then the clue is given and the contestant gets a brief time to respond. Dollar amounts are added or deducted just the same as in normal play. Finally, the contestant gets to choose the next clue for everyone to play.

The simple keyboard interface works well.

The second round is called Double Jeopardy! and it plays out the same way as the first round. Six new categories appear but this time the dollar values are doubled. The player with the lowest total from the prior round gets to choose the first clue. This round hides two Daily Doubles. Once all those clues have been given, then Final Jeopardy! is played. Only contestants with a positive score may play this round. Here only the category is given to start and players must wager a dollar amount of his or her choice from $0 up to their current winnings. Then the clue is revealed and each contestant writes down a response within a shared time limit. One at a time, each question is revealed and the wager is added for a correct response or deducted for an incorrect response. The player with the highest total wins the game.

The NES game begins by choosing the number of players. One to three players may compete with computer players filling in any open spots. Use the D-pad to choose and press either A or B to select how many human players will participate. Next, choose the Skill Level 1, 2, or 3. Then, one at a time, each player enters in a name up to six characters long. The D-pad scrolls the cursor and either A or B enters the character. The cursor may wrap around from any edge to the other side. Then a player character is displayed at the stand and the game asks if you want a new character. Choose Yes to swap in a different character as many times as you want, then choose No to lock that character in. The character selection repeats for all human players and is filled in automatically for computer players. Player 2 uses the second controller and Player 3 uses the first controller, if necessary. This holds true for the entire game.

The first round starts with six categories and dollar amounts ranging from $100 to $500. Player 1 gets to pick the first clue. Press Left or Right to select a category and press A or B to lock it in. Then use Up and Down to select the wager and press A or B. Next, the answer appears on screen along with a timer shown in the corner. Players can buzz in at any time. Player 1 must press any key on the D-pad on the first controller to buzz in. Player 2 does the same on the second controller, while Player 3 uses the A or B button on the first controller. I guess you have to set controllers on the floor or on a table when playing with three players.

This was when the match was going well for me.

When a player jumps in, the question entry screen appears. Inputting the question here is the same as entering in your name at the start of the game, but here there is a time limit for submitting your response. This is where the skill level comes into play. Skill level 1 gets 50 seconds, level 2 is 45 seconds, and level 3 is 40 seconds. These aren’t actually full seconds. Unless the skill level also makes computer players buzz in more quickly, the skill level doesn’t mean much at all. Anyway, you will enter in the response and then choose End to submit. You don’t have to phrase your response in the form of the question because the game handles it for you, which is convenient. Other players get a chance to buzz in if the wrong answer is given. Daily Doubles are also handled similarly where you can input the wager you want or choose from one of the preset wagers if you haven’t earned enough money.

Final Jeopardy! is handled a bit differently than the first two rounds. Normally, contestants all submit their wagers and responses at the same time by writing them down. To get around it here, each player submits their response and wager while the other players are asked to look away from the TV. Of course there’s the potential for cheating if players 2 and 3 aren’t honest, but there’s really no other way to do it on the NES. Once the final submissions are resolved and scores are tallied, someone is crowned the winner! The game goes back to the title screen from here.

I’m sure this was not my first time playing Jeopardy! on the NES. I mean, I don’t remember exactly. It’s not a long game and so I may have completed a full round or two just to see what it was like. I imagine this was the first time I won a game. I managed to beat Jeopardy! on my first time playing, though it took me three tries to win. In all games, I had a reasonable score but didn’t have the lead going into the last round. On the first try, I missed the final question, and on the second try I got it right but didn’t wager enough to win. I played better the third game and nailed the Final Jeopardy! round to claim victory.

Maybe you could figure out some of these clues. I couldn’t.

The clear problem with older versions of trivia games like this is that the information is outdated. Sure, there are general questions and answers that are more timeless in nature. It just seems like about half of the categories or clues have to do with musicians, movie stars, or TV personalities of that period, and most of that information isn’t common knowledge anymore. I just had to hope that the computer would miss or ignore the ones I couldn’t answer, while buzzing in quickly on ones I knew I could answer. I also needed to get a good enough mix of categories that catered more to my knowledge. Perhaps I came out a bit lucky to only need three attempts. As an NES game though, it’s an easy one and a relatively quick clear.

