Beaten: Operation C (Game Boy)

 Oops I did it again.

Playing Operation C, the Game Boy entry into the Contra series on my shiny new Analogue Pocket, I was just hoping to see how far I could get. 

I’ve never beaten a Contra game before, but have fond memories of trying, especially those Contra 3: The Alien Wars co-op sessions I had in 1992 or 1993 with my friend Dave Frye.

The difference, as one can tell from recent articles I’ve written, is that the Analogue Pocket can create a save state anywhere when playing an old Game Boy, Game Boy Color, or Game Boy Advance cartridge. If the cartridge has its own save battery option, that still works too.

These games are still difficult, don’t get me wrong. The save state option merely eliminates the repetition of having to play through everything over and over again when attempting to get through a difficult part.

A game like Operation C has no built in cartridge save of the player’s progress, so when first all the players’ lives are gone, and then a limited number of continues are used up, it’s back to the beginning of the game, not just back to the beginning of the level or the boss fight.

Operation C is a great, five stage sampler of Contra, containing every bit of that game’s run-and-gun shooting action. The player starts with a rapid-firing machine gun that has unlimited ammunition, starts running and jumping to the right as waves of various enemies attack.

There’s no time limit, fortunately, but few places where one can stand still without endless respawning enemies running up from behind. Occasionally a power up will fly by with a big letter on it indicating what it does. “S” for upgrading the gun to a spread of bullets rather than a straight line, “F” for fire, and a few others.

“H” is for homing bullets that home in on enemies, curving their trajectory, and other than the save state was my key to victory in this game. I had the spreading fire first, then picked up the homing bullets, and then took care to not pick up another power up at any point after that.

In addition to scrolling and jumping right and sometimes up, some stages are viewed top-down and scroll up. This certainly adds to the variety, as does several mini-boss type of encounters scattered here and there. The boss fights are likewise challenging, but patterns exist in their attacks for players to discern.

I had a perfect playthrough going on at the final boss fight, meaning I went into it with five extra lives. I failed to beat it with my first life and his homing bullets. Since the game at least puts the player back in the midst of the fight for their second and subsequent lives, I was able to burn through those extra lives to victory.

I can now cross “beat a Contra game” off of my videogame bucket list.

Beaten: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan (Game Boy)

 Platformers have never been my strong suit, even when they reigned supreme during the 16-bit era.  While I tried and played many, there were few I finished. This was especially true on the Game Boy, where the hardware limitations could cause a blurring effect when the screen scrolls in some games.

Thus, my Game Boy collection has quite a few unfinished platformers, and I’ve been giving some of them another shot since getting the Analogue Pocket, as the clear screen, the save state option, and the end of any blurring issues with these types of games makes them shine in a new light.

Enter Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan, a five-stage game featuring the famous reptilian heroes scrolling right to defeat an army of ninjas and other foes from the cartoon and comic. After failing to beat the very difficult NES TMNT game I must’ve been hoping the Game Boy game would be easier. 

I have no idea how far I got back then, but sliding the cartridge into the Analog Pocket, I dove in without much hope of getting anywhere new, but I was having fun so I pressed on. Soon, I was beating the first stage without using the save state feature, which gave me enough confidence to start a new playthrough and use the save state, just to see how far I could get.

Now, save states have not been a guarantee of success for me by any means - I still got stuck at very difficult parts of Castlevania on the NES mini and Splatterhouse on the Turbografx 16 mini - but they do remove the frustration of completely starting over upon death.

Thus, with TMNT: Fall of the Foot Clan, I locked into a pattern of slowly moving right until the next enemies spawned and attacked, killing them without taking damage, waiting until things settled down, and saving. 

With no time limit this made most of the game pretty easy, but there were boss fights at the end of every level to contend with as well. These were not particularly hard either, and saving right before them made it easier. Some I beat on the first try.

There were three small bonus mini-games I found during my travels which added variety to the experience, and those were mostly fun. I kept waiting for a spike in difficulty that never came.

Played as intended, this would be a fairly tough game, simply because there is no natural save option on the cartridge and each attempt would mean starting over. Oddly enough, the player can pick any level to play right at the start, but to get the ending one must play and beat them sequentially, I suspect.

I had fun beating this turtle sized platformer after owning it for 34 years. However, there is no way I’m trying that NES TMNT game again, thanks to the now legendary water level’ difficulty. 

A lot of these old platformers are difficult simply due to the need to start over every time. I’m too old now to hit those walls, but with the advent of save states, I can save a good playthrough in progress and take on new challenges as I encounter them.

