The Sega Master System Visual Compendium Review

While we have a pretty decent knowledge of all things retro there are always blind spots. Despite the fact we’ve gathered a modest Master System collection together it would be fair to say that we are far from experts when it comes to the console. This latest Bitmap Book seemed a perfect opportunity to remedy that. So with thoughts of Alex Kidd in our head it’s time to take a look back at the much underrated ‘other’ 8-bit console.

As is standard with the visual compendiums you get the usual high quality cover and slip case. This time the colour is black which means your book won’t visually match other compendiums you have but makes sense in the grander scheme of things. As usual, the cover features a host of characters from iconic games which hits the nostalgia button right from the start. The compendium also comes with a set of old style Red/Blue 3D glasses to view some of the pages with. It’s a nice touch that ties in with the Master Systems hit and miss attempts at playing with early 3D in some of its games. Sadly, we didn’t get much from the 3D effect when looking at the pages – but then this could be down to colour-blindness so your experience may differ.

The book follows the now proven route in terms of content. You get the usual excellent intro full of information to both make you an instant expert and also pique your interest into what’s to come and an excellent selection of interviews from developers and industry veterans of the time such as Mutsuhiro Fuji and Steve Hanawa. The games are mainly presented with a single, well chosen, screen shot spread over two pages with decent amount of text to give further information about the game. 

Where this book does differ from other visual compendiums we have seen is in that some games have extra sections attached to them which fold out. This normally takes the form of level maps showing a large area of the selected game. These also come with extra written content as well as an added bonus. It’s a really nice touch that makes the compendium stand out and offers up a great physical Easter egg of sorts.

Away from the individual games there is also a host of excellent pictures of Master System peripherals sprinkled throughout and some features which focus on certain parts of the catalogue such arcade games and a section dedicated to different parts of the hardware – the photographs of which are absolutely sublime. There is also a section dedicated to the box art from different regions which showcases some of the best designs of the time so get ready to look at a lot of white square covered boxes.

Perhaps most interesting though is the section dedicated to the Master System release in Brazil. This covers a lot of the regions exclusive game and gives a good insight into the history surrounding the whole operation. Just try and resist looking for those games on Ebay or you may have a small cardiac event.

Overall, The Master System Visual Compendium is up to the same high standards of Bitmap Books other releases. We felt that this book in particular gave us a real urge to go and find a lot of these games and add them to our collection. As we weren’t experts on the console in the first place we found it a great way to get a detailed overview of the interesting and diverse back catalogue and also the systems place in the market in term of historical context. We may not have known much about the life of the Master System before this but after reading through we certainly love it more than ever.

Click here for store link. 

*picture taken from the Bitmap Books website.

El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron Review (Steam)

Written by Thomas G.J Sharpe

Wise-crackin’ angels vaguely playing out a mangle of lesser-known Judeo-Christian texts? Sursum corda! You got it! And somehow, wherever I looked for information on El Shaddai, it was sprinkled in the risky words “cult classic”. Sadly, I simply do not see it.

This is pitched as a third-person action game (feat. Mild platforming) with some other bold claims than it’s cultish-classicism; “deeply artistic”, “outstanding aesthetics” and “exceptional setting”. Shaddai is proud of its design, and in a way, it probably still stands out after 10 years. It is “unique”, but I find it hard to apply “artistic” in the way I feel that the marketing wants me to feel about it. Stylistic might be better; it is an interesting blend of crisp, heavenly brightness with piercing colours that provide a jarring, otherworldliness, or even between-worldliness to it. In this way, Shaddai puts a lot of burden on the visual adornments to hook us in.

But it falls apart as soon as you squint past the divine rendering and play the game after a run of bargain-basement story-telling cinematics (these pop up constantly throughout the game, never once being interesting, tense, moving, funny or any such thing). You play as Enoch (quick search… ancestor of Noah… wrote a bunch of guff about demons and monsters to make ancient people (and the modern day credulous) terrified of everything) who is writing a bunch of stuff out in a bunch of books and is led by Lucifer (who has a cell-phone which he uses to smart-talk Yahweh on) to defeat seven fallen angels who have confused reality on Earth. Or something.

