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Rank: Penguin Editor in Chief
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 (He's ready to give you a Glasgow Kiss)
[i]CLASSIC GAMING[/i]
Dynamite Headdy
Developer: Treasure
Publisher: Sega
Genre: Platformer
Year: 1994
System: Sega Genesis
Now and again there will come a game that will somehow push boundaries in terms of visual and audial quality for a system, with a sense of innovation being its prime essence. This can go two ways.
It can either become a cult classic to be criminally underrated because it was TOO innovatively different, such as Okami. Or it can become an ecstatic world favourite with its own entire fanbase and culture around it, such as Portal. Sadly, this game I am about to review, is one of the Okami ones.
Story - Far away in a strange world entirely but a stage, puppets and toys live peacefully side by side living their merry little quirky lives without the slightest sense of weirdness considering their world is nothing but a backdrop upon some sort of epic theatre.
But all is soon to be thrown asunder when the evil puppet King Dark Demon attacks North Town and makes his way choosing who shall live, and who shall become one of his many minions.
 (Seriously, nothing is making sense without the story, I'm doing you guys a favour)
All seems lost until the great puppet hero Dynamite Headdy breaks free from his captors and proceeds to fuck shit up royally for the Dark Demon, heading out across the lands to destroy each and every one of the Dark Demon's Keymasters, his elite guard who also hold the keys to the evil puppet's castle.
Aided by the mysterious female Heather, and hounded by the jealous bounty hunter Trouble Bruin, Headdy must literally use his head to save his world.
Graphics - Reason number one for why this game demands attention. The graphics are naturally bright and colourful like any other platformer, simple enough. Oh sure it looks your average platformer with a quirky ability, until you see the end of the first stage and see the stage LITERALLY fall down to reveal the backstage.
That's only the start of this game's technological innovation when each stage has some sort of fantastic gimmick.
Stage two deals with platforms which teeter both towards and away from the player requiring you to go either fully left or right, or right and down, whereas stage 5 deals entirely with a lot of pseudo-3D (or to the nerdier readers, parallax scrolling like the tower section in Mickey Mania or Butter Tower in Kirby's Adventure). It's a hell of a lot of experimentation graphics-wise for a platformer slightly longer than the first two Sonic games.
 (Seriously, PERSPECTIVE. IN A GENESIS GAME. [i]FFFFFFFFF[/i])
Gameplay - Reason number two of this game not deserving to be overlooked is NOT the main feature of Dynamite Headdy himself, his head. Now we hear now and again how your head is the most dangerous weapon you have, or at least your brain, but for Headdy it's all he has.
You can fire it in any eight directions and along the way you obtain power-ups for you ranging from the useful ones such as Hammer Head (which turns your head into steel) or Empty Head (which turns you invisible) to the incredibly useless ones such as Rockhead (which is hilarious but really dangerous to leave you vulnerable and slow) and Sleepy Head (which is the same as Kirby's Sleep ability).
Due to the interesting controls of the game regarding eight-directional attacks, the game is very helpful to aid you with an actual in-game tutorial on the power-ups and using your head properly, all within the first stage (that you can choose to not do).
So people complain about how this sort of thing was put into games by people too lazy to read the manual can now take note of it as more perhaps an innovation....especially if say you got this on a compilation on another console and have no manual to rely on.
FORWARD THINKING OR WHAT!?!?
 (Sonic couldn't do this shit until the Saturn)
The real second reason this game should not be underrated is that most of the gameplay also relies on dealing with the graphical changes in each stage, which range from Stage 2's teeter-totter platforms occasionally relying you to walk down or up as well as left or right like in a beat-em up, or stage 5's epic boss fight which is you actually going AROUND the perimeter of the top of the tower against a flying machine in the middle, which you have to get behind of and bash your head into.
That's not even mentioning the next stage's shooter section where Dynamite Headdy takes on the form of a plane, eagle or rocket, like weapon switching in Gradius in order to deal with the oncoming foes. Even if the game has little variety in the paths you can take, it is made up for with the dare to try and find all the secret bonus points, which the game will helpfully tell you with some woman telling you this, all of which are quite difficult to find.
 (Dear Japan. What the space-travelling fuck. Yours Sincerely, Confuse-A-Scot)
Music/Sound - Reason number three is the music. Some of you may know I am a massive fan of videogame music, and I beat my head into the wall in forgiveness to Dynamite Headdy on how all these years I did not listen to the magnificent soundtrack the game has.
