Gaming Memories: Tiny Toon Adventures 2: Trouble in Wackyland

Haven't done one of these in a while. I probably could have done one last week. Oh well!

Tiny Toon Adventures 2: Trouble in Wackyland

NES

April 1993 (NA)

I recall mentioning before that when I got my NES, long ago, it was at a garage sale with many games included, at a steal of a price. I have a somewhat decent memory of which games came with it, but some I'm not quite as sure about. Like today's game. Was it part of the package? Did I purchase it later because I recognized those faces on the cartridge? I can't quite remember.

And to their credit, the Tiny Toons are very recognizable. I usually hear more about Animaniacs when it comes to WB's cartoons of that era, but the show is definitely up there in terms of nostalgia. It was just fun to see kid Toons inspired by the more famous, adult Tunes, going through the same slapstick, with personality tweaks. The franchise, of course, had its own video games.

Developed by Konami and released in April 1993 in North America, Tiny Toon Adventures 2: Trouble in Wackyland is set in an amusement park that just opened. Every ride is a stage, and you play a different character in each one of them. Plucky Duck is in the bumper car ride, being attacked by bullies; Hampton is on a train; Babs Bunny is on a dangerous rollercoaster; and Furrball is riding the log flume, while he is being attacked by frogs and birds. Classic parkgoing experience, really.

Each ride costs a number of regular tickets to be entered; in turn, you can collect regular tickets while going through each stage. Clearing a stage grants the team a Golden Ticket; you must collect all four in order to unlock the fifth and final stage, the Funhouse, a creepy castle with gravity-defying features visited by Buster Bunny. Alternately, if you keep failing to collect the Golden Tickets, you can keep playing the stages to collect points then trade them for regular tickets, since collecting 50 tickets also opens the Funhouse.

I have fond memories of this one because, although it was short, it was fairly challenging. There was just enough variety in its gameplay to stay fresh; the bumper cars are a non-platformer level. Other stages have their own quirks, like the roller coaster ride having a mechanic where you can "flip" the platform Babs in on, making her hang from it in order to avoid certain hazards. I do not actually recall beating the final boss, Montana Max, but I do remember beating every other stage at least once and getting there. Itt's enjoyable, it's sweet, and also, the sprites are just so damn cute­.

Gaming Memories: Duck Hunt

(Doing one of these as I'm still getting this month's reviews finished!)

Wham, bam! If I could shoot that damn dog I would too!

One of the release titles for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Duck Hunt is also the most famous NES game using the NES Zapper. When the trigger of that device shaped like a firearm was pulled in front of a CRT screen, the game would show a split-second screen where it detected roughly the location shot, compared it to the locations of possible targets on the screen, and applied results afterwards.

In Duck Hunt, there are three games modes, though the first two are repeats. You and your dog go out in the field and shoot at ducks. They fly around the screen, and if you manage to shoot one, your dog holds it up triumphantly. If you fail, the little shit laughs at you instead. In Game A, only one duck appears in each round of a level; in Game B, it's two. Game C swaps it all out for clay pigeons instead. In every level, you have to successfully hit a certain number of targets in order to gain access to the next. Like many games at the time, there was a limit; after Level 99, the game rolled back to Level 0 and broke shortly afterwards.

Even putting aside its fame as "the Zapper game", Duck Hunt is perhaps also well-known for having editions where it was packaged on the same cartridge as another game; on my personal copy, Duck Hunt came second, and the other game on it was Super Mario Bros. 1 (which I therefore had twice).

This is "Gaming Memories" for a reason; it's less a review proper of the game, and more a chance for me to reminisce on my experience with it, however far back in time that was. The reason I remember Duck Hunt so well is that, unlike pretty much every single other NES game I owned, it was super easy to teach to my parents. Almost like a precursor to Wii Sports Bowling, there wasn't much to explain, and then we could all have fun together. Just aim at the bird and shoot! Works for me. My parents were never big on gaming (well, aside from casual stuff and the aforementioned Wii Sports), so having even one video game to play with them was great.

On the plus side, Duck Hunt reentered public consciousness when the dog, aided by a duck, made it into Smash, of all things. Hey, every dog has his day. It was good practice for Banjo & Kazooie.

Gaming Memories: Starfox

Haven't done one of those in a while... (I'm doing doing this one because the game I'm planning to cover next is taking me longer than I expected.) Anyway!

