Jab’s Builds! (Whomp 'Em! Plumbers Don't Wear Ties! ToeJam & Earl!)

[catsi563]

Atari was my earliest game experience but when the NES came out it put me onto RTSs Nobunagas ambition and eventually starcraft and Command and Conquer red alert all were big parts of my game world

[JDRook]

Q*BERT
Role: The Hero
PL 4 (32)
STRENGTH -1 STAMINA 0 AGILITY 4
FIGHTING 0 DEXTERITY 0
INTELLIGENCE 0 AWARENESS 0 PRESENCE 0

Skills:
Athletics 7 (+6)
Perception 1 (+1)

Advantages:
Improved Defense, Move-By Action, Uncanny Dodge

Offense:
Unarmed +0 (-1 Damage, DC 14)
Initiative +4

Defenses:
Dodge +8 (DC 18), Parry +8 (DC 18), Toughness +0, Fortitude +1, Will +6

Complications:
Enemy (Coily, Ugg, Wrongway, Slick & Sam)- Coiley is a snake that chases Q*bert, Ugg & Wrongway are purple creatures that crawl up one side of the pyramid each, and Slick & Sam descend the pyramid to change the squares back.

Total: Abilities: 6 / Skills: 8--4 / Advantages: 3 / Powers: 0 / Defenses: 19 (32)

-Q*bert is now best-known for his random expletives when he dies, crying out "@#$*!!" and stuff like that. Red balls will kill him, while green balls will stun enemies- Q*bert has no method of attack except to lure Coily to leap off the pyramid to his death, while Q*bert rides a platform to safety.

You could treat the Coily Lure as a "trick" maneuver, requiring Q*bert to have some Deception (or possibly Acrobatics and Agile Feint), or just assume Coily has negative or Absent Insight since he falls for it every time. It could also help with leading other enemies into getting green-balled.

[Shock]

I played a lot of Atari 2600 games as a kid. My most played were probably QBert, Pac-man, Joust and Dig Dug. We also played a lot of the Baseball and Football games. We had a couple of the PvP games like Combat. I really liked Galaxian which was like an improved version of Space Invaders. We had classics like Frogger, Asteroids, Missile Command and Centipede. Most of these games were designed to play the same or very similar levels over and over with increasingly difficult enemies, which was mostly accomplished by making them faster. And you just kept going until you ran out of lives.

[Jabroniville]

PAC-MAN:
Game Type: Single-Screen Action Game
Release Date: 1980
Developer: Namco

-Pac-Man remains one of the biggest icons in all of gaming, thanks to the sheer ADDICTIVENESS of his game, and that of his Distaff Counterpart- Ms. Pac-Man (who of course has lipstick and a bow on her head)- who was in an even better game. The thing is like most old games- extremely simple, yet horribly difficult- you have to run around eating all of these little pellets, avoiding fast-moving ghosts. You can't hurt them... until you eat the GIANT pellets, which turns the ghosts into vulnerable foes that you can injure until they regenerate in their little "ghost house" thing at the center of the board. Like many games of its era, it didn't really have an end- getting to Level 256 created a "kill screen" thanks to flaws in the game's code. The purpose of course was to hit a high number of points- the world record is currently *3,333,360*. In Japan, he was called something like "Puck-Man" or "Pakkuman" (their onomatopoeia for eating is "pakku-pakku"), but arcade operators in the States were a bit nervous about graffiti artists altering "Puck-Man" titles, and so he became "Pac-Man".

-The story behind Ms. Pac-Man is a fascinating one. Some gamers disassembled the game's code and altered it to make it play FASTER, finding this a better way to enjoy the game. And rather than sue them, Namco was like "Hey, that's a pretty good idea" and hired them to design the sequel.

