Review: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (WiiVC/SNES)

Should we review old games as artifacts or in the same light as their contemporary brethren?  Even if a new title is released with decidedly retro stylings, does its position upon release matter more than any time in the future?  The relevancy of art often fluctuates based on where a society or individual is in their lifespan at a given point in time.  I wonder how people 10 years from now will view retro-styled games produced in 2010, 2011, or 2012.  Will they be seen as artifacts the same way as games from the 1980s, or has this pixel-art fetishism somehow put things on an even keel?

I've now played every console Legend of Zelda game with the exception of Skyward Sword.  Most recently I took my maiden voyage through the oft lauded SNES entry: A Link to the Past.  It's impossible to view this game in a vacuum where I can unremember collecting the Triforce some 7 times prior.  Yet it's also unrealistic to expect this game to be iteratively better than say, Twilight Princess.  Considering these factors and most of all my general adoration for the Zelda franchise, I was still truly stunned to find myself in an early dungeon of LttP almost totally lacking the desire to continue forward.  Ultimately I did push on, partly due to my self-inflicted charge to finish games that I purchase, but also because I possessed optimism that this version of Hyrule could grow on me.

LttP is the template for almost every Zelda game that has followed it.  I had assumed that these precursory duties belonged to N64 showpiece Ocarina of Time, but now understand that game more for what it did to change how the series' core mechanics were implemented.  The structure of the Zelda game and its modern tropes fall square on LttP's shoulders.  Master Sword?  Check.  Parallel worlds?  Check.  Spin attack?  Check.  Some of these traits are more integral than others, but my point is to illustrate how far-reaching and specific LttP's role as a mold for the franchise was and how difficult it is to play in 2012 as anything other than a piece of history.

In light of Nintendo's recent bend of pedantic in-game instructions for how to use Wii controls, it's refreshing to play a Zelda game that hearkens back to simpler times when you could press "start," enter a cave, pick up a sword and begin an adventure.  A pitfall of this strategy is that it requires a high level of preconceived curiosity and exploratory desire on the part of the player that is more difficult to achieve when the world is somewhat familiar and lacking the visual "awe" factor that usually accompanies these flagship titles at initial release.  Additionally LttP offers a decent amount of player choice, which is always neat to see in older games, but once again this relies heavily on your own initiative since the game merely suggests where to try next, rarely narrowing where you can actually explore.

Put in perspective of the whole Zelda bloodline, LttP feels the most unique in its dungeon layouts.  You know the drill when it comes to the objective list in a given dungeon: fight enemies, locate map and compass, unlock doors, pull switches, discover special item, and defeat the boss.  However, the physical blueprints for these levels use verticality to add a dimension that was not a part of previous 2D Zeldas (I can't speak to DS entries).  This is implemented in individual spaces with ladders and staircases that lead to higher ledges and walkways, but also on a more macro level with the dungeons being multiple stories high.  In a single room this changes the way you approach enemies, perhaps prompting you to remain on higher ground, hurling pots at enemies below instead of jumping down into a sword fight.  Considering the entire dungeon as a puzzle, some rooms are placed directly above others, encouraging you to blow holes in the floor to gain access to depths otherwise unreachable.  This puzzle design sensibility has been carried into the polygonal Zeldas out of necessity to make a compelling three-dimensional experience.  In LttP the verticality feels truly innovative; it's version of Hyrule might not be "round," but it's definitely more than just a flat surface.

I began to approach sitting down to play more LttP similarly to filling out a Sudoku, as it required me to be in the mood for solving that particular brand of puzzle.  I feel a little bad constantly conjuring up references to other Zelda games in this review, but how else can a game like this be evaluated in 2012?  It's a franchise so staunchly rooted in its formula that it would almost be like writing a Madden review that doesn't acknowledge the previous year's game's existence.  Often with Zelda games, style differentiation is enough to warrant giving each entry a try.  Nintendo consistently trots out top-notch art direction no matter how underpowered the hardware they work with may be.  Perhaps Zelda games really are meant to be played exclusively around the time they originally come to market.  This allows enough time between doses to build the demand for a new version, while the visual changes make things appear just different enough to distinguish it from the last one.

