After Super Mario 64 became a massive hit, everyone was scrambling to cash in with their own 3D platform game. Soon the market was flooded with them, but many of them simply followed the same basic formula that had already been laid out by Nintendo’s masterpiece. In hindsight, it’s amazing to think that in 1998- a mere two years after SM64 was released in Japan- a 3D platformer would come along and completely reinvent the genre.

Space Station Silicon Valley is a story about an experimental space station populated with advanced robots, which disappeared and then reappeared a thousand years later. The hero of the story- in other words, the guy who’s sent to the space station to figure out what’s going on- is named Dan Danger. He got the mission because he was, and I quote, ‘expendable and cheap’. Oh, so it’s one of those games with a funny instruction manual is it? Fair enough.

Dan’s sidekick was a robot named EVO, who was the end result of the whole Silicon Valley experiment. What that means is, he is an intelligent robot capable of learning and evolving. Unfortunately, Dan ended up crash-landing on the space station and EVO’s body parts were scattered in the crash.

Here’s where it gets interesting. You play as what’s left of EVO- a walking computer chip with eyes- and embark on a quest to recover the rest of your body. To do this, you have to inhabit the bodies of dead robots and use their abilities to complete the stages. You always begin a stage inside some kind of robot, but if you see another robot that you want to inhabit, it has to be dead first. Sometimes there are dead robots lying about the place, but most of the time you have to use the environment or another robot’s abilities to kill the one you need.

The robots themselves take the form of animals, and the designs are extremely imaginative. Get ready to control a rabbit with helicopter blades instead of ears, a turtle with a cannon instead of a head, animals with wheels, and so on. Each animal has two abilities which are mapped to the A and B buttons, so the controls are never confusing no matter how many times you switch bodies. As an example of how the abilities vary, animals with wheels usually have a turbo boost assigned to the A button, while legged animals may be able to jump instead. So do you reach that area by jumping to it, or do you need to boost off a ramp to reach it? These are the puzzles you will be faced with at every turn.

This game was developed by DMA Design (now Rockstar North), and just like Unirally, it had all the hallmarks of a good Rockstar game. It was completely unique and loads of fun. It had a great soundtrack and a graphical style that was as charming and wacky as the rest of the game. Plus it was funny, not just in terms of the dialogue but also in terms of the setting, the design of the robots, the animations and so on. Space Station Silicon Valley is one of my favourite 3D platform games of all time, and if you ever get to play it, I’m sure it will become one of your favourites too.

Remember the Super FX Chip? It was developed by Argonaut Software and used to process 3D graphics in SNES games. Chances are you’ve heard of Star Fox (renamed Starwing in Australia), a co-development between Argonaut and Nintendo and the first game to use the Chip. What you may not have heard is that Argonaut went on to develop a lesser-known, though arguably more impressive game called Vortex.

Vortex is a game where you pilot the Morphing Battle System, a transforming vehicle with four modes: Walker (giant robot), Sonic Jet (plane), Land Burner (car) and Hard Shell (pretty much what it says). Each mode had its own strengths and weaknesses which you had to take advantage of in order to succeed. The Walker, for example, had access to four different kinds of ammo- homing missiles, rockets, cannon and laser- and you could equip two at a time. The Sonic Jet could only use cannon or laser shots, but made up for it with its ability to fly really fast. The Land Burner was similar to the Jet, except it drove along the ground so it used less fuel. Finally, the Hard Shell was the slowest mode and couldn’t use any ammo, but it didn’t lose any energy (it lost fuel instead when damaged) and had a special weapon of its own- the screen-clearing Electrobomb. The MBS had an energy bar and a fuel bar and was destroyed if either one ran out (but fuel recharged over time), so you had to take advantage of each mode’s unique attributes to prevent that from happening.

There were two main gameplay modes in Vortex. The first would be referred to as ‘All-Range Mode’ by anyone who’s played Lylat Wars. What this means is that you could move about in any direction, completing objectives and shooting anything that moves. It gave you the freedom to strategise and really unlock the full potential of the MBS. For example, you could use the Jet or Burner mode to reach an objective quickly while dodging enemy fire, switch to Shell mode to defend against enemy fire, then switch to Walker mode to counter-attack. Or you could stay in Jet or Burner mode and use your speed to evade enemies while shooting. Or you could be more cautious and move through the map slowly in Shell or Walker mode, ready to counter any enemies. The possibilities seemed endless.

