Earthworm Jim, one of the finest platformers the Sega Genesis has to offer. Originally released for the Sega in 1994, it was also ported to the Super Nintendo and the Sega CD. Originally created as a parody of many platformers at the time, the game has since become a classic game in the Sega library. It also helped spawn a toy line, comic books, and even a television series. There was also Earthworm Jim 3D for the Nintendo 64, but that turned out to be a colossal flop.
"Maximum Suckage"
Story- Our hero Earthworm Jim was just a normal earthworm until a space suit falls from heaven and pretty much gives him a bionic body. He has to use this suit to save Princess What's-Her-Name from the evil forces of Major Mucus, Bob the Goldfish, Psy-Crow, and Queen Slug-For-A-Butt. You can tell the character development department had a field day with this game.
"Whoa nelly!"
Graphics- The graphics of the game are much like the Saturday morning cartoon it inspired: colorful, animated, and completely off the wall. Animation is crisp and humorous. The backgrounds are colorful and entertaining, particularly the underwater stages and the space chase scenes. These are what I've come to expect of later games on the Sega Genesis: crisp, clean, and very colorful. You can tell this game utilized the full potential of the Sega, unlike many of the earlier releases.
Controls- Controls are smooth as glass. Jumping, shooting, and swinging are all very manageable. You may find a few parts where swinging can be a bit of a hassle, but otherwise it's not too much of a pain.
Sound- The music is all over the place, but I love every moment of it. The most notable music is the background track for "What the Heck?". It is a juxtaposition of Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain" and elevator music, a perfect harmony of scary and silly. I love it.
The other stages don't take a backseat to "What the Heck?" All of them have a unique track that complement the stage perfectly. Sound effects are equally goofy, exactly like something you'd hear in a Saturday morning cartoon.
That poor, poor cow.
Gameplay- Here's where the game really shines. The game is a well polished platformer that allows you to jump, shoot, swing, and beat enemies down with your pink wormy head. You can use your head as a whip, a grapple (kind of like Bionic Commando), and even a helicopter rotor. In addition to 'using your head', you
can also use your blaster to fire rapid rounds or a special beam shot if you pick those up. Enemies include muscle-bound cats, lawyers, junkyard dogs, and other goofy monsters. The bosses are equally unique. One of my favorite boss battles is a bungee duel with Major Mucus. You have to slam him against the walls in an attempt to destroy his cord before he breaks yours. It's one of the most innovative boss battles I've seen on the Sega, and it's a lot of fun. Other bosses include trying to avoid Evil the Cat while you're a worm out of your suit and the trout vomiting Chuck.
For a Sega platformer, it takes a short while to beat. If you're really good, I'm sure you can tackle it in an hour or so. However, it is not an easy game by any means. I don't expect you to beat it on your first try. That being said, it's got terrific replay value. It's one of the few games I can pick up and play any time.
Final Thoughts- This is one of the best games on the Sega Genesis, so don't hesitate to pick it up. It's also relatively cheap, usually lower than $10. You get a lot of bang for your buck. I haven't played the second Earthworm Jim, but I heard that's generally pretty good as well. Check them out!
Ah, Toki. You know just by looking at that cover that this is gonna be one goofy ass game. To nobody's surprise, you'd be absolutely right. Toki was originally released as an arcade platformer in Japan under the name Juju Densetsu. The arcade game was goofy and slow paced, but it had its place in the arcades.
In fact, it was so popular, this game was ported to nearly every major console. Amiga, Nintendo, Commodore 64 and even the Atari Lynx had their own ports of the game. From what I've heard, the Amiga port is generally the favored port . Naturally, Sega threw their hat in the ring and created their own unique 'remix' of the game. The Sega Genesis port is a strange beast. The original arcade game had unique stages with a boss at the end, not unlike a game such as Ghosts n' Goblins. The Sega version separates the stages into segments where the goal is to reach a goal marker like Sonic the Hedgehog. More on that later.
"Unlimited Power!"
Story- Our hero Toki (or Juju) is enjoying a lovely day with Princess Wanda, until a mystical palace rises in the background. Wanda is captured by the disembodied Bashtar, while Toki is transformed into an ape by the mysterious Dr. Stark. The transformation also gave him the ability to shoot magical energy balls from his mouth. It's Mario with a ball spitting primate.
Graphics- The graphics aren't bad, but they can be a bit bland sometimes. There are some decent background effects, but this is not a game that showcases the full power of the Sega by any means. Sonic the Hedgehog came out in the same year, and that had so much more going on in the backgrounds.
That being said, there are some decent effects in the game, particularly in the ice and lava stages. The color palette for the game is not terrible. There are bright hues of purple, blue, and red in many stages. The animation on Toki is crisp and even humorous sometimes. The other enemies are a mixed bag. Many of the bosses have very little animation at all. Two of the bosses, Eyesore and Crystal Mammoth, have virtually no animation.
This bastard can be a real pain in the ass.
