This is the cleverest platformer I've seen in a long time - apologies if it's already made the rounds in your circle. It's an ascii art platformer, done in flash with Megaman sounds. It's called Jineseiowata no Daibouken, or 'life-ending adventure,' and it's absolutely brilliant in the ways it plays with platform game conventions, especially the oldschool ones. I guarantee it'll trip you up a number of times. It had me laughing and cursing out loud. That happens basically never. Do give it a play through!
Thanks to chaz for finding it. X is shoot, Z is jump, R is retry. If you're feeling weak, you can check out a youtube video of a pretty well completed quest, but trust me, it's a lot more fun to discover for yourself. I've heard tell that the creator is updating the game continually, so...well...somebody needs to give this person some money.
As a final note, if you start getting obsessive about this (not like me, I hasten to add), check out his test/proving ground page for a bit of an intro to the mechanics.
So I mailed that rob fellow after my post about his PC Engine and Genesis overclocking, to see if he had any videos of his results. Turns out he does, though there are only six, and they're a bit poorly encoded somehow. Regardless, there's some interesting stuff in there. With the PCE games, you can clearly hear that the music is sped up - check this one of Air Zonk especially. That said, when he uses the bomb, there's no slowdown, and there usually would be there. Rather impressive. Sonic goes to hell when sped up (maybe that explains the GBA port!), but this golf game I forget the name of sure fares a lot better. And for you Dreamcast fans, here's some faster bass fishing.
A new museum in japan is putting on an exhibit of the japanese power of expression, and naturally this includes games. Game Watch has a small report of the section, complete with images. It's only running til the 4th, so if you're in japan and interested, now's the time to go. They have some playable stuff (including space invaders), but it's mostly just sterile stuff for looking at on white columns. Not quite as cool as the TV Game Museum we mentioned on July 17, 2004, but still rather nice. Thanks to shadowfamicom for mailing the link.
Play Asia's deal of the week is Card Fighters DS for $20, japanese version. If you can't wait for the localized version, though the game's reportedly not so hot, this is a good price! Oh, and Trigger Heart Exelica DC preorders are up as well, not to mention Karous. Vampire Rain and The Idolm@ster came out this week as well. We published a review of the latter, if you recal. Maybe the first!
The DJ Max Portable 2 (korean beatmania clone for PSP, remember?) trailer is available on youtube now, for the interested. Not as boobtacular as the original, more like an intro to the new modes, which include a five button setup, and wifi play. Incidentally, if anyone knows anything about the final song in the original intro, which is in neither in the PSP game nor the OST (roughly at 1:50 in the video), please drop me a line. That song is the reason I got the original...imagine my disappointment!
Update: Thanks to sqfrk (who mentioned the DJ Max P 2 intro in the first place) and adrian, I now know that the final song is 'Blythe.' As sqfrk says, it's "a DJMax Portable exclusive (along
with Hamsin). It's unlockable in the game with 38000MAX
points (with an average of around 100MAX per song at
a 95%+ score)." Luckily someone sent it to me - I could never achieve that myself.
I was beginning to think that the new Dynamite Deka had been canned, because it's now over two months since the location test and it still hasn't appeared in the appropriate page on Sega's website. Turns out it's still on track for release, and not only that, but it's also getting localized for the European market! For images of the EU version head over to Objectif-SEGA, which was at the ATEI show in London earlier this month. About the only observation I want to make is that Sega Europe is continuing the proud tradition of butchering the titles of Dynamite Deka titles in the localization process, as the latest in the series will now simply be known as Asian Dynamite in the EU. No word of a US release yet.
I've been meaning to translate and summarize this guide to display connection types for the new consoles, but since the days and weeks are rolling by and I am still procrastinating I thought I'd link it here before time renders it obsolete. The tech geeks over at Game Watch basically take each of the three consoles in turn and examine your options for hooking them up to a display (HDMI, VGA, Component, etc.), and then with the aid of meticulously composed screengrabs they come up with their recommendations. The article has some inexcusable holes (for example, they don't mention that both their test displays are completely inappropriate for the Wii), but it's worlds better than anything you'll come across in the big Western sites, and basically at this point we'll just have to take what we can get.
It turns out that Muchi Muchi Pork! is going to be the title of Cave's upcoming shooter, and the bitching has already begun: get yours in while you can. The news comes from this page on Cave's website, which announces the company's plans for the upcoming AOU show, due to take place at Chiba's Makuhari Messe on the 16th and 17th of february. Cave says Pork will be playable at the show, so we can expect the first location test either sometime before that, or soon afterwards. At the moment we still don't know who the director is, but since Ikeda's Mushihime-sama Futari only came out recently, our money's on Yagawa helming this.
In other Cave news, check out this French report of the company's recent end-of-year gathering, which we've mentioned before. There's detailed commentary and a ton of nice pictures, courtesy of a 23-year old blogger living in Kyoto. Thanks to Neo-Arcadia for the heads-up (even though they never link us when they regularly steal our news).
News: PSone and PS2 backwards compatibility at 480p
January 30, 2007, 02:35 AM
by ollie, via a very swanky HD TV I just got... - [permalink]
Under the guidance of our fearless leader (formerly known as Command Cluster Sheffield), I have been compelled to impart some information regarding the PlayStation 3's backwards compatibility of PSone and PS2 games.
As has been reported elsewhere, the godawful "filter" that plagued PSone and PS2 games on the PS3 has been thankfully removed as of version 1.5 of the firmware. However, more pertinent is the fact that the PS3 renders PSone and PS2 games in progressive scan (if you have it connected to an HD capable set).
This means that classic games like R-Type Delta and Gradius V looks positively "mint". 2D games also look suitably sexytime, with R-Types being rather loin moistening. (Although, recap points out that the PS3's smallest resolution is 640 x 480, which means that most PSone games have to be upresed somehow. Still, it's much better than it was!)
Not sure how this'll work, but korean dev Cyberstep (of GetAmped fame), in association with Windysoft, is bringing Katamari Damashii Online to PCs, says 4gamer. They signed a contract in November of 2006, and have begun development with aims at a late 2007 release. Basically it's going to take the versus battle stages from the PS2 and PSP games and plant them into an online arena. There will also be community management stuff, and there will be 'pet' and 'house' elements, with collectibles and whatnot. You can make your own island, and get new clothing and whatnot from items you gather while playing.
