SNES Game of the Week 118 - Clock Tower

[dsparil]

Apr 11, 2024 14:14:37 GMT -5 personman said:

My mom got this and played it a fair amount once I got a 64 and left my SNES unattended more often than not.

That seems like the exact scenario this was made for!

[Snake]

Ms. Pacman

Rank - C+

Seems like the SNES is an overpowered machine to bring up this port. The eyecatch melodies and sound effects are as catchy as ever. It's a decent mental exercise, but I'm not really into point gathering games.

[excelsior]

• Publisher - Nintendo
• Developer - Pax Softonica
• Genre - Puzzle
• Initial Release - 1 January 1998

  

  

[excelsior]

I guess this should have waited for week 98, but of course we're covering it due to the NSO appearance, with Herberke being something I wouldn't expect to go down so well with our audience. There is an inconsistency here - there are two games included on this cartridge, with the original Wrecking Crew being one of them. With compilation releases we've covered the game separately, however I don't think this qualifies.

Anyway, I have a soft spot for the original Wrecking Crew game, but this second one is quite different. This time it's a vs puzzler with a match 3 mechanism where you need to force your opponent into a fail state by overstacking their blocks. What I will say against this one is that, unlike the best puzzlers, perhaps, play is pretty unintuitive. I found my early play time I was scratching my head a great deal, or that I'd have little to do leaving a very passive experience. There are power up attacks which are quite annoying, and the core play is just a bit odd. Thankfully, there is a tutorial included, although it's quite slow. As a puzzle fan, I just find this game to be pretty inelegant in it's play. The original game being on cart is the saving grace for me and bumps up my rating.

Ranking - C

[dsparil]

I have no particular affection for Wrecking Crew so its inclusion doesn't do anything for me. I don't think Wrecking Crew '98 is especially unintuitive, it's just very boring. I spent something like ten minutes on the second level just treading water because the game seemed to be at its max speed, but I couldn't manage to take down the opponent. I'd go D. This was originally a Nintendo Power game, and it feels like filler for the service. It's probably better as a competitive game.

[spanky]

Wrecking Crew '98 is one of those games I remember tantalizing me on ROM sites in the early days of emulation. "You mean they made another WRECKING CREW game???" The reinvention of the game into a Vs. Puzzler kind of reminds me of Wario's Woods in that you control a character instead of the blocks or a cursor but I could never really wrap my brain around it. It's neither super accessible or seems super in-depth. It's a well produced package at least with nice graphics and cutscenes as you'd expect of such a late Super Famicom release. Maybe not as nice as something like Tetris Attack though.

Also I know these NSO offerings are hardly meant to be premium releases but would it kill them to translate this? I mean it's got Mario on the cover for goodness sake. Hell, throw the fan translated ROM on there...who is going to complain! A C score is about right but I feel like that's being a bit overly generous.

[Snake]

Wrecking Crew '98

Tried it, didn't care for it.  While colorful, lush cut scenes, etc, I prefer the old game style.  I need a rule book, because this VS Puzzler isn't straightforward enough  to jump into blind sans instructions. The most I could make out is that you should be matching colors and attempt to crank the formation up or down each floor.  

Rank - C-

[vnisanian2001]

This seems to have been based on the original Arcade game, which had a dual Vs. screen.

[excelsior]

• Publisher - Data East
• Developer - Beam Software
• Genre - RPG
• Initial Release - May 1993

  


  
Disoriented and confused, you are forced into a race against time, technology and termination. Running in the shadows and cracks between the Megaplexes, survival depends on your wits, your weapons and your wayward companions. Plunge into the dark side of the future, where technology and magic become one, where devolution and destruction are a way of life. Plunge into Shadowrun.

[excelsior]

A rare western style RPG built specifically for the SNES, Shadowrun definitely stands out within the library. The visuals are pretty rudimentary but the gritty cyberpunk theme comes through nicely. There's an adventre progression system based on keywords that can be discovered and used in conversation, which works nicely, along with a skill based levelling system. Unfortunately, the latter leads to grindy combat, the action in general feeling like a necessary, but lacking inclusion. Still, the game gets by on its setting and progression system and doesn't take much time to beat.

Ranking - B

[spanky]

Yeah this is a really cool game! Nothing else on the console is really like it in terms of either gameplay, setting and tone. Cool music too. It's about the most "mature" SNES game you are going to see. The interface can be a bit clunky, I still have no idea how Cyberspace really works and it's way too grindy and combat-heavy without that aspect being particularly engaging...but the game has enough innovation and panache to outrun it's flaws.

Beam made a lot of junk but they could occiasionally knock it out of the park and this might be the best example of that. I'll give it an A.

[dsparil]

Shadowrun is a good followup to Nightshade on NES. It plays better as an adventure game, and the combat is nowhere near as grueling. I'd give it an A. It's a good cyberpunk adventure/RPG and unique on SNES. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's the best cyberpunk game, but it's definitely up there especially for the time period.

It's also worth mentioning the wholly unreleased Genesis Shadowrun since the two tend to get brought up together; there's also an untranslated Japanese adventure game for Sega CD game that gets mentioned less. Some people prefer that one as it's closer to the tabletop experience, but I could never get into it. Your realistic choices for shadowrunning jobs at the beginning are low paying delivery runs which makes it a drag. I should give it another try sometime though.

[personman]

I remember liking this one, it had a real strong atmosphere and its just plain striking how it opens with you waking up in a morgue with amnesia because of course, go down an ally way and some demonic eyes pitbull states they control your destiny just... what hell is this? I'm on board lol; Nice little soundtrack too. It was clunky as hell of course to the extent where if I remember right the fire arms skill literally gives you zero benefit passed the the third level so you can gimp yourself real bad unknowingly.

Otherwise I thought it was a neat game that far as I know nothing else is really like it. Rough around the edges for sure but the one time I played through it I enjoyed it. Wouldn't mind giving it another shot one of these days, I'll go with B.

[ommadawnyawn2]

This is a pretty messy game, with almost as many bad as good implementations. The combat system, for example, with its one foot in point-and-click nostalgia, it becomes as elegant as an amalgam tooth filling. Pretty soon you have to rely on healing and invisibility magic (both of which are OP), as well as poor enemy AI. On the other hand, this is more focused than the MD version, and offers an at least partially engaging detective story with an amnesiac tough guy in a trench coat in the lead role. The latter was not a well-worn theme yet in the context of games.
The game starts out quite dark and unwelcoming, a bit like the first Fallout, but soon makes up for it with things like made-up street slang and a segment where you try and succeed in disguising yourself with a pair of sunglasses. SNES era charm.
The detriments are many more, I didn't hesitate to use a guide a couple of times as the clues were vague and the challenge mostly consisted of noticing what was hard to notice. But with 20+ years to its age, I could forgive that and continue to enjoy the nonetheless quite well-crafted cyberpunk setting, as well as letting my minions/shadowrunners die in unnecessary ways. Other annoyances include slow travel, a hidden timer on merc contracts and a couple of scripting issues later on.

Those were my thoughts when I played through it the last time, which is quite a while ago now. I've seen there's a mouse control hack for it nowadays, the combat and other interaction probably feels better that way. With that in mind I'll give it a C. 

[excelsior]

• Publisher - Banalex
• Developer - Natsume
• Genre - Action
• Initial Release - 23 September 1993