-Despite the popularity of the series, this genre of gaming really couldn't last, and so most sequels in the past few decades have been semi-successful kiddie games in different genres- the Super Nintendo era brought us Pac-Man in a standard side-scroller adventure game with "point and click" stuff (Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures). Pac-In-Time was a more standard platformer released in 1995, and Pac-Attack was a well-received SNES "falling tile" puzzle game. Pac-Man World got three "3-D Action Platformers" in the vein of Mario 64 released in the late '90s and early 2000s- they're simplistic and not particularly well-made, earning mediocre ratings.




PAC-MAN & MS. PAC-MAN
Role: The Hero
PL 5 (43)
STRENGTH 0 STAMINA 2 AGILITY 2
FIGHTING 4 DEXTERITY 0
INTELLIGENCE 0 AWARENESS 2 PRESENCE 2

Skills:
Athletics 6 (+6)
Close Combat (Unarmed) 2 (+6)

Advantages:
Improved Defense, Move-By Action

Offense:
Unarmed +6 (+0 Damage, DC 15)
Initiative +2

Defenses:
Dodge +6 (DC 16), Parry +8 (DC 18), Toughness +2, Fortitude +3, Will +6

Complications:
Enemy (The Ghosts)

Total: Abilities: 24 / Skills: 8--4 / Advantages: 2 / Powers: 0 / Defenses: 13 (43)

-Pac-Man and his Distaff Counterpart aren't elite fighters- in fact, they're completely helpless against the Ghosts unless they eat one of those giant pellets, which converts the Ghosts into devourable-victims who instead try to avoid the hero.

THE GHOSTS (Blinky, Inky, Pinky & Clyde)
Role: The Enemy
PL 6 (76)
STRENGTH 2 STAMINA -- AGILITY 2
FIGHTING 4 DEXTERITY 0
INTELLIGENCE -1 AWARENESS -1 PRESENCE -1

Skills:
Close Combat (Unarmed) 2 (+6)

Advantages:
Power Attack, Set-Up, Startle, Teamwork

Powers:
"Undead Ghosts"
Immunity 30 (Fortitude Effects) [30]
Protection 2 [2]
Insubstantial 4 [20]

"Ghostly Attack" Damage 6 (Extras: Affects Corporeal) [12]

Offense:
Unarmed +6 (+2 Damage, DC 17)
Ghostly Attack +6 (+6 Damage, DC 21)
Initiative +2

Defenses:
Dodge +6 (DC 16), Parry +6 (DC 16), Toughness +2, Fortitude --, Will +0

Complications:
Enemy (The Ghosts)
Vulnerable (Power Pellets)- Pac-Man eating a giant Power Pellet causes the Ghosts to change color and become vulnerable to being eaten. They lose Insubstantial and Ghostly Attack.

Total: Abilities: 0 / Skills: 2--1 / Advantages: 4 / Powers: 64 / Defenses: 7 (76)

-Amazingly, the Ghosts actually follow DIFFERENT RULES. The red ghost (Blinky) always chases Pac-Man. The pink & blue ghosts (Pinky & Inky) try to position themselves in front of him. The orange ghost (Clyde in Pac-Man, Sue in Ms. Pac-Man) was believed to have moved at random, but people analyzing the game's code (jesus that's so nerdy I love it) discovered that it chases Pac-Man most of the time, but moves towards the lower-left portion of the screen when it gets too close. And initially, they were thought of to be octopi or any number of things- the "ghost" thing didn't stick until the graphics in the Atari 2600 version caused them to flicker.

-The Ghosts are invincible most of the time, packing the ULTRA-cheesy "Insubstantial Attack" power, which allows them freedom to do whatever they want. Only once the Power Pellets are eaten do they become vulnerable.

[Jabroniville]

THE ADVENTURES OF GILLIGAN'S ISLAND:
Game Type: Side-Scrolling Action-Adventure, Escort Mission
Release Date: 1990
Developer: Human Entertainment, Inc.

