Rambo (1985)

Preliminary: Hm, based on a movie? Check. RPG elements in a shooter/action-adventure/allegedly-platformer-too? Ooooo. Multiple endings and many people mention its complexity? Potentially great! I just wish I could find a guide or some sort of guidance not in Japanese....

Look: 8/10 The UI, the framing of the gameplay area, the boat in the water--all of it, coupled with the gameplay itself, kept screaming Zelda and other early action-adventures. To think there's still a year for Zelda to come out!

It was really goofy that the sprite for the boat/canoe thing doesn't change directions with you, pretty basic mechanic, and everything about the game already felt quite clunky--but I had to give it an earnest try because it heralds an era of action-adventure I'm so stoked for.

Sound: 8/10 Wow, right off the bat with such amazing music. What a jam! And to think I was starting to think only arcade and C64 had such quality music in this era. It's hard for me, as mentioned above, to wrap my head around the fact this and many other games like it came out before Zelda, yet I always see Zelda as the starter of this. Hydlide comes to mind, too. I'm very surprised the tune did not get annoying after almost 2 hours of it repeating especially during the frustrating and difficult parts... Impressive. Tho not sentimental or profound, an undeniably good jingle.

Play: 8/10 Definitely some clunky collision masks when navigating and fight (seems like a theme for this era, like how Staff of Karnath had everything it took to be a favorite of mine but was just so tedious and clunky..) Death is fast and brutal in this game lol especially with the enemies who can shoot you. But you trial and error and get to know the game's quirks, especially with that great jingle pushing you on. But ugh why would they ever add the bad-AI-npc-follows-you aspect. Of course so many mistakes and bugs and frustrating situations with that, getting stuck etc. As frustrating as it was, the fact is I pushed through and kept trying and trying again.

Feel: 8/10 I loved how logical and fast it was to click joystick fire button for joystick, or space bar for keyboard. Makes sense after all! I know this is getting redundant, but blowing up the house things with the Grenades of course reminded me of the Bombs trope in the Zeldas. And I mean, cmon, the bow and arrow on enemies and you screams Zeldas too. The variety of weapons was interesting and I like how all the ammo is visible (can't deny it kinda reminded me of the Bow ammo and Bombs number etc in Zelda inventory but I'll try to bite my tongue about Zelda from now on). It was a nice feeling to be stocked up, and gave me Resident Evil feel in an odd way.

Also, the variety of vehicles not only reminded me of Zelda, but even more so Final Fantasy/Dragon Quest.

Attachment: 8/10 Who woulda thunk not only the history behind Rambo licensed games in Japan would be so interesting and worth fixing up the database, but also the first game itself would be so interesting and ahead-of-its-time and well-thought-out?! Even late into the game, I didn't fully understand the Food mechanic, and I was definitely thankful for the Power/health regeneration aspect (again, Hydlide vibes). I of course was gunning for the best ending, but I could not wrap my head around the Food and regeneration mechanic. I decided to watch a video playthrough, and they never seemed to have an issue with Food or Power. I read somewhere they purposely conserved their Food till they really needed it--but how?! Is there a button for food? Have I been pressing it every time I thought I was attacking with the Knife? lol. I finally managed to find a translation of the manual and it was utterly useless lol. Smh

Ahhhh, it turns out you use up Food every time you press the joystick button, so indeed only attack as much as you need. There's still some other quirk to it I can't quite identify, I think it's about what order you kill the enemies or how you kill them. I read online that there are "puzzles" (Zelda "puzzles," meaning illogical based on killing enemies a certain way or in a certain order). I thought that only influenced how many and which enemies spawned on the next screen, etc., but apparently it can deplete your Food too which means you're likely a goner unless you hightail it to one of the colorful houses that has Bread in it. Some really edge-of-my-seat moments rushing to one of those houses when I thought it would be another failed save (I had to restart this game 10+ times lol, which is a lot for me. I'm surprised I didn't give up... but the mechanics seemed valid and worth learning/pushing through). It was also exciting/scary thinking I'm quite sure I saved a Bread house in one area but not being sure...

Well shoot and all of a sudden, after all my stress and whatnot, I managed to get the Best Ending! I assume all the seemingly unnecessary restraints and limitations I set on myself--I had plenttty of ammo for the good guns--helped me get that ending. And after all, taht was my goal. A lot of replayability to this, not just because of the obvious (multiple endings), but also because you could just play this chaotically using whatever ammo you have and running to Bread Houses, you could play this intricately after trial-and-erroring the path to Best Ending, or you could play do a mix. Good stuff.

Completion: Best Ending Playtime: ~1h 45m