Part nostalgia-bomb, part note-taking and part FAQ, what started in GameTrailers as a video game blog is now on Blogger. This blog is a look back at video games, both popular and obscure, from the video game industry's infancy all the way to the previous console generation.
Yep, I'm showing off a Game Boy Advance game...and of all the games I could possibly have debuted on the PrinceWatercress Blog, I chose this one.
Cloud Queen's Throne Room
Yep, another full-length feature starring Barbie made into a game. In this one, you play as the headstrong Princess Annika. The game starts with Annika talking to her sister Brietta, when all of a sudden her friends throw a surprise birthday party for her. Before the party can get underway, everyone except Princess Annika is turned to stone. We soon find out who the guilty party is: Wenlock, whose laugh fills the room.
Go to the right and jump up the two platforms to get the Wand of Light. From there, you can use the B button to swing the wand around near the statues to change them back into people again. You can also use Up and Down on the Control Pad to swing upwards and downwards, respectively. The downwards swing is actually more of an overhand swipe.
When you change the statue nearest the wand back into human form, I swear that she has this expression on her face that looks like awesome.jpg. I kid you not. Same with the guy next to her. You are going to be seeing this a lot throughout the game.
When you change everyone back, you'll meet Wenlock, who rides into the castle on his gryphon and reveals he turned everyone in the land into stone for the sole purpose of getting Annika to marry him. (Could he have tried any harder?) When she refuses, Wenlock changes Brietta into a flying pegasus. Annika wants to change her back with the Wand of Light, but in a twist that is perhaps best suited to TF art, Brietta is perfectly okay with this and is all like "Well, since I'm a pegasus, I can fly you places." Annika does just that.
Cloud Palace
Annika and Brietta land in another area of the castle, and there are still many more people who need to be freed from their stone forms.
The icon in the lower left lists how many people you have yet to free. When you free someone, one of the purple circles turns into the shape of a human. Free everyone to enter the next level.
You'll also see the Wand of Light in the upper-left corner. This will show what wand power you currently have.
Enemy roll call for this one: birds that just sit there on the statues, bugs that crawl around on the floor that can be hit with the downward swing, and miniature gryphons.
You'll find the Flutter Jewel in this stage. Switch between the Wand of Light and the Flutter Jewel with the R button and press B to use it. This will allow you to reach places that Annika normally couldn't jump to.
Here you go. Also, I know that there is a higher-quality version on YouTube uploaded on the Cinemassacre Extras account (shouldn't be too hard to find), but I like watching the older videos in their original quality for that "old-school YouTube feel." I mean, have you ever seen the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles video in all its 240p goodness, not only for the lulz, but also to see how far the Nerd has come? I know I have.
Exploring an Egyptian tomb...what's not to love about this?
In Tutankham, you play an archaeologist who stumbles upon an Egyptian tomb, goes inside and hunts for treasure while trying to avoid the numerous mythical beasts that come out of the dead ends with the purple walls and try to kill him.
You can move in four directions and go anywhere you want, but you can only shoot left or right with the side buttons. Along the way, you'll find warp fields you can walk between to enter the other side of the area (just walk between them and you'll teleport to the other set that's directly across from them).
In every level, you'll find a key. You'll need the key to unlock the door at the exit and continue to the next level. You'll also find treasure along the way that will give you points.
In the second area (as well as others), there are black areas where the enemies seem to come out randomly, and if you stand in these spots at the wrong time, you'll lose a life from an enemy you won't even see coming.
Being able to fire only left and right at first isn't that bad when you're in narrow corridors, but when you're in open areas where both you and the monsters can move around freely, it's a very painful experience as the enemies can get you from the top or bottom and there's nothing you can do. The only way to get rid of them is either with the magic lamps, which act as screen-clearing flash bombs and can only be collected when you finish a level, or by being killed, which removes all onscreen enemies. I prefer the first one simply because you don't die.
In later levels, you have to find two keys. While I wouldn't normally have a problem with this, the game makes it harder by forcing you to grab one key and unlock one of the doors, then grab the other. In other words, you can only hold one key at a time. Not only does this mean more leg work where you could die at any time, but you can only fire in two directions and you have a time limit. When the timer hits zero, you can't fire anymore until you reach the next level. If that's not cheap, I don't know what is.
Despite having Stern's name on it in the US, the game was developed by Konami. If there was ever a starting point for Konami's games being difficult and requiring using your brain to get past them, this is probably it.
Is the game worth it? Despite the gripes I had with the game being cheap at times as well as being able only to fire in two directions (yes, I know they had to do that to make the game harder, but it's still annoying), it still isn't a bad idea to give this one a go.
A game based on...something based off 2001: A Space Odyssey? I'm surprised nobody else has made a game based off of it since.
2010: The Graphic Action Game is based loosely off of the late Arthur C. Clarke's 2010: Odyssey Two, which is in turn loosely based off of the movie and book versions of 2001: A Space Odyssey. It's a direct sequel, but only to Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation and not Clarke's original novel, strangely. It's basically an indirect sequel and is a variant on the series' timeline. The game is based off the 1984 movie 2010: The Year We Make Contact, which is based off 2010: Odyssey Two which is based loosely off...you know what? Forget it. Everything I mentioned before mentioning the 2010 movie was confusing enough.
Anyway, you're powering up circuits in order to power up HAL 9000 as well as the various features of the Discovery. You have to power up all of the chips in the circuit without looping around and without the electric charge being directly hit by the magnetic flux fields that are interfering with the ship's functions (which are shown as flashing circles than bounce around the screen) while either going down the path or while still inside a part. If a part is damaged, the ship will replace it, but you lose a little bit of time as a result.
Sometimes, you'll be in a maze full of what look like pinball bumpers. These are the circuits for HAL 9000, and you'll need to get through these in order to power HAL up. Unlike the regular repair screens, these require logic as well as speed in order to win. The upside-down flipped L takes your charge into another direction, the upside down U pushes your charge back in the opposite direction, and the square just lets your charge run straight through. You can change the function of the next bumper that the charge will touch, so you can get to the end. Hitting the chips will cause them to burn out, so you have to avoid hitting them here. Other than that, these screens are easy when you know what to do, especially when you power up Life Support and get rid of the magnetic flux fields in the HAL circuit screens.
The circuit boards are randomly set-up, if you couldn't tell by some circuit boards loading up faster than others. This makes charging up all the circuits more of a logical game rather than a memory game. Also, while you're playing the game, the altitude of the ship gradually gets lower, and if you don't fix the ship in time, the ship will fall into Io, Jupiter's volcanic moon which basically acts like a sun.
As you power up certain parts of the spaceship, you'll get some more leeway in beating the game. Powering up life-support keeps the HAL circuits from burning out, and gets rid of the magnetic flux fields on the HAL circuits. Powering the Engine and Reactor can give you a partial boost, which can give you more time and bring the Discovery to escape velocity. If you leave the engines running too long, some circuits can be burnt out and you'll have to repair them again.
