Brain Breaker: Are We Lost Mammals of an Approaching Transcendental Epoch? (with Final Rating)

To put it simply: real life got busy. My first child is due in a couple of weeks, and life is hectic. I haven't had the time to play, let alone write, about a nearly 20 year old Japanese game. Luckily, it's a lazy weekend and I was able to get enough Brain Breaker played to call it quits.

Moving Pictures & Secret Walls

It's not that I don't enjoy wandering around a desolate city: in fact, I love that part of the game. I enjoy slowly working my way west across the city, uncovering new monsters and weapons. The combat remains challenging but not too difficult, and while the slow movement speed isn't great, it's not the end of the world. Combat get significantly easier with the introduction of the rocket launcher, which both has a larger spread and can destroy enemy projectiles. However, regardless of these traits, the problem is that I can't read Japanese.

There is a door I can not go through, that leads to a building and elevator higher than the my jet pack lets me fly over. The gate to the building seems to be the same kind of gate that led to a rocket launcher, which was opened using the ID card that I mentioned in the previous post. Trying to use the ID card here does nothing, besides providing Japanese text. Going back to the building with the jet pack, there is a computer there I can use. ID card and Ask both produced Japanese text, but I was still unable to open the door. Likewise, I destroyed the computer with rockets, but the door stayed shut and resistant to my assault. Luckily, I had spent the required time for this game, and decided to move on.

A Machine and a Memory Keep You Alive

Looking around online, Hardcore Gaming 101 features the best information I can find on Brain Breaker. The article has a good overview of the game, including information on the ending and progressing further than I did. The author noticed the same problem that I did: the game is completely incomprehensible, and they were only able to complete the game after finding a video of a play through.

Reading through the Hardcore Gaming 101 review, it's clear the game continues to be inscrutable, weird, difficult and obtuse. One notable example is needing to drop and then destroy your laser gun in order to clear a barrier. I'm sorry I didn't finish this game, if nothing else than to gain godlike psionic powers.

With nothing else to say, let's wrap this up and get on with the rating for Brain Breaker.

Visuals. The game looks nice. I don't know enough about the Sharp X1 to comment on technical achievement, but the graphics due a great job of conveying the desolate world of Brain Breaker. The various buildings that litter the landscape are impressively large, and the endless plains to the right of the starting point are appropriately desolate.

The Fun of Watching Fireworks

The enemy robots and various objects that litter the landscape are less imposing. The objects are often hard to make out due to their small size, and things like the laser gun were almost completely invisible. 5/10

Audio. The progress has been mixed since Montezuma's Revenge. One one hand, there is music in Brain Breaker! On the other hand, the music consists of a single blippy song that loops endlessly, and the song isn't particularly memorable. Or good. The special effects are in the same vein as Montezuma's Revenge: scratchy garbled noises and an appropriate "pew pew" sound for lasers. 4/10

 

Re-Inventing a Challenge for Machines

Gameplay. Aside from the inscrutable Japanese text,  my biggest complaint with this game is how bad the controls are. There is a delay for almost everything, which leads to constant deaths that should be avoided. Simple tasks, like getting out of a small hole, are rendered difficult by the stiff controls.

Combat is difficult due to the controls: I rarely died when I was facing an enemy, but often died because my character did not turn around and shoot before being fired upon. While there is none of the obscene difficulty of Montezuma's Revenge, the stiff controls detract from an otherwise enjoyable game in Brain Breaker. 4/10

Metroidvania Quotient. Like everything else in this game, it's a mixed bag. On one hand, you get new powers that let you explore the map at a better rate, and interesting new weapons that let you easily destroy your foes. Getting the jetpack and then discovering an entirely new level of the map was fantastic. Starting off the game and running into an impassable robot was a nice touch.

All you are going to want to do is get back there

On the other hand, everything is entirely mandatory. As far as I can tell from my own playing and the Hardcore Gaming 101 review is that every item is needed for progression. There is no sense of exploring and finding secrets. There isn't even the feeling of a branching path like in Montezuma's Revenge, and there seems no value in replaying it. 4/10

Set and Setting. This is where Brain Breaker really shines: the games desolate cityscape is fantastic, in scope and execution. Buildings tower up far beyond even the reach of the player's jet pack, and broken pieces of technology litter the landscape. The bizarre lay-out gives a truly alien feel to the world of Brain Breaker, with floating platforms hiding secrets and impossibly tall buildings blocking progress. Combined with the varying rate of combat, the world is a beautiful lonely place. 7/10

That leaves Brain Breaker with a score of 22, slightly beating Montezuma's Revenge and leaving plenty of room for improvement! Up next is Citadel for the BBC Micro/Electron, another game and system I know nothing about.