-One of the stranger licensed games is actually from pretty early in the history of the NES, as Gilligan's Island of all things gets a game. Keep in mind that Gilligan's Island ran from 1964-67, and thus had been over for TWENTY-THREE YEARS by this point- it's like making a Cheers video game today. Granted there were cartoons themed around the show going into the 1980s, and the sitcom aired in repeats for decades, but still. In this game, you control the Skipper, with Gilligan as an NPC- you must avoid creatures, hazards and headhunters, speak with the other castaways from the show, and solve various puzzles. And you must frequently rescue Gilligan when he gets lost or stuck in thi-- oh god AN ESCORT MISSION. With GILLIGAN as the NPC! Oh jesus oh god oh geez. One of the most famously inept characters in all history and he's the guy you gotta protect.

There are four levels, with password options for each- you have a life bar and a time limit- the Skipper can attack most enemies with a punch or a club. The entire game is mostly talking to a person who wants you to find something, finding the thing, then returning it to that person- with various "path edges" leading you to a new section in a maze. Yeah, so it's the kind of game little kids rent and have NO idea how to finish. The four bosses are a Gorilla, Large Cannibal (leader of the headhunters), Grizzly Bear (... on a Hawaiian island?) and an Undead Skeleton. The game actually keeps true to the series (cancelled before its fourth season, they never got off the island- two TV movies detailed their two separate escapes), as they get a stone statue and get to make a wish... and naturally Gilligan shouts "Boy, I sure wish I had some ice cream about now?". Then wonders why everyone is staring at him as a mountain of ice cream appears in the lagoon.

Reviews are hard to find... except on YouTube, where it's universally agreed upon that this game is hot garbage. The word "boring" is thrown around a lot and yeah- as soon as reviewers see the "multiple paths" option they go "aw no- one of these". The Angry Video Game Nerd shits on how bad the hit detection is, and how incompetent Gilligan is- one player seems to have little issue avoiding the pits, but the AVGN (who accentuates the negative as a rule) suggests it's very hard. It just looks excessively tedious, as you just wander all over the island in straight lines to talk to one person, get a thing, then run back to the person, who instructs you to go to ANOTHER person, and more- a lot of running back & forth between The Professor, Mary Ann, and the Howells.



THE SKIPPER (Captain Jonas Grumby)
Role: The Hero, Boat Captain
PL 6 (60)
STRENGTH 2 STAMINA 3 AGILITY 1
FIGHTING 8 DEXTERITY 2
INTELLIGENCE 1 AWARENESS 2 PRESENCE 3

Skills:
Insight 2 (+4)
Perception 3 (+5)
Technology 1 (+2)
Vehicles 4 (+6)

Advantages:
Equipment (Club +2)

Offense:
Unarmed +8 (+2 Damage, DC 17)
Club +8 (+4 Damage, DC 19)
Initiative +1

Defenses:
Dodge +8 (DC 18), Parry +8 (DC 18), Toughness +3, Fortitude +4, Will +4

Complications:
Motivation (Getting Off the Island)

Total: Abilities: 44 / Skills: 10--5 / Advantages: 1 / Powers: 0 / Defenses: 10 (60)

-The Skipper was one of the main characters on Gilligan's Island, being the boat captain on that infamous voyage. He usually acted as the group's leader, though the only one he actually ordered about was his "little buddy" Gilligan, who often got a rap on the head for his incompetence. He does most of the physical work on the island, and defers to the Professor in times of crisis. In the game, the Professor gives you a club to handle the various Bosses- they're quite easy to beat if you know the trick, as it's exploitable to just push them against a wall and spam the attack button.

[Jabroniville]

Man I gotta read more Twain- I never heard of the chapter involving the floating pink witch or Injun Joe riding the Loch Ness monster.

THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER:
Game Type: Side-Scrolling Action Platformer
Release Date: 1989
Developer: SETA

-Oddly one of very few games based around the American classic, this one is a platformer where you play as Tom Sawyer himself (or a Palette Swap that has no given name- is that Huckleberry Finn?). It's also pretty wild, as it's about Tom dreaming so you fight a giant octopus, a giant alligator in the Mississippi river, ghosts & ghouls in a haunted house ending in a monster-summoning demon, and DRAGONS. Oh, and Becky has been kidnapped by Injun Joe and you have to save her while he rides the Loch Ness Monster and fires arrows down at you. Just like the book! In the game's ending, Tom wakes up in a classroom in Missouri and finds one feather on his desk that belonged to Injun Joe. So WAS IT REAL??

