Donkey Kong (July 9, 1981)
Platform played: NES Classic Mini
Date beaten: Sep 29, 2023
One of those classic arcade games where there is technically no ending. The goal was more about beating your score back then. I consider it complete after having beaten all the unique stages, of which there are 3 (on the NES version at least) before looping. (Apparently, there were 4 in the arcade version, but one was left out of the NES port.)
In the first stage, you jump over the barrels and climb ladders to reach Pauline at the top. Grabbing a hammer will make you invincible and allow you to break the barrels, but you can't jump or climb ladders while holding it, so the only purpose the hammers serve is allowing you to rack up points for a high score. The second stage is the same concept, but with more obstacles and moving platforms. Your timing has to be right or you will fall to your death. The third stage suddenly becomes a bit of a puzzle, as there is no ladder up to Pauline, so I didn't understand what to do at first. Figuring out the solution was satisfying, so I definitely appreciate the game more now that I decided to actually sit down and try to beat it, as opposed to only checking it out for a few minutes.
Overall, it's worth playing through at least one loop if you're interested in retro games and want to experience the origins of Mario and Donkey Kong for yourself. But otherwise, not all that interesting.
Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (September 1981)
Platform played: SNES Emulator (Wizardry I-II-III: Story of Llylgamyn, with Rebalancing Patch applied)
Date beaten: Dec 30, 2024
(Note: There is now a remaster available on GOG.com with some modern convenience features added, so check that out if you want to experience the game yourself with a minimal amount of setup)
This is a game I initially thought I would be playing out of historical interest (it influenced some of my favorite series like Etrian Odyssey and Shin Megami Tensei) but would never actually be able to beat. It's known for being quite tough - to the point that online guides I have found suggest tricks such as save scumming (the game only saves after battle, so if one of your characters dies or is paralyzed in the middle of battle, you should reload your save because that's far easier than trying to heal them). The PC version is somewhat inaccessible by today's standards, and even with the more accessible SNES version and the "rebalancing patch" romhack (intended to smooth over some of the more unfair parts of the game), it's still fairly tough. However, after giving the speedrun route a try, I understood th game better and decided to go back and beat it "properly" and map out all the floors.
Wizardry is, to a large extent, a "mapping game." You WILL get lost if you don't draw your own maps on graph paper. In fact, the game originally shipped with graph paper in the box. Drawing your own maps is such a core part of the game that even the "modernized" remake doesn't include an automap. There is a map spell which shows where you currently are on the map, which is invaluable for checking your work because the game loves to try to trick you with warp tiles and spinner tiles that turn you around. I found the mapping aspect of the game much more fun and engaging than the combat. So, Etrian Odyssey with its mapping focus is very obviously a throwback to this kind of game. In fact, the first thing I noticed when I booted up Wizardry is that the town menu looks very similar to the Etrian Odyssey town menu, with options to create your characters, add them to your party, rest at the inn, go to the shop, or go to the temple to cure various ailments, and finally the option to go into the dungeon, where the bulk of the game will take place.
As far as the combat, it's basically an early attempt to digitize D&D. You create your own characters and choose their species (human, elf, dwarf, hobbit, or gnome) and class (fighter, mage, priest, bishop, samurai, lord, or ninja). The character class you can choose is based on your stats - for example, you need a certain amount of strength to be a fighter. WHen generating a character, you get a random amount of bonus points to apply and choose which stats to distribute them among. So the key to getting a strong party is to reroll each character until you get a good amount of bonus points. Thankfully, the SNES version makes it easy to do this with the press of a single button. As in D&D, casters have a limited amount of spell slots for each spell level and must rest in town to recover them. Interestingly, resting actually makes your characters age, and they can even die of old age! The way around this is to sleep at the cheapest inn level (which doesn't pass as much time) to recover your spell slots, have your healers heal everyone's HP, then rest again to refill your spell slots, and repeat until everyone's HP and spells are full.
Another interesting feature is that if your party is wiped out, you don't get a game over. Instead, you can create a new party to go into the dungeon and rescue them. But as mentioned earlier, it's very expensive to revive party members so it's generally easier to just save scum as soon as one of your party members dies. As with many old school RPGs, even the spell that revives party members doesn't always work (in fact, it can make things worse by reducing the body to ashes!) For all its difficulty, the game does allow you to eventually get an overpowered party like most RPGs, especially when it comes to the spellcasters who will eventually be able to warp to any tile on the map, and even cast an ultimate spell with various possible effects including "banish enemies" which instantly defeats the enemy - including the final boss.
Overall, I had a lot of fun with this game and found it very rewarding to finally beat it. It was also interesting to see how it clearly influenced the Etrian Odyssey and Shin Megami Tensei
Game of the year: Perhaps I'm biased as an RPG fan, but Wizardry is the clear winner of the two 1981 games I played, due to the amount of complexity of its content. Additionally, one issue that stands out in '80s games is the dearth of playable female characters - Wizardry has no such issue due to the ability to create and customize your own party. Admittedly, it does require a bit of imagination, but the ability to customize your party also gives it potential replayability. Even once you've mapped out the entire dungeon, you still have the possiblity of playing again with a different party or challenging yourself with a solo-character run.