Sam's video game collection essentials

This is the sequel to Battle Clash, a game I talked about a while back . Like Battle Clash, this game requires the Super Scope peripheral, so it’s basically a light gun game. And it’s one of the best games of its kind out there. This is an example of what a video game sequel should be. It takes a game in Battle Clash that was already good, and improves and adds to everything to make a game that’s clearly better. Metal Combat just has that extra layer of polish that pushes a game from good to great. The graphics are better, there’s more content, more modes, more variety in gameplay, and this time the game has a battery backup to store saved games for record-keeping. Like Battle Clash, the gameplay of Metal Combat consists of a series of what are basically boss battles against a series of giant robots. Gameplay in light gun games tends to be fairly simplistic and amounts to “see things, shoot things”, but Metal Combat is a little deeper than that. There is enough variety in your abilitie

This is a rather peculiar game. After the several Mega Man games I covered this past week were released, Capcom made the next mainline Mega Man game for the next generation of consoles, complete with updated (but still 2D) graphics. You’d figure that the Blue Bomber would be leaving behind the previous generation by then, as almost literally every other franchise was. Instead, Capcom decided to make this game for those who had not yet upgraded to the latest hardware. It’s technically a spinoff game, but basically plays like another full-fledged entry in the main series. And it also uses the graphics from the aforementioned next-generation Mega Man game that had already come out, and recreates them stunningly well on the old hardware. The game never released outside Japan, as support for old consoles back then typically died off much quicker in other countries, and almost literally nothing was released for SNES outside Japan by 1998. (There was a port on a future Game Boy system that sa

Mega Man X could have been seen as the evolution to the Mega Man series, starting on a different console and all. But no, Capcom insisted that the standard Mega Man series was still active, and so they later released Mega Man 7, the first one to be developed initially for a console other than the NES.  The main Mega Man series featured incremental changes, and these were few enough that the games wound up feeling very similar. 7 does at least change things a little more than usual. Since it’s on a new console, they took an opportunity to redo the artstyle, and you’ll notice that Mega Man’s sprite is quite a bit bigger than it was for the NES games, which has gameplay implications. Mega Man games on the NES sometimes added light story elements to the experience, but 7 makes it a little more of a focus. This game has an intro stage like Mega Man X did, and this sets up the story, with spoken dialogue between characters. In addition to series staple Dr. Wily, there’s a new antagonist intr

And now the X trilogy on Super Nintendo is complete. Capcom cranked out these three games in three years at the end of the console’s prime. And while X3 is still really good on its own, it feels less inspired than the first two games. This one feels a little more like they just wanted to make another game for its own sake, rather than to realize some great idea to introduce to the series. It’s mostly the same song and dance as the first two games. What’s new in X3? The biggest thing is that X’s friend Zero, a very popular character in this series, is playable for the first time, and you can call on his services for a short time during a level. He can’t face bosses. It feels like a rather insignificant thing gameplay-wise that I never use. The other thing is that there are a few “enhancement chip” upgrades in this game that each further improve one of X’s other power-ups. The catch is that once you pick one, you can’t get any of the other ones. But there also exists a secret “Hyper Chip

Capcom sure loves to pump out their Mega Man games. With the success of Mega Man X, they knew they wanted to make X its own series. And so, a year after the first game, they cranked out Mega Man X2. This game is very much like the first game, so I’m not going to spend much time describing how it all works all over again. A nice little upgrade is enhanced graphical effects at times thanks to a new chip that the game takes advantage of.  There is now a side goal that affects the end of the game and the ending if fulfilled. X can fight a few optional bosses to try and collect pieces of a disassembled robot friend of his (a popular character from the series) in hopes of putting him back together.  There’s a good variety to the stages. For example, one of them involves stealth, as X tries to stay away from searchlights throughout the level.  One of the upgrades is a radar that helps you search for hidden upgrades, which is a great addition because otherwise a game like this practically requ