Apparently the English version messes up the Japanese original by making Level 5, the Pirate Ship, Level 1, making the game far, far harder and making the plot non-cohesive. Graphics are very basic, with cartoony proportions- every character is three colors (Tom has two pixels for blue eyes, Mario's coveralls and shirt, and a big red hat with a blue line separating the brim from the top). It's usually a side-scrolling Platformer akin to Mario, but also has some overhead rafting sequences- Tom throws marbles at his foes, but power-ups include a slingshot (with more accuracy, as it's a straight line).



TOM SAWYER
Role: The Hero, Plucky Kid
PL 6 (62)
STRENGTH 0 STAMINA 1 AGILITY 3
FIGHTING 4 DEXTERITY 2
INTELLIGENCE 0 AWARENESS 2 PRESENCE 2

Skills:
Athletics 6 (+6)
Deception 5 (+7)
Expertise (Survival) 4 (+6)
Perception 3 (+5)
Persuasion 2 (+4)
Vehicles 6 (+8) Flaws: Limited to Rafts

Advantages:
Equipment 2 (Grey Marbles- Blast 3 Multiattack), Evasion, Improved Critical (Marbles), Ranged Attack 6

Offense:
Unarmed +4 (+0 Damage, DC 15)
Marbles +8 (+3 Ranged Damage, DC 18)
Initiative +3

Defenses:
Dodge +8 (DC 18), Parry +8 (DC 18), Toughness +1, Fortitude +2, Will +5

Complications:
Relationship (Becky)
Enemy (Injun Joe)- Joe has kidnapped Becky, and Tom must defeat pirates, ghosts & monsters to rescue her.

Total: Abilities: 28 / Skills: 26--12 / Advantages: 10 / Powers: 0 / Defenses: 12 (62)

-Our hero is Tom Sawyer, the smart, clever, lazy hero of Mark Twain's stories- he goes from stage to stage dressed like Mario and lobbing big grey marbles in an arc at his enemies. The accuracy here is pretty bad, as the lobbing arc is difficult to aim properly- the slingshot helps, but has limited ammo (Accurate 1 or 2). Tom is very wimpy, as one hit kills you- even from simple rats or spitting jellyfish. So he's merely PL 6 on offense and PL 5 on defense.

[HalloweenJack]

Ah yeah, I rented that Tom Sawyer game and hated it.


And a Grizzly Bear on Gilligan's Island isn't that odd considering half the things that showed up there. Maybe the island is just south of the one from Lost given the polar bear (I don't know. I didn't watch Lost).

[Jabroniville]

CHIKI CHIKI BOYS:
Game Type: Side-Scrolling Action Platformer
Release Date: 1990
Developer: Capcom

-Chiki Chiki Boys, sometimes called Mega Twins, is a Capcom side-scrolling for Arcades & the Sega Genesis- you can play a pair of twins who try to re-take their land, Alurea, from a monster. The land is so peaceful that people have forgotten how to fight, so the chief's two sons must take up the challenge themselves. There are nine levels overall. Reviews of the Arcade game were very solid- around 85% or so, while the Genesis port (coming out in 1992) was usually a ways less than that. Graphics are VERY big and colorful for a 1990 game, with your large-headed characters being quite cute

THE CHIKI CHIKI BOYS (Red & Blue Twin)
Role: The Heroes, Swordsmen
PL 7 (70)
STRENGTH 2 STAMINA 3 AGILITY 4
FIGHTING 8 DEXTERITY 2
INTELLIGENCE 0 AWARENESS 0 PRESENCE 3

