So I've wanted to write this and play this game again for a long long time. Life got crazy, hence my absence from the site, and while I'm not necessarily back in some full force, it's damn time in my life to get some rest and visit Nemo in his dreamland. So here that goes. I remember playing this a ton as a child. I've had the NES game since I can remember though I have no recollection of how I came to have it in the first place. Still, it's always had a special place in my heart despite me never really getting that far. I've heard this game is very hard, so lets see if that's the case. Lets play a classic! Little Nemo Dream Master!
From the moment I booted it up, that wonderful music graced my ears. I am such a fan of the music from this game. In fact, you should be checking out the Mega Ran & K Murdoch song, Dream Master as well as the The Adventures of Duane and BrandO song Little Nemo. They are both awesome songs that sample this classic tune. The title screen is classic and colorful and well designed. This game already is starting off right. Time to dive in.
Dream 1: Mushroom Forest
A weird looking frog man greets me in his purple suit and shoes. They call him Flip and he feels like he should help me figure this world out. Yep, this is an NES game alright, as if the purple hair sprite didn't help give it away. The art of the game looks pretty great. Just detailed enough. Though, it's not overbearing.
I avoid an easy snail and then find the frog. The infamous frog. The character I remember most about this game. I throw him some candy which makes him nap, and thus I jump into his body! His sleepy mouth is open as my head sticks out and I control his muscles and nerves. Who the hell thought of this game concept? Then again, it is the dream land after all... I now remember what made this game so challenging, initially anyway... the respawning enemies. Wow that's frustrating already. Still, I found a mole and in a weird moment of instinct, I went way left and found a secret area... with a purple lizard... just dying for me to throw candy at.
Like any good salamander, it climbs walls. Too bad the damn thing doesn't stop on enemies though. I died trying to kill the respawned version. How frustrating. Then again, when I restarted I died again when I jumped on a tiny frog. I think perhaps I can't kill these baddies unless I'm in that frog skin. By the end of a challenging level, dodging tiny frogs and pissy flying ants and such, I finally made it to a door with six key holes. Thank God! I had six keys. I was worried for a second there.
Then that amazing little tune plays, the same one Mega Ran initially samples in their song. A cutscene plays. A nice touch.
Dream 2: Flower Garden
The sound of running footsteps... a leap... and SLAM into the bed! Nemo is ready for action again. Time for another weird purple character. This is the extent of my memory of the game I think. I remember this world but not very well. The music is less familiar also. One thing I gotta give to this game is the nice water mechanics. It's like using the Frog Suit in Super Mario Bros. 3 except you have a natural buoyancy. That's surprising. Oooh! I remember the Gorilla. I'm so gonna pwn this world. He is like a mix of the salamander with his climbing but also he punches like Donkey Kong. This dude is the honey badger of the Dream Land and he don't care! However one thing he does care about are these ridiculous spores that hone in on you and your awkwardly moving monkey ass. With the respawning feature, you have to essentially take the hit to get to the salamander again. Damn. Plus they KEEP COMING which makes it nearly impossible to avoid taking tons of hits while nabbing that salamander. Damn. There's a reason as a child I didn't make it that far.
Luckily the continue takes you to the last level you were at. Phew. Finally I nabbed that lizard! After some careful platforming I made it to the bee. Now I went left because the cave goes left... I traversed some tricky spike pathway... and in a dick move... nothing was there. Nice. Nemo you dope. Oh also, as to be expected, the bee will drown. Son of a! I kept drudging through and eventually I made it to another door, with six keys in tow. Yeah... this game is a challenge indeed. But I'm looking forward to sinking my teeth further into it.
Showing posts with label Little Nemo: The Dream Master. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Little Nemo: The Dream Master. Show all posts
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Top 5 Movie Games
Well it is that magical time of year again. The time of year where bloated special FX and spectacle dominates the movie scene. Yes it is the Summer Blockbuster season, which starts in May and usually goes till August.
This summer we have a glut of super-hero movies, the last Harry Potter film, a new Pixar film, another Transformers movie that will probably disappoint and who knows what else. And with this comes video games based on said movies, which are almost invariably rushed and released to coincide with the movie as a cash-in rather than a game that can stand on its own. It is an unfortunate reality that we all have to live with that have plagued games since the earliest days, whether it was the disaster known as E.T. the video game for the Atari 2600, the games that the masters of licensed crap LJN released for the NES or modern day disasters like Iron Man, these games typically only sell because of the name and little else.
But despite this overall bleak view of games based off movie, there is still many good to great movie based video games that are more than a licensed cash-in. And while these are my favorites, there are more out there.
A 2D Final Fight styled beat-um up from Konami, this game had you more or less following the path of the movie as you bashed your way through The Penguin,, his army of clowns and dealing with the mysterious Catwoman. The games has 3 game styles, the standard Final Fight-style stages, 2D platforming stages and 3D-ish driving stages. The best part of the Final Fight-style stages has you kicking the crap out of the clowns, not to mention throwing them into the background to bash against the walls. The 2D platforming is basically the same controls but enemies die in one hit and you have do some kinda clunky platforming. The 3D-ish driving stages usually have you surviving a horde of motorcycles and a boss fight. Not much to say as you just control and shoot. Despite the iffier modes, the overall package is fantastic.
