#3 Last Battle

Obvious product placement.

 "That's not your purse!"

Here we have another weird conundrum much in the same vein as Alex Kidd – a truly terrible game that shows evidence, if one scrutinizes closely enough, of having at least someone on their development team with an idea, just a glimmer of a thought that could have worked. It doesn’t work, not even a little, but what makes both games bad is the presence of possibility that there could have been something to this.

The first thing that gave this title some promise was its license.  Last Battle was actually Fist of the Northstar. Not to be confused with any other game of the same name. This is certainly not a port. No one would have elected to repeat this on more than one console after seeing the results. From what I understand, the Fist of the Northstar license could not be obtained in the States, so they decided instead to base it off the final Narnia book by C.S. Lewis….

Not really. Just wanted to see if you’re still awake. But a bunch of kids dying on a subway at the beginning might have given this game a bit more appeal.

If I had to take a wild guess I might say Taxan could have had something to do with the lack of license for this release. I am sad to report Sega is directly responsible for this particular abomination and my understanding is that the Taxan game for the NES was actually not bad. In its original format Last Battle is based on the second Fist of the North Star anime series. The names have been changed – both for legal reasons and to not slander the franchise by having this game attached to it. I’m not totally sure how similar the plot is, but the characters have all definitely had their names swiped. This doesn’t really evade the obviousness of the license to anyone familiar with it. The one thing this game has going for it are some pretty well designed sprites for some characters including Kenishiro who is now known as Aazark (?).

I didn’t know much about Fist of the North Star until just recently. One of the things I am going to be doing here with this blog is experiencing the licensed material that goes with licensed games. Whenever we run into a game based on a movie, series, book, or comic I would like to read or watch at least some of it, if I have experienced it before or not. While technically it has lost its license the one good thing to come out of Last Battle was that it gave me an excuse to finally watch some of Fist of the North Star, a series I have been aware of for a long time but never personally experienced. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. It’s a cheesy, mad max like post-apocalyptic martial arts story with a bit of fantasy sprinkled in. It’s a real blast of an ultra-violent 80s anime and I plan to keep watching the series despite how bad this game is.

The worst part actually is that the anime had all the elements to make a really good game. I haven’t played the Taxan game for NES but I hope they made much better use of the license.

 So much wasted potential. This license could have made an amazing game.

So what exactly is wrong with Last Battle?

To put it simply it just isn’t fun.  The game kind of feels like it wanted to be a more complex version of Altered Beast but it isn’t even close, do not assume from that statement that if you like Altered Beast you will like Last Battle, they couldn’t be further apart. It’s a slow moving left to right oddball action game. When you punch or kick most enemies, they just go flying off the screen, which is pretty entertaining at first. The gimmicks with this one are an over world map in which you can pick which level you want to go to next and a sort of leveling system. The map is important mainly because it allows for repeating a level multiple times which is helpful for leveling up. Everyone loves built in grinding right?

 Pick your poison....again....and again...and again...

Leveling makes you beef up in a somewhat Altered Beast like fashion. You can then do some of the moves Ken does in the show like rapidly punching several times in a second. You also have no shirt which is good I guess, it looks like it might be hot out.

The basic left to right levels are just bland, not horrifying. It’s the boss fights- which consist of weird random button mashing and odd timing- that take you out of the spirit of the franchise that is the real problem. They just feel very poorly done, like a broken fighting game. When I beat the first boss I was very disappointed by the localization changes as well. He bubbled up all over. I had just finished watching the pilot episode for fist of the Northstar so I knew what was happening and was pretty excited. In the anime, Ken has a secret kung fu technique that causes his enemies flesh to bubble, and then their heads explode. All that was taken out of the western version and all we got was the bubbling followed by a cartoony cheap 16 bit shump style explosion. Not a good one either. No decapitation. I know I sound like a sick freak right now but the magic of these old anime franchises was how over the top they were. If they weren’t going to give us dynamic gameplay they at least could have spared us some franchise flavor.

 "Consider this and everything that follows it a warning shot!"

The labyrinth levels are even worse, with traps you really aren’t very well equipped to deal with given how slow and clunky Aazark moves. The other big problem is how difficult it is to gain life if you’ve lost it. The labyrinth levels allow you to do this by fighting enemies. This isn’t to tough but the labyrinths are dangerous, it’s easy to lose more than you gained and you only get one life- die and its back to the beginning of the game. A step penalty, considering how much of the game consist of grinding for levels that take too long to reach for a game of this type. While I’d have liked to see what could be done at the last upgrade I couldn’t find it in me to care enough to continue after reaching my two hour requirement. I decided to pass on mastering this one.

The dialogue though? The dialogue is spot on. 

