NES PAL Exclusives: OVER HORIZON (Nintendo Entertainment System Review)
Vložit
- čas přidán 6. 09. 2024
- PATREON ► / bigolewords
STREAMS ► Every Thursday 9pm EST here on CZcams
OVER HORIZON ►In search of one of the best NES games? Stare out at the sea and look out OVER the HORIZON!
#retrogaming #nintendo #nes
The introduction video I made discussing the PAL exclusives for the NES can be found here: • NES Games That Were Ex...
Over Horizon | 1992
Similar Games: Gradius, R-Type, Lifeforce
► If you're looking to get into retro reviewing or streaming, here's some of the equipment I used for both or either. My current setup is what I love now, but honestly I'd say start out with the cheap stuff and get a feel for everything before throwing down a ton of cash on gear you may or may not need.
► MY EQUIPMENT (CURRENT):
NICE LIGHTS: amzn.to/3j7NDEU
DURABLE EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE: amzn.to/3RgopAE
FOOTAGE CAMERA: amzn.to/3HaPL6s
WEBCAM CAMERA: amzn.to/3XMWVVP
VIDEO CAPTURE CARD: amzn.to/3jm6tId
BETTER MIC: amzn.to/3jiOMcD
HEADPHONES: amzn.to/3JpjNWZ
RCA TO HDMI CONVERTER: www.retrotink....
► MY EQUIPMENT (STARTING OUT):
CHEAP FLOOD LIGHTS: amzn.to/3kQwbVJ
CHEAP POP FILTER: amzn.to/3YbsRmB
CHEAP MIC: amzn.to/3wKUret
CHEAP TRIPOD: amzn.to/406ua89
CHEAP RING LIGHT: amzn.to/40asqL4
NON-DURABLE EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE: amzn.to/3WLWVnM
CHEAP VIDEO CAPTURE CARD: amzn.to/3DpKLKk
CHEAP RCA TO HDMI CONVERTER: amzn.to/3JxNQf0
If y’all like my channel and want to see more, I’m posting a bonus video every week at patreon.com/bigolewords. Your support goes a long way and allows me more time to make more videos, so it is greatly appreciated: / bigolewords
Intro drawing by Ashley Anderson: pressstarttobe...
After years of focusing on the best games for the NES, I decided to change gears and focus on lesser known cartridges that have, for one reason or another, generally escaped the public discussion and general nostalgia. This series highlights many of the relatively unknown, obscure, and unloved titles in the Nintendo Entertainment System's library. Some of these games are at best mediocre. Many are painfully bad, some of the worst NES games around. Most are hilarious for all the wrong reasons! Occasionally, OCCASIONALLY, a handful of them are actually good, borderline hidden gems.
While you won't find any of these on the NES Classic, some of these titles have managed to make their way onto the Nintendo Switch, so if you don't have an original Nintendo console or ROMs escape you ethically or technologically, there are several ways to play them.
Want more? Me too! Until then, lots of other articles where the pictures don't move and words have to be read can be found on my website(s):
top100nesgames.com
/ awinnerisyou
/ bigolewords
nes, nintendo, retro gaming, retro games, gaming, video games,
nes games, 8-bit, old school, nintendo entertainment system, famicom, family computer, 8-bit games, nintendo games, Nintendo gamer, 8-bit gaming, 8 bit, 8-bit gamer, 8-bit music, chiptune, chiptunes, retro gamer, 80s, 90s, 80s video games, 90s video games, game collecting, game collection, retro game collecting, retro game collection, game room tour, gaming tour, NES Hidden Gems, Bad NES Games, Funny NES Games, Nintendo Hidden gems, over horizon, shooters, shoot-em ups, space shooters, r-type, gradius, lifeforce, konami, takara
Here's a (my own) quick translation of most manual pages I saw while you flicked through. If you're specifically curious about any specific page, let me know.
Overall, the manual isn't bad, but as quite common back then, it was most likely translated by someone who had absolutely no idea what the game is about or how it's actually played or presented on screen. This is evident for example by them using "Maske" for screens. This German term (literal: "mask") was typically used for forms and other kind of input screens, not games.
Preamble (0:38):
"Over Horizon" is an extraordinary flexible shooter. Since the typical features of a common shooter were expanded by the editing capabilities for "Weapons" and "Options", the player has way more freedom picking weapons and a playstyle.
Stage Overview (0:35):
Stage 1 - Space Plants
This is the preparation stage. Lead your plane(!) safely through the strange plants until you've achieved full power. The goal is to complete the stage without mistakes.
