Fighting Game Review: Mega Man 2 - The Power Fighters

Mega-Man 2: The Power Fighters was a two-dimensional one-on-one arcade fighting game that was released in 1996, one year after its predecessor Mega-Man: The Power Battle.

Whereas The Power Battle was one of the last four games released for the first Capcom Power System arcade board, or CPS-1, The Power Fighters was released for its successor, the CPS-2. The primary purpose of the CPS-2 was to add encryption to the games that ran on the system board to prevent piracy. The graphics and sound were essentially the same, as The Power Battle also employed the three-dimensional sound processing algorithm known as QSound.

That's not a bad thing however, as The Power Battle already stood toe-to-toe with the graphics seen on the Mega Man games for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The cartoon-style is really beautiful. It remains a treat to see the blue bomber in all of his fighting glory. The mundane punching and futuristic sound effects return here. The music also remains a fantastic blend of Mega Man and Street Fighter II, making great use of the QSound technology. 

The real draw to this game compared to its successor is the addition of a fourth character. Mega Man, Proto Man, and Bass return, but this time they are joined by Duo, a robot that made its debut in the then-upcoming Mega Man 8. The shooting and the capturing and firing of boss weapons also return. New moves make their premiere here in the form of unique special moves for each character which can be activated by holding the direction of the joystick up and releasing a full buster attack.

Assist characters also make their debut here, appearing when the enemy health is halved or after using a credit to continue. Mega Man has the assistance of Rush, and Bass fittingly has Treble. Proto Man and Duo both gain the assistance of Beat. These assist characters will use their blasters against the enemy, but the drawback is that special moves can not be used while they are active.

Like its predecessor, there are three stories in the game. The first involves fighting through robots to find Dr. Wily. The second has the heroes battling to rescue Mega Man's sister Roll. The third involves finding robot parts that were stolen by Dr. Wily.

As before, each story contains six robots and a penultimate boss. The first story pits the heroes against Bubble Man, Heat Man, Shadow Man, Gyro Man, Centaur Man, and Plant Man with the boss being the Mad Grinder from Mega Man 7. The second story has the abominable Yellow devil as the penultimate boss after the heroic robots defeat Cut Man, Elec Man, Dive Man, Stone Man, Slash Man, and Shade Man. The final story contains Guts Man, Air Man, Quick Man, Gemini Man, Pharaoh Man, and Napalm Man. The boss for this story is the Mecha Dragon from Mega Man 2.

Like the game that came before it, Dr. Wily is the final boss. He must be defeated in one of his robotic inventions, as always. The Wily Machine returns. It once again must be defeated in multiple parts before finally revealing Dr. Wily floating around the room in a Wily Capsule. Defeating the evil doctor reveals the ending, which is different for every character.

Mega Man: The Power Fighters is a fantastic follow-up to the unique Power Battles. It is still a lot of fun to play the robot battles from various games in the Mega Man series as a one-on-one fighter.  The artwork, sound effects, and music are just as excellent as its predecessor. The biggest draws of this game are the new-to-the-subseries character Duo, the unique special moves, and the assist characters. Those alone make this one as much worthy of play by both Mega Man and fighting game fans.

Final Verdict: 

4½ out of 5

Arcade Beat 'Em Up Review: Nekketsu Renegade Kunio-Kun

Nekketsu Renegade Kunio-Kun, later localized as Renegade in the West, is an arcade beat 'em up by Technōs Japan. It was the game that started the series that known as Kunio-kun in Japan and primarily known as River City in the West.

The story of the game is simple. Kunio-kun is a new student at Nekketsu High School. The name of the school is a reference to the attitude of Kunio himself, as it translates to passionate, courageous, or hot-blooded. There is a student there who is always bullied named Hiroshi, whom Kunio befriends as he can't stand bullies. When Hiroshi is kidnapped, Kunio goes off to rescue his friend.

Kunio fights various stereotypical Japanese gangs as he progresses in his quest to save his friend. He has to clear six areas of gang members and fight a boss before he can move on. The first area is at the train station at Shinjuku. He fights members of a rival high school, Hanazono, which literally translates into English as flower garden. The boss fight there is Kunio's rival Riki. The second area is at the seaport in Yokohama. He fights against members of the Yokohama Funky bōsōzoku gang, which is a youth culture in Japan that is into customized motorcycles. The boss fight here is against the gang's leader Shinji. The third area is a dark alley near a disco store. Here, Kunio fights girls from Taiyō Academy. The final fight here is against the Misuzu, the sukeban, or boss girl. The final area is at a car dealership that is a front for the Yakuza crime organization known as the Sanwakai, or Sanwa gang. Riki is freed after Sanwakai's leader, Sabu, is defeated.

The original arcade game didn't quite have the cute super deformed style characters that the Kunio-Kun games would become known for once they were brought to the Family Computer. The sprites have more colors and are taller than their 8-bit console counterparts, but they did share a lot of the style in terms of the anime-inspired sprites and exaggerated facial expressions.

What it did have in common with the rest of the Kunio-kun brawling games and its spiritual successor, the Double Dragon series, was its fantastic beat 'em up gameplay. Kunio has the ability to jump and to perform a multitude of moves using only two action buttons and the right and left direction on the joystick. There are actually a whole range of actions he can make with such a small amount of buttons, a running hook, a jump kick, a collar grab, a knee bash, and a shoulder throw. He can also perform a beat down on enemies and defend himself when grabbed. The limited amount of buttons actually made this a perfect game to port to the Famicom, which is where the Kunio-kun series really flourished.

The music in this game is fast-paced which fits the action perfectly. There are sound effects for things such as hitting and kicking. There are a few compressed voice clips here, including a female Japanese announcer at the game's start as well as sounds of exertion from Kunio and screams from the enemy fighters. It's all a fantastic mix of audio, especially at the time of its release in 1986.

Nekketsu Renegade Kunio-Kun is notable as being the premiere of the Kunio-kun series, which is still going strong today. Beyond that, it remains enjoyable despite its sharp difficulty, which was common in arcade games of the time. The modern re-releases that use emulation are a great help here, as this type of gameplay isn't as popular as it was then and the ability to save a state and replay it makes it a lot more palatable. Later games, such as Double Dragon and Kunio-kun's own River City Ransom take the formula and improve upon it in big ways, but it is still interesting to see where everything began.

Final Verdict:

3½ out of 5

Platform Game Review: Commander Keen - Invasion of the Vorticons: The Earth Explodes

The Earth Explodes is chapter two of Commander Keen: Invasion of the Vorticons, a three-episode platform game developed by iD Software and published by Apogee Software.

Commander Keen flies his Bean-with-Bacon mega-rocket home from Mars, only to discover that the Vorticons have a cannon aimed at Earth. Commander Keen must go to the Vorticon mothership to stop the destruction of his planet. 

Episode two continues Commander Keen’s fight with the Vorticons, as he explores the caves of the Vorticon planet, does battle with the top Vorticon ninja fighters, and discover the secret of the Grand Intellect.

Compared to the first episode, this one does have a steep difficulty curve. The levels are harder both in terms of enemies as well as in terms of level design. When I played this game as a little girl I got stuck near the end because I couldn't traverse one of the later levels. Even as an adult, I had to check YouTube for the way to the exit. There's only one level that is truly that dastardly, but it does bring the quality of the game down a bit as it's never fun to fight against the design of the game.

Commander Keen: Invasion of the Vorticons is the second episode of a trilogy, but sadly it is not as well designed as the first. It has a steep difficulty curve, and one level in particular is difficult to get through without an external guide. As this is part of a trilogy of games based on the same engine, the lack of music is one of the real drawbacks in this game. Like the first episode, however, this is solved by using the excellent fan-produced music pack in the modern interpreter of the game, Commander Genius.

It pains me to say it, as I love the Commander Keen series, but this episode is just not worth playing unless you want to play through the entire trilogy. The other two episodes are better than this one, so it's worth picking up the trilogy bundle, but I would recommend giving this one a pass.

Final Verdict:

2½ out of 5

Arcade Fighting Game Review: Mega Man - The Power Battle

Mega Man: The Power Battles is a very unique arcade game. Mega Man is a platforming game icon. The mid-1990s brought him to other video game genres including board games, soccer, and racing. 1995 brought him into a genre that Capcom had mastered at that point, two-dimensional one-on-one arcade fighters.

Mega Man's boss battles are essentially one-on-one fighters themselves. So, Capcom stripped away the platform game aspects of Mega Man's most popular games and left just the battles. There are three fighters to choose from, each with their own bosses and storyline. There are three stories each with six boss battles. The first story has enemies are taken from his Mega Man's first two games. The next story takes bosses from Mega Man 3, the first appearance of Mega Man's brother Proto Man, as well as 5 and 6. The third story has bosses from Mega Man 7, which was the game that saw the premiere of Bass.

The gimmick of the Mega Man series thankfully returns here. When a robot boss is defeated, the current playable character earns it. That weapon can then be used on other robot bosses with the press of a button.

Once the six robot bosses are defeated, a penultimate boss appears. Mega Man and Proto Man both face the Yellow Devil from Mega Man's first outing as a hero, while Bass faces VAN Pookin, a boss that appeared in his first appearance in the series. As is usual with Mega Man games, the final boss for all three characters is Dr. Wily, who appears in a killer robot that he invented. This time around it is a giant floating Wily Machine which must be defeated in three different forms.

The artwork is spectacular, bringing the Mega Man to life in all of his 16-bit glory. It looks very much like Mega Man's Super NES outings, which is a good thing indeed. The SNES games contain some of the best sprite and background work in the entire series The soundtrack is spectacular, taking full advantage of Capcom's venerable CP System, or CPS-1, board. The music is just the right mix of Mega Man and Street Fighter II, and using the board that powered the latter was a stroke of genius. The board was discontinued in 1995, the year that Mega Man: The Power Battles was released. It was long in the tooth but still contained enough bite to bring the blue bomber to arcades a game that was one of four final games for the CPS-1, and was a great capper to that system's legacy.

Mega Man: The Power Battles is an arcade game that takes one of the best aspects of the Mega Man games, the boss battles, and presents them in the form of a one-on-one fighter. The venerable CPS-1 arcade board is utilized fantastically here. The artwork, gameplay, and music are all fantastic. The fact that all of the nuances are here, including the capture and use of boss weapons, makes this an arcade game that will certainly entertain fans of the Mega Man series and fighting game fans alike.

Final Verdict:

4½ out of 5

Free-to-Play Endless Runner Video Game Review: Super Mario Run

Super Mario Run is Nintendo's successful attempt to take the tried-and-true Super Mario series and blend it with the popular endless runner genre for Android and iOS devices.

It's a no-brainer really. The Super Mario series consists of 2D and 3D platforming games that are all about running and jumping. Super Mario Run takes these elements and wraps them in 3D graphics on a 2D scrolling playfield. Of course, when you simplify Mario's moves down to a single screen tap, things have to be changed up a bit. Tapping the screen when Mario is on a wall causes him to perform a wall jump, an acrobatic leap first seen in Super Mario 64. There are also pause blocks on the floor which cause Mario to stand in place. They don't appear often, but when they do, Mario can use them to better time his jumps.

There are also many other characters that can be unlocked, including Luigi, Princess Peach, Princess Daisy, Toad, Toadette, and multiple colors of Yoshi including green, red, blue, yellow, and purple. These characters have their own quirks that help out in game play. Many of these abilities stemmed from the international Super Mario Bros. 2, including Luigi's high jumps, Peach's glide ability. The speed inherent to Toad in that game also applies to Toadette's by proxy. Yoshi's flutter jumps from the Yoshi's Island subseries of Super Mario games also appears here. Daisy gains an ability unique to this game, which is the capability to perform a double jump.

Since this was Nintendo's first mobile game, it employed the fair process of upgrading from free to premium as seen in most of Nintendo's free-to-play Nintendo 3DS games. Paying a set fee of $10 USD enables the entire game. This unlocks worlds past 1-4 in World Tour mode. It also opens up the ability to unlock Peach, as the ability to play as the Princess Toadstool of the Mushroom Kingdom unlocks after she is saved from Bowser's clutches in world 6-4.

The music in these World Tour levels are at a quality expected from a Nintendo title. It really has a nostalgic feeling, only heightened by the use of classic sound effects and short vocals from the same actors who portray the characters in other games.

Other playable game modes include Toad Rally, a fun game where the goal is to play against a saved run from another player to see try to collect more toads than your opponent. Picking up coins cause more toads to flock to your side. Picking up a star or wonder flower causes a coin rush, in which many coins appear in the game field. The winner of the game is the player with the most coins, which means they have amassed the most Toads.

Coins can be used in Kingdom Builder mode to purchase items to place in the player's Mushroom Kingdom. This is highly customizable and gives each player a unique kingdom, although sadly it's for your eyes only as other player's kingdoms can not be visited. Some unique decorations have also appeared periodically to promote various games in the wider Mario series.

The last game mode is Remix 10. This adds some spice to the World Tour levels. The goal is to complete short remixes of these levels. Each level contains three bonus medals. Collecting these range from easy jumps to harder jumps that require Mario to jump off objects or enemies. A special award, a decoration to use in your Mushroom Kingdom, is gained after completing ten levels. After thirty levels are completed, the player will unlock Princess Daisy.

Super Mario Run is a fun little mobile game that places Mario firmly in the endless runner genre. It contains all of the hallmarks of games in the wider Super Mario series, including the fantastic cartoony backgrounds and character models, music, sound effects, and vocals. The fact that there are five unique playable characters and five variants gives it more variety, as does the various play modes. The standard world-based gameplay of World Tour is the game's bread-and-butter, but once that is completed there is still fun to be had in Remix 10, which adds short remixes of these levels and collectibles for the player to use to decorate their Mushroom Kingdom. The real standout here is the online Toad Rally mode. It's a lot of fun to play against ghost runs from other players to see if you can do better than them before time runs out. Chances are this is where most of your time playing this game will accrue. The game didn't light the world on fire, but for a reasonable price to unlock everything, it's a satisfying little time-waster.

Final Verdict:

4 out of 5

Arcade Beat 'Em Up Game Review: X-Men

X-Men is an arcade beat 'em up. It is one of approximately ten arcade games in that genre developed by Konami in the 1990s

It is the only video game which has character designs based on the animated pilot X-Men: Pryde of the X-Men. The playable character roster includes Cyclops, Colossus, Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler and Dazzler. The fact that the character designs are taken from the Pryde pilot actually works well for the game because those designs were based on some classic art from the comics, albeit sometimes in different colors such as Dazzler's jacket being brown instead of blue. Some of the designs are great for comics fans, such as Wolverine in the brown and tan colors given to him by the Marvel Comics artist John Byrne.

As is usual for Konami beat 'em ups of the era, the sprite work is superb. The pixel art really does resemble its source material to a tee. The animation is great here, with expressive movements that bring each Marvel hero to life as well as the animated series it is based on. The backgrounds are also well designed, perfectly bringing the world of the X-Men to the pixelated world of 1990s arcade games.

The music was always excellent in the classic Konami arcade games, and X-Men is no exception. The music captures the atmosphere of the Marvel universe fantastically. The sound effects also compliment the music. They also fit into the game world well, as they range from the mundane fight sound effects to futuristic sounds when the game veers from comic logic into science fiction territory, which is often.

The plot is simple. The X-Men have to defeat their archenemy, the master of magnetism, Magneto. He is once again trying to upend human civilization and is sending many mutants that are on his side after the X-Men. There are many classic X-Men villains that appear in this game. The villains that appear the most due to their non-human nature are the mutant-hunting robots known as the Sentinels and the X-Men-hating cyborgs known as the Reavers. The former should be familiar to most X-Men fans as they appeared in one of the best X-Men movies produced by 20th Century Fox, X-Men: Days of Future Past.

