Ufouria: The Saga/Hebereke (NES, 1991)
Graphics-8 Sound-8.5 Control-7.5 Challenge-7 Story-6
Level Design-6.5 Frustration-7.5 Fun-7 Originality-6
Overall Score-7
+
Map system (need to find a compass to see your position)
Switch between four different characters with unique abilities on the fly
Somewhat comical (quirky, scatological)
Great use of the sound chip
Good art direction overall (mainly the sprites)
Charge attacks
Metroid/Wonder Boy III-like gameplay
Fairly large game world for the time
Some large sprites (final boss)
Very little slowdown or flicker
Decent dialogue (some of the humour might not have carried over though)
Password save (only saves status, not location?)
Mini-bosses
Some sequence breaking possible (by switching between characters in mid-air)
Move while crouching (pointless?)
Some good bosses (knight cat, alien cat)
Wall climbing and swimming
Mine carts
+/-
Arrows tell you where to go at first (helpful but the sound is annoying and it's kind of obvious where you can't go anyway)
Insight item (shows where most other items (not medicine or keys) are on the map and is easy to find)
The map doesn't show detailed terrain/room architecture (only screen layout and locations of items plus the player avatar - adds some challenge in remembering the environments but can also lead to more backtracking)
Quite few places to refill your health (health drops are rare and don't refill much health)
-
A bit slow paced (ghost and dino move/jump slowly and need to be used, annoying stun animation after taking a hit)
No checkpoints? (start at the beginning after death but get to keep all items and characters)
Some backtracking (south western snow area)
One hit-deaths (lava and spikes in the mines)
Some tedious parts (getting up on a platform using jumping frogs as the ghost just to be stopped by a deep water section, mandatory 'bounce on enemies as the ghost'-section where it's pretty hard not to die and get sent back to the other side of the map, dark cave where you need to bomb through several walls in succession (bombing is a slow process))
Most items are placed where it doesn't feel particularly rewarding getting to them
Mostly samey and simple boss fights
Some graphics were censored for the western version (crows shit on you in the original)
Some trial & error (a few leaps of faith - can't look down, taking the quickest path, boss patterns, one way-doors teleporting you to the beginning of an area)
Some dead space (mainly underwater)
Some invisible walls at the edge of areas
The medicine item you're carrying disappears if you pick up another one (can't carry more than one medicine item at a time)
Some cheap hits when entering new rooms and when fighting the underwater mini-boss
Some environmental puzzles are spoiled by arbitrary text messages in-game
Mostly lacks challenging enemies
Long passwords
Somewhat bland backgrounds
So-so ending (short and re-uses the background from the intro)
Notes:
-Wall respawn bug: switch characters after bombing a wall and it respawns - this can make you get stuck inside a wall (though you can bomb your way out of it)
-'Good bad' bug: lets you use all characters' charge attack by only collecting one of them - switch character while charging
-sometimes the health bar disappears behind a background tile (emulation issue?)
Comment in Swedish:
Det här med envägsportaler jag inte vet vart de leder i förväg var inte så himla lyckat. Eller pop-ups som löste enviro-pussel åt mig innan jag ens börjat med dem. Eller att spelet gick direkt till en visserligen snyggt pixlad, men ganska enkel slutboss när jag väntat mig att det skulle lägga i en högre växel och stod redo med full hälsa vid det förmodade helvetets portar jag kämpat spelet igenom med att låsa upp.
Ögonblick som när jag upptäckte en sequence break eller såg spår av senare släppta Link's Awakening och Super Metroid i designen var trevliga, och fler spel borde låta en byta mellan karaktärer in-game för att låsa upp nya områden. Men jag blev sällan positivt överraskad bortom det audiovisuella efter spelets inledande område.
Så trots fin musik och delvis även grafik, en barnslig charm samt några för sin tid bra justeringar för bekvämlighetens skull (såsom kartan, kompassen och en kontroll över medel för 8-bitarsspel) kan spelet inte riktigt stå som ett fullgott alternativ till t.ex. Wonder Boy III eller Super Metroid. Har du spelat dem, samt Gargoyle's Quest II, Maze of Galious och Zillion så kan det dock vara värt en titt.
