Buffers Evolution Review - WonderSwan Games for English Speakers - H4G
168Combine Sonic and Metroid and you get Buffers Evolution for the WonderSwan!
Now, as you know, in this series we’re gonna be looking at gems for the WonderSwan that fulfill 3 requirements: Can you play/understand it as an English speaker? Is it fun? Is it worth the price?
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Gameplay:
You pick your mechanized, anthropomorphic animal and select a level. Your character is thrust into the stage and you race through looking for check points that also function to refill your health. Now, I’ve completed this game, and when you re-play a level, all of the numerical check-points just appear as health stations. I wanted to showcase the checkpoints as if I was playing this for the first time via emulator, but then this happened:
Okay, let me explain. The only dedicated MAC WonderSwan emulator I can find is the Oswan. It’s great! Except that the duel directional buttons sets are combined here. So whereas Y4 pulls up a map and X4 moves left, here the LEFT BUTTON it does both here. It’s impossible to move left in this game with Oswan. Unfortunately, my PC is busted so I can’t showcase the game how I originally wanted to. I guess this is also turning into an Oswan review huh? Otherwise the emulator is awesome, but if you have a game like this where both sets of directional buttons do different things…well…good luck!
Anyways, if you find all of the check points (10 per level), and you're rewarded with a new ability. The first ability you receive allows you to morph your legs into a wheel, allowing you to traverse through the level with even greater speed. Soon you will earn water, hover, and flying abilities. Finishing the first set of levels reveals another set, and then another. Abilities in these levels include upgrades of your previous abilities plus shield, grappling, and health generating powers. Furthermore, you can equip two per level per play-through which gives a good deal of variety. I also wanted to showcase earning these power-ups…but…without the ability to go left I cannot get all 10 checkpoints in any given level. Anyways, not all of these upgrades are necessary to conquer each level, but many of them are extremely helpful. This is where the Metroid comparison comes into play, you’re constantly upgrading, and looking for hidden items, (there are 3 per level). Also, many of the enemies look strikingly similar to Metroids.
Most of them just sit or float in a specific location and harm you if you touch them. Also, jumping on the enemies propels you off them. The focus on speed, speed power-ups, and the baddies functioning as bounce-pads is where I get the Sonic comparison.
When you do become damaged, your suit/body turns progressively darker and your avatar begins to have electrical short-outs. This becomes quite annoying when you short-out mid-jump. However, this doesn't kill you, you just repeat the action, go where you need to go, and try to find health. In fact, I've completed all levels and never died, not once. Come to think of it, I'm not sure if you can die. There's not much emphasis on combat and there aren't even level bosses. However, for this game, I think it works just fine.
Lastly, in each level you are timed. Strangely though, I don’t think you can't run out of time. Each level has a time-based scoreboard, which gives a little incentive for replay.
Control:
The control is damn near spot on. You have numerous abilities to get used to. They all control differently, but, all control well. My only complaint is that certain abilities, like flying or hovering for example, stop you dead if you touch a body of water. This kills the speed, but logically, it makes sense.
Graphics/Presentation:
As with most original WonderSwan titles, I wish it was in color! But, everything does look sharp! The characters are all generic cyborg animals but it works fine and the levels are well designed! Again, this is a FAST game. I played the game on a SwanCrystal, so I can't really say if there were ghosting issues on the standard black and white WonderSwan. Keep in mind the SwanCrystal has an updated TFT LCD screen that overall looked sharper and had less ghosting. So I can only speak for how I’ve played it.
Music:
There aren't many tunes in Buffers Evolution. There are just a handful and they repeat. However, the music that does exist is pretty good and does a good job of keeping the pace happy and up-beat.
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