Probably one of the most well loved RPG of the 16-bit generation, Chrono Trigger tells the story of our client protagonist, Crono, and his time traveling destiny to stop the world from ending.  Along the way he will meet an assorted lively cast of character and enemies from all parts of the world.  The game is a good testament to how good story telling, a wonderful bunch of characters, and engaging fight mechanics can stand the test of time and be seen as the high watermark for an entire genre.

Visuals:

When the two systems came out, the Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis seemed to have been on equal footing.  As the generation went on it was pretty apparent that one was vastly superior, visually, than the other and that was the SNES.  It’s not a fluke that Chrono Trigger is one of the best looking games on the system.  It utilizes all the horsepower the system was capable of to fully engross you in the story.  The characters are extremely detailed and emotive.  The backgrounds and environments all have a unique look to them to let you know what time period you’re in.  The uses of Mode 7 is well used and the way to the boss fight just gets you pumped all the time.

Audio:

Talk about a game with a million and one tunes that will make you hum all of them, this game has it all.  All of the music in this game is an instant classic with really no equal.  

Completion:

I’m back in my home time!  I started the game, met Marle, had a nice little date with her then we got sent back in time where I was deemed a terrorist.  I had to rescue the princess to show I wasn’t a bad guy and defeated the monster pretending to be a royal chancellor which allowed me to go home.  Marle and I went back to her castle only for them to throw me in prison based on the actions of my character and saying I kidnapped the princess!  LIES!  I may be in my home time but I’m stuck in prison.

The post Chrono Trigger appeared first on Shattered Pen.

Where to even begin with this game.  Mario Paint is a game for the Super Nintendo that really wasn’t a game and more of a proto Photoshop/Paint Shop Pro for the console.  It allowed you to draw all sorts of pictures, make music, rudimentary animation, and even play a fly swatter game.  The most interesting aspect of the game was  required/came with a mouse to achieve all of these abilities.  Mind you, this was at a time when computer mice used roller balls and were pretty tough to use.  Either way, it was so unique that it has stood the test of time.

Visuals:

It’s a paint program for the Super Nintendo so not much is going for it in the visuals department but you can draw whatever you want as long as you stay within the pixels.  There are some sprites you can use but they’re all just the standard 16 bit type.  Even though there isn’t really anything to write about in how this game looks, it gets its point across by implying to use your imagination.

Audio:

Here is where the game shines.  The music in Mario Paint is just so amazing.  The basic song when you’re drawing is just the right amount of happiness that makes you want to keep it up.  You can change the songs but all of them are just bangers.  The music for the flyswatting game is equally awesome by being super hectic and making you want to take out all of them little fuckers.  The real meat and potatoes of the music is the music maker section.  You can make whatever you can imagine as long you keep it within the midi samples.  Like the visuals, just use your imagination.

Completion:

You can’t complete Mario Paint, you just draw and create.  You can try to complete the Flyswatting game but then you go back to creating.  Have fun and enjoy!

The post Mario Paint appeared first on Shattered Pen.

The Super Nintendo sequel to the atrocious game we got a couple years prior.  Nintendo learned all the shit that made Mortal Kombat so desirable for the Sega Genesis and the good things people said about their version and lumped it into one terrific package.  You take control of 1 out of 12 characters to take on the emperor Shao Kahn to prevent Earthrealm from falling under his rule.  You will fight to the death with some, befriend others, and maybe even take home a baby or two, but you will have a damn good time doing it with Mortal Kombat II.

Visuals:

Everything looks great in this game.  It may not be as high resolution as the arcade version, but it does translate pretty well to the home console.  All the characters retain their signature drip while it seems that most of the animation has carried over as well.  The backgrounds all look terrific with some of them sporting some animation.  It’s a miracle they were able to cram, what seems to be, the entirety of the game for the home.

Audio:

This is where there are a few dips.  While you do get all the voice work of names, victories, finishing moves, etc., they are of such a low quality it really stands out.  The crispness of sounds coming from the SNES sound chip all sound so rich to only get muddied by a horrible sounding scream or yell that takes you out of it.   Either way, the rest of the world just sucks you right back in that you learn to cope with it.

Completion:

Back in the day my brother and I played this game so much.  We got so good we could do all the moves, fatalities, babalities, friendships, morphs, etc. without having to look at any sort of guide.  We would go to the store to look at magazines to get every little ounce of secrets out of the game we could.  It was probably our favorite Mortal Kombat game just because we were both of the age where we were competent against each other.  Now, though, I don’t think I can do it anymore just because my reflexes have gone, and I don’t have the time to dedicate my time to it anymore.  Regardless, this game is just a wonderful classic that should be owned by every SNES owner looking for a fight.