Skills:
Acrobatics 2 (+6)
Athletics 6 (+7)
Expertise (Survival) 4 (+4)
Insight 4 (+4)
Perception 3 (+3)
Persuasion 3 (+6)

Advantages:
Close Attack 1, Equipment 2 (Magic Sword +3, Shield +1), Ranged Attack 2

Offense:
Unarmed +9 (+2 Damage, DC 17)
Sword +9 (+5 Damage, DC 20)
Initiative +4

Defenses:
Dodge +7 (+8 Shield, DC 17-18), Parry +8 (+9 Shield, DC 18-19), Toughness +3, Fortitude +5, Will +5

Complications:
Responsibility (Alurea)- Alurea is a peaceful land now dominated by a monster. The sons of the chief must save it.

Total: Abilities: 44 / Skills: 22--11 / Advantages: 5 / Powers: 0 / Defenses: 10 (70)

-The twins can jump and cling to walls, and are armed with magic swords and can collect magic bombs. The red twin can carry more bombs (which damage all enemies on the screen at once), while the blue twin does more damage with his sword. In the game, enemies are pretty simple and slow-moving- it's not as punishing as many games I've seen in a similar genre, and even the bosses are fairly immobile and tend to either sit there and blast away or summon minions of their own. So it's kinda tough to "place" the kids but they seem like pretty basic PL 6-7 guys.

[Davies]

The land is so peaceful that people have forgotten how to fight, so the chief's two sons must take up the challenge themselves.

<takes notes>

[Jabroniville]

I know what you mean about games being something of a chore Jab. In my early console gaming days I loved JRPG's and actually did FFVII and Grandia the hard way, grinding my characters to end-game content by sheer volume of playing. That totally burnt me out though and I've never been able to do that again. It didn't help that years later I perused some guides to those games and found out I'd still missed a ton of stuff.

My breaking point happened with FFX on the PS2, a game I love but whose grind is beyond insane. In the end I realised I didn't have to take this, bought an Action Replay and opened the game up like a tin can. Since then I have pretty much never played a video game 'straight', without using cheats and trainers. It just takes too long otherwise. I've found I can speedrip a Final Fantasy game in about a week using guides and trainers as that is the amount of time it takes to actually view all the content, as opposed to the several months needed to play through it. I dabbled in MMORPG's but got burnt-out on them as well. Much of the time I prefer to watch someone far more expert than me play it on Youtube, since me as Batman in the Arkham games is just sad to watch. Getting good at many games is I think akin to learning a musical instrument, and I flunked that subject at school.

Yeah- once it became "okay now you HAVE to read the guide/spend 8 hours a day grinding" it just got to be too much. MMORPGs were my last attempt at gaming and I just couldn't do it. I still remember my friends complaining as I just said I wasn't into World of Warcraft.

[EternalPhoenix]

I was a Genesis kid, and the grey box Playstation era was absolutely prime time for me. Heavy into JRPGs, even through the PS2 era. I like stories and interesting characters. Interactive stories can hold my attention a lot easier than ones you just watch. Thanks, ADHD. So much. Also I just don't have the reflexes for first person shooters and since I work full time I don't have the time for mindless grinding like I used to. With that said, I didn't so much get out of gaming as get priced out of it. I'm poor, man. I don't have 500 fragging dollars to drop on a console or proper gaming PC. That's more than my weekly paycheck, you greedy buttholes! To be clear, that's directed at console & PC manufacturers and not anyone on Echoes. Y'all are in my good books. And so my laptop, which wasn't top of the line to begin with, is now closing in on a decade old and they literally don't sell games for consoles I have or new controllers for when one eventually breaks anymore. And and like hell they're gonna repair an old console when a part breaks or the laser fails. Sigh.

