SaffronGaming

Hi, I'm Saffron. I make gaming videos on the you tube. https://www.youtube.com/SaffronGaming

[aniuskie]

I like to think that in very rare occasions Rayquaza descends from the ozone layer and flies very very low

[saffrongamer]

Bioshock Remastered Review

*SPOILERS*

Bioshock remastered is a fresh take on the 2007 hit by Take-Two Interactive. The original game received a lot of praise and awards throughout the industry. I completely missed the boat on it at the time since I didn’t own a PS3 or an Xbox 360. I was too busy with Pokemon Diamond and Mario Galaxy. I decided to enjoy the game for the first time through the remake of the original game. The remastered version can run at 1080p vs the original’s 720p. And that’s all I know about the differences. I will be judging it purely on my impressions of remastered.

The story of Bioshock involves your plane crashing over the ocean and you finding a mysterious entry to an aquatic elevator down to the town of Rapture. As your ride takes you down fathoms of water you are treated to a voice recording from Andrew Ryan; the city’s creator. He gives you a dramatic  speech of hard work and integrity as we gaze upon the stunning undersea city and the surrounding marine life around it. As we arrive, we see a man named Johnny killed by a mutilated woman with hooks for hands. She tries to break into your safe bubble, but she has no luck and decides to leave. You hear a some static on the radio near you and a voice asks if you would kindly pick it up. He introduces himself as Atlas and promises you that he’ll help you get away if you help him save his family. You come across a strange needle and put it into your arm. Atlas tries to calm you down as your fingers are sparking with electric and you fall over the banister and go unconscious. You lie there as two splicers investigate and then flee as a little girl and a monster come to look at you. Only to pass you up because you’re still alive while mentioning about something called ADAM. When you wake up, you discover your ability to shoot lightning from your fingertips. Which allows you to proceed through the hallway.

As Atlas guides you, you come across a monster rescuing a little girl from splicers. You’re told that they are big daddies and little sisters. They collect ADAM from corpses. A mysterious woman named Brigid Tennenbaum appears and offers you a deal. Save the little sisters and she’ll make it worth your time, while Atlas urges you to kill them for their ADAM. The ADAM functions as a means to upgrade yourself as you explore rapture. In this town it’s seen as a source of power and strength.

You proceed through the next parts of Rapture performing a laundry list of tasks to advance. Kill  a mad surgeon, take photos of mutants, and try to save Atlas’ family. As you arrive, Andrew Ryan destroys the bathysphere that his family was hiding in. Enraged, asks you to help him take revenge on Ryan in exchange for his escape.

Now that Ryan is very aware of your interference, he wants you out of his way. As you reach Arcadia he has all the trees killed. Destroying the oxygen supplying Rapture. You must then save the forest by collecting the necessary parts.

When you save yourself and rapture’s few inhabitants, you and Atlas are ready to confront Ryan. You hop in your bathysphere with intentions to take down the big cheese. Unfortunately you are intercepted and taken to Fort Frolic. A mad artist, known as Sander Cohen, offers you escape for helping to realise his artistic vision. His magnum opus. You take photos of his 3 traitors and he’ll grant you your freedom. He lets you go mostly unharmed, but you should be glad you’re not trapped in plaster like his other works of art.

As you’re reunited with Atlas, you’re back in the hunt for Ryan. However in order to enter, you’ll need to shut down the power plant as the entrance won’t let you through otherwise.

Upon your visit to Ryan’s office he has set the core to self destruct. He believes that the city is either his or no one’s. You head forward to Ryan and discover a wall of photos and red letters that read “WOULD YOU KINDLY”. A recording by Dr. Yi Suchong has the doctor instruct a little boy to kill a puppy after saying “would you kindly”.

As you try to understand the circumstances you proceed to confront Ryan. He reveals who you are in a dramatic monologue. He explains that you’re controlled by the phrase “would you kindly” And then ordered you to kill him.

After you kill Ryan you run over and turn off the self destruct. Atlas breaks character introduces himself as Frank Fontaine. He thanks you for your help taking down Ryan and he sends the security after you. You escape with the help of Tennenbaum and the little sisters.

Tennenbaum tells you what you need to do and you start your adventure towards Fontaine. Unfortunately this is where the story begins to feel like it’s already wrapped up. At this point in the plot, in my mind, I felt that you were simply getting beefed up to take on Fontaine. You receive the majority of your weapon upgrades and are even showered with supplies right before the final fight. This was the first time I had maxed out my wallet, and I didn’t even have anything to spend it on. We do get to explore a chapter where we learned about where the big daddys and little sisters came from. But that only leads right into the conclusion of the game.

Frank Fontaine appears and as you defeat him, a swarm of little sisters appear to purge him of the last of his ADAM. Depending on if you saved the little sisters or not, you will receive different endings. If you saved them all, you will get a cutscene where you escape rapture with the little sisters and live out as a father. You receive what none of you ever had; A family. However if you kill any of them or all of them, you view a cutscene where you take the power that you’ve gained and rise up on the surface with the splicers. Implying that you attacked the surface.

