Gallery: Year 1

Kuru Kuru Kururin

Developer: Eighting
Publisher: Nintendo
Release: 2001
Platform: Game Boy Advance
Genre: Puzzle

Summarizing Kuru Kuru Kururin as an anti-‘wire game’ (one where the wire itself navigates through passageways, not the other way around) could be a poor attempt at coining a lazy punch line, but not that far from the truth.

Eastern hardcore stuff as that may sound, it goes a long way in easing accessibility to players from any background—often through unexpected routes. The most superficial one—presentation—is nailed from the charming intro cutscene on; the nicely paved difficulty ramp is very well thought, such as the almost completely self-explanatory level design, which demands mastering techniques at a good pace. Other solutions merge with the gameplay unusually well, like the ‘wire’ (an Arkanoid-esque ship, actually) shortening in easy mode in order to keep the carefully put together hazardous environments intact.

But it’s in its simple yet clever control scheme where Kuru Kuru Kururin truly shines. If the task of controlling the ship alone wouldn’t require anything other than the very D-pad (rendering a plethora of extra buttons useless) on the other hand the same GBA D-pad had an inherent built-in issue: not being analog. So this was one of those “a good idea is something that can rather solve multiple problems at once” (quoting Miyamoto’s later statement for the ages) cases, and Eighting delivered: the A and B buttons were used for an incremental speed control, creating another quasi-analog mechanic that made up for the lack of a proper input.

The ship's auto-spin must be used in favor of traversing the environment

As with other Japanese games/tech from the early 00s (Sega’s swan song, the Dreamcast, as an unbeatable example) Kuru Kuru Kururin was a bit too ahead of its time for its own good: the perfect platform for it, the mobile market, was still toddling around at the time. But it still holds up quite well today, even within its elegant limits.

Nervous Brickdown

Developer: Arkedo Studio
Publisher: Eidos Interactive, Success Corporation
Release: 2007
Platform: Nintendo DS
Genre: Breakout clone

“Rise of indies” era games often suffered from the “pre-casual market” syndrome: they usually had the potential to appeal to wider audiences due to their out-of-the-box thematics, artsyles, content, etc. but usually missed the mark because their developers’ classic hardcore mindset was still there when it came to structuring gameplay flow. Gorgeous and human as Braid is, funny and intuitive as World of Goo is, even such games couldn’t possibly be “beaten” by casual players on their own traditional “progress” terms.

The talented guys behind Arkedo Studio could easily fit that classification, and Nervous Brickdown is a classic debut case on the matter.

Presentation is solid in both graphics and sound fronts, and their gimmicky, idiosyncratic twists in the ol’ Breakout formula inform/get informed by the artstyle in a pleasant, organic feedback loop. But the traditional game design rules start to get in the way when they throw more and more tricky situations even when the physics can’t quite cope with the custom bat made by the player with the stylus, or when the mic isn’t a reliable input for controlling the ball by blowing gusts of wind into the play field.

Most of those are passable issues, but the final world (properly called “Retro”) takes away any chances of a persevering casual gamer beat the game. Soon enough the double-pad independent control in the touch screen coupled with a platform game running in the upper screen AT THE SAME TIME will exhaust—if not give a stroke to--even seasoned players.

It surely looks the part, but you better get a friend and an extra stylus if you want to beat this.

Arkedo’s subsequent game, Big Bang Mini, is a better rounded attempt in mashing new gameplay concepts and a more lighthearted presentation together—in fact it’s much more unique mechanics-wise—but it’s still far from being “casually beatable”. Not to say that Arkedo itself messed up, but it was—like pretty much everyone else at the time—mired in the conundrums of its era.

Wario Land II

Developer: Nintendo R&D1
Publisher: Nintendo
Release: 1998
Platform: Game Boy, Game Boy Color (played)
Genre: Platform

It was rare to see games giving the possibility of letting some useless archaic score system out some thought in 1998 (for certain genres it’s still true today), let alone ditching death altogether; but Wario Land II did exactly that when digging deeper towards the identity of a recently-born series—and helped the whole genre to expand while at it.

Of course, it was a bit early for targeting some “casual player” demographics, so removing death didn’t end up making the task of completing the game any easier. Setbacks take some of the only thing that really appeals to Wario—namely, money—and that can get to frustrate the player too since collectibles are locked behind paid minigames, and reaching a well-hidden treasure room deep into a mazy level without the resources to tackle it can make the softhearted more empathetic.

Anyways, annoying as they can be, paywalls here testify in favor of the developers when it comes to a rare case of making a character’s background really spring to life through gameplay itself, not only being used for generic contextualization—that’s true on Wario’s greediness overflowing into the player, and even more about his badassery keeping him from dying (and making Mario pale in comparison as a bonus).

Found a treasure? Pay for it!

Another bold decision was to evolve tested and proven power-ups (usually sported in the form of “outfits” in the Land series) into a new “state” system. Wario itself is modified by certain conditions—like being burnt, turned into a zombie, or simply getting fatter after having a piece of cake thrown at him—that can offer him new ways to reach otherwise-forbidden areas within the levels. Beyond their original simply humorous take, such mechanics made room for even more experimentation on the gameplay side.