[Jabroniville]

"WISE FROM YOUR GWAVE!!"
-the slurred vocal effect at the beginning of the game

ALTERED BEAST:
Game Type: Beat 'Em Up
Release Date: 1988
Developer: Sega

-Altered Beast was probably the System Seller for the original Sega Master System- the game looked much better than other games at the time, especially for the NES. Even as a Nintendo fan I was jealous of my friend for having it. The game (originally for Arcade cabinets) was set in Ancient Greece, and you're a bad-ass sent by Zeus to rescue his daughter Athena. The point of the game is to run around in dude-ly form, gathering power-ups so that you could transform into increasingly more bad-ass forms- getting increasingly more ripped until you turned into a beast-man. Of particular note is the cool graphic flashing as your face slowly flickers into the form of a friggin' WEREWOLF, which begins blitzing around the screen with an energy spike in front of it. You upgrade from a Werewolf in one stage, then a "Thunder Weredragon", a Werebear, a Weretiger, and a more powerful Golden Werewolf in the final stage. Note that the original arcade version allowed for TWO players, meaning the other guy got to be a different color.

My friend Robbie owned this game, telling me that "I used to go to bed every night and pray that I would get it", but I only saw it played a bit. I didn't play it myself until I got a Genesis Collection for PS2. I did okay at it, but got stuck on some level with a lot of jumps, which I just couldn't manage to time properly. Not sure if there was a controller issue or what- I just couldn't manage to jump FAR enough. Watching a playthrough shows that maybe I just wasn't using the Bear form's "Flying Strike" attack to jump high enough in Level 3... and funnily enough, when I played it at a stand-up cabinet at the local fair (some local charities leave those "Thousands of games in one cabinet" machines there for donations), I had no issues and found the game pretty easy to finish, even passing that part.

Altered Beast proved popular enough to end up on a ton of systems, including the Genesis, PC Engine and various computer types- it was even the PACK-IN game for the original Genesis, until he was traded out for a certain azure insectivore. Despite its popularity, the game is generally considered to be an ancient relic that's been surpassed many times over- it's simplistic and a bit clumsy to play. All you really do is walk in a straight line and one-shot everything in front of you until you get three blue orbs and morph into a monster. It barely received a proper sequel- a PS2 game called Project Altered Beast is unconnected to its world, and a 2002 Game Boy Advance sequel was also released.




ALTERED BEAST GUY
Role: Risen Soldier
PL 5 (124) Human, PL 7 (124) Powered-Up, PL 9 (124) Beast, PL 10 (124) Golden Wolf
STRENGTH 2/5 STAMINA 5 AGILITY 3/5
FIGHTING 8/10 DEXTERITY 0
INTELLIGENCE 0 AWARENESS 1 PRESENCE 2

Skills:
Athletics 2 (+4)
Expertise (Soldier) 6 (+6)
Intimidation 3 (+5)
Perception 1 (+2)
Ranged Combat (Energy Blasts) 4 (+10)

Advantages:
Fearless, Improved Critical (Unarmed), Ranged Attack 6, Takedown

Powers:
"Power... Up!" (All Have Flaws: Limited to Amount of Blue Energy Balls Collected)
Enhanced Strength 3 [3]

"Beast Forms" Shapeshift (Beast Forms) 8 (Flaws: Limited to With Three Blue Energy Balls Collected, Limited to One Specific Form Per Level) [48]
Enhanced Agility 2 (4)
Enhanced Fighting 2 (4)
Enhanced Skills 8: Athletics 4 (+8), Intimidation 4 (+9) (4)
Enhanced Advantages 4: Great Endurance, Move-By Action, Startle, Takedown +1 (2 total) (4)
Speed 2 (8 mph) (2)

"Unique Powers"
"Wolf Form"
"Fireball" Blast 5 (10) -- (11)

• AE: "Energy Strike" Strength-Damage +2 (1)

"Tiger Form"
"Fireball" Blast 5 (10) -- (11)

• AE: "Energy Strike" Strength-Damage +2 (1)

Leaping 1 (15 feet) (1)

"Dragon Form"
"Lightning Aura" Damage 5 (Extras: Reaction +3) (20) -- (21)

• AE: "Electrical Bolt" Blast 5 (5)