The second gameplay mode was the ‘on-rails’ stages, where you’re on a fixed path. Two of them were set in space and had a real Star Fox vibe, but Vortex had some other tricks up its sleeve. There was one particular stage where you had to navigate a narrow pathway within a certain time limit, but the gravity in this stage was so high that the Sonic Jet would run out of fuel in seconds. This meant you had to race down the pathway in Land Burner mode, jumping over gaps and shooting things in what ended up being a pretty fun stage. A similar stage, set on a water planet, had you following a narrow, winding path, but there was no time limit so you could take your time and use whichever modes you wanted. Technically, these were All-Range Mode stages, but it was the level design that kept you on a fixed path rather than invisible walls, so they had a different feel to them.

Vortex was an amazing technical achievement, but it also delivered in the gameplay stakes. The wide range of weapons and abilities kept the game interesting and varied, and even by today’s standards it’s really challenging. It’s also really short, but it’s fun while it lasts.

See that camera on your DSi? There’s a reason why it’s there. Like most of Nintendo’s recent ideas, its origins can be found in some weird peripheral that’s been long forgotten (to be fair, you could probably say that about any hardware manufacturer). In this case, the forefather to the DSi camera was the Game Boy Camera.

What is a Game Boy Camera? It’s a camera that plugs into your Game Boy like a regular game cartridge, allowing you to take digital, black and white photos which you can then draw on (MS Paint style) or cover with stamps (ie. weird eyes, mouths, Pokemon characters, that sort of thing). Also, in keeping with Nintendo’s favourite gimmick at the time, it was available in a whole range of different colours to match your mood. Remember those wonderful days when Nintendo products were available in colours besides black, white and pink? Yeah, me neither.

If you had a Game Boy Printer (sold separately), you could print the photos out on a unique kind of paper which turned the photos into stickers. Take a photo, cover it with stamps, print it, peel it off, and stick it somewhere. It’s so easy that nothing could go wrong, right? Well… not unless Nintendo stopped making paper for the Printer, turning it into a useless lump of plastic that wasn’t even fit to be a paperweight. Ah well, at least the Camera was still cool.

When you think about it, the Game Boy Camera was quite an influential piece of tech. As well as being the first Nintendo product that let you take photos and mess with them in comical ways, it featured a small collection of games where you could put your own face into the game- a feature which can now be found in various DSiWare games. Speaking of DSiWare games, the Camera featured an animation creator that resembled an early version of Flipnote Studios. I still have fond memories of creating animations where the pre-made image of Charizard burned various things.

Apparently, the Game Boy Camera caught the attention of legendary musician Neil Young, because the cover of one of his albums (Silver and Gold, released in 2000) was taken with one. I wonder if he owns a DSi…

Unlike most of the games featured in these articles, I’m not going to suggest that you rush out and buy a Game Boy Camera. Sure, it was great for it’s time, but its best ideas have since been carried over to better products. If you’re really desperate to decorate your photos with Pokemon and Mario stamps and don’t care about frivolous extras such as colour, resolution, or being able to print your photos, then you’ll want to track down a Game Boy Camera. For everyone else, it’s merely a retro novelty, like View Masters and Magic 8-Balls.

When I first heard the name of this game, I thought it involved making virtual pop-up books. While I wouldn’t be surprised if something like that appeared on the 3DS in the near future, this game was nothing like that. It was a puzzle game where you play as a time-traveling ball. Why is it traveling through time? Apparently, it’s trying to get home, because the game ends with the ball entering its ‘house’ and banging against… sorry, making innocent contact with a blob who has ears or wings or something. And hearts appear. Awwwwwww…

Let’s go back to the beginning. This is a puzzle game where you play as a ball who bounces on platforms and collects random items to make an exit appear. Reach the exit and you move on to the next stage. This goes on for 100 levels, to the tune of one surprisingly catchy song, with a difficulty curve that bounces around as erratically as the main character. Heck, one of the last ten stages is nothing but angled platforms, so unless you self-destruct it is absolutely impossible to fail it!

Oh right, there’s different platforms to make the experience varied and challenging. There are angled platforms that bounce you in a certain direction, platforms that shrink every time you bounce on them, sticky platforms that you can’t bounce on, spiky platforms that kill you, and various other wonders. Also, there are walls that can be destroyed if you collect enough keys, fires that can be put out by collecting water droplets, and brick walls that require hammers to destroy.

