Retro Review: Bad Games

[LLR]

Lately I've been suffering from insomnia.  I've been just staring at the ceiling at night and rather than get up and sit online (which I will never fall asleep then) I thought I would hook up my old SNES and NES next to my bed with the help of a 10 foot AV cord and a AV hub box.  Obviously the first game I had to go through was The Legend of Zelda on SNES.  I enjoyed the game and finished it in a few nights.  It crossed my mind when I was going through the game AGAIN at my usual pace of collecting all the items first in the Dark World..  Hammer, Titan Mitt THEN go through all the dungeons after getting the red sword- it hit me...  I know where everything is in this game..  I can do it with my eyes closed...  Bummer..  I love this game, its up on my top 10 list of favorite games of all time!  So I thought then I would play Super Metroid for the 20th time this year..  After doing a half arsed speed run and getting to Ridley in 40 minutes I thought....  "I've speed ran this game TO DEATH...  I haven't gotten 100% in a good 10 years!  I bet I have no idea where all the items even ARE!  It would be fun to go through it and just explore!  So I did!  And had a MARVELOUS TIME.  IT was fantastic!  It took me a week to find all the items but I did it!  I also LOVED the music while I was trying to nod off..  I found after getting all these items though that my celebration was short lived....  Now what do I do?  I knew where the items were now, what?  Do it FASTER?  Speed run it AGAIN?....  No...  I'm kinda over it... it sort of took the magic out of it for a bit.  I knew every trick there was to do in the game...  I then started thinking I was neglecting my huge library of SNES and NES games.   Over the years I had gathered LOTS of games.. I liked to think they were ALL great games!  When I was a teenager and I first got my wheels, what did I do? Cruse for girls?  No, not nerdly me.  I drove around to all the local pawn shops to see if I could find rare SNES games.  Sure it sounds dumb but hey, I found some 60+ dollar games for like 15 bucks!  FTW!  So I begin to go through my stacks of SNES games in my entertainment center.  Illusion of Gaia?  (No, I've beaten it to death and could find the 50 red gems in my sleep.. not to mention recite the text of the game verbatim..) Secret of Mana? (No, I just went through that game last year and did just about everything.... beautiful music though... hmmm...)  Super Mario RPG?  (No, I just beat it on VC last year...) Well, how about Chrono Trigger?! (YES!.... Wait... no.. I beat it again, LAST YEAR on the DS...  Bummer.  I'd be disappointed with out all the extras... I was spoiled now)  Hmm..  Well what are these games?  Secret of Evermore?  Hey, I loved Mana...  It plays a lot like it... I'll give it a try.   After playing this game for a week or so... I was GREATLY disappointed...  So around that time, I was watching the "Angry Nintendo Nerd" on the Hylia's home page.  It occurred to me..  I have MORE bad games than GOOD.  I can relate a lot to this guys videos.  (Well, with out all the vulgarity and a guy playing guitar behind me) For years I had thought most of my games in my entertainment center were nuggets of gold!  Amazing games that no other company would RE make and update their graphics on some new high tech system.  (Earth Worm Jim HD for example.  A great game!  So good, it was remade!)  After a few weeks of going through my old games.. I realized that most of them... SUCK.  So then it hit me. "The nerd reviews bad games.. that is actually a good idea and has the potential to be quite funny and entertaining.  If the game isn't entertaining then ranting about how bad it is might actually be pretty fun!"  So in using that as inspiration and having a wanting to write SOMETHING (Hey, I can't JUST talk about space all the time) this seems like a fun idea.  The last review I did was for Mega Man 9 some years back LINKAGE.  In writing that I realized that reviewing GOOD games can be kinda hard.  Expressing to the reader what qualities that might make them want to play it.  But to show how bad a game is?  That seems easy enough.  Just rant about what the company did WRONG.  Now I realize that these games may be quite dated by today's standards.  Games these days have progressed leaps and bounds...  I agree... to a certain extent.  Good old RPGs though..  I gotta say - they don't make them like the use too.  I find some of the old classics to be the BEST games ever.. And I know all games can't be Super Metroid or Chrono Trigger.  Masterpieces were few and far between.  This just seemed like a fun idea to write about..... I mean after all, if I am going through one of these games and see how bad it is..  I don't want to spam up a decent board with GOOD games being talked about in it.   I think most people around here grew up in the 90s so SNES games and stuff from that time seems like a good place to start.  (I think the 80s might be TOO far back for some.... maybe..)  So lets get on with the show....  My first pick is...



