Well, that was a little annoying. I can't seem to post more than one entry within an entry without facing the 10000 characters limit error. So, the latest entry of mine I'll be copying from AXA Forums will be definitely on the next entry and will be the last one until tonight, in which I will play some Air Zonk. Enjoy the entry from below!
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January 7th 2014
Another day comes in, another game got played. Just as I promised before, I finally got to play Ristar, the star of the week! I was playing on Normal difficulty and managed to get in Planet Automaton, which is the last planet before going to the final (straightforward) level that has a couple of bosses in it. And with dozen of lives with me, which will be very handy especially the fact that I'm about to face some of the toughest sections in the entire game. All of that took me a little over an hour according to my Wii's log.
Before I try summing up on what happened during the playthrough, I will explain on what the difficulty actually does in the game. On Normal difficulty, the game will give you 4 stars (Ristar's Health Points) and the treasure chests outside of the bonus levels will include yellow stars (+1 HP), silver stars (full health) and lives. This is the difficulty you want to choose if you're playing it for the first time. If that sounds too easy for you, there's the Hard one. This difficulty will replace silver stars with yellow ones and you will start with 2 stars every time you start a level. If I was a true masochist, I would go to Options, then Password and type that one password learned after collecting every single treasure and beat the game. If done correctly, Super Hard can be now selected on the difficulty level. This one replaces every star with gems that give you points and start with one star. Basically, no extra lives to be found and no way to recover. Have fun on dying constantly! The password I was talking about is in the spoiler tab.
The first two planets in this game are Flora and Undertow. I pretty much have nothing to say, except for the awesome first stage music and the fact I performed a Super Play against Riho, the boss from Flora. Not only I managed to not get hit at all, but I also beat him very quickly. The first time he comes down, I immeditaly hit him three times and bang the monkey-like dude that would fall off. After he changed colour, he will raise higher but still reachable with a high enough jump coupled with a perfect grab-slam timing. Do it well, and keep mashing the Grab Button to chain two more hits. Rinse and repeat. That's how I beat the boss so easily and fast.
And then comes my most hated planted with one of the most annoying levels in the game, probably when the difficulty spikes up. Busy Flare on Planet Scorch. Right at the start, a volcano in the background that spit out fireballs. They fall way too fast (hooray for Blast Processing!) and its patterns are seemingly inconsistant. I always seemed to stumble on one of those. I think I may have to hurry up to the a platform that let us perform jumping down. And there's more of them later in this level, which isn't any easier. Then, we had to carry out a Decoy Statue that looks like a slightly bigger Ristar toy (which gives an extra live). That isn't bad, but the throwing mechanism took some time to get used to and can become irritating if the player not familiar enough with the angle. Also, there are green generators that spit enemies upward at relatively fast rate, Vultures that drop Ristar in a fire trap if they grab him, and the introduction of LEAPS OF FAITH thanks to the original system's low resolution output and chunky character sprites. The next level isn't too bad, as it emphasize a bit more to the exploration. I never seem to reach to the bonus stage of that level, simply because I let the green mobs detonating a bomb that destroys many platforms needed to reach it. That doesn't concern to me very much, because passwords are already easily found on Internet. Therefore, the purpose of getting all the treasures is pretty much undermined and they're now just there for mere bragging rights on a game that lacks a save feature. Once I beat the game, I will consider it completed on my Backloggery. Speaking of the boss from Planet Scorch, it's just another easy boss if I figured out what to do and beat it fast enough.
The first level of Planet Sonata ranks up among my favourites, along with the entirety of Planet Freon. In this fun level, music is the main focus and we have to carry out metronomes to the birds throughout the level. Birds do apparently love metronomes? Intriguing. The second level would be another masterpiece one if not for the limited resolution output to ruin the fun. The late portion of it consists of bouncing very high to hop over the spikes and other obstacles. That was frustrating. Oh, and the green mobs are blending with the background, making them impossible to see the first time I see them while bouncing around. The planet's last boss is hilarious. Thought that this eagle would sing majestuously well? Well, think again. He's so bad at pronouncing bird lyrics that notes are *****ing out from his mouth and the shattered stained glasses are falling down. Even though I struggled and was about to die, I KFC'd the eagle on my first attempt of this playthrough.
Planet Freon has two levels and a couple of bosses that are the most well-designed in this game and boy, they do stand out! They even have some of the best musics of the Sega Genesis for crying out loud! First, we have that skiing scene that looks strongly similar to the one from Sonic the Hedgehog 3's Ice Cap Zone 1. Second, the snowball fight with the purple dude was fun. And third, the fight against the snowman-like boss of the planet is quite clever. The purple dude I thought he was an annoying brat helped me by carrying out hot pies, and I had to throw it in the boss's mouth just to melt him inside. Genius.
That's it for today. I sure wish to play Ristar again sooner, so much I want the Fortune Cookie to pick this one again later in the month. Tomorrow's game will be StarTropics II: Zoda's Revenge, which is the sequel of the obscure franchise due of it being the last official NES game published by Nintendo. It was released in 1994, in which SNES is already the center of attention of video gaming market. Startropics can be described as an extensively Americanised Zelda-like game. This could be interesting to see how the game unfolds... Until then, see you next time!
