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Sega Genesis - Asterix and the Power of the Gods Review |
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Asterix and the power of the gods is based on the comic book of the same name. Basically Vitalstatistix has lost the shield he always travels on and you have to find it. Along the way you'll get involved in a convulated adventure where you have to do things such as fetch oil for someone so he can give you something so you do something for someone and so on and so forth. Gameplay: 7/10 The game involves you as either Asterix or Obelix travelling around a map and entering various places. You'll then play the game as a platform sidescroller. It's fairly decent at the beginning. You push A for attack, B for jump and hold C to run. You can jump fairly high although there is a tendency for you to smack into walls and be flattened against them. There's no way for you to grab ledges unfortunately so when you get flattened you just get bounced back. Attacking is a huge problem which really drags the game down. Your attack range is miniscule meaning you have to wait in one place for the enemy to approach you. Furthermore, the enemies are extremely fast in attacking you and give you almost no way of responding. Worse. There are enemies which kill you in one hit or appear out of nowhere to attack you before you react. You're also unable to attack in the air unless you use your special attack. The special attack is done by jumping and pressing down and attack. This takes up your magic potion if you're Asterix or boar is you're Obelix. Why this is the case is beyond me considering flying enemies such as bats become a real headache later on and avoiding them is almost impossible. There is a golden sickle which can be used to attack these enemies but you can only carry one at a time while Graphics: 5/5 The graphics for this game are top-notch. Everything looks like it was pulled straight out of the comic book. No complaints here. Sound and Music: 4.5/5 The sound is unfortunately rather lacking however there are a huge number of music tracks all of which are actually classical music tracks. What's more, they tell you who the composers are as well as what piece they're from. Great music to say the least. Game design: 2/5 As mentioned earlier, The game is designed as an adventure of sorts. You have to travel between locations on the map such as the Gaulish village and the Roman camp. While the intial levels are relatively fair and interesting, problems soon set in. You'll find that the middle and later maps are almost impossible to play because of the difficult enemies and your limited attacks. Compound this with the one-hit-and you're-dead enemies and obstecles and it becomes way more frustrating than fun. There are is some variety in the gameplay. For example, you'll be able to ride a carpet controlling it like one of those side scrollingn shooter games, there's a boat sequence where you have leap from one boat and board a pirate ship and there's a race to room where you're on a cart and have to fight off Romans and dodge obstecles. None of these however are well implemented except for the carpet ride and it's more frustrating than fun. That's not too say some of the maps aren't fun such as the carnival map and the snow map but these maps just don't rescue the game. Longevity: 1.5/5 This game starts off fairly decent but then the difficulty and gameplay problems make it way too difficult to play. That's a shame because it might have been a great game if more attention had been paid to balance. For: Great graphics, great music. Against: Game becomes way too difficult. Attack range just too short. |
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Rom Review Options |
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Genre: Action Produced by: Core Design Limited Year: 1995 Platform: Sega Genesis/Megadrive Runs on: Gens Scoring Summary Gameplay: 7/10 Graphics: 5/5 Sound and Music: 4.5/5 Game design: 2/5 Longevity: 1.5/5 Total: 20/30 Rating: 67% -Reviewed by Barnabas |