Have a Yabba-Dabba-Do time!

To Beat: Reach the ending
Played: 5/18/21 – 5/24/21
Difficulty: 5/10
My Difficulty: 5/10
My Video: The Flintstones: The Rescue of Dino and Hoppy Longplay

When you mention The Flintstones to someone who knows a lot about the NES, specifically the collecting side, they don’t think much about the cartoon, or Fred and Wilma, or Hanna Barbera, nothing like that.  Minds go straight to The Flintstones: The Surprise at Dinosaur Peak.  If you don’t know, it’s the hardest to find licensed NES game aside from Stadium Events.  The collector will either be smug about owning a copy (I try not to be this way!) or go on some long monologue about how collecting old games shouldn’t be so expensive and all that.  But Surprise at Dinosaur Peak is not what we’re here to talk about today, for there was an earlier Flintstones NES game that is much more affordable, and also a pretty decent game in its own right.

The Flintstones is an animated sitcom that premiered on ABC in September 1960.  The cartoon ran through April 1966, spanning 6 seasons and 166 episodes.  It was the longest running and most successful animated series until it was dethroned by The Simpsons all the way back in 1997, which is still going strong today.  Despite its apparent success, The Flintstones was not well received by critics at the time, only catching on as a classic through repeated reruns over several decades.  The series and characters have been featured in numerous spin-offs, films, TV specials, and all kinds of other media, on a consistent basis since release.

The Flintstones have appeared in several video games, even pre-dating the NES entries.  The first Flintstones game was called Yabba Dabba Doo! and it was a European only release on a few different computers in 1986.  There were a couple more Flintstones games that appeared on personal computers before they started to come to consoles.  The first console Flintstones game is the one we are covering today.  The Flintstones: The Rescue of Dino and Hoppy was developed and published by Taito, releasing first on the NES in North America in December 1991.  It was subsequently released in Europe, Japan, and Australia in 1992.  Mattel was the publisher for the Australian release.  Sol Corporation is also credited as a developer on this game, but not much information is known about their development credits so we cannot say for sure.

The plot of the game is simple and almost completely evident from the game’s title.  The Flintstone family was hanging out with their neighbors, the Rubbles, and their alien friend Gazoo.  Suddenly, a time machine appeared that was piloted by Dr. Butler.  He is from the 30th century and preparing a zoo full of prehistoric creatures, and so he kidnaps the families’ pets Dino and Hoppy.  Not only that, but on the way out he destroys Gazoo’s time machine so they cannot follow him, scattering the parts all over.  It is up to Fred Flintstone to collect the pieces over several platforming stages in order to rebuild the time machine and travel to the future to rescue Dino and Hoppy.

As soon as you finish the opening cutscene, you’re jumping right into the platforming.  Move Fred around with the D-pad.  Press the A button to jump.  Fred can grab onto ledges and pull himself up to get to higher ground.  Press and hold the A button while at the edge of a ledge to grab on.  If you release A, Fred lets go quickly, but if you press and hold Up while continuing to hold A, Fred slowly pulls himself up the ledge.  The B button swings Fred’s club.  This is a short range attack to bop enemies.  Also, you can hold the B button down to charge up a swing, then let go to bash even harder.  There are secondary weapons you can find along the way, and you use them by holding Up and pressing B.  The Select button cycles through the secondary weapons, while Start both pauses the game and summons Gazoo to help out with some other special abilities.

The display at the bottom of the screen tells you all you need to know.  Fred’s lives and current health are on the left side of the display.  On the right side you have the power meter, which grows while Fred is charging a club attack.  Below that on the bottom right are the number of coins.  These are spent as Fred uses his special weapons, so you’ll want to have enough of these for tougher encounters.  In the middle of the display is a square that shows which secondary weapon Fred has selected.

Fred also collects various weapons and items throughout the stages.  Defeating enemies cause coins to drop so you can stock up on cash.  The other items are found in barrels or crates.  The heart item restores all of Fred’s health points.  The cactus cooler, which looks like a log with spikes out the top, extends Fred’s maximum health by one heart.  The bronto burger extends the maximum length of the power meter for stronger hits on the bad guys.  The 1up item in this game has Fred’s head on it.  In the barrels you also uncover the secondary weapons.  The stone axe costs 3 coins per use, and it travels in an arc much like the axe from Castlevania.  The slingshot is a simple projectile attack that also costs 3 coins.  You need 10 coins to wield the boomasaurus egg.  It is akin to a time bomb that damages enemies in a wide range.

Another fun thing you can do is play the basketball mini-game.  After clearing the first stage you are brought to the world map. Some of the areas on the map are the basketball stages. Your opponent, Hard-Head Harry, has some useful tools for you as long as you can best him in a match first.  Each match lasts only one minute, and you earn two points for every basket made.  When Fred has the ball, you can jump with A, then press B at the top of the jump to throw the ball.  The baskets are the mouths of giant birds that can open and close at will, a fun visual gag the likes of which you’d see in an episode of the show.  On defense, you can press B to do a body bash and try to knock the ball away from Harry.  You have to outscore Harry outright to win, no ties allowed.

Defeating Harry on the court unlocks one of three special powers that you can utilize in the platforming stages.  Press Start to summon Gazoo, then select the power.  The Jump power summons a giant Hoppasaurus that can take one mighty leap before leaving the scene.  The Fly power gives Fred bird wings allowing him to fly until landing.  The Swim power dons a snorkel and flippers to swim more effectively in water.  These abilities cost coins to use but can be very helpful in some situations.

This was my first time playing through The Flintstones: The Rescue of Dino and Hoppy.  This game is a bit uncommon, but not super hard to find.  I’ve only had one copy that I picked up in a lot.  For a couple of months back in 2008 or 2009, I started buying a few specific NES games and bidding on bulk lots on eBay.  After a few auction wins, I already started to get overwhelmed with the extra games and duplicates, so I stopped doing that.  I do remember that I got this game and Metal Storm in the same lot, and those games were cheap back then, so I made out very well in the long term.  Anyway, I’m not even sure if I tried the game back then or not, I just shuffled it into my collection.

If you haven’t been paying attention to the dates, I’ll point out that I have criminally fallen behind on posting these reviews.  Here almost two and a half years late I’m finally getting around to it!  Writing is going to be a bit of a struggle to try and recap something from so long ago, but where I can I’ll attempt a replay to catch back up.  Maybe it will help the thoughts crystallize somewhat, or it will make the game feel brand new again.  Who knows?

Back in 2021, I was able to beat this without too much trouble.  I had to continue once or twice, but it has unlimited continues so no issue there.  The final stage and final boss are the trickiest parts, but a few attempts was all it took.  In my recent replay, I felt like I had a harder time beating this than I did before.  I needed several continues in the mid and late game, especially that final stage.  Beating the final boss went better than I thought, but also felt a bit like I got lucky with dealing a bunch of damage while not caring about Fred’s own health, and surviving just long enough to finish.  The little bit I remembered from playing this back in 2021 helped a lot in that respect. Anyway, I do not think a fourth playthrough is in order, that’s enough Flintstones, it’s time to move on!

The Flintstones: The Rescue of Dino and Hoppy is your typical average NES platformer.  Graphically, the game is quite appealing.  The characters are all drawn well and are recognizable even as tiny sprites.  The environments are varied, with different levels themes and gameplay tweaks sprinkled throughout.  The transformations, while seldom used, add an extra element to help get through certain sections.  The music overall is pretty good as well, with the familiar Flintstones theme done well, along with others.  There was nothing here that was particularly catchy or an earworm, but solid anyway.  The gameplay is a tad bit weaker.  The controls and movement feel just a bit sluggish, while some enemies are much more mobile and difficult to handle.  Fred’s club range is shorter than you would expect, and when charging up the club there’s really no clue how much damage you’re actually dealing.  On the other hand, grabbing a ledge to climb feels more generous and is used often in the level design to good effect.  The Flintstones is somewhat of a mixed bag but is generally a good game.  I’m excited to see what the expensive sequel has in store.

And we’ll all float on okay.

To Beat: Defeat the final boss
To Complete: Get the true ending
What I Did: Completed the game
Played: 10/4/20 – 10/7/20
Difficulty: 4/10
My Difficulty: 4/10
My Video: Bubble Bobble Longplay

The “clear ‘em up” is a game subgenre that I have heard of in passing but has not stuck as any sort of general gaming term.  With a little explanation, I can get it to make sense.  Clear ‘em up refers to a single screen action platformer where the object is to clear out all the enemies in the stage before moving on to the next.  These games at one time were really prominent in the arcades, and I think they hold up as an ideal arcade experience.  These are simple games that you can look at and understand easily, often with very colorful, eye catching graphics and tons of powerups and collectables.  They are fun games that can ramp up in difficulty quickly enough to convince you to pop in more quarters and keep going.  I really enjoyed playing Snow Brothers a few years back, but now it’s time to get to the most well known game of this style that certainly inspired many others after it.

