Retro Gaming Rabbit Hole – Down the rabbit hole of retro gaming

Retro Gaming Rabbit Hole

Kirby’s Adventure
Kirby was always a cute looking character that I was interested in but never had a chance to play any of the games in the series back in the day. I chose to start with the second game in the series which is Kirby’s Adventure for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was originally released back in 1993 and developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo. Kirby’s Adventure was the first game in the series to have the ability to gain an enemy’s power which has became a staple of the series.
Kirby’s Adventure for the NES
The story of Kirby’s adventure starts off with the inhabitants of Dream Land upset because they have lost the ability to dream due to the Dream Spring has drying up. A magical rod called the Star Rod originally created the Dream Spring and Kirby believes King DeeDee has broken the Star Rod so he sets out in search of the broken pieces of the Star Rod.
The first thing I noticed about Kirby’s Adventure is how awesome the graphics are especially since it’s on the NES. They’re colorful and the sprites and animation are great. There is some slowdown when there is a lot going on during gameplay but it didn’t happen enough to really annoy me.
The Kirby dance!
The controls are good and Kirby’s actions are tight and respond well to input. You can fly/float by pressing the up button, inhale/devour enemies to gain their power by using the B button, jump and swim with the A button, and release a power by pressing the select button. If you pause the game after gaining a power the screen tells you all about the power you can currently use.
At first I thought the game might be a little to easy but as the levels went on I definitely encountered some challenging boss character and sections of levels where it took some skill. It was fun inhaling different enemies to see which power I would gain and how well the power would work against various enemies and bosses. I also liked the mini games in between levels. There’s several different mini games you can play such as a claw mini game, a quick draw mini game, and more.
This is a fun little mini game where you face off against various opponents during a quick draw stand off.
I had a great time playing through Kirby’s Adventure and I also think it does a great job of showing off the graphical capabilities of the NES too. If you’re into platformers and haven’t yet tried this game out I recommend you give this game a shot.
A claw mini game where you try to collect the big Kirby
May 16, 2025
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – The Hyperstone Heist
I had never played a TMNT game on Sega Genesis before so I was like a kid in a candy store when I saw that there was a TMNT beat ’em up game released for the Sega Genesis especially by Konami.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist was the first TMNT game released on the Sega Genesis and was also Konami’s first game on the console as well. It was released in 1992.
Love the opening graphics!
You start off with an intro like the one from Turtles in Time and of course you’re able to pick which turtle you would like to play as.
Pick your turtle
I went with Leonardo for my first play through and then tried out Donatello next because his staff is an awesome weapon with its length, making it easy to mess those foot clan soldiers up! The first level throws you in to the New York City where you’ll notice pretty quickly that the game is using a lot of things from Turtles in Time when it comes to the level graphics and enemies. The speed is apparently faster then the speed of Turtles in Time though. When it comes to attacking your enemies you have your basic attack, a new dedicated run button, and you are also able to slam enemies side-to-side along with a special attack (that eats a little of your life).
Kicking some foot clan ass on a boat
The animation and graphics are great. The game has 5 different levels that are split up into sections and each section has a pretty good look to it (taking a lot from Turtles in Time).
Love the landscape lighting in the background as you exit the cave
Level 1 is New York City where you’ll start off in the sewers, then up to the streets of the city, and then back down to the sewers to fight off those alien creatures from Turtles in Time.
The beginning of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist throws you into the sewers of New York City
Out of the sewers and into the streets of New York City to battle the foot clan ninjas
Level 2 starts off with a cool ocean surfing part before having you end up on a ghost ship. I have always loved the surfing levels in the TMNT games.
Surfs up!
Level 3 is Shredder’s hideout and is basically fighting through a Japanese village. It also has some environmental trap parts where you’ll have to avoid lasers and spikes.
Those damn annoying robot dogs from Turtles in Time show up here
Avoid laser traps in Shredder’s Hideout
Level 4 is “The Gauntlet” where you’re basically fighting all the bosses up until then one after another along with a new boss. This was probably my least favorite level because it was a pain in the ass in my opinion.
Level 5 is the final level where you’re battling through the Technodrome.
A wild Super Shredder appears!