If you want to try out NES Jeopardy! for some reason, here are a few tips for success. Both first and last names are required when the clue is about a person. Spaces for multiple word submissions are not required, though spelling is pretty important to get right. For numbers, you can type out the word or just the digits. Be sure to give the plural form of the words if you are responding with “What are” instead of “What is.”

Those are all input related tips and are somewhat useful, but I do have a couple of more helpful trends I noticed about the computer players. Sometimes the computer will buzz in and get the question wrong, and when they do they will enter in gibberish. Their incorrect response is the same as the correct one only with most of the letters replaced by symbols, so from that you know both how long the correct response should be as well as some of the correct letters in the spelling. You can sometimes glean the correct solution from this, and it’s even better because the opponent also loses points from the wrong response that can help you get the right one. It’s also to your benefit to place a full Final Jeopardy! wager unless you have a commanding lead. Most rounds will be decided by Final Jeopardy! anyway and you have nothing to lose but time if it doesn’t pan out. If you have a really big lead, you can simply wager nothing and probably win. I never saw the computer place particularly large wagers anyway.

Jeopardy! on NES is a competently programmed game and a good adaptation of the popular show. You don’t need flashy graphics or presentation here, but what you get is more than good enough. It’s just nothing special, and it’s too bad that the outdated questions and answers make it even less fun to play now. It was an easy clear for me, and for that I am thankful and won’t complain. For anyone else though, I wouldn’t bother with it.

#64 – Jeopardy!

Two styles of gameplay collide in this legendary adventure!

A static title screen with some nice music!

To Beat: Reach the ending
To Complete: Beat both the main game and the special mode
What I Did: Completed the game
Played: 11/7/16 – 11/19/16
Difficulty: 4/10
My Difficulty: 4/10
Video: The Guardian Legend Special Mode Longplay

In 2012, Mike Matei of Cinemassacre published a now well-known YouTube video listing his top 10 obscure NES gems. The Guardian Legend is the first game I have covered that made his list. Now I won’t tell you exactly where this slotted in on the top 10, but most of the games on that list became instantly more popular overnight, including The Guardian Legend. So the game has a lot of hype surrounding it now, but does it live up to it?

The Guardian Legend was developed by Compile. They are pretty well known for developing shoot-em-up games. The game was first released on the Famicom in February 1988. There it was named Guardic Gaiden and it was published by Irem. The Guardian Legend was released on the NES in April 1989 and published by Broderbund. The game was later released in Europe in 1990 published by Nintendo. The box and label art are unique among all three versions of the game.

Much to my surprise, my research revealed that The Guardian Legend is actually a sequel. There was a trio of games released by Compile on the MSX computer in Japan. The first game was Final Justice which released in 1985 and plays similarly to Galaga. The second is Guardic released in 1986. In this game, each level is a static screen with enemies to shoot. You go to the next stage by flying upward into a scrolling section where you can decide which path and level you want to take next. The third game is Blaster Burn from 1990 which is a vertical scrolling shoot-em-up. The Guardian Legend is the sequel of the middle game Guardic.

There’s a lot going on even in the very beginning.

The Guardian Legend is a shoot-em-up game comprised of vertically scrolling shoot-em-up sections and top-down adventure sections. You play as the Guardian who can transform between a humanoid form and a spaceship form. The goal of the game is to destroy the planet Naju which is filled with monsters and set on a collision course toward Earth. Your mission is to explore the surface of the planet to locate corridors that are buried deep inside the planet. These corridors contain switches that can activate the self-destruct sequence when all of them are set.

The game begins inside the first corridor. Here the Guardian assumes her spaceship form and you play a vertical scrolling shoot-em-up stage. After clearing the stage, the Guardian switches back to her humanoid form and then you explore the surface of the planet from a top-down perspective searching for the next corridor. The game format resembles The Legend of Zelda in that you explore an overworld while looking for dungeons you need to clear.

The controls are pretty much the same in both perspectives. Use the D-Pad to move the Guardian in eight directions. The B button fires the standard weapon. In the shoot-em-up sections you can only fire upward but in the top-down portions you can shoot in any direction. Hold down the B button for a quite generous auto-fire. The A button is used to fire secondary weapons. You can pause the game by pressing Start and you press Select to open up the subscreen.

Information overload!

