Okay, I know I’ve been promising Super Mario RPG for at least two months, but this entry on my celebration of the SNES is Run Saber, another fairly short action game. A pretty great action game, as well. I mean, its Strider. While it isn’t quite a 1 to 1 copy of that game, it is definitely more than just reminiscent of that Capcom’s classic. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, Run Saber is a copy of a pretty dang good game.

The story of the game is some generic sci-fi stuff. The Sabers are some sort of cyborg super soldiers, dispatched to deal with a mad scientist bent on conquering the earth, as well as a rogue saber. The player gets to choose between Allen, the male Saber with lightning powers, and Sheena, the female Saber with ice powers, or both if playing two players. It controls well, with the player given a decent array of moves. You can jump and attack, as well as use a screen clearing super attack. The player character is very mobile, able to climb walls and ceiling as well as perform a Mega Man like slide. It is a solid set up for a game.

It all plays out about the same way as Strider, with fast paced over the top action. The game has five fairly sprawling levels. The levels are more elaborate affairs than just going left or right, taking good advantage of the acrobatic skills to move the levels up and down and back and forth. The regular enemies aren’t particularly varied or numerous, but they are enough to keep the player busy. There are quite a few bosses, most of which look nice. I never really learned them, opting instead to cheese through with an emulator, but they provide new and interesting challenges. The boss of the first level takes place on top of a flying jet, with the player character hanging on for dear life as the plane flips and rolls.

The game looks good as well. Good, not great. The player’s sprites a big and colorful, but they seem to be lacking some animation. The animations they do have look good, but there are times when it seems like there should be more there than there is. The big one I am thinking of is the running animations, because there aren’t any. Double tapping one direction will set the player running that direction, but while the character goes faster the moving animation stays the same. It is disorienting.

In all, Run Saber is a lot of fun. It is clearly derivative, but it still possesses its own charm. It is also apparently the only output by its developer Horisoft, which is sad since this is a very solid first effort. I don’t really know where they could have taken Run Saber from here, other than to make it bigger and prettier, but gameplaywise this is about at the pinnacle of 2D action.

There is nothing less surprising than the reaction by the gaming press to a Nintendo release that experiments with motion controls. Most reviews were little more than tantrums, with the reviews coming off as spoiled toddlers crying about being told to eat a new kind of food. Not even vegetables, something that is not expected to taste good, more like a dessert that just happens to be green or something. Instead of considered evaluations of the game, I’ve seen a lot of kneejerk wailing and whining about motion controls. That being the subject of discussion is a disservice to the game that is Star Fox Zero.

With the Star Fox series, Nintendo seems to be stuck. They have an admirable yet disappointing refusal to just make Star Fox 64 again (except with Star Fox 64 3D, which was exactly that), which is what everyone wants. And they can’t quite figure out what to do with that series otherwise. It is worth noting that Star Fox Zero is only the fourth Star Fox game Nintendo has both developed and released. The original was perfected with 64, but after that the series ground to a halt. Ignoring the farmed out games, both of Nintendo’s Star Fox games have stuck tightly to the structure of SF64, but have experimented with controls. Many parts of Star Fox Command just didn’t work quite right, aside from the game having a story that was filled with batshit insanity. Star Fox Zero, once the player learns the controls, approaches Star Fox 64 in feel and quality.

The game doesn’t put its best foot forward. The first few stages are easily the game’s weakest. It is frontloaded with a couple of levels that use some of the game’s least fun vehicles. Aside from the Arwing, Star Fox Zero puts the player in control of the Landmaster, Gyrowing, and the Walker. Each one has different controls. For the most part adapting to each set of controls only takes a little bit of time, but the first few levels switch the player from Arwing to Walker and Gyrowing mid-mission, giving no time to learn them. The second and third levels can be extremely frustrating due to that, at least on the first time through. After that they work just fine.

