What Video Game Did I Play Yesterday?

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy Kong's Quest (Nintendo Switch Online)

March 1st, 2024

I got my medications adjusted again, so I was kind of out of sorts yesterday. I counted down until it was a reasonable time to go to bed and then, once I was there, proceeded to start and clear the Space Battleship Yamato laserdisc game from Taito LD Game Collection on Switch in one sitting.

In my defense, I do want to say that Space Battleship Yamato was a much quicker clear than most laserdisc games. I immediately did a good chunk of a second playthrough to try and figure out if I was missing something, and I don't think that I was. My feelings on it are a little mixed, too. I felt like the fact that a lot of the animation was pulled from a TV anime, rather than being bespoke like in a lot of games of this type, made it feel clunky and disjointed, and some of the stretches of animation without play cues dragged on long enough to make losing a life and retrying feel really tedious.

There was a lot that was cool about it, too, though. Being able to select the four stages in any order gave it a decent feeling of player freedom. Since this game combines the strict button command style of FMV game, where you have a split second to hit a directional button before your character dies horribly, and some shooting gallery style stages with projectiles overlayed on the animation, those stages have decent variety, too. Even though the difficulty spiked in spots, I didn't feel like this game was too brutal, either.

Mostly, though, the not-at-all-inspired-by-Star-Wars trench run level is one of the coolest laserdisc game sequences I've played, with some nice first person flying animation, a very good sense of speed, and a quick-moving combo of directional commands and free shooting. If I come back to this game in the future, that sequence specifically will be what pulls me back in. It was short, but so cool!

I also played a couple levels of Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy Kong's Quest, since I had this game as a kid and find the pirate ship levels relaxing. I'd like to clear the whole game eventually, but probably not now.