Even when you're done with all the circuits, you'll still have to go around the ship and find some broken circuits. In the first and easiest skill level, HAL fixes some of them when you power him up, but he's slower than you and he can't replace burnt-out parts. He also can't repair his own circuits, either.
Once you've got everything repaired, you can lift Discovery back into the air and away from Io. You'll get your final score of the game and play again if you want.
The game's pretty challenging. You have only a set amount of time to power up the whole ship, take care of all the broken circuits that have been burnt out somehow, and get Discovery away from Io. There are four skill levels, and the higher your skill level, the closer to Io Discovery is and the harder the game becomes.
The repair screens are simple. However, there is a time limit involved and you'll also have to know how to get the ship running without making escape harder, as you also have to get the ship away from Io before you can get the spaceship repaired and escape. It takes some practice to get certain things in the game down, but once you're able to pull it off, the game becomes easier. All in all, this is another challenging game that's worth a shot.
Here's the game as it was in the arcade, complete with the second level that never made it to Colecovision. Also, I could have sworn you had to pick up the stray roc feathers before you went to the roc. I guess not.
Konami has made great games for a long time. As a matter of fact, they've ALWAYS made great games, even during the days before the great video game crash of 1983. They made quite a few original games with interesting traits about them, and this game is no exception.
Roc 'n Rope was one of a couple of early arcade games published by Konami in the early '80s. In this game, you play an archaeologist who climbs mountains in search of the legendary bird, the Phoenix. Along the way, you have to climb the mountains with your rope as you avoid cavemen and man-sized dinosaurs who call this seemingly lost-to-time land home.
The rope can be shot diagonally upwards, and it lets you get higher into the level. However, it can also be very unstable. Enemies can grab the rope and shake it, causing you to fall off...sometimes to your death. To make things worse, when you use the rope, the dinosaurs and cavemen can climb on it and use it to make their way to you. Thankfully, you can only have the rope in one location at a time, and the rope disappears whenever you use it to reach another area. Because of this, you can wait for the bad guys to get on the rope, wait for them to get above an empty space that leads to a bottomless pit, and use the rope again to make the rope they're climbing disappear, sending them into the abyss. You also have a flashlight that you can flash for a second at whatever's in front of you, stunning any enemies for a few seconds. If they're coming towards you on the rope, you can stun them and cause them to let go, causing them to fall right off the rope! It's like something in an old action movie.
You'll also see falling rocks being carried by pterodactyls, who will wait for a second as soon as you're directly underneath them before dropping the rock.
There are three stages in the game, and after you beat the third stage, the game loops back to the first one and starts all over again.
In the first stage, the enemies can climb up and down the walls, and also hide in the caves whenever necessary. You'll also see these caves in the other stages.
In the second stage, you'll see a windmill-like platform that has four places to stand on. It reminds me of the carousel at the end of the fortresses in Super Mario World that the Reznors stand on when you fight them. You can use this to get higher whenever necessary, but you'll need to use your rope to get off.
In the third stage, you'll be dealing with a waterfall. If the waterfall touches you as you're climbing, you'll automatically be sent into the bottomless pit and lose a life.
You'll be picking up phoenix feathers and eggs for points. The phoenix feathers give you points, and you don't have to collect them to end the stage. The eggs make you invincible for a few seconds whenever you grab them, giving you the ability to destroy enemies by simply walking into them.
The original second stage, which consisted of the rows of long platforms with a gap in each one, is missing in this port, so you go straight to the third stage in the original after completing the first one.
There are four skill levels, and on the easier levels, the rope is more stable and can't be shaken, leaving you invulnerable to rope shakes. There are also fewer enemies and you start out with more lives.
It shouldn't be a surprise to say that the game is an excellent addition to anyone's video game library. Addicting gameplay, a full soundtrack, interesting character design for its time (hey, the phoenix is in there, but I'm assuming it's a roc, hence the title) and hazards that were never really seen in a game before, such as instant death waterfalls and enemies that could use your only tool against you, and a decent hardest skill level that is a welcome challenge is more than enough to keep you coming back, even if there's only three stages compared to the original version's four. As mentioned before, Konami made rock-solid games and has done so for years, and even their earliest creations are no exceptions. This game doesn't disappoint.
This game was covered in the Angry Video Game Nerd episode for the Star Wars games via the Atari 2600 version, but it was also ported over to Colecovision. As ambitious as the 2600 version is, this one looks even better.
First of all, you've got all four laser cannons instead of just two. That's really nice, because the X-Wing is probably one of the most recognizable ships in the Star Wars universe aside from the Millennium Falcon.
The object of the game is to shoot down fireballs so they don't destroy your X-Wing, and also try to destroy whatever enemy ships you can along the way. At least the game keeps telling you to shoot the fireballs on the top of the screen when you begin the game, so if you've never played this before or missed out on the arcade version, or if you don't have the instruction manual, you'll know what to do. Of course, you can also shoot the TIE Bombers as well as the top of the towers, but you'll be shooting down fireballs more often than not.
When you reach the Death Star, you'll be whizzing past towers while trying not to fly into either the towers or the fireballs that pop up from who-knows-where. You can shoot the tops of the towers to get points, and when you shoot enough tower tops, you can get a huge bonus as the end of the second section.
Finally, you'll be in the Death Star trench, shooting down fireballs until you find a vent hole in the floor of the trench and destroy the Death Star. You then start the game over again, except with a harder difficulty setting than before.
You can only take up to nine hits before your shields finally give and you die, and you can regain shields as you get through a whole gameplay circuit, so it's possible to play this game for hours on end if you're really good at it. You can also choose between any of the first three levels whenever you start the game, which is a plus.
The graphics are better compared to the Atari 2600 version. For instance, it's easier to tell when the fireballs are about to hit you, as they're made up of asterisks. When they're big enough to almost split into three separate asterisks, they're about to hit your X-Wing and take out one of your shields. The Atari 2600 did it the same way, but the fireballs were just a bunch of dots in a circle pattern compared to the Colecovision version. The fact that the asterisks that make up the fireballs spin around make them much more detailed, and make them look similar to how they appear in the arcade version.
The game starts to get pretty hard pretty quickly, and by Wave 3 you're going to be spending more of your time shooting down fireballs than the TIE bombers that fly around and create them just to take as little damage as possible. You'll also be dodging low overheads in the trench sections before you're able to shoot the vent hole in the floor (you'll be able to tell when you're about to get your chance by how the floor transitions to the grid-like lines in the trench floor after you pass by all of the overheads).
Is the game worth it? Of course. The game gets pretty hard pretty quickly, and as it does, the game gets more interesting. It's worth it to see how many points you can get, and if you can get very far...kudos. For the first Star Wars game, this was ambitious, and it shows.
It's Double Vision time again! Now that we're done with the Intellivision, it's time for the Colecovision! We start off with what is probably one of the most faithful home adaptations of Donkey Kong. But does better graphics mean a better experience?