And I mean, or something. Because, despite the interest I personally have in the development of superstitious cults, like Christianity, this is not a compelling interpretation. Primarily, as the player never once cares about the fate of Enoch himself. He is devoid of sympathy and interest, there is no character arc to speak of. His struggles against amusingly designed enemies and bosses with his divine weapon-stick (looks like that awful company Tesla designed a Bat’Leth) are without risk. Not just in a narrative, conceptual sense either. The combat is, at best, functional. There is little to no development beyond a couple of mild combos. If you consider that Bayonetta was released two years prior to this, it really shows its weaknesses.

On the more positive side, yes, this is an interestingly designed game, and the mixture of 2D platforming into the 3^rd person action is a nice idea. It never quite translates, however, going no deeper than mild changes of perspective and settings, thinking aesthetic abstraction is enough to win the day. It simply is not enough for me. For a game to not excite me that has as it’s primary game loop as hack-n-slash action, is shocking. Again, I just do not see the appeal. Neither fantastic enough, thrilling enough to inspire anything in me more than a resounding, Godly, meh.

Overall 5/10

Indie Heroes Collection 1 Review (Evercade)

While most of the Evercade carts have been collections of games from yester year the team has also dabbled with modern developers who make games for older consoles. The Mega Cats cartridge was pretty strong overall and the double cart of Xenocrisis and Tanglewood was also great. Now Blaze have gone one step further by collating a collection of games from indie and homebrew developers and it’s an interesting mixed bag.

The majority of the games on the collection are of the platform variety and range widely in quality. At the bottom end of the scale you have Ploid which is filled with reused assets, repeated rooms and slowdown. It actually plays ok but is basically an unfinished tech demo. Then we have the solid but flawed Doodle World and Foxy Land.

Doodle World has a great hand drawn visual style and gives off major Gameboy Mario land vibes. There’s a few bugs in it with some pickups not triggering and certain places can see you get stuck in a death loop until you all your lives diminish. Foxy Land starts off well but is let down by an inaccessible colour palette meaning objects like switches are difficult to see and whoever put that Monkey Boss in needs a serious word about level design.

Another in the ‘fun but flawed’ category is Debtor which is a sort of puzzle platformer. It’s great fun but there are serious issues with blind jumps that just show a lack of external testing. It’s still good but without those save states it would be a massively frustrating experience. There’s a couple of real winners on here as well though. Flea is basically the (even more), indie version of Super Meat Boy. Yet again it suffers from a strange colour palette at times but it’s consistently strong and fun throughout. Top of pile though and by far the most polished and well realised game here is Twin Dragons. This could have easily been a retail released NES game. It’s creative, fun and high quality in every aspect.

Away from the platformers there’s a host of other gems to discover. Kubo is incredibly short but it packs in a host of different game types and is a fun adventure game that you’ll likely return to from time to time. We just couldn’t help but like it. Angua, is a solid action RPG which basically involves you walking around dungeons hitting blobs and finding keys. We did get bored with it but it looks lovely and it’s a pretty accomplished experience. There’s also some filler here with Homebrew Wars a completely forgettable Smash Brothers alike and a special place in hell should be reserved for Uchusen which is the worst game we have ever played.

That’s right, Uchusen is the worst game ever. Worse than anything we played right from the Amstrad all the way up to present day. It’s a side scrolling shooter where you can’t move diagonally which has one repeated boss and about three enemies. You can complete it in under a minute. Which, to be honest, is still too long spent playing it.

Chain Break is an interesting Gameboy game where players have to run a side scrolling gauntlet avoiding obstacles and spikes. Aside from some strange scrolling it actually plays really well. It is great fun and a really inventive use of the Gameboy limitations. Deadeus, also does excellently with its Gameboy backbone producing a gripping adventure which you’ll want to continually return to as it has multiple endings. It’s dark and brooding and pretty horrific in subject matter in places but it tells an excellent story from start to finish.

