A slight headache
Dynamite Headdy is a jumbled mess of hit or miss eclectic ideas
In the 16-bit era, the Genesis was the first shot fired in a decade’s war against Nintendo for the attention of teenage gamers and the cold hard cash of gamers’ parents. While Sega had Sonic as a mascot to counter Nintendo’s Mario, there were many unique characters Sega had in their stable ready to battle with Nintendo if Sonic needed to take a break. One of those characters was memorable for changing the platform genre. His name was Headdy, and his debut game Dynamite Headdy was his big break.
Dynamite Headdy tells the story of Headdy, a star puppet in the Treasure Theatre Show. Headdy’s loved by everyone except his rival, Trouble Bruin, who believes he should get top billing. In addition to reducing Headdy’s popularity, Trouble is a hench bearcat for the evil Dark Demon whose goal is world domination by converting other puppets to his growing army of mindless minions. With innocent puppets and the future of the theatre in jeopardy, it’s up to Headdy to stop Dark Demon and Trouble’s nefarious plans.
I’ll admit the graphics are like a children’s puppet show but they are presented in a way that’s colorful and engaging. Treasure did an excellent job with the presentation, keeping the story of the game simple. I did, however, dislike how Treasure played with promoting the game and placed ads for their other products front and center as I played through the first stage. It was super tacky and didn’t really help the game in any way.
The controls are slightly simple thanks to the options screen allowing you to configure a control scheme. However, the constant switching heads and keeping up with what button does what invoked anger within me many times. In theory it looks simple, but the execution is off. It’s a lot to remember once you get going and drags down the platforming.
The music in the game is OK, having its energetic and forbearing doom moments but it’s generic enough to get by. I did feel though, sometimes with Dynamite Headdy, that the composers were pressured to outdo Super Mario World to see which game could have the cutest game music instead of keeping focus on how the music could be paired properly with each stage.
One of the more nonsensical and cringe-worthy moments that stuck out to me was naming each stage after well-known movies and pop culture series. Toyz in the Hood, Stair Wars, Far Trek and Terminate Her Too were named after the movies Boyz in the Hood, Star Wars, Star Trek, and Terminator 2. Don’t get me wrong, I understood that Treasure was trying to seize the moment but should have found other ways to accomplish the task because it came off as goofy and grating, not cute.
Dynamite Headdy is an interesting and highly original game that takes chances and sometimes succeeds and sometimes falls flat. The originality was obviously a selling point because Dynamite Headdy’s legacy endures on main consoles and Steam. There are some neat concepts here, but sometimes it needs to get out of its own head.
While it’s a neat concept game, Chakan isn’t great at all. The many problems really start with the lack of hindsight to hire Kraus to consult on game development. This would have allowed more insight into the character. It’s also frustrating that Chakan’s time limit prevented me from locating his special weapons. Also, the various symbols representing alchemy were confusing. Trying to determine which symbol matched the element Chakan would need to fight multiple enemies was a chore. 
game’s music. While acceptable, Yuzo Koshiro should have been used since he has the most experience developing music that’s worthy of the Shinobi name. The music was choppy in some areas but still suitable for the game. Another problem I have is the supply of shuriken that you must conserve. By paying so much attention to maintaining your supply, you might miss other crucial elements and expose yourself to enemies unnecessarily. Joe should have endless shuriken to fight evil.
parkour-type jumps to get to other parts of some stages. In some parts of the game where Ayane is called upon, she is a little more flexible than Ryu, but that doesn’t make the controls more difficult. I did have a few issues with controls regarding battles with bosses that require more focus to strike various spots. Also, when Ryu is required to use his kunai to climb, timing to focus on climbing is needed while various enemies fiercely attempt to eliminate you. It taxed my patience and was kind of tedious. 
increases with the anime-inspired designs of heroes and villains, which encourages replay of all the collection’s games. This first disc also has a lot of interesting elements that include presenting 16-bit and anime-style intermission screens that were included when the games were originally released. Capcom also introduced a high-resolution filter, giving the game’s graphics a streamlined yet colorful approach and a unique box frame for each game. A music player containing all the music from the original games also rounds out the presentation extras, which were nice. 
One of the other cool additions is the X Challenge, which pits you against two legendary bosses of the series while choosing three weapons to use. This requires some forethought and understanding of the series’ mechanics, which is a welcome change of pace when you want something different from the story modes. I also thought that the art gallery and the animated movie focusing on Sigma was a nice touch. 
establishes itself on the island of Vie de Marli. Arius’ true goal is to find holy relics called Arcanas so that he can obtain the powers of the ancient demon Argosax. Now locked in a race against time, Dante and Lucia must battle against Argosax and put an end to Arius’ madness before the world is plunged into eternal darkness. 
in and out oddly in underground areas. And, it was too rigid when it needed to move with Dante. The controls were tank-like — Capcom’s normal standard operational procedure — but it was more annoying when I was shooting at enemies long distance and wasting ammo and mobility. The tanking of Dante is counter to him being agile, which was a major selling point that catapulted him to stardom. Another issue was that the in-game store sold various skill and weapon upgrades including health items but were ridiculously expensive despite me having the ability to gather more coins seamlessly here than in the original game. That’s a major turnoff because it’s a chore. More work for more expensive rewards is not fun.
the demon world, a civil war erupted with Firebrand as the victor claiming the crests of Earth, Fire, Wind, Water and Time. Firebrand fought another demon named Somulo, who held the crest of Heaven, and secured a victory over the rival demon. However, another demon named Phalanx attacked Firebrand while he had low health, taking possession of all the crests. This allowed Phalanx to summon another crest that controls infinity. While Firebrand recovered, he was imprisoned in an arena guarded by the revived Somulo. After defeating Somulo, Firebrand begins his quest for vengeance and recovery of his well-earned spoils of war. 
