iNESane

GAME REVIEW: Mega Man 2

2011-05-27T19:41:00.000-06:00

This is one of those games that we loved when we were kids... because we hated it. It drove us nuts and made us reconsider going outside for fresh air... all of this on the normal difficulty setting. The Mega Man series was spawned out of the Japanese version known as the Rockman series... games available for play on the Famicom system. Since then it has grown into one of the most iconic titles in video games, spanning multiple consoles. There were 6 Mega Man games made for the NES, this one was, and is, my favorite.

It was released in North America in 1989. You play Mega Man, who is trying to stop Dr. Wily from taking over the world with his robots... typical weak story that is fairly underdeveloped. However you don't find yourself looking for more story or wanting to know more about the characters. This is a game that is gameplay driven and while it is weak from a plot perspective, it is impressive on nearly every other level.

I played this game when I was young more than any other platform game out there. It is, for many reasons, my favorite platform game of all time. Some would argue that it is not a platform, but after jumping into spikes, falling into giant lasers, getting trampled by robot rabbits and crushed from above by falling blades, there is no better description for this game. Immensely hard but immensely fun...about the only problem with this game is that when you finally know the ins and outs of it, it actually becomes almost easy... but there is always the higher difficulty setting to move on to.

The graphics are strong for an old NES game. The games is crisp and clean. The framerate almost never suffers, although there is a distinctive 'slow down' when there are a lot of enemies on the screen. The colour palettes are vibrant without becoming a strain on the eye. Thus for a NES game, this is a strong showing in the graphics department.

The music, composed by Takashi Tateishi, is fantastic for a game of this era... it keeps you moving and playing for hours. The sound effects are not astonishing for an 8 bit title but they are integrated very well into gameplay and are not overdone or annoying.

A reason to love this game is the exceptionally low amount of time it takes to get into playing it. We have all sat through those games that show us the five companies that made it, then the storyline comes up, then character development, etc, etc. You can read a little plot development about Mega Man being created in the year 20XX to stop Dr. Wily's evil desires BUT you can press start and actually START the game. This game should be used as a guideline for platform/action games for how quickly the player is allowed to play the actual game.

Gameplay is fairly straight forward. Like with Mario games, you are required to jump, climb, drop down and shoot your way through 8 standard levels, before moving onto the Dr. Wily levels culminating in a 'final?' battle with Dr. Wily. Mega Man has an arm cannon that fires energy bullets fairly quickly. Upon completing each level, Mega Man is awarded with an additional weapon depending on the level completed (Bubble Man=Bubble Lead, Metal Man=Metal Blade and so on). There is no set order to completing the levels, players can pick from one of the eight levels at the start of the game. Upon playing it for awhile however, you quickly learn that playing certain levels first makes the other levels much easier to complete, due to getting weapons that work well on a particular level, or power ups that make them easier to navigate. Mega Man has a fairly large health meter but most of the time you are trying to keep it as high as you can for the boss battles at the end of each level. He also has 'energy meters' for any of the special weapons he has picked up, so if you overuse a weapon without powering it up with pick ups (which there are plenty of), then it is unusable until recharged.

There are not a lot of negatives with this game. The only thing that comes to mind is when Mega Man gets hit by an enemy. When this happens Mega Man goes all blurry and gets knocked back slightly. While the blurryness actually makes you invincible for a moment, the knockback is what can be problematic. Too many times have I been hit by an enemy to be knocked back over the edge of a precipice. Beyond this minor detail, the game is an incredibly immersive experience keeping the player on edge for a solid amount of game length with an array of interesting and strange enemies.

Mega Man 2 will likely always be in my top twenty games of all time. It is fun, engaging and totally addictive... three elements that are hard to find, particularly in games made today.

NES games I still need! Sell them to me!

2011-05-26T20:34:00.000-06:00

The games below are what I still need to complete my collection. Caveat: I would be considered to have a complete, licensed and unlicensed, NTSC (North America) collection with perhaps two thirds of the games listed below. BUT I am also planning on collecting the PAL (european, australian, japanese, etc) versions of NTSC games as well as independent PAL variants. If I am to collect the PAL versions and variants, this list is going to get VERY long...so this is the list for now.

