2018/4/16: NES: Dizzy the Adventurer, Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy, The

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VideoGameCritic
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2018/4/16: NES: Dizzy the Adventurer, Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy, The

Postby VideoGameCritic » April 16th, 2018, 6:38 pm

Here are two NES titles that have been sitting in my queue forever.
Keep in mind they require the Aladdin deck enhancer.

GameOfThrones
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Re: 2018/4/16: NES: Dizzy the Adventurer, Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy, The

Postby GameOfThrones » April 16th, 2018, 6:54 pm

Dizzy the egg was a huge character in Europe. He was code masters version of Mario. Though I always looked at it and was like why bother?
The two NES games look like they were later games that the original ones. According to Wiki there were 16 Dizzy the egg games. Scary to think of it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dizzy_(series) more info on Dizzy here.

I really enjoyed the reviews of two games which just looked like they could challenge Buzby for the lack of a good character.

ThePixelatedGenocide
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Re: 2018/4/16: NES: Dizzy the Adventurer, Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy, The

Postby ThePixelatedGenocide » April 19th, 2018, 2:50 pm

I found a mistake in your review: The Aladdin deck enhancer was just a way for Codemasters to save money when publishing unlicensed titles. The real reason you can't play its carts on a standard NES is only because they're missing most of the cart, and the lockout bypass.

It doesn't ever actually enhance the games, unless you count them adding a hundred and fifty more stars to The Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy, and tweaking the player's speed. Judging from your review, that's a mixed bag, at best.

With that said.

Damn. I feel kind of bad for Dizzy. Especially after his failed kickstarter. These reviews are damning, and completely fair, but...

His adventures used to represent some of the best value around for limited budgets. It was always frustrating, but it was the kind of absurd frustration that's going to drive some people to beat it on principle.

And it had more charm than most titles of the era. 8 bit faces generally weren't known for their expression. It's not the most compelling package today, but imagine being a kid digging through a box of discount casettes, and you have no idea which ones are utterly broken to the point of being nearly unplayable, or so short that they should count as an ad for the sequel that might never come...

Dizzy's face was a guarantee of some level of quality. At least, when considering the price.

I can't imagine why his makers thought he'd work in a more expensive medium. One where he was directly competing with Nintendo and Sega's AAA polish, and a weaponized charm offensive that made them more popular than Disney.

He really never stood a chance, outside of his humble origins.

But still, he deserves better than to be thrown in with the likes of Bubsy. At least he knew what he was, and he wasn't ever trying to be anything else. With the heavy emphasis on patient exploration and graphic adventure style problem solving, rather than combat, his games really don't play anything like Mario or Sonic. Like so many games from the UK micro computer scene, it's an entirely different evolution...

Edit: Apologies to any UK gamers for everything I've gotten wrong. I'm a Yank who missed out on all the fun.

GameOfThrones
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Re: 2018/4/16: NES: Dizzy the Adventurer, Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy, The

Postby GameOfThrones » April 19th, 2018, 6:27 pm

ThePixelatedGenocide wrote:I found a mistake in your review: The Aladdin deck enhancer was just a way for Codemasters to save money when publishing unlicensed titles. The real reason you can't play its carts on a standard NES is only because they're missing most of the cart, and the lockout bypass.

It doesn't ever actually enhance the games, unless you count them adding a hundred and fifty more stars to The Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy, and tweaking the player's speed. Judging from your review, that's a mixed bag, at best.

With that said.

Damn. I feel kind of bad for Dizzy. Especially after his failed kickstarter. These reviews are damning, and completely fair, but...

His adventures used to represent some of the best value around for limited budgets. It was always frustrating, but it was the kind of absurd frustration that's going to drive some people to beat it on principle.

And it had more charm than most titles of the era. 8 bit faces generally weren't known for their expression. It's not the most compelling package today, but imagine being a kid digging through a box of discount casettes, and you have no idea which ones are utterly broken to the point of being nearly unplayable, or so short that they should count as an ad for the sequel that might never come...

Dizzy's face was a guarantee of some level of quality. At least, when considering the price.

I can't imagine why his makers thought he'd work in a more expensive medium. One where he was directly competing with Nintendo and Sega's AAA polish, and a weaponized charm offensive that made them more popular than Disney.

He really never stood a chance, outside of his humble origins.

But still, he deserves better than to be thrown in with the likes of Bubsy. At least he knew what he was, and he wasn't ever trying to be anything else. With the heavy emphasis on patient exploration and graphic adventure style problem solving, rather than combat, his games really don't play anything like Mario or Sonic. Like so many games from the UK micro computer scene, it's an entirely different evolution...

Edit: Apologies to any UK gamers for everything I've gotten wrong. I'm a Yank who missed out on all the fun.

Fantastic post. It looks great to me and I am from the UK and was around at the time. Yeah 2 quid for a game was good and that is something that codemasters did so well back in the day.


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