Bubble Bobble was first an arcade release in 1986, developed by Taito.  The game was designed by Fukio Mitsuji.  He wanted to make a game that would appeal to everyone, particularly women.  Therefore, he put focus on bubbles as a core gameplay component as something that he thought would be appealing, as well as two-player cooperative play as a way to engage couples to play together.  The game was a big hit for Taito and was widely ported to many computers and consoles.  Bubble Bobble would go on to have around 20 sequels as well as an entire side series, Puzzle Bobble.  The NES version began in Japan on the Famicom Disk System, released in October 1987.  The North American NES port was released in November 1988, and the PAL version came out in October 1990.  All these versions were developed and published by Taito.

The story of this game follows two brothers, Bubby and Bobby. The evil Baron Von Blubba has kidnapped their girlfriends and transformed the brothers into bubble-blowing dinosaurs named Bub and Bob.  To rescue them, they must go 100 levels deep into the Cave of Monsters.  The NES manual tells a slightly different story for this port of the game.  Bub and Bob are already dinosaurs and must rescue two friends who were captured by Baron Von Blubba.

The gameplay loop is Bubble Bobble is simple.  Like the arcade version you can play alone or with a friend.  Both players control identically.  Bub can walk around with the D-pad.  You press A to jump and press B to blow bubbles.  The idea is that you blow a bubble at an enemy, trapping it inside.  You then pop the bubble to defeat the enemy.  You can jump up into the bubble, fall through the bubble, shove it again the wall, or simply run through it.  You just need to apply enough force to pop it, otherwise you push it around.  If a bubble is popped, any bubble it touches is also popped, chain reaction style.  If you clear multiple enemies in this way, you get a nice score bonus that scales up with how many enemies you kill at once.  When all enemies are defeated, there is a short delay before you proceed via bubble to the next stage.

The bubbles also afford you some movement options.  By holding down the A button, you will bounce off of any bubble in the stage.  This is most easily done from above, but you can also jump up against the side of a bubble if you can get just slightly above it.  You can use this bubble riding technique to reach higher ledges or escape enemies in some situations.  Every level has these invisible currents in the open spaces that push the bubbles in some direction.  Throwing bubbles all over the place (and you can throw a lot of them, go crazy!) will help reveal the currents and help you route the stage.

The walls also have some interesting properties in this game.  Each stage layout consists of only open spaces and solid tiles.  A lot of times enemies appear to be trapped inside the walls, but they are reachable.  The wall tiles are solid in every direction except from underneath, so that you can jump up and through the floor.  But once part of you is inside the wall, then you can pass through any consecutive wall tiles freely.  From there, any open spaces make adjacent walls solid again.  This is a tricky explanation that probably doesn’t make much sense, but it is easy to grasp when you actually play the game.  It’s both complicated and intuitive.

There are many different enemies in this game.  They have different names depending on where you look, but for this review I’ll use the names listed in the NES manual.

Bubble Buster: Basic enemy that appears in the first stage.  They walk slowly.  Sometimes they stop and jump up, catch the ledge above them if there is one.  This is the basic enemy movement that is shared with several other enemies.

Stoner: This is a white hooded enemy that looks like a ghost.  He moves similar to Bubble Buster.  Sometimes he will toss out a slow, indestructible rock at you, so you don’t want to spend too much time on his level.

Beluga:  Kind of looks like a beluga whale if you squint hard enough.  This enemy flies through the level at diagonals, bouncing off any walls in his path.

Hullaballoon:  This floating enemy sort of resembles a balloon, I guess.  This enemy bounces off of walls like the Beluga, opting for greater horizontal movement than vertical movement.

Coiley: An enemy with a spring bottom, Coiley moves in forward hops.  He is a faster moving enemy than most.

Incendo:  Looks like a rock with a face.  Incendo has the standard movement pattern but will fire a quick moving fireball at you.

Willy Whistle:  Another standard walking enemy.  This one throws a bottle at you with boomerang action and will throw his bottle rather quickly if you cross his path.

Super Socket: This enemy is called Invader in other regions and understand why when you see it.  This enemy only walks, no jumping, and he fires a downward laser shot at a consistent rhythm.

Baron von Blubba: This enemy is shaped like Beluga and only appears when you have been in a stage for too long.  You’ll get a “Hurry!” message first, followed soon after by the Baron’s ominous arrival tune.  Baron von Blubba is invincible and moves orthongonally toward your position through walls in short spurts until either he catches you or you defeat all the enemies.

This game is also known for the wide variety of items and powerups.  Simply defeating enemies cause them to get knocked away dramatically until they land and turn into a food item.  Beating enemies in a combo turns each enemy into progressively better and better food items, from a points perspective.  There are many, many other items that appear throughout the game, too many to list.  Evidently, all of them have some sort of condition that triggers them, stuff that you will do naturally through gameplay but are not tracked in any visible way so that it feels random.  Some examples of items are candy that enhances your bubbles, shoes that increase your running speed, umbrellas that warp you several levels ahead, crosses that give you various screen clearing capabilities, and many more.  There are also gobs of items that just give you points, like food, gems, crystals, etc.

Some stages also have attack bubbles in them.  There are three kinds of attack bubbles.  The blue water bubbles when popped drop a small stream of water that flows down through the bottom of the screen, defeating any enemy it touches, leaving a nice point item behind.  The red fire bubbles that look like they have balloons on them drop a flame that covers the ground in flames for a short while.  These flames kill enemies but stun you a bit, preventing you from jumping and causing you to walk slowly while touching them.  Green lightning bubbles fire a bolt of lightning across the screen in the opposite direction you are facing.  When enemies are placed in hard-to-reach spots, these attack bubbles are most useful.

Another thing you will see are letter bubbles.  These are triggered by combos of three or more enemies.  They can only appear on stages with an open top or bottom as that is how they enter the screen, but they will queue up for later stages in you spawn them in an area they cannot enter.  There are also powerups that can cause these to appear.  Pop these bubbles to add the printed letter to your side of the screen.  The goal is to spell out EXTEND which, when all collected, ends the current level immediately and gives you an extra life!

Once you reach stage 100, you come across the boss.  In the manual he is named Grumple Grommit, though I have always heard him referred to as Super Drunk.  This is a very large enemy that looks like a Willy Whistle but moves like a Beluga.  He also shoots a spread of bottles ahead of him periodically.  The boss is too big to capture in a bubble on your own.  At the top of the stage is a lightning potion that turns your bubbles into lightning bubbles.  The level counter at the top of the screen becomes the boss’s health meter.  Run his health out to enclose him inside a bubble, then pop it to defeat the boss, but what happens next you’ll have to read about in the spoiler section later on.

At the start of the game, you are given two extra lives per player.  One way to earn extra lives is by meeting these point thresholds: 30,000, 100,000, 200,000, 400,000, and 1,000,000.  The EXTEND bubbles also give you an extra life, as well as a rare item.  When you run out of lives, if you are playing two player and the other player has lives remaining, they can gift you a life to get you back into the game.  When all lives are lost, it is Game Over.  There are passwords for each stage in the game.  The passwords are five letters long, only characters A-J.  The only downside to Game Over is that your score resets to 0, if you care about such things.

Bubble Bobble was one of my childhood games.  We had picked it up used at some point, not sure where.  I do remember reading about this game a lot in old gaming magazines, and I’m sure that was what prompted us to search this one out.  It is a common enough game that we may have grabbed it at a yard sale or something.  It will forever be a mystery.  I do recall that I liked this game enough to search out its sequels: Rainbow Islands and Bubble Bobble Part 2.  I was able to get the former but not the latter.  Bubble Bobble has hovered around a $20 price point for many years now.  I know I sold a couple of extra copies for about that much a few years ago back.

Now it’s time to dive into spoiler territory about how this game ends.  Playing straight through to the boss and defeating him gives you the bad ending and the following text: “This is not a true ending! Take the magical crystal ball.  And you will find the door to secret road!”  This is in reference to Level 99 just before this.  If you read the manual, it discloses a secret in Level 99 as well.  In that stage there is a crystal ball that appears on the right side.  Grab it to open a secret door hidden behind an enemy boxed off in the low part of the screen.  You enter that door to proceed to stage A0, the true stage 100.  The door is meant to be entered using both players, one to grab the crystal and the other to go through the door, as the items only appear for a short time.  It is tough but possible to do it solo, which is what I did.  After this sequence, levels proceed on as normal, A0-A9 and B0-B2.  Following that is the same boss fight as before.  Defeat him this time, and you get something a little different.  You float over to the left and your girlfriends break free and float to the bottom, but they disappear in a puff of smoke.  You see this text displayed: “This is not a true ending! Try again with your friend.” The trick here is that you are supposed to beat the boss with two players.  Since you are saving two friends shown on screen, it does make some sense.  However, you can do this with one player as well.  Pressing Select when paused brings the second player in, even on one-player mode, if you have a life to spare.  You bubble up the boss, bring your partner in, and pop the boss bubble to trigger the Happy End.  But we aren’t quite done here, as the ending scrawl states that “your adventure is not over yet.”  You are given a password that begins an entirely new quest from the beginning.

