Game #008 | CRYSTALIS Review (1990) | Beaten

 

CRYSTALIS (April 13, 1990)

Genre: JRPG

Platforms: NES

Developer: SNK

Publisher: SNK

Started: September 7, 2022

Finished: September 9, 2022

Beaten: YES

Playtime: 14 hours

(Score on the spreadsheet) 

Crystalis is an Action RPG / Action Adventure game that initially released on April 13, 1990 in Japan for the NES. It was re-released for the Game Boy Color 10 years later and it's celebrated by many for being an "underappreciated NES gem". 

The NES version is the one I played, and there are major differences in both versions in case you want to try it yourself. The Game Boy Color version has an almost completely new soundtrack that is worse in my opinion (1), from what I've seen it plays less fluidly and has lower resolution (2), a story sequence was altered (3) but most importantly, the Game Boy Color version is actually way more helpful in guiding the player and actually explains to you what the story is about (4).

STORYTELLING

So what do I mean by that last sentence? Well the issue I had with the NES version was that apart from a very brief introduction to the world in the menu screen, there was just about no explanation as to who you are or why you are fighting all these monsters and doing what these people told you to do. Every hour or two you'd get a line or so of information on what this game is about, but nothing substantial up until the end of the game, where all info would be dropped at once. 

In the GBC version, there is a much longer intro sequence explaining why you were summoned and what the lore behind all those items and people is that you find and meet. Every time you find a useful item, one of the characters also would show up to tell you what it can do. Plus, characters also tell you a bit more about what to do next and there are much more intermissions filled with monologues on this world and its lore. Due to the other differences I listed which I actually dislike compared to the NES version, I still am glad I stuck with the NES version I guess.

So what's the story about? You play a hero that you name and that has been frozen in time for 100 years after a war in 1997 nearly meant the end of civilization. The survivors decided to abandon the ways and technology that led to this war and created a floating Tower, where they would live, gain power to control the world (to make sure no harm was done anymore) and to study the ways of magic. You and a companion of yours, Mesia, are now awakened 100 years after the war because an evil magician called Dragonia used his abilities to grow in power and fill the land with Monsters, to ultimately enter the Tower and control everything that is left of the planet.

Four magicians that will become your helpful companions in this world used their abilities to create four Swords of different elements. They used these to attack Dragonia, but he was able to take the Swords from them and scatter them throughout the land. With no additional way of defending themselves through magic, a safety put into place 100 years ago for a worst case scenario triggers and awakens both you and your companion Mesia. What you have to do now is find all four swords, which form the ultimate sword called "Crystalis", and use it to kill Dragonia and end his reign of power.

Throughout your journey, you meet these magicians and can use a skill called "Telepathy" to request hints from them. There are other characters as well that aid you in your quest, like the fisher that lets you use his boat if you find an item of his. There is also a guy called Kensu, who does help you out a lot but loves to play hide and seek and must be found many times to finally give you what you need. 

In the NES version, you speak the absolute minimum with all of these characters, but in the GBC version, there is a lot more dialogue and detail to the lore. Since I played the NES version and won't play through the GBC version, I'm going to rate the NES version, which has none to little storytelling for most of the game, and not finding out the true reason for what you are doing for a long time isn't that motivating. It kinda pays off in the end though. There aren't that many twists and turns in this game, there is little environmental storytelling and overall, the package present here is average.

GAMEPLAY

As per usual for the time, gameplay interruptions are rare, so the action is pretty much constant. You start the game by gaining the Sword of Stone and you play the game by attacking the many different monsters with a thrust attack. Most of the enemies don't attack back but rather either walk in a pre-determined direction or into you, which damages you. Unfortunately, the enemies usually have a pretty tight hit box, so you have to do some positioning beforehand before you attack. It's not rare for you to do a 360 spin to try and position yourself in a way that opens up an attack for you without exposing you for damage by the enemies. Your hitbox sadly is much larger than it should be, so even if your character isn't actually touched, you will still take damage. This can become frustrating over the first couple hours as you try to figure out where the game wants you to attack from, but once you figure it out, it works most of the time as you want it to.

There are four swords of different elements to find in the game, and as a result, monsters with resistances and weaknesses to specific elements. While this is a good thing as it brings variety to the fold, it happens often that a room has two enemies with different resistances. Since there are no hotkeys, I would find myself equpping the Sword of Fire, killing an enemy, equipping the Sword of Water, killing an enemy and so on. This would not only throw me out of the action but also quickly become tiresome. 