And that time-traveling element I mentioned before? Just an aesthetic thing. The background changes from the Big Bang, cavemen, a medieval castle, the Statue of Liberty, and… back to the Big Bang again. The items and enemies have been designed to match the time period (most of the time), so while you may be collecting moons and dodging asteroids on the Big Bang stage, you’ll be collecting stuff like computers and dodging cars on the Statue of Liberty stage. Also, the keys and hammers change with the time period, so while modern hammers look just as you’d expect, the stone age ones look like ancient tomahawks. Clever!

But then, the whole game is clever. It’s a puzzle game that is simple to learn and difficult to master, full of variety and (mostly) excellent level design. With the recent explosion of wacky platform/puzzle games available on digital distribution services nowadays, Pop Up is just begging for a remake. How about improved graphics, more time periods, and maybe a different remix of the song for each period? Infogrames are still in business (albeit under a different name), so why they wouldn’t exploit this brilliant game is anyone’s guess.

While researching this article, I discovered that Pop Up is so obscure that it doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page. It does, however, have a free online version which you can play here. It’s a Java version of the game, but it retains all the original graphics and physics. Just remember that Z makes you jump really high, X does the same, and pressing both keys at once makes you self-destruct!

Platform: Game Boy
Developer: Capcom
Released: 1990

In recent years we’ve seen many games where you play as the villain, but believe it or not, Capcom was doing this way back in 1990. Using their highly successful Ghosts ‘n’ Goblins/Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts franchise as inspiration, they made a game which put the ghouls, ghosts and goblins in the spotlight.

Your character was a gargoyle named Red Arremer, or Firebrand if you played the English version. Why would anyone want to play as a gargoyle instead of a lance-throwing knight, you may ask? The answer is that hovering through the air with your wings, clinging to walls with your feet, and breathing fire to kill enemies is just as cool as it sounds.

Funnily enough, your mission did not involve hunting down Sir Arthur and killing him to avenge the hordes of monsters that had died by his hand. This game introduced a world of friendly, peace-loving ghouls and ghosts, with their own mythology and history. Firebrand’s mission was to save this world from a threat known as ‘the Destroyers’, who were- you guessed it- an EVIL army of ghouls, ghosts and goblins!

The interesting thing about this game is that it crossed a 2D platform game with RPG elements. Using a bird’s eye view, you had to walk around the world visiting villages, talking to people, and eventually making your way to whichever landmark (towers, castles etc) contained the next platforming stage. Along the way, you would gain items that would give you new abilities, such as hovering for longer periods of time, jumping higher, and so on. Also, the characters did that thing where they make random noises as the text scrolls by, and while there were only about three ‘voices’, it helped to add some life to the game world.

This was also the game that introduced me to that staple of RPGs known as ‘random encounters’. While walking around the overworld (but not in a village), you would enter a small, 2D area at random moments. These areas featured a couple of enemies who had to be killed to progress. As you progressed further into the game, these areas became more complex and featured tougher enemies.

Gargoyle’s Quest may be pretty basic by today’s standards, and it’s a lot easier than the franchise that spawned it, but it is a fun and unique game in its own right. It was a ‘role-reversal’ game before they became trendy, and it blended RPG elements with 2D platforming in a way that actually worked. If you ever get the chance, it’s worth a play.

In this podcast, we discuss the possibly high price of the 3DS at launch, get our retro jollies off at the release of a plug ‘n’ play Megadrive, and talk about how much better Super Mario Galaxy 2 is than it’s predecessor (which is 1% if you’re Ken).

There are two ways to listen to this podcast. First you can simply left click on the link below and the podcast will play from your browser, or you can right click on the link below and save-as, to download the podcast and then listen to it in your media player or on your iPod or MP3 player.

Click here to listen to TNBcast 2

TNBcast episode 2 schedule:

0.00.00 – Intro – Boss Battle Theme 3 (Super Mario Galaxy 2 OST)
0.01.43 – Latest Nintendo news
0.16.15 – 3DS pricing and release date discussion

0.25.20 – Music – Wings of Liberty (StarCraft II OST)

0.30.55 – General Gaming news
0.43.35 – Bargain Basement

0.55.28 – Music – Cold Metal (Megaman 2 Remix – Willrock)

0.59.10 – What we’ve been playing and random gaming discussion
1.31.40 – Wrap up

1.34.00 – Music – Final Bowser Battle (Super Mario Galaxy 2 OST)

Helpful Links:

Pokemon Pickup line

The Retrode

Pixel Hunt

If you would like to be involved in future TNB podcasts, email liam@thenintendobasement.com or michael@thenintendobasement.com.