Super Bubble Bobble is the name of this game’s second quest.  There aren’t that many changes between this and the normal game.  The level layouts are exactly the same, but the level palettes and block styles are changed.  The biggest difference is that some of the enemies are swapped around.  I had thought it was as simple as exchanging one enemy for another throughout all levels of the game, but looking deeper at individual levels, I couldn’t find any consistent pattern.  It simply depends on the stage for what enemy mix you get.  Generally, weaker enemies are replaced with stronger ones, while some levels contain easier enemies than their normal mode counterparts.  Overall, I’d say Super Bubble Bobble is only slightly more challenging as a whole.  To get the true ending, you need to follow the same beats at the normal game: Get the crystal in 99, enter the secret door, and defeat the boss in B3 with two players active. This time Super Drunk has 80 health instead of 60, but the fight stays the same.  When you defeat Super Drunk in the normal mode, he falls away typical of any Bubble Bobble bad guy.  In Super mode, he explodes in a puff of smoke when popped, and Bub and Bob’s mama and papa appear.  The true ending features a bonus screen of all characters with their non-localized names, a nice little treat.

Here’s a small bit of minutia about this game and its endings.  I had read about there being four endings, but I could only trigger three of them easily, the missing one being the alternate bad ending.  In normal mode only, if you continue with a password beyond Stage 99, the game gives you the “get the crystal ball” bad ending instead of the “try again with a friend” bad ending.  I tried a few different passwords but all gave the same result.  I then took a password to Stage 99, went through the door, and beat the boss one player in Room B3, and that time I got the proper “try again with a friend” ending that I would have expected.  Super Bubble Bobble does not have this same effect; I always get the “try again with a friend” ending from any password I tried past Level 99.  I think this is some kind of bug or omission in the game programming.  Unless you play straight through, I can see where this might have led to some confusion on how to get the better endings.

The NES port of this game is a solid home conversion, but there are several differences from the arcade version.  The NES version omits many point-bearing items from the arcade version but introduces a few new ones to make up for it.  Some levels were changed while others were added to the NES version.  Of course, this game has a password system that the arcade version understandably lacks.  The arcade version also includes secret rooms accessible by reaching certain areas without losing any lives up to that point.  These secret rooms have encoded messages for players to decipher that explain the conditions for getting the true ending, including a secret code to start the game in Super Bubble Bobble mode.  Perhaps the definitive version of this game is on Sega Master System, released in Japan as Final Bubble Bobble and Europe as simply Bubble Bobble.  This game is a set of 200 levels with no Super Bubble Bobble mode, but the biggest change is that this game has secret rooms that contain special items that are required for the best ending.  There are special conditions to trigger these rooms and I presume they are difficult to find.  The Japanese version contained hints as to the whereabouts of these rooms, but those were omitted from the European version, making it that much harder to finish.  I am definitely going to check this game out someday on my own.

I would say that Bubble Bobble on NES is one of those essential games to have in any collection.  Now I’ll be the first to admit that the presentation is a bit lacking.  This game has simple graphics and really just the one song that plays over almost the entire game.  I like the song though I know it can be a nuisance.  The controls are solid and responsive but take some getting used to.  Your jump works better in the vertical than it does horizontally, making movement across some stages challenging.  This is amplified by the fluidity in which you can enter and exit from walls.  I find the gameplay loop very satisfying.  Though the action stays largely the same, the level layouts do enough to change things up in small ways.  The vast breadth of items you can collect is really fun, and sometimes you get an item you’ve never seen before that has drastic effects on the stage, sometimes outright clearing it for you. Those moments of discovery are pretty cool.  This game is an excellent two-player game that is very beginner friendly.  The game also has depth for the player who wants challenge in seeking out the true ending.  Bubble Bobble is the main reason why I find this weird subgenre of games so enjoyable.

A somewhat more pleasant Indiana Jones game this time.

To Beat: Reach the ending
To Complete: Finish all levels and get the best ending
What I Did: Completed the game
Played: 2/29/20 – 3/7/20
Difficulty: 5/10
My Difficulty: 5/10
My Video: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Taito) Longplay

I have seen all of the Indiana Jones movies, even the fourth one that everyone seems to want to forget ever happened.  I watched them all just once, all in a row, probably 10 years ago or more by now.  It was so long ago that I forgot pretty much everything from any of the movies, but not so long ago that I remembered that I enjoyed this one the most.  That seems to fall in line with the consensus of the series.  This movie had to have been well loved because the NES ended up with two video game adaptations of the movie, both bearing the name of the film.  These aren’t just label variants, but two completely different games.  They are distinguished by the publisher, so this game is considered the Taito version and the other is the Ubisoft version.  While the comparison between those two may be more interesting, I can safely say I enjoyed this one more than Temple of Doom, at least.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is the third movie in the Indiana Jones saga, releasing in May 1989.  It was a huge success, grossing nearly $500 million.  The film was directed by Steven Spielberg and was co-written by George Lucas.  There were three games based on the film.  One was a graphical adventure game by LucasArts for home computers.  Another was a more action based game that launched the same year for home computers.  This was the version that was eventually ported to the NES as the Ubisoft version.  The third game, the one I played for this review, was an NES-exclusive game that released in March 1991.  It was developed by Software Creations and published by Taito Corporation.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the Taito version, is a side-scrolling platformer that loosely follows the plot of the film.  You play the role of Indiana Jones in his quest to find the holy grail.  The game is played out via multiple scenes, leading up to the final scene in the lost temple where Indy chooses the holy grail.  There are cutscenes in between the levels to advance the story and set up future events.  What makes this game interesting is that you can choose which stages you want to play.  Furthermore, the more stages you complete, the more difficult later stages will become.  You can opt to play the minimum amount and skip straight ahead to the final stage.  A regular ending done that way will do for this game, but I achieved the best ending for beating all the stages.

Considering that there are different stages made available at different times, I’ll cover the stages in the same order I chose for my playthrough, beginning with the search for the Cross of Coronado.  This stage takes place on a ship with a bunch of enemy sailors that you’ll need to fight off.  The captain of the ship carries the cross and you need to make your way over to the left side of the ship to reach him, fighting off the other baddies along the way.  At the top of the screen you’ll see your health bar, number of lives remaining represented as grail icons, and a number of sailors left to defeat before the captain shows up.  Even though the captain may be outside ready for a fight, you might have to beat up extra sailors to reach him.  This mission goes away for good if you complete two other missions ahead of it, so I like to do this one first.  At the start you have to fight 15 sailors, but if you choose this mission second then you have to fight through 30 sailors.  The game is over if you lose this mission.

The controls for Indy on this ship are shared with some other missions.  They are also the most complex out of all the missions.  You move Indy around with the D-pad.  You can double tap either Left or Right to run in that direction, holding down the directional button on the second press to continue running.  When standing or walking, the A button does a kick attack while the B button punches.  Run and press A to perform a flying kick.  Indy can get his whip out or put it away with Select, which replaces his punch attack.  Indy can duck by holding Down, and you can do low punches, whips, or kicks.  You can climb Up and Down ladders, and even kick enemies from ladders, but this leaves you vulnerable to being knocked off the ship entirely.  Indy has two more attacks.  He can throw a haymaker by holding Up and pressing B and do a jump kick by holding Up and pressing A.  The fighting in this game does not feel very good.  It seems random how you fare when fighting enemies.  Sometimes you land a good hit and knock the bad guys out right away, other times you land a bunch of hits that don’t seem to do anything.  I had the most success with the flying kick, which the manual itself mentions is best.

The next thing that happens in the story is Indy gets a telegraph stating that both his father is being held captive and his family friend Marcus is missing, so now you have three options for your next stage. I picked going to Castle Brunwald to save Indy’s father.  Indy is controlled in this area the same as on the ship, identical moves and all.  Only this time, you are in a giant maze.  This is a really cumbersome area to figure out.  There are doorways all over this place, some leading into other layers of the castle and some leading to staircases to bring you up and down.  The castle is three floors high and five layers deep, but you only see one layer and two floors at one time.  There are notches on the floors in groups of one through five that indicate which layer you are on, and every floor has its own shield displayed on the wall.  But essentially you are navigating in 3D space, and so this area is pretty difficult to clear.  Making matters worse is that in later difficulty levels some doors are locked.  In that case, there are some hidden passageways revealed by whipping torches on the wall.  The route through the castle is very different per difficulty level.  I had a tough time getting the hang of it on later levels, so I opted to do this one earlier.