While each of the vehicles is a fun time once learned, the game is at its best when it just lets the player fly the Arwing. Those portions are just as good as Star Fox 64. There are some changes, including a view mode that locks the TV on a target, making the player deal with a strange camera or play on the tablet using cockpit mode. It is awkward at first, but it soon feels, if not natural then just not particularly cumbersome. For the most part the Arwing missions, and to a slightly lesser extent the Landmaster ones, perfectly capture that joyous feeling of being in a Star Wars style dogfight.

Star Fox Zero is not a home run all-time classic like the best of Nintendo’s output, but it is still a solidly fun game. At its best moments it is on par with the untouchably good Star Fox 64. It is too bad the game is caught in that inescapable trap that the wider gaming community and Nintendo themselves have caught Nintendo in. The story goes that the WiiU is a failure because no one takes advantage of it dual screen set up. Except that when a game does, like Star Fox Zero or The Wonderful 101 or even Pikmin 3, the complaint is that the game uses both screens and has tied itself too closely to the WiiU hardware. There is nothing changing the narrative of the WiiU at this point, but the unrelenting negativity to one of the only companies that seems at all interested in moving games forward in some meaningful way is why I am feeling more and more disconnect with the medium at large. No, Star Fox Zero is not a perfect game, or even a great one, but it is damn fine game in a genre that doesn’t get much love these days that also tries to explore new ground with how games are played. I would much rather play it than yet another FPS.

Beaten

Mega Man Legacy Collection – Wrote about it here. The only game I beat was Mega Man 2, but I played some of all of them and got close to the end of Mega Man 3.

Star Fox Zero – review coming soon.

Ongoing

Super Mario RPG – Progress was made, a write up is coming. It is taking me way too long to beat what is a fairly short RPG. I am liking it much more than I expected and probably more than I would have if I had played it back in the day. It is definitely the odd duck when it comes to Mario’s forays into this genre.

Bravely Second – It is too early to say if this game has fixed the problems of the first title, since that game’s flaws did not become apparent until far into the game, but it has certainly retained the first game’s charms. It brought back the best characters from the first game, added some fun new ones and kept the spirit of adventure and job shenanigans. I am having a blast with this so far. It can be too chatty at times, and some of the new classes are strange, but I am liking it a lot.

Trails in the Sky – wrote about it here. I am done with this game for the foreseeable future, and likely with this series. I still hope they all get localized, but I am not particularly eager to play them.

Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse – I’m about halfway done, but I haven’t had the time I’ve wanted to play recently. I should have a write up before too long.

Enslaved Journey to the West – I haven’t played much more than the opening, but I think I am going to like this. It is so unlike everything else I’ve played on the PS3. It is colorful and fun.

Return to Popolocrois – I said I wasn’t going to rush through this game, and I am not. Especially since all of my 3DS time is now Bravely Second time. This game is still suffused with warmth and charm that few other games can touch, but that does not in itself make it a particularly compelling experience. Still, I am going to take this at a relaxed pace between tons of other 3DS RPGs this year and hopefully get it finished sometime.

Upcoming

Hyper Light Drifter – I got this for PC when I wanted it for WiiU. But WiiU was a dicey proposition, so I figured I would just take it on the platform I had. Since I’ve borrowed an Xbox controller from my brother to play it with, I hope to spend some time with it in the near future. So far all the Kickstarter games that I’ve gotten have been excellent; I hope this continues the trend.

Illusion of Gaia – This is the first game that I am playing for my 25 SNES project that I am actually playing on my SNES. It was more than a decade ago that I stumbled on this game at a garage sale. I hadn’t actually heard of it, but something made me determined to buy it. I’ve sat down with the intention of playing several times in the intervening years, but I’ve never gotten more than an hour into it. I have heard so many good things about it that I am not going to give up this time. It seems like the perfect early summer game, so I hope everything works out.

Sparkster – This is due up once I finish Super Mario RPG and Magical Quest. I expect to get to it before the end of the month and play it in conjunction with Illusion of Gaia. No promises.