The last two games are both cart highlights. Quest Arrest is a charming police based adventure running on what looks like the Pokemon engine. You get the colour version here exclusive to the cart which is nice and it sees you as a cop trying to clean up the mean streets of a town. The only down side is that combat is somewhat basic with no real change in tactics needed for the enemies. There’s a bug towards the end that resets your police points if you tackle a gang outside the bank as well but nothing that really derails the experience.

Alien Cat 2 is an awesome puzzle game where you have to make your way through a single screen maze picking up tokens before exiting through a door. It’s a well tried concept but it just works really here with a clever cloning gimmick. Again, there is a bug where one level has a missing bomb graphic but once you know where it is it’s easily avoided.

Overall, the first Indie Collection is a success. You can very much tell these are homebrew games as most of them needed better testing both in terms of how they play or in terms of bugs but that aside the majority of them are fun and creative ideas that are well realised. There’s also some real highlights here that show off serious talent. Twin Dragons and Alien Cat 2 especially are great and probably justify the purchase price alone and with a bit more refinement to combat system Quest Arrest could really be something special. There are a few duds but overall there’s a lot here to enjoy.

 

Overall -

Alien Cat 2                        4/5

Angua                                3/5

Chain Break                      4/5

Deadeus                           4/5

Debtor                              3/5

Doodle World                  3/5

Flea                                    4/5

Foxy Land                         3/5

Kubo                                  3/5

Ploid                                  2/5

Quest Arrest                    4/5

Homebrew war               2/5

Twin Dragons                  5/5

Uchusen                           1/5

Spelunky 2 Review (Switch)

So here we are. Almost ten years on from the first time that Spelunky made its way onto consoles and the sequel to one of the greatest indie games of all time is now here. Sequels to such high profile and iconic games often leave fans disappointed and you can’t get much more of a cult game than the first Spelunky. But somehow Spelunky 2 not only does not disappoint but also sparks all those glorious original Spelunky feelings once again.

For those that haven’t encountered the game before it’s a rogue-lite platformer where your progress is measured in tiny steps as you inch towards your adventuring goal. It’s possible to create a few permanent shortcuts to later levels but aside from that you are starting out with the same equipment on run one that you will be using on run one hundred.

In truth not an awful lot has changed with Spelunky 2. The aim is the same as you guide your character to the door at the bottom of each stage that sends them through to the next level while avoiding enemies and traps. The tunnel system remains pretty much the same and you are still equipped with the rope and bombs as before. The main change comes with the new environments and enemies that you encounter along with more bosses to survive.

The original mines, jungle, Ice caves and temple setup has now been replaced with more adventurous stages including lava filled volcanoes, Japanese inspired water levels and Egyptian inspired temples. There are also far more routes through the game with the final stage of each area leading to at least two different routes. There are of course the huge amount of secret areas and secrets still here that the original game was famous for as well. Stages are also far more varied in terms of enemies and look than in the original.

The game has also had a general visual upgrade. You may well not notice as it probably looks how you remember Spelunky did. But returning to the original reveals the increased use of colour, clarity and sprite size which shows the level of care and attention that has been put into it. One thing that hasn’t changed is the difficulty. Spelunky 2 is tough, perhaps even more difficult than the original and many players may well never see the later stages. If you are going in be prepared for a serious challenge.

Overall, Spelunky 2 is a welcome return for a much loved game. It’s more of the same but the levels and secrets are different enough that both games have their own identity and the sequel doesn’t simply feel like a re-tread. It’s also similar enough to the original to make hopping back and forth between them a fairly natural experience without needing to learn a load of different techniques or master a host of new skills. It’s a great achievement that Spelunky 2 still feels as special as the first and means players can happily buy both knowing a wealth of adventure options await them.

Overall 9/10