Flight 2 (8 mph) (Flaws: Winged) (1)

"Bear Form"
"Spinning Bear Attack" Damage 5 (Extras: Reaction +3) (20) -- (21)

• AE: "Stone Breath" Damage 7 (7)

"Golden Wolf Form"
"Fireball" Blast 6 (12) -- (13)

• AE: "Energy Strike" Strength-Damage +3 (3)

Enhanced Fighting 1 (2)
-- (29-39 points)

Offense:
Unarmed +8 (+2 Damage, DC 17)
Power... Up! +8 (+5 Damage, DC 20)
Wolf, Bear & Tiger Forms +10 (+7 Damage, DC 22)
Dragon & Bear Auras +10 (+5 Damage, DC 20)
Golden Wolf Form +11 (+8 Damage, DC 23)
Wolf, Tiger & Dragon Energy Blast +10 (+5 Ranged Damage, DC 20)
Initiative +3 (+5 Beast Forms)

Defenses:
Dodge +9 (+11 Beast, DC 19-21), Parry +9 (+11 Beast, DC 19-21), Toughness +5, Fortitude +6, Will +7

Complications:
Motivation (Rescuing Athena)- Zeus's daughter has been captured by the evil Neff, and a fallen soldier has risen from the grave to save her.

Total: Abilities: 42 / Skills: 16--8 / Advantages: 9 / Powers: 51 / Defenses: 14 (124)

-In Altered Beast, you play a simple guy who has to beat on armies of slow-moving zombies and other simple beasts, but each time you kill a white flickering Cerberus dog, you can get a Blue Energy Ball that powers you up- first into a guy with a ripped shirt, and then into a LUDICROUSLY muscular hero with a tiny head and only his underwear on. From there, you transform into a mighty Beast Form, which allows you to crush the enemies much more quickly. In each level, you get to play a different Beast.

-I chose to include the powered-up forms in the statline, though in many cases I just leave that stuff off. It's a fairly ubiquitous thing in the game- you kill the Cerberuses and gain power-ups through each very-short level. I included Limits because you slowly upgrade your strength (+1, then +3), and a similar limit on the enhanced Beast Forms' powers, which also increase various stats (Strength, Speed, Agility, etc. You move from a PL 5 nobody to a powered-up PL 6.5 form, and finally to a PL 8.5-10 Beast. Most have similar powers, but the Werewolf & Tiger are the cheapest, while the Dragon is most expensive- it's easiest to put all of that under a "Shapeshift" Power.

[KorokoMystia]

Defnitely an iconic classic, but I'm not sure if it still holds up. I still enjoy it, though. Still surprised that Neff made a cameo in Wreck-It-Ralph in his final boss rhino-man form.

I've also played the PS2 Altered Beast game (since it got a European release) and man it's..not great. You get the ability to shift between all unlocked forms at will, but most of them are really situational (the Merman only works in underwater sections, for example) and have pretty bad movesets. You do have to transform, though, since the human form is about as effective in combat as a chocolate teapot. Also the trasnformation cutscenes are..grotesque and graphic (but you can skip them after the first time at least)

[Jabroniville]

ALEX KIDD IN MIRACLE WORLD:
Game Type: Side-Scrolling Platformer
Release Date: 1986
Developer: Sega

-Plenty of people are unaware that it was actually ALEX KIDD, not Sonic the Hedgehog, who was originally Sega's video game mascot. I myself didn't know this until I read The Console Wars, which made casual reference to some character I'd never heard of. Alex is a monkey-looking kid (based off of a mix of Son Wukong the Monkey King and Bruce Lee) with huge ears that fights the evil Janken (who has kidnapped Alex's brother Egle) in a platformer containing many puzzles. He can punch enemies to death, and must play Jan Ken Pon (Rock, Paper, Scissors) with Enemy Bosses before fighting them- one hit will kill him, like many older video game characters, for whom life was short and violent. The games seem cleanly-animated and well thought-out (you can even pilot tiny vehicles in many stages), but a bit simple and easy-looking. And it's a FLAGRANT Mario rip-off- right down to busting blocks by jumping up at them from underneath. You can see why Sonic quickly replaced him.