The most powerful aspect of Bioshock is it’s presentation. It’s such a stunning experience to see Rapture as you travel from level to level. Everything in this sci-fi horror tells you that you’re at the bottom of the sea. From the leaky halls, dilapidated rooms, and 1940s style architecture. The horror in this story directly comes from the atmosphere of the game. I was definitely creeped out for quite a while. But It dies down very hard after you defeat Sander Cohen. The first chapter is definitely the spookiest. I backtracked for supplies once and found a room that I missed. Then was jumped by a splicer that I immediately once shot on trigger.

Throughout the game, you come across recordings that citizens of Rapture have left behind. This is the main way that you are told the story of its people. The struggles of the lower class. The ideals of Ryan. And the power of Fontaine and his rebels.

My favorite recording is the demise of Dr. Yi Suchong. As we hear him speak of his failures with the big daddies, we hear him overcome and murdered. And we can look directly to a corpse eternally pinned to a table by a dusty drill.

Andrew Ryan was such a thrilling antagonist for the game. His dramatic speeches that he showered on you in your story made every moment more exciting. I quote him to my friends sometimes just for fun. I know Fontaine was the final antagonist, but he just seems to take a backseat to Ryan. But it is thrilling to know that there never was a family for you to find, and Fontaine called for you just to use you to rise up. After all, everyone thought Fontaine was already dead.

Lastly they leave director’s commentary film reels littered throughout the game. As you find them, you unlock the ability to play them from the main menu. I feel they should have been unlocked from the start or after you finish the game. They just kinda get in the way as you explore and take you out of the experience. I don’t want to go hunting for them while I go through the game. I’m usually only thorough in exploring on my first playthrough. But they do offer some cool insight into the development of the game and how some concepts came to be. And if you like giant commercials, Geoff Keighley hosts the interview.

My only other gripe with the presentation is the little quips that you hear from enemies. They’re creepy sometimes, but mostly just annoying. They can be very obnoxious when you are fighting a horde of splicers. Occasionally you can hear them through walls. Which I know is supposed to be atmospheric in some situations, but sometimes it felt like it was a bug that I could hear them

The mechanics of Bioshock are simple. You like magic sci-fi powers and guns? Well here we go. You get an array of guns and weapons at your disposal. I personally like using the shotgun, with occasionally the pistol or crossbow. You also have a chemical thrower, tommy gunn, grenade launcher, and your trusty wrench. All of these function exactly as you would expect. You’re given several upgrades to these weapons that can be quite helpful if you like that weapon. Such as power, ammo count, or knockback decrease.

Your other abilities stem from your plasmids. You can get abilities like electricity, fire, ice, telekinesis, wind, etc. Most of which range from being useful in combat to acting like a key to progress through the chapter. These plasmids are what gave power to the lower class to rise up and start a war within Rapture. And explain why there was such a desire for ADAM.

The game introduces you early on to the idea of hacking. See a security camera? Shock it to open up a hacking minigame. Then you can have security bots summoned to defend you from splicers. You may also hack turrets to shoot splicers for you. I feel that the hacking was used very ineffectively. You see you have to arrange the pipes to cause a flow of green something to get to the end of the course. It’s an easy enough minigame that only presents challenge when the developers increase the amount of traps or the speed of the flow. I think they should have introduced new ways to do hacks or more new pieces as the story went on. Instead you can only get upgrades that reduce flow speed or traps on screen. And tapping all these boxes to see what's inside doesn’t make it more fun to play. Don’t make me do that.

Combat wise it’s fairly basic. You see a mook. You shoot ‘em until they’re dead. Rinse and repeat for the entire game. Occasionally, you’ll come across a big daddy that requires some patience for you to defeat. Which is where the game shines when you have to struggle to take them down.

I noticed that the developers make some mooks easier to kill then others. I know it’s not me and my gun getting stronger. As the splicers in one room are weaker than in another. Sometimes taking just a single shot to kill, vs several shots.

By far the biggest offender is the final boss. Which apparently I’m not the only person to have complains about. Frank Fontaine appears like Jesus Christ from his cross while pumping himself full of ADAM. This final fight looks cool and all, but it’s extremely easy and Fontaine goes down with little issue. I think this boss needs a redesign or something.

Overall I feel that Bioshock is a thrilling adventure with impressive presentation, an interesting story, and a charming cast of characters. The original and the sequels had no impression on my opinions of this game. And I’m absolutely going to give them a fair shake as well.

This has been Saffron, thank you for listening.

[saffrongamer]

I finally made another review video. Is 2019 the year where I’m less lazy?

[yamujiburo]

Always full of possibilities!

[kianamaiart]

Got to the end!

[heart-of-garbage]

https://heart-of-garbage.tumblr.com/

[saffrongamer]

Donkey Kong Country Review Script

*To be edited and slightly trimmed down*

*Will be very different after voice-over, video, and final cuts are made*

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Hey look, its the first member of the monkey...bunch: gorilla glue…

Alright, silliness aside, its donkey kong! He’s saving the day in donkey kong country for your snes! I hadn’t played this game before getting my snes classic, as this game is older than I am, and boy does it show. I hate throwing out the argument that a game aged poorly, but this game doesn’t do much to impress. Sure, in 1994 I’m sure this game looked pretty good. So I’m not going to argue that the game looks bad. In fact, I think it still holds a little bit of its ground on its own.