Starfox

Super Nintendo Entertainment System

March 1993

The Super Nintendo was an impressive console on its own for the time, home to many technological advances. With the gift of hindsight, it feels like where the greatest updates happened. Most distinctly, the in-between from an all-2D to an all-3D. Most games on the SNES were still pretty clearly 16-bit, 2D entries. Some games played around; Donkey Kong Country is not any less impressive nowadays when you take into consideration its release date, but the trickery of turning all 3D assets into 2D sprites to create the perfect illusion was genius. Super Mario Kart had 3D tracks, but the racers were still obviously 2D. And then, we had the first actual 3D games.

And in that field, Starfox was a pioneer. Like a glimpse into the future. Its hardware had to be tailor-made for it, too, requiring an extra processing chip in the cartridge to make these graphics run right. And do they? Well... We do have true polygonal 3D on the screen, but everything is cut down to allow the console to run it; lowered framerate and resolution, and the models are about as simple as can get, but IT WORKS. The more demanding parts of the game cut on those elements even furtther.

Starfox is the story of the Lylat System's Fox McCloud, who is sent on a mission with his colleagues Falco Lombardi, Peppy Hare and Slippy Toad (the latter of whom keeps getting into trouble and we hate him for it). The task is to deal with the ominous Dr. Andross, who has his sights on multi-planetary conquest. The gameplay involves shooting at threats by aiming at their red-and-yellow weak points. The boss battles are fairly impressive considering the technology.

The structure of the game is also quite odd, split into three routes of differing difficulty, letting you have a tailor-made experience based on what you think you can do. (Did I ever play any other set of levels than on Easy? Maybe I did try them, failed pitifully, and stayed in my lane. I was young, after all.) Top this off with two bonus levels, and you get something special. It always ends in a fight with Andross, and that pristine white polygonal face with bright eyes, spitting white bricks at your Arwing, is still to this day one of the most iconic sights in the franchise. I did defeat this guy.

Starfox secured a spot for itself in fans' hearts, and would only grow from there, though later entries in the franchise would experiment more with genre and tech (...not always to the best results, as the Starfix game on the Wii U can attest). We even recently got Starfox 2, finally "released" first on the Super NES Classic Edition, then later on the Switch. For what it's worth, I keep fond memories of that one, and it's one of those games I grew up with that I'd happily go back in a heartbeat to see if I can fare better... if I didn't already have a backlog of 230+ games to get through, that is...

Gaming Memories: Road Runner's Death Valley Rally

Road Runner's Death Valley Rally

Super Nintendo Entertainment System

November 1992

Bllbllblllblll- beep beep!

...I had to.

In this one, we control Road Runner as he speeds and jumps through five worlds while avoiding Wile E. Coyote's ACME-powered attempts to capture him. Contrary to the classic Looney Tunes cartoons, the focus is on the bird, not on the coyote's schemes. Gameplay could, as a result, feel like a Sonic game, since we control another famed fictional speedster. Emphasis on "could".

This adventure takes us through five worlds: The southwest American Desert, at first, but afterwards we explore giant construction sites, long trains, deep underground mines, ending the chase in space, the final frontier. In every level, the dastardly coyote attacks with a different plan, most of them pulled directly from the cartoons; examples include the wingsuit, the catapult, or the Wile E. Robot. Our carefree bird has two means of attack; the main one is his beak. The second is turbo speed, which you can use by holding down the Y button while Road Runner has some energy left in a gauge, which can be refilled by pecking at bird seed conspicuously left on the road. Each world has three levels, followed by a boss battle. These larger contraptions' weak points can be damaged by the beak attack.

A point brought up by other reviewers, which makes sense now when I think back to my own experience, is that levels aren't designed to take full advantage of Road Runner's speed, being filled with a lot of traps that are too easy to fall into if you run the whole time, as you won't have enough reaction time to avoid them. This also applies to level design, with some stages being labyrinthine - owing to a side-quest involving colored flags, which Road Runner can run by to raise, with each flag found netting a bonus to your score at the end of a level.

The game would have been stronger if its stages were more often designed with the Road Runner's speed in mind. But if we disregard that point, and barring a few annoying moments, we have a decent game here. It's great seeing all these references to the cartoons, and it's even better seeing Wile E.'s plans fail in spectacular fashion - as usual. It's a Looney Tunes game, it would be missing something without the usual slapstick humor! And yes, it IS hilarious. I have good memories of this one, as you can tell. Revisiting these has gotten me itching to retry some of them...

Gaming Memories: B.O.B.

B.O.B.