There is a lot of information available on the subscreen. The top portion of the subscreen contains the same information shown when you are playing and it is comprised of three rows. The top row shows your current score, the number of power chips you currently have, the number of shots for your secondary weapon, and which secondary weapon you have equipped. The middle row contains your health bar. The bottom row shows which area you are located and the X and Y coordinates of where you are located in the overworld. All of that is just the top part of the subscreen!

The left side of the subscreen shows the map. You can see your current location highlighted as well as the location of any reachable corridor. The right side of the subscreen shows which keys you have, the maximum number of chips you can have, your attack and defense power, the power level of the currently selected subweapon, and how many chips it takes to fire the current subweapon. The bottom of the subscreen shows all of the subweapons you have. Use the cursor to select which subweapon you want to equip.

The power chips are very important to your survival. They are the ammunition for your subweapons. Each subweapon uses up a certain number of chips for each time you fire it and you cannot use your subweapons if you run out of chips. The other important mechanic is that the chips also influence the firepower of your normal weapon. When you reach certain chip amounts your weapon will power up, but spending chips and falling below that amount will cause your weapon to downgrade. There is a balancing act between using your other weapons while also maintaining enough chips in reserve to have a more useful normal weapon.

It’s a tiny swarm of overworld enemies.

There are a ton of upgrades and items that you will encounter in the game. The most important items for making progress are the keys. As you explore you will find black circles on the ground next to walls that have some kind of symbol written on them. If you hold the key that matches the symbol, then you can stand on the circle and teleport to the adjacent room. The keys are found in the corridors and they allow access to new areas of the map. Each new area hides more corridors.

You will also gather subweapons. There are twelve unique subweapons and once you have one you can switch to it anytime you want via the subscreen. If you collect the same subweapon again you can upgrade it to a more powerful form. Each subweapon has three distinct power levels. These get really strong later in the game but they cost more chips to deploy. The subweapons have all kinds of different effects and patterns and they are a lot of fun to use. You can get grenades, a laser sword, circular shots, homing shots, and so on. If one of the enemies or bosses is giving you a lot of trouble, it is probably because you are not using the best subweapon for the job. Experiment to see which one is most useful for your situation.

Some items give you other types of permanent upgrades. The Blue Lander is a little creature that will increase your maximum health, and the Red Lander increases the maximum amount of power chips. The gun item increases your attack power, and the shield item increases your defense power. The item that looks like four upward arrows increases the rate of fire for your normal weapon. You can also find an energy tank that fills up your health to your current maximum. It’s worth pointing out here that you can also upgrade your maximum health by reaching certain score thresholds.

Look, a weapon lying on the ground!

Other items are found by defeating enemies. Sometimes when you kill an enemy a little explosion cloud will appear on the ground for a little while leaving behind a power-up block. Shoot the block to reveal the item. You can find a heart that will restore some of your health. The blue orb gives you 20 power chips and a tiny bit of health, and a red orb restores 500 power chips and a little more health than the blue orb. You can also find full energy tanks but they are more uncommon.

There are quite a few ways to find the upgrades and items. On the surface you can find shops where you can exchange power chips for a weapon or upgrade. Some screens contain mini bosses that hold an upgrades. When you walk into one of these screens an alarm will sound and all the screen exits will be blocked off forming an arena for the fight. These can be challenging but the reward is worth it. Some screens contain a powerup freely for the taking although it takes some maneuvering around the map to find them.

There are ten different areas spread out across the map that branch off of the hub area. Each one has its own theme such as a water area and forest area. Each area contains two corridors and they are numbered based on the current area number. Area 1 contains both Corridor 1 and Corridor 11, for example. Corridors 1-10 are required for clearing the game and each one of them is blocked off from entry. There is some kind of puzzle you need to solve to open up the gate. Exploring the area and talking with some Blue Landers will yield the answer for how to open the gate and access the corridor. The remaining Corridors 11-20 are optional but you get upgrades from clearing them that you probably will want.

One of many huge boss sprites!

The corridor stages can pose a challenge. Often they are teeming with enemies and there can be a lot going on at one time. The scrolling speed varies from crawling to crazy fast which can add to the excitement. Each stage ends in a fight with a huge, detailed boss that takes a lot of firepower to defeat. As mentioned before, choosing the right subweapon is critical to taking out the boss successfully.