Level Design-6.5 Frustration-7.5 Fun-7 Originality-6
Overall Score-7
+
Map system (need to find a compass to see your position)
Switch between four different characters with unique abilities on the fly
Somewhat comical (quirky, scatological)
Great use of the sound chip
Good art direction overall (mainly the sprites)
Charge attacks
Metroid/Wonder Boy III-like gameplay
Fairly large game world for the time
Some large sprites (final boss)
Very little slowdown or flicker
Decent dialogue (some of the humour might not have carried over though)
Password save (only saves status, not location?)
Mini-bosses
Some sequence breaking possible (by switching between characters in mid-air)
Move while crouching (pointless?)
Some good bosses (knight cat, alien cat)
Wall climbing and swimming
Mine carts
+/-
Arrows tell you where to go at first (helpful but the sound is annoying and it's kind of obvious where you can't go anyway)
Insight item (shows where most other items (not medicine or keys) are on the map and is easy to find)
The map doesn't show detailed terrain/room architecture (only screen layout and locations of items plus the player avatar - adds some challenge in remembering the environments but can also lead to more backtracking)
Quite few places to refill your health (health drops are rare and don't refill much health)
-
A bit slow paced (ghost and dino move/jump slowly and need to be used, annoying stun animation after taking a hit)
No checkpoints? (start at the beginning after death but get to keep all items and characters)
Some backtracking (south western snow area)
One hit-deaths (lava and spikes in the mines)
Some tedious parts (getting up on a platform using jumping frogs as the ghost just to be stopped by a deep water section, mandatory 'bounce on enemies as the ghost'-section where it's pretty hard not to die and get sent back to the other side of the map, dark cave where you need to bomb through several walls in succession (bombing is a slow process))
Most items are placed where it doesn't feel particularly rewarding getting to them
Mostly samey and simple boss fights
Some graphics were censored for the western version (crows shit on you in the original)
Some trial & error (a few leaps of faith - can't look down, taking the quickest path, boss patterns, one way-doors teleporting you to the beginning of an area)
Some dead space (mainly underwater)
Some invisible walls at the edge of areas
The medicine item you're carrying disappears if you pick up another one (can't carry more than one medicine item at a time)
Some cheap hits when entering new rooms and when fighting the underwater mini-boss
Some environmental puzzles are spoiled by arbitrary text messages in-game
Mostly lacks challenging enemies
Long passwords
Somewhat bland backgrounds
So-so ending (short and re-uses the background from the intro)
Notes:
-Wall respawn bug: switch characters after bombing a wall and it respawns - this can make you get stuck inside a wall (though you can bomb your way out of it)
-'Good bad' bug: lets you use all characters' charge attack by only collecting one of them - switch character while charging
-sometimes the health bar disappears behind a background tile (emulation issue?)
Comment in Swedish:
Det här med envägsportaler jag inte vet vart de leder i förväg var inte så himla lyckat. Eller pop-ups som löste enviro-pussel åt mig innan jag ens börjat med dem. Eller att spelet gick direkt till en visserligen snyggt pixlad, men ganska enkel slutboss när jag väntat mig att det skulle lägga i en högre växel och stod redo med full hälsa vid det förmodade helvetets portar jag kämpat spelet igenom med att låsa upp.
Ögonblick som när jag upptäckte en sequence break eller såg spår av senare släppta Link's Awakening och Super Metroid i designen var trevliga, och fler spel borde låta en byta mellan karaktärer in-game för att låsa upp nya områden. Men jag blev sällan positivt överraskad bortom det audiovisuella efter spelets inledande område.
Så trots fin musik och delvis även grafik, en barnslig charm samt några för sin tid bra justeringar för bekvämlighetens skull (såsom kartan, kompassen och en kontroll över medel för 8-bitarsspel) kan spelet inte riktigt stå som ett fullgott alternativ till t.ex. Wonder Boy III eller Super Metroid. Har du spelat dem, samt Gargoyle's Quest II, Maze of Galious och Zillion så kan det dock vara värt en titt.