Last Battle may be worth it for a Fist of the Northstar fan who has to have every related product but I don’t really think there is a market for it among people looking for a fun Genesis experience. Another bad launch game down the tubes.

#2 Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle

 God look at him. He's one of those guys that actually SAYS "You mad bro?"

 Don't let this mildly interesting scene fool you. Alex Kidd is a blight on our heritage.

When you love a game company that has fallen through the cracks, become defunct, gotten a bad rap, or dropped out of a market, especially the console market, it can really help the apologetics of your blind faith to have good reason to love its franchises. If the franchises a publisher releases are of high quality your allegiance has an aesthetic basis for argument. 

For the sake of the Sega faithful therefore…. I say we destroy every copy and ROM of any Alex Kidd game ever made.

It’s not even that they are bad games as games go, when we take into account the sum of all games.  It’s what Alex Kidd claims to represent that makes him a heretic.

 When Sega released the Master System to a worldwide market it faced a problem, especially in the North American market. Not only did Nintendo have exclusive licensing agreements with many important publishers, they also had a growing repertoire of original characters and franchises to pull from that were already wildly popular in both Japan and the States. Not the least of these was Mario, and Mario needed to be answered on the field of marketing battle…. But he never was - certainly not by this big eared twerp. Alex Kidd would never even come close to the plumber’s popularity and by the time the Genesis dropped Sega was already well aware of his short comings. This was his swan song. Mario would not get a real answer from Sega until 1991, from you know who.

The franchise, in my opinion, has always had problems of not being very interesting despite trying way too hard, among other issues. For this review we will focus only on its last installment, the Genesis launch title, Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle.

The first question I had is why was this a launch title at all? Sega had pretty much already decided to take its new product in a different direction, appealing to an older demographic and focusing on celebrity endorsements and arcade ports. None of these things lasted consistently but in 1988 / 1989 that was Sega’s mentality. My guess is they needed to pad out the library at launch. Essentially every console launch does this. Alex Kidd was an easy in. He started his life on the Master System which, while poorly received in the states, did well in Brazil, Europe, and to an extent even Japan. Alex Kidd was a welcome launch title in those regions and frankly Sega needed the quantity to sell consoles and software at launch day to prove this console would have US support. It was not all that hard a move to slap a North American clamshell around Alex. The fact that I am probably spot on about the decision process here would not upset me were it not for the fact that they had this mentality with Alex Kidd but not later European and Japanese releases that might have actually fared well here.

But I digress. For good or ill, Enchanted Castle came with the coming of the Genesis, “In the beginning” so to speak. As such I must now attempt to explain what is wrong with Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle. This is not as easy a task as it should be because what is wrong with him has just as much to do with what is right with him as it does his flaws. Ultimately it comes down to a few major points:

1.     

         This does not feel like a first party game. It feels like a very low budget 3^rd party game. It feels like shovelware. It controls like a wisdom tree platformer, all of his games do. This would not be so bad and in fact some shovelware has enough camp value to be forgivable. For shovelware, Alex Kidd is quite good. In that regard it would be a respectable game, were that the case. But it’s not shovelware. It’s not an obscure 3^rd party game developed in a Taiwanese sweatshop. It’s a 1^st party title and not only a 1^st party title, but a 1^st party title staring the hairy little bastard who has the audacity to claim mascot status for both console and company, at least at the time. There is no excuse for this.

The basis for this comparison is in the weird physics. Mario gained momentum and it felt natural. Alex feels like he has wax on his shoes. He slips and slides everywhere. He jumps like a crack head on the moon. It just doesn’t feel tightly made.  The environments seem minimalistic as well. They are bright and colorful but lack detail that even these early launch titles tended to possess.

2.       The gimmicks that should have made the game interesting come off as useless first, annoying second, and cheap in the finale.

Namely items.  One of the first things that looked interesting about this game was a large inventory of interesting looking gear you could acquire. I’ll get into the how in a second.

The problem is none of it is all that useful with very few exceptions.  I will tell you this right now – get the bracelet ASAP. Get several. Before the game ends get the pogo stick. Everything else is basically useless crap. The motorcycle has a level you can use it on effectively but it’s not very fun and the level is actually more interesting without it. The helicopter is an even worse offender as it’s downright annoying to control. It requires constantly tapping C in very rapid succession which would be less of a problem if not pressing it resulted in a slow and steady descend rather than dropping like a rock in water. There is also a cape that makes you temporarily invincible but the cost of it doesn’t make it very useful in most instances. There is a cane to make you levitate which may be helpful at some points but not really necessary, and the necklace…Just…Give me a minute I’m working up to that little gem. 

 Each item represents a broken fragment of my shattered life.

All you really need is the magic bracelet which makes your attack projectile. This is essential because one hit will kill you. The pogo stick allows you to jump very high which will make some puzzles later in the game easier.