The post Mortal Kombat II – SNES appeared first on Shattered Pen.

Mortal Kombat for the SNES is a port of the hit fighting game that was released in the arcade prior.  Its style is based on Chinese martial arts movies and, particularly, Big Trouble in Little China.  You can be one of seven fighters in your hopes to face the sorcerer Shang Tsung to hopefully become victor of Mortal Kombat.  This game was a huge deal when it was released because of the violence it had, the snappy fighting, and fatalities you did at the end of a match.  Luckily, none of these things transferred over to the Super Nintendo port and we were left with trash.  Although the game played like shit, it was all we had since the SNES was our platform of choice.  Not having the fatalities or blood, thanks Nintendo, was what we had to deal with.  

Visuals:

The SNES version does look really good compared to its contemporaries but that’s about where the compliments stop.  All the characters look like they’re supposed to as do the backgrounds.  While the characters are smaller than the arcade version they do translate well to the small screen.  The animations are also good enough with each character sporting their individual moves.

Audio:

Gosh, digitized samples on the SNES are muddy as fuck.  The voices just sound super low quality but at least we have them.  The music is also a lower sample rate but, like the audio, is leaps and bounds over the competing platforms.  At least you do have nice renditions of the music rather than full on replacement, so that’s a good thing.

Completion:

Other than the arcades, or by cheating, I don’t know if I’ve actually ever beaten this game.  I probably did some time when it was initially released but the main selling point was fighting other players so my brother and I did have some pretty good bouts.  On this round I did play until I lost and it wasn’t until I got to the endurance matches.  I almost pulled it off but, in the end, Rayden [sic] got the better of me and ended my run.  Oh well, I don’t wanna play this game anymore.

The post Mortal Kombat – SNES appeared first on Shattered Pen.

Our titular hero is going through downtown Tokyo on his day off from an all star charity game when he stumbles upon an old man in a store telling him he has to rescue some boy! Shaq agrees and is whisked away to the 2nd world where he fights an assortment of baddies to try to rescue the boy!

Visuals:

Shaq Fu is a beautiful game. The sprites, backgrounds, and animations are gorgeous with the latter being super fluid. The overworld is also very nicely done too with a little Shaq running from level to level. It’s quite adorable.

Audio:

The music in this game is so bland and the sound effects are equally forgettable. It’s kind of lame how boring it is compared to what you’re seeing.

Completion:

Now I can say, “FUCK THIS GAME!” because this game is fucking trash. While everything about it looks fantastic, the animation is what kills it. Every fucking move take so many fucking frames you have to plan your moves seconds in advance. You’re just constantly fighting with the controls while the whole time you’re getting reamed by the opponent. This game is fucking horrible. Shaq, you should be ashamed of yourself. I kept losing to the cat lady over, and over, and over, and over again because of these fucking animations. Fuck you game.

The post Shaq Fu appeared first on Shattered Pen.

It’s a top down perspective based on the hit 1990s movie with genetically engineered dinosaurs breaking loose of their confines in a theme park. The game doesn’t really follow the movie but rather the book with you collecting eggs and ID cards through the park “levels” so you can get helicopter evacuated to prevent dinosaurs from reaching the mainland. Sound simple? Good! That’s about the only thing that’s simple in this game!

Visuals:

I hate to say it, but this is one ugly game. Dr. Grant looks like a stumpy version of himself and the entire world is just one giant confusing map. It has a very cartoonish look to it with the dinosaurs looking more like comic book creatures rather than real life animals. They are all vastly different so that’s a plus for them but everything just looks so flat. The weird isometric view is also such a sharp angle everything just is squat. There are 3-D levels whenever you go into a building but these run at such low framerates that it is such a chore and a bore to play through them. Also they are severely pixelated which makes going through them kind of hard on the eyes.

Audio:

This is where the game truly shines. The music is so wonderful it kind of feels like Disneyworld. You go from one zone to another and the music changes completely with nice fade outs. The songs themselves are very memorable and I find that I have been humming these songs for, as of this writing, over 30 years at this point. The other sound effects are a drag though. Grant makes grunts when he gets hit, the roars are not what was in the movie, and the weapon sound effects are rather flat and dull. My fav fav FAVORITE thing throughout this game, besides the amazing music, is every time you come to a pole with some things jutting out of it, one of the survivors of the park say, “Dr. Grant!” and give you a little factoid. Like the music, I still say this stuff all the time, especially in rewatches of the movie or rereads of the book.

