A strong start must mean one thing…
The Story So Far:
NES:
SNES:
Finally, we do round two of the Switch’s SNES library. Last time I looked at these old gems I walked away with a generally positive impression of the SNES library so far. But that was only after looking at eight titles, which is hardly a large enough sampling to judge the entire library as a whole. And on top of that, many of those eight were the games that most people already knew were must plays of the SNES era such as Super Metroid and Mario World. Thus, I return to continue what I started. And I’ll admit, I had my hesitations. Sadly, it would seem those hesitations were largely justified. There were a lot of games that I was judging by the cover, even though that’s somewhat against the rules of this series. Heck, one game was already going to struggle due to me playing a long game in the same genre. But we’ll get to those…
This time we’ll be taking a look at ten SNES titles. This was largely done to help catch up with how much of the NES library I’ve played through. In addition, the last few updates to the Switch’s old games library have not only been…infrequent, to put it nicely, but they also tend to add more SNES games than NES. Whether that pattern will continue going forward remains to be seen. Finally, even by the time we’re done with this blog we still won’t have covered all twenty of the SNES library’s launch titles, so I want to try to catch us up in that way as well. Ah, but you’re not here to read about why I’m doing things a certain way, are you? Let’s get this second wave started, beginning with…
STAR FOX
Well, this was…ambitious. This is one of a handful of games in the SNES library that uses the Super FX chip that creates what the people of the 90s considered cutting edge graphics. However, like the games of today, that graphical fidelity came at a cost to performance. And hoo boy, the performance hit is insane. The game seems like it can barely run 20 frames a second. With enough stuff on screen the frame rate can go lower. This is easily the biggest problem – frame rate winds up making the game feel sluggish and unresponsive. Not helping is the game’s art, or lack thereof, making it hard to tell what anything is. Is that a laser, an enemy, or an ally? They color code objects to make them easier to tell apart but it only helps so much and there were many moments where I shot an ally thinking it was an enemy. Still, despite all my groaning, I can’t say I really dislike the game. I at least enjoyed it enough to get to the final boss. Mind you, that doesn’t take long, but there’s alternate paths to take which adds to the replayability of the game. A smart design choice indeed. I guess I’m feeling a little generous considering Star Fox 64 is unavailable on the Switch, which is essentially this game but more functional and consisting of graphics that couldn’t be whipped together in Blender in five minutes. So, what the heck? You get away with a neutral this time, Star Fox. But the moment your superior N64 version is available, kiss that neutral goodbye and say hello to the thumbs down.
Rating: Neutral
STUNT RACE FX
Our next Super FX game is Stunt Race FX. And to put it simply, this game is a worse F-Zero with crappy frame rate, objects popping in, seeing past walls on collision, terrible art style, and a squished play screen. The actual area of the screen is rather small with the UI surrounding it and it just gives me a headache. Seriously, look at the screenshot above and observe how little of the space is actually the play area. Even on my large, modern TV I feel like I’m squinting to see the action. I can only imagine how it felt playing this on the smaller TVs of yesteryear. Also, remember all the problems I had with Star Fox? They apply here too and are made worse due to being in the racing genre. Of course you’ll want to go fast, that’s kind of the point. But thanks to the awful performance, I feel like I’m being punished for playing the game the way you’re supposed to. There’s also this damage mechanic, similar to F-Zero, that feels kinda pointless. Maybe I’m good, but I never lost due to losing health. The game’s generous enough with health pickups that it kinda makes the mechanic unnecessary.
Rating: Thumbs down
EARTH DEFENSE FORCE
Alright, who balanced this game? Why are there only two actual options for weapon, and everything else is trash? “But why are they trash, Professor?” Well, it’s really quite simple. Enemies can appear behind, above, and below you in this shooter but you can’t do anything to counter that, for you are unable to your guns in any way during combat. The closest you can accomplish is picking one of the two weapons that have homing properties. That winds up making all other weapons pointless, as you will definitely lose for your decision if you do decide to use them. In some circumstances there will be little you can do about it. On the flip side, there is this unique leveling system where your weapons get more powerful as you progress. That does nothing to fix all the trash weapons, but I can at least appreciate the effort. That said, it doesn’t save the game from the fact that it’s boring and, as I’ve been saying, very unbalanced.