Some number of weeks ago I plucked The Secret of Evermore on SNES out of my collection and decided to give it a go after at LEAST 13 years or so.   I remember as a teenager I went through this game and enjoyed it a lot.  I had just finished Secret of Mana on SNES and was still wanting MORE of that game...  When I first read about this game in Nintendo Power I had thought that it was a sequel to Mana.  I mean it has "The Secret of" right there in the name... and it was made by Squaresoft... It has to be the same, right?  Wrong.. it has nothing to do with Mana... or anything remotly close....  The game starts out with a dark, omnious feeling.  The camera pans around some machinary that looks like some sort of boiler in the shape of an octopus.  Dark music plays.... oooooo scary!   Then the intro starts!  I can't tell you how nice this song is.  Here is a link to it. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpjXlcyB6vM
Give it a listen!  I enjoyed the intro a lot!  If the game was as good as the intro then I'd be in happy gamer mode...  But no..... And I'll get to that.  The story revolves around a boy and his dog.  The boy was a typical teenage kid who spent most of his time watching really bad (made up) moves the likes of MST3K would end up riffing.  Most of the boys dialog were simply quotes from these fake movies. For instance, if the story had you jumping into a volcano the boy would say "well, in the words of Dracula in Drac VS the Lava Man, lets get toasty!"   And even that's a stretch... It was kinda funny at first.. I thought maybe the kid would stop doing that..  "Surely the kid has something else to say other than just quotes"  No, the kid says nothing really except cheesy one-liners.  You could pull that off with a FPS game in the 90s (I'm looking at you, Duke Nukem) but in an RPG that is suppose to be about story?  NO.  Just.. no.. that's silly.  So, this kid and his dog is wondering around Podunk USA and stumbles into an abandoned mansion.  There he finds a portal to another world and is transported to a land where 4 different time periods exist in one world.  The world of Evermore. The first area is Jurassic lands, the second is like Ancient Rome, the next is Mid-evil times and after that is a futuristic space world where everything is a machine.  So what of the 4 legged co-star of this game?  The dog?  He turned out to be my favorite part but even that... turned into a short lived romance...  No explanation is given about the following, in each time period the dog changes to match the setting.  In Jurassic land the dog is like a feral wild dog that looks like a wolf.. and is also very SLOW and lazy.. In the Roman time the dog is like a Grey hound.. somewhat more useful.  In medevil times the dog is a ... pink poodle?  I donno why... and in the futuristic part the dog is a machine and his body is a toaster.  The most useful function of the dog is that it can shoot LAZER BEAMS now!  Nice, dog!  (Wish he could have done that the whole time...) Also, you know in Secret of Mana if you had a buddy they could grab another controller and push start and start using one of the other players on the screen?  Well, in Evermore...there is no player 2... bummer.. they missed an opportunity with that one, imo. It would have been fun to have a friend go through the game with you as the dog . Anyway, I stopped liking the dog once he stopped helping me kill enemies.  Sure he would attack some random bug or frog and end up saving my butt if a man eating plant took hold of me... but during the first REAL BOSS FIGHT - I was hacking away at the heart of some giant insect beast with his heart exposed for only short amounts of time..  once you hit the heart the boss would send you flying across the room with 32 damage each time.  I tried to get my 4 legged companion to help me attack this heart and found him to be... SLEEPING?  Seriously, the dog is taking a nap in the corner of the room now?  Are you for real?   I find doggy biscuits in my bag of stuff and this made the dog join the fight again for a few moments... then he got tired and decided to take another nap..  Well that bites.. I'm dead now because my dog didn't get enough sleep today.  Thanks DOG!  Death, that brings me to the most FRUSTRATING part of this game... SAVE POINTS!  In my first few hours there were only 2 save points.  BOTH of which were WAY out of the way.  Leveled up a lot? Get ready for a 10 minute hike down to where you started the game.  After playing the game for about 2 hours and getting several levels up....  I died on a boss...  Does it start you close by?  No,  it starts you 2 hours ago... and that save point was not even accessible anymore!  The last save point was IN a volcano and I rode thermal updrafts on the left hand side of it to the save point.  After saving the story has you jump down the RIGHT side of the volcano.....  No way back up.. and no way to save....  WTF were they thinking?!   It would be a bit different if you could level up quickly...  