t they know the disgustingly discolored baby blue cartridges thrown in the discount bin of any local used game store. Of course Color Dreams was not out to specifically crush dreams, but oh did they.Color Dreams came to be in the flood of unlicensed developers finding a way to bypass the NES 10-Nes chip that locked out anyone who did not pay Nintendo a lot of money and follow all their rules to get their official developer's kit. This seems like a lot of work, but producing low-budget games is something that doesn't turn the profit Nintendo required.
Anyone who attempts to play a Color Dreams game will note that they are much harder to get to load than a licensed game, and always have been. Since loading a licensed game can take a long time with the near-perpetual flashing red light of the NES, imagine. What caused this was the process of bypassing the chip, making the cartridge a finicky, glitch-filled pain to try to bring up on the screen. Many times in my experience with these games they tend to freeze up randomly. Got to love corner cutting.
Anyway, why is Color Dreams important? Well they are the guys behind both Wisdom Tree and Bunch Games. Wisdom Tree was the branch that dealt primarily with the religious games Color Dreams sought to control the market on, and Bunch became the way for them to produce relatively inexpensive games. Since everyone and their sister can tell you all you want to know about Bible Adventures and Bible Buffet, I am going to take a turn to tell you about the 'best' of the Bunch Games.
The Moon Ranger is a g
uy out to save the Earth from a dangerous alien race out to do...something that threatens Earth. To save us all he must go to the moon and search for pieces of an intricate bomb that spells doom for the invading race. It sounds averagely interesting for the 8-bit era.Moon Ranger results in a world of garishly oversized sprites. It tries to be engaging, as the gameplay is mixed between side-scrolling shooter and then agonizingly constructed platformer. In the 2 hours I toyed with this game I did not have the patience to make it much further than the near end of the first level. 2 hours seems like a long time doesn't it? I spent most of it restarting as the game froze randomly, and when it did work I continued constantly.
The oversized sprites are horrible and at fault here. Trying to move a gigantic sprite is quite a hassle, since the world it is in has to be able to handle the large amount of space a large sprite needs to move in. Moon Ranger is alright at handling this problem during the shooter elements, but dodging fire is nearly impossible if there is more than one shot coming at once...which happens often.
What is not at all playable comes in between the shooter segments, the awkward nearly colorless platforming that has the sprite falling through platforms more times than he lands on them. One average jump took forever to complete by the cramped space of the levels and the poor design of the game in general...not to mention unresponsive controls coupled with obstacles placed to waste your meager 3 lives.
My particular favorite event is in the very first room. You walk in the door only to find a gun obstacle firing directly at your level. there is hardly any time to jump between shots and you pretty much have to take damage just to progress. Games should not require you to take damage to overcome a simple jumping puzzle. If you can do it without taking damage, i implore you to share footage.
I could not make it through this level mostly because of badly spaced platforms, a hideous sprite that handles like a brick would in the same situation, and a very chaotic level design with doors that seem to never lead back the way you came.
So I'll leave you with a video of the first 5 minutes. The person playing this is pretty good at the game, but it is seemingly impossible to do things without taking damage.
