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Post by anagrama on May 1, 2005 16:04:05 GMT
Slightly earlier than usual this week, since I'm off out to go lie in the sun, drink beer and watch crap bands for the rest of the day, so without further ado let's kick into the 16th week, and this time it's the choice of Geishaboy... Take it away, sir!
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dezanuebe
Sonic the Hedgehog
Master System, the best of all times...
Posts: 2,178
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Post by dezanuebe on May 1, 2005 18:48:20 GMT
humm, it´s a tough week after such a fantastic game like Power Strike 2!!
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Post by smsfiend on May 1, 2005 19:58:43 GMT
I hope it's one that is more easy to obtain. That way we can get some heated discusson going on.  There sure is something special about opening up that plastic box, pushing in the cart, powering up to the sega screen, hearing the jingle, and grasping the controller that really gets me fired up. Something I just don't get from a emulator. |
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Post by Geishaboy on May 2, 2005 2:49:51 GMT
I'm sure many of you are familiar with Wonder Boy III, The Dragons Trap. An absolute masterpiece RPG/Platform hybrid for the SMS. Take one step back to Wonderboy in Monster Land. Have you ever wondered why Wonderboy starts the game in nothing but a rather sylish grass skirt untill he is given some weapons by an old man living in a tree stump? The answer, and I'm sure most you know already anyway, lies in the first Wonderboy game.  I'm not entierly sure why the original Wonderboy has him pracing around in a grass skirt while he pelts the crap out of snails, bats and Pacific Islanders with primitive tommohawks, but who gives a faeces? The game itself is true gem. And is defiantely wothy of a Game of the Week mention. The game itself is freaking huge, over 60 levels if I'm not mistaken and all levels themselves are of a respectable lenght. With this in mind, the game does have an unlimited continues so finishing the game really depends on how long you can stay awake. It should not be to hard though, Wonderboy has a few bells and whistles to keep you hoplessly glued to your TV screen like some kind of heroin addict that gets his hit through the control pad.   Take THAT you stupid natives! Your life bar actually depletes as the game goes on and to replenish yourself you must collect fruit that pops up onto the screen or you life bar will soon run out and you will get the dreaded "No Vitatlity" message and will lose a life. Quite a clever little system if you ask me. Of course stubbing your toe on rocks and such will take a rather large chunk out of you life bar. The life bar is taken into account at the end of each level and you are given a bonus depending on how much is left. If you have found the little doll in every level it will double that bonus again. Of course a run in with a snail, frog or any other enemy will kill you instantly, but its not hard to hit them first. Some obsticles cannot be destroyed like huge rolling boulders and small fires that will turn you a nice shade of burnt.  Someones on their way to the intensive care unit. There are a couple of items that wonderboy fans all know and love. The skateboard that ups your speed and jumping distnace a heap, but you cant stop. If you hit a boulder or enemy the board will dissapear but you will stay alive without any life bar damange. If you finish a level with the skateboard it will be with you at the start of the next level. Another item of mention is the fairy thing, it makes you invinceable for a short period of time and all enemys you touch dissapear in a puff of bonus points. There is a devil too, the little a child conceived out of wedlock hides in spotty eggs and will sit above you eating away at your life bar untill you finish the level. Also, some pieces of fruit turn into house hold items when collected. What I thought at first was a rather cheap advertising gimmick from Wall Mart turned out to be a special stage where a young lady in a very provocitave 8bit red dress takes you into the clouds where you collect floating love hearts that do wonders for you life bar.   Wonderboy always wears a helmet. Winners dont use drugs! There are many other small quirks in Wonderboy, but I'm not going to mention them all because that would spoil the fun of the game for anyone who has not played it. That and I dont like making posts the size of telephone books. Wonderboy was the first game I ever owned on the SMS and it will always hold a place in my heart, I have also never come across a person who has not enjoyed the game to some extent. The plot of game is only really realised at the very end of the game, I'm not going to give it away but it is a bit of a cliche. At the end of the day, Wonderboy is more fun than a blind man on a golf cart. So hop to it and get playing you bums! |
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Post by Hades on May 2, 2005 5:38:37 GMT
Yep a great game, I can't beleive you didn't mention the awesome music thats in the boss levels though.
I think the level count would be spot on 40, 10 rounds with 4 areas each. Which is still a bloody lot.
But the unlimited continues kind of makes it easier than it should be, it still has some very challenging levels though. I remeber having heaps of trouble with the boss level in Round 8, and bees, arghh I hated the bees!
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Post by Geishaboy on May 2, 2005 9:18:47 GMT
Yeah the music is pretty good.
I thought that the bees were sent from hell, I hated them. I really dont like the volcano levels either, they get pretty intense.
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Post by Stan on May 2, 2005 16:52:30 GMT
Great game. I need to throw this one in again, but offhand the only problems I ever had with it were due to game length. With a lack of a password feature or save feature on a game of this magnitude, you can get pretty frustrated. Since Hudson's Adventure Island for the NES is the SAME game in nearly every regard (except perhaps for thos tar babies walking about), even game length. Hudson's used to frustrate because seriously, who wants to sit for like 6 hours playing a game. It gets tiresome. Plus, 6 hours is saying that you go through without dying, which just won't happen. Once I got so sick of Hudson's and just wanted to see the end, so I threw in the Game Genie and made it so I could just made Master Higgins jump in the air and continue to the end of each level without having to worry about anything. I put chair legs on the buttons so he'd keep going, stopping to kill the bosses. In this way it seriousl took about 2 hours to get through the game, but it would be impossible to do this since I avoided all enemies except the bosses. You can't do this with Wonder Boy since you have to collect all the dolls to access the final boss, leaving quite a ride ahead of you. I don't expect games to all be short, but if they're long I'd like a password or something so I can come back to it since I don't have exactly all day to play it. Still, I'm going to give this a thorough go tonight for more of a fair review other than the length. Biatches.
