Puppet charm – Review Dynamite Headdy

The second D-Rimanovsky Minter Meter, created by Treasure Technomansyaki. Let’s see how much they correspond to their loud name.

Although PLOK was an entertaining, several unsuccessful gam-design solutions was enough to have a potentially good platformer to fall to the level of “slightly higher than average”. But the guys from Software Creations really tried to make their character a hero not another passing jump and laid out to be full, but they simply did not have enough experience, or inspiration, or at all at once. It so happened that the game did not receive sufficient support from either the audience or from the developers themselves subsequently (not counting the official comic book after 20 years), which is why she disappeared from the horizon, remaining only a regular platform for history, for an ordinary gamer, more likely nostalgic. Maybe with the game from Treasure, things are much better?

Better, but not much. And not at all because Treasure suddenly took and tied a broom;The desperate desire of many eminent and not very companies played the success of the SEGA with its blue hedgehog, which spilled into a total market oversaturation, which has reached the scales by 1994, played a cruel joke. Of course, the subsequent mass transition to 3D significantly worsed the crowd of one-day mascot (having touched some good representatives like Sparkster), but until that day the developers were decisively impossible. And in the case of Dynamite Headdy, it’s not just a shame. This. Unjust. Wherever you look in the game – everything shines and sparkles, there’s nothing really to find fault, but let’s in order.

The first thing Dynamite Headdy throws at the player that in platformers, especially old ones, is not so often found – the intra -game plot. A full cavard of toys is happening in the world of toys. While a new theatrical performance was being prepared, an evil doll with the speaking name “The Dark Demon” imagined herself to be a crown of creation and decided to arrange a voluntary-compulsory filtration of the population, leaving only those whom she personally counted worthy. Those who are in the taste of the new emperor are less fortunate, is destined to be disassembled on screws and go to the scrap. The main character named Haddy was also in outsiders. Trying to rescue his brothers during the next cleaning, he himself is captured, from where, having worked his head slightly, he successfully escapes with several survivors. It is from the scene of the escape that the Hero Management goes into your hands.

You can describe Haddi something like this: Poom on the contrary. If all of the difficulties, all the limbs were excluded with the exception of the head, then the newly -minted hero for the battle with the forces of evil last enough for the eyes. Although the arsenal of Haddy’s abilities by default is small: to bite and cling, its functionality can be expanded with the help of numerous replaceable heads that he will find throughout the game in the boxes. Despite the fact that in each individual box there is only two, or even three different heads (the third often is auxiliary and does not contribute to increased firepower), they account for a little less than twenty.

Not all of them, by the way, are equally useful, and some are completely harmful, so it is better not to take everything without analysis, especially in large messs – you can very cheaply part with life, and they are already worth its weight in gold. Such caution should be observed at least until you memorize the icons of all the heads depicted on the boxes with them, and learn to quickly and accurately navigate.

As for the game itself, Dynamite Headdy is such a classic platformer, only from Treasure. And what are the famous Treasure besides the fact that they are immigrants from Konami? First of all, the uniqueness of each game situation. The puppet show in the production of Treasure is made so that with each new level you will receive the impressions of one another brighter. And this is facilitated not only. Then the hero will climb through the cylindrical tower, accompanied by a cool pseudo 3D effect “chamber moving around the tower”, then the game suddenly becomes a horizontal scroll-player, then there will be an opportunity to turn up the level upwards, then that will still be thrown out.

Of course, none of the listed Treasure https://bingositesnotongamstop.co.uk/ was not invented (at least specifically for Dynamite Headdy), but they did excellent work not only in equipping the game with sufficient diversity, but also in his dosing in such a way that it does not turn into chaos.

Secondly, Treasure is famous for bosses. If the reader happened to see their next game by Alien Soldier, all possible questions will disappear by themselves. Despite all the invested diversity, the truly Dynamite Headdy blooms in battles with local leaders. Who have flocked so much that do not leak. In addition to the bosses of the levels themselves, the passage is sometimes interrupted by skirmishes with the eternal rival of Hadble Bruin (or Maruama, if you play the Japanese version, but we will dwell on regional differences), eager to take his place of the favorite of the public and the most popular toy, as well as with numerous demobosses and. semi -beltosses. At least the last enemies do not like ordinary enemies.

Sometimes it will reach funny: fight with one half -boss, then go to another screen and fight with another semi -boss, then go to another screen and fight with a couple of semi -half -columns, after which you are already fighting with the boss. The player Dynamite Headdy does not give a descent at all, and this even despite the fact that there is no time limit and at all.

The only thing I would like to complain about is to grab Haddy’s ability to grab the characters specially designated for this business and thus pull up on the above platforms. The fact is that this feint has been implemented. bizarre. Contrary to expectations, the character caught by someone will not hang in the air, expecting the next action. More precisely, his head will remain where it holds, but the body, if suddenly loses the soil underfoot, can roll down with unpleasant consequences. To avoid this, you need to cling quickly, accurately and without hesitation. By the way, one of the optional training levels is dedicated to the procedure of frame, and I strongly do not recommend missing it.