In case you've never picked up the game, here's the story: a giant ape named Donkey Kong has kidnapped Mario's girlfriend Paulina, and Mario has to get her back. On his quest, he'll have to jump over barrels, avoid fireballs, take down barrels and fireballs with hammers, jump from one platform to another, and try not to get killed by enemies or jumping from too high a height. You should also avoid the tops and bottoms of elevators (in the third stage) as well as touching Donkey Kong himself.
Your object is to reach Paulina. When you do, Donkey Kong just takes her away. On the steel girder stage where Donkey Kong stands at the top and just does nothing, you'll be dealing with fireballs while pulling out the rivets that hold the girders together. This is usually the last stage where Donkey Kong falls and hurts himself, and Mario and Paulina are reunited before the game restarts at a slightly harder difficulty than before.
Unlike most of the home ports, the Colecovision version has three levels: the first stage, the final girder state where you pick up all of the rivets that hold the platforms together, and then the third stage involving the elevator platforms and the springs that takes place before the finale.
The first thing you'll notice is that the graphics are really good for a Colecovision game, especially one that is a home port of an arcade game of the times. Mario looks just like he does in the arcade version, and while Donkey Kong doesn't look exactly the same, he has the same color scheme as his coin-op counterpart.
The collision detection on the hammers is really iffy. You have to jump at them from an angle in order to grab them, and you can fall through them even when Mario's head clearly goes through it. Unlike the arcade version, where a barrel can touch Mario while he has the hammer and still kill him, the barrels simply disappear when they touch Mario and not the hammer. This is extremely noticeable when you're holding a hammer in the girder stage and one of the fireballs disappear as soon as it touches Mario's feet. This takes some getting used to.
Another thing worth noticing is that the special animations for reaching the end of the first level, dying and beating the rivets stage are gone. Also, the animations from whenever a fireball or barrel is destroyed with a hammer are also gone. Instead, whatever you whack simply disappears.
In the third stage, the springs that usually hop onto the stage from behind Donkey Kong, go right and drop off the platform are gone. I guess they couldn't program them in correctly...who knows?
When you beat the third stage, you'll keep getting the three stages in random order until the game ends, with the rivet
Anyway, do I recommend this game? Well, it's pretty good. There are the issues involving the hammer, and climbing the ladders as climbing them is pretty slow at times. Also, the cement factory stage (the true second stage) isn't available, but other than the arcade-perfect version in Donkey Kong 64 as well as the NES version-based "Original Version," when isn't it available?
Anyway, it's a solid port. Pick it up if you see it. You won't regret it, especially when there are versions of the game that are much worse.
Yep, it's a Missile Command clone. At least it tries to be original.
Atlantis was a Missile Command clone released for the Intellivision. But instead of being more of what you'd expect from the game it was based on, there are pretty interesting things.
You have two turrets, but you have infinite ammo, and you can choose which one fires a bullet with the press of a button. Your enemies have to run into the explosions from the bullets in order to die, and enemies can't take splash damage from enemy explosions, unlike in [i]Missile Command[/i]. Unfortunately, you can only shoot two bullets at one time.
As enemies fly around, you'll have to shoot them, and if you miss them there's a chance they might attack Atlantis and take out one of the various buildings with a air-to-ground laser beam. When a building is destroyed, there's no way you can get it back like in [i]Missile Command[/i] where you can restore a city after enough points are scored.
Each stage, or "day," is split up into three sections: morning (a blue sky with clouds), evening (a grey sky with clouds) and night (a black sky with search lights moving back and forth). While this is somewhat ambitious for an Intellivision game at the time, it ends up becoming a pain in the ass as well.
The enemies are nothing spectacular, altough sometimes they move slowly and sometimes they move fast. They don't fly in a straight line most of the time, either; instead they move up and down as they move from one side of the screen to the other. There are three waves of enemies in a section of the day, and when you beat all three waves, you go to the next part of the day.
However, some of the enemies will blend in with the clouds and can be hard to see at times. That's nothing compared to the night section, where all the enemies are as pitch black as the sky itself and the only way to see them is with the searchlights. Your only hope is to shoot ahead of them as soon as you see them and pray that you see the explosion that results from a direct hit on an enemy. You can see them if you fire the laser, but by then it's too late.
You do have a UFO that you can sic on the enemies and fly around wherever you want in, but you can only use it for 90 seconds which you can look at on the bottom of the screen, where they will be listed directly underneath where its silo is. After 90 seconds, the UFO will return to the silo and you'll have to wait for the timer to go back up before you can use it again. Thankfully, you can take it back to the silo manually before this can occur. If it gets hit by a ship or a missile, you won't be able to use it again until the next day.
When all the buildings are inevitably destroyed, the game is over, and a giant UFO flies off. Turns out, this is the Cosmic Ark from the Atari 2600 game of the same name, which is considered by many to be the first-ever console sequel. In this sequel, it is implied that the Ark flew off with the survivors.
Is this a good game? Well, if not being able to see your enemies on the night screen really ticks you off, you're going to hate this game. The searchlights do make it easier, but it makes the last third of every day more of a nailbiter than it should be. Other than this, the game is worth picking up and playing a few times, and if you like a bit more challenge in your classic games than usual, you'll be hooked on this one.
You can plays one-on-one...OR tag team? That's pretty deep for this system...but it's actually pretty good past that point. Read on!
The year was 1988. Mattel Electronics was shut down and in its place was INTV Corporation. Even though the Intellivision had fallen out of favor along with Atari and Colecovision after the crash, INTV Corp. still released games for the system until 1991, with a very small output of only a few games a year. Nintendo's Famicom (later the Nintendo Entertainment System) was the big man on campus, and the Sega Mega Drive (known in America as the Genesis) was about to steal the NES's thunder.
Meanwhile, in real life, wrestling was becoming less and less territorialized compared to the old days. The National Wrestling Alliance, or NWA, had been around for years, but the World Wrestling Federation (later WWE) had broken from it and started buying out other independent regional federations to make the first worldwide federation. Jim Cornette Promotions was about to be bought by Ted Turner and Turner Broadcasting, and become what is now known as World Championship Wrestling.
Up until this point, there actually was a wrestling game on a popular system: Microleague Wrestling for the Commodore 64 and Atari ST. Even though it was an official WWF product, the game was more of a turn-based strategy game. There were other games on the market at the same time, but there were no likenesses of any popular wrestlers in any of them (WrestleMania for the NES wouldn't be in existence for at least another year). Even worse, you were stuck with either one-on-one matches or tag team matches. There was no choice.
Body Slam! was one of the games from that time that was just a work of pure fiction. There's no name for the federation and all the characters are fictional. However, you can choose to do a one-on-one or tag team match at the beginning of the game. About time!