The story is pretty simple and fun. King K. Rool and his Kremlings have stolen the Kong's banana hoard. It's up to Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong to travel the island, fight the kremlings, collect bananas, and take down King K. Rool. Along the way we have Cranky Kong for advice, Candy Kong for your save points, and Funky Kong for fast travel. You’ll also come across a few animal friends to help with your adventure, but they appear so rarely they have pretty much no presence in the game. Once they’re hit they take off running and well, good luck getting them back.

The game likes to show off its graphic impressiveness by using “pre-rendered” images. Rather than using sprites like other games at the time, they would basically use images made beforehand like mortal kombat. And as nice as that is, it kinda hurts the level design of the stage. I constantly misjudged jumps and went straight into a pit. These ledges are very misleading. Enemy hitboxes as well as your own are hard to tell. For example, the game treats this as a flat path vs being a slope, but it still has the gravity of being a slope. I can’t even tell what the hitbox of this rolly boi is and how it interacts with the Kong boys

I had a slow time getting through this game at first. It was all about finding bonus rooms so you could get enough lives to beat the game. I won’t pick on the game too much for that, as a life system was standard at the time. But that didn’t stop me from abusing a glitch to get max lives and then breezing through most of the game.

Most levels are a simple A-B with the usual obnoxious water level getting in your way every so often and then ending with a boss for the area. At first the bosses are neat to fight against, but they become a drag once they start re-using the previous bosses with alternate colors. The only decent boss fight is King K. Rool, who you fight on a pirate ship off of Kong island. The fight is pretty poor to be honest. Your biggest enemy is the screen. You can’t scroll the screen fast enough during the 3rd phase of the fight to see what he’s doing. The game relies on you to have died and learned his patterns multiple times. In fact, that’s the biggest issue with the game. The camera is too zoomed in. If the camera was out more, we would be able to see more of the level and deal with obstacles more properly. But I’m sure the game would lag to high hell if we did that.

Rare has had an incredibly good track record for scoring its music, and this game is no exception. The level themes are very well made and fit perfectly to their respective levels. The best one has to be the final boss theme; Gangplank galleon.

Honestly I expected a lot more from all the attention I’ve heard about this game. I’m going to assume that the 2nd and 3rd games as well as the returns series make improvements to this game. Hopefully I get the chance to look at them one day.

This has been Saffron, thanks for listening.

[saffrongamer]

Yoshi’s Island Review Script

*To be edited and slightly trimmed down*

*Will be very different after voice-over, video, and final cuts are made*

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Taking place as an origin story to the super mario universe, we see the stork attempting to deliver the mario bros to their parents when they’re attacked by Kamak causing baby mario to plummet to the earth. Fortunately, Mario lands on Yoshi and rather than eating the baby the Yoshis work together to help reunite the brothers. They travel through the island until they finally reach Baby Bowser’s castle and beat him along with Kamek.

Now that that mouthful is outta the way, we can talk about Yoshi’s Island as a whole. The game is all about traveling from A to B to get to the next level. Along the way, you can collect red coins, Happy Flowers, and little stars. The game wants you to get as many as possible in order to improve your level score. In fact, it wants you to get all of them in order to unlock the bonus levels for more of a challenge. I’m telling you now, don’t waste your time. Just beat each level normally and be done with it. You’ll spend so much time searching each level for every single coin and trying not to take damage. Yoshi doesn’t have health exactly. When yoshi is hit, baby mario starts to float around and is abducted by the Toady when his health hits zero. The game wants you to have a full 30 when you finish the level. Sure you can collect stars throughout a level to increase your total, but not getting hit along the way takes a lot of focus. And its not like the controls are poor. They’re actually quite tight and easy to use. The screen can just become a cluster of enemies sometimes, and Yoshi is pretty large.

But looking past all of that, the levels are designed extremely well and look very vibrant. Almost, pastel/crayon-like. This is one of the best looking games on the system after all. Using some of the techniques found in Donkey Kong Country and the Super-FX chip. Which they loved to advertise so much…

One of the best parts of Yoshi’s Island is its flawless boss design. Each world has 2 unique bosses to face off against. And they’re actually fun to fight against. It’s just that trying to beat some of them without getting hit can make getting a perfect score a real challenge.

Music-wise, this game is composed very well and every theme works perfectly with its level. Koji Kondo does not disappoint. From its serene themes to its fast paced fights, I loved listening to this soundtrack.

I’ve played the other yoshi’s island games, and I’d need a solid refresh in order to say if this one is better than its sequels. This game did indeed get a remake on the GBA, which I recommend playing if you can get a hold of it. It has more bonus levels to play and has a few better sound effects. Yoshi’s Island is a solid experience if you can look past trying to 100% each and every level.

This has been Saffron, thanks for listening.

[saffrongamer]

I make videos sometimes.

[saffrongamer]

Super Mario World Review Script

*To be edited and slightly trimmed down*

*Will be very different after voice-over, video, and final cuts are made*

I recently picked up a SNES classic, and while I was feeding our corporate Nintendo overlords more money by buying games I’ve bought before, I sat down and played Super Mario World. A game so incredibly near and dear to my heart that I have to play through it completely every time I buy another copy. And I currently also have it on my wii, wii u, AND 3ds. I remember going to my older cousin’s house when I was 4 or so and adoring every moment of it. I clearly remember saying “can we play the yawshi game” when I was over. I mean who even knows who that red guy is anyways?