NOOO to gain one level it takes about an HOUR of constantly swatting bugs and frogs....  You will defiantly run out of magic if you were trying to level that up....Another thing.... the actual game play..   Get this!  In this game you can cast magic spells by using Alchemy.  You can find the items needed to make your magic spells randomly dropped around the maps.  The dog will sniff these items out for you and you pick them up.  If the dog isn't taking a nap or barking at bugs he is usually sniffing the ground where ever you are going.  You just have to go where he stops and pick up the item!  Easy right?  Well to cast fireball you need 2 parts oil and 3 parts wax.  The dog usually finds ONE part of wax,water,ash,root,oil or what ever.. That's fine.. but when you consider HOW MUCH YOU NEED...  I spent at least a huge percentage of my time bending over and picking up wax,water or whatever. Take 2 steps, bend over and pick up wax,  take 3 steps, bend over and pick up water...  take a short sprint and the dog is sniffing out half the map.....  You seriously HAVE to do this....  Bend over, bend over bend over *insert bad joke here*.  Yea, its pretty silly.  So is there a way around this?  Well.... if your rich... yes... Which brings me to currency!  Early in the game you use Talons because your stuck in the Jurassic period section of the world.  Only about half the enemies around will give you talons.. and that's only about 11 to 5 bucks each..  To BUY alchemy ingredients it costs a RIDICULES amount of money.  Like 500 talons for 10 parts water or wax.  This seems insane!  This game wants you to earn MILLIONS of dollars JUST to level up your spells!  Just like Secret of Mana, your magic spells get stronger every 100 times you use ONE spell. X_x... Over-site or was Squaresoft secretly working with parents of children behind the scenes and WANTED their kids to be occupied doing NOTHING for hours on end?  Regardless of either... spells are NEEDED in the game to refill your health and cure you of poison...  sadly you don't find curative items often at all... maybe one petal (which refills 50hp) for every 50+ enemies you defeat.  And when you take into account bad guys can hurt you 30 hp and your max is only about 80hp for the first 4 hours of game play..... this is madness!  So save points are SO far in between, enemies can KILL you easily AND you have to be richer than Bill Gates to be able to heal your self?  How did I even finish this game as a child?  Anyway, back to magic.  There are summons!  Now what is a good RPG with out summons, right?  So in the dinosaur period you summon a giant dragon or something? Maybe in Rome you summon some sort of ancient Roman god?... no.. not exactly.  When you first get to the village in the dino time, you meet the village elder.  Her name is Fire Eyes.  Everyone is afraid of her.  Ooohh scary.  So you meet this woman.. err.. Girl?  Yes, that's right, Fire Eyes is a 8 year old girl.  She looks like the Wendy's girl with coke bottle glasses and blond hair.  Why is this important?  Well, she is your first summon.....  To summon the great power of 8 year old school girl you need CALL BEADS.  These things are about as rare as good game play in this game.  There is a finite number of these beads in the game and that means you can ONLY summon that many times in the whole game.  No way to refill them..  So what does she do?  Well I first summoned her in the boss battle with the giant snake (that I died on.. thank you dog..)  I had received 5 call beads earlier in the game and was told to use them in case of emergency.  I was battling the giant snake of bug muck and I threw one of these dangerous beads down.  She popped up, her glasses flashed red.. and a small fireball flew from her causing.....50 hp damage... and then she was gone.  You gotta be kidding me!?  Seriously?!  So, maybe that is only one summon.  There has to be better ones..  Well in Rome you earn a new summon... he is an old man in a robe.  He casts thunder..  NICE!  Hobo - Joe can cast lightning.  What next?  Random NPC casts cure?   Well... yes...  In the dark ages you meet another old man (who's textures match exactly with other npcs only the color is different)  DID THEY EVEN TRY?  WAS THE GAME JUST HURRIED UP AND THEY SLAPPED IT ALL TOGETHER QUICKLY?  Who knows!  I just know I gave this game chance after chance to hook me..   If there was one saving trait about this game it would be it's music.. but unfortunately there wasn't even a lot of that in the game.  The opening demo had a beautiful song.. (I'm a sucker for piano type music) But when I started playing the game... there was no music AT ALL!  Sure there were sound effects, my dog wouldn't shut up barking...  But for a sound track?  Nothing!  The only time music popped up was when you were SAVING!!!!!!!!!!  X_x  *pulls game out of console and throws to back of collection*  There, I'm done.  I am not playing that one again unless someone double dog dares me or convinces me it is a good game and I didn't give it enough of a chance.


