Developed by: Nintendo R&D1 Published by: Nintendo
Introduction & Bias:
Oh, boy. I'm in trouble here, guys. I obviously had some issues last review since I needed to review a game that ostensibly required the R.O.B. peripheral and I needed some workarounds since I didn't have one to play with. Fortunately the main game mode of Gyromite could be played on two controllers so, in theory, it could make a decently fun two player game assuming the two players could communicate worth a damn.
I'm not so lucky with Stack-Up. The only reason I knew what I was getting into was because of the Angry Video Game Nerd review. What little preview footage the Nerd deigned to put on screen showed some player interaction so I thought I could somehow get an hour of play out of this game. With the R.O.B. I think I could have and not just because it moves so slowly. I'm going to get into more detail about the game in the usual sections but know this upfront: this is not a true One Hour Review. Sorry about that.
First Impressions & Presentation:
The game continues its puzzling, hopefully only two-game trend of the game keeping its Japanese title for the US title card. I actually did find out why this is the case so go ahead and read that in the trivia section.
The title card itself is trying to make an attempt at appearing 3-D while pretty much failing. The pink and yellow text for "BLOCK" does stand out from each other. Unfortunately, not all of the letters follow the correct perspective. The C "shadow" so to speak should have a few of the yellow pixels erased to correctly show the gap in the letter. On top of that the layered grid pictures that straddle the word fall flat. Literally.
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| Not Pictured: 3-D. Sorry, Nintendo |
The title card does give the player a jaunty introduction piece of music which represents about 50% of the music in the whole game. Game composers had a much easier job back in those days. There was no introduction to witness and in retrospect I don't know what they could have demonstrated so it was off to the main menu.
The main menu has a small array of choices. Test will send a check signal to R.O.B. which will let the player know the add-on is working and will also ensure that the player's optometrist will continue to be a rich man in the future. Direct, Memory, and Bingo are the three actual game modes.
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| Pictured: Not selecting Test mode. Do not do it! |
My first impressions are summed up like so: where's the game? In all of the gameplay modes the player controls the same scientist from Gyromite. It turns out that he is actually a professor named Professor Hector. The player is tasked with controlling the professor to hop on different buttons associated with one of the six actions the R.O.B. is capable of. The R.O.B. has a different accessory from the gyros this time. This time the player gets to handle blocks instead of gyros. There are five blocks that come with the game of five different colors. The game screen in the Direct mode shows the blocks stacked in a default pattern on the R.O.B.'s middle position. The player is in charge of controlling R.O.B. to move the stack of blocks from one pattern to the next. See the problem yet? I'll elaborate.
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| Pictured: Results? |
The presentation this time around is pretty bland. Most of the playing field is made of ugly grey blocks to make the button stand out. The professor does look good hopping from button to button and the buttons themselves make a pretty neat effect when they are pressed. There are only a few different poses for the professor so the smoothness of his moves breaks down in front of the lack of variety. The rest of the playing field does not fare much better as it is just a black bar with the objective in neon green with kind of piss-yellow colored text. Overall it's not a very attractive looking game and the fact that everything in the game is pretty much static doesn't help. Most of the focus was meant to be used on the R.O.B., I suppose. See the problem yet? I'll elaborate.
Experience & Conveyance:
The experience here can be pretty much summed up in one word without the R.O.B.: pointless. I'm sure that moving the stack of five blocks in specific patterns from one of the five resting areas to another is probably a challenge when working with an actual peripheral. The game wants the player to press start when the correct pattern of blocks is achieved. The thing is the blocks are just blocks. There are no sensors or anything to let the NES know which block is where leaving the whole game to the honor system.
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| Not Pictured: Me mashing the start button. "S |
The other two game modes add wrinkles to Direct's formula. First there is Memory. Thankfully the player does not have to memorize anything. What is required is that the player must use the A and B buttons to select the different R.O.B. commands to move the blocks into their correct pattern in a single stream so it works more like programming a computer. Once the player thinks they have put in the correct program the player gets to pick how fast each step is before the next step is executed. Given the agility of the R.O.B. I assume the correct answer is always the slowest speed. Again, the player can just go ahead and claim they have correctly completed the pattern. The honor system wins the day.