It's unclear in the article as of yet whether any developer support will be offered from the japanese side, or simply the license, but 4gamer suspects that the deal was made in order for Namco Bandai to get a foothold in the south korean casual online market. Thanks to Zepy for the link.
K. Mihara is the head of Arika and responsible for two of the best shootinggames the home market has seen since the 32-bit years (which is not saying much, but still). It's not news that he had been working on a PS2 version of Cave's Ketsui ~Kizuna Jigokutachi~. It's not news either that the project was declared non-viable, due to technical issues. Mihara has let us know these days that indeed he couldn't replicate the game perfectly - the game's fifth stage demands more RAM than is available on the PS2's hardware, but aside from that, PS2 Ketsui was more or less finished.
It says a lot about this man's love for his work, and it's particularly amazing; Cave itself has never hesitated to release inaccurate, forgettable ports of its recentgames. This also sheds more light on the difficulties of programming 2D games, even when the art is already done. The PS2 is now 'officially' a system unable to handle all low-res 2D games out there, too. That's something, because it seems unlikely that any other current system could serve to perfectly reproduce a Cave arcade game - all of them lack a proper video mode to display these games non-scaled at full screen. And Mihara doesn't look too excited with the idea, anyhow.
Whilst the PlayStation 3 is the Scottish play of games consoles around these parts, several places have been showing off newer screenshots of Gundam Musou. The interesting point about these is that they feature other mobile suits (rather than the ubiquitous Gundams shown in other shots), more specifically that of The O, piloted by Paptimus Scirocco, and the Hyakushiki, piloted by Quattro...you know, I'm not gonna say that.
So why do other types of mecha matter in Gundam Musou? Well, from a gameplay point of view it means you'll have access to different attacks and abilities. For instance, The O has beam sabers hidden under its skirt armor. This, in gameplay terms, is akin to thrashing enemies with several giant mecha wangs comprised of superheated plasma. Considering that the game boasts up to a 1000 enemies on screen, that translates into an awful lot of wang usage.
Ollie Update: According to Famitsu the God Gundam, Wing Gundam Zero, and Turn A Gundam will be playable in Gundam Musou. This be interesting due to the previous UC timeline focus that was reported (despite the fact that the Wing Zero has fucking feathers).
Rob at 'underground console mods' has found a way to overclock the PC Engine main CPU so that certain games with slowdown have a better framerate. He uses a 25 MHz crystal oscillator - I don't know what that is, but it sure sounds neat. And in fact, it sounds a bit similar to the Lynx overclocking mod I linked to about three years ago, but absolutely cannot be bothered to find. Anyway, he's talking about a rather mild overclock, to boost the framerate just a bit, without affecting audio pitch too much. When you overclock the CPU, the audio speeds up as well. Here are some behaviors in games that he thought worth noting:
Air Zonk - Ran *drastically* faster... still some slowdown though.
Magical Chase - Runs great. Shopping for items makes the screen flicker a bit.
Victory Run - Scaled road breaks up a bit.
Taiwan-based IGS seems to be be getting ready to release its latest arcade 2D beat 'em up, Oriental Legend 2, because they've just updated their site with an official page. It's done in Flash, which is all the more annoying because there's little content there at the moment. Just some character art and a stupid Flash game. No screens yet, nor any mention of the hardware (though chances are it will run on the PGM -- I don't see them coming up with a new board just for a brawler). For background info on the game check this gamengai thread. Thanks to Macaw for the tip.
Brandon's note: The one good thing about that flash game is that it shows several of the moves of two characters. Pretty fluid animation too, which is what the original was known for - if it was known at all, that is!
Update: More info has surfaced, including an arcade poster, from which I cropped the image to the right. Other info is as follows: the game features four simultaneous players, and does indeed use IGS' proprietary PGM system, which if you don't know, has a lot in common with SNK's MVS board. OL2 is apparently planned for a 2007 arcade release. There will be 10 characters. The game uses a card system, which allows you to save special items, high score, and lets you save/continue your game in progress.
Some of you may know this, others may not. Ranger-X was one of the best games for the Genesis, back in the days. Great 2D mecha action game with advanced controls (control two objects simultaneously), and really robust visuals. Anyway, the company that made it was called Gau Entertainment, and I'd thought they'd fizzled away. But it turns out they merged into Nextech, who made Ragnacenty. They've since changed their name to Nex Entertainment, but they're still around, doing things like Children of Mana DS and Shining Tears. Their glory days may be long, long gone, but it's still interesting to see what became of these folks. Personally I'd love to see a 2D Ranger-X, maybe on the DS?
I'm going to steal some news from kotaku for once! DJ Max Portable 2 is coming out, apparently, and Ruliweb has samples of the first songs. Here's a site for DJ Max 2 (not portable, no official site for that yet). The original was quite good, so anticipate this one hotly, if you can stand to use a PSP for more than a minute. My personal favorite song of the new breed thus far is bye bye love, though I always have a soft spot for eurobeat. Yes, that is english in that second song.
Here's a nice french site dedicated to dead videogame magazines (primarily french ones), including some that friends of mine have worked on. Some, like the above link, only have covers, but many more have the actual internals of the mags downloadable, which is quite cool. You don't really get to see Amstrad magazines very often. Thanks to frank for pointing it out.
So I just went to this games for Windows thing, put on by Microsoft for the release of their new Windows Vista platform. Played Conan, played Crysis and walked for 30 minutes to the end of the game world and jumped off - the usual sort of press event thing. But here's the 100 mega shock announcement of the evening. We played Minesweeper for Vista, because why not check out the new pack-in software? Well, turns out you can play Minesweeper with the Xbox 360 controller, even wirelessly. Then there's the kicker - it supports rumble. Minesweeper with rumble. Try that on your PS3! Well there you go, all the big excitement. You heard it here first. Unless you heard it somewhere else first, in which case you can go to hell.