Addams Family
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Hillsfar
Adventures of Lolo 2
Alfred Chicken
Alien 3
Amagon
Asterix
Banana Prince
Bases Loaded 4
Battle City (The page mentions it as a Famicom game, but numerous sources also list it as NES)
Best of the Best: Championship Karate
Big Nose Freaks Out
Big Nose Freaks Out: Aladdin Release
Big Nose the Caveman: Aladdin Release
Blue Shadow (I need this, the European version (PAL), and the Shadow of the Ninja NTSC version below)
Bomberman 2
Bonk's Adventure
Bram Stoker's Dracula
Break Time: The National Pool Tour
Bubble Bobble Part 2
Bucky O'Hare
Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout
California Raisins
Castle of Deceit
Chip 'N Dale: Rescue Rangers 2
Cliffhanger
Conan
Conflict
Corvette ZR-1 Challenge (this is an A.K.A., known as 'Race America')
Cowboy Kid
Crackout (PAL)
Crash 'n the Boys Ice Challenge (never released but I think there is a prototype out there??)
Crystal Mines
Cyberball
Day Dreamin' Davey
Devil World
Digger T. Rock: The Legend of the Lost City
Disney's Beauty & the Beast
Dizzy the Adventurer
Dragon Ball: Shenron no Nazo (Dragon Power in the U.S., a.k.a. Dragon Ball: Le secret du Dragon -France, a.k.a. Dragon Ball-Europe. Dragon Ball: Shenron may be only a Famicom game, but the Either the French or the European version would be NES)
Dragon Fighter
Dream Team: 3-on-3 Challenge (prototype)
Dropzone
Duck Maze
Dudes with Attitude
Dynablaster
Eliminator: Boat Duel
Elite
Ferrari Grand Prix Challenge
Fisher Price: Fire House Rescue
Flintstones: The Surprise at Dinosaur Peak
Formula 1 Sensation
Formula One: Built to Win
George Foreman's KO Boxing
Gilligan's Island
Gradius
Great Waldo Search (NOT where's waldo)
Gun-Nac
Hammerin' Harry
Heavy Barrel
Honey Peach One of many many pirate carts produced by Thin Chen Ent. a.k.a. Sachen, see link for details.
Hot Slots The link for Hot Slots has been removed, but this links to Bubble Bath Babes which another one of the infamous 'pornographic' games for the NES.
Indy Heat
International Cricket
Jurassic Park
Kick Off
Kid Klown in Crazy Chase
Kid Klown in Night Mayor World
Konami Hyper Soccer
Krion Conquest
Last Action Hero
Last Ninja
Lemmings
Lethal Weapon
Linus Spacehead
Lion King
Little Red Hood
Mickey's Adventures in Numberland
Micro Machines
Might & Magic: Secret of the Inner Sanctum
Mighty Final Fight
Mission Cobra
Monster Truck Rally
Motor City Patrol
Mr. Gimmick Also interested in the Japanese version known as Gimmick!
Ms. Pac-Man (Namco)
Myriad 6-in-1 On the same wiki page as Caltron 6-in-1 which I own.
Nekketsu Kouko Kunio Kun (famicom game)
New Ghostbusters 2
Nigel Mansell's World Championship Racing
Nintendo World Championship Cartridge (Grey & Gold) The rarest of the rare, these and the 'Campus Challenge cart below.
Nintendo Campus Challenge
Noah's Ark
Nobunaga's Ambition 2
Over Horizon Never released in North America, there is a European and Japanese version.
Panic Restaurant
Parasol Stars: The Story of Bubble Bobble III
Parodius
Peek-A-Boo Poker
Phantom Fighter
Power Blade 2
Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom
Pro Sport Hockey
Probotector
Pyramids of Ra
R.B.I. Baseball 2
Race America
Rackets & Rivals
Rad Racket
Rad Racket Deluxe Tennis 2
Rally Bike
Ren & Stimpy Show: Buckaroo$
Road Fighter
Road Runner
Robocop 3
RoboDemons
Rodland Only released in Italy, Spain and Japan.
Rollerblade Racer
Romance of the Three Kingdoms II
S.C.A.T.
Secret Scout
Shadow of the Ninja
Smart Boy carts
The Smurfs
Snow Brothers
Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six
Sqoon
Stadium Events
Stanley: The Search for Dr. Livingston
Street Gangs
Sunday Funday
Super Mario Bros./Tetris/Nintendo World Cup
Super Turrican (European)
Sword Master
Tagin' Dragon
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters
Thunder & Lightning
Totally Rad
Trolls in Crazyland
Ufouria
Ultimate Air Combat
Ultimate Basketball
Ultimate League Soccer
Wayne's World
WCW: World Championship Wrestling
Western Kid
Wheel of Fortune
Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?
Widget
Win, Lose, or Draw
World Champ
WWF King of the Ring
Young Indiana Jones Chronicles
Zen: Intergalactic Ninja