As you may recall from my retro review of Little Nemo, this is a game based off a movie. Now not very many people knew this because to be honest, how many people actually saw Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland? This game benefited, like many on this list actually, from not really following the movie's story and being its own game. So instead you go into many dream themed environments to rescue King Morpheous from the Nightmare King and save Slumberland. And considering it was made by Capcom who had an almost impeccable 8-bit line-up you really can't go wrong with this great platformer.
While I am kind of cheating with this one as the Aladdin games for the SNES and Genesis are very different games. The SNES one, made by Capcom, is more or less a straight-up platformer that focuses on Aladdin's nature as an acrobatic thief to traverse the levels. The Genesis one, made by Virgin Interactive, is a hack and slash with beautifully drawn character sprites and is easily the more well-known of the two. Both games pretty much follow the plot with some amusingly similar plot deviation. While both are good, I prefer the Super NES one for the overall package and also that I feel it is more akin to how Aladdin would actually traverse his world. But preferences will differ.
Yes I have two on here. But I especially picked this one because as far as I know it may very well be the first good movie based game ever. While not following the movie's plot from what I can tell, there are references to the movie in cutscenes but the seem thrown in to give the game a semblance of relation to the movie. The game goes through 5 stages, which barely have anything to do with the movie and Batman plays very little like the movie version of him. Instead of being a walking tank (though he is) Batman, along with his punch, relies also on a gun with 3 attack options and a very useful wall jumping ability, necessary to get through some of the more difficult parts of the game. The game is short but very hard and will kill you many times especially in the later levels. Also the music rocks.
Goldeneye is important for a couple reasons, one being the best movie game of all time and also for bringing a great console only FPS experience to the consoles. What is amazing is that this game was given a lot of time to mature as it was released 3 years after the movie it was based on which given the a nature of movie-based games is almost entirely unheard of. What Rare gave us was a game that followed the plot reasonably well while expanding the narrative quite a bit. Though I'm pretty sure what most people remember is the multiplayer. Many hours were lost playing deathmatch on this game and is typically what people remember the most. It was such a nostalgic game that Activision gave Wii owners an exclusive update of the game, which while different from the N64 game, plucked on the old nostalgia heart strings for many of us.
Honorable Mentions: Spider-Man 2 (GCN, XBox, PS2), Journey to Silus (NES) (it was meant to be a Terminator based game and it shows), Lion King (SNES/Genesis)
This summer we have a glut of super-hero movies, the last Harry Potter film, a new Pixar film, another Transformers movie that will probably disappoint and who knows what else. And with this comes video games based on said movies, which are almost invariably rushed and released to coincide with the movie as a cash-in rather than a game that can stand on its own. It is an unfortunate reality that we all have to live with that have plagued games since the earliest days, whether it was the disaster known as E.T. the video game for the Atari 2600, the games that the masters of licensed crap LJN released for the NES or modern day disasters like Iron Man, these games typically only sell because of the name and little else.
But despite this overall bleak view of games based off movie, there is still many good to great movie based video games that are more than a licensed cash-in. And while these are my favorites, there are more out there.
Top 5 Movie Games
5. Batman Returns - SNES
A 2D Final Fight styled beat-um up from Konami, this game had you more or less following the path of the movie as you bashed your way through The Penguin,, his army of clowns and dealing with the mysterious Catwoman. The games has 3 game styles, the standard Final Fight-style stages, 2D platforming stages and 3D-ish driving stages. The best part of the Final Fight-style stages has you kicking the crap out of the clowns, not to mention throwing them into the background to bash against the walls. The 2D platforming is basically the same controls but enemies die in one hit and you have do some kinda clunky platforming. The 3D-ish driving stages usually have you surviving a horde of motorcycles and a boss fight. Not much to say as you just control and shoot. Despite the iffier modes, the overall package is fantastic.
4. Little Nemo: The Dream Master - NES
As you may recall from my retro review of Little Nemo, this is a game based off a movie. Now not very many people knew this because to be honest, how many people actually saw Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland? This game benefited, like many on this list actually, from not really following the movie's story and being its own game. So instead you go into many dream themed environments to rescue King Morpheous from the Nightmare King and save Slumberland. And considering it was made by Capcom who had an almost impeccable 8-bit line-up you really can't go wrong with this great platformer.
3. Aladdin - SNES/Genesis
While I am kind of cheating with this one as the Aladdin games for the SNES and Genesis are very different games. The SNES one, made by Capcom, is more or less a straight-up platformer that focuses on Aladdin's nature as an acrobatic thief to traverse the levels. The Genesis one, made by Virgin Interactive, is a hack and slash with beautifully drawn character sprites and is easily the more well-known of the two. Both games pretty much follow the plot with some amusingly similar plot deviation. While both are good, I prefer the Super NES one for the overall package and also that I feel it is more akin to how Aladdin would actually traverse his world. But preferences will differ.