Can't get enough NES chocolate? Didn't win the cart? That same fellow mailed me to say he has a new product up, though this one's a bit more mass-produced. This time it's a NES controller-shaped chocolate bar, of which he has 50 for $15 each. Tempting to be sure, but I'm more of a dark chocolate man, myself. Check the first link for the methodology, which I assume is the same or similar.
News: Brand-new shooting game from Cave for the next month
As we mentioned, Cave will be focusing on new shooting games for the arcades this year and seems the next one will be ready to be presented next month at the AOU show. It's rumored to be an original game this time. Thanks to Namae no Nai Heya.
A few other places have highlighted the imminent release of a Hi-Nu Gundam Master Grade model kit but few have mentioned its gaming significance.
For those unfamiliar to the canon narrative of the Universal Century time line, the RX-93 Nu Gundam is Amuro Ray's final mechanical ride of choice in the frankly fucking epic film Char's Counterattack. The thing is though, the original Nu Gundam was massively unfinished and was rushed for completion in order for Amuro to get it into combat.
In the novel Beltorchika's Children, essentially a re-telling of the events in Char's Counterattack, Amuro is actually fitted with the finished iteration of the Nu Gundam, that of the Hi-Nu Gundam. Despite the azure colour scheme change the major difference is that of the angelic spread for the fin funnels (plus the stats are somewhat bonkers compared to the original Nu).
Since the novel came out, many wanted to see the Hi-Nu be given some form of gameplay treatment. As such in almost all the instances that Amuro has appeared in Super Robot Wars, the Hi-Nu has been the final and suitably uber Gundam for the beloved neurotic hero.
Considering that Gundam, Amuro Ray and Super Robot Wars are a big fucking deal to a lot of Japanese anime afficionados and gamers, this kit merges all three of those into a terrifyingly immense whole (kinda like a gattai sequence that results in Bandai making lots of money). Admittedly, there have been many garage kits of the Hi-Nu (with the G System kits being damn impressive) but a Master Grade release is an awful lot more mainstream and the price tag isn't, well, sadistic.
Brandon's note: And here I thought it was just a robot! But to sum this up, this winds up sort of kind of being a model from a game, more than from the anime, because it was first featured like this in SRW. And now you know.
This fellow at Otobeya has done some awesome work here. Essentially, he takes classic tunes, and then reworks them with other soundchips. Ys Origin is redone in with the MSX chip, for instance (there's even a movie for that one). Here you'll find songs such as a metroid tune redone with the Mark III chip, awake from CV: Circle of the Moon redone on the gameboy chip, Final Fantasy X-2 on the famicom, Devil's Crush via MSX, game gear version of Aleste, as well as the Saturn Sega Touring Car(!) done on a genesis chip, and Legendary Wings from Thunder Force V (the original is a personal favorite) done with MSX. No link for that one, for some reason. Anyway, it's almost all good stuff, and he has a lot on there. It's a slow site, so try not to kill it, but feel free to click the button just below the ascii cat in order to give him 'applause.' Thanks to jiji for the link. (・∀・)ｲｲ!
This is pretty nice. A fellow named jas on winters has put together the Picodore 64, a homebrew C64 palmtop computer, complete with mini keyboard, USB slot, and mini joystick port. This is his entry into the DTV hacking scene. If your'e not familiar, a lady named jeri ellisworth created a line of C64 'plug and play' TV games-style products for QVC and wal-mart type institutions. But she essentially put the whole computer on a chip, meaning you can take something like this, basically some driving games in a steering wheel, and make a full-fledged C64 computer out of it.
Jason's work is documented in the first link, but more info can be found here. Apparently the keyboard bit was the toughest, and that gets its own post. Thanks to signofzeta and mike chicago for the links. here's another picture, to demonstrate just how small this is (basically just a bit bigger than two soda cans).
As an interesting aside, jason also runs the world's most successful fishcam. I have to say, it's pretty awesome. Fish swim around, while you control the camera, and open and close treasure chests and things.
Here's something odd - Mad Monkey Studio, a french creator of interactive DVD content (kind of like what Hirameki does), has taken the Xbox and PC game Syberia and turned it into an interactive DVD. It's been available in france and italy for some time, but is coming soon to other european territories. No u.s. dates as of yet. It's a bit of a strange concept to begin with though, so I can't necessarily say I'm sorry. The game itself is rather nice, but I'm not sure this is the format for it - in six episodes, no less! Thanks for the link, frank.
Total Panic was a show on Nickelodeon about games, way back in the halcyon days of the 1980s. I don't really know much about it, but somebody uploaded a shakycam clip from the show, in which they discuss R-Type for the Turbo Grafx, and Forgotten Worlds. It's hosted by greg lee, the host of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. He apparently has not done much else, either. The narrator screams things like 'Die, you fiends!' and the whole thing is a bit tough to watch, but it's pretty amazing that a show featuring shooting games ever existed. The link is pretty old, but if it's new to me...! I stole it from the lost levels forums, where it was posted way back in april. If anyone has more clips from this show send them through!
Once again it's revealed through one of its 'investor relations' PDFs (link here), and looks quite promising this time. For a start, Loveny no Ehon will have a DS version. Cave indeed wants it to be a major franchise, and the project even includes an on-line game for an unrevealed platform. Secondly, Cave still wants the shooting genre to be its "top brand", and it will be focusing on new games for the arcades this year, although that doesn't exclude new medal games and whatnot. Unfortunately, there's no mention of possible home ports. Less interestingly, Cave also has big hopes for its on-line games for Windows, namely 'Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine' and 'Mini Yon Ku Online Racer', both about to enter in beta test form. Thanks to Kej from Gamengai forum for pointing it out.
It's gamestop exclusive now, but at least it's still coming out! Chulip, as you may recall, is a game where you have to kiss people at their ultimate low point, in order to cheer them up. It's also by Punchline, the developers who went on to do Rule of Rose (I talk about this a little bit in the interview I had with them). The graphics probably won't be very good, as the game was made ages ago, but should be somewhat wacky and enjoyable...maybe! If you think there was boy-on-boy kissing in Bully, well...there's a lot more in this.