Completion:

I have never been able to finish this game. Even when I first rented it to when I played it now…even with cheats…I could not finish this game! For one, it’s really hard to control and the stumpiness makes it hard to judge jumps. You can get one shotted by certain dinosaurs or just fall into rivers. You have a set amount of lives and continues but man, they go fast and the world is so confusing you get lost pretty easily. I dunno, though, I still love playing it though.

The post Jurassic Park appeared first on Shattered Pen.

Based off the titular movie, the game follows Peter Banning as he tries to rescue his kids from the clutches of Captain Hook. It’s a side scrolling action game from the Super Nintendo era so it kind of gives you a little bit of what to expect from that time frame. There’s a nice setup in the beginning explaining the story of the movie in a very condensed version but it gets the job done!

Visuals:

This game looks very ugly. The sprites and everything are crisp but everything blends in together. The characters are at least distinct from one another so you get an idea of what each of them do, but they all just get lost in the background. I don’t know how my character changes from overweight smarmy dude to a Peter Pan with just the flick of a wand [Tink?] but whatever.

Audio:

I just played this game and the audio already escapes me. The only sound I remember is the sound my dude was making when he got hurt. Other than that, totally unmemorable.

Completion:

I didn’t even pass the first fucking “tutorial” level. The controls are so floaty and everything just kills you so quickly. You can “fly” but then it runs out of juice and you land on spikes and die. Then, when it’s Game Over, you revert back to you’re boring ass self. This game was trash.

The post Hook appeared first on Shattered Pen.

A side scrolling action game based on the movie. You get nice little cutscenes and a lot of action. It’s pretty generic for what it is but there is a lot of stuff going on in every screen and section.

Visuals:

It’s a pretty straight forward SNES game. The levels are filled to the brim with thugs and dystopian 1996 visuals. I’d have to say it’s pretty generic, unfortunately.

Audio:

This game was also pretty bland in the sound department as well. You do have the little sound bites from the movie which always sound amazing on 16-bit hardware.

Completion:

There was just so much nonsense going on in the game. The levels are just filled with enemies who all take potshots at you. They wiped out all my lives in the first level. I would have loved to try more but, alas, it wasn’t meant to be.

The post Demolition Man appeared first on Shattered Pen.

Based off of the movie of the same name, Cool World is about a guy who gets sucked into the cartoon world he created because of reasons and the characters are all adult like. It was an event when I was 8 but it’s really just a terrible movie. The game doesn’t fare any better. From what I gathered, in the little amount I did play, it seems to be an adventure game.

Visuals:

The game is at least vibrant, so it’s got that going for it. It’s just so much noise all over the place that things get lost. The main character gets lost in the foreground who gets lost in the background. It’s dripping with edge as well so everything has that twisted 90s style that was so popular 30 years ago.

Audio:

It’s a gross sounding game. It was the 90s so it was bass heavy and just grime. There are so many sound effects from everything on screen you can’t really focus on one certain thing. I was not a fan.

Completion:

I can’t tell you how far along I got in this game. My first life I got killed because some thing threw a bomb at me. The second time some other thing was spitting fire on me. The third time I can’t really tell you what killed me but I just died. I got some items and moved along through the world but I couldn’t get past the turnstiles. Dunno what exactly I was doing but I really am glad it is over.

The post Cool World appeared first on Shattered Pen.

Side scrolling platformer game where you gather powerups to complete REALLY confusing levels and don’t know where to go. It stars Bonk who was a mascot of the NEC PC Engine/TurboGrafX-16 systems, but I guess he wasn’t pulling his weight so they started putting him on other systems. It’s not a bad game, just confusing.

Visuals:

It’s a very vibrant game with characters and enemies pretty well delineated. The only bad thing I can positively say is that the levels are just confusing on where you are supposed to go to. There are arrows all over the map directing you but they’ll contradict themselves plenty. The levels are also very unique taking you all over the world and different sizes. The power ups also cause your character to change in all different shapes. Refer to the screenshot above.

Audio:

A very happy go lucky game with some kind of forgettable tunes. As much as it pains me, I loved the Game Over music as it was relaxing and just looped over and over.

Completion:

I was doing so well! I was getting lives and progressing…but then I get to a stage where I get shrunk down and have to pass a wine glass. I kept getting hurt and dying at this fucking place! 6 fucking lives! LOST! I couldn’t even tell you what level this was because, as I’ve said before, it was so confusing as to where I was at!

The post Super Bonk appeared first on Shattered Pen.