Let me be perfectly clear. I might have some bias for this game. But in my possibly biased opinion, this game is one of the best I’ve ever played.  I don’t think a single note is missed. This game has one of the best soundtracks and smoothest controls. The first few mario games can’t even compared. Hell, I prefer this game’s controls/physics to the new super mario bros series.

The game goes as such; Mario, Luigi, and Peach are on vacation in dinosaur land when Peach is abducted by Bowser. You must go through the islands beating Bowser’s adopted children and saving all of the yoshis before beating the Koopa King once again. Pretty simple, right?

As I said, the controls are very smooth. Y and X for attack, run, and grab/throw. B for high jump and A for low jump.

The statement boldly written on the box is “Explore nine worlds of 96 levels of non-stop action!” There are actually only 72 levels with 24 having alternate exits. These alternate exits take you down secret paths for extra goodies like new levels and bonuses. I always aim to get every level exit so I can have it on my save profile… Where is… where is my 96th??!!... lets just… sweep that under the rug…

Power up wise, the standards return with the fire flower and the mushroom. But new to the game is the cape. See that level? Its gone. It’s so insanely broken you can fly through the entire game. I also suggest going to find the switch palaces as they can make finding some alternate paths easier.

If you can reach bowser and save Dinosaur land, the game has one final challenge for you to take on; the Special Zone. Accessed through the star road you can take on the hardest levels in the game; Gnarly, Tubular, Way Cool, Awesome, Groovy, Mondo, Outrageous, and Funky. Personally, I think Outrageous is the most difficult. Friggen Bullet bills. Your reward will be a makeover of Dinosaur land turning the colors autumn. Additionally, it gives some enemies new skins. Like horrifying mario heads for the Koopas and Birds for the bullet bills.

If you haven’t played a super mario world you’re doing yourself a huge disservice by not experiencing it for yourself. I strongly urge you to try this fantastic game for yourself.

This has been Saffron,

Thanks for listening,

[saffrongamer]

Slime Rancher Review Script

*To be edited and slightly trimmed down*

*Will be very different after voice-over, video, and final cuts are made*

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This past year I’ve hardly completed any games or made any videos. Or rather, other than working at Olive Garden, I’ve only played a single game. I’ve sunk hundreds of hours into Overwatch. And oh my god, the game is extremely good at

1. Eating away my time.

2. Driving me absolutely insane.

The people I have to play with are absolutely disgusting. They’re the most rude, inept, self absorbed player base in the world. Like, do people in every gaming community behave that way? Does everyone think behave that way in everyday life?

Regardless, this past thanksgiving, I got to unwind with my biggest surprise.

Slime Rancher, officially released from Early Access in August 2017, a beautifully charming game we you, well, run a slime ranch. You play as Beatrix LeBeau, the new owner of the ranch. The ranch was left to you by a man named Hobson. Hobson only communicates with you through little notes that he’s scattered throughout the world. Giving little pieces of information to build the world and to share hints.

You’ll roam the far, far, range exploring the land. Your goal while exploring is to find new vegetables, fruits, chickens, and most importantly; Slimes! You’ll find pink slimes, rock slimes, firefly slimes, radiation slimes, cat slimes, cactus slimes, rainbow slimes, golden slimes, and even slimes that look like planets!

And in order to improve your ranch you have to get a proper assortment of slimes and put them into corrals. Once you have your slimes corralled, you can feed them their choice of food. Feeding them will make them drop crystals called plorts. You must collect as many plorts as you can in order to sell them for max profits. When you get enough money, you can purchase more corrals, land, and other upgrades. And get ready to start grinding, as late game you’re going to be spending 150,000 for apiece for your upgrades. And some of the upgrades along the way will be simple color pallet mods.

I was exploring the forest area when I came across an ancient door. The game wanted me to get a plort of each kind in order to open the door. The whole chapter of the game kept me absolutely mystified. I had the dumbest smile on my face when I reach the desert and brought life back to the desert with magic water.

I feel like I’m praising this too much. I need to pick on something, I guess. As a rancher you have 1 threat alone, the Tarr. The Tarr is what happens when slimes come in contact with too many plorts of different kinds. They’re not super threatening in the wild and you can just ignore them. On the ranch you can just vacuum them up and shoot them off a cliff. That’s it, they’re not very threatening to you. They only attack other slimes. Honestly, I think they should be more hostile.

So if you want a relaxing experience, I recommend buying yourself a copy of Slime Rancher. It's not too challenging, it rewards your curiosity, and is an overall enjoyable time. You can pick up Slime Rancher for a cheap price if you’re interested. This has been Saffron, thank you for listening.

[saffrongamer]

Super Metroid Review Script

*To be edited and slightly trimmed down*

*Will be very different after voice-over, video, and final cuts are made*

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Well here it is, my first blind review of a game; Super Metroid. I haven’t played through this game before, so excuse me if my gameplay seems lacking.

Just to get you up to speed, this isn’t my first time experiencing a metroid game. When I was younger I got Metroid prime for my Gamecube, beat the insect boss thing, before I promptly lost interest. Apparently that's heresy, I know, I’m sorry. Moving on, I revisited the series on my 3ds  with the ambassador program and got a free copy of Metroid Fusion. I played through that game and enjoyed it much more. I then went on to play Metroid: Zero Mission, a remake of the original game released in 1986. But I had never quite felt compelled to get to Super Metroid for the SNES. Straight and to the point, I’m very glad I did.