Unfortunately the crammed tiny screen generated some innate overly-punishing hit detection—and those moments coupled with some small bad design here and there keep Wario II from being a better rounded game than its predecessor. But when it comes to innovation it’s a terrific blueprint for entries to come—or platformers all around for that matter.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate

Developer: MercurySteam
Publisher: Konami
Release: 2013
Platform: Nintendo 3DS
Genre: Metroidvania

Being a Nintendo portable spin-off of the high-end Castlevania subseries Lords of Shadow, Mirror of Fate is a beast of its own. High production values are crammed into the 2.5D metroidvania layout, as the traditional tactical/exploratory gameplay is overruled by some straight-forward action. Anyways, throughout the game its pros and cons come from the same place: a cinematic approach.

It brings an unprecedented (in Nintendo platforms, mind you) level of gore and horror to the series, and its flair for spectacle delivers. Regular skirmishes are as satisfying as bosses ones, the camera ensuring you’ll get the best seat while at it; the same goes for presenting new environments or showing off the gorgeous, eerie vistas—especially when strolling outside the castle.

Unfortunately its metroidvania-for dummies (or God of War players) level design has nothing of “Mature” in it and would serve a younger audience better. So would do the Quick Time Events triggered in certain situations, the player helplessly travelling back to 1983 for an involuntary taste of Dragon’s Lair.

And the double-edged sword thrusts on. Almost an interactive movie as it is, lore and fan service go terribly well together—while the same can’t be said about the controls, for the sake of not dropping presentation (and a few animation frames in the process) over gameplay.

Cutscenes are beautiful and work well due to running on the game's engine--but with cel-shaded textures.

Ups and downs here and there, the real game breaker still stems from that very same root. Bosses battles are preceded by seamless cutscenes, and even though they pump the upcoming battle up they grow plainly annoying over fail-and-repeat. Worse, they are unskippable. Worser, they can even glitch in preventing you from reaching areas where you fought a boss before, thus rendering a proper completion status unattainable without starting a new game—with the very same unskippable cutscenes along the way.

The later patchable HD version can rid it of some bugs, but not of the breed of such diverse creatures.

CRUSH3D

Developer: Zoë Mode
Publisher: Sega
Release: 2012
Platform: Nintendo 3DS
Genre: Puzzle

Shovelware probably was the biggest adverse effect from Nintendo’s Blue Ocean strategy of expanding videogames demographics beyond known frontiers in the Wii era. Akin to Atari’s (and thus everyone else’s) crash in the 80s it still was lucky enough to get away with it (sorta) due to the inability of that very audience in distinguishing gourmet from junk. Having nothing to do with it, CRUSHED suffered some collateral damage in that scenario.

After putting a small amount of time into it CRUSH3D’s personality starts to come through naturally since its plot, dialogue and game design testify a team of thoughtful developers behind it. Unfortunately it painted itself in a corner when picking up some a-bit-too-generic art style for dressing it all. Despite being likeable (and even cohesive) the trendy models/palette possibly sent the wrong messages for both casual and hardcore audiences—that it was an easy time killer to the first and cheesy to the later. That’s a real shame; it’s neither.

I personally like it, but still could see it coming.

The “crush” mechanic of shifting 3D levels to 2D back and forth was novel in the first PSP iteration—and it makes a lot more sense in 3DS’s 3D display—but it’s not only about gimmickry: level design is smart, challenging and satisfying.

Not that it hasn't its share of downsides. At times it may communicate shadily when it comes to surmountable walls, for instance; or crank the knob too high when ramping the difficulty; but CRUSH3D is meatier and more solid than anyone would expect from seeing its cover in shop shelves.

Kirby & the Amazing Mirror

Developer: HAL Laboratory, Capcom, Flagship, Dimps, Arika
Publisher: Nintendo
Release: 2004
Platform: Game Boy Advance
Genre: Metroidvania

Picture yourself playing Metroid. You dig down through a big deal of planet, surviving tricky menaces along the claustrophobic way, until you hit a missile hatch sealing the path. That’s when you realize you need to get back to grab some since you could only carry one equipment at a time, and you’ve chosen the Morphing Ball. In a less dramatic and more colorful way, that happens a lot in Kirby & the Amazing Mirror.

Of course, the backtracking is diminished by the very enemies you find getting to places since Kirby’s copycat ability can be put to use at (almost) any time, but needed abilities are often too far for bothering—or you can easily get lost in the pure chaos of the world’s map and don’t even know how to get back.

Anyways, that’s part of the problem of a Kirby built from ground up to be a multiplayer experience. There is a clever “cellphone” system (with battery life and all) for making it up to a lonely player—it allows you to call reinforcements in the form of other kirbies—but the friendly AI is too dumb to rely on. That can render particularly frustrating moments when it comes to simple environment puzzles like standing on a button to open a door or helping moving a heavier stone, for instance.

Bosses pose a decent challenge to a lone wolf as well, and the final boss stretch is borderline absurd. Kirby’s unruly physics don’t add up well either—he can even climb ramps faster than he threads regular terrain—and the short (at start) health bar bring the Zelda syndrome up (that meaning “dying happens more in the beginning than towards the end”).

But Kirby is charming as hell, and the presentation delivers that in spades. One of the best pixel work to ever grace GBA can be found here (despite the heavy slowdowns when the screen gets busy), and that’s no small feature given the competition.

SNES³

In the end this Kirby should be approached more like an adventure sandbox than a proper action platformer. It just doesn’t go that well when it takes itself too seriously.