On the other hand LttP is still a game worth playing on its own merits, as many of my gripes are personal in nature.  Uncovering the original appearances of so many Zelda standbys was a pleasant surprise.  The overall difficulty was spot on.  There's little more thrilling in an action sequence than besting a powerful foe by the skin of your teeth, which LttP offered more than a couple times.  I wouldn't say the game ever really got its hooks in me, but it came closest with its brainteasingly tricky puzzles.  I faulted LttP's early game for asking the player to bring too much curiosity to the table, but once I began accomplishing the games tasks, their occasionally harrowing nature had me intrigued enough that I was eager to see what else those clever Nintendo developers had up their sleeves.

Completing Twilight Princess granted me with a cautious optimism for the future of my beloved franchise, but A Link to the Past has left me with a sense of acceptance that Zelda is what Zelda is.  What it is is something pretty grand though.  It may be built around a formulaic structure, but it's a system that works.  My only fear is a personal one: that I've exasperated this series' magical hold on me.  Though, since I've laid out that I think these games are optimally played when they're most current, I suppose I should withhold judgment until reporting back post-Skyward Sword.  The fact that I'd even seek to play more Zelda after this must count for something, right?

Review: Pokemon Puzzle League (WiiVC/N64)

Unlike most of the games I review, I actually spent time playing Pokemon Puzzle League (PPL) back in 2000, when it was current. However, that was only a singular rental that, for whatever reason, didn't prompt me to purchase the full $60 game. On the Wii's Virtual Console, that price has been significantly reduced, effectively eliminating my barrier to entry on a title that I vaguely remembered being pretty fun. Turns out that faint inkling was pointing in the correct direction as PPL is a deceptively deep and satisfying puzzle experience.

The core gameplay of PPL is a tile swapping puzzle game, known to long-time importers as Panel de Pon. You are confined to a rectangular column wherein tiles ascend from the bottom and you must switch them left and right to match three same colors in a horizontal or vertical row, making them disappear. From that basic mechanic you can also chain combos together for a higher score or to dump junk blocks into your opponent's column in head-to-head competitive mode. If you played Tetris Attack on SNES this is probably sounding familiar.

Of course the big draw here is that this is a Pokemon game, right? OK, maybe not, but the game is enhanced if you can derive some sort of amusement out of that material, ironic or otherwise. Every time you turn on the game a FMV clip (extremely rare for a N64 title) featuring characters form the original Pokemon cartoon series prompts the "story" that sets up the game. There isn't much of a plot to speak of, though each mode does take a slightly different angle on the Pokemon world. In the 1P Stadium mode, you defeat a ladder of CPU competitors that are recognizable from the animated TV show, and in Spa Service, Team Rocket, appearing in various cross-dressed regalia, tries to trick you into something-or-other in between line clear challenges. The toon-representative, voiced audio during matches can be grating, but since sound is largely inconsequential to this game, I usually had it muted and listened to something else.

What I'm trying to get at is don't let the Pokemon name scare you away from this superb puzzle game. The PPL developers did everything short of retro-actively adding online multiplayer to expand and enhance the simple gameplay needed to justify this as a full retail product. Some of these work better than others but the range of options is encouraging since the game feels too easy at the outset. It became clear before long that I should have been utilizing those easy stages as training grounds for combo building because I hit a wall in the unlockable Very Hard difficulty where I could only win on pure luck. If you hit that wall or just want a change of scenery, you can check out Puzzle University instead and tackle block elimination puzzles at a more methodical pace. In this mode you are presented with a small amount of tiles and a limited number of swaps to clear them all from the board. In theory you could translate these combo triggering skills to the competitive modes, but the frantic nature of those battles just drove me into a mindless, button-mashing panic.

Other modes in PPL include Practice, Endless, Time Attack, and the aforementioned Line Clear. These can be nice distractions, but they aren't where the real action is, so I doubt much time will be spent there. Plus, with the lack of online leaderboards, these score-focused modes lose a lot of their incentive since I'm the only person with access to my copy of PPL that spends any time playing it. Additionally you can switch on 3D mode which turns your rectangular game board into a rotatable cylinder with tiles emerging from the bottom all the way around. The cylinder is clear so you can see through to the back if there's an area requiring immediate damage control. This, like the other modes, goes a long way in showing the effort that was put into extending the Panel de Pon play experience, but always feels like an aside to the "real" head-to-head mode. Sure, doing the puzzle thing with polygonal graphics in a 3D space works fine, but like Tetrisphere, it doesn't measure up to the addictive nature of the basic 2D structure.