Again, the first place I visited was the video games room, which was spread across two halls like last year.The stalls were back, with the Madman, Pulp Fiction Comics and Gametraders stalls creating the biggest crowds, but there were some much smaller stalls with some very cool merchandise. There was a line of music game booths containing Rock Band, Guitar Hero, DJ Hero, Lips and a few other music games I’d never seen before. Next to these booths there was a wall of various arcade games, but none I could recognise at a glance. The Rock Band Stage also made it’s triumphant return, with new aesthetics and a much bigger song list. The Free Play tables were back, too, but the massive crowds, though great for the organisers, meant that most of the machines were already taken or had people waiting to play them.

The layout outside of the video games room had changed a bit from last year, though, with the Artist Alley located next to the maid cafe. There was some really good art there this year, though I only had a small look around, and if I had more time I surely would’ve bought something. Next to the artist alley was the Casual Gaming area, which had a bunch of TVs with Wii’s containing games like Wii Sports, Link’s Crossbow Training, and Mario Kart. While my friends were checking out some obscure anime I had no interest in, I decided to have a few friendly Mario Kart matches with some strangers. My luck was much better this year, with me placing first 3 of the 4 races I was in. Soon enough I departed from the Casual Gaming area and joined my friends in attending the Video Game Development panel.

You've got to love Mario cosplayers

The Video Game Development panel, hosted by a University of Adelaide who’s developing education games for medical science, who was joined by a Krome Studios designer, an ex-employee of Pandemic Studios and Sony Computer Entertainment Asia, and one of the three heads of Indie games studio Two Lives Left. The panel covered some of the basics of game development, including a bit about coding and some basic programs to get you started. Though I don’t plan to become a games developer, and some of the information went a bit over my head, one of my friends who also attended does want to go into the games industry, and said most of the tips they gave were really helpful.

And with the end of the VG development panel, came what was once again the highlight of the day: The AMV Comedy Session. Given a name change from last year, as well as an extra 30 minutes in duration, the session had the rather large showing room packed, with very little empty seats in sight. The videos ranged from alright to uproariously funny, with one video in particular having the crowd laughing and cheering at a noise level that rivaled those darned vuvuzelas.

With the AMV Comedy Session over, we all decided it was time to pack up and go home, after checking out the LAN gaming room, of course. It was really a sight to behold. The room was chock full of computer, each joined to one another, with many gamers versing each other in classics like Counter Strike, StarCraft and Half-Life. As with the Free Play tables, there were very little free computer, so, after quickly spectating a rather intense match of StarCraft, we left the building for good.

AVCon is an event not to be missed by any self respectful South Australian gamers or otakus. From the anime screenings, to the Free Play tables, to the overpriced convention food, there really was something for everyone at AVCon 2010. The organisational improvements since last year’s convention made the event much more structured, and though the crowds were large, it was still a great day out.

By Ben Hauser

A special thanks also goes to Dustin Wilson for providing TNB with access to the day.

Platform: SNES
Developer: DMA Design
Released: 1994 (North America), 1995 (PAL regions)

I got a bit of a shock when I first met SNES owners who had never heard of this game. “YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF UNIRALLY? BUT IT’S A CLASSIC! EVERYONE’S PLAYED IT!” and so on. On further reflection, maybe this game wasn’t as big as I thought it was. In fact, this may have been my first encounter with a game that received loads of critical acclaim but no-one actually played. You know, like every game that Tim Schafer makes. Nonetheless, it was a game worth playing.

Unirally, or Uniracers if you lived in North America, was a 2D racing game where you played as living unicycles. You press left or right to move in that direction, and you have to reach the finish line before your opponent. It was a fairly simple concept, with one major distinguishing feature- stunts. The tracks were covered in jumps, and the idea was that performing and landing stunts would cause you to gain speed. Remember those twisting backflip jumps that aerial skiier Alisa Camplin did to win a Gold medal at the 2002 Winter Olympics? Yeah, you’ll be doing that quite a lot.