Beaten: Mazes of Fate (GBA)

When thinking about what I wanted to write about Mazes of Fate, a Game Boy Advance dungeon crawler I'd recently beaten, I realized that the story of my acquisition and enjoyment of this game is the convergence of three of my gaming interests: portable adventure games, cleaning up at clearance sales when a device for playing them is done in the market, and unique game designs and developers.

Mazes of Fate is a portable adventure game, which early on for me was something I very much wanted to have. For the 1980s, all I had for that was the handheld Dungeons and Dragons released by Mattel. When the Game Boy showed up at the end of the decade, it was not long before full turn based RPGs followed, starting with Final Fantasy Legend. Since then the RPG has been a part of every major handheld console, and along with it the joy of having an adventure game that you can pick up and play anywhere, and of course save your progress. 

Shifting gears, there was a day in 1985 when, while in college, my friends and I stopped at a nearby Quality Farm & Fleet store for some other reason but saw a bin of Vectrex consoles and games all on a clearance sale. I sure did not have the money back then to clean up, but made a note that, when a game system goes down, to try to pick up as much in clearance sales when I can.

I got to put that into practice when the Game Boy Advance was supplanted by the DS in the mid-2000s. Without much effort, I was able to pick up a lot of GBA games here and there (I even found an original Game Boy game still on a store shelf amid that search) and build a nice little library. While I was pretty much done with that by 2009, I nonetheless picked up Mazes of Fate after finding it cheap at a Half Price Books store in San Antonio, Texas.

I tested the game, of course, and played a few minutes, but put it down until my recent acquisition of an Analogue Pocket portable. This device, with its clear screen, great controls, and save state option, has brought forth a renaissance in my Game Boy/Color/Advance playing, even more so than the Game Boy Player for the Gamecube did back in the day. I now exist in a state of always having some old game I dismissed or didn't play much in the Analogue Pocket for portable fun at home, and sometimes at work on my lunch break.

While there were lots of RPGs for the Game Boy Advance, this one is unique for a lot of reasons. It was developed by Sabarasa, and Artgentinian studio, and published by Graffiti Entertainment in the US. According to Wikipedia, development took two and a half years and the game was released on December 12, 2006. Yes, this was well after the heydey of the Game Boy Advance and well into the DS's reign as the handheld to have.

Gameplay is typical fantasy RPG stuff, where the player chooses a template character or creates one of their own, and is later joined by up to two other NPC characters. When in town or the overworld, the view is forward-top-down style and the tiny player walks around before entering a building or a town. In the overworld, there are no random encounters and little to explore. Points of interest sometimes only open up after an encounter with an NPC somewhere where the NPC tells the player about it.

In dungeons or other areas, the view turns to first person with the top part of the screen the view ahead and the bottom part the three party members' health bars and such. Battles take place in real time, with players attacking, casting spells, or using an item. Enemies approach and attack at their own speed as well. What is odd that the player can get a few range attacks on a foe, back away, and continue to hit and run. My best archer and mage, however, did not seem to ever do enough damage at a distance to make that a great strategy, so I would soften them up a bit before engaging in melee attacks with my fighter. Perhaps a different character build and other skills would have made a difference.

There is a lot of skill customization for the characters as they level up, but I did not explore that too deeply. Lockpicking is definitely a must for at least one of the characters in the party, as chests often require a high number in this skill to get open, and the breakable lockpicks are expensive at first. There were weird skills, like "Celerity" that I probably did not grasp. For those looking for character skill depth, it is here but not necessary to comprehend fully to get through the game.

Death of one or two of the three party members during combat is not permanent, meaning that if one can heal the any of the others back to life, they can continue to fight. If all three fall in battle, though, the player will have to start back at the last save point. Saving is anywhere, so death and backtracking are only an issue if the player lets them be.

The artwork for the enemies is unique, with a sort of slightly exaggerated cartoony style. Enemy attacks during battle are often just a few frames that sometimes create a slow blur. In fact, combat suffers from substantial lag at times, but never to a point where it causes issues as long as the player is aware.

There are cool story elements along the way, a few side quests, a decent level of loot and special weapons and armor, and lots of hidden walls in the dungeons to explore. I know I did not find everything nor do every side quest, but I did have a good time playing Mazes of Fate. Experiencing the different design, storytelling, and graphics provided by a rare game developer from the southern hemisphere was unique and refreshing enough to get past some of the minor lag issues of the game. 

The convergence of my lifelong quest for portable RPGs, my desire to build game libraries for defunct systems, and to see what different game studios can come up with was truly a treat. Mazes of Fate is a unique Game Boy Advance RPG that's worth a try.