14th February 2012, 7:59 PM
Dark Jaguar Wrote:Oh I've got Super Star, and it's DS remaster, and yes, it's probably going down as my favorite.It's also incredibly lazy that all three DKL games use such similar borders... still though, given how barely-playable they are on the original GB (how hard it is to see on an original GB has to be part of why I didn't buy DKL2 or 3 back when they were released, unlike the first one, despite the fact that I did like it (but not as much as DK94), when DKL was released in 1995 using it with an SGB would have been essential, given that the GBP wasn't out yet. Now... it's still a fine option for the series, but they aren't the SGB's most impressive works, no. Killer Instinct is mostly similar, but does have a two players on SGB mode, like some (but certainly not all) SGB-supporting fighting games. That's always a great feature to have, even if in KI's case if you're playing it on SNES you really should be playing the SNES version.
I do like good SGB design. As an example of bad design, the color choices in Donkey Kong Land are just confusing. Sure they "fit" the levels, but good design is using a combination of colors that makes the characters stand out from the background, and yet still mix well enough to allow a good background. Ya know, the color limitations and design choices in SGB modes are rather unique. I don't think anything like it has been seen before or since.
Quote:I'll be getting Dreamland 2 soon enough (sadly without the manual), but my real catch today was a Super Gameboy 2. Yep, that. The two biggest changes on this thing are the link port and the fixed GB timing (the original SGB's timing was about a percentage point off). There's a whole host of new borders, but the old "activate screen saver" code will now swap between the two sets when on the "black box" border, so it's all there. Other than that, it's the same ol' same ol', but this thing was cheap and I wanted the additions.That's pretty cool... apart from the link cable, Tetris DX has a special SGB2-only border, which I think (based on seeing it in emulation, I don't have a SGB2) looks nicer than the default one... I don't know if any other games have special SGB2 borders though, I haven't heard of it.
Quote:Another good example of SGB design was Wario Blast. Here's a game I've had for a while. The coloring is mostly "bleh" but one nice feature they programmed into it was single cart multiplayer using the SNES's extra controllers. It even uses the multitap if you have one to play up to four players.That game's sequel, Bomberman GB, has the same thing (a 4 player mode on SNES with SNES controllers and multitap), and yeah, it's pretty much awesome. In Japan, apparently Wario Blast was called Bomberman GB 1, and didn't have Wario in it; Bomberman GB (US) is Bomberman GB 2 there; and there is a third, Japan-only Bomberman GB 3. However, from looking at it a bit, it seems to have no multiplayer at all, bizarrely enough. Bomberman games are always lacking without multiplayer. Anyway, the US Bomberman GB is a great game for sure. I loved that game back when I got it in the late '90s and it's still a great Bomberman game. Wario Blast is a bit simpler and not quite as pretty, but is of course the same basic game. I have played Bomberman GB with 3 or 4 people several times, it's great fun. :)
Quote:Oh and, Return to Dream Land has an "extra" mode when the game is beaten too. It's tough. You've got half health, the stages are harder, and the bosses have all-new moves (the "last" one, already looking like a Spyro the dragon recolor, only looks more so in this mode since he now turns purple).That's pretty cool, not a common feature in Kirby platformers... have any of them since the first one had a full Extra mode? I mean, some bonus stuff for after you win is normal, but not a full harder difficulty. Given how easy most Kirby games are the first time through, it's nice to see it back.
Dark Jaguar Wrote:Dreamland 2!The one issue with using two colors to keep the characters the same color is that because of how it does the colorization -- the four shades of grey turn into four colors -- it'd be pretty hard to do something like what they did in DK94 in a game like Kirby 2, I'd think... and I like how each stage has a separate color, keeping that was important. And they do have consistent colors in the status bar, including the special colorization for the "what power do you have now" box. :)
This game is another great example of SGB coloring, up there with Megaman V. I'd still rank it a bit behind Gameboy Donkey Kong though, for the singular reason that DK made a pallet choice to always keep two colors the same (or almost the same) across all maps to make sure Mario and DK kept the same colors no matter which level they were in. However, this game does have some really nice uses of color, such as how the level select "greys out" the islands you aren't on, so any one island gets a unique color pallet when selected. I'll add that this is probably the only game to actually make the border feel like an extension of the game screen rather than a border.
Quote:Oh, and the game itself is really fun too. I wish Kirby's animal friends would appear in more games. In the same way one could "combine" powers in Kirby 64, combining different powers with different animal friends results in unique abilities.Yeah, they didn't use the friends much for long... they're in Kirby 2, Star Stacker, and 3, and that's pretty much it, unfortunately. It's too bad they didn't really bring them back for the new Wii game, it'd have been nice. I would indeed say that Kirby 2 was the first showing of the "power combination" feature they also had in, yeah, Kirby 64. 64 has more combinations total, but still, KDL2's combinations allow for some cool stuff, and I like the friends for sure. :)
An as for the game, as I said already, it's my favorite game in the series. I'm sure that is partially nostalgia, but it is my favorite, and yeah, Pinball is #2. (Though I don't have Return to Dreamland yet, so I can't judge that one.)