From here you have found about where the grail is located, so now you can skip ahead to the final area if you want, but you will have a hard time without knowing what the grail looks like.  So next I went to Venice to the catacombs where a scrambled photo of the grail is found.  However, fire is raging through so you must put the pieces together and get out in time.  This stage is a sliding puzzle level.  There is a 5×5 set of tiles and you move a hand cursor with the D-pad.  Press A or B to slide either a single piece or part of a row or column toward the empty square across from the hand.  While you are constructing the grail photo, a scene below shows the fire catching up to you.  You need to complete the puzzle as best as you can, then escape by pressing Select.  In the following cutscene you will see either a full or partial picture of the grail depending on how much of it you pieced together.  You need this information to pick the proper grail at the end of the game.  You still survive if you don’t leave in time, but you lose the picture and will have to remember what the grail will look like when you make it to the end.  In later difficulties, the puzzle time is shorter and the puzzle gets more scrambled.

The final stage before the end is in the Desert of Iskenderun.  This time you are on top of a tank fighting off enemy soldiers one at a time to save Marcus.  The tank is heading for the edge of a cliff as displayed at the bottom of the screen, so that’s your time limit to complete the stage.  The controls and combat are the same as in the other side-scrolling segments.  This time, if you get knocked off the tank, you lose a life, your health bar isn’t restored, and you lose time while waiting for Indy to climb back up.  In this stage the flying kick is essential to both survival and clearing the stage in time.  There are more enemies to fight in the higher difficulties.

At the very beginning of the game you are entrusted with Indy’s father’s grail diary.  As a result, the enemies are out to get it at all costs.  Aside from the Coronado, if you lose in a level the diary is taken by the bad guys.  You can keep playing stages but if you lose one, it is Game Over.  An alternative is to go to Berlin to take the diary back and make your escape.  The Road to Berlin is a top-down motorcycle driving level.  You’ll have to avoid all kinds of stuff like mines, gun turrets, ravines, and enemy motorcycles as you make your way up the road.  You use the D-pad to move Left and Right as well as speed Up or slow Down.  You can jump with A or whip to the side with B.  Every time you crash, you’ll restart from a checkpoint with a little health loss.  The goal is to make your way to the end before running out of health.  This is not an easy level, but the good thing is you can keep trying as many times as you want without penalty.  For reasons I’ll explain shortly, it is best if you keep the diary for the end of the game.

The final scene in the game is The Lost Temple.  This has a few different parts to it.  First off, you’ll see a map showing a path or two through the temple.  There is an icon at the top if you have the diary, and you’ll want to make a mental note of that.  You move across the floor of the temple one step at a time with the D-pad.  Tiles on the ground have the letters in JEHOVAH and you need to walk the path of God by spelling out JEHOVAH step-by-step several times.  If you step on the wrong letter, you’ll fall and that’s Game Over.  If you happen to go the wrong way you can backtrack.  You are also racing the torch you are carrying.  When it goes out, you can’t see the letters on the floor and you’ll have to guess.  Once you make it to the other side, the next part is to walk across the invisible path as noted by the symbol that was written on the diary.  If you didn’t bring the diary with you, you can guess.  If you pass that, then your final task is to choose the Holy Grail out of a lineup.  Before choosing, you will see your note of what the grail looks like that you put together earlier.  If you choose right, you beat the game, otherwise you lose completely.  No pressure!

This was my first time playing this game.  I remember testing my cart and playing a little bit of the ship, and I didn’t do so well.  While this cart is the cheaper of the two, it is not that easy to find and costs in the $30-$40 range, which is more than I remembered when I was actively collecting.  I bought a copy of this game for about $10 in 2014, only for the seller to cancel the order because it sold too low.  A few months later I bought a different cart for $12 which is in my collection now.

This game started out like a normal playthrough, just testing levels out and figuring the best way through.  The castle gave me the most trouble as I couldn’t find the exit.  After exploring multiple times for a few days, I gave into an FAQ and found that what I was looking for was in a room I had visited a bunch and didn’t recognize the exit.  (Perhaps this is a direct reference to the movie that I didn’t notice?) I also had some struggles with the Road to Berlin.  I could clear it on the easiest difficulties but not on the higher settings.  That became a moot point because I stopped going there when I played well elsewhere.  On either the 2nd or 3rd day I beat the game.  When you know what to do, the game is pretty short.

My next step was to beat the game while recording before moving on to the next.  In theory this should have been easy, but goodness gracious did it go poorly.  I could do the entire game fine up to choosing the grail, and then I failed over and over and over again.  It took nine tries before beating the game again.  In pretty much all attempts, I had it nailed down to two or three grails and I just kept picking the wrong one.  Re-reading the manual finally helped bail me out.  There are, at least, five attributes of the grail to examine: The lip, the handle, the cup shape, the stem, and the base.  It was the shape of the cup that I wasn’t paying close attention to that messed me up the most, though it was a few tries in before I realized I wasn’t noticing the lip of the cup also.  That first time I won I must have really been lucky.  I get that the developers were trying to do something interesting for the end of the game, and the randomized nature of it is a good idea.  It was just so frustrating and maddening to fail completely at the very end of the game to something that doesn’t at all reflect the ending of the film anyway.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the Taito version, is a pretty good game that has some issues.  Presentation-wise, this is very well made.  The gameplay graphics are decent enough, but the cutscenes are digitized images from the movie that look nice in a sepia-tone.  The music is pretty good and includes the iconic theme from the film series.  The gameplay provides plenty of variety, including side-scrolling platforming, top-down action, and even a sliding block puzzle.  The controls and feel of the side-scrolling action is rough and is the most obvious issue with the game.  Combat feels clunky and random.  I can swing away at enemies, not sure if I’m doing damage, and sometimes I beat them right away and other times I get knocked around a bunch.  There’s a lot going on with the controls, making things more cumbersome when things don’t go well.  Another thing is the maze design in the castle is brutal at the higher levels.  Once you get used to things, this is a short game, and you can get skilled enough that the combat issues don’t really matter.  Just make sure that if you play this game that you are more observant with the grail than I was.

A fun platformer with a somewhat unfortunate name.

To Beat: Reach the ending
Played: 10/22/17 – 12/1/17
Difficulty: 8/10
My Difficulty: 8/10
Video: Kiwi Kraze Longplay

I haven’t traveled all that much in my life. I have only flown a few times and never over the ocean. I guess I have just as much fun staying at home playing all these NES games. New Zealand seems like it would be a lovely place to visit if I ever decide to go overseas. The country is beautiful and many notable movies have been filmed there. It stands to reason that it would also make a great setting for a video game. It also makes sense that a game based in New Zealand would use the native kiwi bird as the basis for the protagonist. Kiwi Kraze is a fun game that is often overlooked among the glut of NES platformers.

The NewZealand Story started as an arcade game both developed and published by Taito and released in September 1988. The game was later ported to a wide number of home computers and consoles worldwide over the next few years. The NES version of the game was renamed to Kiwi Kraze, A Bird-Brained Adventure! in North America and is the only version of the game that was renamed. Kiwi Kraze was developed by Software Creations and published by Taito, and was released in March 1991. In Europe, the NES port retained the name The NewZealand Story and was published by Ocean sometime in 1991. The NewZealand Story was later included in the 2005 compliation Taito Legends. New Zealand Story Revolution is a Nintendo DS remake of the game released in 2007. That game was developed by Taito and published by Ignition Entertainment in North America.

In Kiwi Kraze, you play the role of the Kiwi bird named Tiki. Wally Walrus has captured Tiki and all his friends, but Tiki was the only one who managed to escape. Wally then sells all the Kiwi birds to various zoos across New Zealand, so Tiki sets off on a grand adventure to rescue all his friends, including his girlfriend Phee-Phee. Tiki’s journey spans five separate worlds, each containing four levels. In each level, one of Tiki’s friends is locked in a cage and you must reach and free them to move on to the next stage. You win the game after you have completed all twenty stages.

Kiwi Kraze is a side-scrolling platformer game. On the title screen, you can press Select to choose either a one-player or two-player game. It is alternating play so it’s not that useful. You use the D-Pad to move Tiki around during gameplay. Jump by pressing the A button. You can control the height of the jump a little bit by how long you hold the button. When descending, you can tap the A button to flap Tiki’s wings which slows down his fall. The B button is for attacking and the default weapon is a bow and arrow. You can fire quite a few of these straight-shooting arrows at one time to quickly mow down a row of enemies. Pressing Start to pause the game also displays a mini map overlayed on the screen that displays the relative size of the level, your current location, and the exit location. There are no walls or anything else displayed on the map, but it can be a handy reference at times to gently guide you in the right direction.