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January 7th 2014
Another day comes in, another game got played. Just as I promised before, I finally got to play Ristar, the star of the week! I was playing on Normal difficulty and managed to get in Planet Automaton, which is the last planet before going to the final (straightforward) level that has a couple of bosses in it. And with dozen of lives with me, which will be very handy especially the fact that I'm about to face some of the toughest sections in the entire game. All of that took me a little over an hour according to my Wii's log.
Before I try summing up on what happened during the playthrough, I will explain on what the difficulty actually does in the game. On Normal difficulty, the game will give you 4 stars (Ristar's Health Points) and the treasure chests outside of the bonus levels will include yellow stars (+1 HP), silver stars (full health) and lives. This is the difficulty you want to choose if you're playing it for the first time. If that sounds too easy for you, there's the Hard one. This difficulty will replace silver stars with yellow ones and you will start with 2 stars every time you start a level. If I was a true masochist, I would go to Options, then Password and type that one password learned after collecting every single treasure and beat the game. If done correctly, Super Hard can be now selected on the difficulty level. This one replaces every star with gems that give you points and start with one star. Basically, no extra lives to be found and no way to recover. Have fun on dying constantly! The password I was talking about is in the spoiler tab.
SUPER
The first two planets in this game are Flora and Undertow. I pretty much have nothing to say, except for the awesome first stage music and the fact I performed a Super Play against Riho, the boss from Flora. Not only I managed to not get hit at all, but I also beat him very quickly. The first time he comes down, I immeditaly hit him three times and bang the monkey-like dude that would fall off. After he changed colour, he will raise higher but still reachable with a high enough jump coupled with a perfect grab-slam timing. Do it well, and keep mashing the Grab Button to chain two more hits. Rinse and repeat. That's how I beat the boss so easily and fast.
And then comes my most hated planted with one of the most annoying levels in the game, probably when the difficulty spikes up. Busy Flare on Planet Scorch. Right at the start, a volcano in the background that spit out fireballs. They fall way too fast (hooray for Blast Processing!) and its patterns are seemingly inconsistant. I always seemed to stumble on one of those. I think I may have to hurry up to the a platform that let us perform jumping down. And there's more of them later in this level, which isn't any easier. Then, we had to carry out a Decoy Statue that looks like a slightly bigger Ristar toy (which gives an extra live). That isn't bad, but the throwing mechanism took some time to get used to and can become irritating if the player not familiar enough with the angle. Also, there are green generators that spit enemies upward at relatively fast rate, Vultures that drop Ristar in a fire trap if they grab him, and the introduction of LEAPS OF FAITH thanks to the original system's low resolution output and chunky character sprites. The next level isn't too bad, as it emphasize a bit more to the exploration. I never seem to reach to the bonus stage of that level, simply because I let the green mobs detonating a bomb that destroys many platforms needed to reach it. That doesn't concern to me very much, because passwords are already easily found on Internet. Therefore, the purpose of getting all the treasures is pretty much undermined and they're now just there for mere bragging rights on a game that lacks a save feature. Once I beat the game, I will consider it completed on my Backloggery. Speaking of the boss from Planet Scorch, it's just another easy boss if I figured out what to do and beat it fast enough.
The first level of Planet Sonata ranks up among my favourites, along with the entirety of Planet Freon. In this fun level, music is the main focus and we have to carry out metronomes to the birds throughout the level. Birds do apparently love metronomes? Intriguing. The second level would be another masterpiece one if not for the limited resolution output to ruin the fun. The late portion of it consists of bouncing very high to hop over the spikes and other obstacles. That was frustrating. Oh, and the green mobs are blending with the background, making them impossible to see the first time I see them while bouncing around. The planet's last boss is hilarious. Thought that this eagle would sing majestuously well? Well, think again. He's so bad at pronouncing bird lyrics that notes are *****ing out from his mouth and the shattered stained glasses are falling down. Even though I struggled and was about to die, I KFC'd the eagle on my first attempt of this playthrough.
Planet Freon has two levels and a couple of bosses that are the most well-designed in this game and boy, they do stand out! They even have some of the best musics of the Sega Genesis for crying out loud! First, we have that skiing scene that looks strongly similar to the one from Sonic the Hedgehog 3's Ice Cap Zone 1. Second, the snowball fight with the purple dude was fun. And third, the fight against the snowman-like boss of the planet is quite clever. The purple dude I thought he was an annoying brat helped me by carrying out hot pies, and I had to throw it in the boss's mouth just to melt him inside. Genius.
That's it for today. I sure wish to play Ristar again sooner, so much I want the Fortune Cookie to pick this one again later in the month. Tomorrow's game will be StarTropics II: Zoda's Revenge, which is the sequel of the obscure franchise due of it being the last official NES game published by Nintendo. It was released in 1994, in which SNES is already the center of attention of video gaming market. Startropics can be described as an extensively Americanised Zelda-like game. This could be interesting to see how the game unfolds... Until then, see you next time!
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