Now… Regardless of absolutely ANY redeeming quality this game could have, here is the nail in the coffin that dooms it to my own personal hell for all eternity:

3.  

           Every freaking boss in the game….are you sitting down for this? Every single *^^%^$ one…is fought….by playing rock paper scissors. I don’t mean that like people do when they talk about Pokémon or Fire Emblem with elements that counter each other and such. I mean you literally pick rock, paper, or scissors. Alex makes the symbol with his hand. The “boss” does the same. And in that instant you win or you die.

Completely unacceptable. There is no cutesy backstory in the world that would ever make this ok.

You do this in other places too. It’s how you acquire items. And I’m ok with gambling for items. That is fine. You pay a bit of gold to play and if you win rock paper scissors you get the item. This isn’t all that creative but it’s acceptable. A boss that kills you if you don’t win a game of chance is not. The necklace allegedly allows you to read their minds but what you find out in trying this is that they are still very indecisive. What’s worse to me though than the fact that it’s basically pure luck if you actually finish the game or not, is the fact that they robbed you of fun. Look at the boss fights in the first two Super Mario Bros., both of which were out by now. How could Sega have looked at those and then decided instead a game of freaking rock paper scissors’ was an acceptable alternative?

 Clearly not. I have to play this piece of crap.

There is one final thing I want to point out. The title would seem to suggest the game takes place entirely in an Enchanted Castle. In fact the castle is only the final level of the game, but the funny thing is it really SHOULD have been the whole game. The platforming levels before it were as bland as bland can be. The only redeeming factor this game has, in fact the only part of the game that feels like it has any design effort put into it at all, is the final level in the castle in which Mega man style scrolling screens reveal individual rooms each with a kind of platforming puzzle to solve. This was the only part that was any fun at all and should have been the basis for the entire game not merely the unappealing climax. Just when the puzzles are starting to get really interesting, you have reached the end, it’s over, and your treated to – you guessed it – more rock paper scissors’ action!

***SPOILIER WARNING***

The black blocks make you bounce. The puzzles in the last level remind me of modern retro games like Super Meat Boy. If only the whole game had consisted of these one screen puzzles. 

 ***SPOILIER WARNING***

As a final slap in the face to the player, the game ends with you discovering that your father, who you have come all this way to rescue, was never really captured to begin with and was screwing with you for shits and giggles this whole time. So…you give him a hug. I kid you not. That’s it. That is how they ended this franchise and with the exception of a couple of cameos Alex Kidd would never be heard from again.

GOOD RIDDANCE!

This game is best for people who hate themselves and want to feel like they are already dead. I can’t really recommend it to anyone except those wanting every taste of Sega history. The most insulting part isn’t even that the game is that horrid or unplayable, it’s that the whole franchise was supposed to be Sega’s flagship, and it’s now our greatest embarrassment.

#1 Altered Beast

 "Sir! You forgot your wallet in Panera Bread!"

 These Zombie's heads fly off first before you transform. Its the little things that tend to make me appreciate a game. Headless zombies marching ever onward is a beautiful thing. 

My favorite boss design in the game. He throws his own head at you which regrows instantly. 

When most people think of Sega the first thing that pops into their heads is a certain blue hedgehog. But when we start at the beginning of the Sega genesis lifespan, we won't see hide nor azure hair of him for nearly two years. Sega had several other strategies for trying to get ahead in the US market before Sonic came along. One of which was to be the console for older gamers, and by older I'm still only talking younger teens, with somewhat more mature titles. This wouldn't really last. Sure there would be mature titles in the genesis library, plenty of them, but there was plenty of classic cutesy platformers as well. In all honesty it would not be until the PlayStation that we received the first truly mature focused console with a marketing strategy focused on a 19 year old male demographic.

Another strategy that went along with this was to incorporate a lot of arcade ports, and far superior ones than its NES rival at the time could push out.

Perhaps that is why Sega made the strange move of having this weird little game be its first pack in title with the Sega genesis bundle.

Altered Beast was included in all the first model 1 genesis sales at launch day, so it's pretty common. It was an arcade game first though. Was it popular enough as a coin op to warrant pack-in status? On this I get mixed reports.

Regardless of the logic behind the move, what a weird pack in! Altered Beast is supposed to be a game with a Greek mythology theme. You are a dead centurion who has been resurrected by Zeus with the mission of rescuing Athena from the hands of the sorcerer Neff. I know. Zeus and Athena you recognize...who the hell is Neff?

 This guy.

This is the first really weird thing to me. Neff looks like Hades. He acts like Hades, he basically lives in Hades. Why is he not Hades? Its not like his character, or anyone else for that matter, is fleshed out enough here to really justify creating an original character when Hades we would all recognize immediately.