There are two main mechanics that distinguish Kiwi Kraze. The first is that Tiki can jump up through any floor. This must be a Taito thing because this is also how things work in Bubble Bobble. You can even jump through walls from underneath. You only land on a ledge successfully if Tiki isn’t stuck partway within a wall. When airborne within a wall, you are only allowed to move laterally away from the wall. Otherwise you will fall through the wall back to where you started. I know I’m not explaining it very well, but when you play the game for a little while it starts to make sense. These details of the movement are important because it has a direct effect on the level design. Stages scroll in all four directions. Moving sideways is straightforward, but it is much easier to climb to the top of the level than to get back down. The level design takes advantage of this by creating many paths that look closed off at a glance, but can be entered through some shrewd jumping. The stages also contain many winding pathways and often include multiple paths to reach the end of a level.

The other important mechanic is that Tiki can fly around the stages. Kiwis are flightless birds and Tiki uses balloons to fly. These can occasionally be found on their own, but most often you will acquire a balloon by stealing one from an enemy. Shoot the enemy and then jump on top of its balloon to take it for yourself, but aim carefully because you can also pop the balloon with your weapon if your aim is too low. You can even jump on a balloon while an enemy is still standing on it, which will knock the enemy to the ground and let you take control. Balloons fall under Tiki’s weight and you hold the A button to slowly raise the balloon and move upward. You can still use the D-Pad for horizontal movement and fire your weapon while flying. Press Down while resting on the ground to dismount. You can also lose your balloon if it gets popped by an enemy projectile or hits a spike. Any case where you require a balloon to progress is accompanied by an enemy spawn point so that you can commandeer a new balloon.

Some levels contain water and Tiki can swim through these portions. He will don a snorkel while underwater and it’s pretty cute. At the bottom left of the screen, you will normally see your score counter alternating with your lives display. When underwater this display switches over to an air meter that slowly dwindles away. You swim with the D-Pad in all eight directions and the A and B buttons do nothing. Floating on the water’s surface allows you to breathe again, and you can also press the B button to spit water at an upward angle to attack enemies. Spitting water like this also refills your air meter much faster. For long water sections, you must find pockets of air and stop to take a breath before moving on.

There are many different kinds of enemies in Kiwi Kraze. Most enemies are not deadly to the touch, which is a departure from most platfomers. The ones that don’t hurt you will occasionally fire projectiles that do hurt. Bats are particularly sneaky because they toss out a projectile whenever you are directly underneath them, causing them to act like an enemy that kills you on contact. All other enemies telegraph their attacks in some way. Tiki is pretty fragile so a single hit kills him instantly, and you also lose lives by touching spikes and drowning.

One special enemy that can appear in any stage is the red devil. This is the invincible “hurry up” enemy that will chase you around if you are taking too long to finish a level. He can move freely through walls and you can’t get him to go away. You will receive an actual Hurry Up message prior to his appearance. Unlike most enemies of this type, he keeps a steady speed and you are able to keep away from him if you have enough space to maneuver.

There are several different items in the game. Some levels hold extra lives in the shape of a tiny Kiwi bird. The most common item you find are apples. These are dropped by defeated enemies and are worth 500 points each. If you come across a secret room, apples there are worth 5000 points. You need 100,000 points to earn an extra life. Sometimes an enemy will drop something other than an apple. These items are either different weapons or magic items.

There are three different weapons Tiki can use. The default is the bow and arrow which you can reacquire if you collect the red arrow powerup. The bombs are a downward-moving attack, and I find these have limited usefulness. The best weapon in my mind is the green laser gun. This gun fires straight shots like the arrows, but they move quickly and can also travel through walls. It’s great to blast an enemy on the other side of a wall so you don’t have to deal with them later. You keep your weapons until you lose a life or exit the stage.

There are four magic items. The magic book is a single-use screen-shaking attack that defeats all enemies. The magic watch freezes all enemies in their tracks for several seconds. Likewise, the magic staff gives you invincibility flashing for a little while. Perhaps the most interesting item here is the magic joystick. This gives you direct control over either your current or next balloon. You no longer have to toggle A to either rise or fall, rather you use just the D-Pad to move precisely in all directions. If you dismount the balloon or pop it, you lose the powerup. There are some locations where you can take shortcuts with some precise movements that are only possible with the magic joystick.

There are also different balloon types that have slightly different capabilities. The most common one looks like the head of a sheep, and you will use this one most of the time. There is a tall, red balloon that is very slow to accelerate upward, however the tradeoff is that this is the only balloon that is immune to spikes. Another balloon looks like a green ostrich and it accelerates the quickest. The last balloon looks like a carriage. This is the very first balloon you find naturally in the game, but you also get it automatically after you die while on a balloon. All balloons appear to have the same horizontal movement.

Most worlds end in a boss battle. The very first fight is the cleverest one, where you get swallowed and have to defeat the boss from the inside. That concept was also used in one of the bosses in Yoshi’s Island on the SNES, but Kiwi Kraze does it here first. The other bosses play more like a shootout and you have to land a lot of attacks to take them down. One world uses a complicated maze section in lieu of a boss fight. There is a least a little variety here, as well as using a different type of challenge than what is derived from the level design.

Hidden within some levels are warps. These are invisible and are revealed by shooting their location several times. If you are firing arrows that vanish in mid-air, keep shooting. Then hop into the warp block to go to a new place! Some of these will lead to special rooms where you can find apples and maybe extra lives. Others take you to a location one or more levels ahead. You normally see a map of New Zealand with the level number before each stage. Take a warp, however, and you don’t see where you end up. Like extra lives, these are hidden in out of the way places. I only found a few of these and I’m sure there are many more that I didn’t find.

You begin Kiwi Kraze with three lives, and they can go by quickly. You can continue with a fresh set of lives, but you can only do this three times before being bumped back to the title screen. It’s the kind of game where you progressively learn the levels and usually get a little farther the more times you play. Kiwi Kraze has a wrinkle to this to make it more challenging. Typically, when you lose a life, you resume play from right where you died with an invincibility period. That safety net goes away when you reach World 4. For the rest of the game, a death sends you back all the way to the start of the stage. I was able to beat World 3 within my first few tries and then the rest of the game felt like wading through mud.

This was my first time playing Kiwi Kraze. I know the term is overblown these days, but I have considered the game a hidden gem. I bought my copy in the back half of collecting licensed NES games and it was one I was looking for specifically once I knew what it was all about. My cart is a very clean copy too, courtesy of a seller on Nintendo Age. I played through the first world right away and knew this was a game I would really like. But, it went back on the shelf like most others and I didn’t get into it until now.

You might have noticed from the start of this post that it looks like I spent nearly six weeks playing Kiwi Kraze. Those dates are not what they seem! I had a little bit of free time on a Saturday afternoon and spent it on my first couple of attempts at the game. That following Monday was the beginning of the year-end tournament of an NES contest hosted on the Nintendo Age forums. That tournament lasted four weeks and I didn’t play Kiwi Kraze at all while that was going on. It didn’t take much to pick back up from where I started. I still needed around ten tries or so before I beat the game. Then another few days went by before I could record my full run.

I really like Kiwi Kraze. I think it’s a fun game with a lot of character. There are just a couple of things about it that I’m not entirely sure how I feel about. First off, the hitboxes seem a little off. Any balloon you ride on becomes the focal point of contact, and you can scratch your head on some spikes and enemies and not be hurt. Without the balloon, that kind of contact gets you killed. At least it feels that way. It’s just something you have to be actively aware of during play. Your instinct while on the balloon is to protect Tiki, but it needs to be on the balloon instead when gliding around spikes. The other thing is that the level design has a different feel that I don’t experience much. Most games like this rely on a larger 16×16 pixel tile, but the levels in Kiwi Kraze are based on tiny 8×8 tiles. This give more space for very detailed structures and challenges that are more puzzle-like. So you have these dense little areas connected together with wide open spaces where you can fly more freely, since the levels are still reasonably large. They chose to incorporate many narrow tunnels to connect all these pieces as well, not to mention the ability to jump through any floor like I already mentioned. I think it’s neat how it all comes together, but I can also see how this kind of design might be off-putting to someone else.

If you like platformers, cute characters, or both, I think you should try Kiwi Kraze. It’s a brightly colored game with neat, intricate design. The graphics are highly detailed with many neat drawings and backgrounds that add character. The downside here is that some of the tiny spikes don’t stand out. This music is catchy, which is no surprise given that the Follin brothers ported the music to the NES. However, they chose to use one song for every level in the game. It’s a good song, but it can get stale. The maze-like design might leave some players frustrated too. This is a flawed game for these few reasons and others, but I can easily look past them. I was really excited to spend some time with Kiwi Kraze, and I still have good feelings about this game now that I’ve seen it all for myself.

