Nintendo Okie

The 8-Bit Summer was something we hadn’t seen from Nintendo before. The company bundled a bunch of similar titles together into one long promotion and put some marketing behind it. This first summer of games was all about the handheld, with a couple of exceptions. I played through all of the games that were featured and here’s a rundown of each game and whether I recommend you pick them up or not. There have been six games originally released for the Game Boy and two games that were originally released for the NES (and were part of the 3DS Ambassador Program).

Kirby’s Pinball Land – I’m a big fan of pinball, as would be evidenced by my recent writings of Zen Studios creations. I’ll take this opportunity and tell Nintendo to work with Zen on getting Nintendo themed tables.

Kirby’s Pinball Land wasn’t Nintendo’s first attempt at video pinball. It takes their pink mascot, mashes him into an even more ball-like shape, and puts him on tables that slightly resemble a pinball game. There are four tables in total and they mix regular pinball, where you’re attempting to set high scores, with a Kirby game, where the point is to defeat enemies, solve puzzles and defeat bosses.

The game won’t take you long, but you’ll probably find some frustrations along the way. It’s hard to control Kirby at times. When you’re attempting to do things in a certain order, it’s frustrating when you can’t get him to go where you want. The boss battles are all too similar to be interesting as they all simply have you smashing into the boss as often as possible. They’re very different from a traditional Kirby game where you have to figure out patterns and time things just right.

If you’re looking for a more unique Kirby experience you might be better off checking out Kirby’s Block Ball.

Tony’s Recommendation: PASS!!

Sword of Hope II – RPG’s come in many shapes and sizes. In the genre, this is one of the more interesting games I’ve ever played. It reminds me a lot of those old PC RPGs that put you in a first-person view to explore dungeons. You control all of the movement through a first-person view and, while it takes a little bit of time to acclimate to, it really works well. After a while you just quit thinking about it.

Battles, like in similar games, are random and done through the use of menus to control the action. This means you’re not rushed to figure out what you want to do and can think about it a bit before committing. Should you die, you’re transported back to the first screen of the dungeon — completely healed. Luckily all of your progress and experience is saved and you have the opportunity to level up a bit on the way back through; meaning you’ll be a little bit stronger with each successive trip through the dungeon.

Chances are good you probably missed this one the first time around, but it’s one you should probably check out, especially if you’re a fan of role playing games. The music is catchy, the loot is plentiful and the game is a lot of fun.

Tony’s Recommendation: BUY IT!!!

Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters – The second outing featuring Nintendo’s winged-hero, Pit, was probably brought to your attention by his return in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, or the recently released Kid Icarus: Uprising. The one thing to know about Of Myths and Monsters is that, much like its predecessor, the game is hard. You’re going to die and you’re going to die a lot.

This game fixed a couple of the biggest problems many people had with the NES release. The first was the jumps were incredibly hard to control. Now you have the ability to tap the jump button to float slowly and control your jumps a little better. The second was if you missed a jump and fell to the bottom of the screen it was instant death. In Of Myths and Monsters the screen scrolls up, down, left and right meaning you can keep retrying those jumps.

One weird thing to note about the game, however, is that there will be times you think you’re seeing the same things over and over again. It’s because you are. The game emulated some of the areas from the first game where you would leave the right side of the screen and return on the left by just constantly scrolling the screen to follow you. Just remember, keep going up and you’ll get to where you need to go.

Tony’s Recommendation:BUY IT!!!

Tumblepop – Tumblepop began life as an arcade game before being ported to the Game Boy. The game tasks you, the player, with removing all of the creatures that inhabit a number of levels filled with platforms. To do that, you wander around sucking them up with your vacuum cleaner and spitting them back out to get power ups or other items. You have a set amount of time to get them all and move on to the next level, or you can spell the word ‘tumblepop’ to end the stage.

The levels are laid out with numerous platforms on top of each other that you jump back and forth between. I found the game moved incredibly slow, but with the skates power-up you could speed the game up to a somewhat playable pace. Getting any of the power-ups that went to the opposite side of the screen, or to different levels of platform, was very difficult due to the speed of your character. This is the main problem I had with the game. If it had been sped up just a little bit, I would have really enjoyed it. The mechanics work really well. Navigating the platforms was fun, but the speed kept me from really enjoying the game.

Tony’s Recommendation: PASS!!

Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 – Oh, Wario. You so crazy. This is the first game where Wario had the starring role and he takes advantage of it. This game takes the traditional Mario platformer and mixes it up a bit. Wario is fueled by greed, and rather than trying to save someone else, he’s just out to make a lot of cash.

Wario has the usual moves you’d expect from a Mario platformer, but he also has some new moves based on the hat he is wearing. These enhance his abilities allowing him to become extra powerful, fly around for a limited time or let him breathe fire. Eight different areas with four or five levels each means there’s a lot of content. Bonus exits open up hidden areas and there is plenty of treasure to find.

This is the beginning of a really good spin-off franchise that has continued through the Wii. The music is wonderful. Visually, it’s one of the most impressive games on the original Game Boy and rivals any game on the system if you had to rank the best Game Boy games.

Tony’s Recommendation: BUY IT!!!

Mole Mania – This is one of those games I missed the first time around. I never even heard of Mole Mania until it was announced as part of the 8-Bit Summer, but I’m glad it’s made its way onto the 3DS eShop. I really like this puzzle game.

Where most games have you combating enemies in some way, shape or form, Mole Mania instead has you trying to out think them. The game is essentially a series of single screen puzzles that you must solve in order to progress. There will be balls blocking your path that you have to push out of the way and enemies that need to be trapped to keep them from harming you. The game is deceptively simply to learn but, like the cliche’ says, extremely hard to master. Basically, you can  only push and pull objects, or dig under the ground to get around them. You can’t just dig your way out of the puzzles though, because only certain spots on the ground can be dug through.

This is one of those puzzle games, like Qwirk, that if I had seen it in the store as a kid I probably would have passed up, but now that I’ve discovered it I’m almost sad that I missed it. I can’t recommend this fun little puzzler enough.

Tony’s Recommendation: BUY IT!!!

There’s my look at the six Game Boy games featured during the 8-Bit Summer. Most of them I recommend you check out. The Virtual Console is a great way to find some games you might not have played before. This is a promotion that I hope Nintendo really considers revisiting so we see more stuff like this in the future. There were also two NES games that were a part of the Ambassador Program. One (The Legend of Zelda) I would recommend. The other (NES Open Tournament Golf) I would say pass.