Retro Review: Sub Terrania

Holy cow B&W'ers! Can you believe it? I've actually done another Retro Review! This time I sat down with my good old Sega Genesis and popped in Sub Terrania from Zyrinx.

How should I describe Sub Terrania? Well, the back of the game's box says this;

"Aliens have invaded a vital subterranean mining colony. Fly a prototype fighter through impossible caverns to rescue miners and blast the aliens into the darkest pits of space."

That pretty much covers the basics, but let's dig deeper and elaborate after the break.

Sub Terrania is chopped up into missions revolving around the basic idea that the aliens are mad at you and the humans wanna be rescued. At the beginning of each mission there's a mission briefing telling you about all of your objectives which usually involve you solving some puzzle that opens up an area for you to acquire a certain pick-up or to save a couple humans by landing your ship next to them and allowing them to board the ship.



The controls are pretty easy to pick up on, but touchy at times. You have a forward thrust by pressing the B button and you control your direction with the left, right, and up directional buttons. The down directional button uses a reverse thrust. The whole movement of the ship is very well done, yet something about it feels off, for instance the controls are perfect for zooming across the map, but far too sensitive for the battling part of the game.

The A button changes your weapons which there's a couple that I found, mainly missiles with a limited use and an infinite machine gun styled attack. After you have the weapon you want to use selected the C button will fire it and cause imminent destruction to those whom oppose you.

Everything in Sub Terrania looks great, smooth, crisp and clean. There's not much too bad to say about the graphics, except maybe a little nit pick about the humans. All they do is run around on the ground as itty bitty shadows that don't have any distinguishable features about them. That was about all that bothered me about the style of the game.



As for enemies go, during my playtime I saw that there were definitely enough enemies to keep the fighting interesting and varied, and plenty of hidden areas with extra lives and pick-ups to make sure the levels aren't just getting from point A to point B.

The music, which is done by Jesper Kyd the award winning composer for IO Interactive's Hitman series, fits the game well and sounds pretty good with an impressive range of sounds. However, the music gets boring and repetitive quickly and is easily blocked out and forgotten.

In the end Sub Terrania is fun, yet forgettable. If you find yourself in a situation where you either have a chance to try it out, or pick it up for a couple bucks at a flea market; I say go for it. It's definitely worth your time at least once.

Sound: 6/10
Graphics: 7/10
Controls: 7/10
Fun Factor: 7/10
Replay Ability: 5/10

Overall Score: 7/10




-Undrallio

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Retro Review: Run, Run, As Fast As You Can...

Greetings B&W followers and happy Saturday. Well, as happy as it can be I suppose. I'm delightfully sick as a dog and have just reviewed an absolutely horrid NES game just for you guys. So let's step inside here and see what there is to say about Kid Kool and the Quest For the Seven Wonder Herbs.

Developed by Vic Tokai, the makers of one of my favorite NES games ever, Golgo 13, I went in on this one with somewhat high expectations. How bad could it be, really? Turns out it can be pretty bad indeed.

You are Kid Kool who looks absolutely nothing like the super cool guy on the cover (picture right) and your mission is to run as fast as you can around the world and collect the Seven Wonder Herbs for your King who has some unfortunate disease from which only the herbs can save him.

Kid Kool and the Quest for the Seven Herbs is a 2-D side-scroller, and feels like Mario got drunk at a frat party and retched this abhorrent piece of crap out in a final attempt to sober up. What I mean to say is the controls are god-awful. You can't control Kid Kool at all, he runs real fast but not until you run for a too-long period that will more than likely get you killed. Otherwise he crawls at the pace of a dead gerbil and jumps about as well as Dr. Phil playing basketball.


The graphics are pretty good though, everything looks nice and crisp and you can tell exactly what you can jump on, and what should be avoided at all costs. However, that's where the game goes downhill.

I did sort of enjoy the music. It's simple, catchy, and it'll get right on your nerves and stick with you the rest of the night while you scream blasphemes at your telly and consider joining a cult to end the misery.

There are bags of money cleverly hidden in plain, empty air in the best positions so that they throw you off on your timing and cause Kid Kool to get murdered by one of the three or four enemy sprites in the game. The money bags are useful though, at the end of each level there's a chance for a bonus game that's basically the same thing as press your luck. You can win a free 1-up if you are the most lucky bastard in the world.

Every now and then you find this little fur ball buddy of yours that you can throw around to kill enemies or keep it and give you an extra hit. Much like Mario's mushroom power-up. When I first got the little fluffer I pondered to myself why on earth would they put Kuriboh in an NES game. He is useful though, and will save you from enemies killing you, too bad that doesn't prevent all of the random pits, deep waters, spikes, and any other obstacle that blocks your attempt at winning.

Bosses are definitely interesting, and when I say interesting I mean repetitive and boring. You "fight" the bosses by jumping over them and pounding this stick into the ground that then kills the big baddies. I'm not sure why, it just does.

So let's finish this up, Kid Kool and the Quest for the Seven Wonder Herbs is a game that should be avoided at all costs. Unless you like brain aneurysms, then go for it.

Sound: 7/10
Graphics: 8/10
Controls: 2/10
Fun Factor: 4/10
Replay Ability: 2/10 (You'll never want to jam this cartridge back into your poor NES ever again.)

Overall: 4/10



-Undrallio

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