"As the comic book guy would say,"

The Adventures of Dino Riki is an irritating game produced by Hudson Soft. It was never very popular, and anyone who would get their hands on it would be greatly dissappointed a moment later. Me, I just bought the game without any thought about it, because it has dinosaurs. What a fool I was. I am here to warn everyone about the existence of this game.

Graphics- The attempt to use the very few colors to its full potential was completely ignored. The characters are unimaginative and bland, as with the rest of the scenery. Brown is the color when referring to this game, for all of the items are brown as well as most of the scenery. There is a slight upside; each dinosaur boss was detailed nicely.
Don't even let me get started on the backgrounds. Each scenery lacks any feeling in it whatsoever from the moment you start the game to the moment you rip it out of your NES and throw it out the window. As for color, the areas aren't so bland as the other things, but still just simple 6th grade crap. Considering almost the whole game was forward fast paced movement, this game didn't have as many slow-downs as I'd expect, but there was an irritable graphic slowdown when you would fly and a ton of enemies would rush at you.

Music- The music will sound okay at first, but a few minutes into it you get irritated and it drones on and on. Each of the four scenes has music that, if you think about it real hard, gives a setting that makes an ounce of sense, but don't count on it. The most irritating piece of music is the opening scene, which is a shame since it's a first impression of this game. It sticks in your mind and you go crazy for days with the tune your head. The ultimate form of punishment.
Most of the sounds you'll hear are from Dino Riki's weapon. They're not so bad, but since you have to break your thumbs by hitting the button it a billion times, the sounds get very distracting. A few have their own special sounds, with a woosh from the boomerang and a flame sounds from the fire. Not one of the real ups in the games, but what is?

Gameplay- I shudder to remember the gameplay of AoDR. It is an automatic upward scroller, which isn't so common for any game outside of shooting games, and was used unwisely. As for the story, the purpose of this caveman killing a bunch of creatures.. it's a long perplexing story, boggling the mind of any who dare to read this piece of Shakespeare. It goes like this.. .. .. .. there is none. There is no reason why Riki (or is his name Dino Riki?) would kill a bunch of creatures randomly, there is no reason why he has to overcome the amazing FOUR LEVELS of excitement in order to beat the four bosses which has no purpose. There is no girl to save, there is no village to save, there's no quest this guy most overcome to be an adult or whatever. None of that. Just kill everything. You're probably asking how there could be no story. What would be the ending? The ending I will reveal, because quite frankly, there is no ending. That's right folks, when you accomplish the four levels, you get sent right back to the beginning. Not one ''congratulations'' to send you off on your continuos journey. When you die your high score shows up on the intro screen, but that isn't worth it considering the fact that it gets erased when you shut off the game. Many people believe that this game was unfinished due to either the Hudson Soft staff disagreeing with each other or them hating the game but wanting to sell it anyway. To get into the actual playing, you move in an automatic upward direction like in a typical flying game, however, you are on the ground walking. You can move in any direction, but moving downward is difficult and if you let go the default position will still be upward. A huge problem in the game is only being able to shoot upwards; many enemies would ambush you from the sides. Using the first level as an example, by shooting at a typical flower with your rocks (you have infinite ammo of everything) about five times or so could lead to a diamond which gives you points, something to wipe out all the enemies on the screen, a heart to fill your heart meter which is only 3, a bird to help you fly, or a hand for an upgradeing weapons. Your next weapon would be a flower thing, then boomerang, and the cherished fire. By getting hit once you get downgraded again. When you fly a bunch of enemies would rush at you, which was very irritating and didn't make much sense. The four levels were repeats of what I just described.

Replayability- Replay? What replay? I play Dino Riki and I see no replay. Seriously, this lacks any replay value at all, which is a huge problem, because this game needed replay value to live outside of the dusty garages. Nothing else to say here but the blunt truth.

Control- A video game should NOT have frustrating control. AoDR failed at this. The controls are not always responsive, and you'll strain your thumbs too easy trying to do something. Flying is a big downfall, because you have to keep one part of the thumb on the button and the other part slamming the other button so you won't get killed by all the enemies rushing at you. The biggest downfall of it all would definitely be jumping. There are many areas where you have to jump over water or pits, and the jump would be way too quick and just plain difficult to control.

Overall: 1 out of 10
Hmm.. 1 out of 10 is giving it a 10% grade. It does not deserve a 10% grade. This is the biggest loaf of crap I have ever seen in any type of videogame at all, and I have Yoshi's Story. The Adventures of Dino Riki is incredibly unbalanced and should be burned in a great big fire get together with all of the victims of this game. I don't even recommend it to collectors. Avoid this game at all costs, don't even get a ROM to see the crappiness or you shall be scarred for life. Thank you.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 04/14/02, Updated 04/14/02