Super Nintendo Entertainment System

June 1993

No, not the flat-earther rapper.

I said before that when I got my SNES, it was a gift from cousins leaving for university, so I inherited their collection as well. Some classics, and some stuff I had never heard of. Heck, stuff that's barely heard of. Like today's game.

B.O.B. is a part of the run-and-gun genre - same genre as Contra, but this is the funny cousin in the family. B.O.B. is a teenage robot taking the family car to go on a date. However, the teen gets distracted while driving in an asteroid field and crashes the car, landing on a large asteroid with alien bases and enemies on the way. He makes his way through, finds a new car, and heads onwards to his date. Guess what? Another crash, another landing. This happens a third time, poor guy. Oh, he does get to his date in the end. But he's gonna be a few hours late.

Our protagonist has access to six different weapons, and you can cycle through them with the L button of the SNES controller. All guns have ammunition, and you can run out of ammo... though if you do, B.O.B. can still use his fist to attack. The standout mechanic here, however, may be the Remotes, six items you can pick up and use. One's a trampoline, one is a mini-helicopter, one is a protective force field, one is an umbrella that slows his fall... These add nice variety to gameplay, and when necessary to beat a stage, they'll be plentiful. You can cycle through Remotes with the R button.

You run and shoot your way through 45 stages. It's been a long time since I last played this game, so I don't remember all of it, but I do know there was a nice variety in terms of dungeon types. Further down the line, stages can get downright labyrinthine. Some levels have memorable moments, and I recall the use of a floating ship to get through some of them, so gameplay changes now and then. The bosses all look friggin' cool, as well: Robots, aliens, fire elementals, ghosts... Also of note is the comedic tone from the story, retained in the many ways in which B.O.B. can die. Exploded to bits, melted into a puddle, disintegrated... 

The game worked with a password system­. When you finish some stages, you got a password made of six digits, and you could input that password from the title screen to get roughly where you were at. I don't remember ever beating the game in a single sitting, I do remember playing through its stages and eventually beating it thanks to the passwords. Because, damn, was it really tough. It's a difficult game. I still consider it a point of pride that I did win in the end. Critics consider it average, and maybe with the added time since I would think so as well, who knows. I probably should get an emulator and play it again... But I have fond memories of it, so maybe you'll enjoy it too.

Gaming Memories: Super Mario Bros. 2

Super Mario Bros. 2

Nintento Entertainment System

September 1988

Still to this day, what the American continent originally got as a sequel to the first Super Mario Bros. on the NES stands as one of the oddest entries in the franchise. It's not much of a secret that this game was made by taking another game, namely Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic, and slapping Mario characters on it. Actually, I think it's the most-repeated "mind-blowing fact you don't know!!" (clickbait look intentional) in the history of gaming. The reason this was done was allegedly because the actual Super Mario Bros. 2 ("The Lost Levels"), which Japan got, looked identical to Super Mario Bros. 1, with the main difference being that its difficulty was through the roof.

Since it adapts a game with four playable characters, SMB2 marks the first time we can actually play as Princess Toadstool (who wouldn't become known as Peach in the English version of Mario games for a few more years) or as Toad. All four characters play a little differently, as well; Mario plays like usual, Luigi jumps a little higher, the Princess can float thanks to her dress, and Toad has greater strength so he picks items up faster, but his jump is abysmal as a tradeoff.

With its bizarre inception, you could think that this game struggles to fit with the remainder of the franchise, and... well, with its gameplay that involves uprooting plants and tossing things to attack, you'd be right. In this case, it's fairer to say that the Mario franchise retroactively accepted SMB2 (often referred to as Super Mario USA to differentiate it from Japan's The Lost Levels) into its canon. Mainly by transplanting some of the enemies into the larger franchise; Subcon, the game's dream world, is where we first met, among others, Bob-Ombs, Ninjis, Pokeys, Shy Guys, Snifits and Birdo, some of which reappeared as early as SMB3. However, its major bosses have remained divorced from the series, with fewer in-game references to Wart than you can count on one hand. (He does appear in other places of Nintendo canon however, with one notable appearance in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening!)

This game's other major secret is also well-known; namely, that this game was Mario's dream. Beating Wart shows a quick cutscene of Mario sleeping, thinking up the events. Gives Wart's appearance in Link's Awakening an interesting double meaning. However, as far as I can remember, I don't recall ever actually getting to the end of this one. Blame it on the weird mechanics that felt too different from classic Mario fare, but when given the choice, I would usually go for SMB1 or 3 instead. Probably 3. It's been a while so I don't remember perfectly, but I think I never got past Fryguy, the fourth boss and the most annoying of them. Which doesn't mean it's a bad game; it's pretty good. Just not what I was looking for in a Mario game, I who also had access to Super Mario World, making it sit in its corner as the oddity it is.

