Quarth (Famicom) Review

Quarth (Famicom) Review

Date Released: 13 April 1990

Date Played: 17 January 2022

Introduction:

Quarth is a quirky game developed by Konami.  It's a mixture of a 2D puzzle game like Tetris combined with a vertical scrolling shmup (or so Wikipedia would have you believe).  It was originally released in arcades back in 1989 and was known as Block Hole outside of Japan.  This version released for the Famicom is a good port and is a ton of fun to play. It's very tiring to play though and your fingers will be begging for mercy, so break out your NES Advantage Joystick and get your hands all limbered up, because you're going to need every bit of dexterity that you can muster.

Gameplay:

You play as one of two ships that are completely identical other their appearance.  One is a standard space ship that appears to be decked out for battle and is basically as generic as possible.  The other one is a cute lunar lander capsule that's being carried by cherubs and totally awesome and unique.  I love it and have no idea why anyone would ever choose the boring old space ship. On this same screen you can select which of the 10 levels you would like to start from (like Tetris).  Each of these have increased difficulty and if you start from the beginning, get ready for the long haul because it will take a while and the tendons in your hands will be screaming. Still, it's nice to be able to pick up where you left off without having to spend a bunch of time playing through the same easier stages over and over again.

Gameplay is unique and I don't know of any games quite like this.  It does share some similarities with other games in terms of concepts and execution, but it's really its own thing and I'm surprised it isn't more well known.  Your ship sits at the bottom of the screen and can move left or right as the screen slowly scrolls upwards.  Instead of enemies to shoot, you will encounter various quadrilateral (squares and rectangles for those of us who haven't had geometry in a couple of decades) shapes with missing pieces.  Your ship shoots blocks instead of bullets and your goal is to fill in the missing pieces of the rectangles.  When a rectangle is made whole, it will vanish and award you with points. This is obviously very similar to Tetris as you have to train yourself to recognize patterns and prioritize which blocks to clear first. The trick is to find groups of rectangles placed together and chain them into one huge block for a bonus score and to clear the screen faster. One technique that you'll need to employ if you want to succeed is to realize that the screen stops scrolling as the blocks are cleared.  So, if you clear a large block for a big score bonus, you'll have several seconds of the screen scrolling being frozen.  This is your opportunity to try to clear the remaining blocks on the screen.  Keeping these clears chained together is essential to have time to deal with everything and if you're not able to clear the blocks fast enough, and they reach the line right above your ship, you crash and lose a life.  Once you're out of lives, it's game over.  There are several powerups to assist you. They have abilities that range from stopping the scrolling, giving score multipliers, or even destroying all blocks on screen. It's a fantastic system and is a perfect example of easy to learn and difficult to master.  You'll know everything you need to after only a couple of minute and is a perfect example of pick up and play arcade fun.

As mentioned above, there are 10 levels broken into 10 sections each and clearing each one will advance you to the next.  Difficulty ramps up very quickly and by stage 3, things will start to get pretty tense and hectic for the average gamer.  When using a joystick, you'll find yourself quickly tapping the fire button in rhythmic patterns as you tap the joystick to move quickly around the screen.  The way you control the joystick feels a lot like the Magical Drop series of games and if you were to watch someone's hands without knowing what game they're playing, you would have a tough time differentiating between the two.  I'm not sure how anyone can make much progress on this game using a standard controller because you'd have blisters on your fingers in no time.  You have to input a ton of commands at lightning speed even on some of the lower levels and it's very impressive to watch someone truly skilled have a go at this game.  Typing this review right now, my wrists are still tight and sore from my previous play session.

There are some 2-player cooperative and competitive options if you can get a friend to play with you.  They're a lot of fun and can get pretty intense during a heated play session.

Presentation:

Quarth looks pretty decent for a puzzle game from the 8-bit era.  You don't want things to look too busy because you need to read the patterns on the screen at lightning speed, but everything is colorful and vibrant. The backgrounds, borders, and blocks all have pallet swaps between stages and while overall aesthetics are sparse it really helps in the graphics department.   The music that accompanies the game is decent enough and has that trademark Konami feel, but it certainly isn't one of their best and even after hours of playing this game with the same couple of tracks repeated over and over, I can't even recall what they sound like or if there's a catchy melody. It's almost as if it went in one ear and right out the other.  Not a good sign for a game with such addictive gameplay. Still, as basic as the presentation is, it doesn't do anything to hinder the amount of fun you'll be having.