It's a relatively common thing for Japanese developers to take classic puzzle franchises and reskin them for Western audiences (think Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine), but PPL seems to go that extra mile with its supplementary content. The resulting world is pretty silly, with its paper-thin premise and goofy cartoon tie-ins, but it does serve to bulk out the puzzle gameplay, and do so with a sincere charm.

Review: Super Mario World (WiiVC/SNES)

Having only ever played Super Mario World in brief spats on friends' SNESes, I went into my full playthrough with skepticism. Sure, I had confidence that this would be a satisfying game, but many enthusiasts herald this as the best Mario title to date. From what I had touched previously, this hardly seemed the case. Now, with numerous castles, ghost houses, and another Bowser battle under my belt, I can see where that stunning appeal comes from, even if it doesn't strike my fancy to quite the same degree.

I possess a long-standing fascination with floating platforms in games, and even though SMW doesn't really dig into that meta-game analysis, it does make you think about platform placement and level construction. Maybe it's just that the era when the platformer was the dominant game genre is behind us, but SMW is a perfect poster-child for what a well-honed 2-D platformer can achieve. This is something that modern games have a difficult time replicating without exuding nostalgia or at least coming off as largely referential to historical material. It's hard to think back to a time when Yoshi made his first appearance, and was brought on for broad gameplay variance, instead of existing as a callback or one-off power-up for use with an individual sequence.

What I liked best about SMW was the way it mixed elements of action, adventure, and puzzle solving in a fashion I don't recall another Mario game doing. The action side is largely what you'd expect if you've played a Mario game since Super Mario Bros 3. There are power-ups that let you fly and throw fireballs, and, for the most part, jumping on enemies heads still does them in quite well. That said, if you've somehow only ever played the original Mario Bros, you might be surprised at just how complex the action system has become. On the adventure tip, you navigate levels via an overworld map, complete with branching and reforming paths. The map is good at letting you know when there's something secret in a level without giving away the answers. Every level doesn't need to be completed to beat the game, but since you can save progress, you have the luxury of taking your time to explore and replay levels without fear that the electricity might go out. A significant part of the adventuring is intertwined with the heinous puzzles that meter out the exploration phases in ways that require strategic item gathering. The most difficult puzzles are totally optional, but are pretty satisfying brain teasers that taunt you to give them a shot. Part of the reason I like the puzzles so much is because at their core, they can be solved by intelligent platforming. Thus SMW doesn't balloon it's gameplay by bolting on other genre mechanics, but instead, expounds upon the intricacies of its core conceit. The result is a game that justifiably places itself on top of the platformer pile, and serves as a substantial step forward for game design at the time.

This dedication to form is what often makes Nintendo games great, but I could have done with some tweaking to particular elements of SMW. In comparison to SMB3's raccoon tail, the feather cape seems needlessly complex to control, especially in parachute mode. Coupled with the fact that none of the puzzles I completed seemed to require the gliding function (82% completion), it seems unnecessary. Then of course there's Yoshi, who I do not outright dislike, but find that I prefer not using him unless I have to. For me, using Yoshi changes the game a little too much, to the point where I'd rather just have a Yoshi game instead of putting him in a Mario one. I ended up more or less using Yoshi as a shield since you can sustain a hit while riding him and not take any damage other than losing your mount. You can wager a guess that I don't care for using the feather cape in conjunction with Yoshi either. Maybe it's the blatant disregard for physics, but, yeah, not a fan. As a small aside, the designs of most of the new enemies unique to SMW seem pretty uninspired, and it's no wonder that they haven't really shown up again since.

I appreciate Nintendo taking these risks though. They wanted to increase the complexity of their platform hopping game while also iterating on the blockbuster success of SMB3, all while positioning itself as the killer app for Nintendo's new 16-bit console. The list of games that have even been in that situation is pretty small, and shorter still for those that actually deliver on the bulk of their ambitions. SMW is such a game, but in some ways it actually feels remarkably humble. This feeling could have more to do SMW standing in contrast to the modern Mario's franchise-driven market saturation. Name a genre and there's a Mario version of it. SMW was Nintendo building upon an already solid foundation, but also venturing into innovative territory that so much iterative design is afraid to do. Sure, not everything works perfectly, but a lot of that is user preference. The brilliance of SMW's design is that there are multiple options for how to play a level, and one of those almost always feels spot on.