All throughout the map you will find rooms with Blue Landers that will give you a password to save your progress. The passwords are really complex, consisting of 32 characters of capital and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols. The passwords do track all of the items you have acquired as well as your score, but the length and complexity is just too much. Thankfully in the smartphone era a simple picture works wonders for capturing it just right.

This was my first time playing through The Guardian Legend but I have quite a few random memories surrounding this game. Growing up it was one of those games I would often browse at the local video store but never rented. I ended up buying my first copy of the game for $5 during my honeymoon. A couple of years later I got big into NES collecting again and The Guardian Legend kept popping up for me. My local game store chain was slow to update their NES pricing and they sold it for $3 when it was at least a $10 game. I bought several copies of the game just to flip. (Yep, I’m one of those “evil” reseller types.) I even picked up a cheap copy on eBay a couple of years ago when I saw it. Then right before I started playing through the game for my blog, my grandmother came across a lot of NES stuff with yet another copy of The Guardian Legend. This one however was a nice condition complete in box copy that I am keeping!

Such colorful death bubbles!

It took me a little under two weeks to finish playing The Guardian Legend with my normal rate of playing. The game definitely has some meat to it with all the areas and corridors, but I managed to make progress at a good rate every time I played. I didn’t get stuck anywhere for too long and even the most difficult corridors only took a few attempts at most.

The Guardian Legend is extremely generous with powerups. The item drop rate isn’t terribly high, but there are so many enemies around to defeat that you will get powerups on constant rotation. The top-down segments, corridors, and even most boss fights provide you enough to keeping going as long as you are reasonably careful and employ smart subweapon usage. For this reason, I don’t think the game is that difficult overall, but there were a few tricky sections that caused me to give it a 4/10 difficulty rating. One of the recurring minibosses became a war of attrition every time I encountered it, and the final boss was pretty mean and took a few tries to beat. This is the kind of game where you consistently make progress, and you can keep attempting the tough parts until you get it right.

I already spoiled this a little bit, but in case you didn’t pick up on it or don’t want to know, now is the time to skip ahead to the next paragraph! Upon beating the game and sitting through the end credits, you are given a very short password “TGL.” You can use the password to play through a special mode of the game that consists only of the Corridor sections. The levels are identical to the regular game but the big change here is how you are awarded the powerups. After completing each corridor, you are taken to a special screen where you earn powerups for meeting specific score requirements. You can get as many as five powerups after each stage even if you score high enough to be awarded more. This mode shifts the focus on scoring as many points as you can. It is also more difficult than the regular game because the rollout of powerups is slower than in the normal mode. It’s a fun way to play through the game again and a fitting reward for beating the game.

The Guardian Legend handles many enemies pretty well.

There is a very good hack of the game called The Guardian Legend Secret Edition. This is a complete overhaul of the game containing a new overworld, new Corridor stages, new Corridor puzzles, and even some new bosses. The difficulty has also been cranked up quite a lot, but that is to be expected with a hack like this. I started playing through Secret Edition once I completed the game and I got about halfway through before I stopped playing. If you like The Guardian Legend then you will really like Secret Edition. I really need to get back to it and finish it for myself!

The Guardian Legend indeed lives up to the hype. This is a really good NES game that I enjoyed playing a lot. The game controls well, the graphics and music are really nice, the myriad of subweapons gives you a lot of variety and power, the boss fights are well made, and most importantly the game is simply fun to play. I certainly got hooked! The only negative in my mind is the long password system, but if that’s the only thing I can find wrong with the game then Compile did a whole lot more right. I recommended that you give this gem a try!

#37 – The Guardian Legend

You would think this game stinks, but it’s actually really fun!

It’s an ordinary title screen, but the introductory cutscene is really nice!

To Beat: Reach the ending
To Complete: Beat the game with each character
My Goal: Complete the game
What I Did: Completed the game
Played: 8/30/16 – 8/31/16
Difficulty: 5/10
My Difficulty: 5/10

This is one NES game that stands out almost completely because of its unfortunate name. It’s also known based on the high price tag a loose copy of the game commands. The going rate in October 2016 is around $120 for just the cart and with NES game prices showing no sign of slowing down that price likely will be outdated in a matter of months. S.C.A.T. fits the profile of a high value NES cart as it is both a late run title and a quality game.

