The Legend of Kage

As the beautiful princess stood walking in her native woods... terror struck! An evil ninja flew down and captured the innocent princess, imprisoning her at the top of a great palace, but do not worry princess, for Kage is on his way!

And that's the idea of The Legend of Kage. You are Kage, ninja warrior on a quest to save the princess, several times I might add, and restore peace to the galaxy etc. etc.


Now I agree the story isn't original, or fantastic, or even that cool, but at least it's got ninjas. More importantly it's just funny, and I like the idea of the story being so completely random that its not even a part of the game. Sure you have to rescue the princess, sure that's the ''goal'' but not once was I ever concerned with that. I wanted to kill ninjas! And that's why the story is fun, and that’s why it gets a ten.

The graphics in the first level are excellent, but the quality low in the second and third, but good again in the fourth. Everything is rendered in bright, solid colors; it's pixelated and small, allowing the player to see a lot of the action.

Unfortuneatly, the sound is horrible, and I really mean that. Its the same song throughout the entire game, and its a really annoying one at that. To make things worse, every time the princess is captured, a little song plays that makes you want to have a seizure. I'm so serious, it's about the most annoying thing on the planet.

Hundreds of ninjas are flying at you from everywhere throwing shuriken, and then other times they aren't. A lot of the game is luck, and luckily I have a lot of that. I beat the game 4 times through all the seasons one night to do research for the Walkthrough/FAQ, nearly went crazy in the process... No continues, 3 lives, not very many extra lives...tough. The real fun is all in the jumping: Kage jumps so high it's incredible; he bounces off of trees nicely, and all in all it's a really fluid Crouching-Tiger-Hidden-Dragon-Feel.

There is plenty of fun waiting inside the forests of Legend of Kage. Finding a copy shouldn't be hard: I see one in every video game store. Don't expect too much out of it and take it for what it's worth, you'll easily see that it deserves the ten. This is one of my favorite games of all time; wonderfully simple and addictive.

Phantasy Star II -- Part One

I killed Lassic. Peace could now return to the Algol system, but the game instructed me to go to the Governor's mansion on Mota. There I fought a demon, the real boss of Phantasy Star. Rolf, the protagonist of Phantasy Star II, dreams about Alis fighting this demon in the into to his game. He wakes up on Mota. The star system is a very different place than the one Alis inhabited.

The Mother Brain handles all of humanity's problems: from money to the weather. One suspects early on that this power extends towards the government as well. Rolf works for the Mother Brain, in fact, he's its top agent. Right from the start, a tension exists between what the player knows must happen: information about Mother Brain's supposed evil plans needs to be gathered, and what Rolf wants: to do his job as a field agent, go home, and watch TV.

In Phantasy Star, the people of Algol were beaten down, but some of them have hope. In Phantasy Star II, this virtue has degenerated into apathy and amorality. A band of rebels dynamites an entire town and steal everything in sight, and still it remains unclear to me as a player who, if anyone, I should be rebelling against. Probably not the misguided rebels, but probably not Mother Brain either. If there is one thing Star Trek has made perfect clear: computers lack the human emotion to rule people. Still, the question is chillingly relevant, and, surprisingly, Phantasy Star comments on real life more effectively than fantasy-RPGs.

The battle system is greatly improved, and I'm glad to say goodbye to first-person dungeons as well. Phantasy Star II compensates by providing the player with amazing music, easily on par with Final Fantasy 7, Sonic, Mega Man, Lufia, Ninja Gaiden, and other acclaimed video game soundtracks. Usually the battle theme in an RPG is "okay" and sounds vaguely "tense" which sometimes just translates to "unbearably annoying" or "seizure inducing." Phantasy Star II's battle music could roughly be categorized as "fucking awesome."



Sega brings this level of quality to every single track in the game.

I really enjoy the new battle layout, it's nice watching Nei and Rolf slash at the enemies. Battle formations are now varied, and Phantasy Star feels futuristic and exciting. Many genre perks missing from Phantasy Star (moving NPCs, huge cast of characters, dual wielding, etc.) are now, thankfully, present. Sega takes full advantage of the Genesis hardware and create a technical rival to Final Fantasy. But Final Fantasy 4 was really easy, even the Japanese version. You could basically beat it and sleep at the same time. I'm hesitant to call Phantasy Star II "underrated," because it's actually quite popular and I know many gamers out there already consider PSII to be the best 16-bit RPG ever created. I look forward to testing that claim.