Stage 2 - Venetian Blinds [???]
Blinds are blocking your way! Once the switch has been destroyed, the blinds will open or close. Wait for the right moment and you'll pass through.
Stage 3 - Icy World
Here are two kinds of ice. One kind may be destroyed, the other will move if you shoot on it. If you want to move the ice, watch the order. Otherwise you might be locked out.
Stage 4 - Field of Magnetic Rocks [That's a name for once!]
All floating rocks are magnetic. The magnets are hidden randomly and will attract or repel the rocks.
Game Screen (0:36)
Select "GAME START" on the title mask [they meant screen, but used mask] to begin playing. Use buttons A and B to shoot at the enemies. Once you've killed Unita, you're able to improve your power by picking up items appearing on screen. Your goal is the final mask [I think they meant screen again] with the leader of the enemies: Cassandra.
Push buttons A and B to change position of the options. Use SELECT to pick one of five speeds for the player.
Pause Screen
If you hit START while playing, the game is paused. The current high score (HI-SCORE) and current score (SCORE) are shown in addition to the remaining combat planes [yeah…].
Damn dude you’re the winner!
Ein Gewinner ist Du!
I think @BigOleWords meant "a winner is you!!!!!!"
The spritework in this one is pretty damn good, hard to believe this came out back in the day. It reminds me more of a modern indie title that attempts to mimic the style of older NES games (like Shovelknight). Not groundbreaking of course, but I'm not used to stuff like this! Especially since it even has that pretty helpful options menu where you can test your weapon configurations, I can't think of any NES game that did that back in the day!
I can see that for sure! All the elements of the 8-bit style but presented much more smoothly than that system was capable.
Dezamon (J) does that, but that's also a build your own stage shmup.
Also check out composer Iwata Masaharu, who also did Conquest of the Crystal Palace, Fantasy Zone, Ogre Battle, Final Fantasy Tactics, and more!
I’ve never heard of this gem. Thanks for giving me reason to revisit the originals!
Any time!
Dude this one sounds totally RAD!! Think I'm going to seek this one out. The Samaria code sold me. Thank you for the review. Also loved my poster!!
Glad you like it :). Totally Rad? Maybe that’ll be up soon…
@@BigOleWords Like TOTALLY! 🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘
Side piece buddies means something else outside of shooters.
Oh it means the same thing here ;)
Because of you - I just purchased this game. Cool to know that it works without issue on my US top loader!
Hey awesome! Over Horizon rules!
@@BigOleWords here’s a game that I think you’d enjoy making a video about - Digger T Rock. Quite a unique NES game. Not perfect but pretty good.
This was definitely my favorite NES game I used to rent in the late 90s and as a kid, the last boss scared the hell out of me lol
Haha nice!
@@BigOleWords I was very surprised to find out this was such a rare game and not many people got to play it, especially since I lived most of my life in a small town on the countryside and this game somehow made its way to the only game rental store we had in town in the 90s haha
It's crazy how I've been playing the NES for over 3 decades now and just when I've thought I've seen and played everything here comes a game unexpectedly out of the blue. Since this was developed by Hot B and based on it's game play they must have taken the experience from working on this to develop the highly underrated Steel Empire on the Genesis. Except instead of the battles happening in typical outer space, with that game it's set in late 19th century steam punk theme with two different ships and screen clearing bombs with unique stages. I'll have to try this next time I go digging in the carts lol 😄
Over Horizon is the real deal, super fun and innovative
You should give some retro communities a look. I've been on gameFAQs and they have a few classics boards that produce group plays of legacy games that stretch for years. I kinda got lucky I joined an NES/Famicom one fifteen years ago; it covered every game (playing about a game a week, no expectations to beat them, but you did have to say it it was good average or bad), but it took almost half a decade to finish. There's no way I'd play all those games on my own.
Wanted to mention there's a Japan NTSC release of Over Horizon, I wasn't aware until recently
Yep! I’ve always used the term NTSC to refer to North America, but I never realized that its actually used in a bunch of other places around the world. Huh.
It’s true that shootem up have that problem: you die and lose all your upgrades makes section impossibles.
There are some (like the Cave arcade games) that balance that a little bit by making enemies shoot less or don’t shoot at all until you get some upgrades back, but even with that, isn’t enough. This is specially annoying during Konami shooters because if you take too much time to beat the bosses, they will retire :(
Hmm that’s an interesting way to do it! Maybe too advanced programming wise for the 8-bit era, I don’t know.
I discovered this game not long ago and it's great
Hell yeah!
