Hey Kinder, welcome to the Endzeit,
welcome back.
Metroid or Vania?
This was never a big question for me.
If a game fulfills this criterion
it was always a Metroid clone for me.
But the term Metroidvania is a now a standard from the industry,
and the thousands of games that try to achieve the same goal.
This was not the case
what these two games did at the
beginning of the millennium.
For that reason i've chose a few handheld games
who tries to emulate the spirit,
from this two cult games. Have fun （*＾ワ＾*）
Alright Kinder, what do we have on the screen today?
Let's start with Nightmare Before Christmas.
Which was released over 10 years after the movie.
Besides the nice holograph cover, the game was actually developed by Tose.
We continue with Fantastic Children.
Which is todays only game that got no western release.
You could guess from the cover and the manual
that this maybe a another anime license title.
The smart guys behind that game was Indie Creates.
US, Japan, and now PAL.
Today we have something for everyone
Shaman King ... another license Anime title
but you've read right, it's from Konami!
And what is even more unbelievable
it uses the same engine, that all the other Castlevanias uses for GBA used too.
And even more pleasant is
that the first game was so successful
that Konami even made a sequel.
That means that there was not only three Castlevanias
if you separate the Belmonds from the games
there where even five Castlevanias on the GBA.
But let's get busy. Thats enough beautiful game boxes for today.
Let's get started!
Here comes Jack!
And it's not only Jack that finds his way into The Nightmare before Christmas
but also many other popular faces too.
Rather delightful is that the despite
that the game comes so many years after the movie
it is similarly good.
And doesn't have much in common
witch the new Tim Burton screw up movies
we had to suffer through in the last years.
If we want to talk more about the genre of todays episode
Nightmare is quite a lot more Metroid than Vania.
There are no level ups
and you can gain no EXP.
The rules are much more Metroid
You can find shrunken heads
which add one point to your health bar
just like a energy tank in Metroid.
Very charming its that every boss in the game
got his own little intro.
I always like this short sequences
feels like a new enemy gets his introduction in Devil May Cry.
This adds atmosphere to every game.
The boss attack patterns
are clever and you have to memorize the attacks.
The boss fights are well designed
and can be quite a challenge.
Stage Clear!
Jack animations are look excellent.
For example if i climb up cliff
and move like a spider Tose but a lot of effort into it.
The color palette looks very grim.
Even if the sprites look sometimes a lot
like NES or NeoGeo Pocket.
A lot of enemies have only a few colors
but this adds more creepy atmosphere and fits the game well.
Here is a ladder jump that reminds me of the the Wily Stage from Rock/Mega Man 2.
All in all the platform sequences are more challenging
than your ordinary Symphony of the Night Indie clone.
If you sit into one of the electric chairs you recharge your energy
and you can save if you talk to the scarecrow.
Here is one of the famous places that defines the genre
and you can only advance if you have the right skill or weapon.
Without backtracking these games wouldn't work.
With this in mind the whole world is build around Halloween Town.
From here on you can reach the other parts of the town.
And if you go into a door from there you can reach a new level just like in Mario 64.
Just like here, where the Level splits into another mini dungeon.
Could be my house ...
Anyway, i just found Zero.
With Zero you jump right into a mini game.
Reminds me a lot of games like Space Harrier.
This opens a new area if i exit trough the chimney.
There are 3-4 other different mini games in this level.
If you have equipped Zero and his nose glows red
there is always something hidden around the corner.
Nightmare was very late title for the GBA.
The Nintendo DS was was a long time on the market oder was released a long time ago already.
Developed was the game by Tose.
This is one of those developers whose name you'll never find on the box.
The only game Tose took credit for was the the Legendary Starfy
for GBA and DS with the cute little Starfish
But besides that you will never find Tose under they're real name. Their are Ninja Developers.
If i should name a few games: Super Princess Peach or Rocket Slime
Ghost & Goblins Gokumakaimura for PSP
Thousand Arms for Playstation
let me think ... Freshly hatched for PS4 & Vita
World of Final Fantasy
These guys know how to make good game.