Conclusion:

This is a great little game that I'm surprised not more people know about.  It never left Japan on the Famicom and the only Western release (outside of the arcade) that I know of is on the original Game Boy.  I'm sure plenty people played it there as Konami was probably trying to cash in on the puzzle game craze that was brought on by Tetris being the pack-in game for the Game Boy, but I've never heard anyone mention it. It's a shame that it wasn't brought to the NES because I think it would have been a fairly popular game.  It's a ton of fun even if the music is a little lackluster and playing for more than a few minutes is super hard on your hands .  Other than that, my only complaint about the game is that I don't really see the shmup comparison.  If the screen just fell downwards like in Tetris rather than your ship flying upwards, no one would ever remotely consider comparing it to a shmup. Still, I see what Konami was aiming for and I commend them on an original concept even if it was a little harebrained.

If you're a fan of puzzle games or tense and twitch based arcade gaming, you have to give Quarth a try.  It's an underrated gem for sure.

Final Status: Played (I could clear up to stage 6)

Final Score: 8/10 (Pretty Great)

Detana!! TwinBee (PSP) Review

Detana!! TwinBee (PSP) Review

Release Date: 21 February 1991 (Arcade)

Date Played: 5 December 2021

Introduction:

This was the second arcade game released in the TwinBee franchise which was extremely popular in Japan.  The game received several ports that were also only released in Japan and we're looking at the Playstation Portable Version here. It was released on a compilation of most of the TwinBee games and is considered an arcade perfect port. Even though there was TwinBee fever in Japan for well over a decade, the games never really made it to the United States (other than the rebranded, "Stinger" on the NES).  Even today, you have to import these games to have the opportunity to play them.  This is, of course, what I did to to get the PSP compilation.  

The TwinBee franchise has a lot of story and lore associated with it.  It centers around the main characters having to fight Queen Melody and Archduke Nonsense for a magical harp... or something.  I'm not sure, and it doesn't really matter.  Just be aware that all of the characters in this franchise are quite beloved in their native Japan and have spawned a whole assortment of collectables, plushies, cartoons, comic books, food, action figures, radio dramas, and everything else you could imagine.  This game has plenty of cut scenes between the levels to fill you in on the story. Unfortunately, I don't speak Japanese and can't get a good grasp of what is going on. I know that the TwinBee games are considered to be an anime in shmup form series, but that interests me far less than the series fanatics.

Presentation:

The game is gorgeous with bright colors, interesting enemy and boss designs, and a light hearted feel. You can see that it draws its inspirations heavily from Studo Ghibli's move Castle in the Sky. It is definitely a cute 'em up and has playful characters and enemies that look like they're taken directly from Hayao Miyazaki's mind. I think this was a really good idea and helps this game stand out from others in the franchise that all seem to be based off of toys and candy.  The music is outstanding and has that cartoony and whimsical feel that suits it quite well and is a standard feature in the series.  Being the 5th overall game in the series but only the 2nd arcade game, the graphics have been given a huge bump from the previous 3 console only releases and it really shows. While not as technically or graphically impressive as some of the TwinBee games that came after it, Detana!! TwinBee can certainly hold its own in the aesthetic department.

Gameplay:

Unfortunately, this leads us to the real downfall of the TwinBee series. My favorite quote to offer up when asked about these games is, "Everything is great about TwinBee except for the gameplay." Of all the games I've ever played, there are none that I so desperately want to enjoy as much as the TwinBee games... but just utterly despise playing. Detana!! is pretty much the same as all of the other TwinBee games and is just a vertically scrolling shmup.  You play through 7 colorful levels that have mid-bosses and final bosses.  Some of these final bosses have really cool designs that are primarily aquatically themed with jelly fish, crabs, and ships. You're given a charge shot this time around and learning to find time to charge it and knowing when to let loose is one of the main gameplay mechanics. Everything else about the gameplay is just standard TwinBee stuff.  Meaning... it's bad.  I know, I know, up until now I've been giving the game a pretty glowing review.  So, if you thought you were going to hear me herald the greatness of these games... you thought wrong.   The TwinBee series seems like something I would absolutely love, but it's marred by such an incredibly terrible game design feature/flaw that it squarely places itself into the top echelon of most frustrating video game experiences I've ever encountered.  Like the other games in the series, it feels like it has gone out of its way to select elements from other games that intentionally frustrate me... and I feel personally attacked and offended.   Allow me to explain in detail further.