Purchase: NES & SNES Manuals

2011-05-25T21:58:00.003-06:00

So I just had a purchase arrive today and it made me think of this blog. If I am going to write about collecting, I should show my purchases and give some information about them. My first arrival since starting this blog is a bubble mailer full of manuals for NES and SNES games. So let's delve a bit:

First thing, a bubble mailer is a very nice way to send manuals and/or games. This is particularly true of manuals, since a lot of people sending them think that it is a needless extra expense. For a collector, at least a serious collector, protecting the parcel is half the battle. No collector wants their package to arrive with something torn or damaged in some way. While bubble mailers are good they are not always the perfect choice. There is a shop on Ebay that sends me games in bubble mailers all the time, however quite often the envelope is too big for the games being sent. What this means is, if the shop didn't take extra measures to protect the games (wrapping them individually in bubble wrap, which they didn't), and the envelope is too big, the games are rattling around inside the envelope in transit. I have a picture of a game before it left the shop arrive on my doorstep in much worse condition. But for manuals, the current items of discussion, it is an excellent choice.
Second thing, keep track of your collection. I had two trades with people in transit to myself at the same time. Because of this, between the two trades, I have ended up with a couple of the manuals being repeats (i.e. I now have two Castlevania manuals, two Burgertime Manuals and two Tetris manuals. I do keep track of my collection very closely now to avoid this kind of problem, but I also don't catalog items until they arrive and because of that I still run the risk of collecting more than one of a cheap item like manuals.
Third thing, the more confidence you can have in what you are buying, and who you are buying from, the better. I bought these manuals from someone I don't know. However, I bought them from him based on his exemplary feedback on gametz. If he had received bad reviews or had very little feedback I would have made sure he sent the items first (something you can't do on Ebay), but since I can trust him (based on other gametz community individual comments), I paid for them first before he sent.
Needless to say I am very happy with this purchase. The individual packed the items well, he was accurate with the description of the manuals and he didn't overcharge me for them.
Some of you less devoted of the devotees might ask "Why on earth do you care about the manuals anyways? You can't play the manual!" That may be true, but the manuals & the boxes of the games have their own amazing features to them. Since we are discussing manuals we'll stick to them for now.
The transliteration from Japanese to English is incredibly funny in some of these manuals. Here is an example from the manual for Spy Hunter:

YOUR MISSION

Pilot your vehicle through the track. Seek and destroy enemy agents who will use every means to wipe you out. You must avoid the road hazards and protect the friendly pedestrian vehicles. There's terror at every turn - tire slashers, torpedoes, bomb dropping helicopters - standing in your way of the most diabolical collection of enemy agents ever to hit a video screen. You have your skill and reflexes along with Smoke screens, Oil slicks, and Heat seeking missiles to outmaneuver your opponents. One mistake and it's all over. So strap yourself in, no need to check your ammo. You've got more than enough; and take the challenge.
Be: SPY HUNTERtm

This transliteration is not half bad actually, but I wanted to use an example from the manuals I just received. Pilot your vehicle through the track? Friendly pedestrian vehicle? And the capitalization on Smoke, Oil and Heat? I love little details like this. These are the fun little tidbits in the manuals.

Beyond that there are some games that having the manual becomes necessary for game play. I mentioned this issue in my review of Destiny of an Emperor, where the 'magic' you use in that game, without the manual, there is no way to decipher what it does except trial and error. From the bunch I just received there is an amazing amount of information in the Metroid manual that I would only be able to guess at by playing the game without it.