Lets see here, whats next?  Whats this game about?  Oh, a third installment of a series?  Awesome!  If there are 3 of this game, they have to be good... right?......................
*more to come*

[DarkLink]

ooooo... do want more reviews LLR! I like hearing reviews about the bad side of games. Thats why I like Zero Punctuation. Eagerly awaiting your next.

[LLR]

^ TY! I really didn't know how this would be viewed by you guys.  I LOVE reviewing games in my head and then bugging the hell out of my wife about it.  I think she is thankful as well that I have a place to rant and speak my mind about it.  I play old games like 90% of the time, NEW games.. don't me wrong.. I love new games.. they just don't make them like the use too.  And I can't believe I have so many BAD games...  UGG!  In all fairness though, all these years later after I bought these games... the worst games are some of the cheapest I bought.  I snagged Secret of Evermore for about 11 bucks at a video rental place inside of WAL-MART sometime in 96.  The rental store was going out of business and selling all their games at dirt cheap prices.  I snagged a few games that will be mentioned in this thread...  But sadly.. a few of these games were paid for at top dollar new for Christmas presents or birthday presents.  Bummer!  I have to say that much of my years of searching for games... I was looking for just one after awhile...   Anyway, another topic - that is.  Back to BAD GAMES.



So, lets talk about trilogies.  So if something is so good it not only warrants a sequel but a THIRD game/movie as well?  Well, certainly this should solidify any question of quality for the product.  With trilogies, each is pretty good and normally in this equation the middle one is usually the one that is lacking.  Usually with trilogies the first one is epic then the second is never as good as the first and then the third one is a pretty good ending to the set and leaves you feeling satisfied.  For example, Mario Brothers on NES. Two was my least favorite (even if you sub that for the REAL lost levels version.. both were not as good as oh say, the third game!  I would spend hours playing the third game just for fun!  The first one, well only to see if I could beat it in 20 minutes or less.  I never did that with Mario 3 and for good reason... it is just fun the way it is.  Another example, Metroid!  The first one was fantastic!  The second one.. was harder than Chinese algebra..  The third one.. probably one of the best games that humanity has ever produced in the history of the human race.  Now with the Metroid Prime games> again, the first one was fantastic!  Probably the BEST of the series then the second one was... hard...( I still liked it though) but it was the most un-liked Prime game and then the third game was GREAT!  I loved that game! (I also have the Prime Trilogy on Wii with updated controls.. this statement still holds true with the updated games.)  Usually with these sets the third game is GOOD if not FANTASTIC and the middle child is always neglected and left to twiddle its thumbs on a see saw ALONE.  Now there are some anomalies in this!  TMNT on NES.. The first one was TOTAL GARBAGE... not even worth looking at for nostalgia reasons.. it is horrible!  The second game ... OMG FUN!  It was one of my favorite games in the 80s and couldn't resist the lure of the arcade game when ever I was out in restaurants or arcades.  The third one.... it was good... but like pizza - even when it is bad it is still pretty good, at least it brought special attacks to the table and tons of new moves (I got sore at this game as a kid because none of the bad guys were actually IN the cartoons or movies.. only bad thing imo).   I bring all this up to show that usually... USUALLY companies learn from the mistakes of the past games/movies and put all sorts of awesome into a third installment...  Now lets shift gears to the year 1996.  The holiday season was in full swing and Rare @ Nintendo was busy planning for all the new awesomeness on the Nintendo 64.  BUT.. They needed something to put on the SNES... what cold they slap on there...  OH!  Something that kids will go BANANAS over!  Donkey Kong Country 3!  Yes, thats right.  I'm retro reviewing DKC3.  Seems like a good game.. I mean the other two games were masterpieces!  I can remember in 94 when Donkey Kong Country was coming out and Nintendo Power sent me this video tape of an interviewer walking through the "Tree House" at Nintendo.  The video showed all the groundbreaking new technology being put into this game.  "Will I need some sort of an adapter to play this new game?"  