Rating: Thumbs down
SUPER GHOULS ‘N GHOSTS
First question: what’s with the name change? The last game on NES was called Ghosts N’ Goblins. Yet this one is Ghouls N’ Ghosts. Is there something I’m missing here? Second question: I thought we left the over the top NES difficulty in, you know, the NES era? I was more forgiving of Ghosts N’ Goblins’ brutally punishing difficulty because, hey, that was par for the course on NES. But now that we’re in the SNES era, I’d think we could tone it down a bit. Evidently this game thought it best to double down on the intensity, and it’s just exhausting. Maybe I’m not in the right headspace for this game. Out of curiosity I went back to the NES game to see how it would compare, and I think I might’ve been too nice to it. I don’t know if I’ve said this before but one day I should do a “re-review” entry and see if my opinions change on some games…but anyway, back to this game. Though Sir Arthur, in many ways, controls better than he did previously, none of it helps alleviate the stupid artificial difficulty. Enemies will spawn in random points seemingly all over the place, the terrain is constantly changing so it’s easy to get tricked into doing something dumb, and there’s even obstacles that require 90s adventure game logic to get past. How, exactly, does standing on top of a stone pillar save me from the tidal wave as tall as a castle crashing on to me? Dunno, but it does. You also only have two hits, similar to Donkey Kong. But where the ape’s game feels balanced around the two hit system, this game does not. At the very least, this game has difficulty options and I found that dropping the difficulty to beginner presents a more fair challenge. It’ll still cheap shot you, but it will only do that now and again instead of seemingly every minute.
Rating: Neutral
JOE AND MAC 2: LOST IN THE TROPICS
I went into this thinking that this looked like a video game adaption of some super niche 90s cartoon that didn’t get more than one season. As such, I made sure to set my expectations accordingly. But I’m pleasantly surprised by how much I like this one. It’s not the best game in the library by a long shot, but it’s good. Joe and Mac 2 is a platformer where you take control of one of the two titular cavemen. You run, you jump, and you have a club to whack enemies with. It’s likely nothing you’ve never seen before, but what it does do it does pretty well. There are power ups that grant you projectile attacks as well as dinosaurs you can ride to mix things up a bit. The dinosaurs are, admittedly, a bit of a liability but I can appreciate the attempt at variety. My biggest gripe with Joe and Mac is that it’s easy to get hit unfairly from enemies that appear too quickly to react to. I pin the blame for this on how zoomed in the camera is. You don’t see much at once, which makes it easy to suddenly take hits that you frankly didn’t deserve. Beyond that, Joe and Mac is a good time.
Rating: Thumbs up
KIRBY’S DREAM COURSE
It’s Kirby mini golf! And it is a ton of fun! You shoot Kirby into well known Kirby enemies, with the last one turning into the hole you need to end in. To do this you’ll be aiming your shots and pressing the button when the power level is where you want it to be, then use the environment to your advantage to get in the hole in as few shots as possible. And the courses come in quite a variety too, with slopes and various obstacles thrown in to keep you on your toes. Of course it wouldn’t be a Kirby game without copy abilities, which can be used here whenever Kirby hits an enemy with an ability. I really enjoy how they adapted all these familiar Kirby abilities for mini golf. I’m not exaggerating when I say this will likely sit alongside Mario World and Super Metroid as among my favorites in this library. My only issue with the game is that there’s no way that I could find to view the whole course before strategizing. The lack of knowledge can quickly turn your otherwise well aimed shot into a lost life due to hitting the out of bounds area or otherwise undesired location. Beyond that, this one is really fun and one I’m sure I’ll come back to.
Rating: Thumbs up
KIRBY’S DREAM LAND 3
Moving on to more Kirby, I actually played through Dream Land 3 before starting this blog. And I usually like Kirby well enough…but I don’t really like this one. The art style is great, and of course the usual Kirby gameplay is present and even if it’s simple, it works. So what’s the problem? Well, there’s three. First, Kirby feels super stiff here compared to Adventure on the NES and Super Star within this very library. Floating and blowing out air halts your momentum entirely, which feels super bad. Plus, Kirby’s abilities feel lacking, which leads to problem 2 – the friends. They’re meant to be the variety of moves that Kirby otherwise lacks, but they all feel bad in their own way. The owl, for instance, has this weird “stop and go” feel to him, and many others remove Kirby’s floating ability entirely which winds up showing weaknesses in Kirby’s level design. Some of these jumps were not made with precise platforming in mind, and even if it was the opposite that doesn’t help the fact that the game doesn’t exactly train you for precise platforming. Third, in order to get the true ending, you essentially have to 100% the game. In every level there’s this sort of side quest that gives you a heart star. All worlds have the same basic missions, including ones where you avoid stepping on flowers (I hate these) or play some mini game in the middle of the level to get the heart star. Unless you use the Rewind tool, you’ll likely do levels repeatedly because of the one chance, trial and error nature of these missions. I wouldn’t mind these if they were optional, but forcing me to do them to get the true ending is a good way to turn me off from the game.