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dezanuebe
Sonic the Hedgehog
Master System, the best of all times...
Posts: 2,178
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Post by dezanuebe on May 2, 2005 21:35:08 GMT
excellent choice, woww this GOTW Thread really make us see how many superb SMS games were released!! |
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Post by Sinistral on May 2, 2005 22:25:16 GMT
Great game this, I'm always playing it, beleive it or not i still don't have a complete copy of the euro version of this (have a cart only) if anyone has a spare I'd be willing to buy it.
I do have a complete Jap copy of the mark III "super wonder boy" which is the one i play mainly now. I'm guessing it was named super wonder boy over there because of the SG 1000 version of wonderboy that came out before hand. Anyone know for sure if this is correct?
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Post by JellyCrystals on May 2, 2005 23:25:18 GMT
I adore this game!!! I used to pump 20cents into my local arcade version before I got this on SMS. The music I love... it's my ring tone! The colours, oh the colours children I love the critters and little cross-eyed face Tom-Tom makes when he dies! When I got my SMS up and running after an 8 year hiatus this was the first game I played with a girl friend of mine. We played 2 player in that you played until you did a level or lost a life, whatever came first. That's a load of fun i itself. We played for 8 hours until we reached then end... or so we thought!!! We missed a doll on level 9-2..... So we only got the "fake ending". I then played it again a few months later... knocked it down to 6hours straight and oh my goodness has anyone played level 10-2?  Freakin 45 mins on that baby alone! Anyway finished it completely and was shattered that the "real" ending is in no way different to the "fake" ending other than me having the satisfaction of completeing the game.... Heck I love this game... *sigh* Excellent, excellent pick. |
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Post by vapester on May 3, 2005 4:07:04 GMT
..wow, what a great old school Sega game. Still one of my favorites....though this review has brought back some slightly different memories for me. That is the mention of Hudson's Adventure. Back in the days when I was a kid I was so pissed of that a friggin Nintendo company had the balls to straight steal one of Sega's masterpieces and literally clone it for the rival NES......so what did I do to let my anger out? I'll tell you what I did........ ;D....I did my best to make life miserable to those poor workers at Hudson Soft! I used to crankcall them like they were giving away a million bucks...haha. Dam, kinda funny now....and I would talk smack, like why can't you pricks come up with your own game....gota bite Sega huh?  Sometimes i'd act like I wanted fan stuff, only to flip it on them in the end and let them know how much they sucked! Oh man, funny stuff now. Actually I think they finally got my number and threatened to call the police or something so I had to stop, anyhow, thought I share that ridiculous story with y'all. HA! |
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Post by Geishaboy on May 3, 2005 9:47:54 GMT
..wow, what a great old school Sega game. Still one of my favorites....though this review has brought back some slightly different memories for me. That is the mention of Hudson's Adventure. Back in the days when I was a kid I was so pissed of that a friggin Nintendo company had the balls to straight steal one of Sega's masterpieces and literally clone it for the rival NES......so what did I do to let my anger out? I'll tell you what I did........ ;D....I did my best to make life miserable to those poor workers at Hudson Soft! I used to crankcall them like they were giving away a million bucks...haha. Dam, kinda funny now....and I would talk smack, like why can't you pricks come up with your own game....gota bite Sega huh? Sometimes i'd act like I wanted fan stuff, only to flip it on them in the end and let them know how much they sucked! Oh man, funny stuff now. Actually I think they finally got my number and threatened to call the police or something so I had to stop, anyhow, thought I share that ridiculous story with y'all. HA! You are my new hero.  Well I am pleased that most of you like my pick for this week. Oh c'mon stan, wheres you sense of adventure? |
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Post by RaccoonLad on May 3, 2005 16:20:54 GMT
I sat down and beat this game with ALL the dolls once.
it took me about 4 hours.
The birds that drop stuff on you are REALLY tough untill you learn to stand still and let them safely drop whatever it is they're carrying a little ahead of you
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Post by Stan on May 3, 2005 16:45:38 GMT
Well, after playing it again, I must say that the length doesn't bother me anymore because this game is much more playable than Hudson's. Question, do you need ALL 36 dolls to access the last level? Also, do you have to get them from each level, or, being sneaky and using the level select, can you just keep collecting one from level 1-4 or whatever until you have 36? Talking about Hudson's this game WAS NOT stolen. Companies freely shared ideas sometimes, just look at Kid Kool and Psycho Fox. Nearly identical. And Andy, I actually have a complete copy of this game (PAL) that I've been looking to get rid of. It's yours my man if you want it, been waiting for a way to pay you back for that Rampart.
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Post by anagrama on May 3, 2005 23:41:28 GMT
Top-notch choice again, and a quality introduction aswell  I've sat down to go all the way through this a couple of times, but never persevered to the end. I'll try to this week, even if it means being left overnight on pause  |
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Freakin 45 mins on that baby alone! Anyway finished it completely and was shattered that the "real" ending is in no way different to the "fake" ending other than me having the satisfaction of completeing the game....
Sometimes i'd act like I wanted fan stuff, only to flip it on them in the end and let them know how much they sucked! Oh man, funny stuff now. Actually I think they finally got my number and threatened to call the police or something so I had to stop, anyhow, thought I share that ridiculous story with y'all. HA!