And the answer was "No!" They then took apart the DKC game and showed all the new chips that is in this game and took apart an old standard SNES game and showed the difference.  DKC WAS PACKED FULL OF CHIPS AND AWESOME.."wanna banana?"  Great video and the game...This game would revolutionize platforming games of the 90s.  No other game had this many colors, this many secrets, this many sprites on a screen at the same time AND with fully rendered backgrounds AND characters.  The music in the first DKC was absolutely STUNNING.  I remember I saved up all my Nintendo Power points and bought the sound track (a cassette tape) with all the music from the game.  I was a MEGA nerd in the 90s and I loved it.  (side note* I enjoyed this tape up until a few years ago when my wife split some hair conditioner on it and ruined it.... bummer...guess I shouldn't have had it in the bathroom sitting on the counter...doh!)  Anyway!  I love this game TO THIS DAY and went through DKC earlier this year.  And more bonus stages than Cranky Kong could shake a stick at. (Which he did in those side splitting scenes.)  I loved the humor of the game.. it wasn't afraid to make fun of its self or it's past.  The game embraced the past as it moved into the future and Cranky Kong was the bridge.  This game was a fantastic work of ART.  Then DKC 2 came out some time after..  I have to say that this middle child was one wild and energy packed individual.  This was with out a doubt THE BEST DKC ever made.  It surpassed the first game by leaps and bounds.  Adding even MORE color and EVEN MORE gameplay into this cartridge that any ever thought possible. The secrets and the double ending was a personal favorite of mine back in the day.... and the music.. can't forget the music!  (Brambles in the breeze & Swamp music FTW)  Who cares if Donkey Kong wasn't in it till the end.. it didn't need him!  I liked Diddy better anyway!  AND I could fly when I wanted to with Dixie!  This game took everything that made DKC a masterpiece and IMPROVED IT.  I didn't think the mine cart level could get any better from DKC but then on DKC2 they turned it into a roller coaster level....  One of my favorite levels ever in DKC history.  Nice work, Rare... VERY NICE.   So then DKC3 comes out, it has to be even BETTER, right?  Well, perhaps DKC2 was actually the demise of DKC3.  Perhaps that because the other two games WERE so good that this one just didn't live up to the reputation of its predecessors... and maybe I'm just crazy and I don't see how good this game really is... But for now... IT IS ON MY BAD LIST and I'll tell you why.  I first slapped this game in my console and noticed that my percentage of the game was at 103.. I had assumed that it was totally finished... giving that DKC had a max percentage of 101 and DKC2 had a max percentage of 102.. It was natural to assume that DKC3 was at 103...  According to the internet though... it was actually maxed at 105!  YES!  I have something to do!   I hadn't went through this game over and over like I did with the other DKCs.  I only went through it the one time and then put it away.  I assume this is because the N64 came out around that time and I became entranced with it.  But in retrospect.... hmm....    I started up a new game and began my quest. Ok, number one.. This game is called Donkey Kong Country.. Not Dixie Kong Country and certainly not Kiddy Kong Country. Kiddy?  Who?  I'll get to that.  The game just DUMPS you in the water.. ok?  Monkeys can't swim but, alright.  Thats ok.  What the heck do you do?  There is no level one.. there is nothing to even clue you into what is even going on in this game.  In DKC1 you got a nice idea as to what happened.  You exit and find all your bananas have been stolen by Krimlings.  Well, we are just going to have to get those back, right? (side note*  I ain't complaining but really, what DOES King K. Rool think he is going to do with all those bananas?  I mean, He is a lizard, lizards don't eat bananas!  Logic says that he is just bullying DK and has no real use for them.  Much like the play ground bully has no use for a little girls hair bow but will take it from her just for spite or to build character... which brings me to... WHY THE HELL COULDN'T HE JUST STEAL KIDDY KONG?  IF anyone ever needed their character built up, it was him.  Or at least steal those god awful pj's with the booties.. Steal those!  And another thing, why Krimlings?  Soviet Russia has lizard people that steal bananas?  Is this really what the cold war was really about?  A cold blooded lizard war to steal all of Central America's banana supply?  