Arriving at the Technodrome
All in all I liked The Hyperstone Heist. It’s a serviceable TMNT game for that era and the beat ’em up action is still fun today. If I had the choice between this and Turtles in Time of course I would choose the latter but if I only had a Sega Genesis back then I know I would have been having a blast with friends kicking butt!
“I’ll show you the power of SUPERRRRR KRRRAAANG!”
Shredder looks badass after using the power of the Hyperstone. I really loved the graphics on the final fight.
What are your thoughts on TMNT: The Hyperstone Heist? Any fond memories of the game? Don’t hesitate to leave a comment!
May 13, 2025
Vandal Hearts
Vandal Hearts is a strategy RPG that was originally released for the Sony Playstation back in 1996 in Japan, 1997 in North America, and then ported to and released a little later on in 1997 for the Sega Saturn. The Sega Saturn version came with some extra content and features.
I remember seeing Vandal Hearts on the shelves of Electronics Boutique when I was a kid and while the cover art of the PSX version immediately drew my attention I had ultimately chosen another game instead. I never did end up getting it back then, so I was excited to finally be playing it for the first time! Furthermore, I ended up choosing to play with the Sega Saturn version instead of the PSX version because of the extra content the Sega Saturn version comes with (like some bonus missions, extra blood?, more items and spells, etc).
The freaking cool PSX cover of Vandal Hearts
The game starts off with a short introduction and then immediately places you into your first battle where you meet your main character Ash Lambert.
and so it begins…welcome to Vandal Hearts
Meet Ash Lambert!
Right away you’ll notice all the big sprays of blood! It’s almost comical how much blood comes flying out of some of the enemies as you attack them but it’s an interesting touch and gives your hits some “oomph” to them in my opinion.
It’s blood, blood, and more blood with Vandal Hearts! I really love all the blood that comes out when attacking enemies in this game.
One of the main things that keeps Vandal Hearts interesting is the puzzle-like battles where you have certain winning conditions or obstacles (like bridges that fall apart turn by turn) that you have to watch out for. It really helps keep you on edge and there have definitely been times where I had to repeat battles just to figure out how to meet the win conditions or how to best approach a battle. In the battle photo shown below you have to protect totem pole like objects (supposed to be towers) from all being destroyed for 5 turns while enemies are repeatedly thrown at you.
You have to defend 5 towers while those fire monsters keep popping up!
During the battles you have to watch where you move your troops so as you carefully navigate levels of terrain and where to best place your troops which will give them an advantage over the enemy. Certain terrain tiles give bonuses and if you attack an enemy while being next to another of your characters you gain a Support bonus. Vandal Hearts also has sort of a rock, paper, scissors level of attack and defense where for example flying characters do really well against grounded sword enemies.
I lost this battle a few times. You have to defeat all the enemies before they make it off the map.
After each battle the battle results screen is shown and you gain a gold amount depending on how many enemies you have killed but you also lose gold when you let your characters die.
After winning a battle in Vandal Hearts you’re shown a battle result screen where every enemy you killed and every character that died on your side is shown. You gain and lose gold depending on the results of the battle. It’s simple but it gives you a reason to try and not lose characters during the battle so you can receive the full gold amount.
The time spent between battles is spent on advancing the story and you’re able to select areas on the map to move to (although it’s pretty bare and you’re not given THAT many choices to move to). When you enter a city you’re able to visit a shop, a dojo for promoting your characters, and a tavern to hear local gossip. Vandal Hearts keeps the focus mostly on the battles which in my opinions is it’s strong suit.
The town menu in Vandal Hearts
In a rush to lower a bridge so I can quickly exit the map
It took me around 20 hours or so to beat Vandal Hearts and I thought it was a pretty decent SRPG for it’s time. It’s no Final Fantasy Tactics but it’s a serviceable SRPG and it has a lot of cool things going for it like it’s puzzle like battles and great environments to fight on. I definitely believe it’s worth a play if you’re in to strategy RPGs. It kept my interest enough to check out it’s sequel Vandal Hearts 2 which I’m sure I will post about in the future.
Hee Hee Hee! Can’t go wrong with lines like these!
May 6, 2025