You pick which controller is either human or computer, then pick the skill level. The higher the skill level you pick, the more moves you can use. After that, you choose who gets to fight each other. In case of a tag match, you choose the first team first, followed by the second team.
The characters don't all fight exactly the same. Some wrestlers have more energy and can take more punishment, while some wrestlers are stronger than others. Despite the graphical limitations causing all the characters to look the same, the developers did make each character a different color as well as give them some sort of face decoration to make it easier to tell them all apart. Doctor Pain wears a surgical mask over his nose and mouth, while Sheik of Slam wears a Muslim headdress on his head. I think whoever did the graphics was a big Iron Sheik fan. You have twelve characters in all, and they all have different stats.
Height (Ht) allows you to cause more damage with your throws, Weight (Wt) makes you faster or slower and dictate the power of your aerial attacks, Coordination (Co) allows you to take control during a grapple, Ego (Eg) dictates how likely you are to taunt after a successful throw, and Strength (St) dictates the power of your blows.
You then get to choose your wrestler's or tag team's moves and map out which buttons do what moves. Choose carefully, as some moves such as Possum Roll and Duck & Cover let you avoid attacks, and Mega Leap and Flying Sit Drop (the leg drop move, obviously) are aerial attacks. You get to choose up to nine moves in all out of a maximum of 26. That's even better than the World Championship Wrestling video game for the NES released back in 1990, which only allowed you up to four grapple moves out of a possible eight or nine that were mapped to one of directions on the D-Pad.
Certain moves can only be done while grappling, while running, or while on the top turnbuckle. You'll have to vary your moves a lot and put certain moves on a certain row of the number keys to make it easier to use them when you need to and remember where they are. Choosing your moveset carefully and mapping your moveset to buttons you can remember are both critical in this game.
The wrestlers enter the ring, and the game begins. Unlike real wrestling, you have a few timed rounds in which to win like in old-school European wrestling, and you also see a ring girl (something you don't see in wrestling today). You can review your moves here before it switches to the gameplay screen in case you've forgotten your moveset.
You have four minutes to do as much damage to your opponent as possible. The timer is in the center of the ring, while the corners of the ring have the health bars. The one on the left is for the left controller, while the one on the right is for the right controller. As you successfully perform moves, your opponents energy starts dropping towards zero. Of course, the same can happen to you unless you're ready for your opponent's tactics and know what the opponent is able to perform move-wise. After four minutes, the round ends and the next round begins.
The numbers up top are used for the pin attempts, the top rope moves as well as for count-outs. You can knock the opponent out of the ring and beat him up outside of the ring for more damage as well as an attempted count-out victory. If a wrestler doesn't get out of the ring by the count of 20, he loses. As long as either player is outside the ring, the count continues until both players are in the ring. Also, you lose the match if you stand on the ropes for more than five seconds.
There is a button used for running in case you'd like to perform clotheslines and powerful running kicks. If you want to bounce off the ropes and run in the opposite direction, you can do that too.
Some of these moves are pretty unrealistic - you can punch or kick somebody all the way to the ropes or straight out of the ring. I'm pretty sure even Goldberg couldn't do that.
When both competitors walk into each other, they tie-up (grapple each other), it's either man for himself. Mash buttons 1 through 9 to use the grapple moves you've assigned to any of the numbers, and remember your move set to fight your way to victory!
Whenever you get the opponent down successfully, there's a chance your character will also taunt to get a little bit of energy back. Of course this leaves you open to attack, so you have to be careful when you use it.
Move names show up at the bottom when a move is performed. When the left player does a move, it's in green. If it's the right player, it's in blue.
In the tag team mode, you can go to the corner and press 0 to tag. For the left player, it's the lower-left corner. For the right player, it's the upper-right corner. Go to the respective corner and you'll switch wrestlers out, even though the game only shows one person from each time at any given time.
CLEAR allows you to picked up a downed opponent, while ENTER allows you to go for the pin. Your opponent will be stunned when picked up, giving you a second or two to get a free attack in. Also, there are no rope breaks in this game, so you can pin somebody anywhere and not get in trouble for it. If you get pinned, move the Control Disk repeatedly. That's your only hope. The side keys also let you escape a pin, but you'll lose stamina as a result.
Is this a good game? Believe it or not, the game allows you to choose between singles and tag matches. Considering that other games for home consoles during the mid-to-late 1980s didn't allow you to do that, that's a big deal. This game let you pick from a wide variety of moves, and unlike the WCW game for NES, you're not limited to just grapple throws and submissions; you basically get to choose how you do everything as top rope moves, punches, kicks, and defensive maneuvers that you have are all dictated by you.
I have a couple of gripes for a game that pushes the Intellivision to the max, though. One, there aren't any submissions, so the matches can only be won by pinfall or count-out. Finishers also don't exist either, so unless you're pretending your character is Hulk Hogan or Randy Savage, you're out of luck. Also, there's no way to employ any heel tactics such as foreign objects or manager interference, so this is a fair fight all the way. The only way to unleash your inner heel is to use the Possum Roll if you've got it assigned to your move set.
As I said before, the ability to voluntary take action in tag team matches is a nice touch, but even then you and your friend can't be on the same team. Instead, you're forced to fight against each other. At least you can choose between two game modes, but still...
Also, be prepared to use all the buttons on your controller...even the side buttons. This game will give the controllers a work out, and even potentially break them after a while. Thankfully, the game is available on the PlayStation 2 compilation Intellivision Lives, which makes this a moot point, especially when you know how to use the controller on that version.
Anyway, despite the system and controller limitations, this game blows away some of the games from the other systems of the time and is well worth playing. There is probably no other game on the system that has this much depth to it, and with depth comes a good amount of replay value. If you see this game sitting at a yard sale or flea market somewhere, don't pass this up.
Special thanks to IntellivisionLives.com for this recreation of the manual. This really helped out a lot when it came to figuring which button did what!
Here's some information on the game from IntellivisionLives.com.Voochko on Ice was meant to be its own game, but Mattel Electronics shut down before its own cartridge could be manufactured. Thankfully, it exists and is playable via a secret code. Press Enter on the left controller, press Clear on the right controller and press Reset on the console. The game was originally meant to have an introductory screen. Not surprisngly, Voochko on Ice also had one. (Voochko was the mascot for the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia.) The penguins were changed to Russian cossack dancers and got Russian names.
Duncan's Thin Ice (also known as just Thin Ice) was mentioned on the Angry Video Game Nerd's "Double Vision" episode for all of ten seconds. That's too bad, because the game is halfway decent.
You play as Duncan the Penguin, who apparently likes to play pranks on the other penguins by skating circles - or in this case, squares - around them and cause the ice to collapse around them. By doing just this, you get points. However, there is a seal who hates Duncan for whatever reason who will bounce him around like a ball and off the ice if he gets his fins on him. He'll move around the playing field in an attempt to home in on Duncan's trail and catch him.
If the walrus happens to lock on to your skating trail, you'll have to jump into the water to shake him off. The walrus will be moving around the playfield again in his renewed attempt to find you again.
