Backlog Blitz: NES, Week 7, "Double Draggin'"

Well. It's the last week before finals for me. Except I don't have any finals. Just two papers to hand in. (Plan ahead, kids!) I put the finishing touches on my thesis statement for that Dark Souls paper today (it takes a long time, okay?), and that was about the extent of my homework endeavors. I've been playing a lot of The Binding of Isaac: Wrath of the Lamb--which is pretty amazing--but still managed to get some time in with the NES classics and not-so-classics. Don't you wish your schedule was easy like meeee---MINE?

Double Dragon

So. I punch people a lot? That’s it? This isn’t fun. Battletoads was fun. This isn’t. At all. I punched some jerks in a repetitive sort of way. Then I punched some more jerks. Then I punched some more jerks. Then some more jerks who were women and had bike chains. Then I punched a big boss guy with a cookie for a face. Then the cookie-faced boss punched me. I died. This game is awful. 

Dr. Mario

Ah, good old unlicensed medicine. Shoving pills down someone’s throat has never been so fun. I love this game. As a kid I couldn’t quite grasp Tetris (I was a dumb kid, okay?), but Dr. Mario made SENSE. I played this for hours with my siblings. It’s a nice unending puzzler. I like it.

Dragon Warrior

Okay, high-lethality is one thing, but I have a sword. A slime should not be able to kill me. This just doesn’t resonate with me. Combat-wise, it’s like Pokemon, but not, yanno, awesome. The clunky overworld interface doesn’t help either. Zelda did this so much better. My brother-in-law loves this, so maybe I’ll play this with him, see what I’m missing, but I don’t think I’m missing much.

DuckTales

WOO! 

Um, so. I’m loving this. I’d call it “As good as Mario.” But one question—why is the pogo stick DOWN+B? Why not just B? Or just DOWN? I mean, really. It’s a hand-cramping way to get around. Other than that, the whole Metroidvania + Mario aspect is really fun. And playing as Unca Scrooge gives me a good reason to be collecting coins, for once. The graphics are gorgeous, too. Some NES games did an amazing amount with what they had to work with.