Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest builds upon and adds to everything the first game did well. By the way, if you didn't catch the pun in the game's subtitle, read it again—it's not Diddy Kong's Quest, as some have misread it. Donkey Kong has been kidnapped by Kaptain K. Rool (formerly King K. Rool, a detail I didn't clock while playing). This may be an homage to the sequel to the Donkey Kong arcade game , Donkey Kong Junior , in which Mario took the big gorilla captive, leaving DK Junior to save him. Well, I don't know what happened to Junior, but now Diddy and his girlfriend Dixie must rescue DK.  The action takes place on Crocodile Isle, with a world map set up like in the original. Per usual, each of the seven worlds boasts a different, tropey biome: a pirate ship, volcano, poisonous swamp, abandoned amusement park, haunted forest, K. Rool's castle, and finally his airship. The biggest change from the original is replacing DK with a chimp named ...

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask is not a typical Zelda game. To capitalize on the success of The Ocarina of Time  (OoT), Nintendo gave Shigeru Miyamoto, Eiji Aonuma, and their team one year to  create a sequel  using the same assets and engine. Majora's Mask is set in an eerie, dream-like, parallel world appropriately named Termina, populated by doppelgangers of NPCs from OoT. It uses a unique,  Groundhog Day- like, three-day cycle, which Link must keep reseting to gain more time to save Termina from its heavenly doom. An opening cinematic shows the Skull Kid (a minor character in OoT), wearing Majora’s Mask, steal Link's horse and ocarina, then turn him into a Deku Scrub. The mask empowers him to make the moon, with a disturbing grin on its face, hurtle toward Termina. A strange mask salesman, from whom the eponymous Mask was stolen, asks Link to get it back. The first part of the game is completed in Deku form, swordless. Though Link fails to reclaim the mask, t...

Although given the subtitle "Super Mario World 2" for commercial reasons (like Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 ), Yoshi's Island was actually the first game in a new Yoshi series. The sequel, Yoshi's Story  (N64 1998), is in my opinion underrated. The series has had success in recent years with Poochy & Yoshi's Woolly World (3DS 2017) and Yoshi's Crafted World (Switch 2019), both of which I have enjoyed as well. The story of Yoshi's Island is that, while the stork was delivering the twins Mario and Luigi to their parents, a Magikoopa named Kamek kidnapped them. However, he only got Luigi: baby Mario fell to Yoshi's Island. Now it's up to the Yoshis to bring him home. Opposed to them are various enemies, including a whole lot of Shy Guys. As a huge Super Mario Bros. 2 fan, I love that this game re-introduced the Shy Guys to the Mario universe. There are even a few Snifits. Snifit The two most memorable things about Yoshi's Island are the cut...

Despite flopping upon its release in 1995, over the decades EarthBound has acquired a great reputation. It's easy to see why it wasn't popular: the cartoon-art styled—inspired by Charles Schultz's beloved Peanuts comic strip—doesn't compare well to the cutting-edge graphics seen in the two blockbuster RPGs released that same year: Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger . Also, the contemporary American suburbia setting may have been unappealing. Like many other Super Nintendo games, EarthBound is essentially a remake of its 8-bit predecessor. Titled "Mother" (apparently in reference to the Beatles song, "Let It Be") came out in Japan in 1989. A fully translated NES prototype was created—under the title "Earth Bound"—but never released (like Final Fantasy II ). In both EarthBounds, some kids (you choose their names, as always) must save the world from the alien Giygas. This guy keeps appearing to have everyone pose for a photograph. EarthBound...

Today is the 30th anniversary of the U.S. release of Chrono Trigger! It was my favorite SNES game. When I rented Chrono Trigger in middle school, I assumed it was a two-player action RPG because the box looked like  Secret of Mana . Ironically, Akira Toriyama didn't work on Secret of Mana! However, his work on the Dragon Quest series served as inspiration for Secret of Mana. I saw no similarity between Chrono Trigger and the 8-bit sprites in Dragon Warrior. Anyway, despite the lack of multiplayer, I took to Chrono Trigger immediately. With the money I earned mowing the lawn, I bought the game for about $75, which, adjusted for inflation would be nearly $150 today! Chrono Trigger's main gimmick is time-travel. The appropriately named Crono and his friends (you can choose their names) travel between the present (1000 A.D.), the Middle Ages (600 A.D.), a post-apocalyptic future (2300 A.D.), antiquity (12,000 B.C.), and prehistoric times (65 million B.C.). Changing events in the p...

Wario Land 3 follows its predecessor 's puzzle-platforming formula with two key changes: Wario slowly acquires his abilities (a la Metroid ), and instead of 50 levels there are just 25–but each holds four different chests to unlock for a total of 100 goals. Just as in II, Wario is immortal, but enemies cause him to transform in ways that appear painful but are actually helpful. For example, being flattened by a Thwomp-like enemy puts Wario into a cartoony feather-like state: now he can float into small gaps. One transformation from the previous game, where he became tiny, has been removed. In its place, bats make him a vampire that can turn into a bat! Most transformations last a few seconds, but the vampire remains until he touches water. The vast majority of the game's puzzles are solved by using the appropriate transformation. They aren't overly difficult. Since Wario can't be hurt or killed, the game can only punish you by making you try a segment again. I confess t...