Split screen was pure fun

But stunts weren’t the only reason this game was good, because Unirally was one of those games that delivered on all fronts. The graphics were created with the same kind of 3D rendering technology that was used to make Donkey Kong Country, and the results were amazing. Not only did the game have a unique look, but the colours of the track had a practical purpose by advising you when to jump, when to stay grounded, and so on. The game also had a memorable soundtrack, responsive controls and excellent track design, and despite the extremely high speed of the game, the frame rate never dropped. It never even looked like dropping. It was just fast, functional and beautiful, all at once, all the time.

As well as a two-player mode, the game had a single player mode which was split into Cups or Tours or somesuch, with five tracks per Cup. The unlocked tracks could be done in any order, but a certain number of tracks had to be completed to unlock the next Cup. Aside from the stunt tracks (one per Cup) where you had to reach a certain score to win, the tracks were races against computer-controlled unicycles where you had to finish first to win. The unicycles themselves came in all sorts of different colours and you could rename them whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted. This meant that you could choose your favourite colour of unicycle, give it a name and get attached to it… or you could just give them all funny names for no reason. Either way is cool.

Screenshots really don't do justice to this game

This game was developed by DMA Design, who went on to become Rockstar North and develop the highly successful Grand Theft Auto series of games. Unirally definitely contains all the hallmarks of a good Rockstar game, because it’s funny (well, the instruction manual is), it’s cool, it’s different, it’s polished, and above all it’s fun.

With so much critical acclaim and such a huge company backing it, how come this game has never achieved mainstream success? The answer lies in an animated short film by Pixar (yes, the same Pixar that made Toy Story) called Red’s Dream. Pixar sued DMA on the grounds that Unirally was a rip-off of Red’s Dream, even though the only thing the game and the film have in common is the presence of unicycles. Such a lawsuit might be called frivolous by today’s standards, but surprisingly, Pixar ended up winning. Production of the game was cancelled as a result, meaning that only 300,000 copies of the game were ever made. It also explains why Rockstar North never re-released the game on Virtual Console or anything like that. To date, this is the only recorded evidence that Pixar could be evil.

It’s a real shame too, because Unirally is brilliant in so many ways. It’s a one-of-a-kind game with top-notch gameplay and world-class production values. If you have a SNES, get this game. If you don’t have a SNES, start a petition to get it re-released on Virtual Console. It really is that good.

Platform: Game Boy
Developer: Who do you think?
Released: 1992 (1993 for Europe)

I’m sure you’re all familiar with the Super Mario Bros/Super Mario World games, which have been remade and re-released so many times that it’s not even funny. However, not every Mario game is lucky enough to be re-released every generation, and Super Mario Land 2 is one such game. While its predecessor, Super Mario Land, was a pretty good game in its own right, SML2 is definitely the pinnacle of Mario’s handheld adventures.

The story goes that Mario, after his adventure in Sarasaland (the setting of the first game), has returned to find that his castle has been taken over by some no-good punk. The castle has been magically sealed off, and it’s up to Mario to recover the six golden coins which are used to break the seal, enter the castle, and ensure that ‘the thief is in another castle’, if you get my drift.

The most unique thing about this game is the completely non-linear structure. There are six different zones- Tree Zone (self-explanatory), Space Zone (15 years before Super Mario Galaxy!), Turtle Zone (underwater), Macro Zone (a giant house), Pumpkin Zone (Halloween themed) and Mario Zone (a giant moving statue of Mario, filled with cogs and gears and such)- and they’re all unlocked from the very beginning. Mario’s island acts as a hub world, and you can play the zones in any order you wish. Want to leave a zone half-done and come back to it later after trying another zone? You can do that. Each zone contained a series of standard levels, secret levels, branching pathways a la Super Mario World, and a boss who would surrender one of the six coins after being defeated.