In addition, some enemies cannot be harmed at all until you reach a certain level. Worse even, bosses have the same effect. How does level 11 make you able to attack a character when level 10 means they are invincible? I don't know. But imagine my frustration when I tried my luck at a boss for 20 minutes, only to fail with each element because of a level difference. "Kill it with fire", a guide online said, which I used lavishly, though not only due to combat questions. When fire didn't work as well, I looked it up further. Turns out, I really had to be level 11 to hurt the boss, but my save state was right at the boss fight, so I couldn't back out. Luckily, I had a back up state from 30 minutes before, because otherwise that would have probably been the end of my run. 

Leveling becomes harder and harder because the XP requirements grow exponentially, whilst I found that the XP you get by later enemies wouldn't increase quite as fast. This meant I had to grind for 30-60 minutes at multiple points to progress further, which even the most skilled walkthroughs incorporate online. Grinding has seemingly become a core feature of JRPGs since, and it's no more fun here than it is in Final Fantasy games for example, though at least here you don't have to load in and out of battles. 

Dying in this game is very easy and checkpoints do not exist, so you have to save often to be able to actually beat this game. By now I'm used to it having played a bunch of other games from 1990 with similar requirements, but it's worth pointing out. 

The game has a lot of different environments to explore, but often it requires you to do the same thing, just with a different element. There is however a snow area for which you will need Rabbit Shoes to be able to jump up a hill and most notably, there is a poison swamp, for which you will need to find a Gas Mask to not take damage from the poison. 

Unfortunately, when I say "explore", I mean that you usually try to find a way forward and battle enemies. You do have to find "lost items" here and there, bring it back to someone and get something in return that enables further progress, however it's not like these items are shown anywhere on the map. A pendant for example is in a random spot in a cave and you find it by accident when walking over that exact pixel. There are some non-essential items to find, like healing herbs or teleportation boots, and secret locations to find those in.

Overall, gameplay is repetitive and exploration opportunities are limited, but it's enjoyable enough due to enough enemy variety and the core combat being fine once you figure out how to not take unfair hits all the time.

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE

There is no voice acting. The sound design is good, but nothing special. You hear the same sounds in dozens of other RPGs or Action Adventures from that time.

The music is really good, but this compliment is only for the NES version. The overworld theme simply sounds fun, cheerful and catchy. My favorite track has got to be on the "sea" level. An above average soundtrack that can definitely be listened to outside of the game.

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN 

The game has solid graphics for the time and makes good use of color, but doesn't stand out beyond that at a time filled with games that look similar. There is a good variety in locations and especially the poison swamp is worth pointing out here again, but the majority of the game does take places in same-looking dungeons that simply use a different color based on the pre-dominant element. 

ATMOSPHERE

The game mostly has a cheerful atmosphere in line with a lot of upbeat music, but it sometimes contrasts with the events in the game, like when the people of Leaf <spoiler>are kidnapped and you wander the desolate town with the same cheerful music as per usual</spoiler>. Even during the moments leading to the game's final battle it still felt too cheerful and sort of out of place due to the stake's involved per the game's storytelling. That said if you're looking for something to play that may have raised stakes but a more lax soundtrack, you'll be happy with Crystalis.

CONTENT

The game does take 10+ hours if you use guides here and there and are a first time player, but a few of those hours are spent grinding and you do hold the "attack" button for most of it. If you enjoy that, you'll probably enjoy your time with this game, which even with that playing time is much shorter than the RPGs of its time and therefore may be worth a try at least.

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN

The game plays rather linearly even though you can visit multiple locations at once. If you do visit those locations, you usually can't hurt the enemies, so there is no point to deviate from the main road. That main road involves doing the same thing usually and often walking through the same-looking corridors that simple have a different coat of paint. There is variety in locations here and there and the sea level offers a unique battleground at least. The final few locations are also much more unique in design, but the way the final chapter is designed is not necessarily my cup of tea, as it's boss fight after boss fight after boss fight until you meet the final boss, but wait, it's not the final boss, here he is, the end. 

CONCEPT/INNOVATION

Most of what this game does has been done before this game came out and not all it does ages well. It's a good game for mixing these elements together and making this an enjoyable adventure overall, but I wouldn't say it set a new benchmark or brought anything new to the table, though its graphics were praised at the time along with the "depth", as in how much there is to do. As mentioned previously, some of the depth is stuffed with repetitive filler and therefore not simply a positive, unless you really are enamored with all core concepts here and don't want the game to end.