Nightmare before Christmas does almost everything right
what you'd expect from a really good Metroid clone.
And does a much better job then the Indies like Shadow Complex and co nowadays.
Maybe it will find a place in your heart too.
Fantastic Children.
That's a strange one.
There are almost no info about that game on the web.
You can say it fits into the Metroidvania Genre.
However it has very little in common with the two big series.
The controls feel a lot like Prince of Persia.
And what got me confused the most at the beginning
there is no possibility to attack straight an enemy.
Run & Hide is at first your only option.
You have guessed right if you thought Fantastic Children
is another anime license from Bandai.
I can't tell you anything about the Anime itself
but it looks like a nice mix of Nadja
or Ghibli's Laputa Castle in the Sky.
There is are not much info on the anime out there.
But the few guys out there who wrote about it
steering it in this direction, i only got from playing the game.
So maybe the Anime itself is a look worth into.
From a graphical standpoint it looks good too.
The detailed backgrounds and smooth animation are a joy for the eye
nice looking enemies.
But ...
The odd thing about Children are the battles.
If you don't encounter just a snake or a spider
but rather a human being
it reminds me a lot of Pokemon.
Where you challenge to fight with a trainer
and then the games changes to a RPG battle.
But here you don't have any cute monsters to fight with.
It's rather a rock, paper, scissors system.
Where you have to mix punch, kick and chop strategically together
plus a few additional skills.
Here it is for example that punch beats kick
and if you continue to choose the right action you will deplete the health bar of your opponent.
To be perfectly frank with you
i don't even know how you call this fighting genre.
but there were quite a few of these games for PC-Engine and Super Famicom.
The Battles are more challenging as you first would thought.
Cause you or your enemy can switch the attack at the last second.
So you have to be always on your guard
and because of this the fights don't get boring.
There also a lot of new attacks you can find.
Like two fast kicks that are weaker but can maybe cancel an attack
and you can call in strikers to boost your stats.
There are only hand full of battles where you can
hammer the action button for cheap victory.
In the end I had far more fun with the battle system that I would have thought at first.
of course you can find your traditional map here too.
Just like in Metroid or Symphony.
There are a lot of smaller and bigger puzzle sequences too.
A lot of them are quite clever.
This puzzle I liked a lot.
At first you think that you have to push the block just to loot the treasure box up there
but this puzzle got a lot further.
There is something like a secret in a secret room.
If you push the block all the way to the end
there is even a bigger treasure hidden.
This like Nintendo old school
that we are missing more and more.
So it was a surprise to see something like that in a not so well known game.
Fantastic Children switches the action part that you know from
Metroid and Symphony
and adds some RPG battles and puzzle elements instead.
So you can call the whole package still a Metroidvania
but it has it's own distinctive touch.
It didn't took too long to realize
that the guys behind that game are no greenhorns.
regarding making a good Metroidvania
The developer of Fantastic Children was Inti Creates.
Which of course are the guys behind
the whole Mega/Rock-Man Zero Games on GBA.
They did also the ZX Games, and Rockman 9 & 10.
Right now Inti Creates are a making the Symphony successor in spirit
Bloodstained.
Which we can hopefully see soon in our shelves.
Fantastic Children is for sure
one of those games
that fall in the category
love at second sight.
I'm not the biggest friend of these games
with a Prince of Persia control scheme.
The RPG-like battles were at first
more dissuasive than enjoyable.
And these strange crystals too...
that you collect for 2 - 3 hours
and you have no clue what to do with them.
But a bit later, what you can see here,
you can summon a small robot buddy
that can kill all enemies on screen.
For 10 of your collected crystals.
Which does the same as if you swing
your whip in Castlevania
to kill some bats or skeletons.
Fantastic Children spins a new web
with a lot of the known backtracking elements from a Metroidvania
to something new and unusual.