The torches increase your speed, and while it makes it easier to break the ice around the penguins, it can also make it easier to accidentally run smack-dab into the seal.
You'll notice that the number of igloos in the background indicate what level you're currently on. As you play through the game, you'll also see polar bears who aren't any friendlier than the seals. They'll toss you straight out if they catch you.
Well, by watching this game I can understand how to play it better...kinda.
First of all, you're going to need the Voice Synthesis Modulator in order to play this game, or you're going to be completely in the dark when it comes to what to do. Of course, if you've seen the first part of The Angry Video Game Nerd's "Double Vision" two-parter, this is a given.
You'll then get a series of symbols marking all the circuits of the bomb. Pick a circuit and be ready to defuse.
When you reach the bomb defusing screen, you'll be told which part to get rid of first, second and third...in no particular order. And if you forget? Wait a few seconds, and the game will tell you what to do next. Once you get it into your head what to do when, it's down to knowing what to use on which part of the bomb. The more you can remember for a longer amount of time, the easier this game can be.
You have wire cutters, clamps, a soldiering iron, and a fire extinguisher as your tools. You'll use the wire cutters to cut the connections. Then, you'll have to get the clamps out, grab the part you cut out, drop it away from the bomb, replace it either with a big gray wire or an icon, and then weld it in place with the soldering iron. As you work, the game will tell you if you need to move your tool a little more in a certain direction or if you've used the wrong part. If you make a big mistake, the music gets faster and the timer's speed accelerates until you rectify the problem.
The part replacement is trial and error, as sometimes you may be able to get away with replacing it with an icon that looks like what you just removed. Other times, you'll have to use either a big gray wire, a part that looks like what you just removed or a completely different part of the same color. You'll have to know how to pull off what you need to do as quickly as possible in order to get through the game, especially on the harder difficulty settings.
Every once in a while, a part of the bomb will flash. You'll have to spray this part down with the fire extinguisher in order to keep it from catching fire and speeding up the countdown.
As you defuse parts of this massive bomb, some spots will be empty while others will be a green square. These green squares make up numbers, and you'll have to correctly guess the numbers in order to figure out the code and defuse the bomb once and for all.
As you're doing this, you have a time limit where you have only have so many minutes to figure out the code before the bomb blows up the entire city and the game ends. You'll have to figure out what to do and quickly in order to cut off the circuits, find the numbers, guess them correctly, and save the entire city from apocalypse. If you win, you'll get a parade in your honor that consists of a one-screen ending showing the city from far away as well as fireworks.
You can have between one to three digits for the code, and there are also three difficulty levels, so you actually have some replay value once you beat the game on the easiest setting just to see how high you can go. It's an interesting game as much as it is challenging, even for the technology at the time, and if you like those two adjectives to describe your games, this one just might be for you...just know what you're in for.
Here's the animated advertisement, with other versions "coming soon" at the time.
Italian/Italiano
Here's a UK TV spot for the game. I can understand the whole "join the bandwagon" thing going on here, but if I were dressed like that, I'd either be in a Burger Time convention, a Halloween party or a mental institution.
The original advertisement for the game. Once again, the Intellivision version was already out by this time, with more ports in the future.
Not only is this a Let's Play, but also a review of the game as well.
Imagine making burgers at some place like McDonalds or Wendy's or Jack-In-The-Box. Now, make it more fun. Yeah, that's better. Now, add enemies like sentient pickles, fried eggs and hot dogs that want you dead. Congratulations, you have an arcade game that would be ported to many systems, including the Atari systems, Intellivision, Colecovision and also the NES.
Since this is obviously the Intellivision Fab Five, I'm going to go ahead and cover the Intellvision version, especially since I've given this bad boy a shot myself.
Here, you're running around doing...what else? Making some gigantic burgers. Just walk over the buns, the burgers, the lettuce, and the meat until it's completely flattened. They'll go down one level or to the first level that has something on it. You can also knock down all the toppings to the bottom like dominoes. As you're doing this, sentient pickles, eggs and hot dogs want you dead. You'll have to slip past them as you do your job and get people fed.
An interesting note about this version of the game. When you either start the game or when you die and get taken back to the screen that shows what level you're on, you can tell what the five enemies are for the level as they're all coming at you only for you to be whisked away to the gameplay screen. At the beginning, it's four hot dogs and an egg. When you hit Level 5, it'll be two hot dogs, two pickles and an egg. When you lose all your lives, the enemies finally destroy you on the Game Over screen.
The enemies have some AI here. They always seem take the shortest path to you no matter what, but in actuality have their own pattern. This can be predictable at times but unpredictable at others. You can be cornered and not know it until it's too late, and you'll be dead in a matter of seconds unless you have a pepper spray shot you can use to stun them. You only have a few shots of pepper before you're completely defenseless, and you'll need to pick up some french fries, ice cream cones, cups of coffee, ketchup bottles and other non-sentient foods in order to add one shot to your pepper spray.
It's not perfect, however. If the enemy is right next to you - and I mean, right next to you - the pepper shot will appear behind the enemy and you're dead. If the enemy is in front of you but not up in your grill, you're in perfect range. If he's able to breathe into your face, you're dead and there's nothing the pepper spray can do to save you. It's like you have to shoot it a fraction of a second ahead of time.
Even worse, if any part of the enemies touch you, you're dead. The enemy's head touched your feet? You're dead. Their feet touch your head? Yup, you're dead there, too. I know that this is common with first and second-generation consoles, as well as some games on third-generation consoles, but come on.
There is one good thing about the AI, though. You can basically have the enemies running around in circle if you know how to string them along, as the enemies can't double back in case you somehow get the slip on them and end up right behind them. They'll have to circle around in order to see you again.
If you really want to give them the big brush-off, wait for them to be on or below one of the various burger ingredients. When the ingredients fall, they'll either take the fall with it or gets squashed by whatever gets pushed downwards. Different enemies give you different amounts of points. Not sure how hot dogs would taste with hamburgers, but at least it makes sense because they go together because of how America is with hot dogs and hamburgers. Can't have one without the other. They just go together, because this is America. Pickles make perfect sense, since they've been on burgers since forever. Fried eggs? Well, there are some places that serve fried eggs on burgers, with Denny's being the most common example.
Doing this is somewhat of a science depending on which enemies you're trying to do this with. Sometimes, enemies are seemingly easy to manipulate into falling for your traps, but other times instead of going straight for you, they'll go in a different direction such as up a ladder at the last second. Either way, this is a good strategy for getting extra points, because you're need them to get the extra lives and survive into the later levels. It's even more impressive when one topping falls on the next, which falls on the next, which falls on the next until the one at the bottom is at the bottom of the screen and enemies get killed in the process. It's so wonderful it's almost sadistic, and it almost makes you wonder why these foods just grew legs and came after you.