Gurumin (Falcom ARPG) has a site up for its western release, with video and MP3 downloads (Falcom's music is always nice). Voice acting doesn't seem to suck too much, and there's a making-of video up there for that with lots of z0mg dynamic sweeping camera movements. As Falcom's first in-house port (from PC to PSP), it could be pretty decent. We shall see! Oh and check the outfits page...some of them are a bit scandalous, I'd say.
For those that haven't been following this, Spike has been all over the shop with the release date for Kenka Bancho 2 Full Throttle (it was originally scheduled for the end of January). Well, Spike finally decided on a date, that of March 8th.
The game, much like the first, is a cel shaded effort set at a Japanese high school where the students exhibit supernatural powers. Think a modern day take on Kunio-kun basically.
I can only assume this delay in the release of the sequel is due to the addition of patented bear suit technology slowing development time (or the loss of staff through suicide after working on Necro-nesia).
You might have met decinoge if you hung out on the old Insert Credit forums - he's a sprite artist from Portugal with a strange but utterly pure love of Communism, outdated rendering techniques and Watermelon Fanta. More relevantly, he just released ZAMURAI, a beta of a flash-based game he's been working on as a college project. It's a strange platformer featuring a bevy of classic characters reimagined using the old CGA graphics set (which you might remember from classic IBM-compatible games like Alley Cat). Combat and control aren't too hot (use the arrow keys and left Ctrl) but the old-school aesthetic is captured perfectly. I predict that someday soon this man will do amazing things, then resurrect Stalin just to spoil it all.
You may never have played Trio The Punch, but you probably should: it's a crazy self-parody released by Data East in 1989 where three generic stereotypes (a ninja, a barbarian and a street fighter) have to bludgeon their way through hordes of evil Karnov clones and such esteemed bosses as a pink were-sheep (which curses you to also become a pink were-sheep for a couple of levels) and Colonel Sanders, who releases a drumstick-shooting chicken from his own exploding head. We first mentioned it back in october, but the release date was just announced - february 8. Same for Konami's Thunder Cross. You can preorder Oretachi Geesen Zoku Sono 17: Trio the Punch from Play-Asia.
I hadn't heard of Majyuuou until recently - an older Super Famicom title with Castlevania leanings (though also looks a bit like Run Saber). Majyuuou (literally demon king) is a very neat looking little game, released in 1995 by KSS, with surprisingly Genesis-like use of bass in its sound. Check some youtubevideos if you're skeptical. There's actually an english patch out for it as well.
While you're at it, check out the odd sprite rip page I linked earlier in the article. Lots of obscure stuff in there, especially games with monsters. Who else has Chimera Beast rips? He also has lots of pictures of vampires eating corn. To each their own!
Super Mario Bros. Special was a remake of Super Mario Bros. for the NEC PC-8801 computer in japan (among others, I believe), done by Hudson. It's actually hard to call it a remake, as it's pretty much an entirely new game. Strange music, odd graphics, some mean glitches, and you progress one screen at a time, though the screens tile in such a way that you can still see a bit of where you came from. Very interesting stuff from the 57 year old Youtube user powerful nana, who has lots more obscure stuff, if you browse his profile (PC-8801 Popful Mail for one). So for SMB Special, check out World 4 if you only check one...it's got glitches and weirdness galore. The others are worth watching too though, he's basically got the full game in there. Here's world one to get you started, if you want the full experience. Hudson Bee powerup in there, and there's Hudson logo in world 4 as well. Really easy to do the infinite extra lives trick in this one, it appears, but it also looks like you really have to know what you're doing in order to make this game work.
I didn't know about this until frank pointed it out - there's actually a wiki for rom hacks out there. It's quite neat. Go to the Super Mario Bros. 3 page, for instance, and you see all the hacks the community knows of for that game, so the one where the enemies are replaced with Spiderman villains, or the 'lost levels' patch, which allows access to development-only incomplete levels. Then the patch for the rom is linked. It's very well laid out into each console, then alphabetized. So there's a section for NES, SNES, GB/GBC, GBA, Genesis, and N64 (not much in that one though). As you can imagine, the bulk of the hacks are for the NES (there's even a Sesame Street ABC hack called The Muppets Take it all off). Anyway, really nice place, and worth a look if you're into that sort of thing. And of course, if you have hacks of your own, that's the place to put links to them! Oh, and the image here is from The Adventures of Bass 2, a Megaman 2 hack.
I actually didn't know about this particular saturn at all until seeing this thread on digitalpress, and was quite skeptical of it even after I did. Essentially it's just the standard white budget re-release Saturn, but with a Sonic emblem on it. But you could put that image on most anything and I'd want to buy it. It was apparently only sold at Toys R Us in japan. It's apparently "rarer than the Saturn Navi", but I'd still rather have the (non-Derby Stallion) smoke skeleton Saturn, myself.
I found a guy on youtube called neshagui, who has uploaded about 72 MSX-related videos, which are really useful if you don't know much about the computer/system. If you check all of his videos, you'll find some really interesting stuff...I'll outline some of the games I think are worth noting.
Famicle Parodic, a shooter parody of famous famicom games - stage 1 (Xevious), Stage 2 (Crazy Climber). Quimple commercial, intro.
Final Fantasy MSX (Great music, looks unplayably slow though). The Links - not a game, but a modem and telnet for the MSX. R-Type - nice, but bad scrolling. Not as good as the PCE port. Star Virgin can't really explain this one either. What Many Princess (no idea). Kikikaikai. Laydock 2 (one of the early vertically and horizontally scrolling shooter)
Chuka Taisen and Mon Mon Monster - early Hot-B games. Starship Rendezvous special stage 'michelle' - a very early gravure-like semi not safe for work stage, showing off how good the MSX was at color. Terra Cresta - this went unreleased on MSX...later returned on other systems. Illusion City intro - very Snatcher-like. Fray RPG intro.
Of course some of the best MSX games were by Compile...they really knew how to use the system. Mirror Maze, Aleste, and Madou Monogatari 1-2-3 (with a great Carbunkle dance) are good examples.