REPLAYABILITY

After a first playthrough, there isn't much that you can really do differently. 

PLAYABILITY

The game works perfectly fine at all times and plays pretty fluidly.

OVERALL

This is a solid Action RPG / Action Adventure with very catchy music, varied environments and mostly enjoyable, though flawed combat. It's definitely worth taking a look at if you've enjoyed similar games like Zelda games or Final Fantasy, but it lacks depth and logic to its storytelling even when it does get going late into the game, key items are placed in arbitrary locations making progress very difficult and tedious without a guide and there is a lot of mandatory grinding required.

WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME

• Martin Alessi for Electronic Gaming Monthly, Issue 13 (Aug 90): "A post-apocalyptic storyline with cinema displays mixes with one of the best search, solve and save the world games in recent memory."
• Chris Bieniek for VG&CE, Issue 20 (Sep 90): "the main thing that sets this title apart from most other [RPGs] is its tremendous depth. I've never seen a game with so many places to explore"

NEW! - The Video Game Magazine Round-Ups

Hello gamers,

today I'm happy to announce that new kind of content will be posted on this blog on a bi-weekly basis or so. I call it the "Video Game Magazine Round-Up".

For every month that I pass in my challenge, based on the release dates of the games I'm playing, I will look through a few magazines of that month thanks to retromags.com and do a round-up of everything interesting that I find.

The goal with this is not only to dive into video game history together and get reviews and opinions by writers from that time period on these games that I'm playing today, but to also allow you to get an idea on what video gaming was like at the time that the game I'm playing at any given moment was released.

The round-ups will include magazines like the Video Games & Computer Entertainment, GamePro, Electronic Gaming Monthly and many more. For legal reasons I will give short write-ups of what each article talks about instead of putting pictures on here. You can find the full magazines through Retromags, which I will link in each round-up post.

I hope you are intrigued about this new kind of content coming to TGBProject, stay tuned for the first iteration to release very soon! :)

GAME #007 | ELVIRA: MISTRESS OF THE DARK Review (1990) | Not Beaten

  

ELVIRA: MISTRESS OF THE DARK (March, 1990)

Genre: Adventure, RPG

Platforms: Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, MS-DOS

Developer: Horror Soft

Publisher: Accolade

Started: September 7, 2022

Finished: September 7, 2022

Beaten: NO

Playtime: 4 hours

(Score on the spreadsheet) 

Elvira: Mistress of the Dark is an adventure game / RPG developed by Horror Soft and released by Accolade in March 1990 for the Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64 and MS-DOS. It is named after the movie that released in 1988. A sequel was released in 1992, which already gives us a hint that this game must have done alright commercially.

And sure enough, the reception for this game was very good. On Wikipedia you won't find a score below 4 stars or 81% and it received the Computer Gaming World RPG of the Year Award for 1991. Not sure why it won a year later, but know that the competition wasn't light at the time.

In Elvira: Mistress of the Dark, we play, well, ourselves, called upon by Elvira to prevent her great-great grandmother Emelda's return from the dead. The game plays in a castle and has multiple elements. It is part point & click adventure with its typical verb-interface (open, unlock, look in), part action game with real time combat and part horror game as it uses a lot of gore and has some scary surprises in store overall.

If you don't know Elvira, as a non-American I didn't before today (though her style does look familiar), she is a character portrayed by Cassandra Peterson and was most popular in the 80s. She is most known for her gothic, cleavage-showing wardrobe and her edgy humor. 

I checked out the movie before playing and thought it was a funny movie, though a lot of gore and horror is present in it, so I wasn't sure what to expect with this game. Sure enough, it's a lot of tense, creepy horror interspersed with Elvira's edgy humor.

In the game, you control your character by clicking forward, turn right, turn left or turn around. Whenever an enemy approaches, you start in attack mode and have to click LUNGE / HACK to strike. Depending on a variety of stats and some RNG, your strike hits or is blocked. If you hit, often you get a second attempt (again, depending on your stats vs the enemies) but if you are blocked, you go over to Defense Mode and have to BLOCK / PARRY. 

But let's dive deeper into that whilst we go through each category in more detail.