Another day, another overthrown terrorist regime.

To Beat: Finish Level 4
To Complete: Beat three loops
What I Did: Beat two loops
Played: 10/19/17 – 10/20/17
Difficulty: 4/10
My Difficulty: 4/10
Video: Tiger-Heli Longplay

I have seen so many copies of Tiger-Heli in my life. It seems like every time I have seen someone’s NES collection, there is Tiger-Heli. Okay, maybe in a more curated collection you won’t see it, but as far as random NES games go it might as well be ubiquitous. I really wonder why there are so many copies of this game around. It’s not a flashy title, and not one that everyone has fond memories of. Maybe I am seeing the same set of copies passed around all the time. I will get to the bottom of it and see how Tiger-Heli plays on the NES. Then maybe these answers and more will be revealed!

Tiger-Heli was first released in arcades in 1985. The game was developed by Toaplan and published by Taito. In December 1986, the game was ported to Famicom. This port was developed by Micronics and published by Pony Canyon. The NES version came in September 1987 and was published in North America by Acclaim Entertainment. The NES box and manual also point to Taito, though they were not involved with the NES version. The European version of Tiger-Heli was delayed until early 1990. A spiritual sequel, Twin Cobra, was released in the arcades in 1987 and on the NES in 1990, and Twin Cobra II is its direct sequel that came out in arcades in 1996. That same year, both Tiger-Heli and Twin Cobra were released on a single disk for Playstation in Japan only named Toaplan Shooting Battle 1.

Tiger-Heli is a vertical scrolling shooter where you take control of an advanced “jetcopter” of the same name. This game has a typical shooter plot of one man attempting to defeat a terrorist regime. This time it is the fictitious country of Cantun with designs of taking over the world. The Tiger-Heli was specifically constructed as the ultimate stealth helicopter and is the only attack vessel that can sneak in to Cantun and destroy everything. The game takes place over four levels and if you can survive that long you have beaten Tiger-Heli.

The controls are simple. Use the D-pad to move Tiger-Heli in all eight directions. The B button fires missiles which are your standard unlimited weapon. Each shot is four tiny missiles wide and they only travel about half the height of the screen, but you can fire several shots at one time. The A button drops bombs which deal splash damage to a large area below Tiger-Heli. You can only hold two bombs at once and you can see them flanked on either side of your helicopter. If an enemy bullet hits a bomb, it will deploy automatically. This acts as a shield and it is typically worth the cost of a lost bomb. On screen, you see your score at the top, your remaining lives on the lower-left, and the number of bonus blocks you have destroyed on the lower-right. You begin the game with two extra lives and both bombs.

There are crosses on the ground that give you powerups when destroyed. They cycle between three different colors and the color determines what you get. Destroying either a red or gray cross generates a support helicopter at the top of the screen that drifts down slowly. Pick this up and now you have a small helicopter on your left that gives you extra firepower. The red support copter shoots to the side and the gray one fires straight ahead. You can collect a second one that flies to your right for triple firepower, and you can have both a red and a gray one at the same time. Support copters can be destroyed by enemy bullets, so you have to manage having a much larger hitbox to maintain full power. The green crosses generate a B powerup that restores a bomb when it’s collected. Acquiring another support helicopter or bomb when you are maxed out gives you bonus points.

There are also red bonus blocks in the stages. These are red diamonds that fade in and out and you can shoot them when they are visible. They give you points and add to the counter at the bottom. After you destroy ten bonus blocks you get an extra life. You also earn extra lives by reaching score milestones. You get your first extra life by reaching 20,000 points, and then you earn another life for every additional 80,000 points after that.

Enemies in the game are turrets, tanks, and boats. Turrets don’t move, tanks may or may not move, and boats always move. What they all have in common is their firing capability. Each enemy shoots at a steady pace and can only fire in eight directions. There is also a large tank that takes many bullets to destroy, and you get points for each shot landed so you can really rack up the score. There are many types of non-violent structures that you can blow up for points just because, such as cars, buildings, train cars, etc.

There are four levels in Tiger-Heli, and each one ends by landing automatically on a helipad. Here you are awarded 5000 bonus points for each support helicopter and bomb you have. At the start of the next stage, you get your bombs replenished. You also get your bombs back after you take a death. Sadly, there is no ending to the game and you may keep looping over the game until you lose all your lives. Just like with Sky Shark, loops begin at Stage 2.

This was my first time trying to beat Tiger-Heli. I was one of those weird kids that did not own a copy of the game until adulthood. I had friends who owned the game and I did get to play it some, but it wasn’t a game that we played very much. I was familiar with the first stage or so, but that’s all.

I had some free time after lunch one day and decided to try out Tiger-Heli just to see what I was up against. Turns out that wasn’t much, for I beat all four levels on my first try. I don’t think Tiger-Heli is exactly an easy game, but I picked up on it quickly. The next day I played a practice run, and then right after that I recorded my video. On the practice run I reached the beginning of the third loop, but I didn’t quite make it that far on video. The first loop is not that bad, but the difficulty picks up fast the second time around. The enemy’s rate of fire is much faster and therefore it is harder to avoid bullets and line up a shot. The little bit I played of the third loop was even faster. I suspect the third loop is the difficulty cap and if you can complete that you have mastered Tiger-Heli. I could have pushed myself to beat that third loop, but I’m satisfied with completing two loops and moving on to the next game on my enormous list.

The basic strategy for Tiger-Heli takes advantage of the enemies’ poor aiming capabilities. Enemies fire toward you but only in eight directions, so the idea is to sit inside the areas where they are unable to hurt you. Once they fire and miss, you then have a brief window to line up and destroy them. I found the red support helicopters quite useful because they fire sideways and then you can approach the bad guys from either the sides or below. The quicker you can take out enemies, the easier time you have dodging other attacks.

Here’s a fun little side note. As I mentioned earlier, Toaplan created the “Tiger” trilogy of Tiger-Heli, Twin Cobra, and Twin Cobra II, and the first two games received NES ports. I discovered this while I was writing up my review on Sky Shark a little while ago. One of my quirks of this project is that I switched games around on the master list so that sequels always come after I have played the previous installments. In this case, I had no idea Tiger-Heli and Twin Cobra were related at all. I normally avoid looking at the full list as much as possible, but here I had to see where both games landed on the list and swap them if necessary. Of course, Twin Cobra originally slotted here at Game #62 instead, so I had to switch them. I ended up with a free peek just a few slots ahead by coincidence. I also know now where Twin Cobra will appear on my list. I won’t spoil when that will be, but let’s just say it will be a very long time before I get around to it.

Micronics has a reputation for creating poor ports of NES games, but I think Tiger-Heli is one of their better ones. Now it’s not a great game, but it plays just fine. The gameplay seems to resemble the arcade version close enough. The graphics are a step down from the arcade version, but are passable on the NES. The music is neither notable nor annoying. Gameplay is on the slower side, but there are no performance issues like slowdown. There is a massive amount of flickering whenever there’s a lot going on, but they seemed to work around it about as well as they could without some of the more advanced techniques programmed into later NES games. I may sound a little down on Tiger-Heli, but the fact is that it is a simple game that is competent on the one hand and unexciting on the other. According to Steve Kent’s book The Ultimate History of Video Games, Tiger-Heli on NES sold over a million copies. That’s astounding to me. It also answers why I’ve seen the game so frequently. Today, it’s nothing more than a filler NES title, but you could do much worse than playing Tiger-Heli. Besides, you probably already own it!

If only it were literally a sky shark!

To Beat: Finish Level 5
Played: 6/6/17 – 6/12/17
Difficulty: 7/10
My Difficulty: 7/10
Video: Sky Shark Playthrough

Today’s game is a port of an arcade shooter. I have covered a few arcade ports of shooters already. One of them is MagMax, which although it was true to the arcade game, it was ported far too late and wasn’t that much fun to begin with. On the other extreme, I played Gyruss and found the expanded NES port to be a better experience than the arcade version. BreakThru sits somewhere in between the two. It was like the arcade game, but was a decent port and reasonably fun to play. Of those three games, Sky Shark sits pretty close to BreakThru.

Flying Shark is an arcade shoot-em-up released in 1987. It was developed by Toaplan and was published in North America by Romstar. The game was ported to many different home computer systems in Japan, North America, and Europe. Flying Shark was renamed to Sky Shark in North America. Toaplan also developed the 1989 sequel to this game called Fire Shark. The NES version of Sky Shark was released in September 1989. This port was developed by Software Creations, and Sky Shark was their first NES game. Despite being based in England, Sky Shark on NES was only released in North America. You may also remember them as the developer of Pictionary that I played last year. The NES version was published by Taito, who also published the arcade version of Flying Shark in Japan.