ok, jk)  The end of DKC1 you fight K. Rool on his pirate ship and take your  bananas back!  In DKC2 you actually START OFF where you ended the game in DKC1.  On that same pirate ship!  The back ground music is even a remix of the song in the final battle in DKC1.  Nice tie in!  In the distance on the ship you can see DK Island where you were in the first game.  So there was excellent progression to the game letting you know just where you are going and how you got there.  The story has you saving DK after he was kidnapped by K. Rool (apparently just after the credits rolled in DKC).  In DKC3...  I have no idea where the hell I am.  I lake?  Where do I swim?  The only place you can go is an empty cave and Funky Rentals (the new version of Funky Flights.. the way you would get around the levels in previous games)  "Well, I have no need to go to Funky's place right now.. I'm not even ON level one..  WHERE IS LEVEL ONE!?"  So I swim about for several minutes before I give in and GO to Funky's.  There, Funky introduces me to his 1 year old cuz, Kiddy Kong.  He tells me he will be useful on my journey.  Why?  Useful for what?  Collecting the flies?  Slowing me down?  Annoying me?  Why am I even here? And WHERE THE HECK IS DIDDY!???!?!!  I may not have been angry with this game if they had given me Diddy.. What isn't to love?  Diddy Kong rawks!  What, he was too busy making "Diddy Kong Racing" on 64?  Please...  Ok, so Kiddy is suppose to be JUST like Donkey Kong.  Same size and same weight so you can kill enemies that DK would normally only be able to kill.  Then why the heck didn't they just give us DK?   I mean the game IS DONKEY KONG COUNTRY.  And no DK in sight.....  Game would be better if DK was at LEAST the sub character.. Instead we have this toddler who we don't even know... or what we are doing... So then we go out the other side of Funky Rentals and guess what?  It is more lake!  So I swim down to the closest area we can crawl up.  I touch the wall and it crumbles and falls... "A CAVE?!  AWESOME!"  I go in and there is a small bird that looks like a banana.  Ok, I'm down with banana bird.  Whats he do?  He then flies away and I leave the cave.. (this leads me to think that all these hidden areas to collect these birds.. you just go in between levels and areas mashing the heck out of the buttons?  Cheap way to get kids to kill a few hours..) Then I go to the nearest area I can land at (again) and I find....  LEVEL ONE!  YES!  As soon as the level starts I notice that this game... just doesn't FEEL right..  DKC felt polished and perfect.  DKC2 also felt polished and quite perfect.  For example. Here is the soundtrack to the first level:  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx7mI1rdykw
NICE SONG!  Quite catchy!  I love this song to this day and is one of DKC's most memorable songs!  They put a HUGE amount of work into the sound track to ALL the levels.  To this day I still get cold hearing the snow music and I can't see a single snow fall in real life with out thinking of DKC's snow levels.  In a word: Memorable!  Now lets check out DKC2.  The first levels music was this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwyipDW-t4Q
Also quite nice!  It was a remix of the final song in DKC1.  Fitting!
Also just because it IS so nice:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73n7HTcmb5g
Great game and they also put a LOT of work into the soundtrack.  If you visit any music site that covers video game remixes you will find DOZENS of DKC2 songs.  For a good reason, they are awesome and well written.  Now DKC3.. The first song you are treated to in the level is this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hig3uTdvdTI
WTF?  It sounds like circus music!  I don't know if any of you out there are aware of this, but ol LLR HATES CIRCUS' AND CLOWNS.  And anything that reminds me of them.... falls into my no no list..  Ok, perhaps I am not giving this game enough of a chance with just its music.  Perhaps the songs get better? No, in just about all of the first 6 or 7 levels they are ALL this same song.  Bummer, in the Second area that contains more levels... it is more of the same.. but I'll get to that... oh yes..... I have a bone to pick with area 2...... the size of an elephant..  The music just seems to be done by totally different people!  I don't know if they were all busy on other projects but the sound of the game FOR SURE was no where near as polished as the other two... not even in the same ball park.  Bah!  So, I go into "Wrinkly's Save Cave" to... save my game!  What else? There stands old Wrinkly Kong... in spandex and exercising.  *Shudders*  DIDN'T need to see that!  