STORYTELLING

You start the game by moving two steps forward before being arrested. In a humorous little scene, your character is in his dark prison cell as light shines in and the characters jaw DROPS. In comes Elvira, and she quips that you were sent to save *her*, but instead she is saving you. She brings her to her room in this castle, in which she is a prisoner. Her great great grandmother Emelda is about to awaken from the dead, so you have to help prevent that from happening. 

Elvira then is found in a kitchen where she can mix spells for you, she can also climb into a little hole if you find her some light for that and there are a variety of other things that she does / expects you to do, but most of the time, she is not gonna be on screen. She is pretty much her witty self from the movies and TV shows and it works well.

Then there is the guy who arrested you, who seemed to be on drugs or something, and later an old woman who takes over the kitchen, meaning you have to "scare her off", otherwise Elvira will not mix any more spells for you. 

Depending on how you stand on her edgy humor and a horror story like this one, this might work or it might not. It's not particularly advanced story telling and most of the game is spent in combat or exploration, with some environmental storytelling as well to be fair. There isn't that much here overall, but it's solid.

GAMEPLAY

Combat took a while to get used to, especially defense. Your enemy reaches back for a swing for a second before striking to your left or your right. From what I figured out, BLOCK or PARRY is assigned to one side during a specific fight, so when he attacks left, you BLOCK for example. However, I believe stats matter here too and sometimes, I would click it too early or too late and the swing would hit me anyway. Considering that you have 99 LIFE to start, you can lose it all rather quickly, especially because the tougher enemies can be found very early on. But the game has a real time combat system that was uncommon for the times and even if it isn't great, it's still unique.

This means that the entire game is filled with trial and error moments that you will die to dozens, if not hundreds of times. Make sure to save often. 

The rest of the game is puzzle solving and exploration. For example, outside in the garden area, a man stands with a bird on his arm. When you get too close, the bird jumps into air and flies at you. Within this time, you have to figure out how to defeat it. Turns out, there is a very specific way to beat it, and if you don't have the item, a bolt, go and find it. The game doesn't indicate that you need it though, but this is one of the easier "puzzles" to solve. Problem is, your aim is terrible, so you can't hit it. What do you do now? The manual has a tip regarding that if you're stumped, but even though the answer is very "game-y", it kinda makes sense.

Many puzzles are like that. Often they do make sense and you'll get them eventually. The problem is, figuring out where item A is to use it with item B to get the wanted result can take a long time and will involve a lot of dying. Considering your life points are rather low, even saving a lot will still mean losing a lot of time to find this random item. Games back in the day did this a lot I notice to add an additional "challenge" for people looking to complete games, so you probably will either have to use a guide or look for hours and get lucky. Not the most fun.

To complete puzzles and for combat purposes, you have an inventory and can drag and drop items in and out of it. The manual says that you have a lot of space and shouldn't be shy when picking things up, however there are a lot of necessary items to collect and going over the invisible quota happened quicker than I would have liked. If you are over encumbered for too long, you become too tired and the game ends, so it's actually important to pay attention. Luckily you can simply drop items anywhere and then pick them up later. But there's a lot of inventory management without a lot of "reliable" management to be done. 

Plus, there is a kitchen where Elvira mixes you spells, but once you visit and exit for the first time, the kitchen is blocked by an old lady and you need to find an item later to get her out. Until then, no spells. That means you shouldn't go there for a while, but if you don't, you gotta keep the ingredients in your inventory, which means you have to manage dropping them somewhere and getting back to them later. There is some strategy involved here, but to me it wasn't the most fun. 

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE

There is a little line by Elvira when she first talks to you, but it's not even linked to what she is actually saying, so it's not much more than a noise and not worth discussing. 

The sound design is solid. From the sound of swords clashing to the sound of enemies shouting when being hit (though the sound is the same for both man and monster), not to mention the sound when you beat a sharp wooden stick into the chest of a vampire with a hammer, the sound design works well in line with the game's atmosphere. 

The real highlight of this game though is its soundtrack (for the Amiga version). There are three or four tracks that you hear based on the location you are in and all set the mood perfectly. The track in the garden especially I could definitely listen to outside of the game. The music is creepy, unsettling truly does the most work to make this game feel like a horror game. I can recommend a listen.

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN

Oh man, what can I say here? I think it's safe to say that this game is one of the bigger gore-fests of its time. The first character you meet that imprisons you for example has no pupils. Or the first time you are in combat, you realize that whenever the enemy's health depletes, cuts in his chest become visible. But that's the harmless stuff. 