S.C.A.T is interesting in that it has three different names depending on the region where it was released. The Famicom version is called Final Mission and it was released in June 1990. The game was localized for North America as S.C.A.T. in June 1991. The game was renamed once again to Action in New York for its European release sometime in 1992. The game was developed by Natsume and also published by Natsume in both Japan and the US. The publisher for Action in New York is Infogrames. I have found several claims that Action in New York was also released in Australia and published there by Konami, however I cannot find solid evidence to back up those claims. As far as releases go, S.C.A.T also saw Virtual Console releases on Wii, 3DS, and Wii U in both North America and PAL territories.

S.C.A.T is a side scrolling shoot-em-up. The story goes that aliens led by Vile Malmort are planning to invade Earth through an “Astrotube” connected to New York City and the Special Cybernetic Action Team (abbreviated of course as S.C.A.T.) was formed to combat this invasion. You play the role of one of two S.C.A.T members and you can choose either the blue clad Arnold or the red clad Sigourney. I’ll leave it to you to figure out how those character names may have been inspired! Both characters play the same so the choice is just cosmetic. This game has a two player simultaneous mode where controller #1 is Arnold and #2 is Sigourney.

This is my second shooter game with a man that flies around!

The game play feels reminiscent of Burai Fighter that I played earlier this year. The player sprites in both games are an armor-wearing human wearing a jetpack and the character can fly freely in eight directions. In both games the levels are auto scrolled and change direction periodically however the level is laid out. Here is where the games diverge somewhat, but this is the general idea of how both games play.

A unique feature of S.C.A.T. is the inclusion of two attack orbs that constantly swing back and forth in half circles, one above and the other below the player. The character’s primary weapon can only be fired either left or right, but the orbs fire their own shots in a wide range of directions both upward and downward depending on where they sit relative to the player. They can fire straight up or shoot at an angle either forward or backward. This is really useful for targeting enemies along walls and in hard to reach spots. Furthermore, the orbs can be locked in place at any time by pressing the A button. You will have to use good timing during combat to lock them to the angle you want. They can be unlocked by pressing A again, allowing them to resume their arcs. The key to success in S.C.A.T. is to get the hang of being able to lock the orbs in the optimal direction so that you can attack any threat in firing range.

There are item pickups that will help power up Arnold and Sigourney. These are represented by gray squares with a letter written on them. The L powerup changes the standard gun into a laser that can be auto-fired by holding the B button. It can cut through walls although not consistently so, limiting its usefulness. The W powerup is a wide beam that shoots a tall but powerful shot that can hit multiple targets just because the shot is so large. The B powerup is a bomb shot that generates an explosion on contact that can deal extended damage to stationary targets and anything that flies into the explosion. You can only have one of these weapons at once, so any other powerup will replace the current weapon. There are a couple of other non-weapon powerups. The S powerup increases the movement speed, and the R powerup restores two points of health.

Two player co-op is always an excellent feature.

You begin the game with six bars of health. When shot you lose a bar of health, so you are able to take some hits before being killed. However, you can be crushed by the stage hazards or pinned against the wall by the screen scrolling which is always instant death. If you die it is Game Over but you may continue at the start of the stage and there are infinite continues. The screen displays up to eight points of health but it is possible to get more than that with some good dodging and some health powerups.

S.C.A.T. has five levels each with a boss battle at the end:

Stage 1 is the New York City ruins. Despite the theme of a wrecked iconic city, this level is a good introductory level that is not too difficult so you can get the hang of positioning the orbs. The level winds around skyscrapers and such which demonstrates just how small you are. The end of the stage has you blowing up the core of a large battle tank.

This is one of many large scale bosses in the game.

Stage 2 is the Subterranean Realm. You wind through underground corridors and the enemy attack steps up a bit. One enemy of note is an excavation drone that sort of acts like an arm rising out of the ground that reaches out to you. When you destroy it the pieces fly outward that you also have to dodge. The boss is a large worm that winds around the screen and only its head is vulnerable. This boss happens to be very similar to the boss at the end of Stage 2 in Burai Fighter. It must be coincidence!

Stage 3 is the Astrotube. The level is mostly comprised of a very long vertical section where you fly up the Astrotube from New York up to the aliens. When you get settled into the tube the scrolling goes super fast for awhile and it’s a great effect. The boss I guess is some kind of large enemy base where you have to blow up all the weak spots that also fire away at you.

