It has been so much fun to play this again - with fresh (much older) eyes. Yes, I played it as a kid - must have been 84 or 85? I remember thinking it was cool and fun, but that the bird was super hard - but I also do remember beating it. Even knowing that you had to run into the princess otherwise she'd kick you.
This time around I played on the Apple II version - the one I knew originally (though I had a monochrome monitor, so the colors were neat). It's amazing how much I remember from the sounds - and the music "flourishes". That stuff was stuck in my head I guess. I must have played 4 or five times now? Died at the gate. Died again at the gate. Died at the bird. I think I might have died some other time too.. but yes. Dying at the bird was a pain.
It's interesting to see how "slow" the game is - yes, cinematic. But also slow. It has its own rhythm and it's now noticeable to me when the game slows down due to the Apple being over taxed? (it can't be the emulation I figure). So, the game has an entirely different pace from modern fighting games that are fast and snappy. I enjoyed that. It's not a hard game - just an unforgiving one with mean tricks. But, I don't think they were mean then? I remember thinking it was cool/funny when the princess killed you... hahaha.
I didn't remember the healing system either. Which, seems way ahead of its time! It's slow health regeneration - and the enemies have it too, so you have to be a little bit aggressive, but not too much.
The remastered version plays super well - much faster and snappier and probably more like how I remember the game being originally. That being said, I had an Apple IIe with extra memory (512kb) if I recall. Is it possible the game ran better for me? (compared to an Apple II...) I wonder who to ask...
The remastered commentary was super fun and interesting - especially because of how it shed light/info on the original game.
And yes, it's a clever puzzle game that innovates in an interesting direction by taking block-pushing puzzles (sokoban style) and adding a layer of rules and goals that the player can/must manipulate in order to get to a win condition.
Part of me though "oh, this is neat, I get it, that's cool" but quickly got tired.
But another part of me, not feeling any particular interest in continuing to play, realized that this game is perhaps more interesting, at least as an example you can use in game studies and such. And, my playing this game has coincided with a re-read of Lantz's Beauty of Games (the beauty of games is how they make thinking visible) and here's a game that forces you to think outside the usual box because you can manipulate some of the games rules! For example, generally you need to move Baba until it collides with the Flag to win. But "Flag is Win" is a rule that, in some levels, you can play around with - turn it into "Rock is Win" and then you win when you touch the rock. So, in addition to requiring that you "see" the moves Baba can make around the level - and how those interactions will play out, you must also consider possible changes to the rules! So, neat theoretical stuff made practical and expressed in a game.
There's a je ne sais quoi to the FarCry4 experience of spending 20 minutes scouting an enemy base, tagging all the enemies, slowly and stealthily infiltrating said base and then getting pounced on, from behind, by a bengal tiger while inside a little side room on-base. This has happened to me multiple times. Not always a bengal tiger to be fair, but also by wolves and other wild animals.
Part of me goes "argh, not again!", but another side of me goes - huh, that is so wild and unexpected, and part of the joy of this game. And this game has a lot of that going on. Last night I rampaged through a base riding an elephant that flicked all the enemies away, wrecked the backup vehicles, and was just a thunderous way to do what I had mostly been avoiding thus far: frontal assaults. Ha!
It's been fun, it's also overwhelming in a way. I'm 11 hours in and about 1/3 of the campaign through, but I can't resist exploring little nooks and crannies (as indicated on the map) and getting distracted on the way to some other thing.
Last night I decided to end my play session with an assault on one of the big strongholds (labelled as "very difficult". I assumed I would die early and fast and that would be it. I did not. But it got annoying. I took out enemies, backup, and a chopper appeared. And I ran out of ammo trying to take it out. I think I made progress (smoke billowing), then it looked like it crashed - but two more choppers appeared? (one perhaps didn't stick around but just unloaded enemies). It seemed a bit unfair. Running out of ammo like that. And sure, I could have upgraded the ammo carrying capacity, but still. There were some places in the fortress to get ammo, but not enough and you know you're in trouble when you have to run over all the enemies hoping to get a clip at best.. It was a surprisingly underwhelming way to end the night - not fast death in a blaze of foolhardy glory but more of a whimpering sad demise as I ran out of options.
It's been super fun and pretty easy to get into - perhaps because I've played several Ubisoft open world games? There's obviously a set of design patterns they use, both for gameplay as well as UI and other stuff. And it works, and is fun to engage in!
There's still some pretty wild stuff that I've experience though. It's half funny and half frustrating.
One of the games "new"(?) mechanics/system is that there are wild animals that roam around. Some are vicious and can attack, while others are harmless. You can hunt them, collect skins to craft upgrades, but also use the vicious ones tactically. You can throw a piece of meat into an area, it will attract an animal, and chaos may ensue - depending on what's attracted it can really turn the tables on a situation for you! BUT, and this happened to me twice while trying to take over a compound - you are sometimes just (seemingly) randomly attacked by a wild animal. So, I'm crouching aruond in the tall grass taking a look at the situation - taggin enemies with my camera, when GROWL! I'm attacked by a tiger, or a wolf, or something else. This even happened to me while I was inside a compound inside a building! Geez! I had to fight of the tiger with my knife, lost a lot of health, almost died, and then the alarm was raised. Failed. Sigh.
Another neat feature is that when you're driving a vehicle on a road, if you're going to a location you've marked - you can press L3 and the vehicle will "auto-drive" there! This is nice because you can enjoy the view, it's hard to stay on the road, and you can also more easily shoot enemies if that's a thing you're interested in. However, I've noticed that the roads are crazy, everyone drives like a maniac and I've had head-on collisions more than once! Once, as a pedestrian just walking on the road I was run over and almost died!
My favorite form of travel is the little chopper though. I enjoy flying places (less likely to get into an accident, attacked by animals, etc.) and you can land in different cool locations.
I probably won't play the entire game, but we'll see how far I get before I get bored or frustrated. The map is liberally sprinkled with all sorts of icons with things to do as well...and I do like how the UI clearly lets you know how much you've progressed on the main story versus other side- objectives/tracks to follow.