This one's based on Iroha the maid, and it's called, well - Maid by Iroha. It's basically a life management/raising sim in which you get Iroha to become the greatest maid in the wooooorld. You do this by setting schedules and tests for her, and raising five stats, which are: love, intellect, physical strength, manners, and figure. Note: I did not made any of those up. Somebody should tell the janitors at my building that 'love' and a stricking figure are necessary elements of the cleaning profession! Well actually no, they shouldn't. Anyway, people just buy these games because it has pictures like the ones you see to the left. So there you go, SNK is one step closer to realizing who its demographic is.
I've been dragging my feet on this one as well (surprise), but in case you're as-yet unaware, Graffiti has published two nice 2D RPGs for the GBA in recent months, to little or no fanfare. Mazes of Fate is a first person dungeon game from argentina of all places (Sabarasa), and seems to have very deep systems, branching paths, and a lot of gameplay time (if you're into that - I prefer shorter games).
Check out some impressions on neogaf, complete with images - you can grab a video on the official site, but it's flash so I can't direct link. The overhead town sections look nicest to me, and I sort of wish they'd done the whole game that way. One thing that particularly impressed me when reading the aforelinked impressions is that everything in the dungeon happens in realtime. So if you're fighting an enemy, other enemies may be flanking you, or otherwise approaching, and can join in the battle. Anyway, it seems like a lot of work was put into this, so it's nice to see it come out here. According to an informative interview with n-philes, Sabarasa is currently working on a DS sequel. Incidentally, I have no idea why there's an O~3 publishing logo on the box art in that neogaf thread, when Graffiti released it. If anyone has info, let me know!
Next there's Back to Stone (french in origin). It's a 3/4 view action RPG along the linds of LandStalker (sort of kind of). There aren't a whole lot of impressions of it around the internet, so here are some from comic-kaze of the sngp forums: "Great concept, and the first bits reminded me of great oblique angled 2D games. It has a promising combat system and a lot of puzzles mostly involving beating up enemies and turning them to blocks of stone and then knocking the stones around to get them to land on special tiles to unlock keys. Good storyline about the ruins of a technological society beseiged by magic and demons from the past.
But the game is entirely ruined by lack of a saved game system. The damn thing is pretty hard and it uses like 13 character passwords that are impossible to remember and really clumsy. Totally ruins the game. I can't believe some companies are still using password systems to save the cost of a little SRAM on carts. Disappointed after how great Mazes of Fate was (same publisher, different developers)."
Even so, I rather like the look of it...and you can download a movie of the game here. There's a visual representation of the gameplay here as well, even if you don't speak french. The bottom line on both of these games is that they're interesting european-style 2D efforts, really late in the GBAs lifecycle, and would probably otherwise go unnoticed. So give them a look, if this sort of thing grabs you. They're a bit tough to find on store shelves, I'd say, but you can get them from Amazon, or Graffiti's ebay store. If you have to go for one, sounds like Mazes of Fate is the winner, which is unfortunate given how much I like action RPGs.
Youtube: Luigi's Burden
January 14, 2007, 12:40 PM
by brandon, via guy with a fake mustache - [permalink]
Here's a sort of ok video about Luigi in the real world. It's a bit surreal because it's done in the super-slow young children's show style. "Hey look at that. now I'll go over to where that is. now I'll interact with it." Probably wasn't intentional, but it's a bit like Luigi's Blue's Clues. But the main reason to link it is the nifty ragtime SMB themesong in the latter half. If anyone knows who composed that, as I didn't see it in the credits, let me know.
As the title indicates, I walked into Sanrio the other day, not, I hasten to add, to enjoy their delightful character-based female-oriented merchandise, but because they had a Hello Kitty Squire guitar in the window (admittedly also aimed at girls). Once within, I discovered something rather strange - a cardboard Sonic standee selling character-based Sega games. I suppose Sanrio has to get with the contemporary times and move into electronics - the guitars were the first indication, but the Hello Kitty iPod speakers and Hello Kitty waffle iron were the icing on the cake. This Sonic thing contains one each of: Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis (the terrible GBA remake), Sonic Riders (PS2, GC), Sonic Plus (PS2), Shadow the Hedgehog (PS2, GC), and Charlotte's Web, randomly. Very strange that they didn't bother filling it up completely, as there are certainly enough games out for them to do so. It stands just a bit taller than the Sonic 360 version of the character, and sort of looks like he's been put on the rack. Not quite proportional.
I'm guessing this is the first (and quite quick!) evidence of the Sega Sammy/Sanrio alliance that was announced on christmas, in which each company will strengthen the brands of the other. Sega Sammy currently owns 14% of Sanrio's stock. So, in conclusion, seemed kind of weird and out of place to me, but I want one of these so I can fill it with, you know...good Sonic games. At least they left the atrocious Sonic 360 out! Here's another picture of the scene, this time without the flash, for the obsessed. Both this one and the one you get when clicking the link to the left are very unnecessarily large.
I didn't post about this for some time because it's rather depressing. Famed visual novel developer and publisher KID (stands for Kindle Imagine Develop) has filed for bankruptcy, having some 530 million yen ($4,452,648) in outstanding debt. KID was famous for its non-pornographic visual novels/dating sim series, such as Pia Carrot he Youkoso, Memories Off, Ever 17, and Ai Yori Aoshi, many of which later became successful anime. The changing climate seems to have favored the erotic visual novels in the end, and in spite of licensing deals for the west with Hirameki International, the company has been dissolved.
Gamefaqs has a good list of KID's work, and you can purchase english-language versions of two of their more popular games here (Ever 17), and here (Ai Yori Aoshi). Here are some notes from Hirameki on the subject (read here for the full entry...registration required): "This was an unforeseen and deeply shocking development - we at Hirameki were given no prior warning, and first learned about it through the newspapers. ... KID made its final appearance at last year's winter Comic Market, holding a liquidation sale at its industry booth. While I was there, I was able to speak with some of KID's former staff. According to them, the in-development game Memories OFF #5 Encore was almost completed - a master copy had been made two weeks before KID had announced bankruptcy. The people I spoke to regretted that KID had not waited a little longer, until the game came out."
It seems neither Memories Off #5 Encore, 12RIVEN the ΨCliminal of Integral (part of the Infinity series) will be released under the current KID brand. Hirameki couldn't confirm whether anyone will be able to pick up the rights and finish the games...it looks as though the closure took even the employees by surprise to a degree.
