Backlog Blitz: NES, Week 13, "There's an 'L'P pun in there somewhere..."

HEY EVERYONE! I had five cans of Mountain Dew this morning! Can you tell? Can you? Huh? HUH? Anyway, I played some Dead Island this weekend to get hype for Dying Light, which I am also going to play this weekend maybe we'll see fingers crossed. I'd like to review a modern game for once, and close to the time it comes out. (On that note, reviews of Assassin's Creed and Assassin's Creed: Black Flag coming soon. They're long, and in-depth, and I spent way too much time talking about games that have been out for actual years. Oh well.) I also played some REALLY old games too! So let's talk about those!

The Legend of Zelda

That opening screen and intro track are so freaking iconic… Not going to lie, though, after getting the sword, I have absolutely no clue what to do. Completely lost. Guess it shows the difference in mindset between someone raised on N64 and Gamecube games and a NES gamer, huh? I am going to come back to this, either with a guide or with a ton of free time. I love the combat, the controls, the music… I just really suck at figuring out where to go. In the game, too. (Personally, I think there’s a fine line between not holding the player’s hand and giving some basic instructions. Dark Souls, or for a more relevant example, Link to the Past, do a much better job of giving you some basic idea of where to go without babysitting you constantly. That said, open exploration can be dang fun as well, and LoZ is a good example of that.)

Life Force

So this is literally Gradius with some graphical changes. I LOVE IT. The controls are a bit better, the graphics make more sense (no TREES IN SPACE), and it’s just an all-around better game. Plus, flying through the guts of a living planet is AWESOME. 

Little Samson

HOLY COW. You GUYS. This game is as good as Mega Man. Better, even. Four characters, each with different movesets—wall-clinging, flight, punching, BOMBS—and you platform and shoot enemies and it’s so buttery-smooth. YOU GUISE. YOU GUISE. DID YOU HEAR ME SAY THE CONTROLS ARE SMOOTH. BECAUSE I MEAN SMOOTH. THINK OF THE SMOOTHEST THING YOU’VE EVER TOUCHED AND MULTIPLY THAT BY A FACTOR OF SMOOTH. Oh, and the characters FEEL different—the dragon is floaty, the golem is slow and tanky, the human ninja dude is agile, the mouse is lightning-fast but weak and has BOMBS and can run on walls and I’m babbling, aren’t I? This is just awesome. It’s like Cave Story meets Mega Man or something, yo!