All of the music in the game is bearable and even enjoyable to a wonderfully quirky feel but the boss themes truly bring it home. Being that Treasure are known for epicness with games such as Ikaruga, you would expect them to know how to make something epic.
I only have to give you the bosses of stage 5, Spinderella and stage 7, Izayoi, and you will cream yourself at how AWESOME they sound.
You cannot get anymore awesome than those boss themes. All the bosses have pretty rockin' themes on the good ol' Genesis bass sound, the absolute height of its use, and far greater a use of it than any Sonic game did. Yes I say that with full conviction.
And just when you think this game can only do rock-out music, the final song in the credits is one that will actually tug at your heart at its simple sadness of the game, or rather the show, being finally over.
 (It's time to give Head and kick ass. And I'm all out of give)
Whatever the reason this game was for being overlooked, it is no excuse because Dynamite Headdy is a game for the ages for its amazing use of graphical trickery, its simple but well-learned controls, its absolutely brutal difficulty classic of Treasure games, and last but not least, one of the most magnificent soundtracks ever on the Genesis.
Rock on, Headdy. Rock on.
Fun and Innovation - 4
Replayability - 3
Gameplay - 5
Presentation - 5"Videogames are bad for you? That's what they said about rock 'n' roll." - Shigeru Miyamoto  Hail Slither, The Eternal Champion!
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Rank: The Illuminist
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What in the fuck is that shit? Is that some garbage released only in the UK?  [13:58] TheSpaniard84: I have a kitty stuck to my rump [13:58] WhuTdufK: I suppose that's better than what's normally stuck to your rump.
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Rank: Penguin Editor in Chief
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WDF? wrote:What in the fuck is that shit? Is that some garbage released only in the UK? Hah, no way dude, it was made by Japanese, our crazy shit has 100% less giant floating baby heads :P "Videogames are bad for you? That's what they said about rock 'n' roll." - Shigeru Miyamoto Hail Slither, The Eternal Champion!
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Rank: The Number 12 Personified
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WDF? wrote:What in the fuck is that shit? Is that some garbage released only in the UK? ^ This. I'm in the know about most games that were released during the 90's, but what the hell? Good review, though. =P EDIT: OOOOH, it's a jap game. Nevermind. EDIT EDIT: UGH, and it's a Treasure game. No wonder it's so good. DredNaught wrote:In regard to the ladies... or lack thereof: Just remember that it's about quality, not quantity. And when you do meet a lucky lady, don't be a fool, wrap your tool!
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Rank: Penguin Editor in Chief
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If you got a 360 or PS3, you can get Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection and have this game among one of the 50 games in the set :3 so good <3 "Videogames are bad for you? That's what they said about rock 'n' roll." - Shigeru Miyamoto Hail Slither, The Eternal Champion!
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Rank: The Illuminist
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This is one game I don't care to experience. [13:58] TheSpaniard84: I have a kitty stuck to my rump [13:58] WhuTdufK: I suppose that's better than what's normally stuck to your rump.
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Rank: Fecal Impaction For the Win!
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WDF? wrote:This is one game I don't care to experience. Sounds fun. Safety + Peace
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Rank: Penguin Editor in Chief
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WDF? wrote:This is one game I don't care to experience. Is cool boss. Not gonna....lose my head over it. [i] YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH[/i] "Videogames are bad for you? That's what they said about rock 'n' roll." - Shigeru Miyamoto Hail Slither, The Eternal Champion!
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Rank: The Illuminist
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Not gonna like 'em all... lol... [13:58] TheSpaniard84: I have a kitty stuck to my rump [13:58] WhuTdufK: I suppose that's better than what's normally stuck to your rump.
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floating baby heads with crazy japanese stuff going on somehow illicits the most activity from whut on the forum outside his audio thread.
only logical conclusion therefor is to post up a bunch more floating baby heads, right? Muff....get some crazy floating baby pictures going on somewhere.
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Rank: Penguin Editor in Chief
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ahhhh_crap wrote:floating baby heads with crazy japanese stuff going on somehow illicits the most activity from whut on the forum outside his audio thread.
only logical conclusion therefor is to post up a bunch more floating baby heads, right? Muff....get some crazy floating baby pictures going on somewhere. I'll get to working on reviews of Cho Aniki. "Videogames are bad for you? That's what they said about rock 'n' roll." - Shigeru Miyamoto Hail Slither, The Eternal Champion!
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