The real issue with the TwinBee games (including this one) is the powerup system.  Scattered all throughout the levels are clouds that, when shot, toss out a bell that falls towards the bottom of the screen.  What you're supposed to do is shoot the bell to juggle it and keep it from falling off the bottom of the screen.  After several shots, the bell will change colors and act as a powerup if you collect it.  These powerups include spreadshots, speed increases, shields, options, and more.  The issues with this system aren't minor and they basically control and ruin the entire experience.  Firstly, you don't know what color/powerup the bell is going to change into.  So, if you need a specific powerup, you might have to shoot the bell 20 or 30 times to get it to cycle to the one you need.  Secondly, if you get the bell to cycle to the color you want, and then you accidentally shoot it again, say goodbye to that powerup because just a single shot will turn the powerup back into a regular bell and you'll have to do it all again. Thirdly, you usually have a handful of bells on the screen that you're juggling simultaneously.  Trying to get one to stay the color you want without without accidentally hitting it again is so difficult to maintain with all of the other bells bouncing around. Fourthly, the bells block your shots when you hit them.  This game has an insane amount of enemies zipping all over the screen.  Most of them try to kamikaze directly into you and when they come into view, you can't even shoot them because there are 5 or 6 bells directly between you and them that block your bullets. These enemies also have very erratic patterns that were designed to basically troll you.  Lastly, you spend so much of your time and attention dealing with these stupid bells that you don't even get to focus on playing the rest of the game.  Ninety percent of your deaths will just come out of nowhere from an enemy you didn't even notice because all of your attention is elsewhere.  The game has terrible Gradius syndrome, meaning that if you die and lose your powerups, the game is too difficult to continue.  So, you essentially have to finish the game without ever dying to have a chance.  Because this game is so unforgivingly difficult, you die all the time.  This leads you to have to focus on getting more powerups to have a chance, which leads to spending more time juggling bells, and less time allocated to learning the levels and enemy patterns.  In addition to this, most of the TwinBee games have a Xevious mechanic where you have to bomb ground units with your crosshair while simultaneously dealing with the stuff in the air.  I'm not a fan of this mechanic usually, but it's extra bad in this series.  Because most of your movement is focused on staying below these bells to either keep shooting them or to catch them, it's difficult to take out the ground units at all.  Luckily, this game allows you to bomb the ground and shoot in the air with the same button.  Even with this little upgrade, it doesn't help the situation in any meaningful way.

In regards to the shot, as mentioned before, this game is focused on charge attacks.  They are essential to success in this game and the four different options give some variety and strategy on different ways to tackle the levels and bosses.  Unfortunately, even this carries with it some serious negatives.  Because you charge your shot by holding down your fire button, there's no autoshot in this game.  You'll wear out your hand from constantly tapping the fire button.  It's exhausting and makes the game more of a chore to play.  The charge shots themselves pass through everything on the screen... including the bells.  So, that sorts out the bells blocking your shot problem to some minor degree.  But, what it introduces is the extremely troublesome issue of your charge shot hitting bells multiple times as it passes through them and causes them to cycle past the upgrades you need.  After you die, you can't even use the charge shot when you need to because it will prevent you from grabbing any upgrades.  Considering the enemy encounters are centered around the charge shot, this can be very problematic. There are so many times where I'm repeatedly shooting a bell and trying to get it to cycle to a powerup that I desperately need, and some stupid enemy will fly in at lightning speed and fire off a barrage of fast bullets right into my path that causes me to have to dodge and miss my chance to grab the bell powerup. You spend all of this time working on shooting these bells and a majority of the time it's all for nothing because you can't grab the bell when you need to, you don't have a chance to shoot it enough times to cycle to what you need, or you accidentally shoot it when it IS on the powerup you need because of an enemy getting in your way.

Conclusion:

I don't think the TwinBee games are good.  In fact, I think they're downright bad, unfun, unfair, and miserable to play... but they have an endearing charm to them that raises my opinion of them slightly. This entry in the series is one of the worst offenders and, despite its fantastic presentation, is grating to experience.   The other games in the series are annoying, but just mediocre when all is said and done.  This one's aesthetic can't even raise it to mediocre status nor save it from being slightly despised in my eyes.  I can't help but think that Japan was more in love with the cutesy characters from the series than they were the actual gameplay.  I don't know why anyone would subject themselves to actually learning this game well enough to 1 credit clear it on even the normal difficulty.  There wasn't more than just a few seconds of enjoyment that I experienced during my time with this game.  If you've ever played a Konami shooter like Gradius, you'll be very familiar with the fact that they LOVE to recycle content over an over. In that series, you'll have the same volcano levels, Moai heads, solar flares, and speed levels. It makes the games hard to distinguish from each other. Since TwinBee is also developed by Konami, it's the same case here. All of these games recycle content and are almost indistinguishable from each other. Since Konami decided to recycle some content for this game, I decided to do the same. I was reading through one of my older reviews about a TwinBee game, and realized that it was basically just the same review for this game. So, I copied and pasted over a lot of my feelings for that game to this game... and it seemed to fit perfectly. If you've played one TwinBee game, you've played them all.

