In the summer of 2013, I completely relocated from Austin, Texas to Portland, Oregon. In the process I gave away and/or sold the majority of my possessions. Amongst said possessions was my retro game collection I'd been acquiring/holding onto since the mid-1990s. According to the timestamp on the phone pics; I took in the games on August 16, 2013. And the above is only part of it. Sorting through it all required all of the available counter-space at the North Austin Game Over videogames location.
It included sytems, games, and accessories for SNES, Genesis, Turbografx-16, Atari 2600 (with 150+ games), Sega Master System, Gameboy, and TI-99/4A (with games, controllers, and text-to-speech synthesizer). I'd already sold my NES with games and accessories directly to a friend earlier that month. It's really difficult to decide whether this or selling my record collection hurt worse. But hey, a fresh start, and emulators are getting fancier all the time.
"Wait" you say, "that just looks like footage from a Japanese release of the Nintendo version of Strider! What's the big deal?"
Oh ye of little faith! You forget one thing:
There was no Japanese Famicom release of Strider!
This is a commercial for what would have been the Famicom release of 'Strider', which was never released because they decided on an arcade debut instead (the one we're all familiar with).
Here's a speedrun (like you didn't see THIS coming) of the Sega Genesis version, which stays true to the epic arcade anti-cyber-communist manifesto that is STRIDER.
Once the game exploded in popularity, easily becoming one of Capcom's most recognized franchises, the abandoned Famicom version (the ORIGINAL version of the game, mind you) was ported over to the NES...
And even with this guy instructing you how to skip half the game, you can easily tell that it is vastly different. Still an amazing game, and one of the best (uneasily wrestling the first Mega Man and Bionic Commander for the title) of the Captain Commando "Challenge Series" NES releases.
Ever heard of a little game called LEGEND OF ZELDA? Ever heard of a game called GAUNTLET?
Ever played a video game in your life where in real-time (not turn-based time) you moved some little nebbish through a maze to retrieve some treasure at the bottom and brought it back up to the surface?
If you've ever done anything like that in your life, hang loose for a second. I'm devoting my 100th post to telling you about the first computer game ever devised with that premise.
We're talking about the computer game "Rogue", the first 3/4 view (or at least that's how later 8-bit versions were rendered) dungeon-crawler video game ever.
Rogue was developed in 1980 by Michael Toy, Glen Wichman, and Ken Arnold. It revolved heavily on a library of routines developed by Ken Arnold that allowed direct cursor positioning, a library he called "curses". I didn't even know about the previous two guys until just now, mainly because the Apple II version (the one I used to play of course) was made directly by Ken Arnold himself.
Despite it's simplicity, it had endless replay value because every aspect of the game was randomized. No matter how good you were at the game, there was always the chance that a roll of some invisible dice would throw you into a completely doomed situation. That concept has always appealed to me.
Gauntlet was the first arcade release that truly captured the feel of Rogue - wait, no I'm lying. Berzerk would probably be better suited for that role. Oh, and Venture... man that game sure was underrated.
My favorite true-to-the spirit "Rogue" based game also turns out to be one of the last, "Dragon Crystal" for Sega Master System/Game Gear (game footage above). Not only do the mazes change each time you play, but each time you start over, all the items in the game are unlabeled and are just designated by colors, and you have to figure out by trial and error what is helpful and what is harmful. If I was stuck on a desert island with just one game, it would probably be Dragon Crystal (I'd find some way to smuggle Clash At Demonhead out there too, tho.)
Well, on that note, ONE HUNDRED POSTS!!!
P.S. If this blog interested you at all check this out. These guys are working hard to make sure every classic version of Rogue remains compatible with current computer systems.
It's 1993, and I'm a reasonably normal, if moody, Southern Baptist high school sophmore. I can't remember and can't currently imagine how I wound up playing "Exile" (XZR 2) in Japan on the Sega Genesis. I mean, the basic premise is that you are playing a Muslim during the Crusades! Weren't they supposed to be the "bad guys"?
The game turned out to be an incredibly awesome and innovative side-scrolling RPG-adventure game (my favorite genre of games). It was even cooler when I managed to chase down the Turbografx CD version of the game, with added scenes and less censorship (The main charachter has a cigarette dangling off his lip the whole game! ROXORZ!)
Then I start to learn a little history, and things get weird. Turns out everyone in the game is based on REAL PEOPLE. Roughly.
You play Sadler, who is not only a Muslim mercenary, but an actual Hashishim. You know, the legendary renegade Islamic cult, followers of the Aga Khan sect founded by Hassan I Sabbah, that not only do we get the word "assassin" from, but also where we get the ridiculously innacurate idea that all Muslims believe that dying for Islam will give them a metric ton of virgins to hump.
The fact that Sadler rejected all of that (to the point of killing his leader/father in the previous game, never released in the US or on a system that has existed in 20 years) to become a cynical atheist with a penchant for hallucinogenic drugs (the latter being erased from the American releases as well) makes him, as far as I'm concerned, the coolest video game charachter EVAR.
During the game, you encounter the Templar Knights (as well as their leader Hugh de Payens, another major character), the ghost of Noah, Cathar Monks, Middle Eastern Mystery Cults, renegade Buddhist monk Nichiren... all while chasing this shape-changing MacGuffin called the "Holimax"...
then you are flung back in time to confront Mediterranean Mystery Cults, make allies with Pythagoras himself, and solve the murder of Hiram Abis - leading up to a final showdown in the Garden Of Eden Itself.