Another important reason for collecting the manual, at least from a collector stand point, is that the manual (and/or the box) quite often mentions other items that would be included with the game when it first came out. This is one method for collectors to determine what items make a game CIB. CIB means one of two things; it means Cart, Instructions, Box for some, but the second interpretation is more apt for collectors, it means Complete in Box. Most of the time, the game came with more, and sometimes much more, than just the game, the manual and the box. Thus I say Cart, Instruction, Box doesn't cut it. I'll give you some examples:

Both Orb 3D and 3D Worldrunner both came with 3D glasses included in the box.

Air Fortress, if purchased from the publisher HAL america, came with an Air Fortress T-Shirt.

Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego came with a small encyclopedia in the original oversized box.

These are just a few examples of extras that came with NES games back in the day. While there are databases out there detailing everything that was included in the game, I like to find out through the info on the boxes and manuals the other items hidden for me to find.

I`ll leave you devotees with that information for now. Perhaps I have convinced a few collectors who never game the manuals a passing glance before to consider them as an important element to a collection.

Book Review: ANESthetized

2011-05-24T21:20:00.000-06:00

Unfortunately an unfortunate work demonstrating that playing video games does not magically give you the ability to write.
I am not trying to declare myself as some brilliant writer by any means. I have trouble with the editing process. I can see other writer's mistakes fairly easily, such as comma splice and the lot. But asked to see the same in my own writing and it is like a wall goes up that I can't see past, even though I have the ability to do so.
I feel like the same thing happened with this book for author Doug McCoy. The saying 'can't see the forest through the trees' applies to how this book was written. McCoy spends a fair amount of time discussing the who, when and where of his playing video games, but forgets to discuss the how and why...he forgets, at least for the most part, the feeling of growing up with the NES. Yes he mentions 'Nintendo thumb' and ripping off the wrapping paper of his first NES console, but that is the problem; McCoy only seems to mention them, he fails to draw the reader into the world of video games, he fails to draw them into his personal story of the NES and thus fails to engage his niche readership.
This book is deemed an 'autobiography' of McCoy's growing up in the Nintendo era. It is true that I have not read a lot of autobiographies, but I am sure they are not supposed to read like a technical manual written for preteens.
There is some good that comes out of this book, but it is very niche specific. I say that because I am obsessed with the NES, thus I find his reviews, his many many many reviews, which make up the bulk of his book, to be interesting and fun. Most of them are still not very well written and the only reason I could look past that is that I have played the games he mentions, I collect the games he mentions, and I like to know any details I can find about the games he mentions, even if those details are formatted into a poorly written review. This being enough of a draw in for me is fine, but for a regular or less devoted to the NES readership, McCoy is going to have a hard time keeping an audience.
The few times that McCoy's writing gets good, and quite good I might add, the reader can tell that he has forgotten that he is writing a book. Those times McCoy is speaking from the heart about his experiences with these NES games and how they made him feel and react to the world around him. These pages were great and are worth the read, unfortunately it is only perhaps 5 pages out of the hundred or so (Kindle Edition so not sure how many pages it actually is).
The best thing Doug McCoy can do is to write and forget that he is writing. I spent too much time with this book saying to myself 'McCoy should have done this' or 'That is poorly written' or 'Make your readers want to read dammit!'. A book should not make me want to stop to make notes or critique it, it should draw me in and keep me engaged, like a video game.
I think you can see where this is going. This is not a book I recommend picking up, even if you are hardcore into collecting like I am, as this book only has maybe 10 pages worth your time. Keep in mind this book is very very cheap and I still don't recommend spending the time with it. Buy an old Nintendo Power magazine instead...you'll still get the game reviews and it will be written by people who love games (like Doug McCoy), but are able to write well about it (Unlike McCoy).

A place for those truly, fantastically, over the toply insane NES collectors, part 2.

2011-05-23T14:43:00.002-06:00

Continued from part 1.


River City Ransom Rocks!