A note to start: one, the “X” in the title is not a Roman numeral, it is the letter X. This is not “Mega Man 10.” The game is called this because the main character is named “Mega Man X”, or “X” for short, and he is a distinct character from the other “Mega Man”, who does not appear in this game or future “Mega Man X” games. Yes, “Mega Man X” would go on to be its own separate series running alongside regular Mega Man, welcome to confusiontown. It took a while for Mega Man to truly make the jump to the 16-bit generation of consoles. This is partially because Capcom kept making Mega Man games on NES well after the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo launched, with the sixth and final one coming out near the very end of 1993 in Japan and 1994 in America, being among the last NES games ever released. Mega Man X was actually developed around the same time as Mega Man 6. And, boy, they sure made it a game that could never be done on NES hardware.  Mega Man X adopts a similar format to standard

It’s all in the name. We have a game that’s called Marvelous, which IS marvelous. This is one of the most unknown and overlooked excellent games developed by Nintendo of all-time. It came out late in the system’s lifespan, after the following Nintendo console had already been released, which is likely the main reason why it never received an English localization. Marvelous is an action adventure game, and the closest comparison is Zelda, since it was inspired by Link to the Past, uses the same engine, and the director of the game went on to work on future Zelda titles. But Marvelous is not simply a Zelda clone. It’s less combat-focused and more puzzle-focused than Zelda, and also a bit more linear. There’s a hint of “The Lost Vikings” thrown in, as the game revolves around switching between control of three different characters with unique abilities which must be used to solve the game’s puzzles. The game also seems to have some DNA of PC adventure games with the types of puzzles, amou

This is a rather unorthodox idea for an early-’90s game. It almost feels weird calling Mario Paint a game, because it’s more like art software. This game shipped with the “SNES Mouse” which is needed to control the mouse cursor on screen, and this plays more like an application you’d find on a computer rather than a Super Nintendo game.  Mario Paint, as you might guess from the name, functions as art software. The primary activity in the game is to draw stuff. And the game provides many tools and templates to facilitate this. The game also features a music creator which lets users write their own music which can be played back, and it’s pretty sophisticated. And the most “game” feature of this cartridge is the Fly Swatter game, where you control a hand holding a fly swatter and you must kill insects and avoid their attacks for as long as you can.  By today’s standards, Mario Paint is pretty outdated. You can do much more than what’s here on any modern computer or phone. But what makes

Picross, also known as “nonogram”, refers to a specific type of picture logic puzzle. The idea is to use the number clues on either side of a square or rectangle to fill in spaces in a particular way to form a picture. This type of puzzle was invented in Japan in the 1980s, and it didn’t take too long for it to be adapted to video game form. Nintendo thought that it would be a good fit as a SNES game marketed with Mario. How does one make sense of a Picross puzzle? Well, if you see a column or row with a series of numbers, that means you have to fill in a sequence of squares, and the number of squares filled in must equal the numbers shown, and in order. For example, you’ll see in the photo that I filled in a column with the numbers 9 and 1, first filling in 9 squares, and then 1 square after it. There has to be a gap of unfilled squares in between. The trick is that you don’t know where specifically the squares are supposed to be filled in, so you need to use logic to figure it out! I

The first Lufia won’t be making this list, as it’s frankly not that good. Lufia II is actually a prequel to that game. And it’s a clever idea for a prequel, too. At the beginning of Lufia 1, you control a powerful group of four warriors who confront and fight a big powerful bad guy in his lair, and then there’s a time skip to the future when the main events of that game take place. Lufia II as a prequel tells the story of those four warriors that you briefly control at the beginning of Lufia 1. But you certainly don’t need to play Lufia 1 to enjoy or appreciate Lufia II, and…well, you probably shouldn’t play Lufia 1, so that’s good news.  These games are turn-based JRPGs. A lot of times dungeons and such in JRPGs are fairly simple, with just some branching pathways and maybe simple puzzles that aren’t a big focal point. But Lufia II takes things in a more Zelda direction and has really fun puzzle-based dungeons. And while the game does have random battles on the overworld map when goin

The second game I’m covering developed by Blizzard, who later went on to be famous for their PC titles like World of Warcraft. The first game of theirs I wrote about was Blackthorne . The Lost Vikings is a super cool game that really stands out in the early ‘90s crowd. You could sort of call it an action puzzle game, I suppose. The basic premise is that there are three Viking heroes, each with their own special abilities, which you can switch between to try and get through the levels using these unique abilities in specific ways. One of them is really fast and can jump, one of them has a huge shield which he can also use as a platform for another Viking, and the other is able to attack and defeat enemies. It’s impossible to get through each level without utilizing each of the three, and they also must all reach the exit. And while puzzle-solving is a huge part of the game, the action itself can get challenging at times too. You can definitely get through this game playing alone, but fr