Now for the potential silver lining - according to the blurb on the official site (since I waited until after Comiket 71 to make this post), it seems as though there is some possibility of release for those near-finished games. After thanking everyone for supporting them at their Comiket liquidation sale, the text states (roughly) "Should the fans wish it, there may be a day when the resurrection of KID will come, if people haven't forgotten about us by then."
Brandon's note: My apologies for the time it took me to make this post - I got a number of emails and requests for clarification on this, and then I had the post 3/4 finished for about two weeks. Well...here it is now, and through waiting, new info was revealed, so it worked out in the end.
We've talked about Jingi Storm quite a lot here...that's the stripping game from Atrativa, spinoff of Yuki Enterprise, of Samurai Shodown V fame. The Atrativa site seems to be down now, so maybe it's a failed experiment. Anyway, there hasn't been much info on it recently, though the game was released in full to japanese arcades. Alex went and found it though, and has done a review of it, which reveals that there is no stripping at all in the final game! Most curious. He also discovered that the game is basically a modified version of Sammy's ill-fated Force Five for the Atomiswave (scroll to the bottom for the pics).
Nice find - here's a quip from the review: "So a game that was announced by Sammy for the AtomisWave back in 2003 is finally released in late 2006 for the Naomi, with heavy cosmetic changes and lacking AW-NET support, and without its originally touted stripping feature, by a virtually unknown and somewhat shady publisher run by the same person who runs Yuki Enteprise. Now all I want to know is where to find the blood money and the dead bodies."
crithit5000 mailed me this some days ago, a direct link to Shin'en's Nanostray 2 trailer. While it still looks nice, the engine and graphics don't seem quite as advanced as when the first came out. That said, looks like a fun shooter, and if the mandatory touch screen weapon swap is out (which the screens seem to indicate), it should be quite enjoyable.
Shin'en has been busily working on licensed titles in the meantime as well. Here's Miss Spider's Harvest Time Hop and Fly, which frankly looks disturbing, and the upcoming Garfield's Nightmare, which is inexplicably in 3D. I'm sure that wasn't Shin'en's choice, as their 2D work is excellent.
Thanks to the Digitalpress forums, we found this auction for one of only three NES cart-shaped chocolates. These are hand-made (with a mold, I presume?), using austrian chocolate. He ships with black ice to southern states where "heat may be an issue." I want that, but you've really got to trust the guy who's making food himself, especially over ebay. P.S. only 140 views as of now.
Update! I got the methodology from the chocolate bar's creator...quite interesting! Here's what he had to say: "I started off by modifying the NES cart to have to voids in it so the mold would not be indented in any way.. I then made a basin a bit bigger than the cart. Mixed up my food grade silicon with food grade hardener at a 10 to 1 ratio. Poured my mold material into the basin, and set the NES cart into the silicon. I then used a vibrating device to relieve most of the air bubbles. I did that for 20 mins, then let the mold dry for 24 hours.
After the 24 hours I removed the modified cart and baked the mold for 4 hours @ 350 degrees. When that was finished i thoroughly cleaned the cart with steam. Then I used an austrian chocolate bar and carefully heated 3/4 of it to 122 degrees to temper it, then the remaining 1/4 was finely chopped and mixed in to bring the temp back down to 83 degrees. It was then poured and once again off to the vibrator. Then it was placed in a freezer that is used only for this process. Let it harden and pull the mold and what you have is the coolest candy bar ever. The whole process from start to finish was 34 hours of planning and building. With the "sweet" reward of having something NES related that no one has ever had."
Whilst From Software are often known to produce games involving wave after wave of killbots, they do have other works within their portfolio. One of these is the Kuri Kuri series.
The original game, on the PlayStation 2, was a moderately endearing puzzle platformer set over nine worlds with requisite boss battles. It didn't do that great and From Software shelved it as a consequence. Now in the clear and present glare of the DS Lite's omnipotence in Japan, Kuri Kuri has been jolted back into action.
Bear in mind though that their last DS game, Tenchu Dark Shadow, was akin to having nutty fecal matter ground into your cornea, here's hoping that Kuri Kuri DS is a departure from that hellish experience. The word "kuri", in case anyone is wondering, means "chestnut" in Japanese but the doubling up of the word has rather amusing ramifications; in that manga artists use "kuri kuri" to denote the sound of breast fondling.
Another new RPG has been announced, this one from Compile Heart. Rogue Hearts Dungeon is the name, and as the name suggests, it's a roguelike, in the vein of Druaga, or the upcoming DS title Izuna. The seems to be fully 2D for once, and will be Compile's first RPG in a long, long time. I believe the last was Waku Waku Puyo Puyo Dungeon. They may not be developing this though, perhaps only publishing. There's another name listed on the site here - "Plophet," which is unfortunately not a typo. See their title list here - they've mostly been doing phone games recently. Rogue Hearts Dungeon is planned for an april release on PS2, at 6,800 yen. Lots of older companies seem to be getting into PS2 RPG development really late in the game, now that it's cheaper.
Thanks to Neko ga Gotoku, we learned that Sting is remaking Baroque, a 3D RPG from the PSone era with a unique art style, but poor visuals. This will be Sting's first 3D RPG (and game, in fact), since Evolution for the Dreamcast/Gamecube. Baroque is planned for a 2007 release on PS2...I hope that goes well for them. RPGfan mentioned that they had an online version of Baroque planned some time ago, but that never came to fruition.
I'm hopeful they'll include Baroque Shooting as an extra, or perhaps remake that as well...
Game Watch has a preview of Pure Innocent Life for PS2, the newest shin-boku mono (Harvest Moon) game from Marvelous (developed by Arte Piazza). This is the PS2 port of the PSP game that came out back in april. Looks quite nice if that's your thing. There will be some extras in the PS2 version, and I believe this is the only entry in the series to take place in the future. The scenario has had some tweaks and additions, and there's a new 'zoom' feature.
Here's a game that might go unnoticed otherwise...Alien Shooter Vengeance for PC. It's basically a Loaded/Reloaded clone, with nice prerendered CG backgrounds, and action RPG gameplay. That kind of stuff is totally nostalgaic for me at this point, so I approve.