I'm not usually into shooters but this looks fun as hell.
Same! That's part of why I think it's so amazing, it converted me!
It was the music and the graphics that always stood out for me, they were one step above most NES games I knew back in the day
this and a new SNES drunk video and my morning is officially good!
Good company there!
I'm not typically a Shoot 'em up guy myself, but this game looks awesome! I'm even further interested in it considering Hot-B was behind it, as I presume I must be the only person on earth who holds nostalgia for Shingen the Ruler. Maybe I should also check out their fishing games while I'm at it?
I’ve only really played Palamedes, so I too need to give them a shot!
Also not a shooter guy, but this looks great! I like that it has the secret character and test mode. Also, Palamedes is a good time, not great, but a good oddity. Usually Hot B on a cartridge is a turn off.
Palamedes is great!
Cool, man. This one is on that Best of the NES multi cart. I'll be playing this one tonight!
Oh nice!
Wow. Bog OLe found a hidden gem in 2022. I thought we found them all.
Bog ole?! Love it!
@@BigOleWords Maybe Big O?
a slow paste shoot em up with a lot of puzzle/routing sequences.. im in!
One of the few NES games I'm not super familiar with. It's definitely inspired by Gradius though which is always a good thing.
That’s for sure!
i highly suggest doing Astérix next, for the PAL games.....
it's one of my favorites, a really fun platformer, and the difficulty is pretty easy,
you probably won't game over at all, but the pyramid stage and the cart levels
in Rome can be a bit difficult, but overal you can easily beat the game in like an hour.
That is one I've been wanting to get to. It doesn't work on my top loader but oh well!
Well, guess i gotta go buy a top-loader NES now...
I knew there were a ton of famicom exclusives, but I have never heard of most of the PAL exclusives until watching your videos.
Me either! Some of these like Over Horizon were released for the Famicom, but yeah plenty more only made it to Europe and Australia. I never considered collecting them til I learned about their compatibility with the Top Loader and then it was off to the (eBay) races!
@@BigOleWords Is there any reason why some are or aren’t compatible with the top-loader based on which region they’re from, or is it just a crapshoot?
@@radioactivechimp No idea. People often chime in about it but I've tried PAL A and PAL B and every time it's hit or miss. Maybe 90% of them so far work fine with the Disney games and Asterix being the holdouts so far.
this game and its mechanics laid the ground work for (in my personal opinion) Hot-B's magnum opus= "Steel Empire" for the Sega Genesis, which was re-released twice on Nintendo portable systems years later (the first one on GBA, the second, much improved one on the DS)! hard to believe this is how much Hot-B had improved since creating the REAL worst game of them all- yes, even worse than Atari's ET and Pacman combined-, "StarGazers/Hoshi Wo Miru Hito" just a scant few years before... that is learning from past mistakes done right!
I have never heard of Steel Empire but if they made it I’m in!
What a shame NA never got it, looks awesome!
Plenty of odd choices for what games came here and which did not. Why Shingen the Ruler but not Over Horizon? So strange.
You do good work and should definitely have more subs. I just stumbled upon channel and ok maybe not a million subs but definitely 100k+ range quality.
Well from one James to another, I appreciate your measured optimism!
I got to check this out. Looks fun. That one boss looked cool
Now I’m wondering which boss you meant!
@@BigOleWords @2:07 3 headed alien , with external veins. Wonder if my modded snes mini has it on it.
@@cliffjumper1984 That's the first boss and yeah it's amazing!
I'll have to check this one out. I love shooters
It’s a good one!
This looks like a really good NES game. Man, you always have the good stuff right on deck. I woke up woth YMO tunes jingling in my brain. Can't wait for thursday
Most of the games I’ve got reviews for coming up are at least kinda decent!
I played the Japanese version a while back. Didn't finish but I got almost to the end before realising you can customise the option position, would have really helped. Hot B went on to make Steel Empire, one of my favourite shooters.
Oooh I’ve never heard of Steel Empire. Cool!
@@BigOleWords You should play it. I would say stream it but the problem with shooters is you need to concentrate the whole time! Do tell me if you give it a look.
@@goatbone yeah that'd be tough. Even games I know super well get much harder once I start talking live.
you have a very entertaining channel, super underapreciated.
Hey thanks so much for saying that!
This game looks really good !!! Thanks James
You got it!
i have spent the most childhood time on that game then mario
Lucky! Over Horizon rules!
For a while there it seemed like SNES drunk was mentioning Perodius ( spelling?) In every video.
It’s definitely a fun and strange series to talk about so I get it!