If you do that, though, you'll have to remember where the enemies disappeared when they either fell to their deaths or got crushed by burger toppings before they gave you points, because sometimes this is the exact area where the enemies will respawn after a few seconds, if not from the sides of the screen at the top of the stage.
The levels have simple layouts at the beginning, but as you progress they become more complex at times. This leads to situations where you may get completely surrounded by both sides on a platform and the ladders that lead up and down are pretty far away from you, which will cause you to use a pepper spray shot in order to get out of it. Also, the graphics are bigger, so don't expect a lot of floors and ladders to move around in like in the arcade original.
Another big gripe I have is with the controls. Now, you may be thinking, "PrinceWatercress, the controller is just telephone buttons and some circle for a D-Pad!" Here's the kicker. When you're going from a floor to a ladder, you can't just stopping holding Left or Right and then press Up and Down like with the cross-shaped D-pads modern gamers are used to. Instead, you have to roll your thumb from the side to the top or bottom like you're trying to pull off Hadokens in Street Fighter II. This is off-putting at first, but as you get used to this and see what makes the AI in this game tick, you'll be able to breeze through at least the first few screens.
You get an extra life at every 10,000 points. While this is expected, it would be slightly better to appreciate if you weren't dying all the time because of preventable mistakes being made because you're not used to the Intellivision controller or the AI. Once again, this is a moot point once you get used to the controller and the game's nuances.
Is this a bad game? No, not really. As a matter of fact, this is definitely one of the better games of the first half of the 1980s. It's worth picking up, but if you're not used to the Intellivision controller, be prepared for a heck of a learning curve.
Prinsdam would later re-record the game and do it all in one shot after finding out the SSF emulator supported native recording. Also, the game starts this time around with a simpler battle against the TV, the final boss from the first game. This time around, it's a much simpler battle. Just attack the claw whenever you see it. You'll also be doing the whole "stab him in the claw with the can of pencils" strategy, too. The ending is extended, too. Chelsea finally kisses Pepperochau and the whole kingdom of toys cheers. You also get an extended ending, with this just being the stand-alone version instead of the compilation version of the game. You'll get a reprise of the song from the first ending complete with drawings from kids...probably some sort of Japan-only art contest for the second game or fan drawings submitted to Sega by kids that I know nothing about.
Believe it or not, you can play as Sir Ginger, the silver knight, in the game if you have the American or Japanese versions. (Europe, you're out of luck unless you import.) Amazingly, the code wasn't found until 2012 when some gamers poked around with the internal code and found the cheat...even though it was only published once in a Japanese game magazine and never published anywhere else. He was playable in the Japanese compilation version's "Bosses Galore" mode, and until then, using him in the regular game was only speculation. But it's possible, and you can finally do it. To play as Ginger, press Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, L, R, L, R on the mode select screen, then start a game on Part 2. Don't enter it too quickly; the box rotation sound will play when entered correctly. Works in the US version and Clockwork Knight Fukubukuro (Japan-only compilation disc). Ginger slashes with his key, he can perform actual wall jumps, and he can also perform more majestic jumps with some good hangtime. His somersault can damage enemies, too.
There's also a hidden exit in one of the levels, and if you find it, you'll get a Gold Screw from one of the developers or an editor of Famitsu magazine. You'll get the developer on Normal and the editor on Hard. Unfortunately, this is only available in the stand-alone Japanese version, as far as I know, and in the combined version and quite possibly the English language versions, you'll just get dialogue from Sir Ginger.
All right, we're at the end. Let's take on who's responsible for all of this!
Boss Stage
Destroy all of the enemies that come out of the castle, and the castle will then transform into some sort of robot that tries to kill you. He'll knock you to the clock tower, where the battle continues. Attack his hands when he stretches them towards you, and toss the enemies that come out of his torso into either his head or hands after you stun them. This battle isn't too difficult, amazingly.
Of course, there's another boss after this. Pepperochau will find Princess Chelsea only to come face to face with a dragon. So the dragon is the source of this mess?
If you're playing on Training, however, you won't be able to fight this boss, much like the end of the first game. If you're playing on Normal or Hard, however, read on!
Attack the dragon until the dragon comes apart. The head will still be moving, but there's really some guy riding inside the head who is jumping around wearing the dragon's head on his body. Attack him as he heads back to the rest of the dragon's body, which will come back together and attack again. Keep attacking the dragon, and the head will come back off again when the body falls apart. The head will breathe fire and fly around; avoid the head as the fire surrounds it. After if flies around in the foreground, attack the head again. Keep attacking the head and the boss will finally fall.
When you finally beat the dragon, you'll find out that the guy controlling it was none other than Pepperochau's grandfather, Sir Garluch. He felt that his family has forsaken him, and put a spell on all of the toys to control the kingdom...but he finds out from Pepperochau that this is not the case. Ginger takes his wind-up key and revives Princess Chelsea, and Chelsea finally wakes up.
The toys are back to normal, and we get an enemy roll call of all the baddies from both games. Pepperochau's given name is Tongara, but I just call him Pepperochau because of the English subtitle of the first game, "Pepperochau's Adventure."
After the credits, you'll see how many cards you've collected. Thankfully, if you've beaten the game once, you can play the game again to get the cards you missed.
Chelsea is safe, all the loose ends are tied up and the game is won. You did it!
The boss here is some of octopus. When the tentacle comes out, you can attack it. It will then drop back into the water before the octopus appears in the background.
The stray tentacle will come back. Keep attacking it, and watch out for the soap bars that the octopus throws at you from the background. He has a few patterns, but guessing the fact that he only has four tentacles to throw with, they patterns can be pretty predictable as long as you're paying attention to the background.
Clock Tower
Well, this is it. The final level.
Stage 1
The bats can be killed with a simple stab.
The honey bears now send miniaturized versions of the blue helmeted enemies at you, and they're fairly quick.
Remember the blue guys with the shields from the Attic in the first game? They're back, and you can duck and wind the key on them to get rid of them. They also run away from you when you approach them, so they're basically the same as last time.
You'll be winding keyholes to change the direction that the gear platforms change, making it easier to get around at times.
Go back when you get the Club card and open the box near the gear platform that will now be rotating to the left. Open it up, go in, and climb to the top of the pipe that makes up the right-hand wall of the room. You'll go all the way and enter a secret room that looks much like the Attic area from the last game. You'll find a ton of clocks as well as a 3-Up.
If you drop down after the Spade card and keep going right, you can find another 1-Up.
Cards
Heart: When you see the first honey bear enemy, drop down and go to the left. You'll fine a card here.
Diamond: Shortly after the Heart card, you can take the lower path on the trail of gears to the right to find a box to a hidden area. Make running jumps from one pipe to the other in stormy, rainy weather to find a card in plain sight.
Club: After you leave the Diamond card area, you'll see some gondola-like clock parts that swing to and fro in the background. Go up some platforms after this part to find the next card.