And srsly not right before I try to go to sleep!  Thanks Wrinkly, now I know why your stuck in a cave.. X_x.  Oh that bird I saved is here.. what is it doing?  Wrinkly says "Bring me more of these birds.. I like them!"  Ok, why?  It is pretty well known that monkeys will eat just about anything, bananas, birds, rodents..  doesn't matter.. they eat them.. And I would imagine that a bird in the shape of a banana is pretty high up on the list of yummy things to eat if your an ape and stuck in a cave (and wearing spandex).  So this game just seems... ODD.  Since we are on the subject of sub characters... There is a trading system in this game..  You take one item here and trade it over there for some other item to trade somewhere else.  I'm no n00b here, I've played OoT before.. I know all about GOOD trading.  So I walk into this shack and there is this bear standing behind a counter..  your first meeting with this BEAR goes like this: ME: "wut? bear... in DKC?  why?..."  Bear: "I wouldn't take anything to git rid o this bird... nope.."  Me: "bird?... um.. k..."  I literally groaned out loud waking up my wife.  "what is it?"  really ME:" This bear!  it has the worst dialog EVER.. I mean, READ THAT..  "  My wife squints, looks at the screen and said "its terrible.... turn it off and go to sleep.  zzzzz"  I bring this up because in ANY DKC game you could walk in and out of a place like Cranky's or Funky's and CRACK UP from the off the wall crap they would come up with!  GREAT DIALOG!  Always good for a laugh.  My first meeting with this new character is... just mediocre.  Not on par with anything of the past at all.  Did they try?  Subject of debate, there.  So in the next area I meet ANOTHER BEAR.  None of the bears give me any clue as to what they do or why they are there or want to help me... all they do is say lame things like "oh I found that there shell in the lake..  *silly grin*.... This thought crossed my mind:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnXb-i7zSPc
This game didn't even feel like it was from the same people...Not like any of the other DKC games before it at all.  Different feel to it, it doesn't SOUND the same and it just doesn't control the same way either.  Remember me saying that Kiddy Kong is big like DK?  Well, one of his moves is to roll over water and skip over it.. pushing the jump button each time you hit the water so you skip like a stone.  Problem is, getting a 600lb ape to skip like a stone over the water is a bit like ......getting a 600lb ape to skip like a stone over water.  It just doesn't control right.  I sank over and over and I missed the bonus stage barrel repeatedly.  This forced me to repeat the stage... and hear more of that music.. UGGG...  Anyway.. I think I'll get to the second area now... Meet Ellie the elephant.  This pint-sized pachyderm is prone to panic attacks.  NICE...  The first stage I used this elephant in I was actually sort of enjoying using the trunk to pick up barrels and throw them.  The stage was filled with zingers (bees) and these rats.  No big deal at all. As the elephant, I stomp the rats and use barrels on the bees.  I'm half way through the stage.  This is easy.. I can fly through this.. but wait.. what? WHAT?  As I walked up to another rat... my character, the elephant, just FROZE in terror and stopped.. turned around and RAN... running right into another rat that was behind me..  Two things here, first... Why? Ok, I understand the cliché of an elephant being scared of a rat...   I do... but tell me why I was able to kill half the rats in this stage with no problem until now?  the second... Congratulations, Rare..  you just KILLED the number one element of the DKC series: GAMEPLAY & Responsive Controls.  I thought maybe this was a fluke, perhaps this elephant CAN kill rats but it has to be under the right conditions.  I give the stage another chance... naturally..  I kill off half the rats AGAIN.. no problem!  I get midway through the stage again and suddenly the elephant starts freaking out.  I don't know why, it doesn't make sense.  So I take a flying LEAP off this ledge.  Like Sonic the Hedgehog games.. You can't SEE whats below you, you just have to take a leap of faith.  And I did!  As I flew through the air I saw a rat below me.. and I was about to land on him..  I grinned at this  about 6 pixels above the rat.. my elephant froze.. freaked out.. and fell like a rock.. "No worries!  I'm falling straight down on top of him!  I'll just crush the rat and be on my way!"  No.. as soon as my feet touched the back side of this rat... my character died!  Explain that to me!  Really!?