This game is in my Top 10 NES games.
Really awesome game! Thanks for the great video!
You got it!
Great video! I'm into playing and collecting imports and this is one I've never heard of. Pretty awesome looking shoot em up!
Nice! Definitely worth the over seas wait :)
I’m def going to have to check this sh*t out lol
Yah!
Great game! I don’t know if you have a Famicom, but Crisis Force is probably the most impressive game, let alone shooter for the hardware! Check it out if you can!!
I’ve heard tell of it’s greatness but never played it. One day!
The most impressive NES/Famicom shmups are definitely this trio of Gradius 2, Crisis Force and Recca.
Gradius 2 and Crisis Force was never released for NES because they used Konami's own memory chip for their advanced animation and graphical capabilities while NES policy forbids anything but first party chips so unlike Contra, apparently they couldn't downgrade them with satisfying results which is very unfortunate because Crisis Force was actually supposed to be Konami's big hit, the best shmup of 8-bit console before moving into 16-bit.
Love your videos. Always interesting and entertaining.
Hey thanks so much!
damn, one of the best ever!? why wasn't it released here?
No idea. Apparently only ever released in Japan on the Famicom and Germany on the NES.
It's not Pal exclusive. Was released in Japan. Playing my famicom copy rn
I agree that Gun Nac is the only space shooter on the NES that is better than this one!👊
Great minds think alike ;)
Wow nice
Hay James, I have a technical question for you. I've seen you play PAL games on your NES Top Loader. I've been looking into getting an NES Top Loader for maybe playing some PAL games myself. Do they play at the correct speed or is the music all sped up? Do a lot of PAL games play on it? Do you know if Bucky O'Hare PAL version plays on it? Any info you could give me, would be greatly appreciated. Stay awesome, Bro!!! 🤩👍👍👍
This didn’t come out in Japan too?
It did get a Famicom release but only PAL regions for the NES
@@BigOleWords ahhh okay, I see what you mean. Awesome vids, I’ve been watching a bunch of them
@@opaljk4835 Hey thanks so much!
While watching your video I realized that this game copied Hyper Dyne Side Arms released by Capcom in 1986 en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper_Dyne_Side_Arms. I used to play the game at arcades then, later released by TurboGrafx-16. Although this is an impressive 8 bit version, the bosses, weapon types and hovering aides, all remind me of Side Arms as you explained the game play. But what truly makes me confidently say it's a copy is having a separate button to shoot back as was the case with Sidearms. Seems like a great gem of a game you got here and it is unfortunate how these types of game weren't available in North America. Thanks for your channel and videos!
Hmm interesting! Mechanically you may be right, but for me it’s so hard to distinguish between horizontal shooters. They just share so many visual and gameplay elements.
Pretty sure outside of Japan it was only Germany that got it.
I think you’re right. I still cannot figure out why certain games were only released in specific countries.
@@BigOleWords Well Nintendo of Europe was based in Germany so they seem to have a number of exclusives like Over Horizon plus the Mario Bros 'Classic serie' version, Banana Prince and I think maybe Mighty Final Fight and the game with guy punching on the cover (forget the name, probably describes about 50 nes covers). PAL B does cover more countries than PAL A, best indication for where they were released are the codes and the language in manual.
@@goatbone Shattehand?
@@BigOleWords That's the one.
You're like the exact opposite of AVGN
BOW: Let's play a good game for a change
AVGN: LETS PLAY SOME SHITTY GAMES
Haha well the shitty ones are more fun to review so yeah I get it!
@@BigOleWords dude I really love your content! Thanks for replying my dude, keep up the 🔥
@@nikopeligro1162 Thanks player!
I've read reviews and surprised how overrated this game is. The customization part hyped me but it turns out too shallow. Once you finish the game, you probably don't play it again. There are few enviromental stuff which isn't noteworthy much, pushing the ice cubes or getting pushed by waterfalls could be fun if there was an actual physics engine. Overall this is an above mediocre gradius-r type clone, i guess the reviewers appreciated small things. For me these things aren't impressive if they don't add something decent in gameplay. I wouldn't place over horizon above gradius 2, s.c.a.t, crisis force, recca, etc.
Well those are all some of the absolute best shmups on the Famicom (and SCAT). I don’t know if it’s as good as those, but I’d put it over other highly regarded shooters like Gradius 1, Stinger, Section Z etc…
@@BigOleWords I agree, gradius is only a classic. And classics don't necessarily mean good games. If Over Horizon had more customization, it would be really unique among all the nes shmups. All i see is missed opportunity but still a fun game.