As you can see, Super Mario Land 2 features most of what you'd expect from a Mario title

The gameplay was your standard Mario fare, with mushrooms, fire flowers, stars, coins, pipes, goombas, koopas and so on. There were also some ideas taken from Super Mario World, such as the spin jump ability and the power-up system (that is, regular Mario can turn straight into Fire Mario, and getting hit as Fire Mario would turn you back into Super Mario instead of shrinking you instantly). Rather than being a poor man’s knockoff of the console games however, SML2 managed to add some very cool ideas of its own. Firstly, one of the power-ups was a carrot that gave you rabbit ears, which allowed you to jump higher and hover through the air (like the raccoon tail without the flight ability). Secondly, the game had certain blocks that could only be destroyed by throwing fireballs at them, which hasn’t featured in any other Mario game as far as I can remember. Thirdly, the island featured a ‘bonus cave’ where you could gamble away coins on a slot machine to try and win items or 1-ups, which is probably the first appearance of ‘mild gambling references’ in a Mario game. Fourthly, the game kept track of the number of enemies you’d defeated, with an item being the reward every time you reached 100 kills. Finally, the game featured a stage known as the Hippo Zone (which had to be completed to reach the Space Zone) where you could fly freely through the air in a bubble, which remains one of my favourite stages in any Mario game ever. Also, remember that stage in New Super Mario Bros Wii where there were bubbles floating in the air and you could swim through them and jump between them? This game did it first, but with tree sap instead of bubbles.

However, the game’s greatest legacy by far was the new character it introduced to the Mario universe. Remember that no-good punk I was telling you about earlier? Turns out his name was Wario. Yep, Wario made his videogame debut as the final boss in Super Mario Land 2. The story goes that Wario, a long-time rival of Mario, wanted his own castle and decided that the best way to achieve this was to steal one off Mario. Wario would eventually fulfill his dream in “Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3”, where he used the treasure and money gathered throughout the game to purchase a castle of his own. This theme of gathering treasure and money would carry over to all of Wario’s other games, with the only reason being that ‘he’s greedy, so deal with it’. But in truth, the real reason why Wario is so money-hungry is because he’s saving up for a new castle. Or maybe he’s still paying off his first one. Either way, he’s got his reasons.

Wario's debut in all it's glory

Funnily enough, Wario Land spawned three excellent sequels on various Game Boys, while the Super Mario Land series died with this game. Mario would go on to star in a bunch of spin-offs (Mario vs Donkey Kong), remakes (the Super Mario Advance series), and Virtual Boy games that no-one cared about (Mario Clash), but it would take 14 years for Mario to return in a traditional 2D platformer that was exclusive to a handheld console (New Super Mario Bros on DS). Various sources claim that SML2 reviewed and sold really well, so why they ended the series here is anyone’s guess.

In any case, Super Mario Land 2 is an enjoyable Mario game. The non-linear structure makes it one of the most unique ones ever, and it’s topped off with an excellent soundtrack and graphics that are still good by today’s standards. If you’re a fan of 2D Mario games, there’s no reason not to play this one… if you can find a working copy, that is.

Platform: Game Boy
Developer: Triffix
Release: 1991

Back in the early ‘90s, you didn’t have to import to get your hands on crazy, wacky games. Picture this scenario: You’re sunning yourself on a planet that is basically like Florida- a tropical paradise where sunshine and surf is abundant, everyone spends their days relaxing on the beach, and yet no-one gets skin cancer. All of a sudden, that beautiful sunlight is blocked out by seven towers- that is, seven living towers that just pop up out of nowhere. If you want a world-class tan, you’re gonna have to topple them!

But as you get up from your folding chair, something doesn’t feel right. What strange form has this game asked you to take control of? Well, you’re a pig… with only two legs. And eyes that are literally bigger than your stomach. And the nametag reads… uh… Julius? That’s a pretty generic name for such an imaginative creature, isn’t it? Oh well, it’ll do I suppose.

It's a long way to the top...

So, Castelian- also known as Nebulus, Kyorochan Land, Subline or Tower Toppler, depending on which console you bought it on- was a 2D platformer, and it wasn’t for the faint-hearted. If the challenging stages and enemies didn’t kill you, the controls might. Not that they were bad or anything, they just took some getting used to, but those who were able to master the controls were rewarded with a fun and challenging game.

Castelian was also available on a variety of other platforms. This is a screenshot from the NES version.

One thing that the game did really well was the graphical effect used for the stages. Your character always remained in the middle of the screen, but as you walked left and right, the platforms would move, stretch, shrink, disappear, and re-appear. This created the illusion of walking around the outside of a tower, and it worked like a charm.

In a way, Castelian was a precursor to Shadow of the Colossus, because every stage in the game was a giant creature (a living tower in this case) that had to be defeated. But in a more accurate way, it was absolutely nothing like SotC. It was, however, a fun and unique platformer, and while it’s not exactly a masterpiece, it is a fun way to kill a few hours.