As I often do, I visited a retro game store today and came home with some old games. Today I got three, one for the NES, one for the N64, and one for the Xbox 360. Does Xbox 360 count as retro? It’s two generations ago, so as crazy as it sounds, yes, I think it does. Anyway, here’s some brief thoughts on all three games.

Adventures of Lolo

I have never played Adventures of Lolo before, and really the only thing I know about it is that the main character shows up as a boss in some Kirby games. I thought that seemed like enough reason to want to add it to the collection. But what even is the game?

The game opens with a cutscene showing a devil taking away Princess Lala, a pink little blob thing. Then Lolo, a blue little blob thing, goes to the devil’s castle to save the princess. The text says he’s the only one who can, but it’s not really clear on why that is. But whatever, we have entered the first floor of the castle.

This is where you actually start to play. Adventures of Lolo is a collection of single screen puzzles. You have to collect hearts that are scattered across the screen, which opens a treasure chest but also awakens enemies. Because of this, collecting the hearts in a specific order can be advantageous in surviving the enemies. For example, one of the enemies will shoot a fireball when you walk in front of it after it has woken up. So, if there’s a heart near it, you might not want to leave it for last so that you can just grab it without worrying about waking it up. Sometimes collecting hearts also gives you a projectile, and I really didn’t figure out why that doesn’t happen all the time. I’m sure there’s an actual explanation though.

I got through the first floor of the castle, which was like four or five rooms. Some of the puzzles are already a little tricky, but I had fun with it. This is one I’d like to go back to.

Earthworm Jim 3D

Sometimes, I really enjoy playing infamously terrible games. Earthworm Jim 3D is a game that has a really bad reputation. It came out on the N64 during the golden age of 3D platformers, with stuff like Banjo-Kazooie and Super Mario 64. But it’s important to remember that there were just as many bad platformers as there were good ones. So, I guess it’s time to find out for myself how Earthworm Jim handled the transition into 3D.

The game opens with Jim in the hospital surrounded by friends. Apparently the last time a cow landed on him was too much for his brain. Now, the player takes control of Jim’s ego and the whole game takes place inside of his mind. It’s in interesting set up and allows the game to just throw all sorts of weird things at you. For example, in the first level you are dealing with Jim’s memory of some kind of barnyard war, and you meet a chicken for a debriefing. Turns out, the debriefing is actually that he had his underpants stolen by the enemy.

So actually playing it, yeah, it’s okay. It clearly takes some inspiration from Banjo-Kazooie. It has two main collectibles that map pretty closely to the two from Banjo. There’s marbles (because Jim has lost his marbles) that function just like the music notes in Banjo, meaning that the game keeps track of your marble score, and if you leave a level, you have to start completely over with them. Then there’s golden cow udders, that function like Jiggys, opening up new levels the more you collect. Where the game falls apart though is that it just isn’t fun to move around. Jim’s main attacks are pretty clunky, either spraying shots with his gun or whipping himself. It’s very easy to walk off ledges, as the controls are very slippery. But all in all, This game seems totally fine. Maybe when held up next to greats of its time it seems terrible, but taken on its own, Earthworm Jim 3D seems perfectly okay.

Silent Hill Downpour

I didn’t play nearly as much Silent Hill games growing up as I did Resident Evil, and really only Silent Hill 2 ever truly resonated with me. I haven’t written about it on here yet, but I have played the remake of 2 and I’m liking it quite a bit so far. But this is Silent Hill Downpour, the last big Silent Hill game before the drought that we’re just now getting out of. I never heard much good things about the later games, but I’m still interested to check it out.

The very start of the game isn’t great. You’re a prisoner and you’re being taken to a shower room. You’re told by the guards that if you turn on all the showers, the camera will fog up and they won’t be able to see anything. You’re also told that a present has been left for you in there. So, you do all that, and then a guy gets let into the room with you. Apparently this is someone who used to be your neighbor, and you want him dead for some reason. So, the game teaches you the combat mechanics by having you brutally murder some guy in a prison shower. Okay.

Then you wake up. Was that a dream? Seems kind of dumb if it was. Anyway, you’re character is being transferred to a maximum security prison. They don’t say exactly what you did, but there is like a flash of some kid in your head? Did you kill a kid? I don’t know. The bus transporting you drives past a sign welcoming you to Silent Hill before suddenly falling off the road. Your character survives, is somehow not in handcuffs anymore, and walks away.

I played for around half an hour or so and saw some interesting things. There was a moral choice to make at one point, in helping one of the guards survive, but even though I chose to help, she died anyway. And I saw the beginning of some puzzles, but I didn’t see any spooky monsters or really a whole lot of just the general Silent Hill vibe. It’s a really slow start, which is a shame when I have Silent Hill 2’s fantastic start still as a recent memory. I’m not fully writing this game off yet, but it wasn’t particularly impressive either.

And those were my pickups today! One that I liked a lot, one that’s just okay, and one that’s really slow but could build to something. All three I’m happy to add to my collection.