H.E.R.O. (1984)

Look: 7/10 Quite impressive character sprite for an Atari 2600 game, and nice to return to that classic Atari look--but not necessarily impressive... especially for an Activision game. Besides the character sprite, nothing striking--and usually Activision delivers in the Look department particularly.

Sound: 6/10 Functional, but missable. Can't really include this in the rating.

Play: 8/10 This game really surprised me. Quite good controls, classic Atari vibe, addictive gameplay, and excellent difficulty progression imo, slowly easing in the more frustrating/difficult mechanics (tho I'm never a fan of the surprise-death-to-encourage-trial-and-error type stuff without unlimited lives/Oddworld setup). The flying mechanic definitely could have been smoother but it was still fun to try to explore (well, in the end, that was definitely its biggest fault: why the big delay before you take off the ground or lower? it was kindaaaa fun to get used to the quirkiness of it, but all the rest of the game was so solid why not have a well-done fly mechanic?). And wow, lmao it was only on Level 15 that I realized this: the super annoying fly parts where you see a yellow pad down in the dangerous ground below--yea, go ahead and land on that yellow pad. That's my pro-tip for this. Def would have made the other later levels more enjoyable lol. Another pro-tip I didn't learn till Level 19 (out of necessity): when you run out of dynamite, you can shoot through the walls, albeit slowly and at the cost of much energy. Per the manual, the closer you stand to the wall, the faster it burns up.

Feel: 8/10 Some really tacky trial-and-error type parts, but I suppose that's how you guaranteed replayability back in these days heh. With later levels like this, you're flying down quickly (you can fly to an extent, but the drop is almost always quite swift), and you're supposed to navigate these narrow gaps. Definitely doable--but you'd have to die at least once to get to know the level layout. That must've been quite frustrating back in the day. But nowadays, where I could savestate at the start of each new level, almost like an Oddworld-style checkpoint, the platforming/precise-controls puzzles were fun to work out.

The bomb-to-blow-up-walls-and-access-passageways was, of course, very Zelda feel, and it solidified the action-adventure feel to this even with its action level-based overlay. But uff yea, like I keep mentioning--they really seemed proud of that clunky fly mechanic lol, the last few levels are all centered on that mechanic. By the end of Level 19, I was ready to be done--but how fitting--there are 20 unique levels.

Attachment: 8/10 After being so frustrated with 2 Xfinity technicians coming out, multiple streams with issues, etc., it was nice to remind myself that the backlog was the first and foremost focus, and streaming was just a supplement to the hobby. It felt like a game that might go on over and over, and indeed it is, but I had to know at what point it cycles and to try to reach that point. It has 20 unique levels, then it loops 13-20 essentially infinitely. The levels already start to get quite repetitive around 40k Score (hard to say exactly what level I was on), but I was determined to play on until there aren't any new mechanics (i.e., even on this last level that felt quite repetitive, there was a part I definitely hadn't seen yet where you have to use the clunky fly mechanic to go down then up through a narrow passage). Oh wow, imagine my feeling when I was feeling really good at the game and that the difficulty level was really high but doable and almost at its climax... then I see "Level 11" LOL. As I got to Level 15 and on, I started realizing: are they just repeating the same exact level designs on certain screens and, unfortunately, picking the most frustrating parts, especially those that focus on the clunky fly mechanic? Yep, indeed they are heh. Nothing surprising there, with an early action platformer..

Welp, on Day 2 I got past the final level. Level 20 was insane. I can't imagine how that'd be possible to memorize without savestates (or, of course, an Infinite Lives cheat etc). But with current technology, this is a fun--albeit brutally hard--fast-paced platformer.

Completion: Through all 20 unique levels Playtime: 1.5 hour