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.
undeniably cool when you get down to it: Jet Grind Radio is the future.
looks phenomenal. It’s the first game to use this technique, and it set the standard in 2000 in terms of presentation. The backgrounds are also well done and inspire runs through the game. It’s clearly an early 2000s game, but that only portends good things about the Dreamcast and what it was capable of.
While everything is great in terms of presentation and control, I’d be remiss in mentioning that there is one bothersome flaw with Jet Grind Radio. While the controls are easily analogous to early Tony Hawk games, it wasn’t easy to pick up the game and know what’s going on immediately. It’s a little too inaccessible at first, like it’s asking you to have some in-depth knowledge ahead of playing for the first time. You may not be familiar with the concepts the game is throwing at you, and it’s the game’s responsibility to ease you into the fray. Thankfully, the surrounding game is so good that you’ll come back to get more in-depth with the trappings of Tokyo-to.
games, I instantly took to the basic punch, kick and jump mechanics. As you go through each enemy, you’ll get a power-up orb that literally says “Power-up!”; this made me think that Zeus came down and gave commands. On the third power-up, you’ll go into your actual beast mode, which consists of forms such as a dragon, werewolf, werebear, weretiger, and a golden werewolf, each with their own unique powers. At this point, I’m thinking that this game is the origin for the popular phase “Beast Mode.” At the end of each level, you battle Neff in various forms. 
directions. The color palette is beautiful and the character animation shines. And, yes, even though Psikyo carried over Morrigan’s dog-tired sprite from Darkstalkers it still works here. You immediately know who she is, and it doesn’t look to terrible against the backdrops of bullet hell. The other characters look good for late ’90s animation. While the animation is good, the soundtrack is passing, if not a bit late ’90s mediocre. It’s not terrible, but it doesn’t standout. A single track caught our attention, which is 
you a choice of three warriors: Ax Battler, who wields a broadsword; Gilius Thunderhead, a dwarf warrior with a battle ax; and, an Amazonian warrior, Tyris Flare, whose weapon of choice is a longsword. These warriors were brought together by twist of fate thanks to an evil entity known as Death Adder, who has captured the kingdom of Yuria along with its king and his daughter. The three heroes have also lost loved ones at Death Adder’s hands and set off on their quest to destroy Death Adder and restore hope and peace to Yuria. 