Rating: Neutral
PILOTWINGS
I got sick of this one pretty quick. It’s a sort-of flight sim game where, depending on the current game type, you must fly through rings or land in certain areas for points. None of it feels very good to control. I tried three different game types: the plane, skydiving, and jetpack, and they all felt unresponsive. The plane was especially bad in this regard. I tried to do anything with it and the plane just…wouldn’t. The jetpack fared better in this regard, but it still felt awkward. I reckon a lot of this is a “me” thing. This isn’t really my style of game to begin with.
Rating: Thumbs down
BRAWL BROTHERS
For some reason this game’s default difficulty is set to hard. Good thing I checked before I started. You have been warned. Not that I recommend this game much because it’s just so dull to play. I know it’s a beat em up and beat em ups are typically repetitive, but this is just “mash Y: the game.” Not helping is the super repetitive levels and the way enemies can hit you with virtually no effort. God help you if you get knocked to the floor too. I haven’t seen a character take so long to get back on their feet since Commander Shepherd in the first Mass Effect. You don’t get invincibility frames to compensate for any of this either, so it’s very easy for enemies to knock you around endlessly until you get back up. The list honestly just goes on. The game is super strict about placing yourself in the exact right spot, so hitting enemies is overly challenging. Carrying around items is neat, but the same button to attack also uses the item, so why is the mechanic here at all? And I don’t know what I’m doing wrong or if the level is just copy-pasted this much, but the second level just goes on and on and on. Far as I’m aware this is the only beat em up offering in the library, and if I’m honest you’re better off just pulling up the NES library and picking from the beat em ups in there. They’re better.
Rating: Thumbs down
BREATH OF FIRE
Okay, so I just played Octopath Traveler and I must admit that I am simply not in the mood for another JRPG right now. Breath of Fire was at a disadvantage going in, and after playing it for two and a half hours, I feel comfortable saying that it’s okay. I played it as long as I did because I’m well aware that roleplaying games take a while to get going. Perhaps the same is true here, but after two hours and the finding of a new party member I fail to see what this game could possibly have that would make me want to play more. My main problem with the game is how little the player is actually involved. Battles are mindlessly straightforward, requiring absolutely no thought into what you’re doing. And the devs knew this even then, because why else would there be a system that does the battles for you? No, I’m not kidding, there is an “auto battle” mechanic where you ask the game to mash the A button for you. Nice of the devs to put in the effort so I don’t have to, I suppose. And trust me, you’ll be using that auto battle button because this is a JRPG of the older variety, which means it’s time to grind a lot. In fact, at one point I called the game “Grinding” instead of its proper name. Because that’s all there is to this game – it’s several hours of mundane grind. So do I recommend Grinding? Well, that’s not easy. It’s really dull, requires almost nothing out of the player, and is super grindy. But if you’re a big fan of JRPGs you might get something out of it, even it’s just satisfying historical curiosity. I’m sure the story is decent enough. Sure, that story is terribly cliche, but what game from the 90s wasn’t? And I’m also at least grateful Grinding isn’t overly punishing. If you die, you lose a bit of gold and restart at your last save point. Quite generous of it, really. I can at least picture Grinding being a good “podcast game.” Not that I recommend listening to a podcast and gaming at the same time, because only mutants are capable of that. Still, I think most understand what I mean. Good if you need something to mildly amuse you for a while, but not worth it if you’re looking for a bit more substance in your gaming.
Rating: Neutral
In start contrast to the previous library, we have four thumbs down ratings and only two thumbs up ratings. The rest were just “meh”, nothing I’d recommend or encourage safe distance from. I’ve always personally touted the SNES as one of the best consoles of all time, and I say that because of games like Super Metroid, Puyo Puyo Tetris, Donkey Kong Country and the plethora of well made JRPGS available such as Earthbound. However, you wouldn’t get that impression from this batch of games. A lot of this definitely feels like filler content, just some stuff to reach that twenty game launch lineup. Some if its cool from a technological standpoint like Star Fox, but that’s about all some of these have going for it. Barring a couple exceptions and historical curiosity, I’d say you can skip most of these.
However, looking ahead at what’s to come, I reckon things will pick back up again. We’ll finish out the final games of the launch lineup and start getting into the titles that have been added since. But before we get there, we’ll have to take another trip to the NES library to see what the games of the 80s are up to. As I said at the top, the NES library isn’t getting updated with as many games as the SNES, so there may come a point where we’ll take a long, long break from the NES. But until then, we’ll keep doing this back and forth. It will all be very interesting, I’m sure.
SNES Batch #2 Rating: D+
Recommended – 2
Not Recommended – 4
Neutral – 4
Overall Library Rating: C
Recommended – 6
Not Recommended – 5
Neutral – 7
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