Controls- The controls leave something to be desired. First off, your character moves with no urgency whatsoever. When something is dropping on your head, your character can only trundle out of the way and hope to not get hit. In addition, jumping can be a bit tricky, especially on the ice stage. It sucks. You slide all over that damn stage and can't do a thing to protect yourself. There's no room to fuck up. One hit, and you start the level all over again. Not necessarily bad controls, but very slow and takes time to get used to.
Sound- Listen to the song below:
Do you like it? It is pretty awesome? I hope so, because you'll hear this damn song throughout most of this tedious game. There are other level songs in the game. The first one that comes to mind is the underwater stages, which isn't a bad little music track. The bosses also have their own little unique track. However, this game could use so many more tracks. Because the music is nearly identical for all of the stages, many of them feel like you're playing the same stage over.
Gameplay- This game suffers from very slow gameplay, especially for a platformer. Compare this to something like Sonic or Rocket Knight Adventures, and this just falls flat. I have two main criticisms of this game, but they pretty much butcher the gameplay. First, the level design is horrible and sometimes cruel. There are several instances where you take a leap of faith only to have a row of spikes planted firmly in your hairy ass. Levels are riddled with dead ends and ledges that lead to nowhere. This segways into my second criticism: You can never tell what's going on around you. I can't tell you how many times I've died because I jumped in the air and some flying fuckbat decides to dive bomb at that very moment. In addition, there are many times where you just don't know what the hell is below you. Is it a piece of fruit? An extra life? Some enemy waiting to get a cheap hit? Jump down and find out.
Now that we've got that can of worms out of the way, let's talk about the actual gameplay. You walk around the levels at a snail's pace, shooting energy balls from your mouth. You can pick up powerups to change your shot, such as a flamethrower, bouncing balls, and a spread shot. There's also a pair of tennis shoes that allow you to jump very high. Don't get it. You'll end up jumping into an enemy and killing yourself.
There are several bosses in this game, and many of them are unique and fun to play. My favorite is the blatantly stereotyped black woman called Primeval.
Oh, Japan. You and your racist video games.
In addition to Aunt Jemima, you also fight a submarine loaded with apes, a fat monster that belches at you, and the disembodied giant that captured your lovely Wanda. Once you get the pattern of many of them, they can be pretty easy. It only takes one shot to kill you, so don't screw up.
Final Thoughts- This is a poor port of an already slow paced arcade game. While the graphics and sound aren't terrible, the gameplay is slow, boring, and irritating. There's many cheap kills and annoying level designs that will leave you throwing your controller on the ground. This game's not cheap, either. It will cost at least $10 to get your hands on a copy of this game. Do yourself a favor: play a better port, or even better, play a better platformer. I'll review one of the best platformers Sega has to offer next. Rating (out of 5): **
This will be just a quick review of a classic puzzle game on the Sega Genesis. I used to love playing this game when I was around 6 or 7. This is Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine. Essentially, it is Puyo Puyo with Sonic the Hedgehog poorly incorporated in. The blue hedgehog doesn't even appear in the game, despite this game being on most Sonic Collections. If you've never heard of Puyo Puyo, you're missing out, especially if you're a puzzle buff. I'll get into the gist of the game in the gameplay section. For now, let's look at the game as a whole.
Story- A lot of this game has more to do with the show The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog than the Sega video games. If you've never heard of the show, you're not missing much. It was shitty, poorly drawn, and disjointed. Don't watch it. If you did watch the show, you'll notice some of the enemies are in this game, such as Scratch, Grounder, and Coconuts the monkey.
I hate this little bastard...
Dr. Robotnik is being a dick as usual and kidnaps the citizens of the cleverly named Beanville and throws them into his Mean Bean-Steaming Machine. There, they become his slaves. Not a riveting plot, but what did you expect for a puzzle game?
Graphics- The graphics are bright, vivid, and do their job just fine. The background in the actual game is a little bland, but whatever. Animation in the cutscenes and on the beans are nice and fluid.
Controls- It's a puzzle game. In a nutshell, the controls aren't much different than Tetris or Columns. Use the buttons to rotate your beans and the D-Pad to control the speed. Easy peasy.
Sound- This game has some funky cool puzzle music. In addition, whenever a player is about to lose a match, the music gets all fast and chaotic. It literally feel like you're taking a test in school and the teacher says "One minute remaining." It tends to break your concentation and you're bound to slip up.
A shot of the VS mode
Gameplay- If you've never played Puyo Puyo, it's actually a pretty fun puzzle game. It is somewhat similar to tile games like Columns and Tetris. Instead of blocks, you drop 'beans'. You can rotate them freely, and the objective is to get four in a row of any color. Once you get four in a row horizontally, vertically, L-shaped, or S-shaped, the blobs will disappear. If a bean is dangling above thin air, it will drop until it hits the ground or another bean. The objective of Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine is to get sick combos using your beans. Whenever you get a 2x combo or more, black 'garbage' beans will rain down on your enemy. It is so satisfying to be a colossal dickhead and just drop a storm of black beans on your partner's carefully coordinated setup. To get rid of the garbage beans, you have to clear the blobs next to it.