Montezuma's Revenge: Too Damn Hard (with Final Rating)

I can't imagine the level of commitment needed to get through this game.

Maybe modern gaming has spoiled me, but I don't have the dedication needed to practice this game long enough to get deeply into it. I remain stuck on the same screens that were challenging of my last posting, despite getting there quicker each time. In a lot of ways, I feel like getting good at this game is a matter of practice more than anything: like I said before, the difficulty is in the precision needed, but the controls are fair.

Needs more practice.

Unfortunately, I don't really have any progress to report at this point: I spent the rest of the allotted time exploring a detour to gain another key, getting slightly better, and dying repeatedly. This didn't really come as a surprise to me, but I guess it bears recording.

I can not imagine being good enough at this game to worry about getting points.

So, with nothing else to say, do the rating for Montezuma's Revenge!

Visuals. The graphics are serviceable for the most part, with special attention being play to the lava pools. The simple animation and a tight band of colors give these pools a vibrancy rarely seen on any system from this time. 

So good I'll post it again.

Other than that, there is nothing truly visually special in this version of the game. 4/10

Audio. The best thing I have to say about the audio in Montezuma's Revenge is that there is nothing too annoying. The sounds are simplistic, as expected from the era and system, limited to a handful of rough noises for walking, jumping, and killing creatures with the word. There was no music outside of a brief intro that played when starting a new game. 3/10

Gameplay. Ignoring the difficulty for a moment, this game controls beautifully. The jumping is precise and in the Castlevania style of conserved momentum. The character's speed is fair, the physics are sensible, and there is no difficulty grabbing onto ladder and ropes as you make your way around.

Brilliant gate placement.

There are a pile of ways to die in this game. Enemies, falling, disappearing floors, and laser gates all present challenges that will instantly kill you and drain one of your precious and limited lives. The plethora of ways to die is compounded by a level design and layout that invites death to come quicky: enemies and traps often appear as soon as the screen starts, meaning movement must quickly be suspended when entering new rooms. Enemies often requiring dodging on tight platforms, and the disappearing floors proved insurmountable for me. 5/10.

Metroidvania Quotient. What's great about Montezuma's Revenge is that it has all the basic elements of a Metroidvania game in place: backtracking exploration,  permanent power-ups, and platforming. That being said, a lot of these elements are rudimentary and I look forward to seeing their evolution.

Basic route planning!

For example, while the map appears to be a large branching map, there are many dead-ends and preferred choices. For example, while the path to the torch has two different ways to get to it, only one will provide the  key needed to get to the torch.

Power-ups are similarly misleading: while you can keep a key, a sword, a torch and an amulet in your inventory, the torch is the only one that is permanent, and the others are limited in duration. The sword would be more useful if there were more of them, but it is a lonely power-up, only occurring in a handful of places that I was able to explore. The key functions as to be expected, and the amulet grants temporary immunity to enemies. 4/10

Set and Setting. This one is really a mixed bag for Montezuma's Revenge. On one hand, Panama Joe is the living embodiment of Indiana Jones, complete with narrow escape from deaths, crossing perilous gaps, and seeking treasure. He has to get by the usual array of archaeologist problems: spiders, skulls and snakes.

On the other hand, Montezuma has a weaponized laser capable of instantly vaporizing a human. There is a sparse story in the manual, and nothing at all within the game. There is really no narrative in this game, besides getting the loot. 5/10

And has perfected the art of storing lava.

All this comes with the note that I chose to play the Atari 2600 edition. From brief online reading, it looks like some of the other versions had significantly different level lay-outs, and enhanced graphics, spread over a few years of releases. I don't know how much the gameplay differs between releases, and if I eventually have more interest I'll check it out. I also found out that when I beat them game, my reward would be restarting with significantly harder differences, such as enemies no longer staying dead, and eventually a completely dark game with no torch.

Overall, Montezuma's Revenge earned a 21/50 score, which is a fine way to start off scoring and get on our way to Brain Break for the Sharp X1.