There are no translation patches
or walkthroughs online.
But another good thing is, you can advance with a little try and error
and the language barrier is not too much of a hassle.
I'm pretty sure that this will be
one of the more rare GBA games in a few years.
Konami... that sounds familiar.
Castlevania? Does that ring a bell to anyone?
Don't worry, even if this intro looks
like just another plain anime conversion.
Shaman King/Master of Spirits
is one of those many Konami Games
that were released in the early 2000s.
Many of these games where quite good
but nobody cared about them.
Just imagine to replace the head from this anime boy
with the head of a Belmont
and listen to the great music in the background.
What does it remind you of?
Yep, you're right!
that is exactly the same game engine
withe the same gameplay
that every Dracula on the GBA from Konami has.
Backtracking, Level Ups, you name it.
It seems that the graphics are from the same engine as Aria of Sorrow.
It looks a lot better than
Circle of the Moon and Harmony of Dissonance.
If we just stay a little with Aria of Sorrow,
they also borrowed the soul catching system from it.
So you can use the active monsters soul
for a direct attack.
Or you could use them passive to buff up your defense or so on.
Of course you get some special skills from bosses too.
Like this guy on his pimped up Anime Yankee scooter.
But with the pouring rain in the background this is quite a sight.
The attack patterns of the bosses are not too bad.
It took me a few tries to beat this guy.
Once you've finished the fight you get one of these special skills
to reach some higher spots later on.
The overworld map makes the whole thing
a lot more structured
than a single big winding castle.
But you can't wander freely, you have to walk through any single spot.
If you're on the world map you can stop anytime
at a shop and restock on health items
buy new soul containers or just save your progress.
The overworld from Shaman King
reminds me a little of Simon's Quest.
You have a similar level design.
Sometimes a area is only only 2 or 3 screens big.
Of course there are other areas like here.
That resample a big dungeon or castle
with many rooms in it
and you need the right skill to advance further.
If you add all this up with the
skeletons and bats that you have to fight
I think it's really a nice little
alternative for all you guys
that memorized every Dracula in your sleep.
New Game... not really.
But it looks like Shaman King was
at least so successful that Konami
made a second game.
Also quite a bit interesting
both of the games
despite that the manga was published Shonen Jump
and both of the two games where made in Japan
there was only a US and European release.
They have never reached the japanese stores.
The reason for that might be that the Anime series
was too late in the US children TV program.
Meanwhile in Japan the series was replaced by the
next big Shonen Jump Manga.
Especially by such a license driven game
you need children who care about it.
For everyone else you have to stumble about
such strange Youtube channels like mine (￣▽￣;)
But that should be no problem for us
cause the second Shaman King game is even better than the first.
Regardless of that not so much has changed.
For example you get the same crate pushing ability
from the first boss as in the first Shaman King.
Not a question ... there is a lot of recycling
but is not as bad as in Harmony of Dissonance.
In this game there was not a single new enemy type.
But yeah... i wouldn't suggest that you
play both Shaman Kings in a row.
If you let stay a year between each game
i think you will notice the similarities not so much.
It can be tough to collect a lot of the same
enemy soils you already know from the first game.
But the rest of the game has far more
fine tuning and better design choices.
Here and there it can't be overlooked
that the two games where made by the Konami B-Team.
Could also be, that there where a lot of trainees at work.
But these guys put a lot effort in it.
And I think this game is a lot of better than your
average 15$ Metroidvania attempt from PSN or Steam.
Especially with the bass battles, they did a really good job.
Many of the stages that connects two areas
are not a masterpiece in game design.
No hard feelings.
If you like what you see here
you can get here a good game for small money.
You should take this deal ＼( ◠‿◠ )／.
Especially if you want a game that plays as Symphony of the Night
than Shaman King 2 is worth a recommendation from me.
I hope i could sweeten up the dark Endzeit
with a few interesting games for you.
See you next time (๑˘̴͈́꒵˘̴͈̀)۶ˮ
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