Taking place directly after Metroid 2 for the gameboy, Super Metroid has our bounty hunter, Samus Aran, landing on planet Zebes to take back a baby Metroid stolen by Ridley and the Space Pirates. She travels through the planet defeating several bosses before storming the Space Pirates’ base and confronting mother brain. Right before mother brain kills you, the baby metroid shows up, saves you, dies, and then you kill mother brain with a hyper rainbow beam.

After which, the self destruct kicks in and you gotta run back to your ship so you can live to tell the tale. Which doesn’t continue until Metroid: Other M releases 20 years later…

I’d like to thank the designers for their excellent presentation and sprite work. It was very easy to feel engaged in the story. From the friggen title screen, we are able to see gravity of the situation. “The last metroid is in captivity”, god damn is that foreboding and look at all of the dead bodies. It makes re-uniting with the baby metroid more of something to look forward to when it's stolen. In fact, what do you see the least of in this metroid game? Metroids, of course. The entire game I expected to run in a metroid. We don’t even get a small taste of them until one of the later sections of Maridia. And then those ones are easily killed by your blaster. Then you get swarmed hard by the space pirates’ completed Metroids. Finally you walk down  a corridor with dead space pirates before running into the baby metroid once again. The baby dying to mother brain becomes an extremely sad moment that makes you forget that the baby almost killed you 2 minutes ago.

I don’t think it's fair to judge Super Metroid based on its control in compared to the other 2d metroids, as it has aged slightly and doesn’t feel as “sleek” as the others. Samus is equipped with her basic blaster at first before gaining upgrades like her morph ball, charge shot, and screw attack. And the amazing feeling of getting an upgrade is here. As you’re going to be exploring the entirety of the map to find what you need to do next and how to progress the game. But you should absolutely explore as the game does indeed reward your curiosity. The game will actually track your time and collecting rate when you complete the game. And this game can speed ran in amazing ways. I, myself, don’t really feel compelled to replay the game multiple times to get better scores, but the game is mapped out for you to that. One of the important speed running tactics of Super Metroid is Samus’ ability to wall jump. If you press left when spinning into a wall AND the jump button, you will jump the other direction. I’m warning you now, this will destroy your thumb while you try to learn this. Fortunately, you don’t need to use this whatsoever to complete the game the first time. You’ll be soaring through the air with your space jump by the end.

The last thing I want to mention is the music score. There is barely any. And that's just fine for this game. There's a few tracks that show victory, suspense and mystery. There's really not much else to it. I’ll give The new Pokemon games a hard time for their lack of music before I dare touch Metroid’s.

I can’t really fathom what else I could say about Super Metroid. I was very pleased to have played it for the first time. I absolutely recommend anyone else to play. You can play it on pretty much any Nintendo system nowadays. 

This has been Saffron, thanks for listening.

[saffrongamer]

Reviews are fun to make.

[saffrongamer]

Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg Review Script

*To be edited and slightly trimmed down*

*Will be very different after voice-over, video, and final cuts are made*

When I was growing up in the early 2000s I rarely had any exposure to many big game mascot franchises. The only ones I had seen were Mario 64 and pokemon at my cousin’s house or my sonic 3 & Knuckles CD for our family computer that used keyboard controls. And there’s no way in hell my tiny little hands would be able to reach any sort of playability on that PS/2 port windows XP nightmare dinosaur. Nooo, the only thing I really played as a kid was Spyro the Dragon on the playstation 1.

If you’re old enough to remember anything before the Nintendo Wii, then you probably remember going down to your local walmart or target and trying the demos for the latest video games.

You know,

looking directly up,

at a 90-degree angle,

with an impossibly short cable,

trying to play a children’s game. (echo in the background: WHY?  LIKE WHAT THE FU-” *cut to next clip.*

Now I’m sure it sounds like I’m just rambling, and don’t worry I’ll get to that point, but I wanted to share my magical 2003 experience with one of my favorite games. The gamecube demo had a special disc on it. This magical little disc had several games and trailers to distract kids and fathers while mom goes and picks out some socks for tomorrow's Sunday Mass. For the older crowd, this preview disc had games like Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, Soul Calibur 2, and Viewtiful Joe. While the kids they had Sonic Adventure DX and Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg. Of course, I chose the Boy who Hatched: Billy. Hey, I was a little kid, I saw colors, a silly name, and a chicken suit. What more could peak my interest?

So I gave it a try. And I died. I died a lot. The demo starts by having you roll down a curvy path to the beach. I constantly fell into the water. I don’t even remember how far I got before I had to stop. As mom called me away, I felt a mix of disappointment and longing for more on top of my terrible neck pain.

And so I forgot about Billy and his Egg rolling adventures for the next few years. By then I had my own Gamecube and several games for it like Mario Sunshine, Sonic Heroes, and Pokemon Colosseum. Every time dad and I would go to our local gamestop, I would poke through the games and see if I could find anything. Dad would try to speed me along by suggesting a game, and I usually would have turned down whatever he chose. Until one day he grabbed billy hatcher, not because it was at a wicked good price or that he knew I would love it. He just was getting my attention with it because he liked to call me a chicken as a kid and he knew it would rile me up.