Review: Final Fight (WiiVC/SNES)

Unlike the other older games I've reviewed on the site so far, I played Final Fight back when it was current. Though I'm sure I previously touched the SNES port I'm evaluating here (via Wii Virtual Console), my primary experience with it was in the arcades. Unfortunately the console port loses some key components of Capcom's original product. That said, this is still classic beat 'em up action with iconic characters and late-80s style at its most ridiculous.

Structurally, Final Fight is incredibly simple. The plot is no more than a save-the-kidnapped-girl story while the game plays as a basic two-button brawler. However, the strongest appeal of Final Fight is its style, which melds perfectly with the rudimentary backdrop. You play as either Metro City Mayor, and former pro wrestler, Mike Haggar or streetwise roughneck, Cody. The level of cheesy machismo on display here is at superhero action figure status, where musclebound, often bare-chested thugs will take you on in the streets, in subway cars, and across other rumble-worthy locales. In between tussles you can bust up barrels to reveal large plates of barbecued meat, which act as health items. The wrestling motif also continues with set-piece fights staged in a boxing ring and in a steel cage match. One reoccurring enemy is Andore, a 16-bit replica of legendary grappler Andre the Giant. In fact a lot of the bad dudes in Final Fight could be interpreted as homages to WWF heel characters. You have to be able to extract value from this kind of dumb, sweaty-guy soap opera source material to appreciate the vibe Capcom was going for with Final Fight because they absolutely nail it.

Pro wrestling and John Carpenter film references aside, the gameplay mechanics of Final Fight hold their ground. As with many games of this type and era, the solutions to the game's challenges often involve very game-y tactics. For example, enemies frequently fly off-screen after taking several punches, and instead of waiting for them to come back, it's most efficient to walk to the edge of the screen and rapidly jam on the attack button as the gang members continually waltz into your blind jabs. It might seems strange today, but this was just the way games played back then, often acknowledging space outside of the viewing area, but only allowing the player to partially access and exploit it. One could draw the connotations between this and the knowledge that pro wrestling is fake. Knowing this might cause some disillusion, but allows for a more honest appreciation (or disgust) of what is actually happening.

With those positive aspects of Final Fight laid out, it's worth addressing the porting issues that make this Wii Virtual Console version of the SNES game not the quality of product that a fan of the arcade game would hope for. A quick list of problems and omissions is as follows: no two-player cooperative play, only two of the three protagonists are present (no Guy), various censorship throughout, including that of salty language, transvestite/transgender enemies, and other non-kid-friendly (as determined by Nintendo) components, the lack of an entire level from the original, and a drop in audio/visual quality due to the limitations of the console hardware. These are serious shortcomings that may dissuade someone from purchasing this title. It should be noted that Final Fight: Double Impact is heading to PSN and XBLA in April, which looks to be the best version of this rather old game to date and rights all of the wrongs I mentioned while adding a hearty number of unique bonuses. If Wii is all you have then the SNES Final Fight may be the easiest choice, but it's a bittersweet package. My final technical note is that I played this game with a Gamecube controller, which has a painfully misguided and unalterable button configuration (Y=punch, B=jump) that makes special moves frustrating to execute and is just plain uncomfortable for rapid button presses. Why the punch command isn't the giant "A" button, I cannot fathom.

Despite these caveats, Final Fight is still a fun old-school beat 'em up game, and one of the best in its class. The SNES version doesn't offer the full original experience, but if you're just looking to feed a quick fix, it can do the job. Otherwise, seek the more robust port which will be widely available soon.

:screenshots from VGMuseum:

Review: Sin & Punishment (WiiVC/N64)

10 years ago cult-favorite developer Treasure put out Sin & Punishment, an English voice acted on-rails shooter, for the Nintendo 64, but only made it available in Japan. It's the N64 game that I came closest to importing purely on the basis of how it looked and what I had read about how it played. There's a grandiose anime-inspired, more mature (for N64) storyline with StarFox-like action, but you control a person instead of a plane. It was a game that looked extremely desirable in tiny screenshots on the back pages of EGM magazines. Now that Sin & Punishment has finally come stateside on the Wii's Virtual Console service, it was time to see if I was actually missing out.