Sky Shark is a top-down vertical scrolling shoot-em-up. You play the role of the best fighter in the best squadron of the US forces in World War II. He is given the nickname of the Sky Shark, and according to the comic in the game’s manual, even his plane is painted to look like a flying shark. I guess the name makes sense now! Your task is to fly through enemy forces and rescue your POWs. The mission is broken up into five stages separated by landing your aircraft. Don’t worry, the game does this for you. Survive through all five levels and you have beaten Sky Shark.

This is a simple game with equally simple controls. Use the D-pad to fly in all directions. Press A to fire your machine guns. Ammo is unlimited, but there is no autofire so you have to mash away at the fire button. The B button drops bombs. The Start button begins the game and pauses the action during play. Select is used to choose between one or two player mode on the title screen. Two-player mode is alternating play. That’s all there is to it!

Each aircraft comes equipped with three bombs, and dropping one inflicts heavy damage over a large portion of the screen. Bomb blasts absorb bullets too, so they can get you out of a tight spot if used defensively. Some enemies leave behind a B icon when defeated. Fly over this icon to collect an additional bomb. You can hold up to eight bombs, so you might as well use one before trying to grab a ninth. If you are interested in getting a high score, save up some spare bombs because at the end of each level you earn 3,000 points for each bomb in your inventory.

During play, the status bar is located at the bottom of the screen. You can see the current score for both players in addition to the high score. Underneath the score, you see icons that indicate how many additional fighters and how many bombs you have. Like bombs, you can have up to eight lives. There are no extra lives found on the battlefield, but you earn one every 50,000 points. It’s pretty unlikely you would reach the maximum number of lives, but it could happen!

One recurring feature in the stages is a wave of eight planes. They all fly in together in one of several formations and leave the screen quickly. Destroying all eight planes of the wave gives you a bonus. If the planes are yellow, you earn 1,000 points, but if the planes are red they leave behind an S powerup. The S flies around in loops on the screen so it can be tricky to grab, but you want to grab it because it powers up your machine gun. You can upgrade your weapon six times total. The first upgrade increases your gun from two shots to four, and you eventually work your way up to the fully powered gun giving you seven shots at once with a slight spread. Any time you die by taking a hit, your weapon reverts to the basic double shot. The S powerups tend to be spread out, so it takes a long time to power up all the way if you can survive that long. The sad thing is that the best weapon is not nearly as powerful as you would like.

Both the levels and enemies are generic, World War II styled elements. The stages do not distinguish themselves very well. Each level is composed of several of the same kinds of locations stitched together. There are jungle, ocean, and desert segments dispersed throughout the stages. The best level type is the trainyard area. Each level ends in an airstrip where you land the plane and get your bomb bonus. The enemies are all planes, tanks, and boats. In the ocean sections, you will pass by huge ships with cannons that you can destroy. Tanks emerge from the sides of the screen and behind buildings, and plane formations fly in often. There is not much variety overall.

There are a few bosses in the game. The Super Tank shows up at the end of the first stage. You don’t have to blow it up though because it will eventually run out of driving room and you can leave it behind. There is an upgraded version of the Super Tank that appears in a few places in the middle of stages, and just like the first boss they don’t follow you very long. There are also some large planes that act the same way, but it’s not exactly correct to call them bosses. There is also a giant final boss near the end of the fifth level.

When you are shot down, you resume play from the nearest checkpoint. Each stage has several hidden checkpoints, and I’d say the length between them is just about right. Some areas are harder than others so a checkpoint is a nice relief. When you run out of lives, you can continue up to three times. On the Game Over screen, you see the number of credits remaining and a countdown timer with some ominous music for an accompaniment. Press Start to continue your game from the nearest checkpoint, just as if you lost a life. You do lose your score when you continue. If you run out of credits or choose not to continue, you are taken to the high score screen where you can enter your initials.

This was my first time playing Sky Shark. I don’t remember how I acquired the cart, but it is a common game that I probably got in a bulk lot somewhere. It’s worth about $3 today, so hopefully I didn’t pay much for it. At least I knew it was a shoot-em-up, so that alone got me interested to see what it was all about.

Sky Shark is a tough game. I spent about a week playing the game over maybe a dozen attempts before I reached the end. I wanted to beat the game without continuing, but by the time I beat it I was ready to move on. The game overwhelms you early on with several tanks and aircraft at once, many of which fire aimed shots at you. Tanks appear and start firing right away, so you are forced to be on your toes and keep moving. You really need to know where enemies appear to stand a chance. Enemies have a bad habit of firing off one last shot just before they despawn off the sides of the screen. Even though the enemy bullets are large and change colors, they are often hard to see in the thick of the fight. Your only gun fires mostly straight, limiting its effectiveness, and bombs tend to be used to extend a life just to reach the next checkpoint. Thankfully the game has a continue system, otherwise I would have rated the game either an 8 or a 9.

Sky Shark does not have an ending. Once you fight the final boss and reach the end of level five, the game loops seamlessly. In a small twist, the game restarts from level two, so if you keep looping the game you will just repeat levels two through five without every playing level one again. Luckily, there is a way to tell if you have finished the game. I left this little tidbit out intentionally until now. When you enter your initials on the high score screen, there is also a two-digit value displayed on the right-hand column. I can’t confirm this for certain, but that value appears to be a percentage of how much of the game was completed.

There are two quirks about this value that make me doubt my theory a bit. The first thing is that this value is more heavily weighted toward the end of the game. For example, you could Game Over deep in level two and only get a value in the teens when you would expect that you’ve completed nearly 40% of the game by then. It seems to increase more quickly at the end of the game. The other thing about it is that it never reaches 100 but stops at 99. I haven’t seen any evidence that you can achieve 100 here, so the assumption is that a value of 99 is the max value and indicates that you have seen all there is to see in Sky Shark. Capturing a picture of the final landing doesn’t seem to be conclusive, so I also took a photo of the high score screen.

Perhaps the best element of Sky Shark is the music. Tim Follin is the game’s composer and he is one of the best on the NES. I gushed over his music in my Pictionary review. While he does not hit the highs of that sweet Pictionary title theme, the music is still very enjoyable. I think the title screen music is my favorite. It is also played during some of the levels, so you get to hear it often enough.

Aside from the music, Sky Shark is a mediocre game. It does nothing in gameplay to set itself apart from other NES shooters. There’s not much variety here. The levels are generic, and so are the enemies and bosses. There aren’t many enemy types, and they all shoot the same type of bullet. I’ve already outlined the problems in gameplay in light of its difficulty. Now, Sky Shark is not a bad game per say. It controls well, the hitboxes are fair, and there aren’t any glitches to speak of. The graphics are a downgrade from the arcade version, but are still fine for the NES. It’s a game that doesn’t quite match up in quality when compared to other releases of its time. I expect a little more technical prowess from an NES game from 1989, especially when Taito is attached to it.

Gun down the enemy forces in this Zapper-compatible version of the arcade classic.

To Beat: Beat all six missions to reach the ending
To Complete: Beat four loops
My Goal: Beat the game with the best ending
What I Did: Beat the game with the best ending and reached Loop 3 Mission 6
Played: 3/18/16 – 3/25/16
Difficulty: 5/10
My Difficulty: 5/10

It’s a landmark day for Take On The NES Library as I have come to the first Zapper game on my list. Operation Wolf is not one of the first Zapper games that comes to mind, but it’s a pretty good one and it looks to be a mostly faithful port of the arcade title.

Most people with knowledge of the NES from its heyday will certainly remember the Zapper peripheral. It was first released on the Famicom in 1984 as a pack-in with Wild Gunman. The Zapper later launched along with the NES in 1985 for use in launch titles Duck Hunt, Hogan’s Alley, and Wild Gunman. Perhaps it is most remembered for being part of the NES Action Set which included the Zapper and the ubiquitous Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt combo cart. The light gun has a gray color scheme that was changed to orange in 1989. This was done in compliance with changes in US gun regulations requiring toy guns to look like toy guns. The two Zappers are identical aside from the color differences.

The Zapper works by detecting the presence of light through a photodiode within the device. When the gun is fired, the NES draws a black screen on one frame followed by other frames of a black screen with white boxes indicating the location of the hittable objects. The zapper can detect the white light from the box drawn on-screen to determine if a target is hit. In the case of multiple targets, the game will show more frames like this with only a portion of the objects highlighted. This process is repeated until it can narrow down which target was hit.