Destiny of an Emperor was the first in a long line of NES games to come back to me. Then I got a few games from my brother-in-law, not sure what they were. Then I found a box of them at a garage sale, including games like Snoopy's Silly Sports Spectacular, Dusty Diamond's All Star Softball and River City Ransom. There were 19 games in that box I know for a fact. It was also with that box that I started doing some research into the value of the games. I had already experienced through buying Destiny of an Emperor that these games were not the dollar bin items some expect them to be (and what keeps collectors like me looking at garage sales to this day). I had to pay $22 U.S. to acquire Destiny of an Emperor, whereas River City Ransom, a game that is worth $15 and up, I maybe paid 50 cents for it. (I paid $25 that day at the garage sale for 19 games, an NES with 2 controllers and a Power Glove).
After that first garage sale; and yes, it was the first garage sale I went to specifically looking for NES items and happened to find a box of them, I started searching diligently. By this time the collection was a mere 30ish 'cart only.' That first summer, after going to perhaps 100+ garage sales I ended up with around 80 games.
The garage sales led to another discovery. It wasn't just NES games that people wanted to be rid of, these garage sales were full of games for other systems as well. From VIC-20 to Xbox 360, these garage sales brimmed over with games nobody wanted anymore, and yet I knew of an internet market in place for all of these games. That doesn't mean that every video game is worth more than people sell them for at garage sales, not by a long shot.
Here are some things to keep in mind:
MOST sports games are worth nothing. Unless the garage sale is giving them away, or its one of the few rare sports games, like Intellivision's World Series Baseball, don't waste your money.
Rich neighborhoods have a higher amount of video games for sale BUT they want a higher amount of money. In my experience it is the unusual rich person's garage sale that actually sells things for garage sale prices.
Do your research first or have a mobile device with you at all times. Knowing the values of NES games has informed me quite well on the values of other system games. That being said my cell phone has also saved me from spending too much on games I assumed to be worth a decent amount of money.
These are a few examples and I plan on doing an article focusing on this down the road. But back to this piece.
Garage sales were the catalyst for finding internet resources such as videogamepricecharts.com, or as it now goes by: http://blog.pricecharting.com. I used (and still use) this site religiously for getting a basis of the values of these games. However, while this site is useful, it also has flaws in the valuation of games and should thus only be used in tandem with other pricing sources. Using this site, plus other sources sure to be mentioned on this blog down the road, I began to amass a giant amount of garage sale games...the intent was to 'flip' them and use the profit to acquire more NES games.
For the most part I have come out ahead collection wise. I have made large garage sale purchases that I have flipped for 10 times what I paid for them and quite often make single item purchases that have me come out ahead 20-50 times the price I paid for it. Those are the good purchases. I have also made a number of purchases where I lost money due to the game being worth less than what I paid for it, the game not working (disc games should be checked for scratches), or being for a system that there is little interest in anymore (anyone want to buy a TI-99? I have two.). But as I said, overall I have come out ahead, perhaps doubling or tripling the money I have spent at garage sales over all (and put that money back into the collection).
The winters are harsh here in Saskatchewan and thus the garage sale season is short, perhaps 5 or 6 months long. At the beginning of winter 2010 I had a little over 1500 video games in my basement, most of them not for the NES. This is where the selling on Ebay and the discovery of gametz came into play. Selling on ebay I don't need to explain (or evilbay as I usually call it now), but gametz is a different can of worms.
Gametz is an online trading site focused primarily on buying, trading and selling video games. The site also is known to trade books, music and movies, but the focus is mostly gaming. The site is entirely feedback based and thus those with low feedback have difficultly continuing to trade on the site, while those with good feedback establish strong reputations in the community. Gametz is very much a community, full of a huge array of personalities that clash and clash and clash on the forums and chat therein. For those just needing a place to trade however, gametz is a great site for those looking to offload games. Some basic rules that will save you from ridicule on gametz: 1. Don't charge Ebay prices, there is no percentage coming off the top here so you can lower your price by 10-20% from Ebay prices and lose nothing. 2. Be honest about everything (particularly the condition of your games), it will help. 3. Avoid confrontations if you can: The forums are full of hostile young men looking for an internet fight, learn to avoid them because becoming one of them hurts your trading. Check out gametz...and subscribe to it if you like it.
This process repeated itself since then. I have been on gametz for a year, using ebay and pricecharting for two years, and constantly researching NES and other systems in that whole time. I learn something new almost everyday about NES games, whether it is label variants, NTSC vs PAL values, gameplay hints and cheats, video game history...all of this has led to this blog, where I intend to review as many NES games as I can, review game collecting books, discuss rare games, share personal video game related stories, explore NES related sites, etc etc.
Hope you join me on my quest to get the complete collection...and then on to SNES (lol).