I'd personally like to see it on Xbox Live Arcade, or some other console platform, but it looks nice enough as it is. The game is developed in russia by Sigma Team, whose other titles include a whole mess of Alien Shooter games (Vengeance is actually Alien Shooter II in russia), and uh...Crazy Lunch.
The game goes on sale on january 22 in the US (though according to the text on the official site it's january 22...2006. The past is alive!) I just hope it plays as good as it looks! Don't let me down russia! Plus, who can deny the greatness of calling a game what it is. Alien Shooter? Wonder what you do in that game!
In what is the certainly the most unusual release of a free flash game to support the release of a band's new album, Mastodon's new(ish) album Blood Mountain is accompanied by The Quest for Blood Mountain, a retro-looking Super Mario Bros. clone that features angsty looking Viking dwarves jumping over wolves and collecting diamonds in the quest for "the Mastodon key", whatever that is.
Anyway, it's not any good at all, but it's an interesting curio, and at least you get to listen to the Mastodon song Colony of Birchmen on repeat while you bore yourself stupid playing it. (I haven't checked with Brandon, our resident overlord of what is hip, if it's okay to like Mastodon, but I think it's a good single, anyway.) Thanks to Stereogum for the link.
Though I took my time in reporting this, it's indicative of how little the world cares about shooters that we are still first with the news. Anyway, Cave's party came and went, and Gaijin Punch was there (along with several Shmups.com forum regulars) to report on what went down. Check his impressions, and don't miss his colorful pictures of the event.
Now apart from all the collectable crap that was on sale, the most newsworthy aspect of the event were the numerous special editions of Cave games, all of them playable: Mushihime-sama version 1.5, Mushihime-sama Futari v1.01, Mushihime-sama Futari v1.5 Score Trial Special Version, and Dodonpachi Campaign Version. GP mentions all of them in his report, but for more info check also the respective thread on Shmups. Highlights from that thread include posts like: "I would kill for that Guwange poster."
Just yesterday or so I discovered that Braid, Jonathan Blow's long-percolating, award- winning, Slamdance-protesting time-tinkering platformer now has an Internet presence. Including, hey, screenshots! If you recognize the visual style of the game world, you might be reading the correct webcomics. Looks like the game is being primed for an early-this-year release. There's to be some beta testing toward the end of the month, for those of you who like to nitpick.
Way back in mid-December, before Tim's rambling post, I wrote an article for NextGen about Dragon Quest IX and the DS. In my typical fashion, I blew it up to suggest grand universal patterns that may or may not exist, yet I nonetheless see so I might as well mention. And now the article is up! It's one of my not-baddest in a while, I think!
Another year, another review. Our very own rampant robosexual ollie barder has done up a nice review of Armored Core 4, ushering in an era of robot-friendly games and a period of understanding and acceptance for his kind, much like Bully did for red-haired children. Oh and also the review is thoughtful and takes into account various game elements and whatever. But the main point is, we accept him for who he is.
A fellow by the name of kent rittenhouse mailed me recently, saying he'd created a USB datalink for the Saturn. This will basically allow you to trade saves between the Saturn and a PC, or load small homebrew games directly into the save RAM...which is something I didn't really know was possible, but stands to reason. It'd be interesting to couple this technology with a little ram-boosing mod. Here's the basic reasoning behind why he made this thing, which runs a little pricey at $50: This project started its life when my Action Replay Plus cartridge decided to die. I lost 10 years worth of game-saves. I looked around to find a device that could transfer game-saves, using current PC hardware/software. Not finding anything, I decided to design my own.
Fair enough. I lost almost-complete Shining Force 3, and Grandia, as well as thrice-completed Panzer Dragoon Saga and completed SotN data once. Shame, shame.
Here's a bit more from Kent on the homebrew aspect: Just to clarify: The homebrew code is downloaded (and then runs from) the system ram (2Megabyte). The '32K game-save ram' is completely seperate, and only used for game-saves. If you are using the Action Replay Plus cartridge (as opposed to a Gameshark), you would also have access to the extra 4MB ram in the cartridge for your homebrews.
Speaking of Hudson, the company has an original map creation contest going on right now in japan. Some interesting entries so far, but nothing really amazing. Apparently you have to download this in order to compete...not quite sure how it all works, considering there's an edit mode built into the game, but I do hope some of these maps wind up as extras in any western version that may result.
Did you know there was an anime based on Hudson properties back in the 80s? I'm not talking about Bomberman Jetters or whatever, but rather Honey the Bug (Bugtte no Honey). It starred a bug...called Honey, but also takahashi meijin, who curiously was not voiced by the man himself. More info can be found on frank's forum at lost levels. 51 episodes, one movie. Pretty wacky stuff.
1up has a good interview with Treasure up, which debunks the whole Radiant Silvergun 3 thing we mentioned some time ago. It reveals that Treasure is working on another DS game, as well as a top-down shooter for 360 (though not "RS3"), and that Sin and Punishment is still coming to virtual console...in japan at least.
I don't think we've ever linked this before...it's an old english-languge workblog from Milestone, during their formative Chaos Field years. Kind of nice to look back on...
It's kind of still going on the japanese side, as well. In other MileStone news, they've released a new video of Tank Beat, illustrating the wi-fi capability. This game looked fun at TGS, so we'll see if it gets picked up for a stateside release. Some people may be turned off by the first-gen Saturn-like graphics, but I find them quite charming.
Update: Steve from n-philes tells me that Tank Beat was already picked up - by none other than O~3. Let's hope they can stay in business long enough to release it.