The game offers a 1-player story as well as a 2-player vs. mode. You can also play around with a practice mode, but who cares about that? The story mode is fun and very difficult. You'll breeze through the first few enemies, but the blobs will get so fast you have mere seconds to come up with an elaborate and efficient setup. Some of these computer players handed my ass to me. Then again, I'm not the best puzzle player in the world.
Final Thoughts- This game is extremely common, so get yourself a copy of it and start humiliating your friends. They have copies of this game on Sega, Gamecube, Xbox 360, and PS3. It shouldn't cost more than a few bucks, and you'll have hours of fun times. If you have any doubts, just look how happy Dr. Robotnik is with the game.
Then again, he also looks like a Registered Sex Offender
Take a good, long look at the cover of this game. Would you really walk past this in a blockbuster and say, "A game where I can play as a white haired Dog the Bounty Hunter shooting fireballs? That's something I want to buy!" This is Shadow Blasters by Sage's Creation. Sage's Creation is a small Japanese gaming company that released other gems such as Ka-Ge-Ki: Fists of Steel. I'll get to that awesome game another time. Shadow Blasters is a 2D action platformer, and for an early Sega Genesis release, it's not awful. However, it is one of the shortest games in the Genesis library. I was able to beat it in normal and hard difficulty in a little over an hour. On that note, there is very little difference between normal and hard. There may be some slight difference in the boss battles, but the differences are very subtle.
Hyprion the androgynous deity
Story- If you skipped past the boring cutscene at the beginning, here's a quick rundown. The evil Ashura is threatening to take over the Earth. Our hero, Hyprion (who looks like a cross between Sephiroth and Goldust) bestows magical powers to four of the Earth's mightiest heroes. Unfortunately, you cannot transform into the Megazord in this game. Your four heroes are Leo, our white mulleted hero on the cover. He is a master of Kendo. Horatio and Tiffany are masters of Ninjitsu. Marco is a Buddhist monk that looks like Bear Hugger from Super Punch Out. Together they set out to destroy Ashura and bring peace back to the kingdom. Pretty original stuff.
Now all we need is Bret Michaels.
Graphics- As you can see, the graphics are nothing to write home about. For an early Sega game, they're okay. The backgrounds use vivid colors such as shades of purple and red. However, they leave much to be desired. That being said, the effects on the backgrounds, particularly the sky still hold up pretty well.
Controls- As with most early Sega games, this game suffers from some pretty stiff controls. First off, your characters move like they are muddled in quicksand. Even when their jumping and speed are completely maxed out, they amble along at a snail's pace. Luckily, this game doesn't require any tricky Ninja Gaiden platform jumps, so it's not a crippling factor. In addition to jump and attack, there is a Special Attack button. This attack lights up the screen and damages all enemies, just like something you'd see out of a space shooter like Hellfire or Truxton.
Sound- The music reeks of 90's Sega synth. Compared to some of the garbage cranked out for the Sega in the late 80's, early 90's, the music's not bad. It ranges from fast paced ass-kicking arcade music to slow brooding Casio music that you'd see on the b-side of the Shadow of Beast soundtrack. Check this rocking number out. Bet you'll be whistling this song down the halls at work.
Gameplay- Despite my earlier criticisms, this game did actually have some innovative features for a generic platformer. For starters, every character has their own unique attack. You can charge this attack for four different modes of attack. Through the course of the game, you'll acquire power orbs to increase your attack without having to charge up your attack. For example, Horatio starts off with a wussy shuriken as his projectile. His shuriken then turns into a small fireball, a large fireball, and finally (after collecting 9 orbs), a flame dragon. Woo!
Leo has this strange energy boomerang, Tiffany has this homing tornado (you'll find out pretty quickly she's entirely useless. Kill that bitch off.), and our Canadian boxer Marco has a spread lightning attack. Marco's awesome. You should just play the entire game as him. If you tire of playing Marco, though, you can switch characters midlevel like TMNT for the Nintendo. This alone makes the game ridiculously easy.
Speaking of difficulty, let's talk about the bosses. They're all over the place in this game. From a Metroidlike Mother Brain to a double headed He-Man lizard warrior in to some back alley homey that can vertical leap 30 feet in the air, no boss battle is the same. However, they all are incredibly easy, especially if you're full powered. There is one boss that can be a pain in the ass, and that's the ooze boss at the end of the Harbor Level. He's a cheap prick that likes to fling pink gobs of shit at you.
We're gonna need Kevin Dillon to take on this beast.
Where this game takes a major u-turn is in the final boss battle. It is one of the most laughable final battles I've ever seen. All of a sudden, you're thrown in this proverbial fireball throwing match in space with Ashura. It's like something you would see in an awful Power Rangers game. The ending of the game alludes up to a sequel, so be sure to look for Shadow Blasters 2 for the Xbox 360 soon.
Final Thoughts- While not an awful game, it is incredibly short and offers virtually no replay value. At 9 short levels, I've seen people beat this game in under 20 minutes. That being said, you can get this game for less than $2. If you paid more for this game, you've been ripped off.