For starters, let's get the unmet lofty expectations out of the way. S&P does not belong in the pantheon of all-time great N64 games, but it is still an incredibly stylish and unique product that has moments of absolute brilliance. Visually the game has a low polygon count for its characters, but not unexpectedly so, given its turn-of-the-millennium release. That said, the character models are rather grotesque, but in a way I find undeniably appealing. Everything has sharp, pointy angles, rigid joints and muddy textures. It seems like Treasure was trying to pull off something ambitious and cinematic with the designs, but I'd argue the game's all the better for these shortcomings as the characters literally look uncomfortable in their own skins.

This individualized discomfort seems to be one of the key elements of the story, but the character models alone do a better job of conveying this than any part of the formal plot in S&P. You control a guy who occasionally transforms into a giant mech-like monster and a girl who fights through an alternate future dream world and ultimately against the evil plot of their supposed-friend who I think they originally shared a common enemy with. So the story here, told mainly in non-interactive cutscenes, is nonsense that can be casually watched for awkward laughs, but thankfully skipped at will. As for the English voice acting, it's on par with some of the worst out there. All of these sloppy elements combine to create a broad feeling of camp that may have been awkward had this game actually been played in the US 10 years ago. S&P's overall presentation has aged both extremely poorly and extremely well, if that makes sense.

The design elements of S&P are worth noting, but are overall somewhat inconsequential to what this game is about. Like other games from Treasure, particularly those from the shooter genre, S&P leans heavily toward the hardcore sect. You control a character that, at times, must strafe, double jump, target, and shoot and/or sword slash at the same time, with each of those actions mapped to separate buttons. The control scheme has a sharp learning curve that requires significant practice to even handle properly, much less master. None of the three control setups offered are ideal on the Gamecube controller that I used to play the game, but hopefully the Classic Controller is more intuitively functional. S&P isn't a game that gives you much time to feel this stuff out either (though there is a tutorial mode) as you're quickly thrust into barrages of unrelenting enemy fodder at the game's outset that never let up. Still, it only takes about an hour to get through everything, so learning takes place on successive playthroughs more than over the course of one. As a side note, I would personally prefer a more movement-sensitive targeting cursor, as the sluggish one you're given makes parts of the game frustrating that could have been simply challenging. If it's not already clear, I recommend playing this game on Easy difficulty before engaging with Normal.

The strength of Treasure's game is its epic set-pieces. The ocean fleet chapter is particularly thrilling. The protagonist stands atop a floating platform that dramatically sweeps past armed frigates, waves of jet fighters, and countless energy blasts. Players would do well to get into pattern-memorization mode in such levels if they hope to get through with the least damage and highest score. After the sea battle the scene shifts to the sky where you must then take out a giant satellite fortress. Once destroying that, a huge asteroid mass hurtles towards your transformed mechanized monster friend and it's up you to tail the rock and detonate it before impact. There are quite a few tricky moments in this chapter, but in general it makes for an intense ride. Speaking of epic, the final boss fight is against some kind of evil clone Earth, and feels like an updated take on Space Invaders. When Sin & Punishment puts you in these larger-than-life scenarios, it's easy to get wrapped up in the excitement and discard the half-hazard story behind the action.

As with many elusive products, Sin & Punishment seems to be viewed by many critics through rose-colored glasses, glossing over the game's faults in favor of hardcore allegiances. To be fair, it does appeal to those tastes, but all in all it didn't live up to the expectations I've harbored for this game over the past decade. Perhaps the best news to come out of the Virtual Console version of S&P is that Nintendo plans for an international release of Sin & Punishment 2 for Wii this year. I have to imagine this sequel will control much more naturally given the light-gun style aiming that will be implemented into the Wiimote controls. The original Sin & Punishment still remains a stylistically unique, frantic shooting experience, but one would do well to keep their expectations in check before getting all huffy towards Nintendo for depriving US and European gamers of it for so many years.

:screenshots from Giant Bomb and IGN: