For Game Club, my buddy @cameronreigle (check out his art, it’s amazing, and he’s a lovely guy) picked this surprising 64 classic. I was so glad to revisit it as it was one of my beloved childhood games, and it 100% holds up [adjusts rose-tinted glasses].
I can finally get my Rayman series playthrough back on track after getting a decent N64 emulator working (Sixtyforce, requires registration). Try as I might, the PC versions just weren’t working for me. So Tonic Trouble then.
From what I’ve heard, Tonic Trouble was a test of sorts for the 3D engine that would power Rayman 2. Whether this is true or not, the games share much of their DNA and end up feeling very similar in atmosphere, gameplay, and music. Not to mention pervasive limblessness. It’s also established that they share a universe, with the General (“Mission accomplished. Sheer perfection.”) from Tonic Trouble’s FMV intro (in the PC version, not this one) appearing late in Rayman 2 to sell the Grolgoth to Razorbeard. Rayman also has a minor cameo or two in this game.
Tonic Trouble is more brightly coloured and cartoon-esque in its design and animation, but can still switch to dark, gloomy environments just like its successor. It does play up the surreal though, due to the effects of the mutagenic can as part of its plot, which gives it elements reminiscent of the first Rayman game as well as Origins. In fact one of the worlds, the Glacier Cocktail, is eerily similar to the icy parts of Gourmand Land in Origins and related games (Legends, Fiesta Run) with its large citrus slices among ice blocks.
But what about the gameplay? This is very much an early 3D platformer with all that entails. Levels are brief and linear with some hidden secrets, but fairly well designed I suppose. You unlock new abilities after each world, but each one has awkward controls associated with it; it doesn’t help that the N64 controller actually has not many buttons after the C buttons are used up on camera control. The gliding move especially is difficult to master, but they make a good attempt to base a level around it which feels very similar to Rayman 2′s lava sanctuary. Combat is not as smooth as Rayman 2, but it’s more puzzley and comes with fakey martial arts vocalisations from Ed, as part of the game’s mildly-lame wacky humour aesthetic. The final boss too is a nice multi-stage fight which uses most of the acquired abilities.
There’s a few oddities about this game that should be addressed. There are popcorn machines that briefly transform you to a muscleman to solve puzzles; inexplicably, they’re labelled with the logo for Newman’s Own brand of salad dressing and so forth. The PC version instead advertises Nestle Crunch. There’s also a beta version that was given out before the release of the game, which you will often find (named “Special Edition”) if you’re looking for the PC version. For the record, the PC version seems identical to the N64 one but with a graphical upgrade and voice acting; the beta version on the other hand is vastly different. Beyond merely lacking a jumping animation, there’s many level designs and concepts, collectibles, and enemies that were changed or unused for the final game. I couldn’t play it myself or find a full video playthrough but if you can, it’s worth trying both out.
Tonic Trouble was fine; I had fun with it, it’s pretty short so it doesn’t overstay its welcome. It’s a bit basic, the characters can be cliche, and the music aside from the main theme is forgettable. But it has heart. French heart. If you like Rayman and especially Rayman 2, there’s a good chance you’ll find something to like here. Now I’m off to play the Game Boy Color version.
Playing the original Paper Mario games after all the others was a mistake, I think. All the others build on it so much, but I appreciated its (from my perspective) back-to-basics approach. It’s also overflowing with charm.
First of all, N64 emulation on the Wii’s Virtual Console is not great. Since there’s no control options, you’re stuck with the unique tripod controller’s layout being mapped in unfamiliar ways. The biggest offender is the C-buttons being assigned to pushing a direction on the right stick. Not ideal, and this game uses them a lot. Apart from that the convenience of the system is appreciated, and on a technical level there are only a few issues; I’m sure opening the menu shouldn’t be so delayed, and there’s apparently some extra lag. But considering the cost of cartridges, it’s a great way to play it.
Having played the Gamecube’s Thousand Year Door, I was very familiar with the systems of the game, the structure, the style; the biggest changes for the sequel were in the settings you go to, with mere tweaks to the mechanics and tone. Which is fine, but they’re made to be played in order. Paper Mario forms such a strong foundation for its sequel in almost every way, and in a certain few ways for what many would consider to be spinoffs, Super Paper Mario and Sticker Star. But even though TTYD is more playable with its refinements and extra badge points, it’s worth playing both for the story and locations.
I’d even go so far as to say I enjoyed the locations more in this game; TTYD is more “out there” with its style parodies and attempts to shake up the world while PM is more grounded and Mario feels more natural there. Either way, going from PM to TTYD is, again, probably the best way to enjoy these games.
But have you, reader, ever heard of this game? It’s a simplistic RPG with light action and platforming elements, a strong art direction with cute paper-thin characters in a mainly 3D world, and writing with humour and heart. It also makes good use of the Mario license with familiar and obscure characters, many of them with a design twist (each of your party members is a variation of a past enemy). Unlike many RPGs, your personal progression is very modular, so each extra point of damage is well-earned and satisfying. Battles require both strategy and timing for best results, and grinding is almost never required. Badges act as your equipment and have a range of interesting effects (I almost always electrified myself with Zap Tap and increased the speed of my spin attack for speedy travel, a mechanic that was lost in later instalments).
Sure, it can be slow, battles can become tedious and unrewarding, backtracking is a drag, the environments can seem standard for Mario (I thought the game made them novel enough), you’re not allowed to get enough badge points, the plot’s pretty simple in the broad strokes, and it can be overly wordy. But I felt that the personality in the graphics and writing, and the unique gameplay, were enough to pull me through a reluctance for conquering each big chunk of game. It was also really interesting to see the foundation that the next games were either basing themselves on or subverting.
And Twink alone is worth playing the game for. Among the many unforgiveable mistakes Sticker Star made, not having any characters remotely as memorable as him is one of them. Also no Peach segments, no goofball Bowser, no customisable badge system, no gleefully trolling characters (the game itself just trolled you), no cast of fun partners, no tough but fair boss fights, no Yoshi’s Island references, no farcical penguin-related murder mysteries. All great qualities that this game (and TTYD, come to think of it) have in spades. And best of all, Paper Mario has been announced for Wii U Virtual Console! With configurable controls! So when it comes out, go and play it, and avoid that Sticker Star like the plague.
Well, so much for me writing more often. Well if you read this at all, you’d be used to irregular updates. So here’s the last game I played before packing away my N64 again. Fitting, as it was released so late and seems a culmination/subversion of a prevailing genre at the time, the 3D platformer.
Bad Fur Day is often lumped in with the other Rare collectathons, but that’s an unfair association. It lampoons them, yes, but many other genres as well. Its rewards are the humorous excuse collectible of cash and more importantly simply getting to the next cutscene, seeing what happens next, the next joke or the next setpiece, is the reward for progress.
Importantly, the humour is very central to the game, being a driving force, rather than a sweet secondary focus as it is in Banjo. You just don’t get that many humour games or comedy games, especially not ones that actually have good gameplay too. The gameplay here is classic 3D platformer stuff, but with a heavier emphasis than normal on changing it up. We get thrid-person shooter segments (war-themed and horror-themed), flying, pitchfork-riding, first-person turret sections, races, arena combat, and quicktime events among others, in addition to the standard jumping-climbing-swimming challenges. Some of these can get quite frustrating but it’s all worth it to “get to the next bit”.
About the humour though, it’s a little dated. A good example of late 90’s “mature” immature humour, like early South Park. Swearing and poop are funny. Of course, at the time and at the ages we were, they really were very funny. There’s quite a few pop culture/movie reference jokes too, which tend to date. I think there’s a lot there that holds up though, and has value, even if it’s simply as a historical item. The main point underscoring it all though is that the world is initially so cutesy and the characters being talking animals and objects, which is constantly subverted.
In a lot of ways, it’s rooted in its time. You have to understand something of its development environment to truly understand it. Rare’s development teams were separated into barns to foster a competitive atmosphere. Chris Seavor’s barn was working on Twelve Tails: Conker 64, Rare’s first(!) 3D platformer. Another team was working on Project Dream. When they saw Conker, they reworked their game, taking cues from Seavor’s project. Meanwhile Conker suffered several delays while Banjo, then its sister project DK64, and finally Banjo Tooie, were released. Seavor saw that they would have to do something drastic to differentiate their project from those that beat it to the punch. Their answer was to subvert that style, subvert Nintendo’s kid-friendly image, subvert even the game itself in its past stages.
For some of us gamers growing up, we are now finding interest in looking back behind the scenes of games we loved. Apparently the developers of those games are doing so too, reflecting on their careers. Chris Seavor’s development commentaries (http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbRUl7dkRVPKlYiUq4TmEaQ) with some others of his team are an invaluable look behind the curtain, as well as being very entertaining (they’re so bad at their own game!). You also get them on Twitter sometimes, or in interviews. Conker’s story has many twists and turns, and that’s before you even get into Microsoft…
So given that it’s so unique, I’m pretty comfortable giving Bad Fur Day my “Favourite N64 Game” award. I just loved having a game that engaged me on the game level, but also made me laugh, that ended up being very emotional. On completing my recent playthrough, I admitted on Twitter that I shed a tear at the ending. There’s an abrupt and very hard-hitting turn that in itself is another subversion of what came before in the game itself, while also being a moral that Conker was leading up to in some ways. As I said before, this dual identity of the game itself is reflected somewhat in its ending, if only in a tonal sense.
Also it had a bunch of kickass multiplayer modes that occupied us for many a Saturday morning. While the campaign is the main focus, as was the case for many games the tacked-on multiplayer greatly extended the longevity and made it not only suitable for party occasions, but a must-have. There’s a lot of variety but inevitably Beach and War are the most frequently played.
Ah. It was really good, despite all its flaws. I’m also playing Conker’s Pocket Tales (slowly)… they’re really nothing alike. But that’s all for now. Oh, did I mention the memorable characters? The paint pot, Chucky Poo, Professor von Kripplespac, Conker himself, Gregg the Grim Reaper, the army sergeant. Classics all, and every minor character also has something to make you laugh. Oh… now I’m thinking about the ending again and feeling all sad and bleak. See, this is what the game does to you. But then you remember the scouser dung beetles and smile. Mm. Marvellous. ting
So many 3D platformers. Ok, this one is infamous for being the very hieght of the collectathon genre. The sheer amount of goobers to pick up, that are colour-coded no less so you have to pick the right one of 5 characters to even collect them, is a big source of frustration for a lot of people. But on my recent playthrough, I didn’t find that so bad. I just treated it as a leisurely relaxing process, going back and forth, switching up, piling up little tasks to complete one after the other.
I was helped immeasurably by having an open strategy guide next to me for the second half of the run. It prevented frustration and fruitless wandering. Plenty of maps and checklists. Without it the game really is a confusing mess, especially levels that get you lost easily, like… all of them. These huge areas with hubs, a lot of places look similar, doorways that arbitrarily lead to areas that you mix up.
But enough about game design. I want to talk about the character of the game. In style and structure it’s quite similar to the Banjo series, but there are important differences. I read that it was made by a different team to those games, which means that Rare had three 3D platformers developing simultaneously. Wacky. One thing that stood out to me that set them apart was the humour and personality. Banjo has a few little amusing animations, but really shone in its writing. On the other hand, DK64 had very dull writing but has tons of characterful animations and physical humour. It’s a distinction that leads in to the next point.
This game has not aged very well. From the downright embarrassingly 90s DK Rap that opens the game to the game design to the visuals. They wanted to show off the dynamic lighting system but the game just ends up too dark a lot of the time. They wanted to push the hardware but there’s a lot of lag as a result. They wanted it to be funny but it’s a little lame.
Still, there’s an undeniable charm to it. Having this world and especially the characters fleshed out so much. Just watching the Kongs’ antics in the tag barrel says so much about their personalities. And while a lot of the tasks are mindless or pointless, there’s satisfaction in hunting them down and performing them. The music is a highlight, Grant Kirkhope at his best.
It’s invaluable as a Donkey Kong game because of what it brings to the series. Having said that, its wackiness doesn’t fit too well with the Country games that preceded it, it’s not quite as grounded. Well they got a little crazy at times too. But, as a game it’s clearly not as good as either Banjo game, just my opinion of course. Having so many 3D platformers in such a short time was pretty mad, but it’s just cool to have 5 playable Kongs in their wild world. And I’m so glad I was able to finally get 101% after all these years. Ok Cranky, take it to the fridge!
As I mentioned earlier, before I went away and between bouts of 3D platformers, I popped in the classic Star Fox installment on the 64, known for legal reasons in the PAL territories by the (admittedly more imaginative, less lazy) title, Lylat Wars. I also mentioned something about Mega Man lore, but that didn’t pan out in retrospect. So don’t expect that. Expect this!
Lately I’ve noticed that my tastes tend strongly towards platformers, so I feel good when I play something decidedly different. The Star Fox series has been many things, but only two installments (plus the 90%-done-but-cancelled Star Fox 2—there’s a ROM online) are autoscrolling rail shooters. And yet, because they’re the original and popular ones, everything else is derided as not really Star Fox. Anyway this one’s a “real” one so we don’t have to worry about that until I get around to Command later.
This is one of those games I played so many times in childhood, during that impressionable time, that I can practically play stages by muscle memory—especially on the more fun tracks. You see, each run through takes you on a varying track through the system, visiting certain planets and skipping others. However, I was finally defeated by the unlocked Expert mode, where Fox dons sunnies to resemble his dead/black hole’d father, oh and his wings break off in the slightest breeze, removing your laser upgrades. It’s extremely frustrating.
I found that I was only around 5 Expert medals short of 100%ing it, thereby unlocking the on-foot mode in multiplayer. We never played it much, it wasn’t much fun, and said mode turned out to be pretty lame. But y'know, it’s the principle of the thing. Accomplishing that goal was surprisingly intense and exciting! It, again, as I’ve said before, tested my memories and my new skills, sometimes to the brink of nasty angry feelings about stupid dumb games. But damn if I didn’t blitz Sector Z on my first try! Great feeling.
So why do I love this game? It wasn’t just that I had to try to love the few games we had, because we had some real duds (Superman 64, that SNES cricket game, I’m looking at you guys). I think in a lot of cases the superb, tight play control has to do with long-lasting enjoyment. Of course, the content has to be there too and the fact that multiple runs can vary so much is a big plus there. There’s also little spots of charm that can add so much: the little waggling portraits, the campy voice acting, the impressive boss designs.
The essence of the game is score attacks and trying to better your runs. But the levels are so dynamic and interesting that you just love to replay them. The frustrating bits just make victory sweeter, although I can’t say that I didn’t dread some levels much more than others—certain ones are definitely more fun. But they did stitch it together with some cool plot, stated and implied.
Anyway I think the game’s aged well, which I guess is good news for the remake. Although I heard the extra detail made the (retained) short draw distances jarring. Plus, then they lose the polygonal models which they made seem intentional, and ended up being quite iconic. Either way, it’s a true classic of the 64, and I finally beat it down. Now you all know it’s coming, say it with me: “Press Z or R twice!” Ah, so quotable. Ok, real ones: “Yippeee! You did it!” “My Emperor! I’ve failed you!” So good. Ok, Mission Accomplished. It’s time for us to go now.
Why, hello everyone! I’m enjoying my holidays and playing lots of video games. I found the time to finish Banjo-Tooie, right after doing Kazooie earlier. The Super Banjo cheat helped it go faster, and made the whole thing less frustrating. It was still annoying in parts, but I’ll get to that.
Banjo-Tooie is a good sequel. It expands on the original and follows on from it in most ways, and has a very different feel. It’s not retreading the same ground at all, really, apart from obviously the core mechanics. Everything builds upon Kazooie, starting with the plot which picks up two years after the previous game’s ending. Grunty is still under her boulder and Klungo is still trying to move it. B-K, Mumbo, and Bottles, now firm friends, are hanging out playing poker. Everything that happened happened and now their lives have moved on.
In terms of mechanics, it’s similar: our heroes still have all the moves they learned last game, and this one simply expands on what they can do as they progress. Of course, when we look at the list of moves they get we start to see why this approach has flaws: this game has 5 types of eggs, the ability to split up and for Banjo and Kazooie to get seprate abilities apart from each other, and Mumbo is now playable. My point is that the new moves and stuff add options, but as you go on the options become very numerous. It becomes an extremely varied and complicated game.
The worlds this time around are much bigger. And you can’t just run through and do everything in turn. Many items or areas are locked until you get abilities from later worlds, and there are now connections between the worlds. It’s a different approach, almost getting a bit Metroid Prime-like, but it gives a very different play experience to the first game’s “do a world in one sitting then never go back” style. This is not a bad thing, but the sheer size and complexity of these worlds can be daunting. I like being forced to revisit the worlds, as they have a lot of character, but if you don’t have a walkthrough it’s just so much aimless wandering.
I did use a walkthrough with this game, and the BK wiki. I remembered how much of a pain backtracking was if you didn’t have the prerequisites. I made it my mission to get the bare minimum Jiggies to unlock new worlds, prioritised new moves and actions that would affect other worlds, then backtracked later on. I liked this approach, there were less moments of feeling useless. Having guides was also very frustration-averting in the labyrinthine levels like Grunty Industries or, well, most of them really.
Having just come off the back of Kazooie (not literally), I readily noticed all the differences this game brought. Things are less shiny, and less permanent. Items disappear and enemies respawn. The text looks different, and characters and locations are more detailed. The biggest difference was the amount of slowdown. All that extra detail and massive worlds really makes the hardware chug at times. More often than you’d like, too.
It really is necessary to play these games in order though, not only because of the evolution of the mechanics but all the callbacks too. Many characters return and will refer to the previous adventure. It’s so great to see old faces in new places, and the dialogue is perhaps even better than the original (except for the loss of Grunty’s rhymes. At least that is referred to in-game, as her sisters demand she stop because it annoys them). Even older faces turn up too, in cameos that I totally didn’t get at the time. Captain Blackeye, from the project Dream that became Banjo-Kazooie, shows up, and Sabreman of Rare’s old MSX games is a significant character. I appreciate these much more now, and it really helps build the Rare Universe. Great stuff.
So I talked about the complexity of the mechanics. This game also succumbs to something DK64 fell much more foul of, that of introducing many “mini-games” and bits with totally different playstyles. It’s common in these 3D platformers to step outside their core gameplay—it’s overused in DK64 but perhaps not quite here. But apart from the one-off minigames, new abilities help you aim in first person to shoot eggs while swimming, flying, and even walking (while in specific shooting arenas). These arenas are interesting as they ape the gameplay of Rare’s bestselling Goldeneye quite closely. I find this cool too, and the way they make it fit in this world with holding birds like guns is amusing (it’s a multiplayer mode too). But when a minigame has unique controls and is very hard to do, the frustration is at maximum. I’m glad to say that happened only a few times in this game.
So I liked Tooie, it’s so important to the Banjo series. But, it’s still obvious that Kazooie is a much more tight, focused experience and a better game overall for it. Tooie is sprawling, messy, and flawed, but ambitious, evolutionary, and more varied. Things like real bosses and more involved tasks are a mixed blessing but overall much of what it tried to do worked well, and the bits that are more of the same are actually more of the same cool, fun, things.
So I liked playing Kazooie better, but this was still good. Now I have to slog through DK64. Hrm. See you in six months, I guess. No, actually, I have more updates to do. Also I will start on Grunty’s Revenge very soon, the midquel of the Banjo series on GBA. Never played that, so it should be interesting. Yay Banjo!
I’d like to talk about these two games at once because my backlog is filling up, and I thought a comparison of these was apt. Why?
Well, two of my favourite games growing up were Donkey Kong Country 2 and Yoshi’s Island. Those probably stand out to me the most before we got our 64. These two games, then, are related to these, being the prequel and a sequel/spin-off respectively. Also, I never really played them at the time or at all until recently. The other way I can talk about them together is that they are both ground-breaking platformers that tried new things in the market at the time, but had differing levels of success.
There is a quote from Miyamoto at the time about DKC: “The success of this game proves that people will put up with mediocre gameplay if the graphics are good.” I’m paraphrasing, but the gist is that DKC was being hyped up a lot for its graphics (even though the gameplay and other aspects were great too), and I think old Miyamoto was bitter that it was outselling his project, Yoshi’s Island. I think both games have beautiful visual styles and great gameplay, although they are very different on both counts. Both were, in a way, responses to Super Mario World but they took the 2D platformer concept in very different directions.
I can tell this is going to be long. Bear with me, folks. DKC’s sequel refined further everything that made it great, and is superior in most ways. Yoshi’s Island on the other hand had a sequel the next generation which pushed even further away from the basic SMW style, off the wacky deep end. This is my opinion, of course.
So I guess the main thing I took away from these playthroughs is that sometimes you have to try new things, and sometimes they don’t work. DKC had a few mechanics that are dropped completely in the sequel, as they were awkward or not useful. That just may be my DKC2 familiarity talking, but I feel that the designers learned a lot from DKC to make the second one a much better game. Segue to YS, which introduces a buttload of things done differently to YI, and ends up even more awkward than DKC in comparison to my childhood favourites.
They are opposite ends. That’s not to say either is bad, they just frustrate me a lot more, especially when I can see what they’ve done wrong.
To give a bit more detail, there’s a lot to love in DKC. The atmosphere, the personality, the controls feel good. My main complaints are with the hit detection, the pointless bonuses, and the badly flow-breaking animal bonus levels. These are minor though, and the reason I tend to overlook it is I prefer the sequels, the new heights they reached, how they played with the formula, plus they have more internal consistency with each other than either has with DKC1. Each installment has its own different atmosphere that gives them unique feelings, which is a great thing and more than you can say for the Mario series (ok, no more cheap potshots). The music and backgrounds play a big part in this.
YS has less to recommend it on face value. It’s a little slow and wonky, the controls are a little weird and there are also a few hit detection issues here. Also, unlike its predecessor YI the music is less memorable and tends to reuse arrangements of the main theme for most areas (in this way it resembles YI’s true DS sequel). I find this boring, personally. The aesthetic is both overly cute but also a very interesting crafty style, with newspaper, cardboard, felt, etc backgrounds like Little Big Planet but low-res.
Unlike the more precise YI, the platforming and egg-throwing is more forgiving or loose, although if you miss a jump I found it very hard to recover. The game is quite short but it is built for multiple playthroughs, with each of the 6 worlds having 4 possible levels with one being played each go through. This gives it a lot of variety, and each run will be different. The structure is also unique, mostly left-to-right or down-to-up but some more complex structures with branching paths and the level ends when you eat 30 fruit, not reach a certain point or anything.
Speaking of structure, I guess I didn’t structure this review so well but I saw some commonality there. Basically I regard both these games as lesser installments in series that I adore, and therefore worth playing on the strength of their brethren alone. But I was pleased with each when I actually got to playing them, and with YS I appreciate its radically different style. I can look past DKC’s faults to see the germ of the great series it spawned, but its more abstract features that carry through are fantastic. I just think it’s popularly overrated. YS on the other hand is slightly underrated.
The Yoshi and DK series as wholes are way too big to include any of here, so maybe one day they’ll get the proper MiloScat treatment. I’m glad I’ve now experienced these as they’re so important and influential to the overall series, DKC in its design and music and YS in its contribution of sound effects to all subsequent Yoshi material, and the aesthetic that was adapted in many Mario sports games. But now I want to play the actual games I grew up with, so I’m gonna do that. Toodles.
I recently bought F-Zero X on the VC. My custom in these circumstances is to find scans of the game manual, usually at replacementdocs.com. They didn’t have this one, but I eventually found it online. It was quite hard to find, so I decided to put it in a more convenient format for anyone wishing to download and view it. I thought about submitting it to replacementdocs, but I don’t know the process or the technicalities. I didn’t scan it, so am I allowed to submit it? Until I figure that out, I’ll just link it here.
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