Featured Post

Today's featured post is by LordNidhogg, it is a review of the Super Nintendo game "Super Godzilla."



Super Godzilla

Overview: Being honest, the videogame world has not been particularly kind to the king of all monsters, the well known and popular Godzilla. While there have been a few games that have risen above the pack in terms of being fun to play and overall success, notably Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee and the more obscure Godzilla: Battle Legends. However, one of the most well known Godzilla games, Super Godzilla, did not meet with quite the level of success of these games, and it is really only remembered as being the first Godzilla game most gamers and kaiju fans were able to play.

Plot: The plot of Super Godzilla is a fairly typical plot for something in the Godzilla franchise, immediately bringing to mind Godzilla movies such as Destroy all Monsters and, though it was not released until many years later, Godzilla: Final Wars. Essentially, aliens have invaded the earth and set up strongholds all around Japan, and have taken over several kaiju to guard over them and launch offensive attacks against mankind. As this game was made in the 90s, all of the kaiju with the exception of Mechagodzilla (if you have the American version, if you have the Japanese version then Mechagodzilla is in his 90s incarnation) are from the Heisei continuity. Mankind has decided to fight back by using a mind control device on Godzilla and sending him to attack the aliens and their kaiju and systematically wipe them out. It’s not the greatest plot in the world, but it works well and it does mesh with established Godzilla plots used in the movies.

Plot: 7/10

Graphics: The graphics are, unfortunately, not very impressive. When in a battle against another kaiju, the models are large and fairly detailed, but they have very limited animation; generally they have a punch animation, a recoil animation, they can block, and they can move back and forth. In order to do any of the real moves in the game, such as tail whips, nuclear breath, or body slams, the screen enters in to a rather bland animation screen that shows the upper half of the monster, usually with little to no animation, and then showing the part of the attack, the tail, stream of energy, etc, and then the impact and effect on the other kaiju, again with very little animation. And these become very, very repetitive.

And these are the best part of the game too. When you are not in a battle, you are walking around cities or forests or some other environment which is one of the most boring environments I have ever seen in the game. The bottom of the screen shows a blocky map that is supposed to represent the environment you are currently in with only subtle differences in the small blocks to let you know that they are buildings, electrical towers, tanks, water, or streets. You appear as a simple blue dot on this map that you move around with the d-pad. The enemy kaiju and space craft on the screen appear as a pink dot and gray dots respectively. On the top of the screen you see Godzilla’s upper body which mostly just bounces around slightly to imply that he’s moving, but also has animations to destroy building or get hit with attacks when you run into obstacles or military forces. Unfortunately, the graphics in the game are bland and very poorly animated.

Graphics: 5/10

Sound: The sound in the game is actually a pretty big improvement over the graphics. It has some of the music straight from the Godzilla movies, which is actually the best part of walking around the maps. The sound effects are actually pretty good too, much better than the animations that go with them actually. Ripping down buildings and getting attacked by the military sounds like it should, and has a satisfyingly heavy and impactful sound. The battles between the kaiju are also scored well, with the kaiju given roars and sound effects very close to what they have in the movies. The auditory experience is probably the highlight of the game.

Sound: 9/10

Gameplay: Unfortunately, the gameplay in Super Godzilla is what will keep you from coming back. Bland graphics can be overlooked if the game is fun, but Super Godzilla just isn’t that fun. The controls work, but the way the game works and how the controls work and are used just isn’t very good to begin with. Going around the city is dull, grating, and it gets frustrating quickly. When you finally get to a battle against another kaiju, they are disappointingly dull and frustrating too. The controls for the fights are somewhat awkward, revolving around a poor game mechanic that has you make Godzilla charge forward to build aggression and then retreat as quickly as possible to get a stronger attack in an almost lottery-like system. It’s really frustrating when you need to pull out a powerful move like your nuclear blast or hyper nuclear blast, but your opponent keeps hitting you and forcing you to use your crappy attack moves.

Another thing that really bothers me is the environments and their interaction with Godzilla. The first thing is that different environments cause Godzilla to move at different speeds. Shallow water is slower than dry land, deep water is the slowest in the game, and forest terrain is the slowest land-based terrain. I understand making some paths slower than others, but Godzilla is a generally aquatic creature, why would he move slower in deep water than shallow water? Couldn’t he swim faster than he could wade through water? But the thing that really gets me is that destroying buildings, any buildings, takes down your life meter. I can understand and agree with certain structures doing this, like the high voltage towers, but why would walking through a ten story, average brick building take my life down by so much? It’s ridiculous! And you really have to do this a lot more than you think you would. Hidden in buildings, for some stupid reason, are healing stations, “nuclear reactors”, items to help you in battle, and much later in the game, super capsules to turn you into Super Godzilla. So you really have to destroy these buildings, constantly lowering your own health to do so. It just doesn’t make any sense.

The biggest thing that gets to me is that there is no save feature in the game at all. There is no password system, no save system, and no level skip code (I’ve seen codes online that you can supposedly enter, but I’ve never gotten them to work). Essentially, if you want to beat this game you either have to do it in one sitting, or you have to pause it, leave it on, and come back to it later and hope no one has messed with it. There are continues in the game, but they really don’t make up for the complete lack of a save feature in the game, and that almost kills it by itself.

Gameplay: 5/10

Overall: Super Godzilla holds a place in the nostalgia of many Godzilla fans and gamers as the first kaiju game that many of them played. Unfortunately, the only thing that makes this game worth owning at all is the fact that it’s a Godzilla game. It’s bland, it’s frustrating, and it doesn’t play well. I’m a big Godzilla, but I just can’t recommend this game unless you really have to have everything with Godzilla’s name on it, it’s just not worth it.

Overall: 5/10

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