Spade: This one will also be in plain sight, on a platform. If you've taken the same path as Prinsdam, you'll be dropped off just close to it. Just move to the right.
Stage 2
It's a pipe maze!
Jump down the pipe you see at the start. You'll get invincibility as you fall down a huge shaft. Move around and grab as many things as you can before you hit the ground.
The gears turn towards the background and also act as a way of getting up in the world...or getting somewhere, at least.
Push the block underneath the Heart card and you'll find a room where Prunchau is waiting for you. Make your way to the right and a huge wind-up key will drop down. For finding this key, you'll get two 1-Ups as well as a default maximum of five hits. If you die here, you won't go back to three hits. You'll have five hits on every new life. Nice.
For the section after this, you'll be making your way to the top while avoiding missiles that shoot up from the background and try to come down on your head.
When you reach what appears to be the very end drop down and go to the right.
Cards
Heart: For this one, go down the pipe at the start. When you hit the ground again, look to the right for a card.
Club: After you find the giant wind-up key, go up the gear platform and go left. You'll find the card when you reach the wall.
Spade: During the long set of gear elevators, leap off the second one with a running jump at the very top and you'll be able to find the third card for the level.
Diamond: After finding the Spade card, keep going up. You'll find the Diamond at the summit. The nearby egg contains a 3-Up.
The bathroom: because it's the only way to logically bring back water levels.
Boss Stage
The third knight is Pepperochau's father, Sir Oneon. I always thought he was either old enough to be his brother or just happened to be some acquaintance, so to find this out after all this time is interesting, to say the least. Oneon talks to Pepperochau before the boss battle.
Anyway, the boss here is a piece of paper that comes out of a book. It jumps into the bottle of red ink in the background before it changes into a monkey. Avoid it when it jumps around and attack it when it stands there. When you knock it into the background, stay on the move so it doesn't hit you on its way back. Stay back a little bit as you attack, too, so the monkey can't grab and slam you.
After enough damage, the monkey turns back into a piece of paper and drops into the yellow ink bottle before coming back and changing into a cheetah. Stay away from it and jump over it when it comes at you. When it runs into the wall, duck down and turn your key to do as much damage to it as you can before it gets back up. Sometimes it will run around in the background before it comes after you. Be sure to jump over it so you don't get crushed between it and the wall.
The paper will then fly back into the background and enter the blue ink bottle, and then come back and turn into a bat. The bat will try to drop a spiked ball on you. Stay on the move and away from the spiked ball. Attack the spiked ball to uncover an egg, which you can then throw straight up at the bat. You can also throw it at the bat when it tries to divebomb you afterwards. After three more hits, it falls onto the candles that act as one of the walls and flies around with one of its wings on fire before it explodes into reams of paper. Sheesh, I didn't know lighting a paper on fire with a candle instantly raised the paper's temperature to 451 degrees Fahrenheit in a matter of seconds.
Bath Room
After playing Soltia Roulette again, the water levels return!
Stage 1
The water rises up very suddenly. Watch it so as not to be submerged!
The palm trees can be thrown like the trees in the beginning of the stage.
The rubber ducks make a low but loud quacking sound when you jump onto them. They also float when the water rises.
Remember the honey bears from the Attic area in the first game? Well, they're back, and they still throw stuff at you. Stab them with the key when they pop out of their pots to get rid of them.
When you leave the area with the Club card, drop down, go right, step off the edge and hug the left wall. You'll find the Le Bon race.
The pink elephant is some sort of water nozzle. Hit it with your key to pour water into the pool in the background. These will pour water into the background and also power the windmill-like platforms at the upper level of this part of the area. Just remember that the platforms spin every so often, which can send you falling straight to the bottom.
The turtles act as platforms.
Cards
Heart: There is a rubber duck near a table that you have to use to continue on. Stand on the rubber duck and wait for the water to rise, then fall again. Quickly get under the table, get this card, and run back.
Club: Shortly after the heart card, you'll be able to go under the tables again and find a box you can open with your key. Go inside to reach the plants above the bathroom sink. After the first honey bear, drop down and bounce left off of the plant leaf to find another card. If you go right before bouncing back up to the higher level of plants, you'll also find a 1-Up.
Spade: After the first pink elephant nozzle, drop down and keep going to the right at ground level to find this card.
Diamond: Take the two sets of pink elephant nozzle platforms to find a box you can open and enter. Jump from one turtle to another, then inflate the rubber duck near the exit out of this area with your key. Stand on it and take a running jump to the right to get this card and also uncover a gold wind-up key that the game won't even let you collect as it drops into the water. Gee, thanks, game.
Stage 2
Despite the change in appearance with some of these enemies, most of them aren't anything you haven't tackled in the other Barobaro stage.
The octopi in the boats have to be destroyed before you can get rid of the boat.
Throughout this stage, you'll find rubber whale toys that you can run into to switch from the foreground area to the background. Use these to get around and find alternate routes away from the enemy whenever you can.
Watch out for the mechanical sharks that pop out of some of the pits, as they will eat you.
At one point in the stage, you can take the upper path and run into a waterfall, which cuts to a hidden area. Keep hitting the invincibility spheres and you'll run straight into a card.
The seals will bounce you very high like a rubber ball when you land on their nose, in typical seal fashion.
The first lone green seal will bounce you to a 1-Up.
Cards
Heart: You'll see that at the end of the ramp at the beginning. Just jump off the edge and you can collect it.
Spade: The first opportunity to take the background path is advised, as you can easily get the Spade on your way through the first section if you do so.
Club: At one point in the stage, you can take the upper path and run into a waterfall, which cuts to a hidden area. Grab the invincibility sphere and you'll be able to go into the water. Do it the first time to run straight into a card. Do it the second time to find a 1-Up.
Diamond: There is a set of four green seals. Above them is this card. Also, if you use the four blue seals that come after them, you'll find a 1-Up.
Our adventure continues as we enter the more "grown-up" stages of the game...
Soltia Roulette
Just like last time, you can bet five, ten or fifteen Imperial Crowns (the white coins you find in the game) before picking a box and hoping for the best after they all rotate around in a circle. If you win, you can keep going for double or nothing until you either take what you got or lose by getting a clown head.
Study Room
Stage 1
Jump onto the cannon to drop into it and be shot into another area. The pink can can be grabbed and pulled, allowing it to be used as a platform to go left afterwards.
The blue books will not only crush you, but they will open up and reveal enemies lurking in the tattered pages.
Hit the missiles that spawn out of some of the blocks to send them into the background and out of your way. One of them will blow up the wooden bridge that kept you from getting those Imperial Crowns earlier, as well as one of the cards.
The open book platforms shake when you stand on them, and they'll eventually close for a second before opening again. You'd better be quick on them.
After the first section, you'll take part in the Le Bon race. If you have max health and collect a gold wind-up key, you'll get an extra life.
The second section is simple, and the third has some yellow robots running around. Grab the invincibility ball and take out as many as you can. The robots will punch you with their punch glove when they open the door in their torsos, so watch out.