I definitely played it a lot more than I played The Lost Levels, though! That one's a masochist's game.

Gaming Memories: Mighty Final Fight

A last Gaming Memories article for the year? Let's go.

Mighty Final Fight

Nintendo Entertainment System

July 1993 (NA)

One of the NES games I recall playing the most. Outside of this entry, I have no real connection to the Final Fight series, comprised of side-scrolling beat'em-ups and whose first entry was released to arcades in 1989. This is a retelling of that game's story, delivered with a comedic tone and a super-deformed style.

The story, a classic of the era: A girl kidnapped by bad guys. In this case, it is Mayor Mike Haggar's daughter, Jessica, taken by the Mad Gear Gang. Haggar enlists the help of his two friends Cody and Guy, and all three set out to open a whole can of whoop-ass onto various bikers, thieves, and other street scum on their way to Belger, the gang's leader.

The game is set across five stages and had everything to please me: Players and enemies alike have health bars visible at the top of the screen, and enemies come in all shapes and sizes (and gimmicks). All three characters have a wide array of moves, and can even learn more as the game includes a simple (if not simplistic) experience system. Haggar feels like the Easy Mode, being tougher and having stronger moves than his allies and starting out at LV3, compared to Guy and Cody's LV1s. That said, the two guys are speedier. Alas, no 2-Player Mode, but I can't say multiplayer on home console was ever a thing I cared for.

A few sequences within levels feel like mini-games. One notable example being in Stage 1, where the selected fighter has to break incoming barrels (and may also find items that increase their EXP). The bosses are all notable; utterly silly but also pretty dangerous. Unfortunately, the game is also very short, at five stages, and can be finished in well under an hour. Bit disappointing, not gonna lie.

It's short and easy enough that I finished the game multiple times. It ranked among my favorites on the NES alongside Startropics, DuckTales, the Mario games, and more that I'll eventually get to. I can't say I consider myself a beat'em-up connoisseur, but I do think this one's worth checking out. Maybe it's the nostalgia talking, that's usually the case in these Gaming Memories articles. (At least for now, as I focus on the games I really did care for - the ones I didn't, that's gonna be a different story.)

Gaming Memories: Donkey Kong Country

Donkey Kong Country

Super Nintendo

November 21st, 1994 (NA)

I never owned a lot of Super Nintendo titles; if I recall, I've had maybe 10 total, and most came with the console, which had been gifted to me by cousins. I may have bought only one game for it. And as is normal for a kid given multiple new playthings at once, I eventually settled on a couple of favorites. This was one of them.

Donkey Kong's first major platform game on the SNES (and, ironically, the only "Donkey Kong Country" game of the era to feature him, as he has to be rescued in both sequels) felt like a game-changer in several ways. The 3D look given to all of the sprites made it groundbreaking as one of the first "2.5D" titles to exist. It featured not only the famous ape who famously had a beef with Mario in the earliest days of the plumber's career, but also Diddy Kong, a younger chimp clad in red, as well as a handful of additional Kongs serving as varied stops throughout this adventure.

The story? Oh, it's as simple as it gets, really; a group of villainous reptiles known as the Kremlings, led by the ruthless and kooky King K. Rool, has stolen the Kongs' banana hoard. Go kick their asses and get it back. The Kongs will help you, be it Funky Kong allowing you to travel to different areas (worlds) of Donkey Kong Island, Candy Kong saving your progress, and Cranky Kong providing tips, comedy and head-canings, grumpy old ape that he is.

I remember having such a good time with this game. A couple of stages had interesting gimmicks (not a fan of the mine carts, but the stage with the On/Off switches and the zombie-like reptiles was cool). The inclusion of animal helpers was great (Rambi, Enguarde and Expresso have a dear place in my heart; Squawk and Winky, not so much). And there were so many secrets to uncover and ways to earn extra lives - enough hidden areas that the game actually goers beyond 100% and is properly "completed" at 103%, and there's balloon lives, the KONG letters and even animal tokens to collect. The last battle against K. Rool is especially noteworthy with its famous fake-out ending, where credits start rolling too early - then the crocodile gets back up and things get serious.