Final Status: Beaten

Final Score 4/10 (Bad)

 

Sky Jaguar (MSX) Review

 

Sky Jaguar (MSX) Review

Release Date: 1984

Date Played: 11/16/2021

Sky Jaguar was released by Konami back in 1984 in the arcades and ported to a few select consoles.  This is the MSX port of that game that was released that same year.  Personally, I'm not sure how the game did in the arcades or with its console sales (since I was 2 years old when it came out), but I can tell you that the MSX port, while being primitive, is still a lot of fun and addictive.

You play as a plane in a primitive 8-bit vertical shmup.  You'll notice right away that the colorful graphics look very chunky and are reminiscent of Xevious. This isn't a bad thing and makes the game stand out for its time. As with all MSX games, the scrolling is essentially nonexistent and the background moves forward in pretty distracting segments.  If you focus on them too hard, it can mess with your brain a little bit.  So it's better to keep your eyes on the enemies.  When I say focus, I really mean it because a large majority of the enemies will either dive straight towards the bottom of the screen hoping to hit you or will scroll sideways until they spot you and then kamikaze directly towards you while firing off a hail of bullets.  This, and the way the enemies come in waves, reminds me a lot of Galaga.  The screaming sounds as the enemy combatants fall towards the bottom of the screen only helps to make that comparison since it sounds like it was pretty much stolen from Midway's sound engineers.  Speaking of enemies, there are a lot of different types for a game of this era.  Some are simple ships while others are abstract shapes like barbells and triangles.  Some enemies turn invisible and others fire in unique patterns that you have to memorize in order to pass them. It adds some nice variety and learning the enemy behavior is the big draw of mastering the game. Despite the abundance of different types and behaviors, almost every enemy in the game is a popcorn enemy and dies in a single hit.  The difficulty comes from the game throwing more and more enemies at you that also fire more frequently.  

As for the gameplay itself, the game controls well and it's a lot of fun sweeping back and forth taking out the waves of enemies. Since most enemies fire and attempt to crash directly into you, bullet herding is a very sound and effective strategy.  Sweeping back and forth across the bottom of the screen draws bullets and enemies to one side while you juke to the other. Occasionally, an enemy will drop a powerup.  The first of these that you collect will give you a double shot that really helps with aiming and connecting with the bad guys.  The second one you pick up might allow you to fire more rapidly, but it's difficult to tell.  These powerups might be one of the earliest examples of a powerup in any game ever.  I would be curious to know more about that. As for the stages themselves, there really aren't any and the game just continually "scrolls".  The game tracks your progress over time with a rising counter called "scenes"  but these are tied more to the number of waves you complete rather than a individual stage.  That being said, the backgrounds do change as you move along.  At first you're over a city.  Then, you progress through a canyon, a forest, a desert, and the ocean.  At the ends of scene 3 and 8, you'll encounter a fortress to destroy that serves as a sort of boss encounter but these only take a few shots at their weak points to dispatch.  They are also heralded by the only music in the game which is a nice change and is greatly needed in a game with no soundtrack. This music is sinister and really lets you know something big is coming up.  After scene 8, the game loops and has the same enemy patterns and types.  Only their speed and number of shots increases as you finish each additional loop.  

The game can get a little tough and overwhelming after a few scenes and this is especially true if you die and lose your powerups.  Luckily, the game tends to replenish your power ups relatively quickly and it also awards extends at 10k and then every 40k after that.  There are no continues, but you should be able to make it pretty far with a little practice.

Like I said, the game is very primitive but is still a good time even today.  It holds up a lot better than many of its contemporary peers and makes you want to chase a bigger high score every time you play. I would recommend this game to any shmup fan out there.  I think it's a shining example of how to make a game that stands the test of time.  It's also a great example of a really good early attempt at solidifying the shoot-em-up genre.  Konami did well with this and I have to give them a thumbs up.

I was able to make it to about a third of the way through the second loop before getting a game over on my best run so far.  This gave me a score of 105,740 at scene 11.  

Final Status: Completed (1 Credit Cleared / 1-ALL)

Final Score: 7/10 (Good and still fun today)