So of course, I bought it and took it home with me. First thing that got my attention was that it supported multiplayer. As the older brother I was naturally used to thrashing my younger sisters in mario party, so what was another game to feed my dominance as the eldest child? My sisters and I loved it.

We rolled around on eggs,

collecting fruit,

hatching the eggs,

collecting animals,

attacking each other with the animals after spending an hour on one round

Basically Ark: Survival Evol-*T-Rex Roaring clip*

We had names for a few of them too. We knew some of their names from the manual, but we called this one Chelk, Bunnybird, Lion, Sharky, Ostrich… We weren’t very creative children.

I guess the point I’m trying to convey is what this game was for me and my siblings and how much we enjoyed it. I was never able to get super far in the main game cause I was a kid and I sucked at video games that weren’t Spyro the Dragon or Pokemon Ruby.

So what was the reason for that build up? Why did I ramble about quality family time with a video game about kids rolling around eggs? I don’t know. I don’t have a direct focus for this video. But I would like to talk about what I think of the billy hatcher game now that I’m an adult.

So Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg… How do I begin this? You’re a young blonde boy Billy who’s overslept for his outing with his friends. He and his friends see a small chick that is being attacked by a crow, so Billy beats the fuck outta it with a stick. It is then revealed that the chick is actually the Chicken God of MorningLand. Billy and his friends are then taken to the new world to be the chosen heroes. I guess this is a new approach to the Isekai genre, so move over SAO and No Game No Life Billy’s coming to take over.

After donning the hero’s rooster outfit, Billy Hatcher and his friends Rolly Roll, Chick Poacher, and Bantam Scrambled set off to free MorningLand from the evil crows.

Each level until the final boss is structured in the same method. With a few varied level challenges moved around. You arrive in the new level with a hearty “Let’s Go!” and set off to find the trapped chicken elders, roll them over fruit, and then hatch them to obtain this game’s power star; an emblem of courage. The next level will always be a boss fight. This is what I’d usually consider what a developer would have put into place in order to keep the game kid friendly. Like allow a child to do what they’re able to do and then beat the game for their own success. While the older crowd can appreciate value in getting all of the mcguffins and beating all of the challenges. But that didn’t really happen. You see. There’s only about 6 levels. You need about 20 or so emblems to enter the final level. So if you try to move onto the final level, the game will spit you back to the stage select after you’ve trudged your way through the sand stage until you have 20 emblems. Therefore, since you only have about 12 emblems, you’ll need to go through the stages to pick some levels. Now the structure for the other stages follows a mismatched order of this for a total of 8 emblems for each stage: collect X amount of giant coins, kill 100 crows, race an NPC, find and free the 7 caged chickens, and 1 or 2 actually creative levels for that stage. 3 of the stages have you save your captured friends before they’re blown up for it’s level 4. Then allows you to play as your friends. I always liked playing Bantam as a kid cause I thought he could grab ledges better.

Stages also follow the Sonic stage tropes we all know; Forest, Pirate, Volcano, Ice, Circus, Desert, and Chicken Heaven...

Once you reach the final level you dont need to free any chicken elders, you just travel to the final boss. And I’m sorry if this is your favorite childhood game, but this final boss is terrible. And it hurts any sort of story conclusion the game was trying to have. Your final boss is I believe named Dark Raven. You use a mechanic they taught you earlier in the level in order to beat his first form. You must roll over a dark patch on the ground until it is completely gone. You dont need to get all of the circles cleared, just the one. And believe me, you’re gonna have a hard time with this. The game wants the whole circle gone with not a single pixel left otherwise the circle reforms and damages you. This becomes incredibly frustrating when there are more circles placed down and you can’t tell which circle had which darkness. This is all going on while this snarky asshole raven watches you aimlessly roll around in front of him. His final form is just another giant raven, but “spookier” I guess? At first you can’t really do anything to him and the bird just rips off your chicken suit. But then Chicken God steps in and gives you some good ol’ divine intervention with a new chicken suit. But this one has a fancy light effect thing going on. Anyways now you must dodge the raven attacks and wait for the most damning mechanic of all to screw you over. You need to stand in the direction of the raven. Wait for it to fire a ball of light at you, press the B button at the perfect frame to catch it, and then beat the fuck outta it to finish him off. I died so many times to this thing just because I missed the perfect frame grab. You have zero room for error on this one.

After you save morning land the whole chicken world sings your praise and peace returns. But now we can talk about the interesting part of the game; the gameplay mechanics. Once billy has an egg his mobility is staggering.

You can press A to jump

Tap A again to bounce jump off the ground

hold A for a ground slam

press B to smash the egg down in front of you,

Hit R in mid air to do an air dash in the direction of your choosing

Press B on the ground to roll your egg forward and watch it boomerang back to you

Press R to accelerate yourself for an egg dash

Press A while you’re dashing for a long jump to fling yourself super far

These abilities can be super well executed with the stage design allowing you to travel extremely fast and perform nifty combos.

Each stage is littered with eggs of all kinds. They either have an animal inside to help you, or a power up. You don’t need them for about 95% of the game. They’re pretty useless. You just need to use your egg to kill things. And you only need the animals for 5% just to solve a few level gimmicks or wall blockings. The power ups are pretty pointless outside of multiplayer. Sorry if that cracks your egg.