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| Pictured: It's kind of like programming Jaca except it's not and I get to make a robot do my bidding. So it's actually way better than programming Java! |
The last game mode is Bingo. This is the only time in the R.O.B.-less game that the player faces some antagonism. The object is still the same: get the blocks into their correct order. This time the player is tasked with completing a row or column on a bingo board of buttons to activate the desired command. Pressing a button will switch it from not pressed to depressed and back. Standing in the professor's way are a pair of glitches. One glitch will slowly move from spot to spot and deny the professor some territory. The other will press buttons in a row and will most often execute a command the player does not want so it becomes a game of land management. It's kind of like Sim City except instead of natural disasters there are computer programs trying to ruin the player's day. So it's not really like Sim City at all and I should really stop making metaphors.
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| Not Pictured: The objective. Hope you memorized it in the two seconds it was shown to you! |
On the conveyance side the player would be completely lost without any knowledge of the peripheral that is supposed to be used. See, that's the thing I like about the Zapper. There is only one obvious use for that device so if the game requires it the player should expect some shooting to occur. With the R.O.B. it has so far either been a stand-in for a second player in Gyromite or the puzzle itself in Stack-Up. I think the game was fully intended to only be played new. Considering what I found out for my trivia section in my last review this is probably true. These days on an emulator there is no conveyance to be had. If the player has the device and is playing it on an appropriate TV then the game functions well enough to let the player complete its objective. As far as it stands with me I can't give the game much credit.
Verdict & Score:
Stack-Up leaves me a bit confused about how to grade it. I did not play the game for a full hour. There is nothing in the game that can even challenge the player without the peripheral. I thought for a couple of minutes about how to rate this game. Do I put an asterisk on the score? Do I score it on its own scale? But I remembered my mission statement: I am filling the shoes of a person who, 30 years after the fact, has decided to download the entire NES library and wants to play some games. Based on this concept I cannot recommend Stack-Up. I suspect that with the full suite of equipment the player could get some amusement from the set up and I think I would give the game a four based on its unique merits. However, today, I must give the game a 2/10. Hopefully the bottom of my graph is not filled up with games like this…
Factoids & Trivia:
So last time I went over the historical significance of the R.O.B. This time I intend to cover some of the more technical aspects of the unit.
Much like the Zapper, the R.O.B. responds to light patterns on the player's TV. Instead of white light on a black background the game will flash different series of green light patterns to give the R.O.B. one of its six instructions. In a way it is sort of like a bar code. The maligned Test mode in each of the two games sends a diagnostic signal to the unit. R.O.B. has an LED in its head that will light to signal that the unit is working properly.
The instruction manuals that I have read consistently refer to the R.O.B. as a "he" but I have no soul because I stared into its eyes for so long so I'm choosing to call the peripheral "it". Speaking of the unit's eyes the manual warns against pointing the device at the sun and to make sure to darken the display on the player's TV so the green flashes stand out well enough to be detected.
Finally, there is one good reason why the title cards are in their original Japanese/English. The oldest NES carts actually held the original Famicom chip board in them. The Famicom board used a 60 pin connection while the NES used a 72 pin connection. The NES carts internally had an adapter which is sought after by collectors because it allows the NES to play other Famicom games. This might be part of the reason the game is so damn expensive.
On the financial side, holy cow! Be prepared to shell out some big bucks for this game. This appears to be the most rare of all of the original 17 with the lowest price I found on eBay being $30 and the average being closer to $60. On top of that the block trays and the blocks need to be acquired and that will run you another $120. Add to that the claws needed and the R.O.B. itself will cost an additional $120. Not only that the game needs to be run on a CRT TV and not a modern LCD TV so good luck finding one of those as well. So $300 for a game with not a lot of playing value? This should be for collectors only.
Alright, whew. That’s it. I’m finished with the peripheral games. It is time to play the last 6 launch titles for the month of March and there are some good games coming up, too! I have no idea about the next one, though,as I’m going in blind. Next time on One Hour Reviews I will play Clu-Clu Land.
Sources:
NES box art:
eBay prices taken on February 29th
Does R.O.B. work on a flat screen TV?
Stack-Up Wiki Page
R.O.B. Instruction Manual (opens as a document)
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