It's such a great game and I have a huge nostalgic connection to it. With the gift of hindsight, I can see how it set the tone for the Donkey Kong franchise as a whole - its comedic edge, a staple of Rare, would be a part of the following entries, up to and including Donkey Kong 64 and most of the studio's other projects. It's a classic, for good reason, and definitely a must-play.

Gaming Memories: WarioWare: Twisted!

The reviews I'm working on need a little more time, so I'm posting this instead today.

WarioWare: Twisted!

Game Boy Advance

Release date: May 23rd, 2005 (NA)

The WarioWare franchise started out a little kooky, with its unique concept of "microgames" (meaning mini-games so short they're completed in just a few seconds) and its cast of crazy characters. The very first game in the series, Mega Microgame$!, set the tone. It would become tradition for new entries to the series to introduce new characters (developers) and gimmicks, often basing their entire collection on said gimmicks.

Which takes us to Twisted, the first game in the series that I owned, also for the Game Boy Advance. I didn't cover this one in the early days of the blog; you'll see why soon. The cartridge, larger than normal, actually had a built-in gyro sensor. The sensor would calibrate upon the game being turned on, so that it would work no matter which type of GBA you owned (with a top slot for the regular GBA, or the bottom slot for an SP model, which is what I had).

The story here: Wario and Doctor Crygor end up inventing a strange Game Boy Advance that reacts to being tilted left and right... so Wario, true to form, decides to market the Heck out of it, even asking his crew to make new microgames using this new feature. Most, if not all, of the microgames involve tilting the console. Shave a guy by moving the razor around his face? Spin the console upside-down to drop a hat off a guy's head? Sure. Several games here also require pressing the A button. Notably, one "boss" (read: A longer microgame at the end of a stage) only asks you to turn the console on the side to play a shmup... against noses. This is one of only two games on the GBA to use a gyro sensor, the other being Drill Dozer.

I recall loving the weirdness of that one - then again, weird is just normal for WarioWare. But spinning the console? Yeah, that was especially bizarre. Later entries in the franchise would focus on the new Nintendo console's features, like the touch screen and microphone of the DS, the motion controls of the Wii, or the digital camera of the DSi. A new one is coming soon, focusing on the Switch's motion controls as well.

As for why I never covered this one in a full-length article? Well, that's because I didn't own it anymore. One day, I had friends come over and one of them brought some other guy we didn't really know. One of them had brought her games, including her own copy of this one; at the end of the day, she lost it. We genuinely believe it was stolen by the guy we didn't know. I gave her my copy. I'm pretty mad that it was stolen, but I did the right thing in the end. Let's just say I never allowed for +1s I didn't know at home from then on.

Gaming Memories: TMNT: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

One of the games I remember playing the most back on my physical NES. In part because I always wanted to see if I could go further than I did before.

The TMNT game for the NES home console is somewhat infamous for its high difficulty. Then again, a lot of games at the time were, though I always felt this one stood out in that discourse, as one of the examples being frequently given. The concept here is fairly simple: You play as Leonardo, Michaelangelo, Raphaello and Donatello as they attempt to stop another dastardly attack on New York City helmed by their forever enemy, Shredder, and his Foot Clan.

The Turtles wield their favorite weapons - katana, nunchakus, sai and bō, respectively. You can swap between brothers at will, but be careful - each one has a life bar and few ways to refill it. If a Turtle is down, good luck getting him back. There's also an obvious issue here regarding range; the turtles can only attack with their favorite weapon. Don and his bō are thus the best offensive option, just because you don't have to come into direct contact with an enemy to damage it. Next is Leo and his dual katana. Then come Mike and his pitiful nunchucks, and Raph and his even worse sai.

The game is famous for being difficult, but it bears noting that it's hard from the start. Sink or swim. Especially when the second mission comes around and there's the infamous underwater dam level with its electric seaweed. Every person who's played this game up to that point will rage, "Yes, the fucking seaweed level". And things don't let up in the third mission, a massive city with a labyrinthine sewer system and Foot tanks in the streets, which the Turtles' own tank cannot destroy except with missiles.

I remember eventually getting past that dam level, but never actually getting beyond the third mission. Its sheer length, coupled with the state my Turtles would normally be in by that point (again, DAM LEVEL), meant that I was never able to keep the four heroes alive long enough. Never saw what the fourth mission looked like. Not for lack of trying! But pizza slices (which heal the Turtles) get rare by then. On the plus side, it means Rocksteady and Bebop always got the beating they deserved. Shredder, that's a different story, alas.