Stage 4 is the Battleship. To me this is the coolest level in the game. It takes place outside of this gigantic enemy dreadnaught and you fly around the outside of it while destroying all the cannons and enemy hatches that sit along the exterior of the ship. The boss appears to be the back engine of the ship and you need to destroy all of the cores.

This is just a tiny corner of this huge battleship.

Stage 5 is the Orbiting Platform. This level has a couple of nasty gimmicks that set it apart in difficulty from the rest of the game. There are diagonally oriented cannons that intermittently fire off very long laser beams. The shots reflect off of the walls so you have to be mindful of where they end up so you can sit in the safe spots. In some places they bounce several times before eventually landing off screen and in some spots there are more than one to work with at a time. There are also crushers that kind of slowly work their way up and down and you have to fly through when they leave you enough space. They don’t seem like much of a threat since they move slowly, but if you touch the end of them you die instantly. The final boss is Vile Malmort himself.

I mentioned earlier that S.C.A.T. is an expensive game and unfortunately for me it is one I had to pony up and pay retail price to acquire. This was one of the last games I needed to buy to finish off the licensed NES set and at that point stumbling into a copy for a great price was unlikely. I wish I had kept better collecting records, but for this game it turns out I gleaned some information out of some emails with a very good friend of mine. S.C.A.T. was the 12th to last licensed NES cart I bought for my set and I won it in an eBay auction for a little over $80 shipped in March 2015. That was a decent price at that time and in light of current pricing I can’t really complain.

The wide beam rips through enemies like butter!

S.C.A.T. was a new completion for me. As usual, I had not played it before aside from cart testing. I was aware of the game and I knew it would be one I would like. I wouldn’t say it’s an easy game, but I managed to beat the whole game on my first night with a few continues. I found out early on that the wide beam weapon is clearly the best weapon in the game. Not only does it cover a large area in its path but it also destroys larger enemies in less time than the other two weapons. It definitely helped me beat the game on the first night. I think the whole game took about an hour to finish and about half that time was spent on the final stage alone. Those lasers required some memorization to clear and the last boss is difficult to avoid taking damage. Other than that I found the game to be a romp, but it was fun while it lasted. The ending was pretty cheesy, and that is something I have noticed with a few NES games I’ve done already.

Now for a tiny little spoiler! After I beat the game I checked out the trusty NES Ending FAQ and it states that the ending varies a bit different depending on which character you play with. I figured since the game was short enough it wouldn’t be unreasonable to play through it again to see the other ending. The second time through S.C.A.T. I only died once on the final stage. I’m sure I clear it without dying pretty easily if I wanted to. Back to the endings, the FAQ says that the ending changes again if you beat it in two-player mode. So if you want to see everything you will have to beat the game three time in total. Since I play alone I am fine seeing just the two single player endings. I believe the differences are only in dialogue so it’s not like I missed out on much anyway.

The lasers are a real nuisance on top of the other enemy attacks.

There are some differences between the various versions of the game. The Famicom Final Mission has some significant differences than S.C.A.T. For starters, the game is much harder on Famicom than NES. You start with only three health instead of six, and taking damage causes you to lose your weapon back to the default. S.C.A.T. lets you keep your powerup until either you die or grab a new one. The orb shots are much weaker and they do not automatically orbit the player. Instead you have to aim them by press A and inching either left or right. When you do that they slide behind you a bit and that’s how you set the aim. Press A again to lock them into place just like in S.C.A.T. Final Mission does not show the map screen in between levels like S.C.A.T. does, and Final Mission has both playable characters as men instead of having both male and female players. Finally the introductory cutscenes are different. The ones in Final Mission are much darker as they show the annihilation of New York.

The changes between S.C.A.T. and Action in New York are minor. The characters were renamed Silver Man and Spark, and the team is called S.A.T. instead of S.C.A.T. The title screen was also changed obviously. Other than that the game play is the same as the US version.

S.C.A.T. would be an easy game to recommend if it weren’t for the high price tag. Thankfully it is still on Virtual Console as that version is much more affordable. If you like shoot-em-ups then you will like this game. The graphics, sound, and gameplay are top notch, the difficulty is fair, and you can even play through it with a friend if you are inclined. I just wish they had picked a better name for the US release!

#27 – S.C.A.T.: Special Cybernetic Action Team