Though Alex had a lot of success early on, appearing in several games, his star faded almost as soon as Sonic the Hedgehog made his debut- Sonic not only replaced Alex as Sega's mascot, but the poor Kidd kid was left to wallow in obscurity for the rest of his days. By the 2000s, his only appearances were relegated to shots in Group Party Games, usually devoted to Sonic himself. In fact, aside from the 2021 remake, there hasn't been an Alex Kidd game since 1990! Now THAT'S falling far for a former mascot!



ALEX KIDD
Role: Platforming Hero, Fallen Mascot
PL 8 (116)
STRENGTH 2 STAMINA 3 AGILITY 4
FIGHTING 10 DEXTERITY 4
INTELLIGENCE 2 AWARENESS 3 PRESENCE 3

Skills:
Acrobatics 4 (+8)
Athletics 10 (+12)
Close Combat (Unarmed) 2 (+12)
Perception 4 (+7)
Persuasion 3 (+6)
Vehicles 5 (+9)

Advantages:
Agile Feint, Equipment 2 (Motorcycle, Helicopter- All Small-Sized with Speed 4), Fearless, Improved Critical (Punch), Improved Initiative, Ranged Attack 4, Uncanny Dodge

Powers:
"Power Punch" Strength-Damage +2 [2]
"Inability to Drown or Age" Immunity 2 (Drowning, Aging) [2]

"Buy-Able Items" (Flaws: Easily Removable) [14]
"Cape" Immunity 80 (Flaws: Limited to Short Intervals -2) (Quirks: Not vs. Area Hazards -1) (19) -- (23 points)

• AE: "Power Bracelet" Blast 4 (Feats: Homing, Accurate 3) (12)
• AE: "Pogo Stick" Leaping 2 (30 feet) (2)
• AE: "Token" Mind-Reading 10 (Flaws: Unreliable- 5 Uses) (10)
• AE: "Wizard's Cane" Movement 1 (Air-Walking) (2)

Offense:
Unarmed +10 (+2 Damage, DC 17)
Power Punch +12 (+4 Damage, DC 19)
Bracelet- Boomerang +10 (+4 Ranged Damage, DC 19)
Initiative +8

Defenses:
Dodge +11 (DC 21), Parry +11 (DC 21), Toughness +3, Fortitude +5, Will +7

Complications:
Enemy (Janken)
Relationship (Prince Egle)- Alex is a member of the Royal Family of his homeworld, and Egle is his frequently-kidnapped brother.

Total: Abilities: 62 / Skills: 28--14 / Advantages: 8 / Powers: 18 / Defenses: 14 (116)

-Alex is a pretty simple, standard-issue Platformer, though appears to be a master combatant by the way he just runs up and PUNCHES his enemies. None of that Gunfire or Stomping crap- Alex just MURDALIZES them with his fists. In Alex Kidd and the Enchanted Castle, he picks up certain items that allow him greater power, so that's reflected here. The items, which you must buy in shops (everything you do nets you money, so this is relatively easy), usually just allow for Movement powers and Vehicles, but one creates a Boomerang, and another allows you to read the enemy's mind- a benefit when Rock, Paper, Scissors nets you a bonus.

[Batgirl III]

I was actually just talking about Alex Kidd a few days ago! I was an NES/SNES kid, but a friend of mine down the road was a Sega Master System kid and got a Genesis when it first released… Before Sonic! So I have some very vague memories of playing Alex Kidd.

Although if you think poor Alex got upstaged by a successor, he’s got nothing on poor Commander Keen. Commander Keen was the flagship franchise and main mascot of a small MS-DOS game studio named Ideas from the Deep and then one day they decided to try an experiment with first-person perspective games. They changed their name to id Software and created a game called “Doom.”