Because whenever you die, your character's demise is shown in very graphic ways. When the bird manages to kill you, it takes your eyeballs and you see your character in that particularly gruesome image. When a vampire bites you, you have bite marks in your head. When the old lady gets her hands on you, your head ends up swimming in a cooking pot. There are many more unique ways you die and even the most basic death is hard to look at, not to mention that your character is bloodied in every scene.

ATMOSPHERE

The grotesque design mixed with the tense music and the appearance of a bunch of in-theme characters make this one of the more atmospheric games of 1990. 

CONTENT

If you know what to do, this game takes a bit over an hour. If you don't, you'll probably be busy closer to 10 if you use guides sparingly. 10 hours will be filled with a lot of reloading and guessing on which way to go in which order, in addition to inventory management, so a shorter length or a bit less complexity in the level design would have done this game good I think. 

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN

As I mentioned, the design is too complex at times and a lot of it has to do with the dungeon (here: castle) being small overall, but filled with enemies that are too strong at pretty much every second door, meaning you will go into the wrong direction or enter the wrong room on a very regular basis. 

CONCEPT/INNOVATION

The amount of gore present here is certainly noticeable and I'm gonna say it's unlikely that there were many other games like this back in the day where you had so many different ways of seeing your character's death. If you enjoy horror games, this definitely pushed the scene in the right direction, but if you're in it for the RPG mechanics, it'll probably not be as welcomed. 

REPLAYABILITY 

Once you have finished the game, there is some replayability in approaching puzzles slightly differently or of course trying to beat your previous time (or limiting the amount of reloads), but generally the game is fairly linear in how to solve things.

PLAYABILITY 

The game is perfectly playable.

OVERALL

The focus on puzzles in addition to the RPG mechanics present in this game make for awkward gameplay mix. If you're a fan of one genre but not so much of the other, this will probably be off-putting to both fronts. If you enjoy both genres however and don't mind experiencing how a mix between the two would work, and especially if you don't mind but rather welcome the horror elements in this game - which set a great atmosphere - you'll likely enjoy the game for what it's worth, however the complexity and the reliance on save states may be frustrating to you. 

WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME

• Leah Wesolowski for Computer Gaming World Issue 82 (May 91): "these images are simply not acceptable for two-year-olds" (in reference to the gory scenes) | No shit, Leah.

The "TGB" Challenge Moves On To 1991 - Here Are My Plans

Hey everyone,

Mr. Kane here, checking in. I've just put my Steam Deck down for the last time for games released in 1990, as ACTRAISER signifies the end of our, checks notes, 159-hour journey through games released in 1990. 

There was plenty of bad and mediocre, plenty of good and even some all-timers included in this batch, and I'm looking forward to diving into that in another post soon. In that post, I will list my Top 5's for both Best and Worst Games I've played all year, plus give out a bunch of different Awards as well, which I hope to make a tradition whenever a year's worth of games is completed.

The challenge is now ongoing for over 3 months, and in this time I've learned plenty about how I want the challenge to proceed from here on out. I wanted to use this post now to go through what exactly I have learned and what I'm planning on doing with the start of 1991. 