GAME REVIEW: Destiny of an Emperor

2011-05-22T09:28:00.003-06:00

Oath between Guan Yu, Liu Bei and Zang Fei

Destiny of an Emperor is one of my favorite RPG's, not only for the NES, but for all time. I thought recently that perhaps I needed to revisit it; since the 5 years since I had played it may have made it old and boring compared to the new incarnations of RPG's. However it remains a potent and engaging RPG to this day. The game is based on Hiroshi Motomiya's Manga, Tenchi wo Kurau, which itself is loosely based on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms story that takes place in ancient China. You initially play Liu Bei as your main character, fighting as the warlord at the head of his ever-increasing army. The initial goal is to defeat a band of rebels known as the 'yellow scarves', but the storyline develops soon into an attempt by your army to unify China and bring peace back to the land.

There is only so much that can be said about graphics here. It was a game for the NES, and the graphics were good if not great for the time (1990) without being on a next-gen console such as the SNES. There is no lag on the graphics, there are no flashes to the screen and it renders perfectly fine - 'nuff said.

The music is excellent as per what can be expected from the NES system. Composed by Hiroshige Tonomura, there is a dedicated track for when you enter battle or a city, and the map music changes as you progress throughout the land. The music is engaging without being overt or annoying. It keeps to the theme of ancient China by being similar in sound to some old Chinese melodies. The sound effects are not very developed, but again this seems to be the norm for an NES console game. Also sound effects are not a key element to this type of RPG and thus they may have distracted from the game had they been developed further.

Gameplay is streamlined and rarely do the mechanics of the game become frustrating. I found that the control of the main character - because you move relatively fast in the game - can sometimes overshoot an entrance or a person to talk to. But this never threatens in terms of having to reset or start some element over again. The biggest issue with the game would have to be the strategies (kind of the magic) of the game. Because they are transliterated from the Japanese into English versions of their sounds (i.e. 'An Sha' or 'Bei Jing') there could be difficulty playing this game without a manual. With the internet close by this is less of an issue but if you don't want to have to look up each new strategy as they come available, or have to test each one, then you need the manual or a list of the strategies copied down beside you. There are also times when it is less than clear where you are to proceed to next in the game. This will bother new-gen gamers since new games lead you by the hand through the game. I like it personally as it gives an element of "necessary frustration." Why should we always know where to go next?

The biggest problem I have with this game is the encounter rate. It is incredibly high at some points in the game. I know for a fact that I have fought eight battles in the time it took me to walk 11 spaces. That is just unreasonable and excessive.

Gameplay has some excellent features as well. A well integrated 'reasoning' for the Hit Point system. A character's hit points are the number of soldiers in their army. Soldiers reach zero and your General of that army is unavailable until a resurrect is used on them (it is unclear as to whether they 'die' or what happens, but since it is a resurrect you need to use I guess they are dead). The Strategist in your army is the one that controls what is effectively the magic in the game. However, they do not limit just that character to using it, the Strategist provides each General with the ability to use those strategies each turn if needed. While the strategies are not as necessary early in the game, without them later on it would be near impossible to finish the game. Probably the best feature to gameplay is the 'All-Out' choice on the battle screen. This allows you to quickly fight easy battles without deciding tactics for each player in the line up. So instead of a battle taking a minute or two, it could take 5-15 seconds, depending on the relative strength of the attackers to yourself. This intensifies the action in a genre that is known for being slow and sometimes dull. Actually, I would consider the 'All Out' as one of my favorite gameplay features of all time.

There is a HUGE amount of characters that are playable in this game. That being said, most, if not all, of the gameplay centers around perhaps 10 individual characters. While you can play any of the hundreds? of other characters, it would make the game fairly impossible to beat. Only the 10 or so characters I mentioned before have armies that can grow as you advance in level, not to mention they are the strongest and most capable characters as well.

The learning curve suffers for me on this game because every time I play it I need to look up what the transliterated strategies are, I get lost in the caves, and frustration seeps in when the opponents use 'An Sha' all the time (An Sha is an assassination magic, it kills one of your armies completely). But that is just nit picking as these are also reasons I go back to this game. It remains frustrating and fun and clever and everything even after playing it through perhaps 6 times now.