2. Batman: The Video Game - NES
Yes I have two on here. But I especially picked this one because as far as I know it may very well be the first good movie based game ever. While not following the movie's plot from what I can tell, there are references to the movie in cutscenes but the seem thrown in to give the game a semblance of relation to the movie. The game goes through 5 stages, which barely have anything to do with the movie and Batman plays very little like the movie version of him. Instead of being a walking tank (though he is) Batman, along with his punch, relies also on a gun with 3 attack options and a very useful wall jumping ability, necessary to get through some of the more difficult parts of the game. The game is short but very hard and will kill you many times especially in the later levels. Also the music rocks.
1. Goldeneye 007 - N64
Goldeneye is important for a couple reasons, one being the best movie game of all time and also for bringing a great console only FPS experience to the consoles. What is amazing is that this game was given a lot of time to mature as it was released 3 years after the movie it was based on which given the a nature of movie-based games is almost entirely unheard of. What Rare gave us was a game that followed the plot reasonably well while expanding the narrative quite a bit. Though I'm pretty sure what most people remember is the multiplayer. Many hours were lost playing deathmatch on this game and is typically what people remember the most. It was such a nostalgic game that Activision gave Wii owners an exclusive update of the game, which while different from the N64 game, plucked on the old nostalgia heart strings for many of us.
Honorable Mentions: Spider-Man 2 (GCN, XBox, PS2), Journey to Silus (NES) (it was meant to be a Terminator based game and it shows), Lion King (SNES/Genesis)
Monday, March 21, 2011
Retro Reviews: Little Nemo: The Dream Master
Little Nemo: The Dream Master was released in 1990 and developed and published by Capcom.Little Nemo: The Dream Master was based on a 1989 film, Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland (which is actually quite good), which itself was based off an early 20th Century comic strip, Little Nemo in Slumberland, created by Windsor McCay. Doesn't that just scream movie and video game adaptation?
Little Nemo has you playing as Nemo. In 1905, while sleeping one night Nemo is visited by an emissary of Slumberland who arrives in a large blimp. He is invited to visit Slumberland to play with the Princess of Slumberland, Camille. He is initially hesitant but after being offered candy (nowadays that would trigger all sorts of red flags), he agrees to go as long as he doesn't have to kiss her. It turns out that Slumberland has been taken over by the Nightmare King and King Morpheus (no not that Morpheus) and it is up to Nemo to travel through Slumberland and to the Nightmare Land to save the day.
Little Nemo, much like a majority of Capcom's NES titles, was a platformer with some exploration elements implemented in most of them. Through first 7 stages, Nemo must find a certain amount of keys to open up a door at the end of each stage. Nemo himself is fairly defenseless and has overall limited abilities. Pretty much all he can do is jump and throw candy. Throwing candy has two uses. The first, mostly useless one, will stun an enemy for a few second but isn't really useful. Where it is useful though is when you find certain animals. Feed them 3 pieces of candy and they will become docile so that you can use them and their specific abilities to find the keys that you would otherwise not be able to find. For instance the frog can jump higher and jump on enemies, the lizard can be used to climb walls, the bee can fly and shoot stingers or the mouse can also climb walls and use a hammer(yeah....) to break down walls and defeat enemies. There are more including the mole, gorilla, hermit crab and fish that are pretty much used in one level and have fairly simple uses. There is one more option that Nemo has that doesn't show up until level 8 and that is the Morningstar. Nemo actually carries it with him throughout the game but can't use it until then. What he can do with it is hit enemies with it and charge it for an energy attack, which is very useful with the 3 bosses you fight in level 8, which are the only bosses in the game.
Nemo's general lack of fighting skill is what makes this game fairly difficult. Not only are some of the enemies incredibly hard to avoid but your animal friends will also hurt you until you feed them sufficient candy. It isn't the hardest game ever but it is a solid challenge.
Graphically this game is standard fair for Capcom. Which can only be a good thing. Especially coming in later in the NES's life the graphics feature nicely animated sprites and lots of colors. The levels all have their own unique themes and look very different from each other with amazingly little in the way of reused stage sprites, though many of the enemies will recur.
The music in the game is also a highpoint. Of course being Capcom this to be expected as well. From the whimsical themes of the early stages, to the dark, scary sounding theme used in Nightmare Land or the extremely fast paced and energetic credits theme, there really isn't a bad song in the game. Some are more memorable than others but they all fit the game wonderfully. The SFX are kind of lacking. Just standard whacks and such. Nothing bad just not great.
In the end, Little Nemo: The Dream Master is a fantastic platformer from Capcom in their NES heyday. It is up there with the Mega Man games and Duck Tales as an all-around great experience and is as fun to play today as it was when I played back in the day.
Pros/Cons
+ Varied Graphics
+ Fantastic Music
+ Varied and large stages
+ Good challenge
- Nemo lack of useful standard attack and lack of great maneuverability
- Inappropriate plying of children with candy.
And as a bonus, a video review by the Happy Video Game Nerd (warning: some swearing):
And a little vanity on my part: A playthrough of the game I did a couple years back and posted to YouTube:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)