But you look at the world itself, for it is gorgeous. Each level is filled with details, which, it would seem, is not particularly needed for the game, but it is they who inhale life into the situation. Dolls confused in wires and hanging from the ceiling behind the scenes, an auxiliary character showing the vulnerability of the boss and periodically receiving from it, the boss, who twists the combat arena around its axis with such a steep pseudo 3D effect, which is motionless as from the present-you can list for a long time. What are only guards with swords at the first level, which are protected from attacks in the forehead, but which, for example, can be pushed from a hill. It is not the very fact of such an opportunity, but how they fall, waving with pens and making a lingering “oyyyy ~!”

Neither the artists who painted a lot of animation for both the foreground and the background, nor programmers, did not spare their strengths, nor programmers, all this business pleasantly supplied with a bunch of various visual effects. But what happened is best for them – to convey the feeling of a puppet theater production. Flat scenery, sometimes specifically creating the feeling that the director with all his might tried to save on the props, the opportunity to sometimes dive behind the curtains, where the puppet life boils no less violently, the dolls themselves are made in different styles, starting from the plush Trouble Bruin and ending with the Japanese karakuri.

It is expected that when moving to the west, the game, like many others, was subjected to a small torture procedure called “localization”, but in the case of Dynamite Headdy, everything was much worse. Having decided, apparently, to save on translators, almost all dialogs were removed from the American and European versions of the game, leaving the text literally three lines. And since every battle with Boss was preceded by a short conversation with him, the script of the game pretty much lost weight. If the original events are at least somehow explained, then the Americans and Europeans could only rely on the instructions attached to the game. But she could not answer all the questions.

For example, the next scene did not give me rest: before the final battle with a dark demon, the girlfriend of the protagonist suddenly appears (hezer among the Westerners, Finja in the original), which after a second is enough. She (scene) looked as if she should not be;Instead of a sudden lady in trouble, the final battle should just begin. In fact, it turned out that Finji tried to unsuccessfully reason the villain, ending with a remark: “Dark demon, in fact you. “, Which, of course, was not allowed to finish, which added a decisive battle to a fraction of mystery.

And also Dynamite Headdy was additionally complicated. AND. I don’t know what to say about this. Someone in the mid-1990s really looked at the game from Treasure and decided that somehow it was painfully easily passing? I heard that such a practice of unnatural complication of the Western releases of games was due to the cartridge rental system adopted abroad, because the longer the gamer tried to pass the rented game, the more money was received by the distributor. I don’t know how true such information is (maybe the Japanese developers simply decided to mock a white man), but, recalling numerous roar on the same Gamefaqs, ending with the issue “Buy or Rent?”, The logical grain in it is still present.

In any case, the Western release of Dynamite Headdy is a real test of strength, which brutally punishes even for the slightest oversight. Firstly, Haddy himself became more fragile. Secondly, the bosses became stronger and a little more aggressive. Thirdly, you are not given a single continuation (instead of two in the original), so if you have lost all your lives before you found at least one thing, then welcome to the game Over. Although some changes in complexity, oddly enough, came to the place – in most cases the leaders made simply annoying, replacing an honest call by testing patience. Given that bosses from the second half of the game even in the Japanese original tear the ass, the battles with them in the western version grow into some special type of perversion. Honesty for the sake of, at least they remained passable, but the player will require maximum concentration and endurance.

Fortunately, experts who own both the Japanese language and the skills of Romhaking came to the rescue, thanks to the efforts of which the original version of the game into English was born. Now no language barrier will prevent you from getting to know the game in the form in which it was conceived by the developers! You can download a patch for Japanese roma at this link.

Music – a separate song. Let the soundtrack and lack a little that virtuosity and technical elegance, which superban follics supplied the sound von PLOK, and without them he feels great, relying exclusively on the Japanese characteristic. Well, Dynamite Headdy’s compositions more than five times, so that almost every game situation and every significant boss has its own unique musical theme.

The variety of compositions themselves is impressive. At the head of the table are pleasant and easy to listen to the melody, but it is worth turning on the mental soft-jazz motifs, and playing desire disappears-sounds will drown out music. The themes of the bosses seem to live in some of their worlds. No, such compositions are sustained in the general way and do not fall out of the narrative, but sometimes they completely tear all the templates and either cut a powerful FM guitar, or light the 1980s dance floor in the spirit of Kraftwerk, or something else they do, they create diversity in general. If you try to give the soundtrack a brief description, then it can be reduced to the following: he perfectly hit the topic of a puppet performance. Funny, slightly wonderful and transcendingly charming, which is this world of toys.

A record with game music, as is usually the case, did not officially enter the sale, but something was even more interesting-an amateur album-tribe. Having combined 26 tracks from a variety of performers and covering almost the entire original soundtrack, it allows you to look at familiar music under a completely different angle. Some remixes, in truth, moved away from their originals so far that without reference information on the album’s website this connection is sometimes difficult to establish, but no one promised reinforcements. You can download the tribute here.

As a result, we can say that the low popularity of Dynamite Headdy and its local fame only among the remaining fans of the SEGA products are simply criminal. The game is replete with style and real life, tons of imagination are embedded in it, and a variety of gameplay does not allow to get bored. Dynamite Headdy is a view that is worth going.