The replay value on Destiny of an Emperor is extremely high as it is an engaging game, full of battles and hidden items, with a huge amount of playable characters and strategies to employ. There are many situations to perform quests differently and there is almost no 'grind' to speak of. The game can be played start to finish without having to deliberately gain levels in order to proceed. How many games from this era can you say you would play from start to finish every three or four years? This is one of maybe 5 NES games that I can say that about.

All in all, for a 20-year-old game this is still one of my favorites from the RPG genre, as it is fun, engaging, smart, frustrating and gives a long play experience (25-40 hours) for this old of a game. You really can't go wrong with picking this one up.
Gameplay video

A place for those truly, fantastically, over the toply insane NES collectors.

2011-05-21T13:17:00.002-06:00

'I am ready to start this.' says me, in my own head, to the computer screen. I have amassed a large collection (but small by some standards), I have organized it (not pretty yet though) and I have become completely obsessed with it. I am not the only person out there that has this obscene fascination with all things Nintendo, but in the short time I have been collecting now (almost three years) I have seen dedicated collectors sell , turn tail and run from the craziness. I can't see that happening with me, below you will find out why (and it will act like a bio).
I started playing video games when I was young, perhaps 7 or so. My first 'game console' was the VIC-20. It taught us how to hate Jupiter Lander and write our own games in basic. The games were, for the most part, incredibly bad, with a few exceptions like Crossfire. The real interest for me, and for many of my friends was the ability to write our own games, albeit in basic. It was in large part due to this that video games became, for me, a very cerebral thing, leading me to favor RPG's, Puzzle and Strategy games over the typically more popular Fighter, Schmup and Platform games.
Nintendo Entertainment System was the cornerstone for my obsession with video games in general, with a caveat; Obsession with video games in the mid 80's versus what an obsession is now are two very different things. The obsession then was still fairly split between kicking Metal Man's ass in Mega Man 2, and taking our bikes down to the 'Pitt' in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada, where I grew up. Time outside versus time inside was still fairly even and my mom didn't need to kick me off of my NES to go play outside. The obsession we see today with video games is incredibly different. From WOW to prestiging in Modern Warfare 2, obsession with video games has become something more sinister than it ever was before.
Nintendo became a solitary thing for me, and really still is to this day. The games I would play, like Dragon Warrior and Destiny of an Emperor were single player RPG's, games that helped create my later world perspective of very few heroes and multiple villains. Other types of games not thought to be solitary were still in fact solitary games for me. I watched my friends growing up play Contra, Super Mario 3 and other 2 player games, rather than play along with them. This led to later watching my good friend play Gran Turismo (2?) for HOURS on end in 2001. He would ask me 'You wanna play?' and I would shake my head no. Who would want to shatter that level of introspection?
I never had more than maybe 15 games for the NES growing up, but I played all of them with a dedication that I don't really have anymore. Nintendo thumb is not an urban legend, it is a fact. Other titles that helped form my NES obsession are: Mega Man 2, Baseball Stars, Magic of Scheherazade, Final Fantasy, Defender of the Crown, Life Force, the entire Dragon Warrior series, etc etc.
My NES obsession probably grew more out of other systems than out of the NES itself. I played Goldeneye for the N64 so much, that I could identify where an opponent was on the map even if they were hiding in a corner. Civilization 2 on Playstation I played for 8 months without picking up another game. I think I spent more time playing Morrowind for Xbox over working full time during that period. Even Halo 3 sucked a big chunk out of my life. But all of these systems led back to the one that really formed it all for me.
The collection started about three years ago with me getting my old NES back from my nephews whom had grown very tired of it. They had been through N64, Gamecube and were now on to the Wii at that point. I happened to catch that they were going to throw it out, games and all.
I scooped it up and declared that I would take it and the rest is history (an expensive history). There were about 5 games with it at that time but the only two I can remember being part of the first group of games were Mega Man 2 and Final Fantasy.
I played Final Fantasy from start to finish in a few days and then played Mega Man 2 through in an evening. I then asked myself what game I needed to play again from my childhood.
Having studied Asian History (my focus in university was Religious Studies with a History minor) the game that immediately came to mind was Destiny of an Emperor. It was my first purchase of a Nintendo game in about 16 or 17 years, and I bought it on ebay.
This concludes the first part of this article, to be continued very soon in part 2.