Comments on: The Anatomy of The Goonies II | 3 | Did you really think I’d kill myself…?

By: ReyVGM

ReyVGM — Fri, 01 Aug 2014 13:05:43 +0000

I honestly don’t know how I beat this game back then without any help whatsoever. And it was like my 10th finished game, so I was pretty new at gaming. I hadn’t even played Zelda, Metroid or any “getting lost” game back then. I know it took me several months because once I finished it I remember being excited and screaming at my brother and neighbor that I finally finished the game and feeling like I had spent years doing something.

As for that B button thing. I don’t remember having any issues with that back then. But I do remember getting stuck this time when I played the game again.

By: Tato

Tato — Fri, 01 Aug 2014 03:27:01 +0000

Inspired by these articles, I played through the game again. It was surprisingly much more fun than I expected it to be, I feared it would be hard to navigate. As you say, the game has a weird set of internal rules that take a while to figure out, but once you learn them everything flows in an orderly manner.

For example, I found every item in my playthrough except the candle. Because the first person scenes have such a strict rule on what items can be used on what portions of the room, you develop a rhythm for finding secrets (Use hammer on all four sides and center, hit center, use glasses, use ladder, repeat). You learn what sounds and messages the game gives you when items are successfully used. Even without a candle, I was able to just bumble my way through.

Unfortunately, I never found the candle because I thought the game had a rule barring me from punching people and receiving aid. Silly me, I should have known that Goonies never stop punching women.

By: Reggie

Reggie — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 22:45:38 +0000

I am really tempted to start playing this game along with you to try and see if our opinions line up. I only played Goonies II once back when it came out and needed the Ultimate NES Players Guide to get through it. But I recall running into lots of “blindly searching around” when I hit apparent dead ends only to learn later that I didn’t know to hammer a wall or expose an obscure secret to proceed. I fear the “idea” of the game is much better than the actual game. I wonder why there aren’t any attempts to recreate the Goonies II experience but with the obscure bits left behind. And I don’t mean the indie attempts to make Metroidvania games, because they are more interested in their level layouts emulating these old games (and usually with less success) and not the mechanics. And by mechanics, I mean the items and the character controls.