Cards
Club - When you enter the cannon at the beginning, go left, pull the pink can of black tea to the right and use it to head left. Jump into the cannon here to get this card.
Heart - The second blue book creates a staircase after it drops. Go up this staircase to find another card.
Diamond - Use the missiles to break the wooden bridge with the Imperial Crowns underneath. You'll find this card underneath the same bridge.
Spades - At the start of the section with the yellow robots, go left after jumping into the second cannon. You'll find the last card.
Stage 2
It should be noted that Le Bon the baseball is also the close friend of Sir Ginger.
Jump over the cannon at the beginning. Believe it or not, you can open the first book that's standing upright in the pile stacked up next to it to find some clocks and Imperial Crowns. Remember: if a book is sitting upright with the spine facing away from you (in other words, you can see the pages), you can pull it back. Some contain items, some contain enemies and others still contain staircases.
You can push the open books closed not only to continue, but to crush the enemies stupid enough to be situated between the pages.
In later sections, it's dark, but not too dark. Pick up the lighter (I'm assuming it's a Zippo) to light it up, then light the candles with the flame to light up the room.)
Cards
Diamond - Run up the second hill of books at the very beginning and take a running jump at the top.
Club - At one point in the second section, you'll have some clocks indicating where to jump. Follow them to find this card.
Heart - In the last section, enter the cannon, then go left and drop down where you see the clocks. Go right when you hit the ground, and you'll find this card.
Spade - From the Heart card, go right, enter the cannon, then go left before you head right to the exit. You'll find the Spade.
It's that time again! It's the sequel to Clockwork Knight, and this time around we find out what happens immediately after the end of the first game!
Yes, yes, I know the videos are off-sync, old and in Japanese. I know that there's a much longer version that's actually better than this five-parter, but I can't find any more LP footage beyond this on YouTube at all. You'll just have to bear with me.
The version of the game used here is a Japanese version that actually combined the two games. The American version cut out the first part from this package and released it with just the second game, which is too bad because having both games together adds to the replay value as you can play them back-to-back on the same disc.
Anyway, on with the story. Immediately after the events of the first game, some bats fly out and kidnap Princess Chelsea again. The TV boss from the finale of the first game is still somewhat active after the final battle, and Pepperochau's ally, Sir Ginger (the guy in silver from the first game) volunteers to take him out as Pepperochau looks for Chelsea. This time, there's even more rooms in the house to explore!
Kid's Room
Yes, there's a third children's room. Wouldn't you know it? It's kinda hard to tell who is was meant for. Maybe it's really a playroom and not a bedroom?
Stage 1
The top with the mustache and huge nose is Prunchau, Pepper's close friend. Whatever he says, I can't tell, since it's all in Japanese. You talk with the character that marks the stage before you begin the level, which is a nice touch and adds some background to the story.
When you start the stage, you'll be seeing some of the normal enemies that you're used to in the last game. Some of the helmeted toys now carry pencils that they can use as lances that they hold straight forward in an attempt to stab you, but if you can stun them, you can carry them, run around, and one-hit any enemy who's dumb enough to be in your path.
The eggs carry power-ups. Just throw them and you'll reveal whatever is inside.
You can wind up the bridges with your key attack to raise them up and go to areas you couldn't reach without them.
If you don't know what the items are, here you go: The clocks add to your time and the white coins are for the bonus stage at the end of every world. The bronze wind-up keys replenish one health unit, the silver one replenishes them all, and the gold one increases your max health by one unit. The sparkly gold ball with the blue star is temporary invincibility. The helmet with the blue head is a 1-Up and the one with the red head is a 3-Up. (Phew. I know I put that into one paragraph, but I don't feel like copying everything down from the first game and it's a direct continuation that's actually better than the prequel anyway.)
The gold prize balls that act like plastic Easter eggs open up whenever you throw an object at it. You'll be able to find some nice things in them.
The toy trees can be picked up and thrown.
If you destroy multiple enemies in a row, you'll get a 1-up for pulling off this interesting stunt.
Just like last time, you can open the doors (and activate locks) by pressing B repeatedly when you're near them.
Every once in a while, you'll find a playing card. There are eight in every world, and four in every stage, each representing one of the four suits (spades, clubs, diamonds and hearts). Dash through it to collect it. There are 32 in the game and finding them all gives you the level select code when you beat the game after finding all 32.
After you get the Diamond, go to the right, step off the building and hold Left on the D-Pad. You'll find a hidden nook with some clocks and a hidden room. This is the Le Bon race. Beat Le Bon (the baseball from the first game) at the race to get a Gold Key.
The goal is just like the one in the first game - hit the correct letter, get a free life. This time, you have a ramp and the spaces for each letter are bigger.
Cards
Club - It's right after the start. You honestly can't miss it.
Heart - For the first one, just continue as normal after the gold prize eggs. It'll be there in plain sight.
Diamond - When you've opened all four prize eggs, walk on the top of the prize eggs and use your running jump to reach the other card at the top of one of the buildings.
Spade - It'll be just before the goal.
Stage 2
Barobaro is Pepperochau's trusty steed, and he's a wine bottle in a wheeled basket with a horse's head for a cork. Weird. This time around, you'll be racing down a track and shooting Barobaro's head at enemies to destroy them.
When you see the "!" signs, be ready to jump over a pit to the next track.
The enemies here consists of the helmeted guys on motorcycles (some of which you'll have to jump over as they can come at you from behind), and clown cars that take a few hits to destroy.
Keep to the right to avoid the giant clowns that drop down onto the track in an attempt to crush you to avoid taking damage.
Cards
Club - It's right after the start.
Diamond - Take the upper path after the first building, and stay on the foreground plane when you have a choice to stay there or enter the background.
Heart - You'll see it in plain sight after the Diamond card. Hit the background path on the second fork and you'll be able to collect it.
Spade - When you start seeing the little red cylinders bouncing up and down the track, you'll see this one. Since you took the background path to get the Heart, you'll be able to get the Spade.
Boss Stage
Remember Soltia? She was the host of the bonus stage and she sang in the credits to the first game. Oh, and she's a perfume bottle. Anyway, after talking to her, you'll take on the first boss - some snake with building blocks for a body and a microphone for a tail. When you see it, it goes "Hi-oh!" into its microphone. What, is this thing trying to be Ed McMahon?
Watch where the boss moves, and attack the microphone at its tail as you avoid its body. Sometimes it will go into the background and go "Hi-oh!" into its microphone before moving around again.
After it takes enough damage, this snake be prepared to dodge the head as you attack the tail. It will eventually turn black and white, signalling the end of the battle, before moving around in the background and eventually exploding before a falling building block hits the head and makes it fall. I have to admit, this is actually one of the more interesting boss deaths I've seen in a video game. I blame the surf rock bass riff that plays as the boss's body falls out of existance.
