WILL talks GAMES - The Twisted Tales of Spike McFang

THE TWISTED TALES OF SPIKE MCFANG

Happy Halloween, everyone! And to celebrate such an occasion, I'm here to talk about a quirky, underrated gem on the SNES: The Twisted Tales of Spike McFang. Before I even begin with talking about this neat little game, I'm dying to bring this up: Did they really have such a retarded game...naming team, that they couldn't even come up with a better name than that? I mean, it gets the point across, but the name could've been more catchy and WAAAAY shorter. What a bunch of crap.

Can you blame me for thinking this was gonna
be a kids game?

When I first saw the game, I thought it was going to be the cheesiest thing in the world. In fact, I originally downloaded the game to be a joke LP for my channel, XWillProductionsX. Once I started playing, I thought it was going to be a kiddie game: the dialogue is empty and rushed, the text is large and obnoxious, and the sprites are big and take up most of the screen. It looked up a joke,but when I took manual control in this charming Action RPG, I finally realized how fun this game is.

The game is played in an overhead view, and almost plays like a Zelda-type game. You run around, looking like a magician (You're a vampire, apparently?), and you have two main attacks: spinning around and cutting people with you razor-blade cape, and throwing your hat like a boomerang. It may sound lame, but trust me, this game is the shit. Ever play Castlevania?

That very game incorporates a lot of intentional mechanics to make the game feel more strategic, despite its linearity  (Delayed attacks, feeble jumping, slow speeds). Twisted Tales uses the same sort of mechanics: Spinny attack is delayed, and the hat attack requires a brief charge time, the jumping is feeble AND hard to judge at times, due to the camera view,and the game is made to make Spike feel quite slow. While all of this sounds negative, it helps to make the game feel well-thought-out, because the gameplay complements these mechanic tweaks.

One problem though...

IN THE U.S. RELEASE VERSION, YOU DO NOT GAIN YOUR HEALTH BACK WHEN YOU LEVEL UP IN EXPERIENCE.

And while that sounds pretty minor, you have to play the bastard first. his game is HARD; hell, Castlevania doesn't even have a steep survival curve compared to this, and I'm not fuckin' joking. The game is harsh, because you have no recovery time if you get hit. You can lose a whole unit of health in a couple seconds if you don't move your ass, and you start the game with THREE UNITS. die, and you go to the last save point. This makes the game incredibly hard in the beginning because there are no recharge stations / inns to use; it's a linear dungeon-like level, so you just have to survive. And worst of all: THERE ARE TWO BOSSES HERE.

And don't get me started on those cat-ladies; what a bitch to kill. They jump and link around faster than you can piss. If you get close to spin, they smack you with a rod. Try to hat them, and it's damn-near impossible because they move like ninjas. AND THIS IS JUST AFTER THE TUTORIAL LEVEL. This game is incredibly hard, and to think that the Japanese version, of all things, was easier. I still think the game's difficulty would be perfectly reasonable with the "heal upon leveling". Imagine have a quarter-unit left, with no enemies left to kill, and you SAVED THE GAME. You'd be stuck and have to start a new goddamn game.

The game has some funny things, though. Spike's pet looks like a long blue dong with a face. It's actually the most laughably freaky-looking thing in the world. Also, the "units of life" are not hearts, but tomatoes. Yeah. TOMATOES. I just find that so funny, and almost a mockery of other action RPGs. The best part is that the main branch of enemies in the game are garlic monsters. Get it? Garlic? Vampires? HAHAHAHAHA.

Yeah, the game could be better in spots, or hell, the Japanese version would be more fun. Still, I like the game for unique gameplay that, surprisingly, isn't done that often, as well as for putting in an honest effort for a cool experience, and succeeding! I wish I could say more about the game, like the different levels, and the special card moves, partners, etc. But to tell you the truth: I never beat the second boss of the first level. No joke. It's THAT hard. Please prove me wrong and tell me how easy it is. I've NEVER had my ass kicked by a game so easily before... :P

~WILL