Son Son (1984)

Preliminary: Wait... this had to inspire Tomba lol (turns out it's an East Asian trope heh). The sound effects and music; the hammer-throwing enemies; all giving me Mario feels. Not usually a fan of forced-horizontal-scrolling platformers but then again, so were the Super Mario Bros that I mostly played :-p

Look: 7/10 Nothing much more than functional--cute main character sprite, functional enemy sprites, nice classic platform looks, and a variety of themes especially the cloud theme. But the Buddha statue/ending is all that really stands out, which is a nice touch since I like when the best of a game is saved for special moments (e.g., the end ha).

Sound: 7/10 Overall, a nice jingle, nothing special. And, should give it credit for being from 1984 and not annoying me ha, even with the sound effects etc coming at me. The jingle during the cloud level/checkpoint 1 was a nice way of signaling you've made it through the unique content of the game! Kind of like how Manic Miner changed its whole vibe at that last level, to reward you for pushing through the headaches! That definitely boosted the score.

Play: 8/10 I like that I could see the number counting down, so I could see an end in sight. This almost felt like a shoot em up. There were enemies that feel like bosses--when the screen would stop scrolling--and I liked that feeling, harkening Sonic and Mario bosses etc. Then again, this is an arcade game, so I can expect more from it. Why is there no way to jump the gaps, or really have any controls during jumping? The flying enemies were definitely the most frustrating part. But, despite my frustrations, and surprise at the lack of some of the most basic platforming elements (especially for an arcade platformer), I kept pushing through!

Feel: 8/10 Oddly addictive though, as I saw an end in sight via the numbers. And thank goodness for the very tight controls and responsiveness. The Sonic-esque feeling of it constantly scrolling to the next boss battle, it almost felt like that beat em up/brawler format. Or oddly enough, like the feel of a rail shooter at an arcade, where you feel you are being led and dealing with all these petty somewhat hectic moments leading up to a slowed down, "epic" boss or complex fight every so often ha. It's rare to see this in these early games, tho it should be expected indeed with arcade games so I guess I shouldn't be all that impressed: you can get out of basically every situation/moment thanks to the super-responsive controls. Instead of the microcomputer early platformers' obsession with traps, unavoidable deaths, or one-precise-spot-to-jump-only.

Attachment: 8/10 By checkpoint 7, you're basically just constantly spamming shoot and fleeing within a millimeter of death constantly ha. And dang, the last few checkpoints are just one "bossfight" screen after another! (at this point they feel less like bossfights, and more like just simply the screen slowing down and making you destroy some barriers before moving on ha... with an onslaught of the latest enemies and the "bosses" being like the rock hammer throwing enemies in the Super Mario games. Welp anyway, here I am at last. It is a game where it re-cycles you back at the beginning level, but at least there was a clear ending, with a checkpoint countdown to boot, and an item you collect/ending screen esque moment (it looks like you collect a scroll? from the Buddha statue at the end. I wanted to screenshot the great, elaborate-after-mostly-cutesy-sprit Buddha statue but it all happened so fast and I immediately collected the Scroll item thinking it was just more treasure--not the end of the game, ha.

Whooaaaa and to think there's a 2-player version! I wish this were on the Arcade Legends machine we got! This is definitely replayable, hopefully with my brothers soon!

Completion: Completed all unique screens, reaching the Buddha statue once. Score ~466k Playtime: ~ 1 hour