Continue reading in Part Two!

Phantasy Star Review

Martial law has been declared across the star system, and your brother was beaten to death in the street for rebelling against Lassic's government.

I've always known about Phantasy Star, and I've briefly test-driven the roms a few times, but I've never dedicated time to beating any of them. In the past, I don't think I had the patience. But a few days ago, as I mournfully looked at my well-played copy of Dragon Warrior 2, I was desperately in need of something to play. I found Phantasy Star.

Phantasy Star is a world not unlike Earth. It's made of concrete, houses, shops, cars, airplanes, governments, passports, fast food, guns, violence, death, friendship, family, moving sidewalks, spaceships, money, and corruption.

Alis and her friends will explore first-person dungeons, travel to other planets, find treasure, and exact an unsettling revenge for the death and destruction evil King Lassic has wrought across the 3 planets of Palma, Motavia, and Dezoris. One imagines life would be a lot like this if the Sol system had three habitable planets.



But nothing engrossed me like the first-person segments. The first-person buildings are far smoother than, say, Moraff's World, but a lack of any overhead view makes them a serious challenge. Without mapping these places out manually, many areas are simply impossible to navigate because everything looks the same. Liberal use of Phantasy-Star.net makes the impossible into a nice challenge, so modern gamers have little excuse to avoid this game. Sometimes these areas are used masterfully, for example: an abandoned installation in a later town is represented in first person, and walking through this building conveys the feeling of actually being in a very strange and faceless cinderblock building. Ultima Exodus attempted first-person segments, Phantasy Star nearly perfects them.

Over time the series has spawned maybe sequels and MMORPGs. Admittedly, I'm just getting into the franchise.This game, however, started it all. Its $5.00 pricetag offers no excuses to the Wii owner -- buy this game now! You may have been putting off Phantasy Star in favor of another series like Final Fantasy or Dragon Warrior, but if you're looking for a more serious story in a world much more familiar and exciting then look no more. Nothing else will make you miss 1988 like Phantasy Star. Pretend you rented it from the video store for $5.00 (more like $10.00 in 1988)--and hurry, because the entire solar system is counting on you and your friends!

The artwork is an early example of anime art reaching America, and the sprites have the distinctly 1980s highly-detailed style. The world feel so complete, that it's a wonder so many games chose to go the fantasy, instead of sci-fi route. In Phantasy Star, the towns feel like real towns (no 3-house "towns"), and exploring some buildings in the first persons creates a surreal pseudo-3d environment. It is like nothing else you have ever played.



Many RPGs feature a random monster trying to destroy the world. This isn't really scary, because everyone knows dragons and giant monsters don't really exist. But Phantasy Star (and FFVII) feature human enemies with crazy goals. It's easier to believe that Lassic is running a town into the ground because he has declared martial law and blocked the trade routes than it is to believe you are reviving an elf prince under a sleeping spell. In Final Fantasy, you save that town, and this is expected. In Phatasy Star, the demolished towns keep on being shitty--and that's realism; Phantasy Star doesn't offer easy moral answer to every situation (it's got its share of cliches, no doubt). Often the heroes do nothing to save the day.

In fact, the entire quest is questionable. Should Alis be seeking vengeance? Even bloodbaths like No More Heroes 1-2 and willing to ask this question. Unlike Travis Touchdown, however, Alis can't just walk away: Lassic rules all three planets in the system and his crimes are arguably worse than the Santa Destro Corp.

The story remains puzzling in the end, though some closure is offered. Playing through Phantasy Star this week has been one of the most memorable RPG experiences of my life. I anticipate exploring the Algol System in Phantasy Star II, and wonder what Alis's brother meant about her "being reborn." Other games abandon characters and stories in each game; Sega offers cliffhangers. Phantasy Star for the Sega Master system: the greatest 8-Bit RPG of all time.

Magical Puzzle Popils Game Gear Review

Tengen didn't just port Tetris in the '90s, they also created one of the best puzzle games for Sega Game Gear.

Magical Puzzle Popils looks like the stupidest game on the planet, but actually proves to be one of the deepest puzzlers on a Sega Handheld. Popils, I guess, are cube-shaped people. You play the boy character and you have to punch blocks to drop columns, climb ladders, avoid bad guys, and use magic doors s you proceed through an impressive and exciting 100 levels.