Can't say TMNT is one of those franchises that I feel a lot for, but this game was a fine introduction. Probably would have enjoyed it more if I could have gotten further through. On the plus side, that I came back to it regularly to try and go a little further in means it did a couple of things right.

Gaming Memories - Super Mario Bros.

The big one!

Super Mario Bros.

NES

Release Date: October 18th, 1985

The game that kickstarted many a gamer, the game that's THE classic among a sea of classics. One of the original NES' most famous games, even packaged with it - a title that held, for a long time, the record of most-selling game of all time!

With the gift of hindsight and about 38 years since the release of this legend, Mario's first full platform game is... well, almost laughable. It's easy, fairly short as well, a ton of people know this one like the back of their hand. From the perspective of a child discovering gaming, like I was... Hell, this was pretty challenging! But because something is the first means it set the foundation for everything that came afterwards, so that Super Mario Bros. is simple is to its benefit. Built upon those very foundations would be the next Mario platformers. ....well... an extra-hard identical sequel, a reskin of a completely different game, and finally some new with SMB3, but still. It's to a point where we think more of this game for its mark on gaming history than as a game proper.

A small set of enemies, all of which have become mainstays of the Mario series - seriously, I can name them that easily. Goombas, Koopa Troopas and Paratroopas, Bullet Bills, Piranha Plants, Spinies, Lakitus, Buzzy Beetles, Hammer Bros., Cheep-Cheep, Bloopers, Fire Bars and Podoboos if you wanna include 'em, and of course big ol' Bowser. All icons in their own right. Mario AND Luigi playable, for those folks competing in two-player... Significant differences in the brothers' abilities wouldn't appear until The Lost Levels.

I played it every so often. I think it was a favorite of mine. Even at my young age at the time, this game's reputation preceded it. I think I actually had a version that had only this game on the cartridge, and a second version that included Duck Hunt. (I'll get to that one eventually.) Did I actually beat the game back when I owned it on a physical NES? ...I genuinely don't remember, to be entirely honest. Keep in mind that several of these memories are one to two decades old, so my memory may be hazy at times. But yeah, I can at least say that I experienced Mario's big outing, the game that made him famous in households after he was already famous in arcades.

Gaming Memories - Bubble Bobble

Gonna try something a little different. I've been seeing the gap between reviews get longer, and it's possibly going to get worse as the year goes, so I was thinking of making mini-articles about gaming memories. Games I either once owned and remember, or owned and barely remember. Since my next review might take a few more weeks to be finished, I figured this was a nice tradeoff. These won't be proper reviews, and will be more personal in nature. I'll start with...

Bubble Bobble

NES

Release date: November 1988

My proper introduction to gaming was a Nintendo Entertainment System I got off of a garage sale. The console and something like 14 games, for a measly 10 dollars (this was, I believe, in the late 1990s). Insane deal. I never ran that fast back home to get the money and buy it. On the plus side, this meant that I already had a bunch of games to choose from! On the other hand, this also meant I did not choose the games I started out with.

Bubble Bobble was among those starting games. More famous titles like Super Mario Bros. attracted my eye more, but I remember trying this one out every so often. Fun fact, the cartridge had a big ol' hole at the back. It affected only the back cover of the NES cartridge, so nothing else was affected; game still worked perfectly. Since I was a little kid and couldn't really work around screwdrivers and such, and did not know it was possible to replace pieces of a cartridge (as some helpful YouTube channels nowadays show), the cartridge remained with its hole all the way up to when I sold it away.

The game itself feels very much like an arcade title, though it has an end. 100 levels, all with enemies and different variations of screens, usually made up of mosaics (notably, some stages happen on mosaics representing enemies from the game). There's a handful of mechanics involving power-ups, collectible items with scores attached to them, and even some way to skip stages for the lucky few who can figure it out. On cheat code websites, every stage had its own code so you could resume playing wherever you were at. It goes all the way to a boss at the very end, which I don't recall ever beating on my own. This will be a recurring theme for these articles: Games that I failed to beat.

Overall, I do have pretty good memories of this one. I thought the little bubble dragons and the enemies were cute. I distinctly remember struggling in some stages, where the enemies were just too damn many, and other stages where the "mosaics", as I described them, basically blocked players and enemies alike and made it impossible to finish some levels, timer notwithstanding. I never legitimately got to the boss, either. I imagine it would take some pretty great skill to actually get through the 100 stages.

Anyhow, that's about it for this one. Tune in next time for another one!