• I had a hard time deciding how exactly to review the games. Do I go for a traditional review that is not divided into "chapters/segments" but rather tries to talk about each aspect of a game fluently? Do I try to do some quick "to the point" reviews so that people can quickly grasp whether I enjoyed the game and whether they themselves would enjoy it as well? Or do I want to talk about each category of mine individually in order to discuss each game as thoroughly as I can? I've tried out all of these methods for the 35 games I played and reviewed so far, but I think from here on out, I'm going to stick with talking about each category individually. You want to know about the story? Read the story part to get a deeper look into it. You want to know about the gameplay? Check the gameplay category. You get the idea. I think this will work well, especially if I attempt to be more detailed in each category I cover. 
• From July 1991 on out, I will have a feature that will appear once every 1-2 weeks, where I will go through 3 gaming magazines from that time and talk about games that are reviewed and topics that I find interesting. This way, those of you who are as clueless about gaming history as me (or were born after 1991, also like me) can enjoy finding out how the gaming landscape looked like at the time. And those who lived it can reminisce about the past. I think this will be a fun little feature. The three magazines I have selected for 1991 after Electronic Gaming Monthly (1), GamePro (2) and Video Games & Computer Entertainment (3). 
• There have been multiple weeks where pretty much all games I played were bad. These "runs of misery" as I'd like to call them didn't leave me burned out, yet, however I did realize that playing a lot of these games doesn't really offer me, you nor this whole challenge anything of substance. A bad game is a bad game, and it's the worst kind if it isn't at least hilariously bad at the same time. But many of these games I played during these "runs of misery" were just a slog to go through. For example, from October 7th to October 20th, I've played 7 games. None of these received a rating higher than 54 from me, and the only one that got the 54 was Michael Jackson's Moonwalker, a game that received this rating more for its presentation than its gameplay. And this run included some big time stinkers like The Amazing Spider-Man for GameBoy, The Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout and Skate or Die 2. What I'm trying to say is, if games stink and they don't really try to move the needle in any way, then I don't have much reason to play them.
• Continuing on from my last point, I have therefore decided to narrow down the types of games I will play for this challenge. There will be plenty of bad games to rant about still, I'm sure, but if I stumble upon games in my spreadsheet or on the magazines that we will go through that barely have any views on YouTube, that barely have user reviews on sites like Grouvee or Backloggd, that simply do not look at all like a game I would enjoy or that look very much like games I've already played plenty of times ... well, then I will remove these games from the spreadsheet. Doing this, I have reduced the 1991 play-list from 107 games to just 50. This will still cover the year very well I think and also will allow us to move through the years quicker and get to those classics that I am so anxiously anticipating to experience.

As we go further into this challenge, I might start doing YouTube playthroughs or reviews of some of the games I play, but that is something I haven't decided upon yet. For now, I want to thank all of you have followed the challenge along so far and am looking forward to make this challenge bigger and better as we go through 1991.

Game #006 | THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN Review (1990, Commodore 64/Amiga/Atari ST) | Not Beaten

 

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (March 26, 1990)

Genre: Platformer

Platforms: Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST

Developer: Oxford Digital Enterprises

Publisher: Paragon Software (NA), Empire Software (EU)

Started: September 6, 2022

Finished: September 6, 2022

Beaten: NO

Playtime: 2 hours

(Score on the spreadsheet) 

We are now in March 26, 1990. The more popular Amazing-Spider Man game of the same year was still four months away, but developer Oxford Digital Enterprises pounced and released their version first for the Commodore 64 and Amiga, before porting it to most notably the Atari ST later. Considering that the other game released for a handheld device only (the Game Boy), there wasn't really any competition between both games, so this narrative I just created is probably incorrect. 

But here it is, The Amazing Spider-Man, published by Paragon Software (NA, Empire Software for EU) and being so far inferior to the Game Boy game that even the description of it on Grouvee reads "Not to be confused with the Game Boy title released in the same year". Or how about the Marvel Fandom Wiki having a page for the Game Boy game, but no mention of this one. 

To keep it short, the plot in this game revolves around Mysterio, who kidnaps Mary Jane. That's it. There is a comic book style presentation of the story and then there is one happy ending image at the end, but that's it. You didn't play these platformers for their stories though, so what was gameplay like? Well you were controlling fat Spider-Man. 

With that, let's dive into each aspect of my reviewing system one by one, starting with, very briefly, the story.

STORYTELLING 

Again, you didn't play these games for their story, even though games like Ninja Gaiden obviously did at least make an effort in that regard during this time (the sequel released only two weeks after this Spider-Man game). We do rate story(telling) though, so let's see. As mentioned, the beginning of the game, at least in some versions (the Atari version didn't even have these from what I've seen), shows us three slides of images designed like in a comic book, where we see Mysterio kidnapping Mary Jane and Peter Parker being angry. That's pretty much it. Environmental storytelling is pretty much non existent throughout, there is little sense to be made with the sheer randomness with which assets were used, most even being unassociated with Spider-Man (there are a lot of R2D2s running around in this game). 

GAMEPLAY 

When I say "fat" Spider-Man, I mean it. The first image of gameplay you see is Spider-Man hunched forward like he's either been playing too many video games and ruined his posture or gained a ton of weight or he has significant back problems. Moving forward reveals even worse truths. Spider-Man walks as if he is carrying a bag filled with 200kg of sand and when he jumps, he does levitate for a good 3 seconds, but only jumps up a few inches overall. When he falls down, he often lands flat on his face and walks around sniffing the floor for a good few feet before you can manage to make him stand upright again. When he climbs walls, he doesn't climb up or down like a spider, but more like a cat, using both arms simultaneously first, followed by both of his legs to push himself forward.