I have several other gripes as well.. I may get to them tomorrow.. but tonight.. I'm done...  good night
*takes game out and puts it away*

[DarkLink]

Does no one else like reading this?

[LLR]

Am I done with DKC3? Naw, I just had to play Metroid Other M for awhile. I still have to finish my rant on DKC3!

You could say that this game was just geared towards small children.  That is why the game has the "Kiddy" appearance.  Yeah, you could make that argument but... all the adverts of 96 were of this:

Depicting a "Hardcore" DKC3 game.  The adverts would have you believe that DK was back and was mad as hell.  I was fine with that.. I was a bit weirded out by all the piercings on this gorilla... but hey, it was no worse than the Road Rash/Skitchin adverts from the early 90s.  TV commercials went like this at the time.. A biker type commercial:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9PetPinkP4" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9PetPinkP4</a>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9PetPinkP4
This game would have you believe that it was tough as nails, awesome, hardcore DKC.  What it ended up was being a fat 1 year old in pajamas (with booties), 80 year old apes in spandex, sluggish play control with bad level design AND a lack luster sound track.  More on this:

(click to show/hide)

They lost Robin Beanland, he wrote most of the music from DKC 1 and 2.  For 3... well.. apparently he wasn't invited to the project... bummer..  This guy would write a good soundtrack.  Here are some examples from Wiki-

    * Donkey Kong Country (SNES, GBC) (with Eveline Fischer and David Wise)[1]
    * Killer Instinct (SNES, Arcade)
    * Killer Instinct 2 (Arcade)
    * Killer Instinct Gold (N64)
    * Conker's Pocket Tales (GBC)
    * GoldenEye 007 (N64)
    * Jet Force Gemini (N64)
    * Conker's Bad Fur Day (N64)
    * Star Fox Adventures (GCN)
    * Conker: Live & Reloaded (Xbox)
    * Kameo: Elements of Power (Xbox 360) (with Steve Burke)
    * Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts (Xbox 360) (with Grant Kirkhope & Dave Clynick)
Thats right, he did the Killer Instinct soundtracks...  Ever play those games?  AWESOME music.

 

Why?!  Why did they get some NEW group to do the music  & level design of this game when the last group of DKC and DKC2 did such a fantastic job?  You don't ignore your best work!  I know over at Pixar they had a new group/director every time for every new movie.. but this is like leaving all the computers at Pixar and turning everything over to the people that made the Child's Play movies.  That wouldn't make sense and THIS didn't either!  At Pixar each time they passed the baton of power to a new director to see what they could do, they had a vision in their heads as to what they wanted to make.... there was a clear direction and the new director would look at the past achievements of Pixar and WANT to surpass them.  To prove it to not only the others they could do it, but them selves as well.  At Rare...  I don't think there was any direction, no vision... just a bunch of apes running the computers and slapping anything they could into a new cartridge and boot it out the door before Christmas.  That is SAD and DKC deserved better.  Shame on Rare and shame on Nintendo for not putting forth the effort into making a decent game.  I might forgive them if I learned they put all their efforts into GoldenEye on the 64 that year though..  I could...  Ok, now I'm done with this one..

Even though I've been playing the hell out of M:om for the past week.. this doesn't mean I'm stopping with these reviews.  I have at least 8 more SNES games that I feel like ranting about (unless you guys hate this and I may stop).  Someone has to tell you folks about what NOT to play if it pops up on VC.  Of course these are just my opinions but hey, take it as that.  These games are REALLY bad...  Really... bad...  

Next one up- Somewhere in the past history of the previous franchise.... is a character that is in my next game on SNES.  It is also a shell of a good time until you reach beyond hard mode.