The player unlocks sets of 5-10 stages every so often, effective auto-saving the game. In addition to these pre-set stages, you can save up to 30 of your own design on the cartridge. This amounts to a lot of fun, and rather endless possibilities.



It's not unlike battle lode runner, but Magical Puzzle Popils has a much faster game pace, making it well-suited to a modern audience. It features the addictive gameplay puzzle fans crave, but continues to remain obscure due to any North American release )to my knowledge).

My friend actually had a copy of this growing up, and I gladly traded Sonic 2 to her in order to play this game. I'd be interested to know if anyone else ever heard/played this game. If you don't have a Game Gear, MekaW and the Japanese rom are going to be your best bet. The cartridge is built to display in English or Japanese.

Magical Puzzle Popils is a classic Game Gear puzzler that avoid the "falling block" routine and focuses on foresight and logic. The addition of level-creation makes this import title a safe purchase and a great candidate for someone(Sega?) to remake or import to the VC.

Lufia & the Fortress of Doom coming to VC!

Lufia and the Fortress of Doom (Estopolis) has been rated by the ESRB for a Wii release. This happened over 2 months ago, so any Monday could be a Lufia Monday.

Hopefully Nintendo and Square can work together to release this title soon, it's long overdue! I'll be posting a review of the game once it launches.

The Ninja Warriors (TG-16)

Ninja Warriors surprised me this past week. I wanted to play Ninja Gaiden, but got tired of the terrible TG-16 version. I saw Ninja Warriors--I couldn't remember playing it. The simple game design, great music and cool artwork impressed me at first. After spending a few more hours, it was obvious this is game is a classic.

In 1988 Ninja Warriors hit the street as a triple-monitor arcade game. All the usual C64/Amigo/ZXSpectrum computers got their port, as well as, in 1989, the TurboGrafx-16. But only in Japan. Information on this import title has been extremely hard to come by. Hardcore Gaming 101 looks at the entire series, but doesn't mention much about our close friend, the TG16.

Ninja Warriors feels old. It's not as fancy as Streets of Rage or Final Fight... but it's more balanced. Those games were designed to eat quarters (as I assume the arcade version of Ninja Warriors does as well), but not this port. It's designed to offer challenge and replayability. Enemies spawn in predictable patterns, adding the possibility for slight memorization, which is nice in the small doses presented.

In standard beat-'em-up style, the developers manage to achieve diversity using palette and weapon swaps. The regular army dude will start doing jump kicks in the later levels, and surprises like this keep the game interesting.



The game has some cool effects: your hair is animated nicely. Cool blood. Your body can be exposed as a robot as you take damage (a la Terminator). You have 2 characters to choose from and can customize your color, difficulty, and time. You can jump, flip, throw shuriken (limited to around 30 per level) or slash with kunai (ninja knives).

I can't even find the manual, an FAQ, or even many reviews of this game. If anyone knows where I can find a .pdf of the manual, I can upload jpgs of it or something.

But like I said, Ninja Warriors feels old, and I like it. They just don't make games this difficult and clunky anymore, and it's a shame. To be honest, they only made games like this for a few years in history (Altered Beast comes to mind). I appreciate games like these because all the new beat-em-ups strive to be smooth and isometric--basically just a better version of Double Dragon. Ninja Warriors, even if it's unintentional, is different, and that's good.

Ninja Warriors proves that as long as a game is challenging and provides incentive to play (this is achieved through music and graphics), then gamers will want to play it. Don't bore me to death with your 12-minute cutscene and 2-hour newbie area: just release Ninja Warriors on the Virtual Console and give the rest of the world this classic!

Just check out the song in the video!

VG Music: Lufia and the Fortress of Doom Menu

SinclairC sequenced this midi. I uploaded a copy to the postmodern software server, so you can download it here. You could also search for it over at vgmusic.com, one of the best midi databases on the internet.

Lufia didn't release until 1993, but it kept RPG gaming alive by telling a story that was better than all of the other Final Fantasy games. Lufia was making gamers said years before FFVII, with a story so depressing and tragic that a generation of gamers would become hooked.

Lufia II continued to innovate with its puzzles, but the first Lufia remains my favorite. Playing the games out of order would be a mistake, Lufia & the Fortress of Doom should be the next game you play.