Long story short, the animations are very bad, funnily so. The slow movement just makes it worse, because funny bad is always manageable, but boring bad is just a slow death to the players enjoyment. I often look at gameplay online after I finish playing and pretty much always do I find hundreds of nostalgic comments that range from "this was my childhood game" to "this is one of the greatest games ever made", and while some of the former was present with this game as well, most did acknowledge that this game is actually just not good. Doesn't mean the memories weren't precious of course.

Progressing in this game is done by climbing in a very slow pace, by using your web to fly over enemies and by activating buttons that allow you to progress forward. If you position yourself correctly, you can even shoot your web to access buttons that are otherwise inaccessible. Enemies in this game are skeletons, rats, R2D2s and basic humans, among others. Rats for example follow you around, while most of the others have a set route which they follow. Most enemies don't bump into you, but they rather just walk past you, and every second that you are in contact drains your health. Your health bar is displayed as a standing giant Spider-Man to the right of the screen. His body starts turning into a skeleton with each percent of health that you lose, starting from his feet all the way to to the top of his head. Once he is a full skeleton, the game ends.

There are some OK ideas here, but overall it is just not fun. 

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE

There is no voice acting, but in the Amiga version, there is the oddest remix of a male and female voice saying Spider-Man, making me feel glad that no actual voice acting is in the game. Well, there is the "ugh ugh ugh" sound when you or enemies take damage, which just sounds unsettling.  

I didn't figure out a way to turn off the music and only display sound effects, but I have seen plenty of videos with that kind of alignment. For me, the music played nonstop and it was just one track being put on repeat. Music in this generation of video games was pretty catchy most of the time and this was certainly OK, but not something I would want to listen to outside of this game. Plus some variation would have been nice.

Sound in this game is abysmal. The sound of the web, the sound when you step onto a platform and the annoying click it makes at the end, the aforementioned damage noise, the awful sound of doors opening and no actual sound for a lot of the moving platforms, enemies and effects (which I guess I should be glad for) mean that the overall sound design is just very poor.

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN

There are just a bunch of random assets used and placed to create levels that make sense from a level design standpoint, but little sense from an artistic standpoint, let alone from a Spider-Man universe standpoint. Not much to like here either.

ATMOSPHERE

The incoherent art design and world building, an average singular track vs. poor sound design (if you use music, you can't really hear the sounds, so pick your poison, though I'd choose the music) and a game that is not a looker even for its time and you got a game that is bereft of atmosphere.

CONTENT

Once you get past the slow animations, the poor controls and everything else, the puzzles in this game are actually interesting enough and the game does offer a challenge to those looking for one. There isn't that much variety in what this game offers though, it's a lot of buttons pressing to unlock other buttons to press, which open up new locations or make your enemies fall to their deaths.

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN

This isn't actually that bad. The game misses some variety, there isn't really anything to unlock, but there are puzzles present and some that require some brain power to solve. There is also some good interconnectivity here and there, meaning a previously inaccessible area can be unlocked as you progress, leading you back to a previous room, where a previously "non-pressable" button can now be pressed to progress elsewhere. It's not always intuitive, it's repetitive but it's probably the best part about this game.

CONCEPT/INNOVATION

Apart from the web swinging, which is 'unique' but in a bad way, there is nothing here that stands out.

REPLAYABILITY 

If you do enjoy this game, there is of course the added incentive of beating your high scores and your times. There isn't much leeway in how you can complete this game, there isn't that much creative space for that, but you can always try to be quicker and receive less damage I guess.

PLAYABILITY

The game works well, the only issue I had was that sometimes I would clip into a level below the one I was on and the game would glitch out for a second. There is even a clip of someone glitching his way from the early stages all the way to the final level, if you want to check that out.

OVERALL

Definitely the worst game of this challenge so far and will probably find its way into the Top 5 Worst Games of the Year by the time I finish 1990. Or I've been relatively lucky with the first 4 games and this is what a good chunk of 1990 will look like. I doubt that though. Don't play this game if you're looking for a fun platformer, there are hundreds of better options out there in this time frame.

WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME

Nothing. I couldn't find a single magazine that reviewed this game at the time. I did find the Game Boy in every single one though.