First, let me note that this game has nothing to do with Space Jam, and Michael Jordan isn’t in it. This SNES exclusive is what one would call an “arcade-style” 2-on-2 basketball game, very much inspired by a certain super popular actual-arcade basketball game that I haven’t talked about yet (I’ll be covering it on the next console in line). Arcade-style basically means it’s not trying to be very realistic, opting for a fun, frantic, fast-paced, easy-to-control, easy-to-play sort of game.  The game features various Looney Tunes characters, and upon starting the game you get to choose which ones you want on your team. Each one has their own attributes and special moves (which are pretty cartoony and wacky). There’s a variety of options to cater your experience, including a “Wacky meter” to customize just how much crazy unrealistic cartoon nonsense will happen in your play session. Voice clips for the different characters are a nice touch. I don’t have much else to say about the game, s

And here we have one of the first games I ever played and ever beat, one of my most significant childhood titles that formed my love for video games as an entertainment medium, the third Legend of Zelda game. The first Zelda was a revolutionary title on a level that few other games were, one that paved the way for the action-adventure genre as we know it. The second game was a departure, an action RPG with side-scrolling combat and platforming. For the third game, Nintendo would go back to the roots of the original, but many changes would be made in the transition to this new and more powerful system. Fans of the original could argue that not all of these changes provided an improvement, but regardless, this game greatly shaped what The Legend of Zelda series would look like moving forward, and action-adventure games as a whole.  The first Zelda game dropped you into a world to explore as you saw fit, with a series of dungeons scattered throughout, and the player didn’t have a strict o

Kirby’s Dream Land 3 was the last SNES game Nintendo published outside Japan, and yet Kirby was still not done with the console. This is the second “falling blocks” puzzle game for Kirby on the system after Avalanche, only this one is entirely original rather than a reskin of an existing puzzle game. Kirby Star Stacker was a late Game Boy release, coming out in 1997. It didn’t make my list, in part because this remake exists. Puzzle games like this definitely want a console version for easy 2-player, because with Game Boy you needed two consoles, two cartridges and a link cable in order to play with friends, which often wasn’t practical. Nintendo decided the now-old SNES was a suitable choice for a Star Stacker remake, even though the console was practically done by 1998. Japan was more receptive to games coming out for yesterday’s consoles, and I guess people in the rest of the world were more fixated on the newest state-of-the-art games. And so, the game got enhanced graphics in the

Kirby Super Star was a late-era SNES game and yet there was still more Kirby platforming on the console to come. Kirby’s Dream Land 3 is the last SNES game published by Nintendo outside of Japan, in 1997. The name of the game seems odd at first, since the “Dream Land” title had previously been used only with the Game Boy Kirby platformers. But it does make sense on a certain level, because Dream Land 3 brings back the “animal friends” feature from Dream Land 2. The first striking thing you’ll notice about Dream Land 3 is the artstyle. The graphics of Dream Land 3 were done in a way to make it look like everything was drawn with colored pencil. It’s a very neat look that’s unlike pretty much anything else on the console. The game also features a fun and upbeat soundtrack to make sure multiple senses are pleased. Dream Land 3 is not as feature-rich as Super Star. It’s a more concentrated experience, with the player undertaking a gauntlet of levels. As with the previous Dream Land, Kirby

Kirby finally gets a proper mainline entry on the Super Nintendo, right in the same month that Nintendo’s NEXT major console was coming out. Kirby’s Adventure on the NES actually came out midway through the prime of the SNES, and that started a recurring pattern of major Kirby games coming late in a system’s lifespan that persisted for quite a while. The box can be a little deceiving. It says “8 games in one”, but none of the games on here would really be enough to pass as an independent SNES game on its own. In fact, some of them are basically mini-game modes rather than actual games. Which is fine, it’s just kinda false advertising if you ask me. Being a main series entry, Kirby Super Star is a platformer with the signature gameplay elements seen in Kirby’s Adventure, and more. So Kirby can fly, inhale and swallow objects, blow out a burst of air, and take the abilities of some enemies upon eating them, also known as the “copy ability”. Kirby Super Star makes important advancements w