Also, why is Athena such a push over? Isn't she a war goddess? Granted there really isn't a back story but she doesn't seem to have put up much of a fight and just seems to let herself get captured. And by a mortal. After all, he's not Hades. And here is the other problem with all of this - If Neff is just a normal, albeit magical, guy, not Hades, than why didn't Zeus just smite his ass and take Athena back? If Neff WAS Hades, then it would make sense. Gods aren't supposed to war with each other directly so Zeus sent a champion to deal with Hades in his stead, but Neff isn't a god and there is no rule about kicking his entirely unholy ass.

Maybe this gets to me because the rest of the game is so true to the Greek mythology source material. Remember the story about the giant ants that lived in the volcano from your mythology class? Or who could forget Homer's classic epic about the bipedal rhinoceros wearing boxing gloves and a yellow speedo?

Yeah....Like I said....this game is weird.

But you know what? It's NOT bad. I still say it's an odd pack in. I get that they needed a pack in, and that they needed it to be by Sega, and that Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle wouldn't have fit the image they wanted to create, but Golden Axe seems like it would have been a much better choice. Then again maybe that was the whole idea. Golden Axe is a more popular title, and more traditional, and everyone was going to buy it. Making it the pack in might have lost them money at the time. But I'm just guessing.

You have to give Altered Beast a fair chance - it has to grow on you. You have to embrace its quirkiness, its oddity, and its homoerotic imagery. You have to learn to appreciate the feeling of satisfaction from knocking a zombie's head clean off his shoulders, and laugh at the bad voice synthesizing, and most of all you have to learn to appreciate the game play.

Because the game play is possibly the weirdest part. I don't know quite how to categorize Altered Beast. Its a side scroller. I can establish that much. The screen scrolls like a shmup which forces you to take actions quickly. Its not really a platformer, there isn't all that much jumping. Its not designed like a beat em up either, at least not as I qualify them.....It's just an odd little game. Still it did grow on me. But recently; not so much as a kid. This is one my uncle had and I remembered playing it a few times but it was never a favorite. I'm learning a new appreciation for it only now.

It can be challenging at first if only for the somewhat strange controls that aren't bad just not entirely typical. Altered Beast allows you to ease into higher difficulties smoothly but you have to know how. The options menu is not immediately obvious. 

To access it, you have to press B and start at the opening titles. Here you can adjust your health, difficulty, and number of lives.

Wait...do what now?

This is a game of memorization really, like a shooter almost.  Another big help is that you can actually continue an unlimited number of times. When you lose your last life just hold A and press Start till your back in, starting at the beginning of the last level you played. This isn't even a cheat, its right there in the instruction manual. With only five levels and all these natural adjustments that can be made to game play perhaps Altered Beast's greatest short coming is its length. I can complete the game in about 15 minutes.

However, you do lose your score by continuing. I tend to categorize games based on if they are meant to be completed or meant to be played for a high score. This game has the look and feel of a game played for completion; but with looping difficulty modes that allow you to keep increasing your score round after round till you lose all your lives its actually a score focused game in disguise. A single play through will not be enough to satisfy.

So let me describe the quirky game play in a little more detail.

The screen  scrolls shooter style as you move constantly to the right, fighting off various evil critters as you go. Occasionally two headed wolves will pop up. The consensus is that these look more like pigs. I tend to agree. Which is a shame because a well animated 2 headed wolf would have been awesome, and a major flaw in this game is a lack of animation in certain places (though this shines through only because certain other places have an impressive amount of animation detail. Watch the arms on the tiger when it punches.)

There are two kinds of these wolves. The brown ones are just normal enemies but they might indicate simply by their presence that a silver one is nearby. When you kill a silver two headed wolf a metal orb will float around in a zig zag, ascending pattern. You have to grab these to "POWER UP!" (As your character excitedly exclaims each time) making you bigger, stronger, nakeder, and more homoerotic - till finally, with the third orb, you turn into a beast, a different one (sort of) for each level of the game. GET IT??!! 'ALTERED' 'BEAST'!

You have to transform to even get the chance to fight Neff. If you see him before you are fully transformed he will stand there looking at you like an idiot for a while and then get bored and leave. This seems to take him roughly forever. Neff is a moron. If you're fully powered up he will exclaim "Welcome to your doom!" and transform into a boss monster that you have to fight, then you will be stripped of your power ups and taken to the next level. Some of the boss monsters, particularly the first one, are quite impressive to look at.

After five levels and credits the game restarts at a higher difficulty. This game is best for people who want to play for score. Honestly as a simple action adventure its going to fall short, but if you are one of those players that likes to rack up big points this might be something that interest you, though there are much better games for that out there. Mostly this game is a buy for people who want to start the Genesis at the beginning. It just doesn't fit well enough into any particular category, despite not being a bad game, to be warranted for much else.