Music: Goombas sing the blues
January 07, 2007, 01:38 AM
by brandon, via misguided cash-in attempts - [permalink]
Remember Super Mario Bros. the movie? I had the misfortune of watching this in the theatre as a lad, and I've hated john leguizamo ever since. It's pretty amazing that none of those actors' careers were ruined. Regardless, purging unwanted things from my old CD collection today, I noticed that I'd purchased the soundtrack for 25 cents some time ago. Most of it is standard fare, but in one track, famed funk musician george clinton teams up with the Goombas to sing a mediocre song called 'Walk the Dinosaur,' which I believe was recorded for the movie. Well, it's got Goombas in it, so I guess that'd be a safe assumption, though the original song was apparently by Was (not Was). As you may have surmised, I've got the mp3 for you - don't direct link it! I'm looking at you, ashcraft!
by brandon, via that most united of kingdoms - [permalink]
To follow up ollie's post of 'weird sign I found in the UK,' here's one I saw while on vacation there. Clearly the place from which Falcoon gets his ideas for costuming and character design, SNK Fashions is alarmingly close to commander zorg's house...not that I'd know, and right around the corner from a really mediocre fast food fish and chips place. How did Falcoon find it? He must have asked King. Unfortunately, as you may notice in the larger version (haz click for that business), the shop is closing down - expect fashions to be drastically different in upcoming KOF titles! Email me if you want the original ridiculously huge photo for some reason.
Note: I also a garbage truck that said 'man' on the front, but as I tried to take a picture, a large man with a broken nose leaned out and flipped me the bird from the passenger's seat, and, well...I didn't want to tempt fate, as I'd almost been deported once already.
This is the very first screenshot that's been shown for the remake of Twin Bee Da!, the Game Boy episode which will be included as an extra on Twin Bee Portable, the announced compilation for PSP. It reveals a quite high resolution (using the whole PSP's screen without scaling) for the update's graphics, making us lament even more that these compilations are not being released for a proper console. Check the full preview on Konami's shooting game packs coming this month over here at Game Watch.
This is the cleverest platformer I've seen in a long time - apologies if it's already made the rounds in your circle. It's an ascii art platformer, done in flash with Megaman sounds. It's called 
A new museum in japan is putting on an exhibit of the japanese power of expression, and naturally this includes games. 
Play Asia's deal of the week is 
The DJ Max Portable 2 (korean beatmania clone for PSP, remember?) trailer is 
I was beginning to think that the 
I've been meaning to translate and summarize 
It turns out that Muchi Muchi Pork! is going to be the title of Cave's upcoming shooter, and 
K. Mihara is the head of Arika and responsible for two of the best 
Whilst the PlayStation 3 is the Scottish play of games consoles around these parts, several places have been showing off 
Taiwan-based IGS seems to be be getting ready to release its latest arcade 2D beat 'em up, Oriental Legend 2, because they've just updated their site with an 
Update: More info has 
Some of you may know this, others may not. 
I'm going to steal some news from 
So I just went to this games for Windows thing, put on by Microsoft for the release of their new Windows Vista platform. Played Conan, played Crysis and walked for 30 minutes to the end of the game world and jumped off - the usual sort of press event thing. But here's the 100 mega shock announcement of the evening. We played Minesweeper for Vista, because why not check out the new pack-in software? Well, turns out you can play Minesweeper with the Xbox 360 controller, even wirelessly. Then there's the kicker - it supports rumble. Minesweeper with rumble. Try that on your PS3! Well there you go, all the big excitement. You heard it here first. Unless you heard it somewhere else first, in which case you can go to hell.
Can't get enough NES chocolate? Didn't win the cart? That 
A few other places have highlighted the imminent release of a 
This is pretty nice. A fellow named jas on winters has put together the 
Here's something odd - 
Total Panic was a show on Nickelodeon about games, way back in the halcyon days of the 1980s. I don't really know much about it, but somebody uploaded 
Once again it's revealed through one of its 'investor relations' PDFs (
It's 
Gurumin (Falcom ARPG) has a site up for its 
For those that haven't been following this, 
You might have met decinoge if you hung out on the old Insert Credit forums - he's a sprite artist from Portugal with a strange but utterly pure love of Communism, outdated rendering techniques and Watermelon Fanta. More relevantly, he just released 
You may never have played 
I hadn't heard of 
Super Mario Bros. Special was a remake of Super Mario Bros. for the NEC PC-8801 computer in japan (among others, I believe), done by Hudson. It's actually hard to call it a remake, as it's pretty much an entirely new game. Strange music, odd graphics, some mean glitches, and you progress one screen at a time, though the screens tile in such a way that you can still see a bit of where you came from. Very interesting stuff from the 57 year old Youtube user 
I didn't know about this until frank pointed it out - there's actually a 
This one's based on Iroha the maid, and it's called, well - 
I've been dragging my feet on this one as well (surprise), but in case you're as-yet unaware, Graffiti has published two nice 2D RPGs for the GBA in recent months, to little or no fanfare. 
Next there's 
Here's a sort of ok video 
I didn't post about this for some time because it's rather depressing. Famed visual novel developer and publisher 
It seems neither 
Brandon's note: My apologies for the time it took me to make this post - I got a number of emails and requests for clarification on this, and then I had the post 3/4 finished for about two weeks. Well...here it is now, and through waiting, new info was revealed, so it worked out in the end.
We've talked about Jingi Storm 
Whilst From Software are often known to produce games involving wave after wave of killbots, they do have other works within their portfolio. One of these is the 
Another new RPG has been announced, this one from Compile Heart. 
Thanks to 
Game Watch has a 
Here's a game that might go unnoticed otherwise...
In what is the certainly the most unusual release of a free flash game to support the release of a band's new album, Mastodon's new(ish) album Blood Mountain is accompanied by 
Though I took my time in reporting this, it's indicative of how little the world cares about shooters that we are still first with the news. Anyway, 
Just yesterday or so I discovered that 
Another year, another review. Our very own rampant robosexual ollie barder has done up a 
A fellow by the name of kent rittenhouse mailed me recently, saying he'd created a 
Speaking of Hudson, the company has an original map creation contest 
Did you know there was an anime based on Hudson properties back in the 80s? I'm not talking about Bomberman Jetters or whatever, but rather Honey the Bug (Bugtte no Honey). It starred a bug...called Honey, but also takahashi meijin, who curiously was not voiced by 
I don't think we've ever linked this before...it's an old 
Remember Super Mario Bros. the movie? I had the misfortune of watching this in the theatre as a lad, and I've hated john leguizamo ever since. It's pretty amazing that none of those actors' careers were ruined. Regardless, purging unwanted things from my old CD collection today, I noticed that I'd purchased the soundtrack for 25 cents some time ago. Most of it is standard fare, but in one track, famed funk musician 
This is 