But I still love the jester hat, please don't hate me.

Each level has 5 chick coins for each stage. These are a neat thing to hunt for, but are ultimately pointless. They allow you to use that level’s sonic egg that would have been normally unobtainable. These eggs hatch into none other than big name Sega characters. These are also pointless. They’re just the normal animal powers copy/pasted onto sonic, Nights, Chu chu rocket, and PSO character models. They’re a neat thing to see when they appear in multiplayer, but they’re no more helpful than other eggs.

Which brings me into the best aspect of the game; the multiplayer. You and your friends can play in either a death match with stock or just hatch animals. However, the animal hatching only goes to a pre-set amount of points. Which you can just steal and win instantly by killing your friends. Kinda just turns into another just deathmatch. And when the screen is all cluttered from splitscreen, it feels difficult to control the camera properly. Why do I like this gamemode again? Oh yeah, nostalgia…

Scattered throughout each boss level is a special egg that allows you to demo a small downloadable game. When you connect your GBA via a cable to your Gamecube you can play several games. Easy and Hard Chicken Shoot, NiGHTS, Chu Chu Rocket, and Puyo Puyo Pop.

Chicken shoot is bad, its just a terrible top down game where billy must roll an egg over some crows. Hard isn’t hard at all. NiGHTS is entertaining, I have no experience with the games yet, but I probably should give them a shot. I can’t do chu chu rocket since I’m a little slow, but my sister is surprisingly good at the game. But puyo puyo pop was great. Lining up colored dots to clear the screen against another player is very satisfying. It reminds me of pokemon puzzle league for the Nintendo 64. I probably should get the new game for the switch…

*GBA SP joke clip*

Last thing I want to discuss is why I think this game might have been  so important for Sega when it came out. It was the first full game and original IP developed by Sonic Team for another system that wasn’t a port of a previous release. Sure they probably wrote “from the creator of sonic the hedgehog” on the cover just to push sales, but Yuji Naka’s name might not work as well as it did 10 years ago. His latest title was Rodea the Sky Soldier for the Wii & Wii U which I think deserves its own video at some point. This game was exclusively available on the Gamecube while Sonic Heroes, which released a few months later, was multiplatform. And hell, I’d rather play this game than Sonic heroes any day. And the reason why is so important, is because it was during the era 2 years after the dreamcast was discontinued and Sega went permanently 3rd party. I don’t want to talk your ear off about the 90s and the “console wars”, you’ve heard that all a thousand times before. But since then, Sega has created a variety of games that are only possible because of this relationship they’ve obtained with nintendo. Fans finally got the mario and Sonic olympic games series, and while I’m not remotely interested in them they must be doing well if they keep publishing them. But we also got Sonic colors in 2009, which is a fantastic game. And while some of the sonic games on the wii U were… lackluster, Nintendo paid for the development of Bayonetta 2 from Platinum for the Wii U. A series that sega had zero interest in funding. I could keep rambling on about them even slapping in the the gba demo download functionality, Sonic getting put into smash bros, or whatever nonsense I could come up with. But I just wanted to lament about one of my favorite childhood characters.

So that’s what I think of Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg. A lovable young boy with the ability to roll eggs. Sure, the game is littered with issues and I might only like it because of nostalgia. But I think it’s an amazing platformer nonetheless. Give it a try if you ever get the chance. I’d like to hope for a sequel, but the game’s poor sales have probably doomed any chance of that ever happening. But if you ever want to play as the boy who hatched in another game, he’s playable and makes cameos in Sega Superstars, Sonic and Sega All stars racing and racing transformed, Sonic Riders and Sonic Riders Zero gravity.

[saffrongamer]

[saffrongamer]

[saffrongamer]

Tadpole Treble Review

Script for my upcoming review video on Tadpole Treble for Wii U and Steam

     I have almost 700 games on steam and it shouldn’t surprise you to know that most of them would be indie games. I’ve slowly obtained these games through steam sales and humble bundles. Therefore, I didn’t really get a lot of them through the desire to play them. While most indie games disappoint me and don’t really offer something for me to be interested, a small team lead by two brothers really interested me in their rhythm game so much that I had to sink my teeth into it.

     Tadpole treble, released by Bit-finity games in 2016 for Steam and Wii U. I only knew about this game through the man, the myth, the legend; Matthew Taranto. He’s well known for creating the popular webcomic BrawlintheFamily. Which I read since I was in high school every update up until its conclusion in 2014. During that time he would experiment with his game and publish demos to his website. After the end of his comic he, his brother, and Dane Caro launched their very own Kickstarter with a fair amount of success. I mean 34k out of 30k is plenty impressive. 

     Tadpole Treble, a game I absolutely had to purchase during launch, is a simple rhythm game where you’re a small tadpole named Baton. Get used to the puns folks, the whole game is full of them. You, as a tadpole, emerge from your egg dodging notes, collecting bubbles, and smacking bamboo sticks to some catchy tunes only to be caught by a hungry pelican. Out of sheer determination and willpower you somehow ram your way out of the pelican’s mouth and to freedom below. Unfortunately you’ve been dropped onto the top of a mountain. Now you need to go through levels dodging colorful trout, hungry turtles, pixelated ducks, pesky mosquitoes, frightening barracudas, rolling boulders, chilling ice water, obese piranhas, sharp-shooting crawfish, and deadly saltwater.

