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Double Dragon II: The Revenge (Evercade): COMPLETED!

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You know something? I’ve never been a big fan of Double Dragon. Sure, it’s OK. And yes, it’s one of the first arcade games I ever completed in an arcade (well, in a shed in a field), I don’t understand the reverence. It doesn’t have the fun of TMNT, or the style of Streets of Rage, or the depth of River City Ransom. But here we are.

The main reason for playing it was because my daughter wanted another two player game to play through after Wizard Fire and this was just there on my Evercade. Is it OK that she likes games where you punch people in the face? That’s fine, right?

So we played through it, used a billion credits on the end boss because that’s what happens in arcade games so they can extract the maximum number of ten pees from your pockets, and watched the ending. Hurrah?

Wizard Fire (Evercade): COMPLETED!

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The sequel to Gate of Doom, apparently. Well, it’s obvious when you play but not so much from the titles of the games. Although they’re called Dark Seal and Dark Seal II in some regions so I suppose that makes sense. It also doesn’t say “I’m the wizard!” any more, which instantly loses it a million points.

It is a bit better in terms of clunky-flickeryness, and the magic system is improved: Previously it seemed random which effect you’d get but now it appears to be linked to which character you choose. Gameplay is almost identical though, but levels are worse designed and the final few are just throw hundreds of baddies at you just to make you give up your (real) money. Ha ha suckers! I can just press Select!

We again played it in co-op, and enjoyed it a moderate amount, but it’s really not as good as other similar games.

Gate of Doom (Evercade): COMPLETED!

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“I’m the wizard!” it shouts as you choose to be the wizard when you start the game. Stupid, but it stuck in our house.

I wasn’t the wizard though, my daughter was. I was the knight. In this scrolling fighting game, not completely unlike Golden Axe or Gauntlet III, each character has different skills but as you die one hell of a lot regardless it doesn’t really matter that much. Yes, it’s a coin-muncher but as it’s on the Evercade the coins are simply pressing the Select button so it’s a bit cheaper that at the arcade.

Not that I ever played it at the arcade, because I’d never even heard of it until I saw it on this cartridge.

It’s OK. Very flickery, probably pushing the hardware a bit too much with the big sprites, but it’s mindless killing and there’s nothing wrong with that, right?

Tumblepop (Evercade): COMPLETED!

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I’d never played this before, but it’s a nice little arcade game in a similar style to Parasol Stars or Super Snow Bros – a single screen two player game where you clear out baddies by sucking them up into your hoover and then spitting them out before they escape.

It’s not very hard, nor is it very long, but it was fun and had some nice big bosses. It was probably made easier as I played it in co-op with my daughter, and of course being an arcade game you can just keep sticking virtual ten pees in until the end.

Quest Arrest (Evercade): COMPLETED!

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OK, the bad points out of the way with this first. The graphics are poor (yes, it’s a Game Boy Colour game, but still), the writing is awful and it is full of bugs. There’s no end of swearing which doesn’t even work in context, and the JRPG style fighting system is random and broken (not least because your health bar doesn’t physically change half the time, even though the value of it does). What you have to do is vague and often doesn’t make sense. Every time you change location it pauses the game and pops up to tell you where you are. There are spelling mistakes galore.

It very much feels like a “my first game” project by someone younger than the material they’re producing would be aimed at. It’s all f-this and kill that and murder the other without any of the dialogue to surround it.

It’s not big and it’s not clever, sorry.

But, if that is indeed the situation with its creation, then the output is laudable. There’s a lot going on here and although much of it is unsuccessful there’s a good base behind it. In fact, if the text was just edited well, perhaps made adult in context rather than adult in content, that would fix most of the issues I had with it.

Aside from that, the main aim of the game is to deal with (either kill or arrest) all of the members of some gang causing problems in the local area. Once you’ve done that, you can take down Athena, their boss, who is a badly signposted twist in the story. It’s a short game, and apart from the randomness and occasional inability to see what is a door and what isn’t, not especially hard. I just with it was a bit more toned down and polished.