In short, twenty tons of historical awesome.
All names in the U.S. release are butchered and distorted, which somehow doesn't surprise me. I still find it hard to believe this game was ever released in the first place.
Strangely enough, though, shortly after this game was released in the US, a sequel emerged. One that inexplicably resurrected popular characters from the previous game, had legendarily bad play control, and dumped all the religious, political, and spiritual themes of it's predecessor.
Sometimes I think that the Illuminati infiltrated the company that released it and indulged themselves in making that sequel that totally took a crap on the previous games. It's the only logical conclusion.
Actually, tho, this is a coveted and highly debated designation, considering the impossibly excellent Sunsoft NES "Batman" games.
This is stage 3-1 from the Sega Genesis game "Adventures Of Batman And Robin"... twenty minutes of straight holy-crap awesome. The whole fact that the stage is a (literal) "stage", with lights and gaffes and other theater crap crashing down on you is fun, blah blah blah and electrified gnomes or something...
But we know we're all waiting for what comes up at the 3:10 mark... I'll wait with ya, or you can move up the scrollbar to the MOST AWESOME MINI-BOSS fight that has ever existed.
Then, exploding bunnies. And giant mushrooms. And flame-spewing flowers. And more electrified gnomes than you can shake a stick at. And then, the game literally disentegrates into a full-on grand-mal seizure right before your eyes before the mini-boss appears.
And still, you're only half done.
Unfortunately, the second half is about half as inspired as the first half. Yes, I really did write that.
Anyway, a truly amazing and innovative boss makes his appearance at about 5:28. Catch up with me as you find appropriate.
One of the things that is kind of a shame about the prevalence of actual for-real 3-D graphics is that a boss stage like this cannot (or rather will not) be properly rendered ever again - this boss stage probably holds the position of being the last gasp of the "Space Harrier" engine... *sigh*
Let's see a more drawn out and dramatic playthrough of that boss-
Ok, so technically this was intended to be a game for the Turbografx CD System, the game itself was a mashup of two games licensed by Sega, which makes it Sega-tastic.
This game could have been awesome. The bright and surreal landscape, flora, and fauna of Fantasy Zone, with the gameplay of Space Harrier! Unfortunately, when the games were pressed, it turns out NEC didn't have all the licensing figured out and the game was shelved. A sad, sad story.
All we have to work with is the same 5 screenshots that a dozen other video game blogs have posted (so I'll abstain), as well as the above video. I'm also practically obligated to mention the mysterious bootleg ROM floating out in cyberspace that everyone seems to be able to get to work but me.
Ratings, rarity/price guides, and detailed reviews for anyone looking to dip their toes into collecting, or at least acquiring a stash of old favorites!
One of the last titles released by Sega for one of their own systems, "Segagaga" is a truly bizarre, post-modern romp where you are hired to help Sega win the console war.
That's right. In the Sega game you are playing, you are hired by Sega to help them make successful games. Makes your head hurt a little, don't it?
During the course of the game, you run into many, many familiar faces-
And encounter parodies of high-grossing games from the competition-
Haven't had a chance to check it out myself, but it looks like a fun romp as well as an opportunity for Sega to have gone out with a bang (shortly after the release of this game, Sega left the console race to focus primarily on games). However, I think American audiences should feel a little cheated to not have had this opportunity to bid farewell to our old friends.
Good news tho, THIS GUY has been working a translation patch, available for free, and utilizing professional translators.
We all remember Sega's mascot, designed to compete with Nintendo's ever-present Mario. A popular charachter that cavorted through colorful varied adventures, and whose image graced advertisements and inspired comics and...
What's that? You thought I was talking about Sonic The Hedgehog? Oh dear.
Gather around, children, and let me tell you about Alex Kidd...
Alex made his way through a dozen or so games on the Sega Master System and was retired after his debut on the Sega Genesis. Why was he less popular in the US than in Japan? maybe it had something to do with the fact that the Japanese games had him look like THIS-
And in America, he looked like this-
Really, which of these guys would you play a game involving? The dude who looks like Link from Legend Of Zelda throwing kung-fu? Or a fat, pasty, jug-eared doofus?
Next thing you know, Sonic entered the picture and Alex Kidd was demoted to being a checkout clerk (as depicted in the Dreamcast game Segagaga)
I've decided today should be Segatastic Saturday! Why? I'm not all that sure. But let's roll with it.
In any case, for my first Segatastic article, I dug up two of the first websites I looked up as soon as the internet was available to me - a pair of excellent and thorough fansites to the seminal Sega "Phantasy Star" RPG series. Amazingly, they're both still around and fairly-regularly updated.
Most of us were exposed to the series because of Phantasy Star 2, one of the first cartridge releases for the Sega Genesis, and likely the first (or one of the first)console RPG many American children of the 80s had ever played - Dragon Warrior was released in the US the same year (1988) and the first Final Fantasy game was released a year later.
The first game was released on the Sega Master System, and is a coveted collectors item. It was known for being one of the first story-based console RPG releases in the United States on any system (1987, a year before Dragon Warrior), as well as being the first with a female protagonist.
The series continued with the epic Phantasy Star III, in which you play through the lives of three generations of characters, and the excellent wrap-up/reboot Phantasy Star IV.
For more (much much more) information, I present to you The Phantasy Star Cave and The Phantasy Star Pages. They contain scans, detailed walkthroughs, maps, fan art/fan fiction... In short, all you ever wanted to know about the series.