That explanation might be a little hard to follow but a possible example may help. Say there are four enemies on the screen and the trigger is pressed. The first frame will be an all black screen and the second frame is a black screen with white boxes placed on top of only two of the four targets. If the Zapper detects light this time, then it knows you shot one of the first two targets but it doesn’t know which one. The third frame draws the black screen and only one white box for one of those two targets. If the Zapper sees light on this frame then you shot the first target, otherwise if it doesn’t pick up light then you shot the second target. Going back to the second frame, if the Zapper doesn’t detect a hit, then it will draw white boxes on the next frame for the other two targets to see if you hit one of them. If so, then it will draw a fourth frame to determine which of those two was shot. If it does not detect a hit here, then it means none of the targets were hit because by this point all four were checked. If that is all still a bit murky, don’t worry! The basic idea is that the game will test half of the targets at a time for a hit and it keeps whittling it down until it can find the one you actually shot.

It’s worth mentioning that the first all black screen is really important. The Zapper can detect light from the television as well as light from other sources such as a light bulb. If the Zapper game doesn’t check for a non-hit at first, then there is nothing to stop you from aiming the gun at a light bulb tricking the game into thinking you are always making contact with a live target. TVs in the US run at 60 frames per second so it would be more or less impossible to shoot at a light bulb while rapidly turning it on and off to fake out an NES Zapper game.

The Zapper technology only works on older tube TVs called CRT TVs; the games are not playable on modern TVs such as LCD, Plasma, or LED televisions. The reasoning is that the Zapper is very dependent on the timing of the individual frames of video displayed on the screen as illustrated above. Newer TVs have additional processing time that results in lag where the actual picture on the TV appears one or more frames later than the NES recognizes. For most other games this slight delay is not noticeable, but since the Zapper is tuned to the timing of older TVs it causes the game to not register any hits at all when played on a modern television. Therefore, I had to use my CRT to play this game.

Now that the Zapper talk is out of the way it’s time to talk Operation Wolf. Developed and published by Taito, Operation Wolf is an arcade game released in 1987. The arcade cabinet is fashioned with a mock submachine gun used to aim at the enemies and it contains a motor inside of the gun housing to simulate recoil. It was ported to many home consoles and computers, including the NES in 1989. This is the first Taito game covered for the blog. Taito published 26 NES games in total so they are one of the largest publishers for the console.

Operation Wolf is also a game series spanning four games. The second game, Operation Thunderbolt, was released in 1988 in arcades. It would see an SNES release several years later. There were also arcade titles Operation Wolf 3 in 1994 and Operation Tiger in 1998. Operation Wolf was also released in 2005 as part of Taito Legends as well as an NES Virtual Console release in 2008. Sadly, the Virtual Console version does not support the Wii remote as a Zapper.

The object of Operation Wolf is to survive six missions of infiltrating terrorist strongholds in order to save prisoners and take them back home to safety. Each mission has a number of enemy soldiers, tanks, helicopters, and boats that you must defeat before advancing to the next area. Enemies will run across the screen and you shoot them before they shoot you. If you hold B on the controller while shooting with the Zapper then you will fire a grenade that does a lot of damage within a wide range. The game also features controller support by way of a targeting crosshair on screen. Before the start of play you can choose either controller or Zapper, and if you choose controller you can also set the speed of the crosshair from one of five options. Use the D-Pad to aim the cursor, press A to fire your standard weapon, and press B to launch a grenade.

On screen you will see a bunch of statistics. It shows the score, number of magazines as well as the number of rounds left in the current magazine, number of grenades, number of prisoners saved in later missions, and the number of enemy soldiers, helicopters or boats, and tanks remaining in the level. There is also a damage meter that nearly spans the entire bottom of the screen. The enemy counters represent your progress through the level. The stages keep going until either you destroy the number of enemies remaining or you take too much damage. They also end if you are completely out of ammo.

There are several powerups to help you out. Ammo is limited but you pick up extra magazines and grenades by shooting the icons for them on screen. A power drink with a letter P on it will reduce your damage meter. A bullet with the word “FREE” written on it will give you unlimited rapid fire for 10 seconds. Barrels explode just like grenades when they are shot. There are also crows, pigs, and chickens that travel across the screen in some of the levels. You can’t kill them but you can shoot them and they will occasionally drop extra ammo to help you out. There are also civilians and prisoners that run across the screen trying to head for safety. Don’t shoot them because if you do it will increase your damage meter.

There are six missions: Communication Center, Jungle, Village, Ammo Dump, Prison Camp, and Airport. In the arcade version you can play the first four levels in any order you like. Clearing all four will unlock the Prison Camp followed by the Airport. The NES version is linear so you must beat all six missions in order. There is also a sort of a seventh mission that appears randomly in between stages. If you see the message “Warning! The enemy has located you!” then that means you have to survive another round of enemy forces before reaching the next stage.

Each level has something slightly unique about it. The Communication Center is the exception as it acts a little bit like a tutorial level. The Jungle has a boss fight at the end. An enemy is holding a civilian hostage and uses her as a body shield so you must be careful to aim for just the enemy. Completing the Village level heals you up quite a bit, and completing the Ammo Dump rewards you with a full complement of 9 magazines and 9 grenades. The Prison Camp features prisoners that run across the screen calling for help. Your task is to lead them across the screen to safety. There are five prisoners in total and each one will be chased by a knife soldier. He should be your primary target since he kills the prisoner if he reaches him. You can kill the prisoner with your weapons as well so be mindful of that. The game keeps track of each one you save. In the Airport mission, you must lead each prisoner to safety again that you helped in the prior mission. The ending you get depends on how many prisoners you save and you will lose the game if you survive all the missions without saving a single prisoner. The Airport ends with a final boss battle where you must destroy the enemy Hind helicopter. These things would all be spoilers if they weren’t spelled out clearly in the manual.

The game ends if you suffer too much damage, but you are allowed to continue once if you are defeated in any of the first four missions. There are no continues given for the last two stages. It’s frustrating to die at the end of the game but it is pretty short so it doesn’t set you back as much as it first seems. The manual indicates that Operation Wolf has four levels of six missions each. It means that the game loops right after you beat it and there are four total playthroughs of increasing difficulty. There is no difference in the ending when the game is beaten for the fourth time and it restarts the game at Loop 4 difficulty when finished, so it’s not really essential to beat the game four times in a row. One thing I noticed is that if you get Game Over and have to restart the game, then it will start you at the same difficulty loop you were on before. That acts like a continue in its own way.

This was my first time playing through Operation Wolf. I set up my CRT from out of storage whenever I started the blog so I haven’t played any Zapper games in a very long time. I have several Zappers but the one I was using has a loose trigger which didn’t feel great while playing. I recently purchased a R.O.B. set on eBay with all the parts for Gyromite for an excellent price, and that set included a Zapper that felt like it had never been used. I switched to that while playing and it will be my go-to Zapper from now on.

It took me awhile to warm up to playing Operation Wolf with the Zapper. I simply was not all that good with it to start and it was wearing me out physically after a couple of attempts in a row. Firing grenades in particular was difficult to get comfortable with. I would aim and shoot with both hands which caused me to stumble around with my free hand looking for the controller’s B button whenever I needed to let off a grenade. I could get away with it because I played while sitting, but it would have taken me a lot longer to beat the game if I had to stand up and shoot the gun with just one hand. With two hands I could shoot both faster and more accurately.

Overall it took me around ten tries before considering Operation Wolf finished. I think I advanced farther and farther with each attempt. The game is pretty short and the health bar is generous enough to absorb some mistakes made with shooting, so I figured average difficulty is appropriate for completing one loop of the game to get the ending. The first time I beat it I managed to save three prisoners which rewarded me with the second best ending. My accuracy wasn’t quite up to snuff with just the zapper and I would shoot too many prisoners. I decided to play through again using the controller and the slowest cursor setting in hopes that I would be more accurate overall. I beat the first loop and saved four prisoners which was good enough for the best ending, and during my second loop I saved all five. That was the picture proof I kept. During the third loop I made it most of the way through the airport stage before running out of grenades. That left me too vulnerable to attack when I focused on the helicopters with just the standard weapon. I really had no chance and that leads me to believe that doing all four loops is best accomplished with the Zapper. And really, a Zapper compatible game should be played with it if possible.

My intention from the beginning was to beat one loop of the game with the best ending since I knew there was no other reward for playing four times. It can be argued pretty easily that it should take all four runs to beat Operation Wolf considering it is called out that way in the manual, and I’m fine with that criticism if you happen to take that stance. In my opinion the game is long enough to justify a single loop.

Operation Wolf on NES looks to me like a well done port of the arcade game. Using the Zapper makes this one of the better ports by default and this game is quite playable and fun using it. The controller is okay in a pinch but not the best way to play the game. The graphics are alright. The brief story images between levels are well detailed and everything is clear during gameplay when it matters. There is not much sound to speak of which may be a turn off. There are only sound effects during game play, and the brief songs on the title screen and between levels are not that notable. For me, gameplay rules the day, and Operation Wolf is a fun game where that is concerned.