     Throughout your story you’ll meet some extremely loveable characters. Outside your parents there is Etude the bullfrog, the dusty Beatle and his snail Amigos, your Pelican..., and Sonata the Tadpole. I need to talk about Sonata the tadpole. His level, Midnight Bayou, is a level where he sings a love song to you. Not to mention, he’s voiced by none other than Matthew Taranto. I GET TO BE SERENADED TO BY MATTHEW TARANTO IN TADPOLE FORM. How could that be any better?! You should also listen to Thunder Creek. The tune is incredibly catchy and fun to sing along to. 

     When Baton returns home she sees that some kind of oil has begun to pollute her home. We learn that a plane has crashed into the bay causing an oil spill damaging the wildlife. Baton decides to take charge and do what she can to save her family’s home. The final level is a boss-fight that I honestly cannot agree with. The final fight is with a robot named ELE-94. This fight wants you to first strike each chord enough times to break it. I’ll give this phase a pass even though I wasn’t able to realize what you needed to do at first. The next phase wanted you to hit symbols to bounce up and hit a random hanging egg. Why is the egg there? I don’t know. Why does it hurt ELE? I couldn’t tell you. If it was explained in the story somewhere, I must have missed it. The last phase is obnoxious, but really easy when you know what you’re supposed to do. Its called “Another Refrain” for a reason. ELE will try to burn you with a lighter while she sings on loop. If it's not super obvious to you, you need to smack the lighter back at her. However that does nothing. You need to wait until you see her spark the lighter and then you can hurt damage her. Only after doing so you can save your home for your family.

     Lets jump into the gameplay. You’re a baby tadpole swimming along a music scale in the water dodging music notes, enemies, and hazards. While collecting points for your score, food, and bubbles. Bubbles are your main currency in this game. You collect them to bring to Etude the bullfrog for extra goodies and features. Like a music player and a creature catalog. Etude also mentions that he wishes for you to bring him challenge flies. In order to acquire these rare and endangered flies to feed to an obese frog you must beat each level with a level specific challenge. Such as hit all of the golden objects in barracuda caverns, never leave the deadly water in saltwater cape, or smack every single freakin’ bamboo stick in chip-tune lagoon. I absolutely loath Piranha Jungle. You’re required to not take a single piece of damage to get this fly. I wouldn’t even bother with this level if not for the reward for the flies.

     Once you feed the famished over-sized bullfrog you’re treated with some news. Etude tells you of an area where some animals have gone missing. Being the courageous young tadpole, you leap into action to investigate. Upon your arrival you’re treated to a very large Kraken with a trident who seems to be having a very bad day and wants to make sure you also have a very bad day. And believe you me, he’s going to make sure you have a bad day. That endurance in Piranha Jungle was just training you for this level. You see these steam tags? THEY’RE LIES! This game is a bullet hell. Rhythm game, my ass. You need to dodge music notes, with absolutely zero health pick ups. They’ve brought back the lightning from Thunder Creek. Here’s a small hint to help with the cymbal timing. The ring around the cymbal the distance you have left, so use that to help you hit it. Watch out for the big ol’ tentacles. The hitbox can feel somewhat odd. This level didn’t flow nearly as smoothly as the other levels. I think I would have had more fun doing the Sans fight from Undertale again. But I don’t think Matthew intended this to be a scored level so he left that out. Which I believe would be a fair decision. After all, it seems as if this fight was a bonus Kickstarter goal made by one amazing person who pledged $2,000. Thanks man. Thanks a lot for this hell.

     The last thing I need to discuss is the composition mode; the big feature of the game. It is what was advertised the most. I’m sure everyone is familiar with the old Mario paint style music creator. Well this one is much more detailed, has more instruments, and can make music more properly. I honestly wasn’t interested at the time to make my own songs. I was pretty worn out from the kraken fight. So I went online to try and find some music. While I’m currently playing the Wii U version, and using composition mode is better on the Wii U, I have to say that sharing music is pretty crummy on both versions. The Wii U version wants you either load them from a file source or scan a QR code. Now that's all well and good, but I simply cannot find any quality QR codes online. Through some searching, I managed to find a few on the old Bit-finity forums. Which has since been downed in Russian spam-bots and fitness  advertisements. The steam version isn’t any better. They use the same method only with a webcam to function like the Wii U’s camera. This would work way better if they had steam workshop support. A dev post did say that they would be looking into it last September, but at this rate I highly doubt that will come to be. It's a real shame this mode might be wasted. I’ll try to compose some music and post it here in the coming weeks if I have the time. If you want an example of the the composition mode can do, I’ll leave some links to some YouTube videos posted on the Bit-finity YouTube page.

     So that’s Tadpole Treble. An overall enjoyable game that is so incredibly relaxing (bar the bonus stage) that I had to purchase it on both platforms. It’s very disappointing that the composition mode might go underutilized, but hopefully the Taranto brothers port this game to the switch and give it another chance. Hell, I’d buy a physical release. Regardless, thank you for listening to my Tadpole Treble review, I really love writing these. And Matthew, if you ever need a duet partner. I’m your guy.

[saffrongamer]

HD vs SD stills from the ultra hdmi mod