Other enemies that appear in the game are classic X-Men villains. Many should be familiar as they have appeared in various X-Men films. These mutants include Mystique, Pyro, Blob, the White Queen Emma Frost, and Juggernaut. The small Sentinels in X-Men: Days of Future Past were based on the nearly indestructible Sentinal-descendant known as Nimrod from the comic of the same name. He appears in the game in his full glory. The other villains never appeared in the films, but they have crossed the paths of the X-Men in the comics many times. These two villains are the Living Monolith and Wendigo.

Although he isn't a playable character, the benefactor of the X-Men, Professor X, appears in the game when he is kidnapped by Magneto. As it is based on the Pryde of the X-Men pilot, it's only natural that when Charles Xavier is captured, Kitty Pryde would be captured as well. This culminates in a tense final boss battle against the master of magnetism himself.

X-Men is a fantastic arcade game that brings the world of the X-Men circa the 1990s to life in a bombastic fashion. Although the Pryde of the X-Men animated television pilot was never picked up for a full series, the choice to use the character models for the game was a wise decision. The pilot had looks for the X-Men that were pulled from classic comics but were rarely seen outside of them, including Wolverine's classic brown and tan suit. As an X-Men fan, it was fun to see these designs in action in a video game. The sprite and background art are fantastic, the music and sound effects are top notch, and the beat 'em up formula is Konami at its best. Any fan of arcade beat 'em ups owes it to themself to try this game at least once. It's truly astonishing.

Final Verdict:

Arcade Multidirectional Shoot 'Em Up Game Review: Asteroids

Asteroids is a multidirectional shoot 'em up game that was released by Atari to arcades in 1979. It was highly successful, led to many sequels by Atari and its successors, and inspired games from other companies.

It is a game where a spaceship is floating in space and asteroids are flying into it. The goal is to shoot asteroids as well as the asteroid chunks that explode from them. The ship has a thruster which can be used to avoid the asteroids, but the ship will continue in the direction of the thrust unless another is initiated in another direction. Flying saucers will also periodically appear, and like Space Invaders before it, bonus points will be awarded if they are destroyed.

As the ship is in space, the ship can be rotated three-hundred sixty degrees. This rotation can help aim towards the asteroids to line up a shot as well as to choose a direction to move the ship. It is really helpful as the rotation happens quickly, so a well timed activation of the thrusters can keep the ship from blowing up from an asteroid hit.

For as timeless as the gameplay feels, the sound is relegated to simple sounds for the thrust, shots, asteroid explosions, ship explosions, and saucer sounds. There is also a thumping sound, akin to a heartbeat, that increases in intensity as the game goes on. 

The graphics in Asteroids are something that the video game industry hasn't seen in decades outside of retro releases. The displays we are used to are raster that use grids of pixels to display graphics, while Atari's Asteroid used a vector monitor. These monitors used sharp lines for its graphics, which created geometrical shapes without the ability to fill in objects.

There were color vector monitors, but Asteroids was completely in black and white. This actually works well for a game set in the endless dark of space. The triangle-shaped ship with two prongs at the bottom should look familiar to most people. It's the shape of the default marker on navigation devices using the cluster of over thirty satellites that make up the United States Global Positioning System,

The reason for this is interesting. Etak, the company founded in 1983 by Stan Honey, Ken Milnes, and Alan Philips was funded by Catalyst Technologies, a technology incubator that was founded by Nolan Bushnell, the co-founder of Atari. Etak pioneered navigational systems and designed the arrow icon specifically after the ship from Asteroids. Modern GPS navigators descend from the Etak Navigator, and the Asteroids ship is the most visible aspect that shows this today.

Asteroids is a classic that is still fun to play today. The vector graphics are antiquated now, but they still do an admirable job portraying the space ships and asteroids. The vector trail left by the shots are also trippy when played on real hardware or in emulators that have simulation of that effect. That's something that isn't seen in today's screens without purposefully coding a simulation of the effect into a game. The uniqueness of the vector effects and the timeless gameplay make this a game that deserves to be played by any shoot 'em up fan for a game or two, if not more.

Final Verdict:

4 out of 5